January 31, 2024 • 50 mins
Support The Show
paypal.me/survivingthesystem
Cashapp : $SurvivingTheSystem
Venmo : @SurvivingTheSystem
Contact Dave:
https://survivingthesystem.org
Facebook
Twitter
About This Episode
"At about 2 a.m. Saturday morning, October 23, 2010, outside the residence of Brandon Savage (street name "Ghostface") at 1843 North Harvard Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma, two people were shot." And so begins the story of how Channen Smith was dragged into a real life horror story that currently sees him incarcerated for Murder in the First degree, among others.
Shelly Davis and Malcom McCullum, a social worker with a heart for justice and a reporter with a drive to find out the truth, have been working with Channen on his wrongful imprisonment to try and undo the wrongs done to this man. Today, they share their backgrounds and details about this case.
paypal.me/survivingthesystem
Cashapp : $SurvivingTheSystem
Venmo : @SurvivingTheSystem
Contact Dave:
https://survivingthesystem.org
About This Episode
"At about 2 a.m. Saturday morning, October 23, 2010, outside the residence of Brandon Savage (street name "Ghostface") at 1843 North Harvard Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma, two people were shot." And so begins the story of how Channen Smith was dragged into a real life horror story that currently sees him incarcerated for Murder in the First degree, among others.
Shelly Davis and Malcom McCullum, a social worker with a heart for justice and a reporter with a drive to find out the truth, have been working with Channen on his wrongful imprisonment to try and undo the wrongs done to this man. Today, they share their backgrounds and details about this case.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The thirteenth Amendment to the United StatesConstitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as
a punishment for a crime. Everwondered how we ended up with the largest
prison population of any country. Haveyou noticed that those whose jobs it is
to protect and serve seem to bedemanding more and more blind obedient. You
didn't think it just happened by chance, did you. It's time to call
(00:23):
attention to the fact our government isthe most prolific slave owner on the planet.
This is surviving the system. Thankyou for joining me today on surviving
the system. This is Dance andDave and Today. In line with all
of the recent stories and recent interviewswe've been doing, I have another current
case that we want to talk about. I've had a lot of people reach
(00:46):
out to me and take me upon my offer to talk about their stories.
You know, I've been telling younow for I don't know how many
years. But this platform is justas much yours as it is mine.
So if you have a story thatneeds to be told, this is the
place to do it. So we'regoing to be talking about another case going
(01:07):
on currently. We may not beable to discuss all the details since it
is currently going on, but we'llget into as much of it as we
can, because these are the storiesthat you're not going to hear from the
mainstream media, you're not going tosee published in the paper. These are
the ones they try to bury,they don't want you to pay attention of,
in my personal opinion, so we'regoing to talk about it and shed
(01:30):
light on it before we do acouple of quick housekeeping items. First of
all, don't forget to check outthe website Survivingthsystem dot org. I do
keep an archive of all the showson there for you. You can reach
out to me either on the websitethrough the contact me page, or you
can reach me on Facebook dot comslash Surviving the System or on Twitter at
(01:53):
STS. Thepodcast and I don't reallypost much on there, but I keep
them open so that I can reachout to you and you can reach out
to me. I love hearing fromyou all, I love your feedback.
I love the stories, and Iespecially love these opportunities, as I've said
already, to tell the stories,So please don't hesitate, shoot me a
(02:13):
message, reach out, let meknow what I can do to help.
And as always, before we getstarted as we can talk about some pretty
difficult and disempowering types of stories thatcan really get you riled up. I
want to make sure that we keepthe frequency high, keep that vibration high,
(02:34):
and we start with gratitude. Thisallows us to tackle these topics in
a very productive and constructive manner insteadof just coming in talking about how horrible
everything is and ending the show leavingyou pissed off and frustrated and having no
idea what to do. So westart with gratitude. It allows us to
come at these keep us from divingdown into the mud too much, and
(03:00):
come out on the other end atleast feeling better for having had this discussion.
So with that in mind, Ivery quickly want to say, I
am so grateful to be here withyou, allowing me to live out my
purpose to help to remind you ofwho you really are and what you're truly
capable of. Now I have twoguests with me today. I have Shelley
(03:22):
Ware and Malcolm McCollum. Shelley andMalcolm have an interesting path to get to
where we're at today, and I'mnot going to try to tell their story.
I just talked about them with this. If I tried to tell it,
I would mess it up and itwouldn't have as much impact. But
they're both involved with criminal justice reform. They've had the opportunity to see what's
(03:46):
going on currently and in the past, and it's led them together today to
help the story, to help totell the story of someone else who needs
their story told. And again,rather than have me jump in and even
try to to try to mess upthe details, I'm going to let them
discuss. I'm going to let themtell their story and tell the story that
(04:06):
needs to be told, and thenwe will go from there. So,
Malcolm and Shelley, thank you somuch for joining me today on surviving the
System. Thank you for having us. Dave, thank you so much.
Yes, it is my pleasure.Thank you for being here. So Shelley,
we'll go ahead and get started withyou, and i'd like you know
(04:28):
you and I obviously have had achance to discuss where you've come from and
your path that's led you here tonow. So tell me a little bit
about what led you up to gettinginvolved in prison ministry and criminal justice reform.
What were you doing in the past, Where was that moment that you
kind of had that eye opening ahatype of a moment, and where are
(04:51):
you at now? Okay, Well, I won't go too far back because
all day to talk about it,but I am on. I'm on a
faith journey right now. And thisstarted when I was living in Massachusetts and
(05:13):
I worked. I found my wayback to Christ in twenty nineteen. Up
until then, I was a socialworker working with the older adult population,
doing hospice and palliative care and keepingelders independent in their homes. So that
was my niche I've been doing thatfor fifteen to twenty years. That was
(05:34):
my expertise. I thought that Iwas going to do that until I retired,
but then I got back into myfaith roots and started I found a
church here in Tulsa, Oklahoma,by the name of Transformation Church, and
it just touched me on a spirituallevel that I hadn't felt in a very
(05:54):
long time. So I started feelingthe poll to relocate to Oklahoma, which
I understand at the time, Ihad never been here. I'd never set
foot in the state before. Sothe Lord moved me here. He relocated
me here in January of twenty twenty, just about six weeks before the world
shut down from COVID, and atwhich point I was just plunged into the
(06:17):
wilderness because I didn't know a soulwhen I moved here. I'd just gone
through a divorce, was trying tofind myself again in all of that mess.
So I was still working remote inMassachusetts from Oklahoma throughout the beginning stages
of the shutdown, and it wasit was May. It was May twenty
(06:43):
fifth, twenty twenty. The Lordused the gruesome murder of George Floyd to
open my eyes to a lot ofinjustice that although I was aware on a
surface level, I really wasn't awareon a on a deeper level. You
know, as a white, middleclass woman, middle aged woman, I
(07:08):
was, you know, kind ofin my own little bubble. And so
through that the witnessing of that murder, I you know, the Lord started.
He just kind of lit this firein me. I couldn't understand it
at the time. I didn't knowwhat was happening, you know. In
the moment, I just knew thatI needed to know more, and so
(07:30):
I just began a process of educatingmyself on mass incarceration and racism and white
privilege, white supremacy, slavery,you know, just going back as far
as I could, learning everything thatI could. And in that process of
(07:53):
throughout the summer of twenty twenty,he started the Lord started putting on my
heart wrongful incarceration, mass incarceration.Again. I wasn't understanding like where this
fire was coming from. So Ijust did what I do, you know,
which as a social worker, I'vealways done research. I just learn,
(08:18):
I learn, and I dive inhead first. So that's pretty much
what I did throughout that summer.I finally left my job on October second,
twenty twenty, and at that timeI was in prayer asking the Lord
what to do, and he basicallytold me he was pulling me out of
the corporate world and told me tojust trust him and serve, and to
(08:41):
start serving. So that's pretty muchwhat I did. I applied for unemployment
and I just started to serve.And throughout that process, I came upon
a commercial on Facebook or I wasscrolling YouTube or something, and I came
upon a commercial for Prison Fellowship AndI knew nothing about Prison Fellowship, but
(09:07):
I saw, you know, itsaid remember those in prison, you know,
purchase a Bible for someone behind bars. You know. So I just
started researching Prison Fellowship and I noticedthat they had a lot of programs and
they were going into prisons. Andagain that fire in me just kept building.
