Citation Needed - Exonerated Death Row Inmates

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

This list contains names of people who were found guilty of capital crimes and placed on death row, and were later found to be wrongly convicted. Some people were exonerated posthumously. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

And then you toast the cheese. You put it under a salamander and a toast right up. It's wonderful. Oh, I will let you put it wherever you want. If you make me one of those pieces, please stop offering that. Anywhere. Don't offer that. Look at me. Terrifying. Anywhere you want. Gentleman, welcome to murder and mayhem. Now, Tom, now, now, okay, I told you I needed a rehearsal. Seriously, so late, Tom. It's not rehearsals. Life is the rehearsal, Tom. That's nice.

What's with all the spooky stuff, dude? The fake blood. What are you doing? Ah, so you know how this week's episode is about people exonerated from death row. Yeah. Okay. Um, okay. So what better way to kick things off with a spooktacular murder mystery. I mean, it's, it's you, right?

It's not a mystery. It's you because you're covered in blood. It's clearly. And holding it the night you're holding. Yeah, I got to tell you, you like, am I? If you're not carefully, you think you're self-rested. Someone could just call the cops. Oh, yeah, they already did. And?

Oh, they arrested the black guy downstairs. The, the oncologist? Ah! Yeah, yeah, that's the one. They found his DNA from that time he came upstairs to ask me to be quiet. Oh, got it. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. I've got it. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. I've got it. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. I've got it. Yeah, I'm going to call the station.

Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station.

Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station.

Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Yeah, I'm going to call the station. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed. The podcast where we choose a subject, we'd a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts. Because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Eli Bosnick and I'll be leading you down this green mile, but I'll need some guys

to touch my dick and vomit bees. That's what the movie is made. That movie is weird. It is a weird movie. First up two men who could definitely. First up two men who could definitely get away with murder if they wanted to. Cecil and Noah.

Good. Yeah, right, good. Hypothetically Eli, how much volume do you take up in cubic yards? More or less than a big blue barrel? Do you think? What? What? Hey, by the way Eli, some people just volume do you take up in cubic yards more or less than a big blue barrel. Hey, by the way, like some people just drop murder blueprints as a hobby, right? Like it's just like Aaron Rogers will be fine.

I just have some people just have different hobbies. Don't read that book. Just don't don't talk about a truck. That's on you. It's your fault. Indeed, it is. And also joining us tonight, two men who's adorable conviction for a murder. They didn't commit would be a

vote to watch tom and he could but i feel like that happens in society's gonna it the only a gimme right i could get a murder i owe you just one of the bank right i feel like i could be one of the people would get away with the murder i don't know why it was just Cecilanoa who would get away why would you or i'm gonna get away with murder you would murder a guy and then explain to the cops how perfect your plan was. No, because you see they just follow the trail of breathe back to his house.

Oh, right. Oh, she's yep. I can get away with it. Well, they'd just be like, oh, I just fucked your mom and she told me because she's a really high angle. He must have been tall. You're tall. And she had a downward angle. I like when Heath brings this up on episodes where someone's listening for the first time because they're just like

Real ones everyone to fuck is my things are my Cheese scotch tall. It's done. There you go. You're caught up. That's me. That's he that's my whole thing cool Right you do this week before we begin tonight. We'd like to take whole thing. Cool. Right. You did this week. Before we begin tonight, we'd like to take a moment to discuss about it. Yeah. I don't want you to forget, buddy. I am to humor what a bag of sand is to a boat. There you go. To boy and see to boy and see in general. Before we begin tonight, we'd like to take a moment to thank our patient and Kevin Hart of the show. Not their money. Innocent comedians like ourselves might be sentenced to a lifetime of day jobs.

