Robin "Rocky" Myers: Road to Redemption Ch. 4 - The Long Weekend

All the witnesses have testified, and it's time for the jury to deliberate. They certainly don't agree, but very consciously choose their verdict as well as their sentencing recommendation. Six months later during the actual sentencing, Rocky and his team are met with a huge surprise. Then, things seem to only get worse during the appeals process.

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Music by:
Kai Engel
"Daemones"
Blooper music by:
Art of Escapism
"Coal Miners"
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

Additional Sources:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/supreme-court-must-eradicate-judicial-override-in-death-penalty-cases
The Death Penalty in Alabama: Judge Override (eji.org)
Eighth Amendment | U.S. Constitution | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (cornell.edu)
www.clemencyforrockymyers.wordpress.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey everyone, it's Jen and this is Lindsay, and welcome
back to Corpus Delikxai and Allergy season.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
We both I can tell you've got it too, and
so do I and I actually got my first COVID
shot today. I've got that on top of it. Just
you know, the headache and stuff from that. So we
sound great.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah, so super apologies.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
We're going to make it through, but we could not
resist recording tonight through all the obstacles that has happened
in the past couple of days. But we want to
get started with chapter four the Long Weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Just to kind of set the stage here. This is
the last official episode of the story. However, we do
have two more episodes after this about Rocky Story. On Wednesday,
March the thirty first, we're gonna have the live Q
and a stream, which we're going to post on our

(01:25):
social media pages the day of It will be at
seven pm Central on Zoom. We are going to actually
record that too, so please come if you can, because
we need questions and conversation and we're going to kind
of discuss it and pick it apart together. But if
you can't make it, we are going to record that
and then after that we have an interview episode. We're

(01:49):
super excited about it. We are going to hear directly
from Rocky's lawyer and investigator, the current Ones, his son
le Andrew, and drumroll please, Robin, Rocky Meers himself.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
We worked really hard and we were able to get
this nailed down. So we're super excited, and this week's
episode we're going to be talking about the aftermath. Now,
Rocky's team did a great job with closing arguments, no
question about it. They were incredibly thorough, They presented alternate possibilities,

(02:25):
they were quite convincing. Meanwhile, the prosecution flat out said
on several occasions that there were certain questions that they
could not provide answers to, and it was much less
thorough and it took a lot less time.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
I gotta be honest, when we were going through these documents,
based on closing statements alone, there was just no question
in my mind. It just didn't even seem comparable. But basically,
the prosecution goes on this long explanation about what direct

(03:04):
evidence is and what circumstantial evidence is, and direct evidence
is going to be your DNA, your you know I
can prove I was here at this place type stuff,
and circumstantial evidence is well, it's just based on the circumstance.
It could be explained another way. It might look bad,
but technically it's not hardcore DNA, no question about it.

(03:28):
So the prosecutor flat out says, if miss Dutton had
gotten a good look at the man who stabbed her
in the side, now miss Dutton as the cousin, remember,
it would have been direct evidence she would have seen
her attacker. But he says she didn't though, so it's circumstantial.
So he goes on to say, these are kind of

(03:49):
his points here, and this is a quote. In this case,
I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, the defendant had
the opportunity to commit the offense. He was across the
even by his own words, he was across the street
at the time of missus Tucker's death. He was across
the street. He said he knew Miss Tucker, that he

(04:09):
had been to the door. And I submit to you
it is reasonable to assume he could have been by
looking in the TV set there at the front door.
He had the opportunity, he had motive, he had a
bad drug habit, and then later he goes on to
say he was identified by two of the three people
in the car as he was leaving Miss Tucker's residence

(04:32):
with a stereo or the VCR under his arm.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Now, let's just pause real quick, because he said he
was across the street, even by his own words, at
the time of Miss Tucker's death. So he was across
the street. He was never in the house. His own
words is misconstrued here because he's saying Rocky even told
you he was across the street. Well, no crap, Sherlock,

(04:57):
because he lives there on the other side of the right.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
He's always across the street. He lives across the street.
He was there lots of times. It just it doesn't
seem very solid. But this point he brings up about
two of the three people in the car. Let's provide
an update on this real quick. This is a good
time to do this because we did come across one
piece of new information.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
So if you.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Think back, there were the three people in the car.
Tyrone Elliott is the one who came forward first. He
was slated to get that reward money. He was in
the car with two other people and they say they
see Rocky. However, Tanisha Irvin is the one who yells
out the window and says, hey, you stole that thing.

(05:41):
She sees him, but she is the only one who
cannot identify Rocky. Well, the new information that we found
is she had actually provided a sketch. She provided a
sketch to police. So this woman was certain enough about

(06:02):
what this person looked like to provide a sketch, but
that it was not Rocky, which I think is a
big deal. If she was given all this detail to
the police about who she saw and all that, and
then when she saw Rocky when they said is this hymn,
she could have been able to say, yes, that was him.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
So there was a sketch involved. Also, she said.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
You know, their story is that they were on their
way to the what they call the Iranian Store to
get alcohol. They saw who they say is Rocky on
the way go to the Iranian Store. It's closed. They
go straight to sixth to the shothouse. At least that
is what Tyrone Elliott says. Keep in mind, the one

(06:47):
who's getting the reward money, Tanisha Irvin actually says that
there was another stop in there. They went to the
Iranian store. Then they stopped at another store, got alcohol there,
and took it to the shothouse, which throws the whole
timeline off even more. The other two who said for

