Podcasts about Actual innocence

After wrongful conviction, exoneration brings freedom but not healing. Chris Mumma, Executive Director of the NC Center on Actual Innocence, joins host Amber Nimocks to discuss the unique challenges faced by those released after years of wrongful imprisonment. Inspired by Joseph Sledge, who took his own life five years after being exonerated following 37 years in prison, the center is creating the Joseph Sledge Houses of Healing—a first-of-its-kind transitional sanctuary where exonerees can decompress and begin healing with comprehensive support. The project, being built on Second Act Farm in rural Alamance County, aims to address the often-overlooked trauma of wrongful incarceration.Learn more about how you can support the center's new re-entry project at their website at www.nccai.org or at Second Act Farm. You can also follow the center on Facebook.

Nicholas Zimmerman Explains POINT-I of The 440.10 Motion(Why he was never given an actual Innocence Evidentuary Hearing)

Episode 3 of 10 We meet Shabaka Shakur, Derrick Hamilton, and the rest of the law firm they founded in prison. They are the best jailhouse lawyers of their generation. They have roles: lecturer, writer, PR man, intern… They claim they were framed...by Louie Scarcella. They declare common cause: bring him down. That cause will change the history of New York state jurisprudence. The Burden is available everywhere you get your podcasts.All episodes will be available one week early and ad-free, along with exclusive bonus content on Orbit's newly launched “True Crime Club House” subscription channel on Apple Podcasts.   The Burden is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So says the Supreme Court. www.patreon.com/stevelehto

The Justice for Gerard Movement presents.... "Turning A Moment Into A Movement" Join The Justice for Gerard Movement....Jay Love, Trische' Duckworth, Attorney Hugo Mack, Rev. Tia Littlejohn, and Alexandria Hughes .....along with our guest: "Diane Bukowski' Publisher, Editor, Reporter at The Voice of Detroit TOPIC: "ACTUAL INNOCENCE' THE WRONGFUL CONVICTION STORIES OF CARL HUBBARD AND ANDRE NELSON We will discuss Diane Bukowski's latest article about Carl Hubbard who has been wrongly convicted 31 years and Andre Nelson...who has been wrongly convicted 30 years.....and what both cases have in common.... VOICE OF DETROIT (VOD) Unbought and unbossed, published by Voice of Detroit LLC P.O. Box 35278 Detroit, Michigan 48235 Phone: 313-825-6126 http://voiceofdetroit.net -The Voice of Detroit- The Voice of Detroit (VOD), founded in August 2010, presents in-depth news stories on the people's struggles, here in Detroit, nationally and world-wide. VOD also features commentary and announcements by progressive organizations of upcoming events. It is based in Detroit, Michigan. DONATE TO VOICE OF DETROIT https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-vod/donate... To learn more about The Justice for Gerard Movement....... www.change.org/Justice4Gerard I do not own the rights to the music. No copyright infringement intended. FAIR USE NOTICE This video may contain copyrighted material; the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available for the purposes of criticism, comment, review and news reporting which constitute the fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, comment, review and news reporting is not an infringement of copyright. Musical Content Copyright Disclaimer (Fair Use) under section 107 Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/momentintoamovement/support

Tru Pettigrew, Chief Diversity Officer of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, comes on High Octane Leadership to discuss the role of diversity in the professional sports arena, what organizations are doing it right, how negative narratives can impact our performance, and the mental health conversation amongst the professional athletes. About Tru Pettigrew:Tru Pettigrew enters his second season with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx and his first as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. Pettigrew previously served as the Timberwolves Vice President of Player Programs and Diversity & Inclusion. Pettigrew oversees all diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts including setting the strategic vision across all four franchises – the Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota Lynx, Iowa Wolves, and T-Wolves Gaming.Following the murder of George Floyd, Pettigrew played an integral role with the team from convening team discussions around race relations and social justice to serving as a bridge for community dialogue with Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo and other civic members.Prior to joining the Timberwolves and Lynx, Pettigrew operated his own consulting firm helping organizations build bridges of trust and understanding across various areas of division. As a part of his bridge building efforts, he founded Barbershop Rap Sessions, which is a platform that leverages barbershops across the country as a trusted venue for hosting facilitated dialogue between Law Enforcement and communities of color. He also serves as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and has spent time working with brands such as Nike, Hennessy, Unilever, and Ford.He currently serves on the Board of North Carolina's Center on Actual Innocence. Pettrigrew earned his degree from DeVry University. High Octane Leadership is hosted by The Diversity Movement CEO and executive coach Donald Thompson and is a production of Earfluence. Order UNDERESTIMATED: A CEO'S UNLIKELY PATH TO SUCCESS, by Donald Thompson.

Tru Pettigrew, Chief Diversity Officer of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, comes on High Octane Leadership to discuss the role of diversity in the professional sports arena, what organizations are doing it right, how negative narratives can impact our performance, and the mental health conversation amongst the professional athletes. About Tru Pettigrew:Tru Pettigrew enters his second season with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx and his first as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. Pettigrew previously served as the Timberwolves Vice President of Player Programs and Diversity & Inclusion. Pettigrew oversees all diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts including setting the strategic vision across all four franchises – the Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota Lynx, Iowa Wolves, and T-Wolves Gaming.Following the murder of George Floyd, Pettigrew played an integral role with the team from convening team discussions around race relations and social justice to serving as a bridge for community dialogue with Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo and other civic members.Prior to joining the Timberwolves and Lynx, Pettigrew operated his own consulting firm helping organizations build bridges of trust and understanding across various areas of division. As a part of his bridge building efforts, he founded Barbershop Rap Sessions, which is a platform that leverages barbershops across the country as a trusted venue for hosting facilitated dialogue between Law Enforcement and communities of color. He also serves as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and has spent time working with brands such as Nike, Hennessy, Unilever, and Ford.He currently serves on the Board of North Carolina's Center on Actual Innocence. Pettrigrew earned his degree from DeVry University.High Octane Leadership is hosted by The Diversity Movement CEO and executive coach Donald Thompson, and is a production of Earfluence. DEI Navigator offers access to our award-winning team of proven business leaders and certified diversity executives, along with expert curated content, how-to guides, specialized training, and a community of peers sharing their ideas and lessons learned — all at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-service DEI consultancy.Pre-order UNDERESTIMATED: A CEO'S UNLIKELY PATH TO SUCCESS, by Donald Thompson.

Chris Riley is a screenwriter whose first film, After The Truth, an award-winning courtroom thriller written with his wife and professional partner, Kathy, sparked international controversy in 1999 when it was released in Germany.Other credits include 25 To Life, a dramatic thriller for Junction Entertainment and Touchstone Pictures; The Other White House, a political thriller for Sean Connery's Fountainbridge Films and Intermedia; Aces, an action-adventure romance for Paramount Pictures; and a screen adaptation of the book Actual Innocence for Mandalay Television Pictures and the Fox television network. A veteran of the Warner Bros. script department, Riley is the author of The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style. He serves as professor of film at John Paul the Great Catholic University in San Diego and previously taught in the MFA program in writing for screen and television at Pepperdine University.He served as creative director at Yellow Line Studio where he executive produced the web series Bump+ and produced the feature Red Line. He is a founding partner of the online Story Masters Film Academy.His new book is The Defining Moment How Writers and Actors Build Characters.Aimed at both the head and the heart, The Defining Moment plumbs the depths of the most memorable characters ever to appear on the screen, the stage or the page. The book focuses on those moments so pivotal in a character's formation that they create a distinct boundary of before and after, moments without which the character couldn't exist and moments through which characters can transform before our eyes. Writers, actors and storytellers of all stripes will discover a powerful new key to unlock any character they seek to develop, write or portray. They may even unlock a deeper understanding of themselves.Features:The first in-depth study of the essential principles that will redefine the way storytellers understand their characters and themselves.Essential insights into the forces that create characterDozens of examples of character-defining moments from film, television, theater and literatureAn exploration of pivotol moments: birth, death, discovery, decision-making, injury and healingAn examination of how writers and actors employ defining moments in their deepest and most unforgettable worksInsights into how directors, editors, cinematographers and composers dramatize key momentsPractical exercises for defining and redefining characterTips for discovering the moments that matter mostDeeply personal stories from the authors' lives to illustrate the variety of moments that define us.For every storyteller, no matter their medium, The Defining Moment will redefine the way they understand their characters and themselves.

Chris Riley is a screenwriter whose first film, After The Truth, an award-winning courtroom thriller written with his wife and professional partner, Kathy, sparked international controversy in 1999 when it was released in Germany.Other credits include 25 To Life, a dramatic thriller for Junction Entertainment and Touchstone Pictures; The Other White House, a political thriller for Sean Connery's Fountainbridge Films and Intermedia; Aces, an action-adventure romance for Paramount Pictures; and a screen adaptation of the book Actual Innocence for Mandalay Television Pictures and the Fox television network. A veteran of the Warner Bros. script department, Riley is the author of The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style. He serves as professor of film at John Paul the Great Catholic University in San Diego and previously taught in the MFA program in writing for screen and television at Pepperdine University.He served as creative director at Yellow Line Studio where he executive produced the web series Bump+ and produced the feature Red Line. He is a founding partner of the online Story Masters Film Academy.His new book is The Defining Moment How Writers and Actors Build Characters.Aimed at both the head and the heart, The Defining Moment plumbs the depths of the most memorable characters ever to appear on the screen, the stage or the page. The book focuses on those moments so pivotal in a character's formation that they create a distinct boundary of before and after, moments without which the character couldn't exist and moments through which characters can transform before our eyes. Writers, actors and storytellers of all stripes will discover a powerful new key to unlock any character they seek to develop, write or portray. They may even unlock a deeper understanding of themselves.

When Eliza Gray graduated with a degree in Communication Media, going from Technical Support to a Criminal Justice Non-Profit was not her imagined path. Now as a Director of Development at the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, Eliza is dedicated to helping right wrongful convictions, as well as making an impact that betters the lives of others. Check out this podcast to hear about her transition from working at Cisco into a non-profit. Learn about her career, and also why she says it's important to form and utilize professional relationships. https://ask.ncsu.edu/ask-the-pack/ Podcast Editor: Sade Proctor

This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward. Episode 300 with Bill Kurtis From Cold Case Files. A&E Network's iconic and acclaimed original true crime classic series "Cold Case Files®" returns this summer exploring shocking stories of cold cases. "Cold Case Files" premieres Friday, August 20 at 9pm ET/PT followed by "American Justice" at 10pm ET/PT. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America, and only about 1% are ever solved. With recent advancements in technology and the methods used to solve these cases, as well as the unwavering dedication of victims' families, law enforcement and the public, "Cold Case Files" explores the cases the defied the odds. Narrated by the original host and producer of "Cold Case Files," celebrated veteran journalist and newsman Bill Kurtis, each one-hour episode of the Emmy-nominated series examines the twists and turns of one murder case that remained unsolved for years, and the critical element that heated it up, leading to the evidence that finally solved it. Featuring interviews with family members, friends, detectives, and others close to the cases, the refreshed classic series examines all facets of the crime and shines a light on a range of voices and victims. Diving even deeper, "Cold Case Files: The Podcast," hosted by Brooke Gittings ("Convicted" and "Actual Innocence"), has returned for an all-new season to take listeners through the investigative process of some of the most difficult-to-solve murders featured on past seasons of "Cold Case Files." Visit aetv.com to listen and subscribe. New episodes drop every Tuesday (Apple, Stitcher, Spotify).

This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward. Episode 300 with Bill Kurtis From Cold Case Files. A&E Network's iconic and acclaimed original true crime classic series "Cold Case Files®" returns this summer exploring shocking stories of cold cases. "Cold Case Files" premieres Friday, August 20 at 9pm ET/PT followed by "American Justice" at 10pm ET/PT. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America, and only about 1% are ever solved. With recent advancements in technology and the methods used to solve these cases, as well as the unwavering dedication of victims' families, law enforcement and the public, "Cold Case Files" explores the cases the defied the odds. Narrated by the original host and producer of "Cold Case Files," celebrated veteran journalist and newsman Bill Kurtis, each one-hour episode of the Emmy-nominated series examines the twists and turns of one murder case that remained unsolved for years, and the critical element that heated it up, leading to the evidence that finally solved it. Featuring interviews with family members, friends, detectives, and others close to the cases, the refreshed classic series examines all facets of the crime and shines a light on a range of voices and victims. Diving even deeper, "Cold Case Files: The Podcast," hosted by Brooke Gittings ("Convicted" and "Actual Innocence"), has returned for an all-new season to take listeners through the investigative process of some of the most difficult-to-solve murders featured on past seasons of "Cold Case Files." Visit aetv.com to listen and subscribe. New episodes drop every Tuesday (Apple, Stitcher, Spotify).

