January 8, 2026 • 42 mins
On January 18, 1991, six teenage boys were standing on a curb talking in front of a house in the Los Angeles, CA suburb of Lynwood. Donald Sarpy, the father of one of the boys, stepped onto the driveway to call his son inside when a car drove by and two shots were fired, killing Sarpy.
16-year-old Francisco “Franky” Carrillo Jr. became a suspect in the case after he was mistakenly identified by the police as the shooter in separate case. On the night of the Sarpy shooting, the police showed one of the eyewitnesses a picture of Carrillo. That witness later identified Carrillo as the shooter and told the five other witnesses to identify Carrillo as the shooter. There was no physical evidence linking Carrillo to the crime. However, all the eyewitnesses identified Carrillo as the shooter and testified to the identification. Franky was convicted of murder, attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison.
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We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
With the police banging on the door open up.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The choice to be in that lineup was the last
choice I made as a free man.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
A year later, I ended up writing the system.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
I'm going to be one of those people who everyone
in the world is going to think as a monster
or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life,
and I'm just going to have to come to peace
with that.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Somebody was able to look at my picture in the
database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
might have to play in my hanging. They had been
told that two prison officers would have to participate in
my execution. Now I walked back inside that prison for
the last time. Man, all help broke loose.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
But welcome to another episode of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Today we have a very incredible person as our guest.
(01:10):
Our featured exonnery today is Frankie Correo.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Korea was sixteen. In nineteen ninety one, fifteen sheriff's deputies
with guns drawn storm through the front door. Korea was
convicted of murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Frankie was released.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
From jail in downtown LA this afternoon after spending twenty
years in prison. Rio was released after the court found
evidence that Koreo was framed through coerced testimony for a
fatal drive by shooting. The gang of corrupt LA Sheriff's
deputies known as the Linwood Vikings co wer six witnesses
into identifying him in a photo lineup.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Frankie, welcome, Jason's good to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
So, Frankie, your story begins when you were really just
a child and the baby man. Let's go back to
the beginning. You grew up in La, right, that's correct,
Southern California, and you had a pretty happy upbringing, right, Yeah,
I would say that.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, everything was going along more or less.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Okay, nothing's easy about being a sixteen year old boy,
that's right.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Then one day it all was turned upside down. That
day was January twenty fourth, nineteen ninety one. I was
just a little color there. I was a high school student.
I was a child of a divorce family, four siblings.
My father had raised us in stage of nine, so
it's a very male dominated household. Dad and two boys.
It was what I'd known for the past seven years.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And you had a sort of a unique situation too it,
which is that your mom had did one day just
decided to check out.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, it wasn't like it got separated and you spent
half the time with her or she just left.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
That was it. Yeah, I mean, it's an unfortunate story,
but that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, So you had been abandoned in a very real
way and experienced something that's obviously going to affect any
young man for the rest of his life. But that
wasn't the worst of what was to come by far.
And again, sixteen is really not a child, but you're
closer to a child.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Than an adult.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Right even though it was my age, I was sixteen,
Psychologically you're you're still a kid, you know, maybe operating
at thirteen fourteen level, not to you know, minimize it,
but I'm a boy, I'm a kid.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
We were in tenth grade, tenth grader, tenth grade, exactly
what I'm saying. Tenth grade, you're you know, yeah, you're
closer to middle school than you are to college.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
And they hadn't been shaved. So it's like a good,
good reference is that you're at the point where like
facial hair is sort of developing, but you're not there yet, Frankie, like,
hold off right.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
And then one night, fifteen cops bust in your house.
What a surreal situation. You were asleep.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
I was asleep, just a normal night.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Actually it was early morning, so it was dark, but
it was it was six in the morning when this happened.
And my father and I went home and they couldn't
get in. They were pounding away, and ultimately I opened
the door, looked out the window and new was them.
They were screaming who they were, and they stormed in,
stormed in, ordered my father and I to the floor.
And that's the beginning of the nightmare.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Really, so they already had to the floor. Did they
tell you what was going on?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
I wish it did?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
You know?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It was pretty strategic in all business, so they want to,
like ram Seck, the home was their main objective, and
you know, my father and I. My dad was trying
to exert his position, this is my home, what are
you doing here? And he was being ignored. So he's
telling me, like, what's happening. I'm like I don't know,
Like I have no idea why they're here. Soon after,
on the ride to the sheriff station is when I
(04:21):
learned that I had been accused and ultimately now being
arrested for a murderer I hadn't committed.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
So you get to the sheriff's station and what happens next.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Really, I was expecting my father to show up, but
what happened was I was placed into an interrogation room.
The people who showed up instead were these two sort
of cowboy detectives ready to play the good call bad
cop on me, and I played along. You know. They
said what they were arrested me for, and if I
would willing to talk, and I said, sure, I'll talk
like I have nothing to hide.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Right, And so you waved your marana, right I did.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And that's such a crazy thing, Frankie, because I think
it's hard for most people to understand why someone would
wave their miranda when you.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Have the right to a lawyer who would going to
give that up?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
But the fact is, in your case, I think it's
fairly typical, which is that if you're innocent, and this
is an ironic thing, right, if you're innocent, a lot
of people go in they think, well, why do I
need a lawyer. I'm just going to answer some questions,
and the justice system is going to work because I'm
an innocent person who abides by the law, and then
they'll see that they made a mistake and then they'll
go catch the real guy.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Exactly right.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Unfortunately, it's going to take stories like yours to help
educate people so that they don't do that. You do
not give up any information without getting a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
But I will adjason that when you're in that code
room and the power imbalance is obvious, you are in
a detention facility. Basically, you're in the stronghold, you're in
the sheriff's departments space, and you're there as a visitor.
You're there obviously being charged with this crime, in my case,
being wrongfully charged. And so to some degree, as a
young boy, you want these are adults. Some look at
(05:57):
these men and you want to cooperate. You want it
like I'll talk to you. I have nothing to hide.
It is sort of my position looking back now. Obviously
I wish I wish there was a Civics class that
would have said, you know what, no matter what, innocent, guilty, whatever,
the situation is just wait for your parents or wait
for a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yes, it's a tragic twist or irony that when you're
innocent and you go into the situation, you're more likely
to waive your Miranda rights and if you're guilty. Exactly
in that interrogation room, how long were you interrogated for?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Do you even know?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
You know? Surprisingly, I think back of that fived him
minute interrogation and I sort of left that room thinking,
you know, where was the lamp? You know, where were
these guys punching on me? Like, you know, you watch
enough TV to understand that this is supposed to unfold
a little bit differently than it did in my case.
At least, they were very quick to just say, there's
a young boy who witnessed the crime, who was adamant
that you were the guy who did it. So we
(06:47):
got you. Let's talk about you just confessing to it.
So it was really very brief, very precise on their end,
and I think I'm go on have chuckle not to
be silly here, but it was just like so unreal,
like one, you're are you sure you're talking to me?
I'm adamant that it wasn't me obviously, and their position
was like, we're beyond if you did it or not.
(07:07):
We just want you to just come clean, just confess
that you did it. And I was like, I can't
do that.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
It ended after ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
That's it. Like they weren't trying to press me and
starve me out anything. They were just like, okay, well
we'll see you in court, like we're going to jail now,
Like that was it.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Hearing that and that's an unusual interrogation, and that it
went on for such a short period of time, it
sounds to me like at that point they actually did
think they had the right guy, because they were like, Okay,
well this guy's not gonna give it up, but we
got the right guy, so it's okay, We're gon We're
gonna get him no matter what. But as things unraveled,
they took steps that were corrupt and illegal. How did
(07:45):
they end up managing to convict you when you were
so obviously not the guy?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
So you know, in Los Angeles at least, there's a
very familiar story about misconduct with the LAPD SO Rampart
Division scandal. It's more readily available knowledge. But my case
didn't involve LAPED involved the LA's Sheriff's department, and there's
a well known at least locally of the Linwood Vikings.
So Lindwood is where this crime happened and where my
(08:11):
arrest was ultimately investigated. And the Linwood Vikings had become
a rogue police gang. So what I thought is a
naive boy, that I was dealing with law enforcement who
were abided by the constitution and their policies in the department.
Some of the people on this investigation team were these
bad cops sort of fast forward in here of information
I knew, not at the time, but as the case developed.
(08:33):
And so when this young boy who was used to
identify me, who was shown a photo line of a
photo six pack to ultimately say this is the guy
who committed the crime, the case sounded pretty pretty cut
and dry. There's a witness, there's a he show was
showing a photographic lineup. He quickly identified the shooter. We
got in the rest Slamm Dunk. And so there was
(08:55):
a trial when I was tried as an adult and
moved forward to a conviction. But at some point it
was discovered that this young boy wasn't as innocent as
you know. He was more than just a witness. It
was revealed that he was an informant for one specific
law enforcement officer, Deputy Ditch. And so Deputy Ditch, Ditch,
Deputy of all.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Things, Deputy Ditch.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Right, I mean what a name, right, Craig Ditch is
the guy's name. He's now retired. The guy had this
boy under his wing as an informant, and he happened
to be at this crime scene, and so it was
very very easy to say, I'm your go to guy here.