(07:07):
sure they saw Rocky just conveniently left that out. But
the one who's saying, no, we did a sketch, I
don't know who it is. And not only that, there
was an extra stop in there, we stopped another spot.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
It throws the whole thing off.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Now let's go over to the defense side. During their
closing argument, Now, he made some really good points, and
he mentioned that Mammy Detton's car was parked outside, which
Rocky would have seen, and he would have known that
there was an unknown person in her house. Would he
have taken the risk of going into a house to

(07:44):
steal something when there's another person that could be could
not be someone who was big or muscular, or someone
that would give him, you know, resistance. And Rocky knew
she did not have a husband, so when she was
heard saying, you know, my husband's in the other room,

(08:05):
there would be no point to that because he knew
that she was a widow.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
And just going.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
Back, there wasn't any skin or hair from Rocky at
the crime scene. He had you know, medical care for it,
and it hurt him. That's why he wore those long sleeves.
But those long sleeves aren't going to keep it all in,
especially when you're stabbing somebody, because that's a force, and
you know, you're just not going to keep it all.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
Inside the shirt.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
And it's on his hands too.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
You know, we've talked about this a lot about the clothes,
and in their closing argument they said, you know, reiterated
that Rocky was wearing dark clothes and he was seen
in those clothes, and the killer is seen wearing white clothes,
and Rocky's also seen wearing those same dark clothes after
the murder, So you know, would he had put on

(08:56):
his dark clothes, left the house, changed outside of a window,
walked in, committed the murder, and walked out and put
back on the clothes. That doesn't add up. And the
people who saw him that released from nine thirty to
the hospital, the one set Lindsay was just talking about,
you know, their son had the asthma tag. They got

(09:18):
checked out of the hospital and they said it was
later than what they said. They said it was eleven,
and it turns out to be nine thirty, so we
have that huge time discrepancy there, you know, talking through
Rocky wouldn't have needed to go up sixth That alley
is dark, it's wooded, it's going behind houses. It it's

(09:43):
the perfect getaway.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Absolutely, if you're trying to stay under the radar, becase
you just committed a crime, why wouldn't you go there?

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Why would he go out to the front when the
shothouse is closer through the alley.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
The next point that they hit in the closing arguments,
because again they're trying to recap everything to hit home
with the jury. They talked about how when the police
told Rocky that they were dusting the VCR for Prince,
he admitted to selling it. He's like, okay, you're right,
my Prince might be on it. Got to tell you
about the VCR. But when they told him they dusted

(10:20):
the house and the phone for Prince, he didn't offer
any reason for why they might find his prince there.
He didn't say, okay, I did it, or he could
have easily covered for himself and said, okay, I was
in the house one time, but it was last month.
He didn't do any of that, which he easily could
have and then lastly, a lot of the people who

(10:41):
said originally that it was Cool Breeze and then switched
New Breeze for a long time, they all could have
potentially had a reason to, you know, cover for this
person they've known a long time. And this includes Tyrone Elliott,
who we've said multiple times was told about the reward
and he was the person on the books to receive

(11:02):
the reward if Rocky was found guilty. So that's what
the two sides hit, which, just to reiterate, Rocky's team
goes through, point by point, here's why he could not
have committed this crime. The prosecution is like, eh, it's
all circumstantial evidence. There's some stuff I can't answer. But

(11:23):
he had a motive. He was on drugs, and that's
that's the two arguments here. So now it's time for
jury deliberations. The jury is given their instructions, but before
they are sent off, they are told to hurry up.
They are on a time frame. They are under a
time crunch because it is now January nineteen ninety four.

(11:48):
It's the Friday before Martin Luther King Junior Weekend, and
everyone was anxious to get their long weekend started. So
they're like, you guys are going to go in there.
We're all waiting on you. We've got a barbecue to
go to. It's Martin Luther King Junior weekend. Let's get
this show on the road.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Not to mention that this is a death penalty case,
there's not many of them in Decatur. In fact, this
one was so rare. The judge borrowed the manual on
how to do a death case from the defense. So
you should not rush a jury whatsoever. But I never

(12:27):
And why you think that the story is closing or
getting close to the end because the trial's over, You
would be very mistaken. Now, remember how we alluded to
the rushing of trial back in episode two. Well, here
it comes. May Puckett is actually one of these jurors.
Puckett says, coming into the deliberation room, several of the

(12:49):
jurors were set on Rocky being guilty. They were absolutely convinced,
not surprising as they sat through the trial, but they
didn't seem willing to even entertain other theories, other notions
of their information. They came into the trial thinking that
he was guilty. They sat through the trial, and now

(13:11):
they were just ready to cast their vote and get out. Now.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Unfortunately, some of the other jurors hadn't taken the trial
quite as seriously as may Pucket had, and she says
that at least one of the other jurors fell asleep
several times during the trial and they had to nudge
this person to wake them up. I mean, the person
is in charge of a death penalty case and is

(13:37):
sleeping in the middle of the courtroom. But may Pucket
was not at all convinced of Rocky's guilt. She said
that she just never had that aha moment, and there
were two other jurors who agreed with her. So they
get in there, they're talking it all out. You've got
some who are like, this man's guilty. I know it

(14:00):
because I slept through it. And then you've got three
others who are like no. So there's gonna be lots
of back and forth, lots of discussion. And as we
know here just from listening to this, there are so
many people, so many locations, different accounts, timelines, it's hard
to keep up with. So at one point the jurors say, hey,

(14:20):
we need the transcripts, we need to review them, we
need to clarify we've.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Got some questions.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
When to make sure we're covering all of our bases.
They were told, no, it would be too much trouble. Again,
it's Friday, We're ready to go. It's towards the end
of the day. No, it would take too long to
do all that. You just told the jurors, which, by
the way, in the constitution, you are entitled to a