My pledging is little is a dollar show you are that monthly governor's call that saves our souls. And if you'd like to learn how to join our ranks, be sure to stick around to the end of the show. And with that, I the way Tom tell us what person thing concept phenomenon or event will we be talking about today? Oh, we have a delightful and uplifting list of people exonerated from death row. All right. And you see, so you picked this topic despite

the lady who told us that John Lennon was at a balance. I did. Are you? I'm sure you're just what the fuck we're prepared to make. Fuck this show is about super sad fuckups. and there is no bigger or sadder fuck up than our justice system. Okay, no, see, this show is hosted by super sad fuck ups. There's a, it can be bull shot. It can be bull. So tell us, Cecil, why is the death penalty un unbelievably stupid in barbaric.

Let me provide you with a list of examples. The genre of true crime is one of the hottest trends in media right now. Countless podcast TV shows, movies and books, let us live vicariously through investigators as they solve forensic mysteries and reveal killers as easily as Sherlock Holmes and his pet doctor. But the truth is, police officers, detectives, prosecutors, witnesses, judges and juries can and do fuck up really bad, especially when someone's entire life is on the line. So today, I wanted to shift away from the true crime theme and talk about true exoneration.

The ones where the victim is not only the person who was murdered, but also the person they put away for the crime. Okay, but if you're listening to this in Virginia, don't tell Glenn Yunkin, I'm pretty sure it's illegal. Wait, Cecil, are you trying to tell you that the bottom half of every high school class in America that become cops and the people who have time for jury duty

are not the people who should be deciding who lives and dies because I won't stand for it. I won't stand for it. Sounds like America. I'm not saying so. This still feels like true crime though. It's just more true. It's like true crime crimes. Yeah.

Right. It's a bad true crime. True crime. Yeah. True crime. We got to be doing truest crime, which is just like poverty makes people behave badly. All right, everybody. Bum.

Bum. Bum. Bum. So this is going to be a short list of people exonerated from death row in the United States. The wiki only got back. No, it's not. The wiki only goes back to the 70s and a database from the death penalty information center says that there have been 186 exoneration since 1973.

Okay, okay. That sounds like a pro-life billboard got confused about what it was trying to do. No. Now, these are just the ones on death row. I'm sure we get a message after this is posted about ones we missed and we are going to miss a lot of these. We only have so much time and many of these listings are just like a Wikipedia line, but

no page reference. I also want to just give a general trigger warning now that we'll be talking about rape and murder and sort of around it. Not a ton of detail, but we will be talking around it. Yeah, I mean, and if you think it's hard to listen to just imagine being one of the mother fuckers test with writing jokes. Let's start way back in 1963 in Florida when Freddie pits and Wilbur Lee decided to go to a gas station with some friends.

Pits only wanted to use the facilities and were turned away because they were black. Uh, actually Cecil in Florida, you are not allowed to tell this story if it makes me feel uncomfortable against the rules. Now, they argued with the two attendants, but left doing the peepee dance. The two attendants were found shot to death three days after this confrontation. The police coerced a woman that was with pits that night to turn pits in for the crime. She did, and she accused another guy as well. The other guy was a soldier at a military base and couldn't have been the one that killed

the two gas station attendants, so instead she accused Lee. The police beat a confession out of the two men. They also threatened to hurt Lee's wife if he didn't confess. The court appointed lawyer convinced them to plead guilty and there wasn't a trial. They were off to prison and to death row. And I thought I was taking a beating at the gas pump. Boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, the whole episode. Oh. Okay, see, so I think I get it.

I get the theme here since this episode's coming out right around Valentine's Day, trying to like cheer us up. I think the lesson we're supposed to take here is treat your woman at least well enough that she doesn't turn you in for murders you didn't commit. Like, that should be, that should be a Jared commercial, right there. Someone named Curtis Adams confessed to this crime three years later, but it didn't matter. Lee and Pits appealed this case many times. They tried to bring up the fact that there was someone who confessed to the crime and that

the woman who accused them also came forward to say she was threatened. And that Lee and Pits were not the actual killers. In response to these developments in the case, the sheriff said, quote, I got two black people on death row who already did it. And quote, he did not say black people. He used something else there. And I'll just let you use your imagination. Paga, Paga, it was not. It was not. It was not. Jane Miller, a local reporter wrote a book about how these two were innocent that want to pull let you use your imagination. Pogga pegga. It was not. It was not. No.