This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward. Episode 300 with Bill Kurtis From Cold Case Files. A&E Network's iconic and acclaimed original true crime classic series "Cold Case Files®" returns this summer exploring shocking stories of cold cases. "Cold Case Files" premieres Friday, August 20 at 9pm ET/PT followed by "American Justice" at 10pm ET/PT. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America, and only about 1% are ever solved. With recent advancements in technology and the methods used to solve these cases, as well as the unwavering dedication of victims' families, law enforcement and the public, "Cold Case Files" explores the cases the defied the odds. Narrated by the original host and producer of "Cold Case Files," celebrated veteran journalist and newsman Bill Kurtis, each one-hour episode of the Emmy-nominated series examines the twists and turns of one murder case that remained unsolved for years, and the critical element that heated it up, leading to the evidence that finally solved it. Featuring interviews with family members, friends, detectives, and others close to the cases, the refreshed classic series examines all facets of the crime and shines a light on a range of voices and victims. Diving even deeper, "Cold Case Files: The Podcast," hosted by Brooke Gittings ("Convicted" and "Actual Innocence"), has returned for an all-new season to take listeners through the investigative process of some of the most difficult-to-solve murders featured on past seasons of "Cold Case Files." Visit aetv.com to listen and subscribe. New episodes drop every Tuesday (Apple, Stitcher, Spotify).

This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward. Episode 300 with Bill Kurtis From Cold Case Files. A&E Network's iconic and acclaimed original true crime classic series "Cold Case Files®" returns this summer exploring shocking stories of cold cases. "Cold Case Files" premieres Friday, August 20 at 9pm ET/PT followed by "American Justice" at 10pm ET/PT. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America, and only about 1% are ever solved. With recent advancements in technology and the methods used to solve these cases, as well as the unwavering dedication of victims' families, law enforcement and the public, "Cold Case Files" explores the cases the defied the odds. Narrated by the original host and producer of "Cold Case Files," celebrated veteran journalist and newsman Bill Kurtis, each one-hour episode of the Emmy-nominated series examines the twists and turns of one murder case that remained unsolved for years, and the critical element that heated it up, leading to the evidence that finally solved it. Featuring interviews with family members, friends, detectives, and others close to the cases, the refreshed classic series examines all facets of the crime and shines a light on a range of voices and victims. Diving even deeper, "Cold Case Files: The Podcast," hosted by Brooke Gittings ("Convicted" and "Actual Innocence"), has returned for an all-new season to take listeners through the investigative process of some of the most difficult-to-solve murders featured on past seasons of "Cold Case Files." Visit aetv.com to listen and subscribe. New episodes drop every Tuesday (Apple, Stitcher, Spotify).

ABOUT BILL KURTIS AND COLD CASE FILES A&E Network's iconic and acclaimed original true crime classic series "Cold Case Files®" returns this summer exploring shocking stories of cold cases. "Cold Case Files" premieres Friday, August 20 at 9pm ET/PT followed by "American Justice" at 10pm ET/PT. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America, and only about 1% are ever solved. With recent advancements in technology and the methods used to solve these cases, as well as the unwavering dedication of victims' families, law enforcement and the public, "Cold Case Files" explores the cases the defied the odds. Narrated by the original host and producer of "Cold Case Files," celebrated veteran journalist and newsman Bill Kurtis, each one-hour episode of the Emmy-nominated series examines the twists and turns of one murder case that remained unsolved for years, and the critical element that heated it up, leading to the evidence that finally solved it. Featuring interviews with family members, friends, detectives, and others close to the cases, the refreshed classic series examines all facets of the crime and shines a light on a range of voices and victims. Diving even deeper, "Cold Case Files: The Podcast," hosted by Brooke Gittings ("Convicted" and "Actual Innocence"), has returned for an all-new season to take listeners through the investigative process of some of the most difficult-to-solve murders featured on past seasons of "Cold Case Files." Visit aetv.com to listen and subscribe. New episodes drop every Tuesday (Apple, Stitcher, Spotify). BILL KURTIS BIO An acclaimed documentary host and producer, network and major market news anchor, and founder of his own multimedia production company, Bill Kurtis has been earning the respect of his peers and viewers for more than fifty years. Bill traveled the world for the Peabody Award-winning PBS series The New Explorers and documentaries that have taken on the most pressing environmental issues of our time. Kurtis Productions has created programs for the A&E Network, including the long-running, award-winning Investigative Reports and Cold Case Files, and American Greed seen on CNBC. Bill anchored the prime time news broadcasts on CBS-owned WWBM-TV Chicago and co-anchored the CBS Morning News from 1982-1986. He also served as a CBS network correspondent. Currently, he can be heard on NPR Radio as the co-host of the celebrated weekly news quiz, Wait, Wait.Don't Tell Me. And as the host of the daily news magazine, Through the Decades, taking a look back at each day through the lens of history on the Decades Channel. He also provided the satirical narration for the feature film comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. He has authored Bill Kurtis: On Assignment, a review of major news stories he covered accompanied by his own photographs. Using his background as a lawyer, he wrote, The Death Penalty on Trial: Crisis in American Justice, exploring the issues surrounding capital punishment. Bill is a dedicated conservationist, having purchased and maintained tallgrass prairie lands in Kansas as well as restoring land to its native state on his 65-acre home in Mettawa, Illinois where he has partnered with the Land Institute to establish test plots for a new agricultural paradigm using deep rooted perennial wheat. Bill is the recipient of numerous humanitarian, journalism, and broadcasting awards. He is a member of the board of directors of several distinguished organizations including The Nature Conservancy of Illinois, the Chicago Botanic Garden, and the Field Museum of Chicago and is CBS a Founder of Millennium Park.https://www.aetv.com/news/ae-networks-true-crime-series-cold-case-files-and-american-justice-return-with-all-new-episodes-premiering-friday-august-20

After winning exoneration for a falsely-accused murderer in North Carolina and blowing the lid off a pattern of corrupt behaviour at the State Bureau of Investigation, her name is one spoken in hushed tones around prison yards. She's won every wrongful conviction case she's ever taken on.  And now, Christine Mumma and the NC Center on Actual Innocence are in Daniel Andre Green's corner. This episode, we go through the evidence she says should be enough to earn Daniel his freedom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this live audience recording at ComplexCon Chicago 2019, Patrick Pursley tells us how a purposely false identification, a coerced and immediately recanted false statement, and false expert testimony led to his wrongful conviction. Amazingly, Patrick Pursley changed a law from inside prison in order to obtain the ballistic testing necessary to set himself free. His fight continues on the outside for his Certificate of Actual Innocence, as the state refuses to admit what is clearly true. His hearing is set for August 27th, 2021. Learn more and get involved at:  https://www.iamkidculture.org/ https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Co No1. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For nearly two decades, Chris Mumma has served as the Executive Director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, having represented 8 exonorees and fighting for a half a dozen more still behind bars. During her impressive tenure, she has forced legislation on multiple issues regarding wrongful convictions and established the only innocence inquiry commission in the United States. Instrumental in fighting for criminal justice reform in North Carolina, Mumma has spearheaded legislation on eyewitness identification, the recording of interrogations, preservation of biological evidence, and enhanced support for exonerees. On the latest installment of Open Mike, Mumma recounts her most troubling case to date, highlights the Center’s upcoming initiatives, and reflects on the future of American criminal justice reform. Show Notes [00:21] Chris Mumma’s background as Executive Director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence. [01:15] Welcome to the show, Chris! Could you tell our viewers how you got started in the fight for justice for the wrongfully convicted? [02:20] You’ve had quite the career! Over the years, you’ve identified several reoccurring problems that are consistent in wrongful convictions. Let’s start with eyewitness identification… I read that you’ve been able to create some new legislation in North Carolina that I’d love to hear about. [03:31] Misidentification is a first step that leads down wrong paths. It’s a beginning factor that can lead to false confessions, tunnel vision, and faulty forensics — it branches out into other causation issues. We’re also implicitly more comfortable identifying the features of those who bear our racial and genetic similarities. [05:01] When you talk about changes made to lineup identification… what is the difference between sequential and simultaneous identification? [06:54] Do you know how many other states have also made these changes? North Carolina was the first, you said? [08:03] Was lineup identification the only aspect of witness identification that was reformed? [08:44] It’s so interesting — every time I do an episode, I probably say this — wrongful convictions are so similar. Wrongful convictions follow a playbook. [09:41] We’re so accustomed to being recorded everywhere… the ATM, walking down the street, grocery stores… yet many law enforcement offices don’t record what happens behind their closed doors. How can this be, especially when dealing with matters that affect someone’s life? [09:51] Are they recording lineups now? [11:34] I know you’ve been instrumental in getting some laws regarding preservation of biological evidence passed in North Carolina… What were the existing procedures, and how were you able to get them to change? [13:35] The one case that really combines all of these elements we’re discussing is the Willie Grimes case. All exonerations are tragic… this one in particular is extremely hard to read about — the mistreatment, the corruption, the fraud. I’d love for you to set it up for our audience. [15:01] The book Ghost of an Innocent Man covers Grimes’s ordeal in detail. [19:01] Isn’t this the case where the victim falsely identified the defense attorney in court as her assailant? [19:50] In most wrongful conviction cases, an awful defense attorney is involved. Can you tell me about his attorney at trial? [23:41] In a rape there’s a lot of biological evidence… was there any testing conducted in the rape kit in this case? [27:43] Was the fingerprint evidence at the scene of the crime actually used in the trial? [28:55] This inquiry commission to search law enforcement’s files was very innovative. How did they get involved and accomplish this? [31:33] Of the 22 cases investigated by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, there was evidence reported as being destroyed or lost in 11 cases. [33:26] Is the Innocence Inquiry Commission run by the state? [33:49] Are there conviction integrity units in your jurisdiction? [37:05] How many cases are you working on? And I’m curious about your impression… how many people in North Carolina do you think are wrongfully behind bars right now? [38:28] A lot of the people I’ve interviewed and files I’ve read are about older cases… Do you think with the changes that are being made that things are getting better with the wrongful conviction crisis? [39:52] Most wrongful convictions the culture discusses are about felonies, but wrongful misdemeanor convictions are exponentially higher. [40:48] Until we have a culture shift at the top — with law enforcement and prosecutors — progress won’t accelerate the way we need it to. [42:02] Keep up the great work and all the wonderful things you’re accomplishing. Christina Mumma, thank you for being on the show and helping to educate the public that wrongful convictions are real, and prevalent, and everywhere. Thank you for being on the show. [42:45] Going down this path of wrongful convictions, I can’t believe this is still happening. It’s mind-blowing that Chris even has 135 cases to work on. If you know someone is sitting in prison for a crime they didn’t commit, step up. Find the courage and tell someone in law enforcement or at a prosecutor’s office. What is worse than sitting in prison for a crime you didn’t commit? Thank you for watching — make sure to like, share, subscribe, and comment. We have our 100th episode coming up soon, and you won’t want to miss it! Thank you and take care.

If you’re a true crime fan, you’ve heard all about the lone-wolf killer John Wayne Gacy, the ‘killer clown’ who assaulted and murdered 33 boys and young men. But did you know he might have had accomplices? Tori investigates a rumor about the Gacy case brought to her attention by a Red Flags listener, Damon, who called in to the Red Flags hotline. In an interview with Chicago lawyer Steven Becker, Tori finds out there might be much more to the Gacy case than any of us thought. We also touch on the new Richard Ramirez documentary on Netflix that lots of folks are watching.LINKS:“Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer” - Streaming now on Netflix“The Clown and the Candyman” Podcast - Listen now wherever you get your podcasts“The Clown and the Candyman” Special - Streaming now on Discovery+1992 CBS2 Interview with John Wayne Gacy - https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/01/20/cbs-2-vault-john-wayne-gacy-speaks/29 Below by Jeff Rignall - https://www.amazon.com/29-Below-Jeff-Rignall/dp/B0006XG56Y“Post-Conviction DNA Testing, Actual Innocence, and Cold Cases” by Steven Becker in The Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence 2016 - https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190848194.001.0001/oso-9780190848194-chapter-2Hotline: 1-888-9 RED FLA / (188)-973-3352Stream over 5,000 hours of true crime on discovery+https://www.discoveryplus.com/?syc=podcast_id_redflags&utm_source=id&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=redflagsdiscoveryplus.com/redflags See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Have you ever wondered how to format your screenplay so Hollywood would take you seriously as a screenwriter before they even read your script? Today's guest Christopher Riley can definitely help you with this.Christopher Riley is an American screenwriter whose first film, After The Truth, a multiple-award-winning courtroom thriller, sparked international controversy when it was released in Germany in 1999. Other credits include 25 To Life, a dramatic thriller written for Touchstone Pictures, The Other White House, a political thriller written for Sean Connery’s Fountainbridge Films, Aces, an action-adventure written for Paramount Pictures and Emmy-winning producer Robert Cort, and a screen adaptation of the book Actual Innocence for Mandalay Television Pictures and the Fox television network.A veteran of the Warner Bros. script department, Riley is the author of the screenwriting reference The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style, now in its second edition with a foreword by Antwone Fisher.Enjoy my conversation with Christopher Riley.