(14:46):
jury trial. These are the people in charge of your
life in this case, whether you live or die, and
you are telling them, no, they can't review the.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Frickin information that they need to make a decision.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
What think about, Jen, The number of times that we
have pulled up these documents and these transcripts and gone
through it and found things that we didn't realize or
that clicked later. And we've been working on this for
a month and a half now. They this trial took
one week. One week and they were not even allowed

(15:22):
to go back and look at it.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
This is beyond me. Why the evidence timelines and court
transcripts maybe not court transcripts, I get that. Why can't
they bring that into the deliberation room. You're asking people,
twelve people to go off their memory.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Of a case that lasted a week.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Not only that, but to hurry up and do it so,
not only that, they come back in after they've been
in there for a while talking and they say, hey,
uh TikTok, hurry up. I know y'all asked us for
some documents. We're not going to give you that. Go
back in there and talk it through. Okay, you're talking
it through, but you're taking too long. Everyone's out here

(16:04):
waiting on you. We're ready to go. I mean court deliberations,
jury deliberations. It's not abnormal for them to take days
upon days.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
What are we doing here?

Speaker 1 (16:15):
So now we've got three jurors who believe Rocky is
not guilty and he's up for possible death sentence, but
they're not having any luxwaying the others who are ready
to condemn him to the death penalty, and they're being
pressured to get this done quickly. So they got a
few choices here, Okay. One, they can vote not guilty,
knowing that it will result in a mistrial and they're

(16:38):
already outnumbered, and Rocky ran the risk going back into
a second trial with a jury that felt like he
was guilty and he would get them death penalty. Two,
they can vote guilty and recommend death since they know
they're outnumbered anyways, or they can vote guilty and try
a way to get the other niners to at least

(17:00):
recommend life without parole. So what they are faced with
are three choices. Both they're leading to the death penalty
possibly the first one if they do a mistrial, it's
a gamble. You don't know what you're going to get
on that second trial. You know, the least of the
horrors is sentencing him to life without parole.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Because they knew there was no way they were going
to be able to convince them to just find him
not guilty.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
It just wasn't going to happen, so.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
They opted to do the third. They said, look, we
think this man didn't do it. We don't want him
to end up in another Jersey's hands. We'll vote guilty,
but we're going to recommend life without parole. After a
lot of talking about his family and kids and how
they needed their father, they all agree that they would
vote guilty and recommend life without parole.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
May Puckett said in an article that appeared in the Nation,
we were dealing with ourselves trying to come up with
a way to save his life.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
That's what it boiled down to.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
So make particular note here that that is their goal
is to say, Okay, you know what, at the end
of the day, guilty not guilty. We just don't want
him to be executed. They did manage to get everybody
on board with the fact that there are at least
a lot of questions in this case, so can we
please just at least settle for life without parole. They

(18:25):
had a very specific purpose in doing that. They come
back to deliver the results and they say guilty. At
this point, Rocky is shocked. Rocky genuinely comes in here
believing he's going back to New Jersey. He's like, I'm
gonna leave Alabama, go back home, and he's he's shocked
because he's found guilty. Then they present their recommendation for sentencing,

(18:49):
which is life without parole. So they go off to
enjoy their long weekend. They're all going to go but
here is this man, a man of color, mind you,
on Martin Luther King Junior weekend, who has just been sentenced.
But now that he's been found guilty, this is the
best case scenario. It's the best he can hope for

(19:09):
life without parole. At this point, after.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
The jury had come back with the guilty verdict, everyone
goes off on their long weekend. Well, Rocky is waiting
for sentencing. They're not quick about it. They're going to
wait six months. That's half a year to say, you
know what, go face a judge. So now we come
to where all of the family gets to go in

(19:33):
front of the judge and they get to talk about
Rocky and try to see what they can do on
the sentencing behalf. Now the first step we hear from
Rocky's now ex wife, his oldest son, Leandrew, who was fourteen,
and Rocky had other children who are ten, nine, and seven.

(19:54):
Now this is from Leandrew, and I'll.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Be the attorney again. Jen can be le Andrew again.
Leandre is fourteen years old at the time, and he
shows up in court for his father, which he chose
to do. So this is the exchange. Do you love your.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Father, yes, sir?

Speaker 3 (20:14):
Do you miss him yes?

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Sir?

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Do you understand that no matter what happens because of
the conviction he has entered against him here, he's not
coming home.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
You know that, don't you?

Speaker 1 (20:25):
I know that?

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Are you prepared though to ask the jury to let
your father live. Yes, sir, when your daddy got into drugs,
did it change him a little bit?

Speaker 1 (20:35):
It didn't change him towards us. I guess it changed
him toward himself. He still loved us the same way.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
So that takes a lot of guts for a fourteen
year old kid. And he told his mom what can
I do to help my father? And he chose to
go on the stand and say let my father live.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
So then Debbie.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Myers, who is Rocky's wife now ex wife, but wife
at the time, she comes up and they ask her
why the other children weren't there, and she says they're
younger and it would have been really.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Hard on them. She basically says that.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
You know, le Andrew really felt the need and the
desire to do this, and she talks about how it
affected the other children and affected their grades in school,
and she says, Rocky's never been violent. I knew he
was on drugs. I thought he just needed help, and
ever since he'd been in prison, he seemed to be

(21:30):
back to his old self. And she's really just saying
he's a good guy. There's no reason I could see
him having done this, and he's just a good guy.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Rocky comes back up. He says that while he doesn't
agree with the decision, he respects that the jury and
the attorneys did their job. He says that since he's
been in prison, he's been reflecting on his life decisions,
and he was determined not to let anyone else make
the same mistakes some of the other inmates Papa rock
because he would give advice and try to help him out.