It wasn't lessening, it was onlyincreasing. The more I learned,
(09:30):
the more I wanted to learn.So I took the training to get my
doc badge so that I could gointo the prisons. But I could only
go so far because they the shutdown. They weren't the doc was not doing
their badge training in person, soI couldn't go any further. So I
was like, well, now whatdo I do? So again I went
(09:52):
back to Prison Fellowship's website and Ifound they had another program called Justice Ambassador,
So that was learning how to dolegislative advocacy, which I had never
done before. So I said,okay, well let's try this, so
i'll, you know, start learningin that way. I also took a
(10:13):
small group through them called Outrageous Justice, and it taught me all about mass
incarceration and how it was disproportionately impactingpeople of color and just all the laws
that were in place that weren't equitable, you know. And so again it
was just a real learning process soI started doing legislative advocacy until the summer
(10:39):
of twenty twenty one. Now,it was in August of twenty twenty one
that I was introduced to a wrongfulincarceration case for Channon Smith through a friend
of mine who was his private investigatorat the time. She needed some help
with just give him some support,and so she asked me to set up
(11:03):
a weekly phone call with him,which is what I did, and that's
when I met Channon Smith for thefirst time. Was August of twenty twenty
one. Now, before before weget into Chan in specific case, I'm
curious because I've I've had a coupleof shows recently that I've done where I
(11:26):
have almost done like a live followme along as I start to do some
research on a topic. So whenyou say things like you started doing research,
how did you do your research?Like, what are some tips that
you would give for someone who isjust getting started on this, who said,
(11:48):
you know, I feel like something'swrong, but I can't quite put
my finger on it, and Ineed some evidence to back that up.
When you say research, what typeof research do you do? For me?
I do? I usually start onlinebecause for me, that's that's the
only place that I know where tosearch things out and kind of wead through
(12:09):
things. So I I just starteddoing a Google search, honestly, I
started, yeah, and and andthrough that, you know, kind of
just going through different weading through allthe things because obviously there's so much information
out there. I started, youknow, reading up on articles, and
(12:31):
that led me to books like TheNew Jim Crow or uh Be the Bridge
Latasha Morrison, She's got a Ministryof Racial Reconciliation, and it talks just
a lot about the inequities of youknow, blacks versus whites and slavery and
(12:52):
you know, white supremacy and allof that. So it was just a
lot of books which led me todocumentaries, which led me to movies,
which, like me, to atrip to Louisiana, a ten hour drive
to a former slave plantation. Soit was kind of a progressive journey of
you know, and then just youknow, making friends with people of color
(13:15):
in my church and my community throughserving obviously not leaving it up to them
to educate me, but allowing themto tell their story if and when they
became comfortable with me to do so, you know, which many of them
did, and I'm so grateful forthat giving me a perspective that I just
didn't have as a white woman,you know. So it was it was
kind of a progressive, but itstarted. It basically started with a Google
(13:39):
search. So and going back tosome of the ministry that you've been doing,
and you said you applied for youryour DOC badge. Now you you
have been inside to do ministry.Is that correct? Yeah? So I
finally after the prison started opening backup after the shot down and they started
(14:01):
doing the badge training again. Ihad been doing the legislative advocacy for about
a year at that point, Ifinally was able to get my badge and
I started going inside the prisons inJune of twenty twenty two through Prison Fellowship.
(14:22):
Again. They have a program,it's called the Academy program. It's
a it's a They have a Tierone and a Tier two Academy program.
So I volunteer for the volunteer ledAcademy, which I believe is the Tier
one. I hope I'm not mistakenthere. So basically we go in twice
a week. There's a group ofus that go in on Mondays and another
(14:46):
group of us that go in onThursdays, and we teach a faith based
curriculum that helps prepare people behind barsto get released and to just you know,
look, it introduces them to christiananity. It helps them to you know,
change their ways of resolving conflict,gives them healthier, you know,
(15:09):
tools to resolve conflict, how toset boundaries, you know, we talk
about we talk about finances, doingfinances God's way. We talk about how
to maintain a positive how to maintainpositive thinking, you know. So it's
it's all very evidence based curriculum,but faith based as well, that teaches
(15:35):
them new coping skills and strategies andtools to live successfully. Because our goal
is to never see them an orangeagain once they leave the prison. Our
goal is to get them back therewith us as a volunteer, pouring into
the people that they once were sittingin the in the same chairs as you
know. So, what have beenwhat have been your experiences inside? What
(16:02):
is it like for someone who's neverbeen inside of a correctional institution walls and
all they've ever seen is TV andmovies and they're scared to death to even
set foot in there. What wasyour impression? What was it like?
For you. I was that personwho was scared to death, and the
(16:22):
first time I walked in the fence, I felt the Lord and I knew
that that was where I was supposedto be. And I walked into a
room full of men. I volunteerat a men's correctional facility, which was
not my plan. I was originallygoing to go to a women's facility,
but they needed volunteers because they werestarting a new academy program at the men's
(16:47):
correctional facility. So I said,well, I'll go there, I'll check
it out and see how I feelabout it. Well, I went there
once, and I knew that wasexactly where I was supposed to be.
I walked into a room full ofmen who were not scary, they were
not you know, terrifying, andI did not feel threatened ever. But
what I walked into was a roomfull of men who wanted to change their
(17:11):
life and maybe just didn't know howto do it or where to start,
you know. And they were hungry. They were hungry for faith, they
were hungry for just knowledge and newways of doing things, because obviously,
you know, they were in therefor a reason, right, and a
(17:33):
lot of what I saw also,which you know, kind of goes back
to my social work background, wasbrokenness and trauma. You know. I
looked in the faces and as Istarted to learn their stories of these of
these men and the women. I'vegone into the women's correctional facilities as well
in different capacities, but I've justas I've heard their stories, I hear
(17:56):
just trauma and brokenness and dysfunction andpeople who just didn't they were born into
a situation of survival and maybe didn'thave the role models that they needed to
make healthy choices in life. Theywere forced to make decisions in order to
survive a lot of the times ifthey were living in single parent households,
(18:19):
you know, and mom is eitherworking three jobs to make ends meet because
dad's not in the picture, ormom is possibly you know, addicted to
substances and is now depending on ourchildren to bring in the income to pay
the bills, even though they're onlychildren. You know. So I've heard
it all. You know, there'sa lot of addiction in prisons, but
(18:44):
these are people who, you know, they just want a second chance.
They want somebody to believe in themand to just give them the opportunity to
do better. But that also takespeople walking alongside them, you know,
through this process and not just sayingall right, here's a bus ticket in
fifty bucks. Go succeed as ayou know, as a member of society.
(19:07):
Now, good luck. Right.They need people to walk alongside them
throughout the process, and it takesyears. It takes years, and it
takes a lot of faith, andpeople backslide, you know, and it's
just walking with them through that.And as we build up to talking about
(19:32):
Channon Smith, we need to weneed to bring in Malcolm who's going to
help to share the other part ofthis story. So Malcolm, if you
wouldn't mind tell us a little bitabout your background and how you've been involved
in wrongful conviction cases, criminal justicereform, whatever it might be. Dave,
(19:53):
I got into that area of lifeback in the early seventies. I
was then and for many years aftera college English teacher, and I had
a dear friend named Jerry Moser,no longer with us, who was a
criminal defense investigator. At that point, he had been a newspaperman, but
(20:18):
the newspaper game was beginning its deathspiral, and he looked for other work,
and he was working on the caseof a man named park Eastep who
had been was eventually convicted of murder, rape, arson, robbery and given
(20:40):
the maximum sentence that the government thejudge could give back then and he was
in prison, and Jerry spent abouttwo years trying to suck me into taking
an interest in the case because heknew I had done a lot of writing,
journalistic kind of writing, and hewanted some help with it. And
(21:03):
eventually I said, Okay, comeon, I'll take a look at it.
And he showed up at my housewith a foot locker full of case
materials which I spent a good dealof time reading, and I eventually had
to say, yeah, you're right, this was not a right conviction.
(21:26):
And so I went to work onit, writing about it for years and
years as he traveled around the countrytrailer tracking down leeds and so on,
and he and the attorney he workedfor, Dick Tegmarer, were went way
beyond what people normally will do becausethey believed that Parking Step was an innocent
(21:49):
man, as did I. EventuallyI introduced Park to my sister who was
living in Illinois still then as acorrespondent. They started writing with each other.