So the story later was discovered that this young boy
was showing photographs after he'd been interviewed five times by
other investigators with no results. They realized Ditch had a
(09:38):
relationship with this boy. Ditch shows up cases over. The
case was solved once Stitch arrived in less than eight hours,
and the story that was revealed that the young boy
was showing the photographs as what was in the report,
and so he picks a random picture just to play along,
and Ditch says, that's the wrong guy. He's in jail
right now, try again. You know, I'm sure he's feeling
(09:59):
like an idiot. Point. You know, you're trying to help,
You're young, you're scared, so he picks another photograph, and
the deputy says, this guy's dead. What about this guy here?
We think he's trying to come up in the rankings
or whatever, And so the boy just says, yeah, I
guess that makes sense. I guess I guess that's the guy.
And this is there.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
He was looking at six photographs. Yep, he was over
too exactly. He picked. He picked very badly. He picked
a guy who was in jail and a guy who
was dead. Right. That's yeah, really hard to make a
case against those guys. Right.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
And by the way, it's sort of odd that there
was a guy in the six pack who was dead.
Give me a break, I mean, you would think they
would take that guy out just I mean to let
me jump in here and say, well, you know, Frankie,
what's up. You're coming off as this high school student,
nice guy. What's your photograph doing in the sheriff's apartment? Like,
tell us about that. I'm sure that was your next question, right,
I'm getting to that what happened.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
In this environment is so nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one
is what we're referencing here. That specific sheriff's department's policy
was that if there was any anyone that you thought
was a potential bad kid or bad guy or bad anything,
let's do some racial profiling at this point, right, gather intel.
And so the photograph was obtained in the summer between
my sixth grade and seventh grade vacation block. There, me
(11:08):
and some of my buddies just riding our BMX spikes
through a local park, no big deal, summertime, and this deputy,
Deputy Luna, I remember the guy's name, sort of just
rolls up next to us. He's done of the official
lights on pull over. He stops, We stopped, start talking
about who has a girlfriend, and where do you live?
And what's up with you? Whatever? Right, just pretty cool
talking to a cop, No big deal. Then the guy says,
(11:29):
do you mind if I take your photograph to the group?
I don't remember us looking around saying what do you think? Guys?
We just like, I guess like you're a cop, right,
Like what do we say?
Speaker 4 (11:38):
No?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
And so this is the time when you had polaroad camera.
So the guy got out of his car, went into
the trunk and pulled out the little manual polaroid camera,
and one by one he just came to write where
we were on our bike standing and just snapped the photograph.
And so that photograph that was taken in a park
with trees in the background and whatever else was in
the background, I was smiling them picture. That photograph ended
(12:02):
up in the sixth pack. So talk about like a
chain of events here that fucks your life up, right,
Oh my.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
God, I mean, that's really the most I've heard all
types of different stories, and you're right, that is a
question that people often ask, why was this picture?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Now?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
What we know is that if you live in a
poor neighborhood spetiicularly a poor minority neighborhood, the cops do
sweeps and they'll pick up everybody, right, And so your
picture could be in there because you had a joint,
or any other thing could be in there because you
were trespassing, right, I have air quotes under that one
or whatever. And so it's really true that a lot
(12:35):
of people have records for the most minor misdemeanors. In
your case, you had no record whatsoever. Actually, it was
probably I mean, thinking back to when I was in
sixth or seventh grade, if a cop would have asked
to take my picture, I would have felt good, right,
but like, wow, this guy.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Wants to take my picture. I'm pretty cool kid.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
So your picture was in the lineup because this cop had,
in a sneaky way, racially profiled you as a thirteen
year old boy riding his bike in the park, which
is exactly as far as I can tell, what thirteen
year old boys are supposed to be doing. You were
identified in this insane process, right, which is literally like
it would be funny.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Except the results are so tragic.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
So he eventually managed to come up with the answer
that the cop wanted, which he could have saved himself
the trouble by just saying initially to the kid, hey,
this is the guy we want identify him. That would
have been simple, exactly. I would have saved five minutes.
So you're identified, you go to trial.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Well, I try as an adult. I'm going to keep
parking this spit.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I'm a kid.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
So there's a process here in California that determines if
you're worthy of juvenile court or you have to go
with the big boys. Right, And so this was a
murderer and they felt that it deserved it a higher punishment,
and so ultimately went to trial, had an assigned attorney
that the county. It wasn't a public defenders like a
panel attorney. I have to say this part here. And
when I walked into the court and I was chained
(14:01):
to you know, the chain gang there, everyone's there being arraigned,
all adults and then was looking like what did you do,
like steal some candy and blah blah blah, and you know,
they're just ragging on me, these adults who had obviously
been there before. And so I'm the last guy to
be arraigned, and so everyone's freaking out like, oh shit,
we weren't expecting that charge for this kid, right And
prior to that, I will say that, and it's and
(14:22):
it kind of goes to just me being so naive
here is that I heard someone call my name and
I'm like, I'm so little. I'm like raising my hand
like I'm over here. And I looked over and I
saw this good looking white man with this amazing suit on,
just like canned suit, walking towards me with the file
and I was like, oh my god, David, you have
(14:42):
signed me the best fucker in the room, man, Like
this is all going to be worked out, Like this
is it? I got the very sheck of the world. Sadly,
it's just an example of like where my mentality was,
even my perception of this new world. This courtroom was
like sadly, like the white guy come into your rescue
had like such an impact from living in a society
where the majority of people around you are people who
(15:04):
look like you and who you know than the teacher
or whatever, and so I thought it was a sort
of funny and looking back at that moment, getting me
so excited about everything's gonna be okay now right obviously.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Not obviously not. I mean the odds, the odds were
stacked against you. The government was willing to lie to
get the conviction. They were willing to use an incentivized witness,
and they convicted you, they did, and now you get
sent to maximum security prison.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
At the time, they had a juvenile facility, so it
was like the Youth Authority for young adults. So I
went there and the sentence was thirty years to life,
with an additional six life sentences attached to that. So
I'll say that when I heard those words coming to
the judge's mouth, I couldn't imagine or perceived like a
week or a few months in my life to now
(15:50):
to imagine thirty years to life plus life, I couldn't
even comprehend that. For someone wants to be sort of
funny and sort of mess with me, it meant like,
do thirty years to life die and then you're back
in prison, like even if you ever come back, right,
And it was.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Like, you mean, like if you get reincarnated.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I suppose, right, like you're you're seting you up for
your next life.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
It doesn't make any sense, right, and none of this
makes any sense, But that in particular doesn't make any
sense just in terms of the semantics of it. It's
interesting too write because there was a witness who actually
wanted to come forward and who had information that could
have prevented you from being convicted in the first place.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Is there was, so he wasn't just a witness. This
guy that you're referring to was the actual killer. So
as a bizarre twist in this case, the investigator had
discovered who the murderer was, and your investigator there and
this is it's a bizarre twist all this. And it's
not to minimize the bad police work here, but now
it's also bad defense work here. My defense attorney had
(16:47):
an investigator who had went out and become the world's
best investigator by tracking down who excumented the crime. Turns
out he knew the murderer, and so there was just
this conflict of interest of either get off the case
or reveal that this is the guy who did it.
He had this young man, the actual murderer, confessed to
the crime. There's a six page confession that he took
(17:09):
from this man, and what he tried to do. To
his credit, he tried to convince this guy to come
to the court and just say, look, Frankie didn't do it,
it was me. And he arrived with an attorney. You
would assume that the judge would say, well, wait a
minute here, before Frankie goes down and he's sentenced, let's
hear about this guy in the hallway. And lo and behold,
the judge says, you're too late. You've been convicted by
(17:31):
a jury. All this sort of like last information that's
apparently in the hallway. Just deal with it in your appeal.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
So after the jury renders you guilty, and the guy
standing outside the doors of the courtroom exactly who's actually
holding the cards to your freedom?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Well, I mean it would have shed light if someone
cared about truth, right, it would have been like, well,
let's bring this guy in. And so it failed me
even again at that point, that's such a crazy it's
a bizarre man. You were like thirty feet from freedom
sort of right, the doors would have opened and this
guy would have been allowed to walk in and provided
he actually came clean, true, because he might have changed
his mind.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
People do that.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
But you had a real opportunity to avoid this most
nightmarish fate that anybody can possibly imagine. But that's not
what happened. And ultimately there were six witnesses who testified
against you, and the crazy thing is they all recanted, right,
eventually they all recanted.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
They initially use this one boy, the swift year old boy,
to arrest me based on this photographic lineup, and so
six months which is bizarre. Here everyone was under eighteen,
so that everyone was very young. Six months maybe even
seven months after the crime had occurred. For the first time,
the other five boys had been shown the photographic lineup.
And we all know about memory, and there's been studies
and it's been proven that this is not a recording.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Dick.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
You have on your phone. In your mind, memories record
a little bit differently. It's like little snapshots, and as
time goes on they fade and other information filters in
and it gets very tainted. So it's hard to really recall,
especially a dry by shooting the middle of the night.
You hear gunfire, you're ducking, you're running, So to really
capture that, it's like an immediate on the scene interview
(19:05):
is like the best one. So we're talking about seven
months later now where these boys are showing photographs for
the first time ever. Wow, And sure enough, sure enough,
one by one they say, yep, that's the guy. It's
photograph number one. And it was obviously later determined that's
this young boy. The fifteen year old boy. Made it
a point to tell everyone else if they ever show
you photographs, believe me, I know who did it. It
(19:27):
was photograph number one. And so now we got six people.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Right, And it's so absurd to think that seven months later,
as you said, in the middle of the night, in
the dark and a drive by shooting, all the factors
are there for almost a guarantee of wrongful identification, a
mess identification, and that's exactly what happened. So you spent
much more than half your life behind bars. You're only
really a cognizant human, right maybe for ten years to
(19:54):
a round number, so more than twice that amount of time.