(22:04):
He also wanted to be able to continue to do
so for others, and this includes his own family and
for overseas friends. Typically what happens is that the jury
presents a recommendation and that's it.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
Well except for.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
This judge, who decides to invoke a little thing called
judicial override. They present life without parole. Rocky and his
team are relieved, but then the judge says, no, I'm
going to override your decision. Robin Rocky Myers will be
sentenced to death by electrocution. Now again from the article

(22:41):
in the Nation, it's quoted saying he said that the
jury had been too emotional in choosing not to recommend
the death penalty, and described Rocky as a threat to
society first and foremost. He has never been violent. He
doesn't have any previous violent offenses filed against him. He

(23:03):
did make a poor decision about drugs, but there are
a lot of people in society that are unfortunately addicted
to drugs as well. It doesn't make you a murderer.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
What really just boils my blood.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Here is what we said about the jury and how
careful and strategic they were when making their decision and
their recommendation. And it was made with specific care to
save this man's life. And you know, if he did this,
our decision will still hold him accountable. But if he

(23:38):
didn't do this, we're at least not condemning him to death.
That was their whole purpose.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
This is the very first death sentence case this judge
has ever had. This is the very first one. He
didn't even know how to do it. He had to
ask for help from the defense. This is his first one.
So was he so set on exercising that right to
indent someone to death that it overrode his judgment in

(24:09):
the sentencing.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Let's talk about this judicial override for a moment, because
basically we know now that he came in and said,
here's the recommendation.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
No, I'm I'm going to one up you.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Basically, So clearly it can't be that common, right, It's
not something that happens often if you're just gonna throw
out what the jury says right wrong. So at the time,
again this is nineteen ninety four, only three states still
allowed it, Alabama, Florida, and Delaware. But out of the three,

(24:43):
Alabama was the most.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Lenient with it.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Imagine that it wasn't really often used in Florida or Delaware.
They had a lot of criteria that had to actually
be met in order to use it, and then everywhere
else it was outlawed. It had actually been outlaw everywhere
else since the death penalty was abolished and then brought
back in nineteen seventy six. So, according to the Equal

(25:10):
Justice Initiative, since nineteen seventy six, Alabama judges have overridden
jury verdicts one hundred and twelve times. Judges have authority
to override life or death verdicts, but ninety one percent
of overrides have overruled jury verdicts to life to impose

(25:30):
the death penalty. So they're not doing it the other way.
They're not saying you sentenced them to death, We're going
to give you mercy, they're doing it the other way.
It goes on to say judicial override is a significant
contributor to Alabama's high death sentencing rate. Nearly twenty percent
of the people currently on death row were sentenced to

(25:52):
death through judicial override. So these twenty percent of our
death row prisoners weren't even supposed to be there by
the jury, who, by the constitution, is supposed to be
the one deciding their fate.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
I can see it if it was a horrific violent
crime like a mass shooting or children a smile killer, yeah,
murderer like something like that. But for circumstantial evidence, with
no DNA, no physical evidence being linked to the defendant,

(26:29):
it should have never have gotten this far. He should
have never even been in trial. To be honest, he
should have never been charged with it.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
But I mean, every step of the way, it's just
a complete cluster. And there is actually a list of
people who judicial override was used on.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Y'all get ready for this.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
So you've got Rocky's name of the list of one
hundred and twelve people it's been used on, Robin Rocky Myers.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
Two below him, Judith Anne Neely.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Who was later granted clemency by the way.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Which actually this will not be the last time we
reference Judith, Freak and Neely. And as of November of
twenty twenty, there are still thirty five people on death
row due to judicial override, one of course being Rocky.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
So in Rocky's case, the judge was about to be
up for guess what, reelection. There is a big freaking
surprise right there, and of course this is his first
death penalty case, and he wants to show the people
of Alabama that he is tough on crime. Well, there
is a correlation with judges using the override before reelection.

(27:47):
In fact, in nineteen ninety five, there was a push
to make it more strict, like Florida and Delaware. It
went all the way to the Supreme Court. Associate Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor said it would be mi managing. Let
that sink in everywhere else it is completely illegal.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, forty seven states have outlawed it.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Two others have a strict set of criteria.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
But we don't want to freaking micro manage you what
I know.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
So Rocky's now on death row.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
What's next?

Speaker 2 (28:23):
And we're gonna find out right after this break, Okay,
welcome back from the break. So what's next, Well, there's
still a lot to come. So Rocky is now on
death row. Debbie divorces him as she wants to move
on with her life. Rocky actually told her to Rocky

(28:45):
was like, you.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
Need to move on.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
And with death penalty cases, appeals start. Basically immediately Rocky's
trial lawyers, so this is John Mays and Larry Madison,
they filed an appeal which was rejected. One note here,
John Mays was actually infuriated by the judicial override and

(29:09):
he offered to represent Rocky pro bono if they would
give him a new trial. And he argued basically everything
that we just talked about, but alas it was legal
at the time, so it was denied. So then starts
the habeas corpus process, and this is where you get
the chance to fight the process that got you here

(29:32):
any new evidence. And Casey, who is Rocky's current attorney,
says that one good way to explain it is that
direct appeals are record based, and if it didn't happen
on the record, you can't talk about it. So let's
say a juror is having an affair with a prosecutor,

(29:54):
you can't talk about it.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
But here you can raise all.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Sorts of issues. You can complain about the lawyers. You
can bring up whatever you want.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
So you can't bring up the fact that one of
your star witnesses was about to being about to boom
the defendant.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
If it ain't on the record, you can't say it.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Well.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
At the time, Alabama didn't automatically appoint someone for you
for this process, so you had to pretty much go
out and find your own. So in nineteen ninety eight
there's this young attorney named Earl Swartz who said that
he would represent Rocky pro bonos since it was a
death penalty case. Swartz worked on Rocky's case for several years,