Jean Miller, a local reporter, wrote a book about how these two were innocent that want to pull its surprise. The book was so persuasive that the Florida attorney general told the Supreme Court that he thought the two were innocent and they allowed the case to be retried. Hey, Supreme Court. Yeah. Thanks for meeting with me. So we're the bad guys in a Grisham novel right now like Tom.

He's gonna fucking run in the rain and then outsmart us or something. We need to do a doover on that trial. Yeah. We're bad guys in the novel. Yeah, just stop and think that the wheels of justice turns so slowly that you can write a book, publish it, win a Pulitzer for that book, then wait for the right person to read it all before the new trial gets granted.

Exactly. Holy shit. Well, here's the best part. They lost that trial. So they lost. Yeah, they didn't allow any new evidence or talk about the confession and the entire white jury convicted them a second time. The governor finally read the book and pardon them both.

So they should have read the book and jerry. They should have skipped the trial. I would like to enter into evidence this book. I'm going to read you. Fuck. They tried to introduce a bill in legislation for these two to be compensated for being wrongfully imprisoned for 12 years. That bill failed 19 times.

But hold on, the 20th time was a charm and they were awarded $500,000 each. That's a $41,000 for each year on death row. No, no, no, let me think about it for a second. That's like, that's almost $20 an hour, right? Like assuming death row is like 40 hours a week, you just do 40 hours a week. It's fine. The only people that do 40 hours a week in prison are Jeffrey Epstein. So that's 27 year old man and the 17 year old woman were hitchhiking in Fort Myers, Florida. They were picked up by a black man that shot the guy and raped the girl and left her for dead.

220 miles from the crime. Dilbert Tibz was also hitchhiking and he was stopped and questioned by the police. He didn't match the description so he was released. Well, the fact that he was also hitchhiking was a bit of a fucking clue too. Right. It's the perfect crime. He runs up, get on my back.

I'll give you a lift. When the victim saw the photo, she identified him as the killer. He had an alibi, but with false testimony from a jailhouse informant and an all-white jury, he was convicted and sentenced to death. The informant later recanted, saying that he only did it so he could get leniency on their own rape case. After the appeal, they dismissed the charges against him and he was released. Mr. Tips went on to become an anti-death penalty activist and start in a play with other exonerated

men that helped convince the Illinois governor to first commute death sentences and then later repeal the death penalty altogether. Okay, first of all, I hope that's a musical. Also, I would love it if we could stop doing state sponsored murdering without needing to see the argument in like, skit form, just we can do it because you don't do that. They come out, okay, we're gonna need a location and a profession that isn't prison and prisoner. Schmapp, a-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na- and I'm a man. I'm a man. I'm a man.

Tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, tiff, t Milan. Melendez had never been at the salon. He'd never met the man. He had an alibi corroborated by four people. And there was no evidence linking into the crime. The witnesses did not recognize the man accused. And there was a tape statement by another man saying he killed that guy. All right. Melendez couldn't speak, read or write English. And they never gave him a court appointed interpreter. Here's a quote from him after, I guess he learned to speak English. Quote, they never gave me an interpreter.

At the time, if I could say five words in English, three of them would have been cuss words and quote, he was convicted of the crime. I bet that cuss words came in handy at that point. See, so you're really getting hung up on this evidence thing and if stopped to steal I bet, I bet them. Cushwords came in handy at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, so you're really getting hung up on this evidence thing. And if stopped the steal has taught us anything. Uh huh. And it hasn't.

It hasn't though. It is to never let evidence get in the way of a terrible story. Right. You had absolute proof time. Absolutely. I'm sorry. I forgot about crackings. It's a whole, I'm the dumb.