My sister moved out here and sortof became Park Shelley and started talking
(22:12):
to everybody she could talk to,from the governor on down, and eventually
she found the right judge up inDenver, the head of the appeals court,
who took a look at the casematerials and said, you're right,
this is raw. There were twoappeals that had never even been heard,
(22:33):
and within a couple of months Parkwas out of prison and lived. Me
and my sister got married and liveda very happy life about eight years after
that until Park died of a heartattack. But anyway, that was how
I got into learning about the criminaljustice system and how it works in fact,
(23:00):
as opposed to how it works inTV fiction. When Shelley got hold
of me as a result of havingread something I wrote about Park's case,
I said, well, I've gotto have a look at trial materials and
so on, And she was goodenough to go through the considerable work of
(23:26):
sending me all of the trial transcriptsand police reports and other stuff which I
read, and the parallels between parkscase and Channon's were quite considerable, and
I felt, as I had feltwith Park, that Channon was very wrongfully
(23:48):
convicted. So I did some writingabout that, which Shelley has made some
use of. And I'm continuing outhere to try to contact everybody I can
think of the contact who might takean interest in getting this case properly resolved.
(24:08):
As of now, the Oklahoma courtshave been distressingly unwilling to consider the
fact that some really severe errors havebeen made, in my opinion. So
that's how I got into this basically. And then how did you connect with
(24:37):
Shelley on the case of Channon Smith. How did the two of you come
together? Well, Shelley emailed me, having come across my email at the
end of one of the things thatI've written about Parks case. She told
you that she got interested in Parkscase because her mom had been one of
(25:00):
Park's supporters through his church way back, and still remembered that somebody had written
about it and as you got publishedin the Rocky Mount News and other papers.
So she found my name and foundmy email address and wrote me and
(25:22):
said basically asked me if I wouldn'tmind taking a look at the case,
and I said to help, No, of course I wouldn't. And we
went on from there now, andShelley, I want to I want to
make sure that you have the opportunityto tell the story, you know,
talking about your your journey back toyour faith and being saved again and watching
(25:48):
God work in your life. Youtold me an interesting story about Malcolm and
how he came into your life.Would you mind sharing that with everyone here?
How that all came about? Ofcourse, yeah, because it still
blows my mind to this day,and I truly believe it was It couldn't
have it could only be God theway it all kind of played out.
(26:12):
I grew up so back in theseventies when when park was going through you
know, his incarceration and Malcolm wasworking on his case. I was a
toddler, I was about two andmy mother we were living in Colorado at
the time. My mother went tothe same church that Parky step had gone
(26:34):
to, and so she had foundout about his case and that he was
wrongfully incarcerated. So she and severalother people from the church used to go
visit him at the prison and shewould write about him. My mother is
also a writer, and you know, so she would she would always be
writing about different things, and parkwas one of those things. So I
(26:56):
grew up hearing the story of Parkkey Step and the wrongful incarceration that he
suffered. And this man, thisjournalist who wrote about his case and was
pivotal in helping him get out,So that that was all I knew,
you know, were those those details. But I heard about it my whole
(27:18):
life. I don't really recall atime that I wasn't aware of it.
And I'm talking to my mom lastNovember twenty twenty two, and I was
just like, what ever happen toPark? I wonder, you know,
is he still alive? You know, I just didn't know what had happened
to him. So I said,I'm going to google him, you know,
back to Google I go. SoI did a Google search and the
first thing that pops up is Malcolm'sarticle that was dated September twenty twenty two,
(27:44):
and I said, wow, that'srecent. So I started reading it
and it was this very extensive,detailed article about all of Park's case,
and as I you know, Isent it to my mom and we're reading
through it together, we're kind ofreminiscing, and something in my spirit told
me to scroll down to the bottomof the article to see if there was
(28:07):
a name of the author who wrotethis article and perhaps in an email address.
So I did, and there was, and it was Malcolm McCollums.
So I didn't think, you know, twice about reaching out to him.
I said, you know, II you know, I've ties to this
case, interestingly, from forty fouryears ago, and now I am faced
(28:29):
with a similar situation myself, youknow, advocating for a man who's been
wrongfully incarcerated, and we're looking forsomebody to write about his case. It
wasn't until the next day I wastelling my mom, Oh, I emailed
that that gentleman you know who wrotethat article. That Again, something in
my spirit said, reopen the articleand read about Malcolm's relation to Park.
(28:55):
So I didn't. And as I'mscrolling through, I saw that Malcolm had
been writing that he had been pulledinto the case early and he had started
writing about it. And it wasin that moment that it all clicked in
my head that Malcolm was likely thatjournalist that I grew up hearing about.
So I emailed him a second timebecause he hadn't responded to me yet,
(29:15):
So I said, and I toldhim that portion of the story, and
I said, you couldn't possibly bethat same journalist that I grew up hearing
about, could you? Sure enough? He emailed me, I think that
night or the next day and said, yes, actually that that was me.
But he told me he was aEnglish professor at a local community college
(29:36):
and a freelance writer, and soit was just so amazing that it had
come full circle. And he thentold me that he had already spoken with
his publisher and they had agreed thatif Channon was in fact innocent, that
they were obligated to help me toget him home. That that story,
(29:57):
I mean to me, I wouldagree with you. Like every now and
then, things happen in your lifeand everything comes together and you look back
and you kind of go, oh, that's why all that happened, And
everything just comes together perfectly in thatone moment, and you know, you
(30:19):
know that you didn't plan it.But there's no way that I used to
I used to work with a ministera long time ago, and he put
it perfectly to me once and it'sone of these statements that is stuck with
me for most of my life.And he looked at me one day and
he said David, God has aplan for all of us. Do you
(30:41):
know why he doesn't tell us?And I said no, I don't know.
And he's like, because if weknew what it was, we'd screw
it up. I said, oh, that you know what makes total sense?
True? Yeah, So you watchingit all unfold in front of you
from time to time, it isone of those eye opening moments where it
all just it all makes sense.You can see the universe just aligning right
(31:06):
in front of you and you go, oh, now I get it.
Okay, yes. So well,with that said, then, obviously it
sounds like things have aligned for usto be able to at least talk about
the case of Channon Smith. Solet's start there. What leads you all
to believe that he is wrongfully convictedand whatever we can or can't say.
(31:30):
I totally understand if there are legalconstraints, but let's at least discuss what
we can well. For me,the most glaring thing is the fact that
somebody else has confessed. He wasarrested on November seventeenth of twenty ten,
(31:51):
and he's been incarcerated since that time. The trial occurred in I think it
was February of twenty thirteen, andin twenty January of twenty seventeen, someone
came forward and confessed to the shooting, which was gang related. Channon Smith
(32:13):
has never been gang affiliated. Hegrew up in a lower income neighborhood in
North Tulsa, and admittedly as awhite woman. When I first moved here,
the first cautioning that I received wasdon't go to North Tulsa. It's
dangerous there. You know. Itis predominantly black, a black neighborhood,
(32:40):
black community that lives there, andit is lower income. And that's where
Channon grew up. He was bornin Texas, I believe, and moved
to Oklahoma at a young age andlived in the North Tulsa region. I've
done a lot of serving in theNorth Tulsa region. It's not as scary
(33:00):
as people make it out to be, you know. But somebody came forward
in January twenty seventeen and said hedidn't do it. I did it.
And the reason this man came forwardis because he ended up passing away of
cancer and so he wanted to clearhis conscience before he died. And since
(33:22):
he came forward, four additional witnesseshave corroborated his confession. So four more
people have come forward and said,yeah, it was it was him,
you know, one of them beinghis best friend who was in the same
gang as the shooter and who knewthe night of the shooting that it was
(33:45):
him, that it was his friend, you know, this gentleman who died
not Channon. So that makes me. That makes me curious then, is
that is that the only piece ofevidence pointing towards his innocence or during the
case when he was being tried,were there any I have to be careful
(34:09):
my personal opinion. A lot oftimes these prosecutors they don't they don't give
two shits about what's right or what'swrong. They just want the conviction.
So I have to try to pickmy words very carefully so as not to
not to let my bias show toomuch. But during the case, were
there pieces of evidence that were maybeoverlooked or that were not allowed in at
(34:34):
the judges ruling, Like, wasthere more than just the confessional to point
towards his innocence? Well, hehad an alibi. He was thirty miles
away in a different he was inthe town of Claremore when the shooting occurred
in Tulsa, so he was aboutIt was about forty minute drive and this
(34:55):
was a trip that he made everyweekend. He was picked up by his
girlfriend at the time and brought toher brother's house, and the car that
she drove was her brother's wife's car, and during the weekend, his brother's
wife would go to work with thatcar. So he was at her house
(35:17):
with no access to a vehicle,with her, with her brother and with
her brother's wife, so he hada solid alibi. Couldn't have pulled the
trigger. And in addition to that, there was no murder weapon that was
discovered when Arlenn Young, who ultimatelyis the man who came forward and confessed.