(30:36):
and then in two thousand and four, Rocky gets a
letter in the mail. It was a ton of legallys
in it, so it was really hard for him to read.
He couldn't understand it, so he had another inmate read
it to him and kind of explain it to him.
Turns out Rocky's post conviction appeal had been denied, so
federal habeas petition needed to be filed if he was

(30:59):
going to continue to fight. This had to be filed
within a certain timeframe. The problem is Rockies hadn't been filed.
It wasn't done.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
That was it.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
So his next step was the execution date. But here's
the question, why didn't Earl Schwartz get it done.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
He was on a timeframe.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
This had to be filed if he was going to
continue the fight or the date for execution as set.
Earl Schwartz ditched Rocky. He just quit. He did not
tell anyone. He didn't tell Rocky, he did not inform
the court, he did not tell anyone. He just left.
He just dropped his client. And he admits it. He says,

(31:45):
I got too busy, I got too overwhelmed. And in
two thousand and five he was issued a censure for it,
which is basically, your name gets put on a naughty list.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
You don't lose your license, nothing like that. You're like
published in the lawyer newspaper or something, as you know,
slap on the wrist. But this was a critical time
to drop Rocky because this is the process where you're
really fighting. You're looking for new evidence, and they did.
They got new evidence. So let's go back for just

(32:17):
a moment. You remember our friend Marselle Ewing, he was
the one who was arrested for stealing the car. He said, yes,
I saw Robin Myers sell the VCR. I'm one of
Rocky's friends. And we keep saying you can't trust him. Well,
he signs a new statement. He comes forward and he's
got something to say.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
He says in his original statement that you know what,
it just wasn't truthful. He did not see who brought
in the VCR to the shot house that night, and
he says, quote, I did not see who brought the
VCR to the shothouse that night. Detective Boyd told me
that he would take the stolen car that I have
been driving and just leave it by the side of

(32:58):
the road. The cop who had arrested him said, you
say it, it's Rocky, and I will take the stolen
car and leave it on the side of the road.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
This is basically I guess you would call it witness tampering.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
And if you go back, think about all.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Of the stories that don't add up, Think about the
people who were saying this all along, Think about how
we kept saying, you know, can you trust what people
are saying. You've got a guy who just came forward
to claim a five thousand dollars reward. His timeline doesn't
match up. We find out now he stopped at a
whole other place on the way, and the police are

(33:44):
now we know, telling people that will drop this off
your record. Which keep in mind when Butch and Roadrunner
we're taking that VCR or were they We don't know,
but one story says that Butch and Roadrunner we're taking
the VCR. Roadrunners said that the police had told Butch

(34:05):
that they would make their felonies go away.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
And we said, well, we don't know if they said
that or not. Hell, maybe they did.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
And wasn't Tyrone's brother a police officer.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
He sure was.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
But there's two problems with this because new evidence, right,
witness tampering.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
That's big, but.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
One, Rocky admitted to selling the VCR, so it didn't
change anything just because Marzelle didn't see him sell it.
Rocky said, I sold it. But the bigger problem is
is maybe the information isn't new, but the whole structure
of how they conducted that investigation is now in question.

(34:46):
But the second problem is Rocky still missed this deadline.
It's still this whole appeal still had to be filed
by a certain date and it wasn't done. Whatever the reason,
it wasn't done, so nothing they got nothing.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Now, back to Earl Swarts, since the state at the
time didn't have to provide this council, they couldn't do anything.
All Swarts had offered to represent Rocky, So because he
was not appointed by the court, there's really nothing that
they can do now and beyond that. According to the
article in the Nation, the State of Alabama argued that

(35:23):
swarts failings were irrelevant, contending that the burden had been
on Rocky to stay on top of his case, and
the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed.
Now this is going to be a huge sticking point
for later on. Now, remember, Rocky can read at a
third grade level. At this point, somebody had to read
him that letter. So how on earth is he going

(35:47):
to be able to stay on top of his case.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
We've seen some of these documents. Jen and I both
have college degrees, and it was even challenging, kind of
hard to understand.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
What on earth?

Speaker 2 (36:01):
And Rocky gave a quote to that article in the
Nation where he said a lot of people think that
people on death row know the law. They know this
or that, but I don't. I give all my trust
to my attorneys and stuff. If I could read the
law in the books and learn and study, I would,
but I'm not able to do that. I'm not a

(36:21):
learnable type of person. Again, much more to come on
that soon.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
So as far as the legal avenue goes, this is
pretty much done. Rocky only has one last hope and
that is the Governor of Alabama, Kivy. After this, two
new people enter the case. This is Casey Keaton, the attorney,
and Sarah Ramana, the investigator. These two women are still

(36:47):
on his case today and we have been so fortunate
to have spoken to them several times about the case.
They are compassionate, they're smart, they're committed, and I mean,
to be honest hand respect.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
I mean, they've dealt with us. They've talked to us
and answered all of our questions. So yeah, Casey and
Sarah come in and they see all the pitfalls in
this case immediately. But they have one approach that no
one has fought yet. Surprisingly, we've alluded to it a
lot in this story, and it's about to become a

(37:22):
big deal. So the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution talks
about cruel and unusual punishment and what qualifies as such,
and it states that an intellectually disabled person cannot be
put to death. So they're like, hmm, I wonder if
there's something here. So they get to digging, and as

(37:46):
it turns out, there is a ton of documentation to
support this. They found old teachers of Rockies who were
able to show that he had been in learning disability classes.
They find all these tests that have been administered to him. Literally,
there are probably thirty or forty documents of test results