Melendez appealed the case three times and lost. One of his attorneys during the fourth appeal found the tape confession in the original defense lawyer files. What? And they found other people that corroborated that taped confession. He won and was released from prison after spending 17 years, eight months in one day on death row. Wow. He has gotten exactly $100 for compensation from the state for this wrongful imprisonment. What? And they also haven't said sorry yet.

Well, that's because they're not, Cecil. They're not. No, they're not. Read a white person. All right. Well, I don't know about you, podcast listener, but I only have four alibis right now, and that is clearly not enough. So, while I take some selfies in an ATM, we'll pause for a quick break and a little effort. Oh, nothing. Hey, uh, you guys got a second. It should count, boss. What's up?

It's about the suspect in room A. Oh, yeah, he's going away for a long time. Right, right. You guys know that's actually a seven year old girl, right? So the idea that she's the Muckville serial strangler is... Well, that's unlikely. Oh, oh, trust this boss. Once we go to work, kinda, she'll talk.

Yeah, we got this. It feels like you're inferring you're gonna torture a confession out of a child and that is, I can't believe I have to clarify this, not good. I think you meant implying, but don't worry about it. It's just good cop bad cop is what we're gonna do. Nope, nope, you're both supposed to be good cops. We don't need any bad cops. That's, that's not what I am.

I'm just not sure about how to think it goes both. Okay, okay, you know what, forget it here. Can we talk about the guy in room C? Oh, the car thief? Oh yeah, that one's open and shut. Shoo. Easy, peasy. Right, so it looks like you actually arrested

another car for stealing a car. That's right, perfect crime. Nobody would ever suspect it. Nobody except us, of course. Of course. Guys, I don't want to be too harsh, but you seem to be really, really bad at catching criminals. All right, Mr. High and Muddy,

how do you think we should catch the bad guys? I mean, you could go through the known backlog of over a hundred thousand rape kits in United States alone. Wee. Have we considered it's the kits doing the raping? Ooh, that's a good one. You know what, never mind.

For just make sense, to forget it. Forget it. They're involved every time. And we're back. When we left off, law enforcement had a marrying your high school sweetheart approach to finding murder. Oh, see, something that continued to work out awesome. Oh, I'll let something to do to work out awesome. Oh, I'll let you decide. This one is the story of Earl Washington, Jr.

Earl was, as Wikipedia puts it, intellectually disabled. He had an estimated IQ of 69. Nice. I knew you were gonna say, I was gonna say, I fucking knew it. He didn't write it, but I made a new video. He was gonna say it, I fucking knew it. He didn't write it, but I made a new video. He was gonna say it. In 1982, there was a rape and murder of a woman named Rebecca Lynn Williams.

Williams was a mother of three and was killed in Culpepper, Virginia. A year later, after a junk and squabble with a neighbor, Earl Washington was arrested. The police coerced confessions for a total of four sexual assaults from Washington, but Paschee, physical evidence and witness statements cleared him of three of those charges. This essentially forced confession of Williams murder also got all the facts in the case wrong. But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story. Washington was was represented by a completely inept council that never brought up the fact that he was mentally disabled and he was sentenced to die.

Jesus, I feel like demonstrably false charges should come with a buy three, get one free kind of sad. Oh, fucking punch card or something. Those derogations do not inspire confidence in the quality of those confessions. Okay, so you're saying you murdered the victim by beating her to death with a live goat wearing a top hat. Yes, yep, a live goat. And after she died, the goat and I went all room dancing.

So that's what it's, the goat had to, that's what the goat had to have. Remember I said the goat had the hat. That was why I got the ball right. But see, the lady was strangled. Are you sure you didn't strangle her? No. Yeah, yes, yes. I think I did probably strangled her with a tie iron.

Yep. Now that's a tie iron. You strangled her with a rope. I think you meant a used to go to a rope. Wait, what? A rope. you strangled her with a rope. I think you meant, you're going to rope. Wait, what? A rope. Yeah, she was strangled with a rope. Tyrone, it's a, no, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an iron rope that I have that, that, that, then after that, I did the iron rope thing and then the lady and I had licorice together.