(35:43):
When he did that, he toldthe people he confessed to where the
murder weapon was disposed of, sothat was never recovered. Directly across the
street from the home where the shootingtook place is a Dollar General. I've
been there, and there is acamera that points directly to the house across
(36:04):
the street where the shooting took place, so that video footage was never was
never submitted in court. And fromwhat I understand, the vehicle that was
used in the crime parked at thedollar general. Not only that the vehicle
was tied to the actual shooter's girlfriend. That was never looked into either.
(36:30):
So there was a lot that wasmissed. There was a lot that was
overlooked. I'd like Malcolm to speakto this too, because he did a
lot of investigating and reading in that. But Malcolm, do you want to
add anything? Yeah, I guessI'd like to add lack, just on
(36:55):
the aspect of the confession, whichcame out quite a number of years,
of course after Channon was convicted,but it went to the district court.
The appeal based on that confession wentto the district court first, and then
(37:16):
or excuse me, it went tothe appeals core and then to the district
court, and the district court ruledthus and I quote his newly discovered evidence
is not newly discovered under the law. All of these witnesses were known to
(37:37):
petitioner long before his trial date.There was never any evidence presented that showed
support of that statement, especially FreddieSmith, who was mentioned in his jury
trial as the second person in Petitioner'scar when he drove up to the scene
of the incident that meant and tookplace. I forget where during the trial,
(38:04):
But it was kind of a slantingreference, and he was identified frequently
by the prosecution and by prosecution witnessesas Channant's cousin because they were both named
Smith. I guess despite the factthat and that identification was left to stand
(38:27):
in the jury's mind, even thoughvarious members of Janet's family testified that Freddy
Smith was not his cousin. Igo on quoting just because these witnesses did
not want to snitch upon Young.That's earl and Young, the guy who
confessed, does not escape petitioner fromthe requirement that he exercised due diligence to
(38:54):
uncover said facts. What that meansreally is that he's his appeal is not
being heard because he and his defensepublic defender didn't do the job that the
police should have done and investigate furtherthan they did. They were presented by
(39:19):
two of the participants in the shootingwith the name of a target for them,
that namely Channon Smith. The policetook that name and ran with it
and did no further investigating of anysort, either of Channon's alibi or of
other possible perpetrators of that crime.They simply said we've got a name,
(39:46):
We're going to put him away,and that's what they did. I would
also like to point out that ArlenYoung, the shooter, had motive.
The night before the shooting took place, there was an altercation between six members
(40:08):
of two gangs, Arlen Young beingin one of the gangs and the victim,
the shooting victim, being in theother gang, and they were those
two were in a physical altercation,and the man who ultimately got shot and
killed, Dominique Jasper, had ArlenJung down on the ground and was repeatedly
(40:30):
kicking him in the face. Thatshows to me the clear motive for retaliation,
which is exactly what happened. Hewent back. Arlen Young went back
the next night and opened fire.In his confession, well not in his
(40:51):
confession, but when he the nightof the shooting, when Arlen Jung went
back to his house after he wentand shot them up, he went back
and told his best friend exactly whathe had done, and he gave intimate
details of how he shot the victim. The two victims one one died,
(41:13):
one survived. Those details came outin an Affidavid after Arlen passed away by
the by the best friend, whosaid he had planned to take this to
his grave, but now that Arlinwas was dead, you know, he
knew he wanted to clear both Arlen'sname and Channon's name. The details that
(41:35):
Arlen had given about the shooting completelymatched the details at the trial given by
the medical examiner who who did theautopsy on Dominique Jasper to specifically how he
was shot and where the bullet enteredand where the bullet exited. You know,
(41:57):
Arlen Young's best friend had those details, so you know it just the
evidence is glaring that it was notChannon Smith, and in addition to that,
the second person who was shot.She testified against Channon and four different
(42:19):
at times throughout the pre trial andthe trial, but well between the shooting
and the trial, her testimony changedfour times about that night. At first,
she said, I don't know whothe shooter is. That was on
October twenty third, twenty ten.A couple of weeks later, on November
third, twenty ten, she gotpulled over by the police and she said,
(42:40):
I was told it was Channon whoshot me. Fast forward to the
pre trial May twenty six, twentyeleven, she testified, I was outside
when Channon walked up to us andpulled the gun. And then fast forward
to January eighth and ninth, twentythirteen, during the trial, she said,
(43:00):
I was inside on my phone whenChannon walked up and I heard his
voice and thought I was tripping.So which was it? Yeah, and
one real quick question with all ofthat too, going back a little bit,
he said that the shooter, thegentleman that confessed to it, said
(43:28):
that he told them where he hidthe weapon. Was that ever recovered?
No, Unfortunately, it was neverrecovered, and there has since been excavation
at that site, construction and excavation, so we don't know if it's even
still there, if it's buried beyondyou know, being able to be found.
(43:50):
Yeah. So what's the next stepfor Channon and his case at this
point? Well, his post convictionrelief application was denied by both the district
Attorney and the Court of Criminal Appeals, So we are at the point now
where the next step would be tofile a federal writ, a writ of
federal habeas corpus. So we havesince hired a new private investigator who's looking
(44:16):
into some other details that we probablycan't talk about today, but we're trying
to again just solidify some details thatyou know, can't be argued. And
for someone listening who maybe isn't quiteas familiar with these steps, what is
a writ of habeas corpus? Well, we've pretty much exhausted everything that we
(44:42):
can do at the state level,so I'm still learning this process to truth
be told. So the next stepis to to to go to the federal
court and see if they will hearthe case, since they denied him a
hearing at the state level, andwe all we wanted was a new evidentiary
hearing, and they wouldn't grant usthat. We just wanted them to acknowledge
(45:07):
the fact that that they could havegotten it wrong. You know, I
even sat down with the District attorneyof Tulsa County. I sat in his
office for two hours, and heread Malcolm's article right in front of me,
and he compared it to the evidencein the box of evidence that he
(45:29):
had next to his desk on channand he compared the medical examiner's report to
what Malcolm had put in the articleabout the shooting. And he even said
out loud, Oh, that's corroboratedright here. You know, that the
confession of the details from the confessionthat it was corroborated by the medical examiner.
(45:52):
So you know the fact that theywould deny that and in such a
quick manner. My understanding from theattorney was that when you five a post
conviction relief, it's a hurry upand wait situation and you don't get a
quick answer. It takes months forany response to come back from the court.
Well, we had a response backwithin two months. Oh wow,
(46:15):
right, and they didn't even allowour attorney to respond before the judge denied
it and stamped her denial on it. So then we went ahead and filed
the appeal, which we had sixtydays to do, and I want to
say that was filed in March,and by April they had denied that the
(46:37):
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals had deniedit again, So again very quick response.
It was almost as if they didn'teven read any of the new evidence
presented. They copied and pasted almostthe entirety of what the district court judge
said is denying his request for ayhearing, pasted it and go signed it.
(47:02):
Yeah, well, we've got justa couple of minutes left here,
so what I would like to dois pass out any contact information, like
if people want to learn more aboutthis case, if people have questions and
want to reach out and maybe maybethey feel led to help, what would
(47:25):
be the best way for them toreach out to either or both of you.
So we've created a website if anybody'sinterested in learning more about Channon's story.
We created a visual timeline that showsthat there's no way he could have
been in two places at one time. So that website is justice or Channon
(47:50):
dot org and that's c h AN n e N Justice or Channon dot
org. We've also created an emailfor anybody who would like to reach out
with questions or offers of help orwhatever, and that's info at justice or
Channon dot org. And just toclarify, that's f O R not the
(48:16):
number four. That's correct. Justice. Yeah, j U S t I
C E four f O R Channonc h A N N e n dot
org. Got it. I alwayshave to ask clarification questions like that.
You never know I've had. I'vegone on and checked if websites were available,
and it's like, you've got tobe kidding me. Somebody already has
(48:37):
that website. How is that evenpossible. Thank you for clarifying absolutely absolutely,
and I will put that in theshow notes as well. So for
you listening at home, take alook at the at the show notes on
the podcast. That link will bethere as well as the email address.
But Shelley and Malcolm, I wantto thank you very much for your time,
(49:00):
and I want to thank you verymuch for your advocacy and helping to
step up. You know, thisis part of why I started this show.