You're now in a cage in a violent, scary, hostile environment.
How did you manage to make it through that?
Speaker 3 (20:05):
You know? Well, you know, when I think back about
how I survived twenty years incarceration, what I remembered most
about something my dad said sort of in passing or
just try to give me some advice up to dinner table,
which was if there's adults around, go to them. He's
sort of instilling these things about just society, they'll help you.
(20:28):
And so I think, here I am in a room
full of adults. I'm in an adult court, and I'm
expecting everyone to do the right thing just because you're
an adult. I'm a kid. You're supposed to be watching
out for the system and yourself and everyone in the room.
And so that went haywire. That that failed me. But
I think that this very fuzzy idea of humanity was
(20:51):
being born, and so I arrived in the place that
was very sad. I mean, it's dangerous when you hear
about it from the outside, but from the inside it's
a very somber and just a sad place where people
are being confined. And so I'm talking to you from
the ground level here other people who don't want to
be there, and they're also suffering on whatever level, and
you join in on this pity party about life, you know.
(21:13):
And so first couple of years of that, you know,
you're trying to sort of find your place. It's a
social dynamic there, and so you're moving in groups of
your kind, and you know, you get a job and
you kind of get active in what's happening there. But
luckily for me, and I really thank my dad for
saying that, it's instilling in this idea that whoever they are,
but people are good people. And in my case, I
(21:35):
had to be careful with who I told that I
was innocent, because you know, that's back to the sort
of ranking about like you're a murderer in prison has
more status than if you're there for child molestation. And
so even in my environment, I think innocent is probably
below child molester. You don't belong here, like what the
fuck man like you're you know, I mean a criminal
like we're all you know, we're all tough here. So
(21:57):
I learned that I made a mistake and told the
wrong guy that I was innocent, and the look he
gave me was like, oh shit, maybe I shouldn't be
telling people that I'm not like you, right Obviously, like
everyone else I read and I and I feel like
I'm on a sound like a natural chameleon. So I
just adapted to my environment. I've been always been very diplomatic,
so I was always trying to be the peacekeeper, and
so that helped the pain. And also, like the hope
(22:19):
was that like somewhere, somehow someone was going to realize
that this was a huge mistake. And so the system
that failed me, the criminal justice system that failed me,
and everyone who makes that sort of turn, you know,
happen and work though it's it's supposed to work. I
suppose I was expecting them to figure it out and
help me. It's sort of like suspending reality and thinking,
(22:42):
forget what just happened to you where you've been wrongly convicted,
and try to hold onto the one piece that these
people can do the right thing, and some expecting people
to do the right thing.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
It's incredible that you would be expecting people to do
the right thing when, with the exception of your father,
everybody who was supposed to have protected you either abandoned
you or turned on you in the most vicious way,
and yet you maintained this outlook like, if I just
be me and be honest and be optimistic, then eventually
(23:14):
people are going to accept me for who I am,
which is an innocent guide trapped in a sentence that
doesn't belong to me. That's really there's a lot to
be learned from that, right, because all of us go
through little disappointments on a daily basements, right, or a
weekly basis or whatever, and so many people react to those,
and certainly being around you and the other exgneries, I
always say, it puts gratitude in my attitude, you know,
(23:35):
and I learned to be I think much more understanding
of life's little twists and turns, because they all seem
so trivial. When you deal with someone who's been through
hell right and managed to maintain not just sanity, but
a sense of grace and kindness and optimism, it's remarkable,
you know.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
I'm going to add to also, Jason, that there was
something happening that I didn't realize this until many years later.
But we're all conditioned in the way, and specifically, when
we think of prison, we think of the ugliest human
from his behavior, what he did, or the way he
looks and the tattoos and ponytail. Whatever we have in
our minds etched out as like what a prison who
looks like. And so imagine a guy who's great looking
(24:17):
as I am in a prison. You might think, oh, man,
this guy's vulnerable to like sexual assaults, right, But the
reality is that pull perversion out of it. You're in
a place where you're almost like a porcelain figurine in
a bar, and it's almost like people want to protect you,
and they're curious about, like, what's this guy with no
tattoos doing amongst us? Why is he so nice? Like,
you know, we're all mean and talking shit to each other,
(24:39):
and this guy's like talking about good morning and whatever. Right,
And so I learned that my humanity hadn't been detached
from me. There was no guilt that made me feel
like I couldn't be human. So I was just who
I thought I had to be, And as time went on,
I'd use it as a shield because I knew that
that was happening, that there was like these social conditioning
that was working in my favor, even just a survival part,
(25:00):
let alone the criminal justice be trying to get out.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Now that you've been out for six years, and hearing
you talk about it, you're very calm, and you paint
a picture that is I think either you're in a
little bit of denial, you know, like they say, denial
is not.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
A river in Egypt.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
About how terrifying and how I know it was a
brutal experience, no matter all the things you're saying, notwithstanding,
but I do want to turn to the happy part
of the story, right your exoneration and then what happened
after you got out, because America loves to come back. Yeah, man,
and your story is very uplifting. I mean, just the
(25:50):
fact that you're here now has got to be inspiring
to so many people. So how did you Was it
the Northern California Innocent's Project that took your case?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
I think my exoneration is sort of twofold here, But
when it came to the legal components to it, I
did what many other people do. They write letters and
they bother their families and that they have a friend
who they can nag about it. They do that like
it's a constant scratching away at this right. And so
for me, it was a fifteen year letter writing campaign
that went nowhere. I mean it was Oprah and twenty
(26:18):
twenty and forty eight hours and some roll back, you know,
along with Barry shk who wasn't interested in at the
time with a case who wasn't involved in DNA, which
I understood. But as bizarre as it was, I was.
I was a folesome prisoner working as a teacher's aid.
So I was, you know, helping the teacher correct papers
and do some algebra on the board, whatever, just pretty
basic stuff, right. And Tony Carter, who was a teacher,
(26:40):
she is about to retire, and there was like this
internal policy where you can't get too close to the
prisoners because they'll fire you and so on. And so
I knew that, and now I want to get her
in trouble. So she knew my plight, but I never
never went as far as to say, hey, Tony, would
he help? But now I figure she's done, you know,
she's about to retire. Now is the time, right, So
on the last moments she's walking away on that Friday,
(27:01):
I say, Tony, Tony, and she looks back and she says, yeah,
what's up. Did you forget to say something? And sure
enough I did, right? I said, would you help me?
She's like sure, Like, what can I do for you? Right?
You know my story, if Nelicher retired, if you're in
your travels in the world, if you come across a lawyer,
a reporter, anyone you think might be interested in my story,
would you just mind just sharing that with them? And
(27:23):
I think anyone would have said yes, it's pretty simple. Right,
you're about to leave, and so she she says, sure,
I can do that, and I was. I was really
relieved because a letter I can do that all day long,
but face to face it's a different dynamic there. But
I felt really happy that I was able to muster
the guts to do that. And so turns out that
six months after that conversation, she was invited to a
(27:43):
book club in Sacramento. This guy named Bo Mosof who's
now has passed, who was going to do some book
signing and she had seen him before, and so she
shows up and lo and behold, there's an attorney in
the room, and luckily for me, she mentioned that she
was a lawyer because I guess who was listening Tony,
who says, oh shit, I guess this is I guess
this is a calling, right, So she goes over and says,
(28:04):
I heard you're a lawyer, and you know have this guy.
You know, I used to be a former teacher in prison,
and there's a story I want to share with you.
And literally that's what's triggered it. This woman was Ellen Naggers,
was a public defender working on death penalty cases in California,
who then got in touch with Northern California Innocence Project
Morrison Forrester, and this dream came together. It took them
(28:26):
five years, and they could have taken them ten years.
I didn't care. But finally someone was going beyond the
record and saying, let's listen to this guy has to say.
So they turned stones over that had been ignored. They
tracked down these six boys, these now men, you know,
they weren't kids anymore, and one by one it was
almost like if they were being freed from their own miseries.
(28:48):
They all, from what I hear, they were all so
gracious to say like, you know what, thank you for
finding me. I need to tell you the truth as
if they were living with this pain as well. There
was witnesses that were brought in to clarify the Paul.
Things were described that happened couldn't have happened. And so
the evidence that was used against me had gone away
and there was a final hearing. Luckily for me, the
Los Angeles disc Attorney's office conceded the case, so there
(29:10):
was ultimately no fight. They agreed that this had gone
wrong and I was free to go. And so the
words I've been yearning to hear all my life, well
it seemed to be my entire life, the judge said them,
which is basically, get out of here.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
You apologize.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
The DA's apologized in the room, which felt really good.
They came over and shook my hand. I think the
judge he gave more of like a philosophical response to that,
but it was less about him. It was more about
the DA's office. And it turned out that the corporate
the bad players here were just as bad cop. I'm
a big fan of law enforcement, but in this situation,
it was a bad cop who was tied up with
this internal gang situation and shit went bad and I
(29:47):
had to suffer.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yes, you certainly did. So you walked out of the courthouse.
You walked in, Well, you were arrested and you can
walk in. You were taken in as a sixteen year
old boy. You walk out as a thirty seven year
old man.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
What's that like? You walk out?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I mean, what is freedom taste? And your dad had
died in the drum, right, so now you're an orphan yep,
and you walk out into what would you do?
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Did you go get something to eat?