The dead lady. Yep. Yes. Yes. No. Uh, how am I Yes, yes, no. How am I doing? Uh, yep, I did. How you doing? Great. So far, kid. OK, so on to Jimmy Hoffa. Let's look. We got CIA. Through the help of another death row inmate, Washington was able to reach a pro bono attorney named Marie Deans.

They arranged for a DNA test of the evidence. When the test came back, it determined there was no way that Washington could have committed the crime, but in Virginia, you can't just get an appeal with the sculptory evidence. That's not going to happen. Okay. I know that appeals are for technical problems in a trial and not for relitigating the evidence, but I feel like technically, it's a problem if we don't re-mitigate

when there's new evidence. I'm like, it's still got the sorry evidence. Yeah, no, it seems important. It seems like something you'd want to have. Yeah. Technically. Technically, you got to fucking wrong. He was going to die before they allowed that evidence in,

but luckily the governor commuted his sentence to life in prison. So all this happens in 1993. Seven years later, they tested the evidence again and it actually returned a result that wasn't Earl Washington and the governor gave him a full pardon. He has since sued and won millions of dollars in settlements for being wrongly accused, forced to confess, and wrongly in prison for 16 years. What's with the giant gap though?

Is there like a seven year line at the fucking DMV for somebody to swirl, come in a beaker or whatever they do for DNA? Seven years? It's awesome, come man, I'll do it. Don't do it anyway, yeah. In 1984, John Thompson, a 22 year old father of two, was accused of murder.

He was arrested with another man and his picture appeared in the paper. At this time, there was an unsolved armed robbery and the victim saw the picture in the paper and identified Thompson as the robber. The prosecutor tried the arm robbery first based on the eyewitness testimony alone. And then he was convicted of that. The prosecutor tried the arm robbery first because, quote, Thompson was effectively precluded from testifying in his own defense because the prosecution would have impeached his testimony by referring to his armed robbery conviction.

And quote, so he wouldn't be able to testify in his own defense in the second thing for the murder. For the murder. Thank you. They wouldn't let him because they would they would just say he's obviously lying because he did an arm robbery. Is that okay? I guess I feel like I'm nitpicking about a really small problem in this bigger picture. You're on he does not have a coup d'etat shot. The worst part about this is the prosecutor had a blood sample test from the armed robbery that would have exculpated Thompson.

I didn't mention that, but neither did he. It turns out he didn't mention that to anybody either. The sample was from one of the victims, I guess. It was on one of the victims, I guess, and it was the robber's blood. It was a different type. Thompson couldn't take the standard to defend himself. The prosecutor hid evidence and Thompson lost his case. The fucking American South is my cousin Vinnie without the jokes.

The whole thing is all that. Yes. Yeah. You're on a Mac client is trying to sign language to the jury. Please make sure that he does not disdain his own defense. After almost 20 years behind bars, the sample, the blood sample came to light and he was exonerated. When Thompson was released, he sued the DA for suppression of evidence and he won $14 million.

That fight would be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, where the conservative court in 2011 sided with the DA and basically called it a legal oopsie. Deceased hobgoblin Antonin Scalia and a live hobgoblin Clarence Thomas wrote the decision in the blood of the innocent. In 1986, an 18 year old white woman named Ron de Morrison was killed. Other than that, other than that, I'm glad to hear. The cocaine music and the exact same. Really good. really good floral qualities.

The police decided to arrest Walter McMillan for the crime despite not having a prior felony conviction. And he was at a fish fry at his church when the murder happened. While awaiting trial, they sent McMillan to death row for 15 months, a real power move by the state of Alabama that they normally reserve for people who are actually convicted of crimes. How did that even, I know much about the legal system,

but was there a death row at their county jail? I'm not sure. I think maybe they housed the prison. I'm not sure what they did, but he spent 15 months while he couldn't make, so he spent 15 months while he couldn't make so he spent 15 months, you know, in jail before they tried the, and it was on death row. Probably like a long scene where Joe Pasci and somebody were talking past each other and they didn't understand what they're saying.