Number one is to tell the storiesof the people who will never get
the chance to have their stories told, who have been wronged and feel like
no one's listening. And you know, number two, just just to be
(49:23):
able to spread the word that thisis becoming such an epidemic in this country
that it's really hard to find someonethat this type of a story is not
affecting. It's either happening to youor someone you know at an increasingly rapid
rate. And I think by talkingabout it, it's going to help make
(49:44):
everyone aware and at least prepared andobviously know some of the steps that they
can take. So thank you verymuch for your time and for you listening
at home. Thank you for yourtime as well. I hope you found
value in today's show. Don't forgetthe website Surviving Thesystem dot org, Facebook
dot com, slash Surviving the System, and Twitter at ststpodcast. I always
(50:12):
want to end by asking for yourstories. As I've said multiple times throughout
the years and especially today, ifyou have a story that needs to be
told, please feel free to reachout. I would love to provide that
opportunity for you. So thank youagain for your time and for your ears,
and as always, remember keep yourhead up, don't let them get
you. It may be easy tolook at all the corruption and manipulation in
(50:34):
the system and feel hopeless. Hereat Surviving the System, we hold to
the belief that greatness is born inthe midst of extraordinary struggles. You were
created with a purpose, with infinitepotential, and many have lost sight of
that back We're here to remind youof who you are. The best revenge
is success.
The thirteenth Amendment to the United StatesConstitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as
a punishment for a crime. Everwondered how we ended up with the largest
prison population of any country. Haveyou noticed that those whose jobs it is
to protect and serve seem to bedemanding more and more blind obedient. You
didn't think it just happened by chance, did you. It's time to call
(00:23):
attention to the fact our government isthe most prolific slave owner on the planet.
This is surviving the system. Thankyou for joining me today on surviving
the system. This is Dance andDave and Today. In line with all
of the recent stories and recent interviewswe've been doing, I have another current
case that we want to talk about. I've had a lot of people reach
(00:46):
out to me and take me upon my offer to talk about their stories.
You know, I've been telling younow for I don't know how many
years. But this platform is justas much yours as it is mine.
So if you have a story thatneeds to be told, this is the
place to do it. So we'regoing to be talking about another case going
(01:07):
on currently. We may not beable to discuss all the details since it
is currently going on, but we'llget into as much of it as we
can, because these are the storiesthat you're not going to hear from the
mainstream media, you're not going tosee published in the paper. These are
the ones they try to bury,they don't want you to pay attention of,
in my personal opinion, so we'regoing to talk about it and shed
(01:30):
light on it before we do acouple of quick housekeeping items. First of
all, don't forget to check outthe website Survivingthsystem dot org. I do
keep an archive of all the showson there for you. You can reach
out to me either on the websitethrough the contact me page, or you
can reach me on Facebook dot comslash Surviving the System or on Twitter at
(01:53):
STS. Thepodcast and I don't reallypost much on there, but I keep
them open so that I can reachout to you and you can reach out
to me. I love hearing fromyou all, I love your feedback.
I love the stories, and Iespecially love these opportunities, as I've said
already, to tell the stories,So please don't hesitate, shoot me a
(02:13):
message, reach out, let meknow what I can do to help.
And as always, before we getstarted as we can talk about some pretty
difficult and disempowering types of stories thatcan really get you riled up. I
want to make sure that we keepthe frequency high, keep that vibration high,
(02:34):
and we start with gratitude. Thisallows us to tackle these topics in
a very productive and constructive manner insteadof just coming in talking about how horrible
everything is and ending the show leavingyou pissed off and frustrated and having no
idea what to do. So westart with gratitude. It allows us to
come at these keep us from divingdown into the mud too much, and
(03:00):
come out on the other end atleast feeling better for having had this discussion.
So with that in mind, Ivery quickly want to say, I
am so grateful to be here withyou, allowing me to live out my
purpose to help to remind you ofwho you really are and what you're truly
capable of. Now I have twoguests with me today. I have Shelley
(03:22):
Ware and Malcolm McCollum. Shelley andMalcolm have an interesting path to get to
where we're at today, and I'mnot going to try to tell their story.
I just talked about them with this. If I tried to tell it,
I would mess it up and itwouldn't have as much impact. But
they're both involved with criminal justice reform. They've had the opportunity to see what's
(03:46):
going on currently and in the past, and it's led them together today to
help the story, to help totell the story of someone else who needs
their story told. And again,rather than have me jump in and even
try to to try to mess upthe details, I'm going to let them
discuss. I'm going to let themtell their story and tell the story that
(04:06):
needs to be told, and thenwe will go from there. So,
Malcolm and Shelley, thank you somuch for joining me today on surviving the
System. Thank you for having us. Dave, thank you so much.
Yes, it is my pleasure.Thank you for being here. So Shelley,
we'll go ahead and get started withyou, and i'd like you know
(04:28):
you and I obviously have had achance to discuss where you've come from and
your path that's led you here tonow. So tell me a little bit
about what led you up to gettinginvolved in prison ministry and criminal justice reform.
What were you doing in the past, Where was that moment that you
kind of had that eye opening ahatype of a moment, and where are
(04:51):
you at now? Okay, Well, I won't go too far back because
all day to talk about it,but I am on. I'm on a
faith journey right now. And thisstarted when I was living in Massachusetts and
(05:13):
I worked. I found my wayback to Christ in twenty nineteen. Up
until then, I was a socialworker working with the older adult population,
doing hospice and palliative care and keepingelders independent in their homes. So that
was my niche I've been doing thatfor fifteen to twenty years. That was
(05:34):
my expertise. I thought that Iwas going to do that until I retired,
but then I got back into myfaith roots and started I found a
church here in Tulsa, Oklahoma,by the name of Transformation Church, and
it just touched me on a spirituallevel that I hadn't felt in a very
(05:54):
long time. So I started feelingthe poll to relocate to Oklahoma, which
I understand at the time, Ihad never been here. I'd never set
foot in the state before. Sothe Lord moved me here. He relocated
me here in January of twenty twenty, just about six weeks before the world
shut down from COVID, and atwhich point I was just plunged into the
(06:17):
wilderness because I didn't know a soulwhen I moved here. I'd just gone
through a divorce, was trying tofind myself again in all of that mess.
So I was still working remote inMassachusetts from Oklahoma throughout the beginning stages
of the shutdown, and it wasit was May. It was May twenty
(06:43):
fifth, twenty twenty. The Lordused the gruesome murder of George Floyd to
open my eyes to a lot ofinjustice that although I was aware on a
surface level, I really wasn't awareon a on a deeper level. You
know, as a white, middleclass woman, middle aged woman, I
(07:08):
was, you know, kind ofin my own little bubble. And so
through that the witnessing of that murder, I you know, the Lord started.
He just kind of lit this firein me. I couldn't understand it
at the time. I didn't knowwhat was happening, you know. In
the moment, I just knew thatI needed to know more, and so
(07:30):
I just began a process of educatingmyself on mass incarceration and racism and white
privilege, white supremacy, slavery,you know, just going back as far
as I could, learning everything thatI could. And in that process of
(07:53):
throughout the summer of twenty twenty,he started the Lord started putting on my
heart wrongful incarceration, mass incarceration.Again. I wasn't understanding like where this
fire was coming from. So Ijust did what I do, you know,
which as a social worker, I'vealways done research. I just learn,
(08:18):
I learn, and I dive inhead first. So that's pretty much
what I did throughout that summer.I finally left my job on October second,
twenty twenty, and at that timeI was in prayer asking the Lord
what to do, and he basicallytold me he was pulling me out of
the corporate world and told me tojust trust him and serve, and to
(08:41):
start serving. So that's pretty muchwhat I did. I applied for unemployment
and I just started to serve.And throughout that process, I came upon
a commercial on Facebook or I wasscrolling YouTube or something, and I came
upon a commercial for Prison Fellowship AndI knew nothing about Prison Fellowship, but
(09:07):
I saw, you know, itsaid remember those in prison, you know,
purchase a Bible for someone behind bars. You know. So I just
started researching Prison Fellowship and I noticedthat they had a lot of programs and
they were going into prisons. Andagain that fire in me just kept building.
It wasn't lessening, it was onlyincreasing. The more I learned,
(09:30):
the more I wanted to learn.So I took the training to get my
doc badge so that I could gointo the prisons. But I could only
go so far because they the shutdown. They weren't the doc was not doing
their badge training in person, soI couldn't go any further. So I
was like, well, now whatdo I do? So again I went
(09:52):
back to Prison Fellowship's website and Ifound they had another program called Justice Ambassador,
So that was learning how to dolegislative advocacy, which I had never
done before. So I said,okay, well let's try this, so
i'll, you know, start learningin that way. I also took a
(10:13):
small group through them called Outrageous Justice, and it taught me all about mass
incarceration and how it was disproportionately impactingpeople of color and just all the laws
that were in place that weren't equitable, you know. And so again it
was just a real learning process soI started doing legislative advocacy until the summer
(10:39):
of twenty twenty one. Now,it was in August of twenty twenty one
that I was introduced to a wrongfulincarceration case for Channon Smith through a friend
of mine who was his private investigatorat the time. She needed some help
with just give him some support,and so she asked me to set up
(11:03):
a weekly phone call with him,which is what I did, and that's
when I met Channon Smith for thefirst time. Was August of twenty twenty
one. Now, before before weget into Chan in specific case, I'm
curious because I've I've had a coupleof shows recently that I've done where I
(11:26):
have almost done like a live followme along as I start to do some
research on a topic. So whenyou say things like you started doing research,
how did you do your research?Like, what are some tips that
you would give for someone who isjust getting started on this, who said,
(11:48):
you know, I feel like something'swrong, but I can't quite put
my finger on it, and Ineed some evidence to back that up.