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Like?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
What'd you DoD? I mean?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I wish I would have been released from the court room.
I was released from the Sheriff's Department's jail there the
county jail, I La County jail. And it was about
it was mid midweek. It was about maybe two in
the afternoon, and they called me out of my cell
and took me down to the street level when doors open,
and there was like a TMZ moment, really, all these
cameras bouncing on their shoulders trying to interview me, right,
(30:38):
and all the mics come out before my family and
lawyers could get to me. And how does it feel
to be free? How does it feel to be free, right,
and the big question, And I think I ignored that one
because I sort of thought about that for a very
long time when I was in prison. What's they going
to feel like? And it sort of felt stupid, as safe,
it felt as great or whatever. So but I remember
thinking that it was such a bright day, the colors
(30:59):
that just at my disposal now it seemed to be
like a century overload, which is my immediate reaction was
whoa the wind, the colors, the people, the attention, because
you know, Jason, the reality was that at a very
young age I had become like the man in the
iron mask, where my voice was taken away. My existence
before I had a chance to even blossom, was extinguished.
(31:23):
There was no chance for this young life to become anything,
and so I had to live with that. I lived
with the fact that when I did try to make
an attempt to speak up for myself, I was ignored
and that was minimized. So that was a personal struggle
that all kind of came together the day I was out,
So from no attention to like, hey, we're all here
for you, right, which was great. My attorneys were there,
(31:45):
my family was there. Somehow I hadn't seen them very
long time, and.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
So what happened? So then you're out? Yeah, where'd you go?
Speaker 3 (31:51):
And I was ushered into a car pretty quickly, and
we went to Echo Park to a friend's home who
they had a good whole food sort of spread awaiting
for me. Right, So I went for a cafeteria food
for twenty years or prison food, which is even worse,
to this long table of organic almonds and dried apricots.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
So that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Almonds and apricots a whole ya, man, sounds a little biblical,
you know, It's kind of funny, that's right.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I was thinking of you.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I was thinking, you're gonna say you got like a sandwiches,
and you know, I was picturing more of a you know.
I mean, if they had almonds and eight apricots, I
would have actually been pissed out of it, like come on, really,
like can I get a slice?
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, pizza? Something? I mean, come on, man.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
So then you went home, and then you know, now
here it is. You rebuilt your life. You successfully filed
a lawsuit, well, you had two lawsuits, right, and one
was settled. The other one you won, right, so you're
now unlike many of our x houneries. There's a bright
spot there because you know I talk about often. But
(32:53):
the fact is, you know, so many ex houneries and
something we're working to fix, do not receive compensation. You
were able to prove violations of your civil rights and
other things that led to you being compensated in a
meaningful way. That's going to now allow you to help
fix the system. That that would be a great full circle,
wouldn't it.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
You know, I can't wait, and I'm not minimizing the
money here because it makes my life very enjoyable. I
think the true joyous moments for me since I've been
home is that before I even got out, And this
is this is I hope it can be sort of
passed along to those who are who were imprisoned rightly
or wrongly. But this idea that you have to before
you even get out. You can't sort of prepare yourself
(33:32):
the week to date, that the week to the night before,
like okay, tomorrow is my big release date. Let me
kind of get my thoughts together. This has to happen
long before the door opens. And so I feel that
in sort of credit to myself and those who were
around me that my transition phase happened long before the
door opened, and so when the door opened, I felt
very prepared to just attempt to just now really be free.
(33:53):
Because a common theme was when you got there, some
older guy kind of gave you some like advice. As
an example, you have five years years to do, and
the advice was, for the first four years, just kind
of hang out, man, you know you're in prison, Just relax,
just play some cards and shit, and if you know
you want to play dominoes, go work out, right. But
the last year, man, like the last year, like, you know,
go to church, or if you're smoking, stop smoking, get
(34:15):
it together, right, And I thought that was pretty good advice. Shit,
why not, man? What else you got to lose? Right?
And at some point I realized that that even though
it was a lifer, that advice applied to me, and
it was against suspending complete reality here, but it was like,
you know what, I'm making all these efforts to try
to get my case hurt and try to get some
attention here. Let me work on me too, Let me
(34:36):
work on this idea that I need to prepare myself.
And so fast forward, I went a month after I
got out with some good friends Scott Wooden and who
ended up living with in Mannon Beach and his wife
Jeanie would. I enrolled at a great university in Los Angeles,
Loyola Marymount University. So I went from and I'm sort
of funny here, but I went from one prison to
another because it had all the elements that I needed.
(34:58):
And it felt like for a guy like me, I
needed the structure that I had been accustomed to. And
it's not the put down, but it was the university
gave me the camaraderie, the friendship. There was no Bob Wire,
but shit, I had deadlines, man. I had to show up,
you know. And so it went from a very negative
environment that I was into a very very loving and
encouraging space, which was the school right along with just
(35:20):
sort of being active and being activism. How could I
not support the Innocence Project and ways the end of
death penalty in California and other social issues around the state.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
And that's just gotten a whole lot worse with the
speed up to death penalty referendum that passed in California,
which is absolutely unimaginable and unconscionable that people would have
been terrible because well, essentially they voted for guaranteeing that
we're going to execute a lot of innocent people because
the changes to the law are devastating to people who
(35:51):
have claims of innocence. It's exactly what it sounds like.
It's to speed up to death penalty. Yep, none of
it makes any sense. But voices like yours and all
the cure that is the media is really driving interest
in this issue, this issue of innocence, this issue of
mass incarceration and other related criminal justice problems that are
(36:12):
sadly uniquely American problems because other countries are so much
more evolved than we are. You know, it's incredible, Frankie.
We have five percent of the world's population at twenty
five percent of the world's prison population. The point I'm
making is that when we process people at this rate,
where we just keep feeding this prison industrial complex, they're
(36:32):
going to be mistakes, They're going to be more Frankie Correos,
we have to reverse the entire way of thinking that
we have and start to become a more progressive society
in terms of the way we treat the people who
are really the least among us, people who find themselves
in the situation that you are in, not a wealthy
person by any means, and then just being ground.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Up by the system.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
I want to get to last words because I always
like to give our guests the opportunity to air anything
that you can think of that you want to share
with our audience. You've been through so much, You've come
through sounding, looking, feeling, acting like a person who knows stuff.
You have such a calm demeanor and such a positive outlook.
(37:13):
It's almost unnerving to be honest with you, you know.
I mean for a minute there you were making prison
sound like it was like, yeah, you know whatever this
many years that man, I'm like, it's just.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
You know, thank you Jason for these final words here
that I think that for many people listening, and people
even in my life now think, you know, like this dude,
you know this optimism stuff is he's taken to a
different level here, right. And you know, I wish that
I can sort of either write a book or explain
how I made it through and how these things weren't
able to penetrate my armor here. But I suffer I
can't minimize that there are things and moments where I
(37:47):
might hear a song that might trigger true sadness about
what I'd experienced as a whole, about the things that
were lost, about you know, all the what ifs. Right
and very quickly I made it a point to remember
what anger and what revenge and what hatred does to someone.
Tell you even deeper here that when I was in prison,
(38:07):
I think about those who had owned that, who had
owned the anger and the revenge and the hatred, and
I saw these men that were being blinded by it,
and I don't want to be that. And here we
are in a room full of statues, this beautiful art
that predates all of us here, and I think about
if that was who I'd become in prison, I would
I wouldn't be here one and two. If I had
(38:29):
traces of that and I was out on some level,
I would still be on the inside. I would be
physically free, but the rage that would be living within
me would be like a prison all to itself. And
so I mean, I'm happy that I can make those
connections of my own existence for my own personal healing
and as a move forward to my life. And speaking
of that life, I'm happily married, I have three amazing children,
(38:51):
I have theo Akiva and Frieda, my wife, FT is
amazing and life is great. And I think it's a
responsibility for not only myself my family to take on
this responsibility of giving people the pleasure of experiencing the
cognitive dissonance, which is you are around or you hear
and you experience something. It suspends you from and it
(39:13):
shocks you into like this is not what I expected
from a guy who had been in prison for all
these years. And it challenges you your own beliefs, your
own things you've been carrying with you. This psychological moment
says wow, like I need to change what I used
to think about those who were on the inside. And
so it's a responsibility for me and other exenreies, I
feel that to awaken that side of all of us
(39:33):
to say, let's not do that, Let's not do that
to each other. And when someone says, and it's not
a joke anymore that they are innocent, let's listen because
we know many experiences and many stories that are tragic
that we've been listening to this whole weekend of If
only someone really listened and cared.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, and everybody out there has the power to make
a difference. I always encourage our audience to get involved,
and it's great to see that many of them are,
I know, and hearing story. For me again, it puts
gratitude in my attitude. It makes all those little wham
wains that we all have in life just seem so
much easier to deal with and so much to surface
(40:13):
noise right when somebody like you can come and have
this sort of aura. And it's amazing, Frankie. You know,
the fact is, to any of us in the movement
and to other people on the outside, it's a source
of never ending wonder and awe that every single Xonery
I've ever met has some version of that type of
(40:35):
higher consciousness that you've managed to achieve. They have this
state of almost like a state of grace that is
it's just inspiring, that's all it is. And so I
appreciate you taking the time to share your experience, strength
and hope with us. And again, I'm just going to
have to take a moment to process this, and then
(40:56):
I'm going to go and get busy and get back
to work on helping others.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
We've had a very.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Unique experience because we've been recording the podcast in an
idyllic environment. We're actually in a room and a home
overlooking the Pacific Ocean on a cliff, surrounded by the
most incredible African art. So I want to thank our hosts,
Bill LaRock and Michelle Chicarelli The Rock for having us
here and allowing us to record in their beautiful home.