Judge Bert Richardson hated law school. I know because we hated it together.His life of public service began before we even graduated, interning at the DA's office our last year at St. Mary's.Since then he has gone on to serve as an Assistant District Attorney & Assistant U.S. Attorney. He was then appointed be a Judge on the 379th District Court before being elected to the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals in 2014Bert & I discuss what being raised in a life of service looks like, along with a smattering of law school antics...But the meat of the conversation revolves around Bert's decades of experience in criminal law & the cases he tried.From the moral implications of arguing a death penalty case, to the absolute necessity to pursue Actual Innocence, the thoughtfulness of Bert's views is something I've always admired.Enjoy the show.________________________[ Legal Grounds is written, recorded & produced by Dust Devil Press ][ Our theme was composed by Dayna Vodovoz ]***You can contact us at: legalgrounds@thebassettfirm.com 

In this episode we celebrate the podcast with the last three of six of Chris's selected clips from some of his favorite moments in the podcast.Part two includes clips from:3. DNA Evidence, Actual Innocence, and Science in the Courtroom2. Prison Reform Through Higher Education1. Nonhuman RightsDon't forget to rate and leave a review on your listening platform. It really helps us out!SFX: "Windy Transition" by pcruzn; "Bamboo Swing, B8" by InspectorJMusic: Fearless First Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Acid Jazz Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Auld Lang Syne by E's Jammy Jams

In May 2008, there was a strange scene along the Catawba River in Gaston County, North Carolina - a 20-year-old college student was found dead beside her car. Two local fishermen were arrested, and one of them was convicted of murder. Years later, that conviction was overturned due to, in part, ineffective assistance of counsel. Today’s episode looks at the evidence presented at trial, the overturned conviction, and what will happen next in this case. Special thanks to Mark’s attorney, Chris Mumma, from the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, for talking to us about her work on Mark’s case. This episode was researched and written by Jordan Hensley, with the interview by Jillian Jalali. Sponsors in this episode: - AUTOPSY - The hit Reelz Channel show “Autopsy” is coming to PodcastOne with all new episodes. Download new episodes every week on Apple Podcasts and PodcastOne. - The Real Real - Shop from designers like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Rolex, Cartier and hundreds more, at up to 90% off retail. Shop in-store, online, or download the app, and get 20% off select items with the promo code REAL. Please consider supporting Court Junkie with as little as $3 a month via Patreon.com/CourtJunkie to receive ad-free episodes. Help support Court Junkie with $6 a month and get access to bonus monthly episodes. Follow me on Twitter @CourtJunkiePod or Instagram at CourtJunkie.