When you say research, what typeof research do you do? For me?
I do? I usually start onlinebecause for me, that's that's the
only place that I know where tosearch things out and kind of wead through
(12:09):
things. So I I just starteddoing a Google search, honestly, I
started, yeah, and and andthrough that, you know, kind of
just going through different weading through allthe things because obviously there's so much information
out there. I started, youknow, reading up on articles, and
(12:31):
that led me to books like TheNew Jim Crow or uh Be the Bridge
Latasha Morrison, She's got a Ministryof Racial Reconciliation, and it talks just
a lot about the inequities of youknow, blacks versus whites and slavery and
(12:52):
you know, white supremacy and allof that. So it was just a
lot of books which led me todocumentaries, which led me to movies,
which, like me, to atrip to Louisiana, a ten hour drive
to a former slave plantation. Soit was kind of a progressive journey of
you know, and then just youknow, making friends with people of color
(13:15):
in my church and my community throughserving obviously not leaving it up to them
to educate me, but allowing themto tell their story if and when they
became comfortable with me to do so, you know, which many of them
did, and I'm so grateful forthat giving me a perspective that I just
didn't have as a white woman,you know. So it was it was
kind of a progressive, but itstarted. It basically started with a Google
(13:39):
search. So and going back tosome of the ministry that you've been doing,
and you said you applied for youryour DOC badge. Now you you
have been inside to do ministry.Is that correct? Yeah? So I
finally after the prison started opening backup after the shot down and they started
(14:01):
doing the badge training again. Ihad been doing the legislative advocacy for about
a year at that point, Ifinally was able to get my badge and
I started going inside the prisons inJune of twenty twenty two through Prison Fellowship.
(14:22):
Again. They have a program,it's called the Academy program. It's
a it's a They have a Tierone and a Tier two Academy program.
So I volunteer for the volunteer ledAcademy, which I believe is the Tier
one. I hope I'm not mistakenthere. So basically we go in twice
a week. There's a group ofus that go in on Mondays and another
(14:46):
group of us that go in onThursdays, and we teach a faith based
curriculum that helps prepare people behind barsto get released and to just you know,
look, it introduces them to christiananity. It helps them to you know,
change their ways of resolving conflict,gives them healthier, you know,
(15:09):
tools to resolve conflict, how toset boundaries, you know, we talk
about we talk about finances, doingfinances God's way. We talk about how
to maintain a positive how to maintainpositive thinking, you know. So it's
it's all very evidence based curriculum,but faith based as well, that teaches
(15:35):
them new coping skills and strategies andtools to live successfully. Because our goal
is to never see them an orangeagain once they leave the prison. Our
goal is to get them back therewith us as a volunteer, pouring into
the people that they once were sittingin the in the same chairs as you
know. So, what have beenwhat have been your experiences inside? What
(16:02):
is it like for someone who's neverbeen inside of a correctional institution walls and
all they've ever seen is TV andmovies and they're scared to death to even
set foot in there. What wasyour impression? What was it like?
For you. I was that personwho was scared to death, and the
(16:22):
first time I walked in the fence, I felt the Lord and I knew
that that was where I was supposedto be. And I walked into a
room full of men. I volunteerat a men's correctional facility, which was
not my plan. I was originallygoing to go to a women's facility,
but they needed volunteers because they werestarting a new academy program at the men's
(16:47):
correctional facility. So I said,well, I'll go there, I'll check
it out and see how I feelabout it. Well, I went there
once, and I knew that wasexactly where I was supposed to be.
I walked into a room full ofmen who were not scary, they were
not you know, terrifying, andI did not feel threatened ever. But
what I walked into was a roomfull of men who wanted to change their
(17:11):
life and maybe just didn't know howto do it or where to start,
you know. And they were hungry. They were hungry for faith, they
were hungry for just knowledge and newways of doing things, because obviously,
you know, they were in therefor a reason, right, and a
(17:33):
lot of what I saw also,which you know, kind of goes back
to my social work background, wasbrokenness and trauma. You know. I
looked in the faces and as Istarted to learn their stories of these of
these men and the women. I'vegone into the women's correctional facilities as well
in different capacities, but I've justas I've heard their stories, I hear
(17:56):
just trauma and brokenness and dysfunction andpeople who just didn't they were born into
a situation of survival and maybe didn'thave the role models that they needed to
make healthy choices in life. Theywere forced to make decisions in order to
survive a lot of the times ifthey were living in single parent households,
(18:19):
you know, and mom is eitherworking three jobs to make ends meet because
dad's not in the picture, ormom is possibly you know, addicted to
substances and is now depending on ourchildren to bring in the income to pay
the bills, even though they're onlychildren. You know. So I've heard
it all. You know, there'sa lot of addiction in prisons, but
(18:44):
these are people who, you know, they just want a second chance.
They want somebody to believe in themand to just give them the opportunity to
do better. But that also takespeople walking alongside them, you know,
through this process and not just sayingall right, here's a bus ticket in
fifty bucks. Go succeed as ayou know, as a member of society.
(19:07):
Now, good luck. Right.They need people to walk alongside them
throughout the process, and it takesyears. It takes years, and it
takes a lot of faith, andpeople backslide, you know, and it's
just walking with them through that.And as we build up to talking about
(19:32):
Channon Smith, we need to weneed to bring in Malcolm who's going to
help to share the other part ofthis story. So Malcolm, if you
wouldn't mind tell us a little bitabout your background and how you've been involved
in wrongful conviction cases, criminal justicereform, whatever it might be. Dave,
(19:53):
I got into that area of lifeback in the early seventies. I
was then and for many years aftera college English teacher, and I had
a dear friend named Jerry Moser,no longer with us, who was a
criminal defense investigator. At that point, he had been a newspaperman, but
(20:18):
the newspaper game was beginning its deathspiral, and he looked for other work,
and he was working on the caseof a man named park Eastep who
had been was eventually convicted of murder, rape, arson, robbery and given
(20:40):
the maximum sentence that the government thejudge could give back then and he was
in prison, and Jerry spent abouttwo years trying to suck me into taking
an interest in the case because heknew I had done a lot of writing,
journalistic kind of writing, and hewanted some help with it. And
(21:03):
eventually I said, Okay, comeon, I'll take a look at it.
And he showed up at my housewith a foot locker full of case
materials which I spent a good dealof time reading, and I eventually had
to say, yeah, you're right, this was not a right conviction.
(21:26):
And so I went to work onit, writing about it for years and
years as he traveled around the countrytrailer tracking down leeds and so on,
and he and the attorney he workedfor, Dick Tegmarer, were went way
beyond what people normally will do becausethey believed that Parking Step was an innocent
(21:49):
man, as did I. EventuallyI introduced Park to my sister who was
living in Illinois still then as acorrespondent. They started writing with each other.
My sister moved out here and sortof became Park Shelley and started talking
(22:12):
to everybody she could talk to,from the governor on down, and eventually
she found the right judge up inDenver, the head of the appeals court,
who took a look at the casematerials and said, you're right,
this is raw. There were twoappeals that had never even been heard,
(22:33):
and within a couple of months Parkwas out of prison and lived. Me
and my sister got married and liveda very happy life about eight years after
that until Park died of a heartattack. But anyway, that was how
I got into learning about the criminaljustice system and how it works in fact,
(23:00):
as opposed to how it works inTV fiction. When Shelley got hold
of me as a result of havingread something I wrote about Park's case,
I said, well, I've gotto have a look at trial materials and
so on, And she was goodenough to go through the considerable work of
(23:26):
sending me all of the trial transcriptsand police reports and other stuff which I
read, and the parallels between parkscase and Channon's were quite considerable, and
I felt, as I had feltwith Park, that Channon was very wrongfully
(23:48):
convicted. So I did some writingabout that, which Shelley has made some
use of. And I'm continuing outhere to try to contact everybody I can
think of the contact who might takean interest in getting this case properly resolved.