When trying to reason with the sheriff that he was innocent of the crime because he was at church surrounded by alibi witnesses. The sheriff responded, quote, I don't give a damn what you say or what you do. I don't give a damn what your people say either. I'm gonna put 12 people on a jury who are gonna find your god damn black ass guilty. End quote, which sounds downright unbiased for Alabama.

You didn't have to believe in anything. Yeah, in terms of it's phrasing. Hey, Cecil, if a list of people exonerated from death row is like too wordy for the iTunes title for this episode, you just call it racism. Oh, it's just racism. Character count, no. Because the trial was getting publicity, this they decided to move the trial to another county. They moved it from the 40% black county to a far less biased 86% white county for fairness. There wasn't any physical evidence linking McMillan to the crime. There was a stack of churchgoers that said he was eating fried fish at the time, but they were blacks and they didn't count. He was jointly indicted with

a career criminal who testified against him and pleaded guilty to get 30 years. 11 white jurors and one black juror found him guilty in a day and a half trial. They recommended life in prison, but the judge threw out that recommendation and gave him the death penalty instead.

Okay, I want to put like an asterisk for white cis straight middle class men and up on my comments about the 1986's overall greatness. I just keep it rising up in Sicily and post if you could just add that me saying. I put an audio asterisk for sure. Yeah, we got footnotes now. The case got denied appeal a few times and eventually made it to the appeals court. There it was uncovered that the main witness who pleaded guilty was coerced by the police

and didn't commit the crime himself. They found this out because on the other side of the confession tape is, quote, a recorded conversation in which the career criminal complained bitterly that he was being forced to implicate Macmillan, whom he did not know, for a crime neither of them had any role in." Several witnesses were also discovered to be lying. Macmillan's modified truck spotted at the scene was modified several months after the murders, and the DA and the judge in the original case had, quote, practiced intentional racial discrimination and, quote, in jury selection.

He was exonerated, sued a bunch of people involved in this and he settled out of court. Sorry, I just got to circle back to that tape. What the fuck happened with that tape? Some idiot cop got a confession on one side and he's like, hey, lying starwaters, can you just recount our big lie out loud for like, my story out of, oh, no, side and he's like, hey, lying starwaters, can you just recount our big lie out loud for like my stereotype? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, just give a second. Give me a second.

I'm gonna flip the tape. You say, what the fuck? What is that exist? I'm gonna mark this side of the tape with actual confession. This one fake lying. Big letters don't listen to this. Yeah.

Just like my dad with VHS, because that's not getting a new, do not tape. We need another one because if we're not going to let us tape over the weird thing on history channel, you did. We only have that tape. I can't tape anything. Ray Cron was convicted of killing the bartender of a bar where he played darts. He was convicted with the discredited and completely unsianciful forensic art of criminal fortune telling called bite mark analysis. The expert that testified in the crime said that his teeth matched bite marks on the skin of the victim.

And in fact, after incarceration, Cron got the nickname the Snaggle Tooth Killer. It was disputed in his trial by his own dental experts, but he was convicted anyway and sent to death row. He was exonerated 10 years later when DNA evidence showed that he wasn't a killer and it matched someone else. Quote, journalist Robert Nelson later wrote that ample crime scene evidence and interviews should have excluded Crone as a suspect and also pointed towards Phillips. That's the guy who actually killed him. But these data were ignored by the police

and the prosecution's purported experts end quote. After exoneration, he won $4.4 million from the city and county in Arizona. I mean, is anyone else considering like rolling around on top of a murder scene or two to get falsely convicted for the money? She's just, I feel like I might be learning the wrong things. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. You would not last 40 seconds in prison. 40 seconds. No. They do not warm your mango nectar to 86 and a half degrees. You're gonna cuddle facially deformed dogs with sleep apnea where you're on desk row.

Also, every day of its life, your dog is on desk. I'm just trying to stare. How dare you, Tom? Holy shit! How dare you? Holy shit! Gloves are off. I'm just mad because I came up with that idea before he did.