The F’d Up Finale Recap Written by Brandi AbbottOn F’d Up this season we’ve learned a lot about how broken the criminal justice system is and how fucked up the NC SBI Crime Lab has been. There has been some reform based on everything that has come to light, but there is still a long way to go. After Alan Gell’s case in 2004, the governor signed a bill that required DAs to provide all of their files from their cases to defense attorneys if they ask for them. The attorney general at the time, Roy Cooper, made changes to the SBI Crime Lab. He installed an ombudsman to address concerns relating to the crime lab or its employees. Documents and ASCLD-LAB reports were posted for transparency, but none of the results or repercussions from internal investigations seem to have been made public. The governor at the time, Pat McCrory, moved the SBI Crime Lab from under the purview of the attorney general at the time, Roy Cooper, to the department of justice so that it was under the purview of the governor and the name was changed from the NC SBI Crime Lab to the NC State Crime Lab. In 2016, Roy Cooper ran for governor and narrowly beat Pat McCrory, which put the crime lab back under his control. Right after the audit report was released, the governor at that time, Bev Perdue, signed a bill making it a crime for lab workers to withhold results. The North Carolina SBI Blood Stain Pattern Analysis unit was suspended during the audit. To this day it has still not been reopened and analysis of bloodstain patterns is outsourced.When Priya and Jess went into detail about the history and missions of the crime lab in NC, they didn’t mention that all of the information was from the current crime lab’s website. According to their site they and other forensic labs across the nation are now subject to the ISO/ISE 17025 accreditation standard. ANAB is authorized to perform this accreditation but no one can confirm whether or not they’re the one’s doing the accreditation for the NC State Crime Lab. One would hope not given that ANAB merged with ASCLD LAB who spent years accrediting the SBI Crime lab while it was full of misconduct. Priya checked out some public documents on the state crime lab’s site and found an update on the preservation of biological evidence. They now preserve evidence in capital cases until the convicted person is executed or dies and if a convicted person receives a life sentence, the evidence is preserved until they die. But if a person pleads guilty in a crime – evidence is only preserved for three years! Three years doesn’t seem like very long given how often coercion of confessions occur. Priya says that she’s visited the site often over the course of doing research for this podcast, and that recently a lot of information that used to be easy to access like policies, accreditation reports and the like are not as easy to obtain. Policies can only be accessed if you sign in with a Microsoft account and you have to email the lab to get accreditation reports. Another reform is the forensic advisory board that is now in place and includes forensic scientists from a couple of different states, however, they could benefit from a commission like the one Marvin Schechter is on in New York that includes more people who are involved in the justice system or are impacted by forensic science, like defense attorneys. Their website includes the minutes from their board meetings up until a year ago, but if they’re still meeting, they don’t seem to update the site any longer. The new director of the lab, Vanessa Martinucci, does have a forensic background which is a big deal considering their past employees. She has a Masters in biology and was a supervisor at the Houston Forensic Science Center. People Priya and Jess have talked to who were or are affected by the lab has said a lot of this hasn’t helped to fix the huge systemic issues that have happened. Instead, it seems as though they’re making changes to distract from their issues. People had been trying to enact change in North Carolina even before Greg Taylor’s exoneration. Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake had been noticing problematic issues in NC cases, the same kind Chris Mumma was noticing when she was clerking for him. Because of these concerns, in 2002 Chief Justice Lake established the Criminal Justice Study Commission, the purpose of which was to review police and prosecution procedures for factors that helped lead to wrongful convictions. This commission helped to birth the Innocence Inquiry Commission - which ultimately led to Greg Taylor’s exoneration. In very sad news, Chief Justice died last month, but he leaves a legacy of trying to make the world a better place. Chief Justice Lake, along with Darryl Hunt and others, helped in getting the Racial Justice Act enacted in 2009. As you may recall from an earlier episode, the Racial Justice Act allowed death row inmates and those still on trial to challenge their sentence if they thought it had been negatively impacted by their race. They also discussed that in December of 2012, three defendants who had been on death row had their cases reheard because of this act and their lives were saved. F’d Up covered three cases on the past episode but there was actually six. As you may remember from that episode, the three that were discussed had their sentences reduced to life in prison and this was only possible because they filed their grievances prior to 2013 when then governor Pat McCrory signed a repeal of the Racial Justice Act. This repeal affected all of the cases. One of these cases was Tilmon Golphin, a black man, was pursued by the police through the woods where they eventually caught him. A perspective juror who was black overheard two white jurors say that Tillman never should have made it out of the woods. The black juror brought this up and the prosecutor questioned him about it. He was struck from the jury but the two white people were not. Overall, five of the seven qualified black people were removed from the jury. Tilmon was ultimately sentenced by a jury of 11 white people and one black person. This was in Johnston county which had billboards boasting that it was “KKK country” up until the 80s. Another case was Rayford Burke who was black and was sentenced to death by an all white jury. The prosecutor drew attention to Rayford’s size and race in a negative fashion and called him a “big black bull” during a plea for the jury to find him guilty. Quintel Augustine is also black. In his case, the prosecutor wrote handwritten notes about each perspective juror. For a perspective white juror who admitted to drinking, they wrote “drinks, country boy, okay” but described a perspective black juror who admitted to drinking as a black wino. For a black female juror they made the note that she was from a “respectable black family” but made no such note for any of the white jurors about their potential “respectable” families. In the case of Marcus Robinson there was a perspective juror who was black and a high school graduate. The prosecutor asked this juror if he repeated grades or had trouble reading, but never asked any of the prospective white jurors the same question. This prosecutor admitted he was not particularly racially fair. Christina Walter’s trial involved the prosecutor asking prospective jurors if they ever felt they had been burgled. Two white perspective jurors who had had some minor property crimes and felt it wasn’t a big deal ended up on the jury, whereas a black prospective juror was struck when they said they didn’t feel like a victim over their car being broken into and a radio stolen. Out of 14 qualified black jurors, 10 ended up being struck.Cassandra Stubbs, the director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, said that one of the things that was so remarkable about the Racial Justice Act was that before when one suspected prosecutors were acting discriminatory, there was no opportunity to question them. With the RJA they had to testify about and answer to their actions. As of August of 2019, the RJA is back on the table. The state Supreme Court heard all six cases that fell under the RJA. A couple of choices were on the table. Do the four defendants try and get back life without parole or do they try and get new hearings since it’s already been proven that there was racial bias in their cases. According to the NCCADP, for the other two cases the court will decide whether people on death row who filed claims under the RJA will get their chance to present their evidence in court even after the repeal. They went on to say that three of the six defendants were sentenced to death under an all white jury. The NCCADP breaks down a study done in Michigan that was covered in the death row episode to say that qualified black jurors were struck from capital juries at twice the rate as white jurors. Even when other factors are brought in, the disparity can only be attributed to race. Defendants found direct evidence of discrimination such as prosecutors’ notes of potential jurors where the notes included descriptions such as “blk wino” and “thug”. Cassandra Stubbs is the director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project and represents one of the defendants, Marcus Robinson. She spoke with a reporter at the Real News Network and said that even though the NC Supreme Court didn’t re-sentence them to death and did not enter a new order about their life sentences, after they remanded, all four prisoners were moved from the prisons around the state where they had been serving their life without parole sentences. Without any reason at all, these four defendants were moved back to death row. If the court rules in the defendants favor, they can get new hearings and present significant evidence that race played a factor in their sentencing. The RJA attorneys said that the states highest court must take on this crucial issue and if it doesn’t, it will send the message that the state is willing to execute people after overwhelming evidence of racism in their trial has come to light. Cassandra said never before had any state sanctioned dismissal of comparable allegations and proof of racial bias. The state’s position is that since the RJA has been repealed we should all just forget about everything and move on, but the court cannot. Attorneys for the NC Attorney General’s office did not dispute the evidence of racism and said that racism in capital trials is serious and must be dealt with. However they asked the courts to deny the cases and leave the lower courts to deal with it, though they haven’t been doing a great job so far. As of right now, the courts have not ruled and it’s unclear when that’s expected to happen. The New York Times Editorial Board wrote an article about the RJA, which showed that the actions of the prosecutors in these capital cases were unconstitutional. The practice of being able to strike black jurors from cases with impunity was banned by the Supreme Court in 1986 after a case named Batson v. Kentucky. However, just because the Supreme Court banned the practice, it doesn’t mean prosecutors stopped doing it, just that they tried to hide it better. The article said that especially in places like North Carolina, this wasn’t the behavior of a few bad apples, it was standard operating procedure. There was a document distributed to NC prosecutors in training that apparently listed 10 “race neutral” explanations for striking a juror in case a judge asked. Categories included inappropriate dress, physical appearance, attitude, body language, and hair. If this is too subtle for you, the document was titled “Batson Justifications Articulating Juror Negatives”. This is especially important as prosecutors receive no repercussions for their actions, except under the RJA. As mentioned earlier, in August of this year attorneys from across the state argued before the state Supreme Court on behalf of the six individuals who are on death row and filed claims under the Racial Justice Act. Cassandra told a reporter for the NCCADP that everyone who filed a RJA case is entitled to a hearing on their RJA claims. This was because of a case decided after the Civil War called “Keith”, which is the best name!  Cassandra said in the case of Keith, a war criminal who massacred boys and men ages 13-60 was given amnesty by the NC Supreme Court because of due process. He was given a defense by the NC Legislature. A few years later the NC Legislature came in and repealed that act, and he successfully invoked the defense that was given to him by them. The Supreme Court ruled that he was entitled to it, and a repeal could not take it away. So essentially, the question is will a law that protected confederate soldiers and has never been overturned protect these cases. When the court eventually rules on all of this, according to the NCCADP, the outcome could affect nearly 150 other prisoners who petitioned under the RJA but never got their day in court. Lawyers for the prisoners who filed claims said the law may now be gone but they still should have a chance to prove that their client’s punishment was racially motivated. There’s a group of former judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officials who have a hope that the court will use this as an opportunity to strike down punishment in NC all together.A series of articles written by Radley Balko, he sought solutions from experts who work in the areas of law and forensics. Radley wrote that the legal system is too reluctant to revisit cases. As Priya has mentioned before, she’s of the opinion that retesting old cases with updated science is her idealistic solution to so many issues. Money is a huge obstacle with this but I would bet there are those who don’t want even more of their mistakes to come to light. Within the past 10 years there have been attempts to correct some of the issues with forensic science. In 2013, Congress and the Obama administration created the National Commission on Forensic Science, a panel of lawyers and scientists whose job it was to come up with standards and protocols in this field. However the Trump administration allowed the commissions’ charter to expire in April of 2017 - which is unsurprising since he doesn’t even believe in science. Radley found in speaking with his experts that the one resounding answer for reform has been what has come up again and again that all forensic labs should become independent of police and prosecutors. However, according to the experts Priya and Jess have spoken with, police and prosecutors don’t want to give up their “aces up their sleeves” especially as they are provided with little to no cost. Radley found that people he reached out to agree that if we keep this current system, then defense attorneys should be given the same amount of funds to provide their own experts. Forensic pathologist Judy Melinek told him that local pubic defender offices need to be funded at the same level as prosecutor’s and need to be given the same amount of access to forensic evidence. She also suggested that the laws should be changed to where defendants can appeal their convictions if scientific advancements indicate that they were wrongfully convicted based on faulty scientific testimony. Radley discussed the fact that many fields of forensics have come under scrutiny in recent years such as blood stain pattern analysis, hair fiber analysis, ballistics testing, and fingerprint analysis. Eyewitness testing has also been shown to be much less reliable than most people think and juries give them too much consideration. Bloodstain pattern analysis has been criticized as being more subjective than scientific. Steps have been made in the right direction using something called “fluid dynamics and physics”.Sandra Guerra Thompson, a law professor and the director of the Criminal Justice Institute at the University of Houston Law Center is a founding member of the board of directors of the Houston Forensic Science Center. The crime lab in Houston was once affiliated with the police and underwent a huge scandal similar to the North Carolina SBI Crime Lab. However, the response from their scandal was for the crime lab to be replaced with the Houston Forensic Center which is an independent lab. Texas has also created an influential science commission that in 2016, rendered bite mark evidence, a type of junk science, inadmissible. Sandra told Radley that the more information an analyst gets from law enforcement officials, the more likely they are to produce a false positive. Good scientists know that cognitive bias is a threat and take precautions to keep it from corrupting their work. Many of Radley’s experts suggested the idea of a case manager to benefit labs. As analysts receive information such as race, a case manager, who would preferably have a scientific background could be the go between for analysts and law enforcement and would decide what information needs to be distributed to the analyst. Barbara A. Spellman, a professor of law, and former professor of psychology from the University of Virginia suggests that for every case of which there is forensic evidence could have three forensic evidence who would examine the evidence together. By lottery one would be the consultant to the plaintiff, one to the defendant, and one would testify at the trial. Radley mentioned that a few of his experts cited the Houston Forensic Science Center as the ideal model of an independent science driven crime lab. That lab has already implemented the case managers and the shield analysts from being able to expend any bias. Sandra suggests that labs should be transparent and all documents including accreditation and even budget reports should be posted on the website and easy to find. She also suggested independent labs across the board, not just for eliminating bias, but also because she’s learned that independence enables labs are able to be transparent without needing approval from law enforcement and they eliminate the appearance of pro-police bias. She says that having scientists (who are not affiliated with police) collect the evidence from crime scenes restores the public’s trust, especially in officer-involved shootings.Another of Radley’s experts is Fred Whitehurst who Priya spoke with about his personal experiences in the FBI Forensic Lab. He was the whistleblower in a scandal there and ultimately turned his experience into an organization to help whistleblowers. Whistleblowers should be protected so that they’ll be more comfortable coming forwards. ASCLD-LAB had reporting protocols that involved using your own name and handwriting your complaint so that it essentially discouraged anyone from coming forward and “tattling”. Fred and a gentleman named John Lentini, another one of Radley’s experts in fire and arson – they were in complete agreement: suggesting that analysts be held accountable if their expert opinions led to a wrongful conviction. John also suggested that prosecutors be held accountable for intentional Brady violations - which is where prosecutors are required to hand over any and all evidence that could potentially exonerate the defendant. John told Radley he wants the court to reverse the Connick v. Thompson decision so that prosecutors will be held accountable for these violations. As John Lentini told Radley, and perhaps this answers some of the questions about Brady violations.  Priya said she’s all for prosecutors being held liable for their wrongdoings, but  she had no idea what the Connick v. Thompson decision was, so she looked it up:  apparently the Connick in this is Harry Connick Sr. - the father of Harry Connick Jr.   And the Thompson in this case was John Thompson who, in the 80s, was charged - with another guy - for killing someone.   And in this case, a fucking lot of fuckery happened.Including Connick allegedly withholding evidence that blood that was not the victim’s was found on or around the body - and that blood did not match John’s blood.  John was innocent.John sued and won $14 million dollars a million for each year he was wrongfully imprisoned.  But, you know, no one liked that - and nothing Priya read suggests this, but my theory is that John was a black man in Louisiana who was a shining example of a bunch of white prosecutors fucking up.  So, his win was appealed.  The case went all the way to the Supreme Court.  And despite popular opinion that there were an awful lot of shenanigans in that case, the Supreme Court ruled in Harry Connick Sr.’s favor, and, well, prosecutors can legally withhold Brady materials.  Obviously, Queen Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented in this case.  Because of course she did.Prosecutors are almost immune when it comes to wrongdoing. They’re immune to civil cases and are rarely disciplined in cases of misconduct. An article written in March of 2019 looking into accountability for prosecutors in California, mentions that the CA State Bar rarely investigates prosecutors. They mention that a lack of resources may contribute to this. They looked at a study that found in California from 2004-2009 there were 707 instances where a judge found that a prosecutor committed misconduct. Only six of those resulted in a public sanction by the state bar. This problem isn’t isolated to California: in Massachusetts only two prosecutors were publicly disciplined between 1980 and 2016. There were at least 142 instances during that same period of time where a judge reversed a guilty verdict or dismissed charges due to prosecutor misconduct. Over 1,400 non-prosecutors have been disciplined in Massachusetts over the last 15 years. In Louisiana, the first professional sanction against a prosecutor didn’t occur until 2005. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo approved a bill in the spring of 2019 to set up the nations first independent commission to investigate reports of misconduct by prosecutors. The bill received support from many black and latinx democrats who saw it as an answer to systemic racism. The commission will be made up of 11 people who can investigate attorneys and determine whether their conduct is unprofessional or unlawful. Prosecutors have been fighting this and calling it unconstitutional, even filing suit against it. The article discusses the different types of unethical stuff prosecutors do and mentions that they have a “whatever it takes mentality”. The article also notes that when someone is accused of a crime they cease to be seen as a person by the legal system. It says that without plea bargaining our criminal system couldn’t process the nearly 11 million arrests that occur every year, and without misconduct way fewer people would plead guilty. We live in a culture that doesn’t trust defense lawyers. Marvin Schechter told Priya that people often ask him how he can defend guilty people to which he replies “how can I not defend innocent people?” Our system promises innocent until proven guilty but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The defense attorneys fight for that promise, but exonerees are left with broken promises from the system. They’re presumed guilty from the beginning and often are even after being exonerated. They deserve a public apology and the victims deserve a promise that the justice system will do everything they can to find the person actually responsible for the crime. Priya and Jess asked their experts if they had a “wis hlist” of reforms they would like to see. On Chris Mumma’s list was restrictions or controls on the use of jailhouse informants. In many of the cases this podcast has covered, jailhouse informants were used and were lying. The I Beverly Lake Jr Fair Trial Act was put up for a vote. It included concerns about the reliability of jailhouse informants and suggested that no one should be convicted based on the word of a jailhouse informant alone, there should be other corroborated evidence. Regulating the use of jailhouse informants should be done nationwide and Connecticut is currently doing work in this area. The new rules there include requiring pre-trial hearings on whether their testimony should be allowed and forcing prosecutors to disclose any deals with informants and their history of testifying in other cases. A bill was signed in July that will create the nation’s first statewide system to track the use of informants and the benefits they receive in exchange for their testimony. California, Connecticut, Oklahoma, and Utah all require juries to be given instructions to scrutinize informant’s testimonies. Also on Chris’ wish list was a more cooperative post-conviction review and resolution process and repercussions for prosecutorial misconduct. This item was on a few of their expert’s list. Kim Cook’s and Saundra Westervelt’s list includes that the state helps an exoneree readjust to life after exoneration. They suggest reparations for the exonerated person and their family, compensation within a reasonable about of time, expungement of the crimes for which they were convicted immediately upon release, access to healthcare including mental healthcare, free education and training for employment, assistance finding employment, and adjustments to social security, they also want officials and advocates to remember the harm done to the victims or family of victims at the heart of the original conviction case. They suggest reparations that may assist in their healing in the form of: time to ask questions about how this happened, answers to be provided by the judicial body overturning the conviction or someone in a position of authority who does not continue to maintain the exoneree’s guilt, an opportunity to meet the exonerated person if both parties agree, financial compensation to help with costs from the wrongful conviction, access to healthcare to assist with physical or emotional trauma, and extension of the statute of limitations for rape and sexual assault cases to allow the identification of the actual perpetrator. Priya goes a step further and says that the evidence should be preserved for a long time. This is especially true as it’s not always easy for survivors to come forward. Marilyn Miller said she would like to see the adoption of common sense standards set by The Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science (OSAC). The standards they set include minimum requirements, best practices, standard protocols, and other guidance to help ensure the results of the forensic analysis are reliable and reproducible. She would also like to see the accreditation of forensic science programs in higher education. Marilyn was also asked about some of the things she was grateful for. The standards set by OSAC is one of those as well as lawyers who understand the power of forensic science done properly and 25 years of cool students. The impact of the results of the audit will be felt for a long time as prosecutors and defense attorneys examine cases up to two decades old. Chris Mumma is still dealing with the reverberations today. In episode two we learned that the Center on Actual Innocence rejects 95% of the cases that come across their desk as they have to pass a series of rigorous tests. When Chris takes on a case, it means not only that there’s credible evidence that the individual is innocent but it seems to mean the individual is definitely innocent. When she takes on a case she completely dedicates herself to the case. Chris had been dealing with the SBI Crime Lab since 2006 and is still dealing with the repercussions of their misconduct. On May 5th 2008, a boater on the Catawba River in Mt Holly, NC called 911 after seeing a car that had run off an embankment and a body near it. When police arrived, they discovered the body of Ira Yarmolenko, a 20 year old UNC Charlotte student, lying dead next to her car. She had three ligatures around her neck and 100 yards down the embankment a man named Mark Carver and his cousin Neal Cassada were fishing. DNA found microscopic skin cells that “matched” Mark in Ira’s car. This is touch DNA which is really unreliable because it’s something you could leave just by picking something up in the store. Mark and Neil were charged with the murder of Ira and ultimately placed under house arrest. Being charged with a murder you didn’t commit sounds like it would be extremely stressful, so it’s not that big of a surprise that the night before his trial, Neil had a heart attack and died. Prosecutors offered Mark a deal where he would get four to eight years in prison, and, as he was innocent, he turned down their offer and the case went to trial. Like we’ve seen before, the defense thought the case was really weak and didn’t bother to provide any evidence. At this point, it was 2011 and the 230 cases from the audit had happened but that was evidently not enough for the defense attorneys to be diligent. A year earlier there had been a publication of updated guidelines that were relevant to the evidence reported at the trial. Had the DNA testing been reported at the trial, none of it would have been reported as matching Mark but instead he was sentenced to life in prison. Chris Mumma took on Mark’s case in 2013 and after a number of delays, the hearing began last spring. On April 8th, 2019, former SBI Special Agent Mark Booty testified. He said that in the lab in 2010 everyone was panicked about the audit report that had just come out but inexplicably inside the lab, agents were ignoring scientific advancements that could have helped Mark. He told the court that they were trying to save their jobs and that they weren’t focused on science at the time. A couple of years prior to the trial, Chris Mumma pointed out the similarities between Mark and Greg’s cases where the biggest reason for the conviction was proximity to a dead body. Priya says that, on a personal note, it was great watching the headlines over the summer because in June the judge set aside Mark’s case and he walked out of the courtroom a free man. However, he still has an ankle monitor and was not found not guilty. Mark will likely have to suffer through a new trial, but maybe justice will prevail and the charges will be dropped. Of course this means that after a decade, there has been no investigation into who actually murdered Ira. Mark and Neal have always been the only suspects so it’s likely that, as with Greg, there won’t be any investigation, meaning there will be no justice for the victim and her friends and family. There are many similarities between Greg and Mark’s cases including the minuscule evidence and offers of plea deals. Chris refers to Mark as her “Greg Taylor 2.0”. It was Greg’s case that sounded the alarm that something was drastically wrong in the SBI lab, which plunged the lab into chaos. The chaos that resulted in no one paying attention to the evidence that could have cleared Mark and his cousin. Chris says that it’s almost ironic that the exoneration of one of her clients could have lead to the wrongful conviction of another. In Radley Balko’s articles that were referenced earlier, Judy Melenik suggested that if the courts are following the laws placed before them by legislatures then it’s time to find legislatures who are serious about criminal justice reform and who are ready to pass laws that fund forensic labs and require the legal system to give the wrongfully convicted another chance at overturning those convictions and seeking retribution. Jess and Priya advises us that DAs are elected officials and that the best thing we can do is "vote the F’d Up people out”. To close the podcast, the F’d Up crew share their final thoughts on what they’ve covered this season. Keith says that in doing this podcast he’s been most surprised about the justice system’s willingness to pick and choose evidence to which Priya says that they don’t treat someone as innocent until proving guilty. It’s more like they decide the person is guilty and just work towards proving it. When asked what reform she would like to see since doing this podcast, Jess said for her it’s that the prosecutors are held accountable. Priya says that that’s also a huge deal for her and that behind the scenes of doing the podcast she’s learned that you have to be very clear in asking for a lawyer. You can’t say something like “I may want a lawyer now” you have to clearly invoke your right for a lawyer, and she wants more people to know that. In closing they want us to know the most important thing we can do to help is vote.