(24:08):
As of now, the Oklahoma courtshave been distressingly unwilling to consider the
fact that some really severe errors havebeen made, in my opinion. So
that's how I got into this basically. And then how did you connect with
(24:37):
Shelley on the case of Channon Smith. How did the two of you come
together? Well, Shelley emailed me, having come across my email at the
end of one of the things thatI've written about Parks case. She told
you that she got interested in Parkscase because her mom had been one of
(25:00):
Park's supporters through his church way back, and still remembered that somebody had written
about it and as you got publishedin the Rocky Mount News and other papers.
So she found my name and foundmy email address and wrote me and
(25:22):
said basically asked me if I wouldn'tmind taking a look at the case,
and I said to help, No, of course I wouldn't. And we
went on from there now, andShelley, I want to I want to
make sure that you have the opportunityto tell the story, you know,
talking about your your journey back toyour faith and being saved again and watching
(25:48):
God work in your life. Youtold me an interesting story about Malcolm and
how he came into your life.Would you mind sharing that with everyone here?
How that all came about? Ofcourse, yeah, because it still
blows my mind to this day,and I truly believe it was It couldn't
have it could only be God theway it all kind of played out.
(26:12):
I grew up so back in theseventies when when park was going through you
know, his incarceration and Malcolm wasworking on his case. I was a
toddler, I was about two andmy mother we were living in Colorado at
the time. My mother went tothe same church that Parky step had gone
(26:34):
to, and so she had foundout about his case and that he was
wrongfully incarcerated. So she and severalother people from the church used to go
visit him at the prison and shewould write about him. My mother is
also a writer, and you know, so she would she would always be
writing about different things, and parkwas one of those things. So I
(26:56):
grew up hearing the story of Parkkey Step and the wrongful incarceration that he
suffered. And this man, thisjournalist who wrote about his case and was
pivotal in helping him get out,So that that was all I knew,
you know, were those those details. But I heard about it my whole
(27:18):
life. I don't really recall atime that I wasn't aware of it.
And I'm talking to my mom lastNovember twenty twenty two, and I was
just like, what ever happen toPark? I wonder, you know,
is he still alive? You know, I just didn't know what had happened
to him. So I said,I'm going to google him, you know,
back to Google I go. SoI did a Google search and the
first thing that pops up is Malcolm'sarticle that was dated September twenty twenty two,
(27:44):
and I said, wow, that'srecent. So I started reading it
and it was this very extensive,detailed article about all of Park's case,
and as I you know, Isent it to my mom and we're reading
through it together, we're kind ofreminiscing, and something in my spirit told
me to scroll down to the bottomof the article to see if there was
(28:07):
a name of the author who wrotethis article and perhaps in an email address.
So I did, and there was, and it was Malcolm McCollums.
So I didn't think, you know, twice about reaching out to him.
I said, you know, II you know, I've ties to this
case, interestingly, from forty fouryears ago, and now I am faced
(28:29):
with a similar situation myself, youknow, advocating for a man who's been
wrongfully incarcerated, and we're looking forsomebody to write about his case. It
wasn't until the next day I wastelling my mom, Oh, I emailed
that that gentleman you know who wrotethat article. That Again, something in
my spirit said, reopen the articleand read about Malcolm's relation to Park.
(28:55):
So I didn't. And as I'mscrolling through, I saw that Malcolm had
been writing that he had been pulledinto the case early and he had started
writing about it. And it wasin that moment that it all clicked in
my head that Malcolm was likely thatjournalist that I grew up hearing about.
So I emailed him a second timebecause he hadn't responded to me yet,
(29:15):
So I said, and I toldhim that portion of the story, and
I said, you couldn't possibly bethat same journalist that I grew up hearing
about, could you? Sure enough? He emailed me, I think that
night or the next day and said, yes, actually that that was me.
But he told me he was aEnglish professor at a local community college
(29:36):
and a freelance writer, and soit was just so amazing that it had
come full circle. And he thentold me that he had already spoken with
his publisher and they had agreed thatif Channon was in fact innocent, that
they were obligated to help me toget him home. That that story,
(29:57):
I mean to me, I wouldagree with you. Like every now and
then, things happen in your lifeand everything comes together and you look back
and you kind of go, oh, that's why all that happened, And
everything just comes together perfectly in thatone moment, and you know, you
(30:19):
know that you didn't plan it.But there's no way that I used to
I used to work with a ministera long time ago, and he put
it perfectly to me once and it'sone of these statements that is stuck with
me for most of my life.And he looked at me one day and
he said David, God has aplan for all of us. Do you
(30:41):
know why he doesn't tell us?And I said no, I don't know.
And he's like, because if weknew what it was, we'd screw
it up. I said, oh, that you know what makes total sense?
True? Yeah, So you watchingit all unfold in front of you
from time to time, it isone of those eye opening moments where it
all just it all makes sense.You can see the universe just aligning right
(31:06):
in front of you and you go, oh, now I get it.
Okay, yes. So well,with that said, then, obviously it
sounds like things have aligned for usto be able to at least talk about
the case of Channon Smith. Solet's start there. What leads you all
to believe that he is wrongfully convictedand whatever we can or can't say.
(31:30):
I totally understand if there are legalconstraints, but let's at least discuss what
we can well. For me,the most glaring thing is the fact that
somebody else has confessed. He wasarrested on November seventeenth of twenty ten,
(31:51):
and he's been incarcerated since that time. The trial occurred in I think it
was February of twenty thirteen, andin twenty January of twenty seventeen, someone
came forward and confessed to the shooting, which was gang related. Channon Smith
(32:13):
has never been gang affiliated. Hegrew up in a lower income neighborhood in
North Tulsa, and admittedly as awhite woman. When I first moved here,
the first cautioning that I received wasdon't go to North Tulsa. It's
dangerous there. You know. Itis predominantly black, a black neighborhood,
(32:40):
black community that lives there, andit is lower income. And that's where
Channon grew up. He was bornin Texas, I believe, and moved
to Oklahoma at a young age andlived in the North Tulsa region. I've
done a lot of serving in theNorth Tulsa region. It's not as scary
(33:00):
as people make it out to be, you know. But somebody came forward
in January twenty seventeen and said hedidn't do it. I did it.
And the reason this man came forwardis because he ended up passing away of
cancer and so he wanted to clearhis conscience before he died. And since
(33:22):
he came forward, four additional witnesseshave corroborated his confession. So four more
people have come forward and said,yeah, it was it was him,
you know, one of them beinghis best friend who was in the same
gang as the shooter and who knewthe night of the shooting that it was
(33:45):
him, that it was his friend, you know, this gentleman who died
not Channon. So that makes me. That makes me curious then, is
that is that the only piece ofevidence pointing towards his innocence or during the
case when he was being tried,were there any I have to be careful
(34:09):
my personal opinion. A lot oftimes these prosecutors they don't they don't give
two shits about what's right or what'swrong. They just want the conviction.
So I have to try to pickmy words very carefully so as not to
not to let my bias show toomuch. But during the case, were
there pieces of evidence that were maybeoverlooked or that were not allowed in at
(34:34):
the judges ruling, Like, wasthere more than just the confessional to point
towards his innocence? Well, hehad an alibi. He was thirty miles
away in a different he was inthe town of Claremore when the shooting occurred
in Tulsa, so he was aboutIt was about forty minute drive and this
(34:55):
was a trip that he made everyweekend. He was picked up by his
girlfriend at the time and brought toher brother's house, and the car that
she drove was her brother's wife's car, and during the weekend, his brother's
wife would go to work with thatcar. So he was at her house
(35:17):
with no access to a vehicle,with her, with her brother and with
her brother's wife, so he hada solid alibi. Couldn't have pulled the
trigger. And in addition to that, there was no murder weapon that was
discovered when Arlenn Young, who ultimatelyis the man who came forward and confessed.
(35:43):
When he did that, he toldthe people he confessed to where the
murder weapon was disposed of, sothat was never recovered. Directly across the
street from the home where the shootingtook place is a Dollar General. I've
been there, and there is acamera that points directly to the house across
(36:04):
the street where the shooting took place, so that video footage was never was
never submitted in court. And fromwhat I understand, the vehicle that was
used in the crime parked at thedollar general. Not only that the vehicle
was tied to the actual shooter's girlfriend. That was never looked into either.
(36:30):
So there was a lot that wasmissed. There was a lot that was
overlooked. I'd like Malcolm to speakto this too, because he did a
lot of investigating and reading in that. But Malcolm, do you want to
add anything? Yeah, I guessI'd like to add lack, just on
(36:55):
the aspect of the confession, whichcame out quite a number of years,
of course after Channon was convicted,but it went to the district court.