(38:08):
in classes and grades that go to support this.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
The very first one, which is a form from a
special education teacher, flat out says Rocky's records state that
he was functioning as quote mental defective, and that was
just the term they used during that time. She specifies
that when he was eleven, sixth grade, his reading comprehension

(38:32):
was a third grade level. Other subjects were as low
as the first grade, and it didn't seem as if
they were really ever going up by much. It was
a tremendous struggle for him. They had his IQ tested
and it put him in the second percentile, which is
usually anything under fifth percentile is considered intellectually disabled. Now

(38:59):
another shows were a school psychologist gave Rocky an IQ
test on which he received a sixty four. Now, the
line for an intellectual disability is seventy five and it
has to show before the age of eighteen, which this
clearly did. In fact, they found several test scores, so

(39:19):
all together we got at age eleven was seventy five,
right on the line. At the age of twelve he
gets a sixty four, a verbal IQ score of seventy one,
and a performance IQ score of sixty four. Now, doctor
Loreo reported mister Myers was mentally defective based on this

(39:41):
test performance say that's not good enough. So now we're
at the age of sixteen, his FSIQ seventy one, at
PIQ of seventy four, and at VIQ of seventy. So
what they're doing with these tests these are comprehension IQ tests,
so they take a life look at reading, writing, comprehension,

(40:03):
and application. It's a test where they start off really
basic and they get higher and higher, and when you
start missing them, they go back a little bit and
then go forward again, just to kind of was it
that one question or wasn't many questions? So they're looking
at your ability to articulate, repeat, read, and comprehend. These

(40:27):
are very extensive tests. They are not just one sitting
and done again.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
All of these are all before the age of eighteen,
and they are all within the range. The range is
seventy five. The highest one we've got here is seventy five,
and the oldest age is sixteen, So he is as
of right now, there's no question. They even talked to
tons of people who knew him, friends, family, and a

(40:54):
lot of them talked about some of the things that
we referred to in episode one. They said he has
trouble understanding directions in sports, sometimes lacked common sense, which
one of his brothers said that he almost drank bleach
one time because he thought it was a drink, and
that he once rode a bike down a hill knowing
that the brakes were broken.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
So just things like that.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
And then his now ex wife, Debbie, signed affidavits talking
about how she had to fill out job applications for
him because he had difficulty remembering details.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
And she also talks about how she.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Had to control the money. And we talked about this
on that night where he went out and he didn't
have money, and his mother in law called Debbie and said,
do you want me to give him money? Because he
was bad with math and he couldn't keep up with it.
He would overspend, but he didn't even realize it. Also,
they kind of hinted at the possibility of a genetic

(41:51):
component because Debbie said that one of the children was
in special education classes as well. And also Rocky was
not the only one of his siblings who was in
special education classes. So it's not like he just didn't
try in school or he didn't show up to school
and that affected as learning. It seems like there's actually

(42:14):
a genetic component to it.

Speaker 5 (42:17):
Now.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
A childhood friend said that he realized Rockey had trouble
reading growing up with him, and he is quoted as saying,
this girl, Bridget used to have parties and we would
go quite often, you know, maybe once a month. And
once we were there, there was a note on the door,
and since he was the first one on the porch,
we asked him, there's no music playing, the lights were off.

(42:37):
What did it say.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
He said that they.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Were not having it, and then one of the other
guys ran up and said that they went out to
get chips and soda and they'd be back whatever time
it was. So you know, there's this note in this door.
He goes up, he's not really reading it, he's not
understanding it. So when another friend goes up and reads it,
they're like, no, the party's still happening. It just they
went to get refreshments.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
So this is awesome news. Right, We've got an avenue
to travel down. So they present it. But then doctor
Glenn King evaluated Rocky in two thousand and six and
reported an IQ score.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
Of eighty four.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Now, remember our line is seventy five, and it has
you have to see signs of it before age eighteen. Well,
in two thousand and five he's in his what forties,
I guess thirties maybe, and he gets in eighty four.
Of course, you've got four other tests showing he's at
or below the line before the age of eighteen. But

(43:45):
here's this one by George saying that he got in
eighty four, So he's not intellectually disabled.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
That's they said, Nope, he doesn't qualify.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
So let's pause on the intellectual debate for just a second,
because in the meantime, in twenty twelve, the execution date
is scheduled for Rocky. Since his trial, the electrocution chair
is no longer in use and they're able to move
to lethal injection. He and several other prisoners fileow a
suit arguing the safety of it. A state of execution

(44:19):
was granted to Rocky, so his new team decided to
get him evaluated again in twenty thirteen. Because they know
the score of eighty four has to be an outlier,
they get an expert to administer several tests to determine
the IQ. Now important note two of the tests they
couldn't interpret because his reading was so low for these

(44:43):
to be valid indicators of his functioning. He received a
seventy three, So we're.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
Still below the line.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
We've still got This is the sixth test, five of
which are at or below the line. So why the
big outlier ties score? Where did this eighty four come from? Well,
the person who performed the one in twenty thirteen made
a lot of notes and said that there were some
problems from that test that was administered where he got

(45:14):
the eighty four. So for one, he was using a
different version of the test than all the others. Number two,
there's a thing called the Flynn effect and The Flynn
effect concerns the fact that full scale IQ test scores
have been shown to increase an average of zero point

(45:34):
three points every year from the time the test was
originally given, So the test kind of becomes outdated over time.
Because of that, you have to give them the new
methods because you're learning over time. You're learning how the
test is over time. So the more time that has
gone by since the test was normed, as they call it,