The Cost is F’d Up Part TwoRecapWritten by Brandi AbbottOn August 10th, 1984 the body of a woman who had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death was found. A witness stated that he had seen the victim with a black man named Darryl Hunt the morning before she had been murdered. Another witness claimed they had seen her with another man who couldn’t have done it but then changed their statement to say they had seen her with Darryl after being pressed by the police. Darryl’s girlfriend was arrested for outstanding charges against her, but was most likely arrested so the police could get more information on Darryl. She told them that he had confessed to her that he had murdered the victim. Darryl maintained his innocence, but was tried for first degree murder. Many of the witnesses testified that he had either been seen with the victim or covered in blood, but he testified that he didn’t even know the victim. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. It’s possible that his jury was completely white but there are conflicting reports. One holdout on the jury prevented him from being sentenced to death.When Darryl was convicted, the black community was upset to say the least. The black community thought he was innocent, whereas the white community thought he was guilty. The case was extremely racially charged, even in prison because the victim was a young successful white woman. Darryl told Larry that he was a target for the skinheads. After five years in prison, Darryl’s conviction was overturned because it was revealed that the prosecutors presented Darryl’s ex-girlfriend’s statement, which she had recanted even before the trial. He was released on bond while he awaited a new trial and was offered a plea deal that if he just pled guilty he could have time served and not spend another day in prison. As he was innocent, he refused.Darryl was retried in front of all of all-white jury and, as well as the original witnesses, some jailhouse informants showed up to testify. Darryl was convicted for a second time and sentenced to life in prison. During all of this, the SBI had compiled a report that was thousands of pages long, but the trial court opted to not review it and the judge ordered it sealed so that no one would be able to read it. All requests from Darryl’s attorneys, Mark Rabil and Ben Dowling-Sendor, to get the report unsealed were denied. The attorneys requested DNA testing on a semen sample found on the victim because Ben found out that the SBI had more evidence than they were saying, including this sample. Prior to this, the SBI complained that the sample was too degraded to test. Darryl’s attorneys argued that there was witness tampering and evidence that the SBI was clearly concealing. The judge disagreed that there was anything shady going on, but allowed for testing of the semen sample.In October of 1994, the test results came back and Darryl was not a match to the sample. The victim’s mother begged for there not to be a third trial as she had already been through it twice. The judge refused to exonerate Darryl, saying the case was only somewhat weakened by this evidence, and believed that Darryl could still be guilty. Darryl’s attorneys appealed many times but were continuously denied.In February of 2003, Darryl was still in prison even though it had been 19 years since he was convicted and 10 years since he proved his innocence. Darryl’s attorneys requested that the semen sample be run through the state database and it got a match. The match was for a man named Willard Brown who confessed to the crime. He was allegedly in prison at the time of the murder, but according to the movie “The Trials of Darryl Hunt”, Mark Rabil found out he had been released prior to the murder. Mark also discovered that there may have been another victim who survived and the police may have coerced her into not pressing charges against Brown for some unknown reason and destroyed evidence of this crime. The DA tried to delay Darryl’s release because they were sure they had their man. However, with overwhelming evidence that he was innocent, Darryl was released from prison on December 24th, 2003. He had to go before a judge six weeks later and prove his innocence again, and Darryl Hunt was finally exonerated in 2004. He received a state payment of $300,000, and, when he sued the city of Winston-Salem, received a settlement of over 1.6 million dollars.Every case F’d Up has covered has been settled which Jess says protects the system and prevents it from having to admit culpability. The Innocence Project and Center on Actual Innocence makes a difference by showing law enforcement and the public that there are people in prison who are actually innocent, which will go a long way towards helping these injustices. Prosecutors will sometimes do press conferences saying they just didn’t have enough evidence which places doubt in the public’s eye about the exonerated. Kim Cook said that a public apology instead could go a long way. If you’re exonerated and return to where you once lived, the community may recognize you from the crime you were convicted of and not as someone exonerated from that crime. Saundra and Kim reference a woman who was wrongfully convicted of killing her child and exonerated. She returned to her hometown, but most people still believed she was a monster. Facing an accusatory community can be an added stressor, and extremely frustrating.The trauma of a wrongful conviction doesn’t just affect the exoneree, their family and loved ones are affected as well. According to a report called “Who Pays: The True Cost of Incarceration on Families”, the US spends 80 billion dollars to lock away more than 2.4 million people in jails and prisons. This has a huge impact on people who are “already stigmatized, penalized, and punished.” Unjust policy has created a legacy of collateral impacts that last for generations, especially in women, low income families, and communities of color. If a family is already struggling financially before a member goes to jail, the loss of income and court related costs can add up and create a financial hole. There are also charges for phone calls or emails with a prisoner, care packages, and costs related to visiting such as traveling or possibly lodging depending on how far away they are incarcerated. In short, outside of the costs of court fees and just losing their income, it’s going to cost you quite a lot just to communicate with your incarcerated love one. Also according to that report, families who are not able to speak with or visit their loved one are more likely to report experiencing negative affects on their health. The report says that these affects hit women and people of color the hardest deepening the societal divides that push many into the criminal justice system in the first place. Almost one in every four women and two in every five black women specifically are related to someone incarcerated. The system is set up to keep people of color down.It can take a year from being released to actually be pardoned and, as we learned last week, an exoneree must be pardoned to get the state allocated money. If an exoneree’s record is not expunged or sealed, it can be extremely difficult to reenter the work force. The question “have you ever been convicted of a felony” is a kind of a trick question to an exoneree because there’s not exactly a box to check for “yes, but I didn’t do it”. According to the Innocence Project, it can take three or four years for a criminal record to be expunged. This can affect more than jobs, as landlords may not want to rent to you after they run your background check, you can’t provide work history or credit history for a mortgage, and Section 8 housing doesn’t allow convicted felons. The system sets the exoneree up for failure, and they often can end up homeless which can lead the exoneree back on the path to prison.The article “How Private Equity is Turning Private Prisons Into Big Profits” states that “Poverty in particular perpetuates the cycle of incarceration while incarceration leads to greater poverty.’ Estimates say that nearly 40% of all crimes are a result of poverty, and the majority of incarcerated people are low income. Because of extremely problematic policies, by 1985 prisons in 34 states were under court supervision for violating constitutional rights of prisoners. President Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs had begun, leading to a steady influx of newly incarcerated American’s. Priya tells us that 1985 was around the time she lived in DC and that homelessness and gangs were on the rise. Her dad was a White House press photographer for UPI, and would walk past the homeless people at the gates of the White House, who President Reagan claimed didn’t exist. Her dad took a photograph of a homeless man there, started getting to know some of the regulars he encountered, and was, in general, taking really powerful photographs. One of the people he would speak to recommended he go to one of the homeless shelters. When he got there, the kids really wanted to play with his cameras so he taught them how to use them, and let them shoot photos. He noticed that their photographs were much lighter and had more hope than his own which were more serious and taken from an adult perspective. He ended up leaving UPI and started a non-profit called Shooting Back where kids would take photos, develop them, and he and some of the kids would travel the country educating others on the homeless situation. This program helped kids steer clear of getting involved in gangs, Priya says she remembers that one of the kids who wasn’t in the program for very long ended up being a victim of murder but she’s unsure of it was gang related but that considering the climate, it’s possible it was. She remembers that another kid who went through the program sent her dad an email a few years ago thanking him for helping him stay out of prison, because he’s certain that’s where he would have ended up. She says the cycle can be broken and arts education can help. Reagan ended up recanting his statement on homeless people and Priya says she believes that the work of her dad and others contributed to that. She says that the reason she’s telling the story is that there were people, including her dad, at that time in the most powerful city in the nation trying to help but the government kept pushing forward with what was in front of their eyes instead of getting to the root of the issue.A woman named Bianca Tylek, the founder of an advocacy group called Worth Rises has cataloged 3,100 companies with a financial stake in mass incarceration. Jess says that incarceration is good for business, just terrible for people.In 2005, Darryl Hunt founded The Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, a non-profit dedicated to educating people about criminal justice reform, advocating for the wrongfully convicted, and providing resources to individuals who were recently released from prison. A reporter from the local paper interviewed Darryl Hunt in 2014. It had been 10 years since his exoneration and he still felt the conditioning of prison. He would pause before doors and wait for them to automatically open. If he left the house, prior to his return, Darryl would drive to an ATM and withdraw money, simply to have his face photographed so that there would be a record of his movements. Darryl said he never left his home without fear of being picked up for something he didn’t do on his mind. He also said that he refused to celebrate the anniversaries of his exoneration. He recognized the miracle of it and was grateful for it, but said for others around him it would be a celebration but for him it would just be reliving it. The article says that Darryl’s attorney, Mark Rabil, and Darryl became extremely good friends. The racial divide had not ended with Darryl’s exoneration, if Darryl and Mark went out to dinner in a more black neighborhood, everyone knew and loved Darryl. However, if they went out to dinner in a more white neighborhood, it would be quieter as he didn’t know many people and some kept their distance. Priya said it’s interesting to her that some of the people they have covered have moved out of North Carolina. Not that anyone can blame them as I’m sure it’s a constant reminder of what happened and they’re surrounded by people who still only see them as a convicted felon. Darryl did not move, however. He said he stayed in Winston-Salem because it made people uncomfortable. If people had a constant reminder of the injustice he went through, maybe it wouldn’t happen again. Because he worked in justice reform, he would spend time in courtrooms. Mark Rabil said his face was a reminder to the people who put him away and that some DAs would cross the street to avoid him. When he walked into a courtroom, it would go quiet. In the same year Darryl was exonerated, he dedicated his life to justice reform. In addition to his non-profit, he worked with the Innocence Injustice Clinic at Wake Forest University School of Law where he helped people get their criminal records expunged and spoke publicly, allowing law students to ask him about his case. He joined the board of directors for the Center on Actual Innocence. He helped advocated for the Racial Injustice Act of 2009, which basically forbade race from being a factor in the pursuit of the death penalty. He was working non-stop and was the type who could never say no to the point of personal risk to his mental health. It was like he was paying something back. Priya says that all of this work was clearly taking a toll on him. Darryl’s friend Mark Rabil was quoted as saying “He was the voice of the voiceless who was wounded by 20 years of wrongful incarceration and taking on the burdens of so many people and fighting systems that can’t be changed in one lifetime.” On March 13th 2016, Darryl Hunt completed suicide.Darryl Hunt has an incredible legacy. In North Carolina, anyone over the age of 16 can be tried as an adult, and, if convicted, may not be eligible for financial aid in schools when they get out. Many people, guilty or not, want to do better when released and want to start with an education. Darryl told friends that education is the key to breaking the cycle of incarceration. In 2017, the Darryl Hunt Memorial Scholarship was set up to help provide tuition to those that had been convicted of crimes. Darryl’s legacy is amazing but it doesn’t change the fact that he died. His friend and lawyer Mark Rabil was the only constant in his life, as his own mother had been murdered and the case was never solved. Mark told the Winston-Salem Journal that 19 years of wrongful incarceration is what killed Darryl Hunt.Darryl got to taste freedom, at least for a moment. Next week’s episode will revisit the audit because not everyone got that chance. Seven of the cases on the audit’s list were sentenced to death and we’ll learn more about those cases and death row, itself.