(41:29):
Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
It really helps.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
And I'm a proud donor to the Ennosis Project, and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
(41:56):
to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
faceboo book at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
association with Signal Company Number one
With the police banging on the door open up.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The choice to be in that lineup was the last
choice I made as a free man.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
A year later, I ended up writing the system.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
I'm going to be one of those people who everyone
in the world is going to think as a monster
or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life,
and I'm just going to have to come to peace
with that.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Somebody was able to look at my picture in the
database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
might have to play in my hanging. They had been
told that two prison officers would have to participate in
my execution. Now I walked back inside that prison for
the last time. Man, all help broke loose.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
But welcome to another episode of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Today we have a very incredible person as our guest.
(01:10):
Our featured exonnery today is Frankie Correo.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Korea was sixteen. In nineteen ninety one, fifteen sheriff's deputies
with guns drawn storm through the front door. Korea was
convicted of murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Frankie was released.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
From jail in downtown LA this afternoon after spending twenty
years in prison. Rio was released after the court found
evidence that Koreo was framed through coerced testimony for a
fatal drive by shooting. The gang of corrupt LA Sheriff's
deputies known as the Linwood Vikings co wer six witnesses
into identifying him in a photo lineup.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Frankie, welcome, Jason's good to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
So, Frankie, your story begins when you were really just
a child and the baby man. Let's go back to
the beginning. You grew up in La, right, that's correct,
Southern California, and you had a pretty happy upbringing, right, Yeah,
I would say that.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, everything was going along more or less.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Okay, nothing's easy about being a sixteen year old boy,
that's right.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Then one day it all was turned upside down. That
day was January twenty fourth, nineteen ninety one. I was
just a little color there. I was a high school student.
I was a child of a divorce family, four siblings.
My father had raised us in stage of nine, so
it's a very male dominated household. Dad and two boys.
It was what I'd known for the past seven years.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And you had a sort of a unique situation too it,
which is that your mom had did one day just
decided to check out.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, it wasn't like it got separated and you spent
half the time with her or she just left.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
That was it. Yeah, I mean, it's an unfortunate story,
but that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, So you had been abandoned in a very real
way and experienced something that's obviously going to affect any
young man for the rest of his life. But that
wasn't the worst of what was to come by far.
And again, sixteen is really not a child, but you're
closer to a child.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Than an adult.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Right even though it was my age, I was sixteen,
Psychologically you're you're still a kid, you know, maybe operating
at thirteen fourteen level, not to you know, minimize it,
but I'm a boy, I'm a kid.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
We were in tenth grade, tenth grader, tenth grade, exactly
what I'm saying. Tenth grade, you're you know, yeah, you're
closer to middle school than you are to college.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
And they hadn't been shaved. So it's like a good,
good reference is that you're at the point where like
facial hair is sort of developing, but you're not there yet, Frankie, like,
hold off right.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
And then one night, fifteen cops bust in your house.
What a surreal situation. You were asleep.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
I was asleep, just a normal night.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Actually it was early morning, so it was dark, but
it was it was six in the morning when this happened.
And my father and I went home and they couldn't
get in. They were pounding away, and ultimately I opened
the door, looked out the window and new was them.
They were screaming who they were, and they stormed in,
stormed in, ordered my father and I to the floor.
And that's the beginning of the nightmare.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Really, so they already had to the floor. Did they
tell you what was going on?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
I wish it did?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
You know?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It was pretty strategic in all business, so they want to,
like ram Seck, the home was their main objective, and
you know, my father and I. My dad was trying
to exert his position, this is my home, what are
you doing here? And he was being ignored. So he's
telling me, like, what's happening. I'm like I don't know,
Like I have no idea why they're here. Soon after,
on the ride to the sheriff station is when I
(04:21):
learned that I had been accused and ultimately now being
arrested for a murderer I hadn't committed.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
So you get to the sheriff's station and what happens next.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Really, I was expecting my father to show up, but
what happened was I was placed into an interrogation room.
The people who showed up instead were these two sort
of cowboy detectives ready to play the good call bad
cop on me, and I played along. You know. They
said what they were arrested me for, and if I
would willing to talk, and I said, sure, I'll talk
like I have nothing to hide.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Right, And so you waved your marana, right I did.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And that's such a crazy thing, Frankie, because I think
it's hard for most people to understand why someone would
wave their miranda when you.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Have the right to a lawyer who would going to
give that up?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
But the fact is, in your case, I think it's
fairly typical, which is that if you're innocent, and this
is an ironic thing, right, if you're innocent, a lot
of people go in they think, well, why do I
need a lawyer. I'm just going to answer some questions,
and the justice system is going to work because I'm
an innocent person who abides by the law, and then
they'll see that they made a mistake and then they'll
go catch the real guy.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Exactly right.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Unfortunately, it's going to take stories like yours to help
educate people so that they don't do that. You do
not give up any information without getting a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
But I will adjason that when you're in that code
room and the power imbalance is obvious, you are in
a detention facility. Basically, you're in the stronghold, you're in
the sheriff's departments space, and you're there as a visitor.
You're there obviously being charged with this crime, in my case,
being wrongfully charged. And so to some degree, as a
young boy, you want these are adults. Some look at
(05:57):
these men and you want to cooperate. You want it
like I'll talk to you. I have nothing to hide.
It is sort of my position looking back now. Obviously
I wish I wish there was a Civics class that
would have said, you know what, no matter what, innocent, guilty, whatever,
the situation is just wait for your parents or wait
for a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yes, it's a tragic twist or irony that when you're
innocent and you go into the situation, you're more likely
to waive your Miranda rights and if you're guilty. Exactly
in that interrogation room, how long were you interrogated for?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Do you even know?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
You know? Surprisingly, I think back of that fived him
minute interrogation and I sort of left that room thinking,
you know, where was the lamp? You know, where were
these guys punching on me? Like, you know, you watch
enough TV to understand that this is supposed to unfold
a little bit differently than it did in my case.
At least, they were very quick to just say, there's
a young boy who witnessed the crime, who was adamant
that you were the guy who did it. So we
(06:47):
got you. Let's talk about you just confessing to it.
So it was really very brief, very precise on their end,
and I think I'm go on have chuckle not to
be silly here, but it was just like so unreal,
like one, you're are you sure you're talking to me?
I'm adamant that it wasn't me obviously, and their position
was like, we're beyond if you did it or not.
(07:07):
We just want you to just come clean, just confess
that you did it. And I was like, I can't
do that.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
It ended after ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
That's it. Like they weren't trying to press me and
starve me out anything. They were just like, okay, well
we'll see you in court, like we're going to jail now,
Like that was it.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Hearing that and that's an unusual interrogation, and that it
went on for such a short period of time, it
sounds to me like at that point they actually did
think they had the right guy, because they were like, Okay,
well this guy's not gonna give it up, but we
got the right guy, so it's okay, We're gon We're
gonna get him no matter what. But as things unraveled,
they took steps that were corrupt and illegal. How did
(07:45):
they end up managing to convict you when you were
so obviously not the guy?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
So you know, in Los Angeles at least, there's a
very familiar story about misconduct with the LAPD SO Rampart
Division scandal. It's more readily available knowledge. But my case
didn't involve LAPED involved the LA's Sheriff's department, and there's
a well known at least locally of the Linwood Vikings.
So Lindwood is where this crime happened and where my
(08:11):
arrest was ultimately investigated. And the Linwood Vikings had become
a rogue police gang. So what I thought is a
naive boy, that I was dealing with law enforcement who
were abided by the constitution and their policies in the department.
Some of the people on this investigation team were these
bad cops sort of fast forward in here of information
I knew, not at the time, but as the case developed.
(08:33):
And so when this young boy who was used to
identify me, who was shown a photo line of a
photo six pack to ultimately say this is the guy
who committed the crime, the case sounded pretty pretty cut
and dry. There's a witness, there's a he show was
showing a photographic lineup. He quickly identified the shooter. We
got in the rest Slamm Dunk. And so there was
(08:55):
a trial when I was tried as an adult and
moved forward to a conviction. But at some point it
was discovered that this young boy wasn't as innocent as
you know. He was more than just a witness. It
was revealed that he was an informant for one specific
law enforcement officer, Deputy Ditch. And so Deputy Ditch, Ditch,
Deputy of all.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Things, Deputy Ditch.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Right, I mean what a name, right, Craig Ditch is
the guy's name. He's now retired. The guy had this
boy under his wing as an informant, and he happened
to be at this crime scene, and so it was
very very easy to say, I'm your go to guy here.
So the story later was discovered that this young boy
was showing photographs after he'd been interviewed five times by
other investigators with no results. They realized Ditch had a
(09:38):
relationship with this boy. Ditch shows up cases over. The
case was solved once Stitch arrived in less than eight hours,
and the story that was revealed that the young boy
was showing the photographs as what was in the report,
and so he picks a random picture just to play along,
and Ditch says, that's the wrong guy. He's in jail
right now, try again. You know, I'm sure he's feeling
(09:59):
like an idiot. Point. You know, you're trying to help,
You're young, you're scared, so he picks another photograph, and
the deputy says, this guy's dead. What about this guy here?