(45:58):
the less accurate the results are going to be. Also,
he relied solely on Rocky's self report to assess his
adaptive functioning. Well, of course, you may not necessarily realize
that you're not doing something the same way someone else is.
So if you say, hey, Jen, are you good at

(46:21):
I don't know knitting, you can say yeah, because you
tried it at one time and it.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
But if you ask someone who's been doing it for
twenty years, they may say something different. And this is
why you're supposed to ask other people, how does he
react in these type of situations? How does he do
with this? Because when you talk to his wife, he
couldn't keep up with the money and all that, and
then the last issue is he was not assessed in

(46:48):
a typical community based environment. So when you're observing someone,
you're seeing them at home, that school, in their business
with people their age and all that. Well, Rocky was
assessed at this time in a prison setting. It's a
controlled environment. There's no opportunity for independent functioning. So the

(47:09):
version of the test he used was done in a
prison setting where he should have used a different type
that didn't rely on that. But again they hit this
dead end because of this one score that happened after
the age of eighteen, well after the age of eighteen.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
So when they're talking about the adaptive skills, they're saying,
you know, how often do you shower? Well, Rocky's going
to say every day because that's part of his routine.
The guards lead him to the shower. Now, would he
be showering every day if the guards did not take
him to do that, don't know. Yeah, yeah, he is
answering based on his routine rather than self independence. Then

(47:49):
in twenty seventeen, a breakthrough comes. Now let's go back
to the judicial override because we know only three states
are using it. In twenty sixteen, Delaware and Florida, outlawed it,
leaving Alabama on its own. Then in twenty seventeen, the
Alabama Supreme Court declared it is now unconstitutional. Cool, so

(48:13):
it's illegal now, which is awesome. Let's go back and
fix all the ones that had happened to because it
violates their constitutional rights. Now, all right, not so fast.
Alabama has used this thing like it's sugar and tea.
Go back and do this would take a lot of
time and money.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
But to be fair, it's their screw up.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Go back and fix your screw ups.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
They said it would take a lot of time and money.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Well, hell, we found the list of one hundred and
twelve prisoners that it's been used on.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
Go through that list and just.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Say whatever sentence you got, take it down a notch
if we found it. Okay, so you gotta follow some paperwork. Look,
I will pay for you. I will pay for you
to go back and do this. So they determined that
it would not be retroactive because of this. So now
what you've got is a process that has been applied

(49:10):
to one hundred and twelve people. Now granted some of
them have since been executed, so whatever that number is.
Now you've got a process that was used to give
them their sentence. You have now said it is unconstitutional,
against the foundation of our whole government. It still applies
to them, just because it's too much to go back

(49:31):
and fix it. So now they have an unconstitutional sentence
against them.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
So since Casey and Sarah have been on the case,
they went back and talked to several people involved. At
least one of the original jurors used a derogatory racial
slurt when talking about Rocky. Yeah, ones, we don't repeat.
So here we are twenty twenty one. It seems like
every and any little thing that could have gone wrong

(49:58):
in this case literally to as of now, the only
thing keeping Rocky from having a date set is that
they gave the death row prisoners options. So there's a
new version of the gas chamber. Rocky chose the gas,
but since it's so new, it hasn't been approved yet
and there's not really a process in place for it.

(50:20):
Which another thing that blows my mind in prisons is
why give this option when it's not an option.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
We'll see. What they did is when they filed that
lawsuit to say, you know, there were all those problems
with lethal injection a few years back, where they argued
was it cruel and unusual?

Speaker 3 (50:37):
And they said, okay, well here's the other option.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
For now. You know, you can opt for this. We
don't have all the details worked out, so we can't
say it's any better, but we'll give you that option. Well,
since they it's not approved officially yet, it's at least
buying him time at this point. That's essentially where we're at.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
So again, his last hope now is for clemency from
Governor k Ivy, which Casey and Sarah are fighting for.
At first, Rocky had all but given up. He told
them that he didn't want to beg for his life,
but they said that they would do the fighting and
it might help somebody else if it caused them to
look at their similar cases. Only then Rocky agreed to it,

(51:22):
not for himself but for others.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
And Casey was very straightforward with Rocky. She sighed, look,
the chances are slim, but it's worth trying. And in fact,
she told him that the last time clemency was granted
to someone in Alabama was wait for it, to a
white woman in the eighties on the governor's last day

(51:45):
in office. Does that ring a bell because it should
it was Judith and freakin Neely Again.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Casey and Sarah have created a website at Clemency for
Rocky Myers dot word press dot com, which we will
have in the show notes. You can actually see a
lot of the documents there. On there, you can see
the clemency video that they created for our previous governor,
and you can also find it on YouTube by searching

(52:13):
Rocky Meyer's clemency video.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
So at this point, as you know, we're helping gather
letters to be a part of his clemency package. We
are aiming for his sentence to be commuted to life
in prison without parole, as the jury originally said. And
here's one more thing that pisses me off. This is
the best we can hope for because, wait for it,

(52:37):
the Judith and Neely law. That's the third time this
woman's come up.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Says that wrong Judith and freaking Neely law.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
The Judith and Freakingneely law, which, if you flash back
to the Judith Freaking ann Neely story, her sentence was
taken from death to life with parole. Remember she wrote
letters for that too, because she was up for a parole. Well,
they changed the law which at the time, we thought

(53:06):
it sounded great because we're like, oh, well, they made
it to where you can't change someone from death to life.
It has to be life without parole. And we thought
that was great in the Judith ann Neely story. Well,
now it's come to bide us in the butt pretty
because now if the governor wanted to, she can't change it,
and it would have to come from the Board of