The Cost is F’d Up - Part One Recap Written by Brandi Abbott Around 2015, a man named, LaMonte Armstrong sued the city of Greensboro, NC and three of its former cops after spending almost 17 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. On July 12th, 1988 Ernestine Compton was found murdered in her home. The crime was publicized on Crime Stoppers, and an informant with a reputation for lying called in and said Mr. Armstrong was the killer. The police followed up on his statement, but at some point he recanted this and the case went cold. By 1992, the police had reason to suspect Christopher Caveness was involved. There was palm and fingerprint evidence at the crime scene so the SBI was brought in to match it to Caveness - but it wasn’t a match. The police had never let go of the idea that Mr. Armstrong had committed the murder, and the informant changed his story again, becoming the star witness in Mr. Armstrong’s trial. In 1995, Mr. Armstrong was convicted of murdering Ernestine Compton. In 2010, the informant recanted his statement again. The cops had failed to mention he was paid $200 and received a lighter or reduced sentence for another crime. The palm print was run again and actually did match Caveness, but by then, he had died in a car crash – not total justice for the victim. But, Mr. Armstrong received some semblance of justice when he was exonerated in 2012 - and the next step was to try and be pardoned, because apparently those two things are separate. Once you’re released, you have to submit an application to the Governor to basically reprove your innocence, then you have to wait until they decide whether to pardon you or not. Thankfully, Mr. Armstrong was pardoned in 2013; which meant he could then apply to receive money that the state sets aside for exonerees. The amounts vary from state to state but in North Carolina, an exoneree can receive up to $50,000 for every year that they spent in prison… though, they cap it at 17 years. There are people in our country who have been exonerated but not pardoned. Jess says that it makes sense that a state wouldn’t want to pardon someone as it admits culpability and they don’t want to pay someone hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mr. Armstong luckily received $750,000 from the state, but because of the severe injustice in his case, he was able to file a civil suit against the city of Greensboro and the three cops responsible for his conviction. The city hired 5 local lawyers to represent the cops in the suit, and as the trial dragged on into 2016, it was reported that the city spent $270,000 towards expenses for it. This meant that the city and state had spent over a million dollars for one wrongful conviction at that point. The city settled in 2016 and offered to pay Mr. Armstrong $6.42 million, as they should have. If someone goes to prison due to a wrongful conviction and mishandling of evidence, they obviously deserve some kind of compensation. If you’ve ever wondered where that money comes from however, the answer is that some can come from insurance but a large amount comes from taxpayers. Priya found a report written in 2015 called “Criminal InJustice”. This report is based on California statistics, not North Carolina, as a report like this seemed unprecedented, but the situations are similar. The report included cases in California where the defendant was convicted of a felony and the conviction was reversed between the years of 1989 and 2012 and the charges were dismissed or the defendant was acquitted on retrial. They examined 692 cases in total and 607 of the cases “illuminate a dark corner in California’s criminal justice system”. The defendants in these 607 cases spent a combined total of 2,186 years in custody. Many of these defendants filed lawsuits and received settlements as a result of the errors. 58 of the 607 people filed claims asking for compensations. At the time of this report’s publication, only 14 of these claims were granted, 36 had been denied, and some were still pending, despite all 58 having been credible. A total of five million dollars was awarded to the 14 defendants, and this fee would have been much larger for taxpayers if all 58 people had been awarded compensation. Looking at all 607 cases, the report estimates that the wrongful convictions cost taxpayers $221 million for prosecution, incarceration, and settlement. The remaining cases out of the initial 692 examined are referred to in the report as group exonerations as they were cases that had multiple defendants. The most prominent of these was the 2002 Rampart Police Scandal in which a group of LA police officers admitted to falsely arresting or accusing hundreds of mostly Latinx residents of various crimes, 228 of which received civil settlements. LA paid more than 70 million dollars in settlements related to that scandal, and the total cost has been reported as between 125 million and one billion dollars. The settlement costs includes payouts to three LAPD officers who had lost their jobs over the scandal, despite having not been involved. The total cost to California taxpayers for all 692 of these cases was more than 282 million dollars. This doesn’t include the cost of people who were arrested but never convicted which adds cost to taxpayers significantly. The money owed to Mr. Armstrong that wasn’t covered by insurance was to be paid by an increase in property taxes to Greensboro residents. Kirk Turner, who was one of two cases covered in this podcast where the accused was declared not guilty, recently won a $200,000 civil suit against the SBI. His case, however, cost the state way more than that. Greg Taylor sued and was awarded $4.6 million from the SBI. By 2013, the SBI and its insurers had paid about 16.4 million dollars between three wrongfully convicted men who spent a combined 40 years behind bars or in detention. Leslie Lincoln, the other case F’d Up covered where the accused wasn’t convicted, you may remember from episode three as having lost everything. She got a lawyer and tried to sue but the lawyer was lagging and doing nothing so she got a new lawyer. This one also dragged his feet on the issue, and ultimately the statutes of limitations ran out. Leslie suffers from PTSD and lives in section 8 housing. Jess says that her situation is more the norm than those who received millions of dollars. In 2012, when Mr. Armstrong was exonerated, there was about a year between when he was released and when he received his payout which Jess says is the case for any of the exonerated who are fortunate enough to be awarded a payout. Priya spoke to Saundra Westervelt and Kim Cook for this episode. Saundra is a professor emerita at UNCG and Kim is a professor of sociology and criminology at UNCW. They’ve dedicated decades to studying and writing about the post-exoneration process and what happens to exonerees once they’re released. When someone is exonerated, they sometimes only receive a couple of hours notice, and have to walk out of prison in the clothes they were wearing when they went in, sometimes decades ago and with no car or transportation. Some people may be lucky enough to have someone still to pick them up or bring new clothes but for a lot of people, years in prison leads to a loss of connections in the outside world. It’s possible that an exoneree has been transferred to a prison hours away from wherever they live, assuming they even still have a home. Many people walk out of prison, finally free after spending years inside for crimes they didn’t commit and find themselves in an entirely new world with no clue of where to go or what to do. Unlike parolees, there are no programs in place to help the exonerated rejoin society. There use to be halfway houses specifically for exonerees, but over the years it became defunded. Programs like the Innocence Project or Center on Actual Innocence help the exonerees that they were working with but there are still many exonerees that weren’t working with a program like these. Exonerees can’t just pick up their cell and call an Uber or a Lyft, because they don’t have phones and may not even be aware of ride services like that. There may be a payphone outside of prisons, but one still may not know anyone’s numbers. Kim Cook told Priya that every exoneree has PTSD, but that it’s what they call Continued PTSD because it continues to happen as they’re faced with all of the challenges of the outside world. Prison takes away your ability to make decisions so sometimes even being faced with what we would consider a small decision (like which cereal to buy) can lead to a panic attack, as this happened with one of the people Kim Cook was working with. A lot of exonerees have limited stamina from being cooped up and find it difficult to walk long distances, and they sleep on the floor because they aren’t used to having a comfortable bed. Essentially, after spending years confined to a cell with limited yard time, especially with speed of which technology and everything has evolved, everything can be overwhelming. Some exonerees give talks on what happened to them in order to try and enact change and will find themselves lost and disoriented on the way to these talks. The New York Innocence Project has two social workers who help exonerees which really should be standard. You may remember all of the milestones that Greg Taylor missed like his daughter’s wedding and graduation, and every exoneree has some version of that story. There are so many relationships and milestones that slipped away while they were in prison and coming to terms with that can be extremely difficult to say the least. In some cases, some exonerees may feel resentment for loved ones who didn’t believe they were innocent or towards people who moved on to a new relationship. To pile onto all of the depression and PTSD, is a rising feeling of bitterness over the injustice, and, in some cases, guilt for leaving their friends, and what was essentially their support system for years, behind in prison. Priya says there were so many things she hadn’t considered and she’s not alone. I’m sure many of us thought that when someone is exonerated, that’s their happy ending and didn’t realize how many hoops they still have to jump through. Next week F’d Up will be exploring more of the costs and aftereffects of exoneration and another fucked up case. We think that’s the end, but then… Jess tells us, “Hey everybody…. we just wanted give you all an update about LaMonte Armstrong. We recorded this episode a little while ago, we were trying to be respectful of Mr. Armstrong’s first name and not mispronounce it. We found out recently that the people who knew him best called him L.A. One of those people was Kim Cook, she posted about him very recently, because, tragically, a couple of weeks ago - as of this airing - he passed away from cancer. We reached out to Kim to ask what she’d like to say and she gave us permission to read out what she’d written on social media: ‘There’s s deep sadness in my heart today. My friend LA has passed away. It seems like I’ve known him for a long time, and i don’t recall exactly when we first met. We hit it off right away. Every time he came to Wilmington we would meet up for a visit. We often enjoyed seeing each other at The Innocence Network conferences, and he bought me funny gifts (like a New York Yankees jacket - I’m a Boston Red Sox gal), and always made me laugh. We both joined the Board of Directors of Healing Justice before it was publicly launched. Please join me in donating to his beloved Healing Justice in his memory. Thx.’

The Audit Is F’d Up – Part OneRecapWritten by Brandi AbbottLast week’s episode left off with us learning that the audit of the SBI Crime Lab revealed 230 mishandled cases. This week F’d Up will delve into the audit, but first… an important content warning for sexual abuse and child abuse.First in the audit, they took a sample of cases from 1989 to 1991 and found 30 cases consistent with the scenario in Greg Taylor’s case. Then they reviewed all 15,419 files from 1987 to 2003, looking specifically for cases that had similar language to Greg’s case such as “indications of blood” or “chemical indications for the presence of blood”. Out of that search criteria, they pulled 932 files. Each of those files were thoroughly reviewed and 230 of them contained at least one instance of “where the lab notes reflected that a positive presumptive test for the presence of blood was followed by a confirmatory test of which results were negative, inconclusive or no result.” None of these had the negative test results recorded anywhere except in the analyst’s lab notes. In 40 of these cases, law enforcement was either not able to identify a suspect or the suspect wasn’t charged so they did not result in wrongful convictions, and in 20 additional cases there was either a dismissal or the suspect was found not guilty.The next phase of the audit concentrated on confusing language and they found 105 cases similar to Greg’s. Nine of the cases resulted in dismissals or not guilty verdicts and in the remaining cases, the defendants had served their time or been released.The next phase was “misleading reports.” There were 36 cases that contained reports that said no other tests were conducted but they had been with negative or inconclusive results. Three of these cases had defendants who were still in prison at that time. The final phase of the audit was “misrepresented final reports” which involves cases where the actual results of the confirmatory tests were not reflective of the results contained in the lab results. There were five cases in this category and… they were all handled by Duane Deaver.According to the audit report, not all of these cases resulted in a wrongful conviction but a number of cases warranted a reinvestigation. The recommendation was that if anyone wanted to look into these cases it was up to the defendant, their attorney, or the prosecution to determine whether or not the case was worth reopening. Attorney General Roy Cooper received the report, distributed it to DAs across the state, and then released it to the public.One of the names on that list was a man named Derrick Allen who lived with his girlfriend and her two year-old daughter in 1998. On February 9th, 1998 his girlfriend went to work, leaving him at home with her daughter and a woman who was staying with them named Kia Ward. Around half an hour after his girlfriend left, Derrick called 911 because the baby had passed out. When the EMTs arrived, the baby had no pulse and was dead. The EMTs found what seemed to be blood inside the left leg of the baby’s onesie. She had complained about pain in her leg and passed out after being taking out of a bath. The autopsy revealed abrasions or lacerations to her vaginal orifice. Shortly after, Derrick was arrested and in winter of 1998, he was indicted with first degree sex offense, felony child abuse, and first degree murder.***When the audit was released people were rightfully angry. Many of the DAs, defense attorneys, and other people in the justice system publicly spoke out against the SBI Crime Lab. AG Roy Cooper said, “The lab can not accept attitudes that are not open to the possibility that a mistake has been made. It can not ignore criticisms and suggestions from the outside.” Spoiler alert: it did. Some lab employees completely ignored the report. Also, Duane Deaver was not the only analyst who tested the spot on Greg Tayler’s truck. Deaver’s superior, Jed Taub, assisted with the analysis. Duane Deaver is talked about most because of “The Staircase” which had that video of him doing his “science”, but Jess says no one ever talks about the woman in the video. Suzi Barker had seven cases mentioned in the audit. Jed Taub retired in 2004 after being with the SBI for 30 years, and was working with the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office as a forensic investigator when the audit was happening in 2010. Taub claimed that they didn’t report the negative result of a confirmatory test because it’s misleading, and that the tests didn’t matter because they couldn’t be sure it wasn’t blood. He said everyone was making a big deal over nothing. He only reported negative tests if the first test was negative. Taub had nine cases mentioned in the audit but basically blamed any “misunderstandings” on attorneys. SBI Special Agent Jennifer Elwell who has been mentioned on previous episodes shared Taub’s viewpoint and said the audit was just “one person’s opinion”. Turns out, she was mentioned in the audit quite a bit.Special Agent Jennifer Elwell and her superior, David Spittle, analyzed items from the scene of the Derrick Allen case for a presence of blood. Elwell was the only one who testified and was mentioned in the audit. The initial testing on the items showed a presence of blood but the confirmatory Takayama test did not, which she wrote down in her notes. When she explained the science at Derrick’s appeal she said you would be looking for a specific formation of crystals to occur. If they did not appear, you would say the test was negative or inconclusive. A negative test result only means the analyst was not able to see the crystal formation. Elwell did the Takayama test in Derrick’s case. She put the small sample of alleged blood and the Takayama reagent under the microscope and waited for the crystals to form. According to Marilyn Miller if the crystals do not fully form, that’s a negative result and if there’s enough of the sample left, a second test should be done. If the crystals still do not form, that is negative. Elwell said at the appeal that crystals didn’t form and that they “tried to form” but nothing happened. According to Miller, crystals can try to form but that is considered a negative result.***Kia Ward submitted to a polygraph test without the defense’s knowledge. She admitted that she had had sex with Derrick and considered him an “enemy.” Everything she said about him the investigators took as fact, just ignoring the fact she admitted she had a vendetta against him. On April 2nd 1998, the state decided to pursue the death penalty.***After the audit report was released prosecutors and defense attorneys were in shock and wanted to review all of their cases. Around 80 defendants out of these cases were still in prison at this time. Checking those 80 cases was considered a top priority by the Executive Director for Prisoner Legal Services, and defense attorneys were encouraged to go through the list of those names and see if any of their clients were on it.***Derrick Allen was facing the death penalty and was rightfully scared so in 1999 he agreed to enter Alford plea deal which basically just acknowledges that a person knows that prosecutors have damning evidence that would likely result in a guilty verdict at trial but doesn’t admit any guilt. This plea deal got him sentenced to 43 years in prison which completely sucks for an innocent person but is still better than dying. In 2004, he withdrew his Alford plea and was given a new trial since he had been in prison five years and was tired of being there over something he didn’t do. The day after Greg Taylor was exonerated on February 18th 2010, Derrick was appointed a new lawyer named Lisa Williams who reviewed his case files and found things were missing like pages from the investigating agent’s report. This is a violation of NC’s Open File Law which was enacted in 2004 and a federal Brady v. Maryland law. Lisa Williams wrote a letter requesting the entire file, and through this discovery found out a bunch of F’d up shit. At this point everyone knew what had been happening in the SBI lab, including the judge in Derrick’s case, Orlando Hudson. Judge Hudson dismissed Derrick’s case “due to the prosecutors withholding critical information and flagrantly violating Derrick’s constitutional rights” and said that the prosecutors had caused such irreparable prejudice that he had no choice but to dismiss the case. Just like in the previous cases covered, the investigators refused to investigate other suspects because they believed Derrick was guilty. The DA, Tracy Cline, called Judge Hudson dismissing Derrick’s case “an extreme abuse of power” and issued a series of derogatory comments against the judge about that case and several others.In September 2012, the state Court of Appeals unanimously decided there were no grounds for Judge Hudson’s dismissal and that he didn’t have adequate evidence to dismiss the case. His ruling was reversed and the case went back to Durham County Superior Court. There was apparently substantial independent blood evidence, which Priya says she doesn’t really understand because she could only find a reference to a paper towel found in the kitchen that contained blood and that what was thought to be blood on the onesie was not blood.The next four years, Derrick was not in prison but found himself having to worry about whether he was going to be charged again or sent back to prison until October of 2016 when a Durham ADA filed records of the case being dismissed. The reason being that after significant investigation into the case witnesses either could not be located or refused to assist the prosecution.In 2016, at 38 years old, Derrick had spent over half of his life either in prison or wondering if he was going to go back to prison. This miscarriage of justice affected not only him, but the baby’s mother, and all of their friends and family. Also, if he didn’t do it, whoever hurt the baby is still out there. When F’d Up interviewed Chris Mumma, the executive director of the NC Center on Actual Innocence, she told them that the problem with the system, is you expect the scales to be balanced but they aren’t balanced.***The audit of the SBI lab basically revealed that Deaver was telling the truth when he said he was following SBI policy for how he reported in Greg’s case. In 1997, it became written policy whereas prior to that it was unwritten and analysts just used their discretion. From 1986-2002, which was nearly the entire span of the audit, a guy named Mark Nelson was the Forensic Biology Section Chief at the SBI lab. He acknowledged after the audit that omitting confirmatory tests was bad practice. At section meetings reporting positive results was discussed and standardized but there was no discussion of reporting negative or inconclusive results. Two analysts who were interviewed by Chris Swecker for the report said that they had been told about the possibility of false positives but they ignored those warnings believing that a positive finding in the tests indicated blood because they had done testing on plant based materials that were known to cause false positives but hadn’t gotten a positive reaction. Swecker said that they were writing their reports to law enforcement and were trying not tp write any negative results. Swecker also wrote that there was anecdotal evidence that some analysts were not objective in their mindsetEight analysts were mentioned in the audit report. Priya says that one of the things that made her bring the idea for this podcast to Jess is that Deaver was getting all of the heat for the way things had been mishandled but he wasn’t the only person doing crap. Only four of the analysts named were still working in the SBI lab when the audit was released and one was doing contract work for the agency. Priya says time had passed and “a couple of the agents had retired which rhymes with fired” such as Brenda Bissette. The agents who looked into the SBI lab found that Bissette had accounted for 24 of the cases 36 cases found in category three of their audit. The other analysts in category three were Deaver, with five cases, and an analyst named Lucy Milks who had two cases and left the SBI in 2006, but worked on contract as a chemist in the drug chemistry section. Also mentioned in the audit was Suzi Barker, who was mentioned earlier for being on the video from “The Staircase”, and a guy named Russell Hollie who had an actual background in science and had brought up a lot of the issues with the SBI lab before the audit occurred. He had one case listed in the audit report from 2001. Priya says it’s just her opinion but it may go more to the culture of the SBI lab and their process of reporting than to his science and Keith says it could have actually just been a mistake. As of 2011, he was still working with the SBI but it’s unclear where he is now. David Spittle, who was also mentioned earlier, left the SBI in 2001 had two cases mentioned in category three but was responsible for almost 90 cases out of the entire 230 cases. As Swecker also mentioned on the report, it’s possible that the cases on the list resulted in guilty pleas or the inability for the defense attorneys to have a fighting chance. Priya says this 100% came into play with Derrick Allen and came into play with a man named Daniel Green. F’d Up will dig into his case and, as always, more fucked up shit on next week’s episode.