We think he's trying to come up in the rankings
or whatever, And so the boy just says, yeah, I
guess that makes sense. I guess I guess that's the guy.
And this is there.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
He was looking at six photographs. Yep, he was over
too exactly. He picked. He picked very badly. He picked
a guy who was in jail and a guy who
was dead. Right. That's yeah, really hard to make a
case against those guys. Right.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
And by the way, it's sort of odd that there
was a guy in the six pack who was dead.
Give me a break, I mean, you would think they
would take that guy out just I mean to let
me jump in here and say, well, you know, Frankie,
what's up. You're coming off as this high school student,
nice guy. What's your photograph doing in the sheriff's apartment? Like,
tell us about that. I'm sure that was your next question, right,
I'm getting to that what happened.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
In this environment is so nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one
is what we're referencing here. That specific sheriff's department's policy
was that if there was any anyone that you thought
was a potential bad kid or bad guy or bad anything,
let's do some racial profiling at this point, right, gather intel.
And so the photograph was obtained in the summer between
my sixth grade and seventh grade vacation block. There, me
(11:08):
and some of my buddies just riding our BMX spikes
through a local park, no big deal, summertime, and this deputy,
Deputy Luna, I remember the guy's name, sort of just
rolls up next to us. He's done of the official
lights on pull over. He stops, We stopped, start talking
about who has a girlfriend, and where do you live?
And what's up with you? Whatever? Right, just pretty cool
talking to a cop, No big deal. Then the guy says,
(11:29):
do you mind if I take your photograph to the group?
I don't remember us looking around saying what do you think? Guys?
We just like, I guess like you're a cop, right,
Like what do we say?
Speaker 4 (11:38):
No?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
And so this is the time when you had polaroad camera.
So the guy got out of his car, went into
the trunk and pulled out the little manual polaroid camera,
and one by one he just came to write where
we were on our bike standing and just snapped the photograph.
And so that photograph that was taken in a park
with trees in the background and whatever else was in
the background, I was smiling them picture. That photograph ended
(12:02):
up in the sixth pack. So talk about like a
chain of events here that fucks your life up, right,
Oh my.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
God, I mean, that's really the most I've heard all
types of different stories, and you're right, that is a
question that people often ask, why was this picture?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Now?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
What we know is that if you live in a
poor neighborhood spetiicularly a poor minority neighborhood, the cops do
sweeps and they'll pick up everybody, right, And so your
picture could be in there because you had a joint,
or any other thing could be in there because you
were trespassing, right, I have air quotes under that one
or whatever. And so it's really true that a lot
(12:35):
of people have records for the most minor misdemeanors. In
your case, you had no record whatsoever. Actually, it was
probably I mean, thinking back to when I was in
sixth or seventh grade, if a cop would have asked
to take my picture, I would have felt good, right,
but like, wow, this guy.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Wants to take my picture. I'm pretty cool kid.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
So your picture was in the lineup because this cop had,
in a sneaky way, racially profiled you as a thirteen
year old boy riding his bike in the park, which
is exactly as far as I can tell, what thirteen
year old boys are supposed to be doing. You were
identified in this insane process, right, which is literally like
it would be funny.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Except the results are so tragic.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
So he eventually managed to come up with the answer
that the cop wanted, which he could have saved himself
the trouble by just saying initially to the kid, hey,
this is the guy we want identify him. That would
have been simple, exactly. I would have saved five minutes.
So you're identified, you go to trial.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Well, I try as an adult. I'm going to keep
parking this spit.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I'm a kid.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
So there's a process here in California that determines if
you're worthy of juvenile court or you have to go
with the big boys. Right, And so this was a
murderer and they felt that it deserved it a higher punishment,
and so ultimately went to trial, had an assigned attorney
that the county. It wasn't a public defenders like a
panel attorney. I have to say this part here. And
when I walked into the court and I was chained
(14:01):
to you know, the chain gang there, everyone's there being arraigned,
all adults and then was looking like what did you do,
like steal some candy and blah blah blah, and you know,
they're just ragging on me, these adults who had obviously
been there before. And so I'm the last guy to
be arraigned, and so everyone's freaking out like, oh shit,
we weren't expecting that charge for this kid, right And
prior to that, I will say that, and it's and
(14:22):
it kind of goes to just me being so naive
here is that I heard someone call my name and
I'm like, I'm so little. I'm like raising my hand
like I'm over here. And I looked over and I
saw this good looking white man with this amazing suit on,
just like canned suit, walking towards me with the file
and I was like, oh my god, David, you have
(14:42):
signed me the best fucker in the room, man, Like
this is all going to be worked out, Like this
is it? I got the very sheck of the world. Sadly,
it's just an example of like where my mentality was,
even my perception of this new world. This courtroom was
like sadly, like the white guy come into your rescue
had like such an impact from living in a society
where the majority of people around you are people who
(15:04):
look like you and who you know than the teacher
or whatever, and so I thought it was a sort
of funny and looking back at that moment, getting me
so excited about everything's gonna be okay now right obviously.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Not obviously not. I mean the odds, the odds were
stacked against you. The government was willing to lie to
get the conviction. They were willing to use an incentivized witness,
and they convicted you, they did, and now you get
sent to maximum security prison.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
At the time, they had a juvenile facility, so it
was like the Youth Authority for young adults. So I
went there and the sentence was thirty years to life,
with an additional six life sentences attached to that. So
I'll say that when I heard those words coming to
the judge's mouth, I couldn't imagine or perceived like a
week or a few months in my life to now
(15:50):
to imagine thirty years to life plus life, I couldn't
even comprehend that. For someone wants to be sort of
funny and sort of mess with me, it meant like,
do thirty years to life die and then you're back
in prison, like even if you ever come back, right,
And it was.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Like, you mean, like if you get reincarnated.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I suppose, right, like you're you're seting you up for
your next life.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
It doesn't make any sense, right, and none of this
makes any sense, But that in particular doesn't make any
sense just in terms of the semantics of it. It's
interesting too write because there was a witness who actually
wanted to come forward and who had information that could
have prevented you from being convicted in the first place.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Is there was, so he wasn't just a witness. This
guy that you're referring to was the actual killer. So
as a bizarre twist in this case, the investigator had
discovered who the murderer was, and your investigator there and
this is it's a bizarre twist all this. And it's
not to minimize the bad police work here, but now
it's also bad defense work here. My defense attorney had
(16:47):
an investigator who had went out and become the world's
best investigator by tracking down who excumented the crime. Turns
out he knew the murderer, and so there was just
this conflict of interest of either get off the case
or reveal that this is the guy who did it.
He had this young man, the actual murderer, confessed to
the crime. There's a six page confession that he took
(17:09):
from this man, and what he tried to do. To
his credit, he tried to convince this guy to come
to the court and just say, look, Frankie didn't do it,
it was me. And he arrived with an attorney. You
would assume that the judge would say, well, wait a
minute here, before Frankie goes down and he's sentenced, let's
hear about this guy in the hallway. And lo and behold,
the judge says, you're too late. You've been convicted by
(17:31):
a jury. All this sort of like last information that's
apparently in the hallway. Just deal with it in your appeal.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
So after the jury renders you guilty, and the guy
standing outside the doors of the courtroom exactly who's actually
holding the cards to your freedom?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Well, I mean it would have shed light if someone
cared about truth, right, it would have been like, well,
let's bring this guy in. And so it failed me
even again at that point, that's such a crazy it's
a bizarre man. You were like thirty feet from freedom
sort of right, the doors would have opened and this
guy would have been allowed to walk in and provided
he actually came clean, true, because he might have changed
his mind.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
People do that.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
But you had a real opportunity to avoid this most
nightmarish fate that anybody can possibly imagine. But that's not
what happened. And ultimately there were six witnesses who testified
against you, and the crazy thing is they all recanted, right,
eventually they all recanted.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
They initially use this one boy, the swift year old boy,
to arrest me based on this photographic lineup, and so
six months which is bizarre. Here everyone was under eighteen,
so that everyone was very young. Six months maybe even
seven months after the crime had occurred. For the first time,
the other five boys had been shown the photographic lineup.
And we all know about memory, and there's been studies
and it's been proven that this is not a recording.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Dick.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
You have on your phone. In your mind, memories record
a little bit differently. It's like little snapshots, and as
time goes on they fade and other information filters in
and it gets very tainted. So it's hard to really recall,
especially a dry by shooting the middle of the night.
You hear gunfire, you're ducking, you're running, So to really
capture that, it's like an immediate on the scene interview
(19:05):
is like the best one. So we're talking about seven
months later now where these boys are showing photographs for
the first time ever. Wow, And sure enough, sure enough,
one by one they say, yep, that's the guy. It's
photograph number one. And it was obviously later determined that's
this young boy. The fifteen year old boy. Made it
a point to tell everyone else if they ever show
you photographs, believe me, I know who did it. It
(19:27):
was photograph number one. And so now we got six people.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Right, And it's so absurd to think that seven months later,
as you said, in the middle of the night, in
the dark and a drive by shooting, all the factors
are there for almost a guarantee of wrongful identification, a
mess identification, and that's exactly what happened. So you spent
much more than half your life behind bars. You're only
really a cognizant human, right maybe for ten years to
(19:54):
a round number, so more than twice that amount of time.
You're now in a cage in a violent, scary, hostile environment.
How did you manage to make it through that?
Speaker 3 (20:05):
You know? Well, you know, when I think back about
how I survived twenty years incarceration, what I remembered most
about something my dad said sort of in passing or
just try to give me some advice up to dinner table,
which was if there's adults around, go to them. He's
sort of instilling these things about just society, they'll help you.