The appeal based on that confession wentto the district court first, and then
(37:16):
or excuse me, it went tothe appeals core and then to the district
court, and the district court ruledthus and I quote his newly discovered evidence
is not newly discovered under the law. All of these witnesses were known to
(37:37):
petitioner long before his trial date.There was never any evidence presented that showed
support of that statement, especially FreddieSmith, who was mentioned in his jury
trial as the second person in Petitioner'scar when he drove up to the scene
of the incident that meant and tookplace. I forget where during the trial,
(38:04):
But it was kind of a slantingreference, and he was identified frequently
by the prosecution and by prosecution witnessesas Channant's cousin because they were both named
Smith. I guess despite the factthat and that identification was left to stand
(38:27):
in the jury's mind, even thoughvarious members of Janet's family testified that Freddy
Smith was not his cousin. Igo on quoting just because these witnesses did
not want to snitch upon Young.That's earl and Young, the guy who
confessed, does not escape petitioner fromthe requirement that he exercised due diligence to
(38:54):
uncover said facts. What that meansreally is that he's his appeal is not
being heard because he and his defensepublic defender didn't do the job that the
police should have done and investigate furtherthan they did. They were presented by
(39:19):
two of the participants in the shootingwith the name of a target for them,
that namely Channon Smith. The policetook that name and ran with it
and did no further investigating of anysort, either of Channon's alibi or of
other possible perpetrators of that crime.They simply said we've got a name,
(39:46):
We're going to put him away,and that's what they did. I would
also like to point out that ArlenYoung, the shooter, had motive.
The night before the shooting took place, there was an altercation between six members
(40:08):
of two gangs, Arlen Young beingin one of the gangs and the victim,
the shooting victim, being in theother gang, and they were those
two were in a physical altercation,and the man who ultimately got shot and
killed, Dominique Jasper, had ArlenJung down on the ground and was repeatedly
(40:30):
kicking him in the face. Thatshows to me the clear motive for retaliation,
which is exactly what happened. Hewent back. Arlen Young went back
the next night and opened fire.In his confession, well not in his
(40:51):
confession, but when he the nightof the shooting, when Arlen Jung went
back to his house after he wentand shot them up, he went back
and told his best friend exactly whathe had done, and he gave intimate
details of how he shot the victim. The two victims one one died,
(41:13):
one survived. Those details came outin an Affidavid after Arlen passed away by
the by the best friend, whosaid he had planned to take this to
his grave, but now that Arlinwas was dead, you know, he
knew he wanted to clear both Arlen'sname and Channon's name. The details that
(41:35):
Arlen had given about the shooting completelymatched the details at the trial given by
the medical examiner who who did theautopsy on Dominique Jasper to specifically how he
was shot and where the bullet enteredand where the bullet exited. You know,
(41:57):
Arlen Young's best friend had those details, so you know it just the
evidence is glaring that it was notChannon Smith, and in addition to that,
the second person who was shot.She testified against Channon and four different
(42:19):
at times throughout the pre trial andthe trial, but well between the shooting
and the trial, her testimony changedfour times about that night. At first,
she said, I don't know whothe shooter is. That was on
October twenty third, twenty ten.A couple of weeks later, on November
third, twenty ten, she gotpulled over by the police and she said,
(42:40):
I was told it was Channon whoshot me. Fast forward to the
pre trial May twenty six, twentyeleven, she testified, I was outside
when Channon walked up to us andpulled the gun. And then fast forward
to January eighth and ninth, twentythirteen, during the trial, she said,
(43:00):
I was inside on my phone whenChannon walked up and I heard his
voice and thought I was tripping.So which was it? Yeah, and
one real quick question with all ofthat too, going back a little bit,
he said that the shooter, thegentleman that confessed to it, said
(43:28):
that he told them where he hidthe weapon. Was that ever recovered?
No, Unfortunately, it was neverrecovered, and there has since been excavation
at that site, construction and excavation, so we don't know if it's even
still there, if it's buried beyondyou know, being able to be found.
(43:50):
Yeah. So what's the next stepfor Channon and his case at this
point? Well, his post convictionrelief application was denied by both the district
Attorney and the Court of Criminal Appeals, So we are at the point now
where the next step would be tofile a federal writ, a writ of
federal habeas corpus. So we havesince hired a new private investigator who's looking
(44:16):
into some other details that we probablycan't talk about today, but we're trying
to again just solidify some details thatyou know, can't be argued. And
for someone listening who maybe isn't quiteas familiar with these steps, what is
a writ of habeas corpus? Well, we've pretty much exhausted everything that we
(44:42):
can do at the state level,so I'm still learning this process to truth
be told. So the next stepis to to to go to the federal
court and see if they will hearthe case, since they denied him a
hearing at the state level, andwe all we wanted was a new evidentiary
hearing, and they wouldn't grant usthat. We just wanted them to acknowledge
(45:07):
the fact that that they could havegotten it wrong. You know, I
even sat down with the District attorneyof Tulsa County. I sat in his
office for two hours, and heread Malcolm's article right in front of me,
and he compared it to the evidencein the box of evidence that he
(45:29):
had next to his desk on channand he compared the medical examiner's report to
what Malcolm had put in the articleabout the shooting. And he even said
out loud, Oh, that's corroboratedright here. You know, that the
confession of the details from the confessionthat it was corroborated by the medical examiner.
(45:52):
So you know the fact that theywould deny that and in such a
quick manner. My understanding from theattorney was that when you five a post
conviction relief, it's a hurry upand wait situation and you don't get a
quick answer. It takes months forany response to come back from the court.
Well, we had a response backwithin two months. Oh wow,
(46:15):
right, and they didn't even allowour attorney to respond before the judge denied
it and stamped her denial on it. So then we went ahead and filed
the appeal, which we had sixtydays to do, and I want to
say that was filed in March,and by April they had denied that the
(46:37):
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals had deniedit again, So again very quick response.
It was almost as if they didn'teven read any of the new evidence
presented. They copied and pasted almostthe entirety of what the district court judge
said is denying his request for ayhearing, pasted it and go signed it.
(47:02):
Yeah, well, we've got justa couple of minutes left here,
so what I would like to dois pass out any contact information, like
if people want to learn more aboutthis case, if people have questions and
want to reach out and maybe maybethey feel led to help, what would
(47:25):
be the best way for them toreach out to either or both of you.
So we've created a website if anybody'sinterested in learning more about Channon's story.
We created a visual timeline that showsthat there's no way he could have
been in two places at one time. So that website is justice or Channon
(47:50):
dot org and that's c h AN n e N Justice or Channon dot
org. We've also created an emailfor anybody who would like to reach out
with questions or offers of help orwhatever, and that's info at justice or
Channon dot org. And just toclarify, that's f O R not the
(48:16):
number four. That's correct. Justice. Yeah, j U S t I
C E four f O R Channonc h A N N e n dot
org. Got it. I alwayshave to ask clarification questions like that.
You never know I've had. I'vegone on and checked if websites were available,
and it's like, you've got tobe kidding me. Somebody already has
(48:37):
that website. How is that evenpossible. Thank you for clarifying absolutely absolutely,
and I will put that in theshow notes as well. So for
you listening at home, take alook at the at the show notes on
the podcast. That link will bethere as well as the email address.
But Shelley and Malcolm, I wantto thank you very much for your time,
(49:00):
and I want to thank you verymuch for your advocacy and helping to
step up. You know, thisis part of why I started this show.
Number one is to tell the storiesof the people who will never get
the chance to have their stories told, who have been wronged and feel like
no one's listening. And you know, number two, just just to be
(49:23):
able to spread the word that thisis becoming such an epidemic in this country
that it's really hard to find someonethat this type of a story is not
affecting. It's either happening to youor someone you know at an increasingly rapid
rate. And I think by talkingabout it, it's going to help make
(49:44):
everyone aware and at least prepared andobviously know some of the steps that they
can take. So thank you verymuch for your time and for you listening
at home. Thank you for yourtime as well. I hope you found
value in today's show. Don't forgetthe website Surviving Thesystem dot org, Facebook
dot com, slash Surviving the System, and Twitter at ststpodcast. I always
(50:12):
want to end by asking for yourstories. As I've said multiple times throughout
the years and especially today, ifyou have a story that needs to be
told, please feel free to reachout. I would love to provide that
opportunity for you. So thank youagain for your time and for your ears,
and as always, remember keep yourhead up, don't let them get
you. It may be easy tolook at all the corruption and manipulation in
(50:34):
the system and feel hopeless. Hereat Surviving the System, we hold to
the belief that greatness is born inthe midst of extraordinary struggles. You were
created with a purpose, with infinitepotential, and many have lost sight of
that back We're here to remind youof who you are. The best revenge
is success.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal: Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a brand new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-4 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.