The System is F'd Up Part 2 - Recap Written by Brandi Abbott This week on F’d Up, the story of how Greg Taylor was wrongfully convicted continues. Priya begins by telling us that in the late 1990s North Carolina had two student ran “Innocence Projects,” these were the University of North Carolina Innocence Project and the Duke Innocence Project. The projects were receiving a lot of the same letters so some people had the idea to start The Center on Actual Innocence to coordinate the work done by each innocence project. In 2000, it was incorporated as “The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence or the NCCAI. Keith asked if they only deal with death penalty cases to which Priya and Jess say no. Jess begins telling us about Chris Mumma. When Chris was younger she was a juror on a death penalty case and had never really given much thought to the death penalty before then. After she had her three kids, she decided to go to law school to study corporate law. However, a death penalty case really stuck with her so she interviewed her fellow jurors and wrote a paper on it. After law school, she clerked at the North Carolina Supreme Court, during which, she became friends with Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake Jr. While there, Chris saw a lot of cases come through, and was concerned about whether some people were actually guilty. She tried bringing it up with one of the Justices and a few clerks but it became clear that after the case is over, the idea of guilt or innocence is off the table. One case in particular stood out to her, she was concerned about how someone could be in jail for 30 years for a crime they didn’t commit. With her background in finance and efficiency, she was surprised at how chaotic the justice system is and the major lack of checks and balances. In 2001, she found out that the two universities were starting the NCCAI and she ended up running the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence – and still does. The NCCAI receives about 650 applications per year - either from inmates or from the family of inmates. When Chris receives all of the materials, she goes over them and decides whether they’ll be taking the case into “Further Review” which would involve obtaining all court files from the case. Once those are reviewed if it’s still looking like the convicted person is innocent it goes into “Investigation”. This stage is about more hands on work like going out interviewing people, tracking down anything that may help them understand all aspects of the case – and whether they may encounter any issues if they choose to pursue it further. In 2002, Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake Jr., Chris’ friend from the North Carolina Supreme Court established The Criminal Justice Study Commission after some highly publicized exonerations. Jess says he realized some shit was going down. This study commission reviewed police and prosecution procedures for factors that contributed to wrongful convictions in an effort to see why these wrongful convictions were happening. Within a few years they decided that what they needed was to establish an independent state innocence inquiry commission. Priya jokes that they really needed to establish another acronym. They established the Innocence Inquiry Commission, the purpose of which is to review credible post conviction cases wherein the convicted person claims wrongful conviction. Jess takes us back to Greg Taylor and reminds us that where they left off in the last episode is with Ed Taylor having gone to visit his son in prison and he’d told him they were out of resources and options – and it was likely Greg would not be getting out of prison. Around this time in 2006, Ed went to the general assembly hearing that was determining if the Independent State Innocence Inquiry Commission would be created. It passed and was created, officially going into operation in 2007. Because everything is connected in North Carolina, the NCCAI sends their cases to the Independent State Innocence Inquiry Commission. Priya tells us that according to the website the Commission is separate from the appeals section of the justice system and that when a person is declared innocent through it they can not be re-tried at any point for the same crime. When the commission was established Ed Taylor managed to get a written document into the hands of someone having dinner with Chris Mumma. Chris started reading Greg’s story and was blown away, she realized he had applied to the NCCAI but because they had such a large stack of applications, they just hadn’t gotten to his yet. When she reviewed his case she noticed all of the red flags from the way his case was processed. It was clear to her that though Greg and Johnny were just together by chance, law enforcement had actually been after Johnny Beck, but were trying to get to him through Greg. Keith asks if it was because Johnny was a big time drug dealer and Priya and Jess answer that they didn’t think he was “big time”, that he was just a drug dealer. When Chris was going through Greg’s file, she found out about all of the plea offers he had received that said he could go home if he just told them Johnny killed Jacquetta Thomas. Jess points out that if Greg was guilty he probably would have definitely said Johnny did it, and that even as an innocent person it had to be extremely tempting. She says that Greg just remained consistent the entire time. He knew that he had been with Johnny the entire night, from 10 PM to 6 the following morning, that the victim was last seen at 1 AM in her apartment, they saw the body around 3:30 AM, and that Johnny was just as innocent as Greg was. Greg turned down a plea before his trial, during his trial, and five years after his sentence. Chris thought that if he had been involved there was no way he would have passed up those opportunities. Keith says that he could understand before the trial and during because you would be hoping to not be convicted but after you’ve been in prison for five years it would take real conviction to not take the deal and he doesn’t know if he would have been able to do the same. Chris said whoever attacked Jacquetta Thomas, it wasn’t like they were just trying to stop her or like they were just trying to have control for sexual reasons, which is what was presented at the trial. The way Chris interprets the scene is that it was personal. There was no evidence transferred to either Greg or Johnny, even if the blood on the truck was hers, there were other explanations for how it could have gotten there, but if happened during the attack especially as violent and bloody as the scene was, there was no way it would have been just one spot. Priya points out that Barbara picked them up and says that she wouldn’t pick up someone at three in the morning who was covered in blood. Keith agrees and says if you look like a Jackson Pollock he’s going to keep on driving. Jess says Chris felt like this case had enough red flags to take on and the NCCAI officially agreed to review Greg’s case in February of 2006. The NCCAI gathered all of the necessary info on the case and, in July of 2007, referred it to the Innocence Inquiry Commission. Priya says that the IIC’s process is more in-depth than a pre-trial investigation and they take a no stone unturned approach. Priya says it’s still a very slow process. So two years later, August of 2009, Greg got a visit from them saying there had been a major revelation in his case. The IIC discovered that a man named Craig Taylor, yes CRAIG Taylor, confessed to selling drugs to Johnny the night of Jacquetta’s murder, but not just that, he confessed to killing her. Keith asked if the confession had been there the whole time, and Jess said no, that it had just came about. In September of 2009, the IIC’s eight-person panel unanimously voted to send Greg’s case to a three-judge panel to decide if he’s innocent. In October of 2009, Chris teams up with two other attorneys Mike Klinkosum and Joe Cheshire and everyone knows this is Greg’s last chance at freedom. In January of 2010, Chris was going through boxes of evidence, specifically the lab notes that SBI analyst Duane Deaver had taken of the blood evidence found on Greg’s truck. She found something in his notes that completely changed the case, but Jess won’t tell us what that is yet. Keith yells that that’s bullshit and she placates him by saying that what we can know now was that Deaver’s reports had never been shared with the defense. We’re reminded that the blood evidence was the only thing that linked Greg to Jacquetta Thomas’ brutal murder - and that this “evidence” was mentioned 17 times in Tom Ford’s closing arguments. Priya points out that if you’ve seen “The Staircase”, you’ve definitely seen this before (though not in the detail they’ve gone into) and you just may not remember it. In February of 2010, the evidentiary hearing started and Greg testified, still maintaining his innocence. The DA Colin Willoughby claimed that Craig Taylor’s confession was falsified. Keith says that this all just sounds like shady bullshit - and it really does. The DA had investigated a confession of Craig’s on another murder. Keith asks how many murders this guy confessed to and Priya tells us that it had been a bunch and this was apparently his thing. She also tells us that the DA did not like the IIC, and he knew that a lot of their case hinged on this confession and he wanted to bring it up in court maybe to set them up or afterwards to use it as an example of how the process didn’t work. A police search and rescue dog trainer, testified on Sadie’s (the adorable bloodhound from episode one) behavior. Sadie was not trained to do what the police had her doing. The handler specifically told the Raleigh PD that Sadie was not trained to do the things that were asking and the officers instructed the handler to try anyway. Barbara, the woman who picked up Greg and Johnny, testified. She said that they didn’t have a weapon or any blood on them, despite the fact that she picked them up so close to the crime scene. She said they were acting perfectly normal. Priya does want to ask her, though, how normal folks act at three AM after smoking crack all night. Keith points out there’s no way if they bludgeoned someone to death, that they would have no blood on them, especially since they were so high and wouldn’t have had the forethought to bring a change of clothes. Johnny Beck, himself, also testified. Jess says this was huge because Johnny had been out of jail for a long time and there was a risk someone could flip something around on him. He says that Greg did not kill Jacquetta Thomas. Ernest Andrews, the jailhouse informant who said Greg had confessed to him, came forward and admitted he lied. At this point, the state called Duane Deaver to the stand. Priya stops Jess to say the IIC hear testimonies from witnesses and various other people to really get a sense of what’s going on with everything during their investigation process. This is relevant because they had talked to Duane Deaver and he said that his testing was all accurate and true and he did things correctly. On the stand during the hearing when Deaver was questioned about his tests and results, he revealed that they hadn’t stopped at the preliminary tests. What Chris has found in those boxes was evidence of the fact that Deaver had conducted secondary tests on the sample and the results were negative. The spot/substance they found was not human blood. Jess says that when you do these tests, you do several tests – that’s science. Priya tells us that preliminary tests establish the possibility that specific bodily fluids are present. There is the possibly of a false positive, but these tests help determine which tests to do next. The next tests are confirmatory tests. When doing the first test, in this case, luminol and phenolphthalein, they got a positive reaction, which can happen when blood is present. However, Priya tells us you can get a positive reaction for many other things including cauliflower and broccoli. Keith asks if that means there’s blood in broccoli and Priya says no, it means that it can detect a number of things which is why confirmatory tests are done. Deaver performed confirmatory tests on the spot found on Greg’s truck, using the Takayama test. This test did not deliver the results that indicate human blood. At the hearing, a woman named Megan Clement a forensic technician for Lab Corp testified that she did her own testing of the DNA and got a 0.00% chance of it being blood. At this point Deaver admits that in the lab, reporting on the results of confirmatory tests is not required and that the decisions on procedure were made by people higher up than him - he claimed it wasn’t on him to question it and he was following protocol. Chris confirmed to Jess and Priya that the state lab had a policy that they only had to report the positive tests. If they received a negative, they were not required to report it. Keith remarks that they’re not just cheating, it’s in their handbook to cheat. On February 17th, 2010, Greg Taylor is finally free. Tom Ford, the DA, apologized to Greg Taylor. Jess says he shook his hand like it was a soccer match and not 17 years of his life ruined. Priya rants that it’s not a fucking game and she’s right. Tom Ford was quoted saying that if he thought he’d put an innocent person in jail it would tear him up, but he hadn’t lost a minute of sleep over it. Jess tells us that that was nine years ago and they still haven’t caught the person who murdered Jacquetta Thomas. Chris gave them suggestions on some people to look into but they’re so convinced Greg and Johnny did it that they haven’t tried. Word spread around North Carolina really quickly and people were understandably upset, thinking if it happened to Greg, it could happen to them. Because of this, Attorney General Roy Cooper called for a complete audit of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab, bringing in two former FBI agents to complete the audit. Next week on F’d Up, Priya and Jess are gonna get into some more of the F’d Up stories that they discovered.