(20:28):
And so I think, here I am in a room
full of adults. I'm in an adult court, and I'm
expecting everyone to do the right thing just because you're
an adult. I'm a kid. You're supposed to be watching
out for the system and yourself and everyone in the room.
And so that went haywire. That that failed me. But
I think that this very fuzzy idea of humanity was
(20:51):
being born, and so I arrived in the place that
was very sad. I mean, it's dangerous when you hear
about it from the outside, but from the inside it's
a very somber and just a sad place where people
are being confined. And so I'm talking to you from
the ground level here other people who don't want to
be there, and they're also suffering on whatever level, and
you join in on this pity party about life, you know.
(21:13):
And so first couple of years of that, you know,
you're trying to sort of find your place. It's a
social dynamic there, and so you're moving in groups of
your kind, and you know, you get a job and
you kind of get active in what's happening there. But
luckily for me, and I really thank my dad for
saying that, it's instilling in this idea that whoever they are,
but people are good people. And in my case, I
(21:35):
had to be careful with who I told that I
was innocent, because you know, that's back to the sort
of ranking about like you're a murderer in prison has
more status than if you're there for child molestation. And
so even in my environment, I think innocent is probably
below child molester. You don't belong here, like what the
fuck man like you're you know, I mean a criminal
like we're all you know, we're all tough here. So
(21:57):
I learned that I made a mistake and told the
wrong guy that I was innocent, and the look he
gave me was like, oh shit, maybe I shouldn't be
telling people that I'm not like you, right Obviously, like
everyone else I read and I and I feel like
I'm on a sound like a natural chameleon. So I
just adapted to my environment. I've been always been very diplomatic,
so I was always trying to be the peacekeeper, and
so that helped the pain. And also, like the hope
(22:19):
was that like somewhere, somehow someone was going to realize
that this was a huge mistake. And so the system
that failed me, the criminal justice system that failed me,
and everyone who makes that sort of turn, you know,
happen and work though it's it's supposed to work. I
suppose I was expecting them to figure it out and
help me. It's sort of like suspending reality and thinking,
(22:42):
forget what just happened to you where you've been wrongly convicted,
and try to hold onto the one piece that these
people can do the right thing, and some expecting people
to do the right thing.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
It's incredible that you would be expecting people to do
the right thing when, with the exception of your father,
everybody who was supposed to have protected you either abandoned
you or turned on you in the most vicious way,
and yet you maintained this outlook like, if I just
be me and be honest and be optimistic, then eventually
(23:14):
people are going to accept me for who I am,
which is an innocent guide trapped in a sentence that
doesn't belong to me. That's really there's a lot to
be learned from that, right, because all of us go
through little disappointments on a daily basements, right, or a
weekly basis or whatever, and so many people react to those,
and certainly being around you and the other exgneries, I
always say, it puts gratitude in my attitude, you know,
(23:35):
and I learned to be I think much more understanding
of life's little twists and turns, because they all seem
so trivial. When you deal with someone who's been through
hell right and managed to maintain not just sanity, but
a sense of grace and kindness and optimism, it's remarkable,
you know.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
I'm going to add to also, Jason, that there was
something happening that I didn't realize this until many years later.
But we're all conditioned in the way, and specifically, when
we think of prison, we think of the ugliest human
from his behavior, what he did, or the way he
looks and the tattoos and ponytail. Whatever we have in
our minds etched out as like what a prison who
looks like. And so imagine a guy who's great looking
(24:17):
as I am in a prison. You might think, oh, man,
this guy's vulnerable to like sexual assaults, right, But the
reality is that pull perversion out of it. You're in
a place where you're almost like a porcelain figurine in
a bar, and it's almost like people want to protect you,
and they're curious about, like, what's this guy with no
tattoos doing amongst us? Why is he so nice? Like,
you know, we're all mean and talking shit to each other,
(24:39):
and this guy's like talking about good morning and whatever. Right,
And so I learned that my humanity hadn't been detached
from me. There was no guilt that made me feel
like I couldn't be human. So I was just who
I thought I had to be, And as time went on,
I'd use it as a shield because I knew that
that was happening, that there was like these social conditioning
that was working in my favor, even just a survival part,
(25:00):
let alone the criminal justice be trying to get out.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Now that you've been out for six years, and hearing
you talk about it, you're very calm, and you paint
a picture that is I think either you're in a
little bit of denial, you know, like they say, denial
is not.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
A river in Egypt.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
About how terrifying and how I know it was a
brutal experience, no matter all the things you're saying, notwithstanding,
but I do want to turn to the happy part
of the story, right your exoneration and then what happened
after you got out, because America loves to come back. Yeah, man,
and your story is very uplifting. I mean, just the
(25:50):
fact that you're here now has got to be inspiring
to so many people. So how did you Was it
the Northern California Innocent's Project that took your case?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
I think my exoneration is sort of twofold here, But
when it came to the legal components to it, I
did what many other people do. They write letters and
they bother their families and that they have a friend
who they can nag about it. They do that like
it's a constant scratching away at this right. And so
for me, it was a fifteen year letter writing campaign
that went nowhere. I mean it was Oprah and twenty
(26:18):
twenty and forty eight hours and some roll back, you know,
along with Barry shk who wasn't interested in at the
time with a case who wasn't involved in DNA, which
I understood. But as bizarre as it was, I was.
I was a folesome prisoner working as a teacher's aid.
So I was, you know, helping the teacher correct papers
and do some algebra on the board, whatever, just pretty
basic stuff, right. And Tony Carter, who was a teacher,
(26:40):
she is about to retire, and there was like this
internal policy where you can't get too close to the
prisoners because they'll fire you and so on. And so
I knew that, and now I want to get her
in trouble. So she knew my plight, but I never
never went as far as to say, hey, Tony, would
he help? But now I figure she's done, you know,
she's about to retire. Now is the time, right, So
on the last moments she's walking away on that Friday,
(27:01):
I say, Tony, Tony, and she looks back and she says, yeah,
what's up. Did you forget to say something? And sure
enough I did, right? I said, would you help me?
She's like sure, Like, what can I do for you? Right?
You know my story, if Nelicher retired, if you're in
your travels in the world, if you come across a lawyer,
a reporter, anyone you think might be interested in my story,
would you just mind just sharing that with them? And
(27:23):
I think anyone would have said yes, it's pretty simple. Right,
you're about to leave, and so she she says, sure,
I can do that, and I was. I was really
relieved because a letter I can do that all day long,
but face to face it's a different dynamic there. But
I felt really happy that I was able to muster
the guts to do that. And so turns out that
six months after that conversation, she was invited to a
(27:43):
book club in Sacramento. This guy named Bo Mosof who's
now has passed, who was going to do some book
signing and she had seen him before, and so she
shows up and lo and behold, there's an attorney in
the room, and luckily for me, she mentioned that she
was a lawyer because I guess who was listening Tony,
who says, oh shit, I guess this is I guess
this is a calling, right, So she goes over and says,
(28:04):
I heard you're a lawyer, and you know have this guy.
You know, I used to be a former teacher in prison,
and there's a story I want to share with you.
And literally that's what's triggered it. This woman was Ellen Naggers,
was a public defender working on death penalty cases in California,
who then got in touch with Northern California Innocence Project
Morrison Forrester, and this dream came together. It took them
(28:26):
five years, and they could have taken them ten years.
I didn't care. But finally someone was going beyond the
record and saying, let's listen to this guy has to say.
So they turned stones over that had been ignored. They
tracked down these six boys, these now men, you know,
they weren't kids anymore, and one by one it was
almost like if they were being freed from their own miseries.
(28:48):
They all, from what I hear, they were all so
gracious to say like, you know what, thank you for
finding me. I need to tell you the truth as
if they were living with this pain as well. There
was witnesses that were brought in to clarify the Paul.
Things were described that happened couldn't have happened. And so
the evidence that was used against me had gone away
and there was a final hearing. Luckily for me, the
Los Angeles disc Attorney's office conceded the case, so there
(29:10):
was ultimately no fight. They agreed that this had gone
wrong and I was free to go. And so the
words I've been yearning to hear all my life, well
it seemed to be my entire life, the judge said them,
which is basically, get out of here.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
You apologize.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
The DA's apologized in the room, which felt really good.
They came over and shook my hand. I think the
judge he gave more of like a philosophical response to that,
but it was less about him. It was more about
the DA's office. And it turned out that the corporate
the bad players here were just as bad cop. I'm
a big fan of law enforcement, but in this situation,
it was a bad cop who was tied up with
this internal gang situation and shit went bad and I
(29:47):
had to suffer.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yes, you certainly did. So you walked out of the courthouse.
You walked in, Well, you were arrested and you can
walk in. You were taken in as a sixteen year
old boy. You walk out as a thirty seven year
old man.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
What's that like? You walk out?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I mean, what is freedom taste? And your dad had
died in the drum, right, so now you're an orphan yep,
and you walk out into what would you do?
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Did you go get something to eat?
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Like?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
What'd you DoD? I mean?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I wish I would have been released from the court room.