(53:28):
Pardons and Paroles. But in order to be eligible for parole,
you have to have served seventy five percent of your sentence.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
Well, this is a death sentence.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
You can't serve seventy five percent of a death sentence,
which is why we're hoping that it gets commuted to
life without parole.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
And that's where we are today. Like we said, that wraps.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Up the actual story, so it wasn't just problems with
the actual story itself and the witnesses, it was the
whole legal things.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
While you're ditched.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
Him On the thirty first seven PM Live Q and A, well,
we're gonna see if Casey and Sarah will join us.
Haven't been able to ask them yet, don't know, but
we will have that up as an episode as well.
And then the last episode will be all of the interviews,
which will include Rocky Meers himself. So we're really excited

(54:24):
for you guys to hear from everyone. Y'all know we're
passionate about it.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
So yeah, we're not going to play the entire all
three interviews in the episode just because it's it could
be a little bit long, but you can hear all
of them on Patreon in full, So we want to
make sure all of our Patreon listeners are able to
hear the interviews from start to finish. You're going to
really enjoy it. I think at one point Lindsay gets

(54:50):
so matched knocks from Mike offer.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
I do Yeah, you really did. That's true.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
I forgot about that because it's actually been a while
since we talked to Casey and Sarah, but they've been great.
They've emailed us and you know, just random information they
think of and all that. Speaking of one of the
things that they told us just this week, if anyone
is curious about John May's representing the clan, you will

(55:22):
have a chance because CNN is coming out with a docuseries.
It's a four part docuseries about the case that the
biggest case rather that John May's represented the clan on
and it's called the State Versus the Clan, and it

(55:42):
airs in mid April.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
I believe we'll give you some more details.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
For some reason, I want to say like April eleventh,
but it's somewhere mid April.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
We've reached out to CNN and we have not had
a response yet.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Ord knows I tried it April lack of try in
but you know, never know. But yeah, it's a horrible story.
It's one of those big civil rights spurring stories, and
it starts with a lynching and then there's the trial
of the people involved, and then it moves on to
the actual suit against the Klan, and that's where we

(56:18):
don't know if he's in it. We don't know if
his name is mentioned, we don't know if.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
His face is seen.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
But it is the case, so you will have that chance.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
I will definitely be watching with baited breath and probably
a margarita because I want to throw something at the
TV if I don't.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Yeah, but as you watch it, keep in mind that
that is the same man who years later will go
on to represent Rocky Myers. And it's just hard to
it's hard to fathom even though, like I said, I
think there are some things he did that were really great.

Speaker 4 (56:47):
I am so.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
Perplexed with him because, you know, offering pro bono. But
then again, you know, he is a very complex person
where we can't just look at him from one lens
tell a narrative of a complete person. That way, it
is more complex. You know, we did reach out to him.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
You never know how or if people change. You don't know.
We don't know.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
We like Jen said, we tried to reach out and
we just don't know, so we can't say.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
We will find out more next episode when we released
those interviews. But until then, guys, we are almost there.
Stay safe for you and yours. But until then, you
know what they said to Felicia Bye.

Speaker 4 (57:34):
Hi, I'm Jules from Riddle Me That True Crime.

Speaker 5 (57:37):
I'm Robin Warder from The Trail Went Cold and Jewles,
and I want to tell you a little bit about
a case that means a great deal to us. The
death of nine month old baby Jacob Landin on April tenth,
nineteen eighty seven, in Socorro, New Mexico.

Speaker 4 (57:50):
The day prior to his death, on April nine, baby
Jacob was being watched by his mother Brenda's new boyfriend,
John not his real name, in his mobile home on
fourteen fifty three Fatima Drive while John was babysitting Jacob.
Jacob would incur what would be his second head injury
in a period of weeks. The prior head injury was
a subdural hematoba or brain bleed, and it was serious

(58:12):
enough that it needed to be lanced to take pressure
off baby Jacob's brain while being monitored by doctors over
the course of several days.

Speaker 5 (58:20):
The circumstances surrounding how Jacob was injured and subsequently died
are murky at best, with the suspect giving multiple versions
of the events of the day, ranging from Jacob choking
and accidentally hitting his head while trying to dislodge a cookie,
to Jacob falling and John returning to see the injured infant.

Speaker 4 (58:37):
The suspect also reportedly confessed two officers that he was
indeed responsible, but there is no paper or audio record
of this confession in the police file. The reasons given
by the DA for not pursuing the case are confusing
as well, with one of the reasons being that they
were worried that John would file charges against the state.

Speaker 5 (58:56):
It was the opinion of the doctors that baby Jacob
was struck in the head. This was no accident. In
the years to follow, John goes on to sexually abuse
young Eric, while as physically abusing his mother Brenda, and
emotionally abusing and isolating them, both making the world very small.

Speaker 4 (59:12):
During the autopsy, layers of abuse seem to be present.
A healing rib fracture from around the time of the
first head injury is also discovered. It's impossible to say
exactly when the injury took place, but what is clear
is that someone was abusing young Jacob and that person
was most likely John.

Speaker 5 (59:29):
Eric Landean, Jacob's brother, has been fighting to get justice
for him. However, he faces some obstacles, such as the
statute of limitations of six years on second degree murder
that state Representative Bill Reeve has petitioned to have overturned.

Speaker 4 (59:43):
Join Robin and I, as well as criminologist doctor Ashley Wellman,
an investigative expert, a legal expert, a forensic psychiatrist, as
well as Jacob's brother Eric, as we explore all angles
of this case and try to bring awareness, understanding, and hopefully,
ultimately justice for Jacob.

Speaker 5 (01:00:00):
The series starts on March. The first tune in on
your favorite podcast app,