Episode 9    KRYPTOS - Can you crack the code? / True Crime Documentaries and Podcasts Join Graham, Michaela and Sarah as they explore the mysteries of the Kryptos sculpture located at the CIA Headquarters.  Can you answer trivia about the CIA?  Can you crack the entire code? Join the ranks of NSA and CIA analysts if you can Chime In! Speaking of the CIA and NSA, have you read Digital Fortress by Dan Brown? What about 1984 by George Orwell?  What personal liberties are you willing to give up for safety? Listeners chime in- we follow up on Denver International, the evil latitude, and the lottery curse! Michaela updates us on Making A Murderer Part 2. What do you think? Was Steven Avery framed?  Anytime you discuss Steven Avery and Brandon Dassey, the subject of wrongful convictions will come up - we recommend the podcast Actual Innocence for more information about innocent people and the time they’ve spent behind bars before being exonerated!  The Disappearance of Crystal Rogers - this case is from Sarah’s hometown of Bardstown. If you haven’t, check out the documentaries about the case and help ask for justice!  

Tim Pilleri and Lance Reenstierna chat with true crime all-star Brooke Gittings. Brooke is the host of Actual Innocence, Convicted, and A&E's Cold Case Files. Our conversation ranges in topics from the experience of podcasting to wrongful convictions (John Giuca) to Maura Murray's disappearance. Check out Brooke's site and podcasts here: https://www.borrowedequipmentpods.com/ And follow her on social media: https://twitter.com/BrookeGittings Follow Missing Maura Murray: https://twitter.com/MauraMurrayDoc, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missingmauramurray/, and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MauraMurrayDoc/ Check out our docu-series on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Maura-Murray/dp/B07JHNTGLK. And don't miss the Disappearance of Maura Murray on Oxygen: https://www.oxygen.com/the-disappearance-of-maura-murray Check out the entire Crawlspace Media Network at http://crawlspace-media.com/ Follow Private Investigations For the Missing https://investigationsforthemissing.org/ https://twitter.com/PIFortheMissing https://www.facebook.com/PIFortheMissing/ https://www.instagram.com/investigationsforthemissing/ Check out Crawlspace's Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/crawlspacepodcast Follow Crawlspace Twitter: https://twitter.com/CrawlspacePod IG: https://www.instagram.com/crawlspacepodcast/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/Crawlspacepodcast/ Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crawlspace-true-crime-mysteries/id1187326340 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/crawlspace Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/58cll3enTW2SNmbJUuLsrt --- This episode is sponsored by · The Colin and Samir Podcast: The Colin and Samir Podcast hosted by LA - based friends and filmmakers Colin and Samir takes a look into what it’s like to make creativity your career. https://open.spotify.com/show/5QaSbbv2eD4SFrlFR6IyY7?si=Dj3roVoJTZmOime94xhjng

In this episode, I talk with John Hanlon and Lauren Myerscough-Mueller from the Illinois Innocence Project. We talk about DNA evidence, myths and facts regarding science, and the reality of proving innocence. This podcast is mixed and recorded by IICLE. SFX: "Windy Transition" by pcruzn Music: Fearless First Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Twenty year old Irina "Ira" Yarmolenko was finishing up her sophomore semester at UNC Charlotte in May of 2008.  She planned to begin her junior year at UNC Chapel Hill where she would pursue a career in Public Health, an area near and dear to her kind and compassionate sensibility.  Tragically, Ira would never begin her junior year.On May 5th, 2008, just days after her twentieth birthday, Ira began her day by taking a final exam.  She had another scheduled for 5pm, and so she ran some errands.  Surveillance footage tracks much of her travels that day, but when she drove down to the banks of the Catawba river, no one was aware.  Two jet skiiers discovered Ira's lifeless body on the bank of the river, beside her car.She had died as the result of asphyxia secondary to ligature strangulation.  There were three ligatures around her neck.Investigators were baffled, and for many months, they failed to determine a motive or drum up a suspect.  On the day of the crime, they spoke with Mark Carver, who had been fishing a hundred yards away from the crime scene.  Suspicious of his report that he hadn't heard anything, investigators focused in and seven months later, both Carver and his cousin, Neal Cassada, were charged with conspiracy and murder.  The evidence?  Touch DNA found in three places on the victims car contained mixtures which included their DNA. It took authorities nearly two years to proceed on to trial, during which time they tested eight other individuals against the DNA.  None were a match.  Neal Cassada passed away due to a heart attack the day before his trial was to begin, and so the prosecution focused solely on Mark Carver.  Ultimately, Carver would be found guilty of first degree murder, and sentenced to life.  While the Yarmolenko family felt vindicated, and as though justice had been served, many have questioned this verdict.In the years since, evidence has been revealed which shows inaccurate testimony was given at trial, the DNA evidence is not up to the current standard necessary for litigation and Carver's public defender mounted no defense.  The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence has taken up Carver's case, and currently, a new trial or the outright dismissal of charges is being fought for in court.  This raises many questions:  Did Mark Carver murder Ira Yarmolenko, was someone else responsible for this heinous crime or is it possible that this may have been the result of suicide?Join host Steven Pacheco as he explores this tragic, complicated and controversial case.For more information please visit: https://www.trace-evidence.comhttps://www.patreon.com/traceevidence Social Media:https://twitter.com/TraceEvPodhttps://www.instagram.com/traceevidencepod/https://www.facebook.com/groups/traceevidencepodMusic Courtesy of: "Lost Time" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Sources: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/irina-yarmolenko-obituary?pid=109250336&view=guestbook | https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/crime/judge-orders-retest-of-mark-carvers-dna-in-death-of-uncc-student/432849470 | http://freemarkcarver.com/false-confession | https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/special-reports/death-by-the-river/article69619262.html | https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/special-reports/death-by-the-river/ | http://insidedateline.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/07/08/7043789-read-the-personal-poetry-and-notes-of-ira-yarmolenko | http://s33.photobucket.com/user/ctrlcopy/library/?sort=3&page=1 |

S5E6: John Huffington: Drug Deals, a Double Death Sentence, & over 3 Decades in Prison John Huffington spent 32 years in the Maryland Prison System—10 of which were on death row—after being wrongfully convicted of a 1981 double murder. Previously, juries twice convicted John of first-degree murder in the deaths of Diane Becker and Joseph Hudson. The first trial, in 1981, occurred in Caroline County and John was later granted a new trial due to evidence improperly introduced by the State. The second trial took place in Frederick County in 1983. He faced the death penalty after both convictions, but his sentence was later commuted to two life terms in prison. Since his first trial, John had filed multiple appeals at the state and federal levels, challenging the state’s case against him. In 2013, as the result of newly discovered DNA evidence that demonstrated that hairs discovered at the crime scene were not John’s, the Circuit Court for Frederick County, MD, granted him a Writ of Actual Innocence and vacated his murder convictions, and John Huffington was released from prison on bond. The faulty evidence came from an FBI lab that has been forced to acknowledge widespread mismanagement and false testimony. Flawed forensic testimony was given in 257 of the 268 trials in which hair evidence was used, and John Huffington’s trial was one of them. Since his release from prison, John Huffington has been a tireless advocate for the re-entry community, and his work has been recognized by Baltimore City leaders, including State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby. He is now serving as the Director of Workforce Development for Living Classrooms Foundation, where he manages the workforce development department and its programming with 18 staff members and a $2 million budget. As part of his role, he manages Project SERVE, the same job-training program in which he enrolled upon being released from incarceration. wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom is a production of Lava For Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1 and PRX.

Meet the new co-host and hear about the exciting changes coming with Season 3 of Actual Innocence! Contact Information: Website: www.actualinpod.com Email: actualinnocencepod@gmail.com Twitter: @actualinpod and @brookegittings Music Released under a Creative Commons Attribution International License” Theme - “Through The Lens” by Andy G. Cohen https://andyg.co/hen/songs/lens All Other Music by By Scott Buckley – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Rabia, Colin, and Susan bring you a special crossover episode where they discuss Time: The Kalief Browder Story, an upcoming docuseries about the story of Kalief Browder. The series chronicles the life of a 16 year-old student from the Bronx who spent three years on Rikers Island without ever being convicted of a crime. The Undisclosed team is joined by fellow podcasting hosts Brooke Gittings of Actual Innocence, Bob Ruff of Truth & Justice, and Payne Lindsey of Up & Vanished. To learn more about the hosts/podcasts that were a part of this collaboration episode, please visit the following websites: Actual Innocence Podcast - www.actualinpod.com Truth & Justice Podcast - www.truthandjusticepod.com Up & Vanished Podcast - www.upandvanished.com Undisclosed Podcast - www.undisclosed-podcast.com

Rabia, Colin, and Susan bring you a special crossover episode where they discuss Time: The Kalief Browder Story, an upcoming docuseries about the story of Kalief Browder. The series chronicles the life of a 16 year-old student from the Bronx who spent three years on Rikers Island without ever being convicted of a crime. The Undisclosed team is joined by fellow podcasting hosts Brooke Gittings of Actual Innocence, Bob Ruff of Truth & Justice, and Payne Lindsey of Up & Vanished. To learn more about the hosts/podcasts that were a part of this collaboration episode, please visit the following websites: Actual Innocence Podcast - www.actualinpod.com Truth & Justice Podcast - www.truthandjusticepod.com Up & Vanished Podcast - www.upandvanished.com Undisclosed Podcast - www.undisclosed-podcast.com #KaliefBrowder Support the show.

May 30, 2016 / Episode scoring music by Alex Fitch, AnimalWeapon, Blue Dot Sessions, Chris Zabriskie, Julian Sartorius, and Uncanny Valleys Rabia interviews Marty Tankleff, who at 17 was falsely convicted for the murder of his parents, and Marc Howard, a professor at Georgetown University and Marty's friend and high school classmate. To learn more about Marty's conviction and eventual exoneration, go to: http://www.martytankleff.org/ Also, stay tuned after the episode for a bonus interview with Brooke Gittings of the Actual Innocence podcast! You can listen to Actual Innocence at: https://audioboom.com/channel/actualinnocence Support the show.

In this episode, Bob updates the listeners on more Smith County Shenanigans. You'll hear a short break down of Kerry Max Cook's case, then hear Kerry speak about what is happening this week as he approaches his actual innocence hearing.

Five-year-old Jhessye Shockley was reported missing on October 11, 2011. She was last seen at her home in Glendale, Arizona. This is part two of Jhessye's story. This episode features Brooke, a child therapist and producer and host of Actual Innocence. Special thanks to: Brooke from Actual Innocence Link to her podcast -itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/actua…nce/id1102237078 Link to her website - www.actualinpod.com/ Fox 10 Phoenix Alexandre_Navarro freemusicarchive.org/music/Alexandre_Navarro/