I was released from the Sheriff's Department's jail there the
county jail, I La County jail. And it was about
it was mid midweek. It was about maybe two in
the afternoon, and they called me out of my cell
and took me down to the street level when doors open,
and there was like a TMZ moment, really, all these
cameras bouncing on their shoulders trying to interview me, right,
(30:38):
and all the mics come out before my family and
lawyers could get to me. And how does it feel
to be free? How does it feel to be free, right,
and the big question, And I think I ignored that one
because I sort of thought about that for a very
long time when I was in prison. What's they going
to feel like? And it sort of felt stupid, as safe,
it felt as great or whatever. So but I remember
thinking that it was such a bright day, the colors
(30:59):
that just at my disposal now it seemed to be
like a century overload, which is my immediate reaction was
whoa the wind, the colors, the people, the attention, because
you know, Jason, the reality was that at a very
young age I had become like the man in the
iron mask, where my voice was taken away. My existence
before I had a chance to even blossom, was extinguished.
(31:23):
There was no chance for this young life to become anything,
and so I had to live with that. I lived
with the fact that when I did try to make
an attempt to speak up for myself, I was ignored
and that was minimized. So that was a personal struggle
that all kind of came together the day I was out,
So from no attention to like, hey, we're all here
for you, right, which was great. My attorneys were there,
(31:45):
my family was there. Somehow I hadn't seen them very
long time, and.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
So what happened? So then you're out? Yeah, where'd you go?
Speaker 3 (31:51):
And I was ushered into a car pretty quickly, and
we went to Echo Park to a friend's home who
they had a good whole food sort of spread awaiting
for me. Right, So I went for a cafeteria food
for twenty years or prison food, which is even worse,
to this long table of organic almonds and dried apricots.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
So that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Almonds and apricots a whole ya, man, sounds a little biblical,
you know, It's kind of funny, that's right.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I was thinking of you.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I was thinking, you're gonna say you got like a sandwiches,
and you know, I was picturing more of a you know.
I mean, if they had almonds and eight apricots, I
would have actually been pissed out of it, like come on, really,
like can I get a slice?
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, pizza? Something? I mean, come on, man.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
So then you went home, and then you know, now
here it is. You rebuilt your life. You successfully filed
a lawsuit, well, you had two lawsuits, right, and one
was settled. The other one you won, right, so you're
now unlike many of our x houneries. There's a bright
spot there because you know I talk about often. But
(32:53):
the fact is, you know, so many ex houneries and
something we're working to fix, do not receive compensation. You
were able to prove violations of your civil rights and
other things that led to you being compensated in a
meaningful way. That's going to now allow you to help
fix the system. That that would be a great full circle,
wouldn't it.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
You know, I can't wait, and I'm not minimizing the
money here because it makes my life very enjoyable. I
think the true joyous moments for me since I've been
home is that before I even got out, And this
is this is I hope it can be sort of
passed along to those who are who were imprisoned rightly
or wrongly. But this idea that you have to before
you even get out. You can't sort of prepare yourself
(33:32):
the week to date, that the week to the night before,
like okay, tomorrow is my big release date. Let me
kind of get my thoughts together. This has to happen
long before the door opens. And so I feel that
in sort of credit to myself and those who were
around me that my transition phase happened long before the
door opened, and so when the door opened, I felt
very prepared to just attempt to just now really be free.
(33:53):
Because a common theme was when you got there, some
older guy kind of gave you some like advice. As
an example, you have five years years to do, and
the advice was, for the first four years, just kind
of hang out, man, you know you're in prison, Just relax,
just play some cards and shit, and if you know
you want to play dominoes, go work out, right. But
the last year, man, like the last year, like, you know,
go to church, or if you're smoking, stop smoking, get
(34:15):
it together, right, And I thought that was pretty good advice. Shit,
why not, man? What else you got to lose? Right?
And at some point I realized that that even though
it was a lifer, that advice applied to me, and
it was against suspending complete reality here, but it was like,
you know what, I'm making all these efforts to try
to get my case hurt and try to get some
attention here. Let me work on me too, Let me
(34:36):
work on this idea that I need to prepare myself.
And so fast forward, I went a month after I
got out with some good friends Scott Wooden and who
ended up living with in Mannon Beach and his wife
Jeanie would. I enrolled at a great university in Los Angeles,
Loyola Marymount University. So I went from and I'm sort
of funny here, but I went from one prison to
another because it had all the elements that I needed.
(34:58):
And it felt like for a guy like me, I
needed the structure that I had been accustomed to. And
it's not the put down, but it was the university
gave me the camaraderie, the friendship. There was no Bob Wire,
but shit, I had deadlines, man. I had to show up,
you know. And so it went from a very negative
environment that I was into a very very loving and
encouraging space, which was the school right along with just
(35:20):
sort of being active and being activism. How could I
not support the Innocence Project and ways the end of
death penalty in California and other social issues around the state.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
And that's just gotten a whole lot worse with the
speed up to death penalty referendum that passed in California,
which is absolutely unimaginable and unconscionable that people would have
been terrible because well, essentially they voted for guaranteeing that
we're going to execute a lot of innocent people because
the changes to the law are devastating to people who
(35:51):
have claims of innocence. It's exactly what it sounds like.
It's to speed up to death penalty. Yep, none of
it makes any sense. But voices like yours and all
the cure that is the media is really driving interest
in this issue, this issue of innocence, this issue of
mass incarceration and other related criminal justice problems that are
(36:12):
sadly uniquely American problems because other countries are so much
more evolved than we are. You know, it's incredible, Frankie.
We have five percent of the world's population at twenty
five percent of the world's prison population. The point I'm
making is that when we process people at this rate,
where we just keep feeding this prison industrial complex, they're
(36:32):
going to be mistakes, They're going to be more Frankie Correos,
we have to reverse the entire way of thinking that
we have and start to become a more progressive society
in terms of the way we treat the people who
are really the least among us, people who find themselves
in the situation that you are in, not a wealthy
person by any means, and then just being ground.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Up by the system.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
I want to get to last words because I always
like to give our guests the opportunity to air anything
that you can think of that you want to share
with our audience. You've been through so much, You've come
through sounding, looking, feeling, acting like a person who knows stuff.
You have such a calm demeanor and such a positive outlook.
(37:13):
It's almost unnerving to be honest with you, you know.
I mean for a minute there you were making prison
sound like it was like, yeah, you know whatever this
many years that man, I'm like, it's just.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
You know, thank you Jason for these final words here
that I think that for many people listening, and people
even in my life now think, you know, like this dude,
you know this optimism stuff is he's taken to a
different level here, right. And you know, I wish that
I can sort of either write a book or explain
how I made it through and how these things weren't
able to penetrate my armor here. But I suffer I
can't minimize that there are things and moments where I
(37:47):
might hear a song that might trigger true sadness about
what I'd experienced as a whole, about the things that
were lost, about you know, all the what ifs. Right
and very quickly I made it a point to remember
what anger and what revenge and what hatred does to someone.
Tell you even deeper here that when I was in prison,
(38:07):
I think about those who had owned that, who had
owned the anger and the revenge and the hatred, and
I saw these men that were being blinded by it,
and I don't want to be that. And here we
are in a room full of statues, this beautiful art
that predates all of us here, and I think about
if that was who I'd become in prison, I would
I wouldn't be here one and two. If I had
(38:29):
traces of that and I was out on some level,
I would still be on the inside. I would be
physically free, but the rage that would be living within
me would be like a prison all to itself. And
so I mean, I'm happy that I can make those
connections of my own existence for my own personal healing
and as a move forward to my life. And speaking
of that life, I'm happily married, I have three amazing children,
(38:51):
I have theo Akiva and Frieda, my wife, FT is
amazing and life is great. And I think it's a
responsibility for not only myself my family to take on
this responsibility of giving people the pleasure of experiencing the
cognitive dissonance, which is you are around or you hear
and you experience something. It suspends you from and it
(39:13):
shocks you into like this is not what I expected
from a guy who had been in prison for all
these years. And it challenges you your own beliefs, your
own things you've been carrying with you. This psychological moment
says wow, like I need to change what I used
to think about those who were on the inside. And
so it's a responsibility for me and other exenreies, I
feel that to awaken that side of all of us
(39:33):
to say, let's not do that, Let's not do that
to each other. And when someone says, and it's not
a joke anymore that they are innocent, let's listen because
we know many experiences and many stories that are tragic
that we've been listening to this whole weekend of If
only someone really listened and cared.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, and everybody out there has the power to make
a difference. I always encourage our audience to get involved,
and it's great to see that many of them are,
I know, and hearing story. For me again, it puts
gratitude in my attitude. It makes all those little wham
wains that we all have in life just seem so
much easier to deal with and so much to surface
(40:13):
noise right when somebody like you can come and have
this sort of aura. And it's amazing, Frankie. You know,
the fact is, to any of us in the movement
and to other people on the outside, it's a source
of never ending wonder and awe that every single Xonery
I've ever met has some version of that type of
(40:35):
higher consciousness that you've managed to achieve. They have this
state of almost like a state of grace that is
it's just inspiring, that's all it is. And so I
appreciate you taking the time to share your experience, strength
and hope with us. And again, I'm just going to
have to take a moment to process this, and then
(40:56):
I'm going to go and get busy and get back
to work on helping others.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
We've had a very.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Unique experience because we've been recording the podcast in an
idyllic environment. We're actually in a room and a home
overlooking the Pacific Ocean on a cliff, surrounded by the
most incredible African art. So I want to thank our hosts,
Bill LaRock and Michelle Chicarelli The Rock for having us
here and allowing us to record in their beautiful home.
(41:29):
Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
It really helps.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
And I'm a proud donor to the Ennosis Project, and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
(41:56):
to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
faceboo book at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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