I would have shared. Anthony Charles Graves, a black man of 26 years. What race was he before that? He's so good. All right. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good.

That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good.

That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. of murdering a family of six. There was in any physical evidence linking him to the crime, and he had no motive. The conviction was obtained

through eyewitness testimony. The guy who testified against graves was the actual killer. After 12 years on death row and being scheduled twice to die by lethal injection, he was exonerated and quote, the prosecutor who put him in prison

was ultimately disbarred for concealing ex-cultivatory evidence and using false testimony in the case." He was awarded 1.1 million in compensation for his 12 years in prison. Okay. To be clear, what the prosecutors have done in these cases would be best described as attempted murder. Yes, that's what that is.

This is the first guy that faced any consequences at all, and the consequence was losing his attempted murder license. Yeah, exactly. Like seriously. That's crazy. If you hide a sculpted Tory evidence, isn't that literally aiding and abetting the actual murder? He's like, when I do a gun in the river, it's always,

oh, Tom's getting arrested. Tom's going to jail that. When the prosecutor does it, it's always, oh, Tom's getting arrested. Tom's going to jail that when the prosecutor does. It's just sloppy lawyer. And now in 1975, a businessman named Harold Franks was killed outside his grocery store. The witnesses said that he was killed by two black men and they fled to a waiting car with a third black man. All the witnesses says that said they couldn't see the killers clearly except one. A 12 year old boy named Eddie Vernon said it was Ricky Jackson, Ronnie Bridgeman and

Willie Bridgeman. These three young men were good boys. They lived at home with and took care of their mother. One was a tradesman, one was honorably discharged from the military, none of them had had been in any trouble before. It really didn't matter. Based solely on the testimony of a 12 year old kid, they were all convicted. In 2011, the boy who testified against them recanted his testimony.

He said he was coerced and then threatened by the police. One of these men had already been parole, but the other two were released after they were exonerated. After 39 years in jail, this is what Ricky Jackson said about the 12 year old that helped put them in prison. He did not hate them, quote, he's a grown man today and he was just a boy back then, end quote. Jackson holds the longest prison term of anyone exonerated and the men were awarded several

million dollars from several entities, the most coming from the city of Cleveland, which was $18 million for the three of them. Okay, I feel like it's way more money for all these things you've been talking about. I know. I know. I know. Way too small, but I feel like you also, you get more, you like, you get to be attorney general

and police commissioner for like a year. Whatever you want. This happened. Like, cops, they have to patrol on all fours now. Oh, the DA is my butler for a year. I'll call up with some other stuff too. Anything I think of for the next year, you have to do it. That should be the rule. It's not like anyone's gonna object by being like,

they're doing a good job or laws exist. So yeah, two laws for us, right? 1988, an 88 year old farmer named William E. Dullin was found murdered in his home. A woman that Wikipedia calls a cocaine addict, Gail Porter, was found using William's checks and her blood was found at the crime scene. Okay. Was she a cocaine addict?

Or do you think Wikipedia was just being mean? It's not like you think the latter. Oh no, I just didn't want to call her a cocaine addict. Well, what happened? I'm saying Wikipedia if you and Gail are tight. I didn't want to call her a cocaine addict. We can take you and Gayle or tight you can do that. I just want to just throw that out there. She agreed to a plea deal with the police and said that she was there, but she didn't do the murdering.

That was done by two other men, Ralph Fry and Joseph Burrows. There wasn't any evidence for this other than her saying that they killed the man. Ralph Fry, a man that Wikipedia says has quote, a slight cognitive disabilities end quote, also was coerced to testify against burrows. Fry eventually recanted his testimony and the lawyer from making a murderer, Kathleen Zellner, got gale to confess to the murders. At retrial, the prosecution dropped the charges and burrows was awarded $100,000 for his five years on death row. Wait, there's the going right for locking people up his 20 grand a year. Yes, yes, it is. I guys, we got some kick starters to set up. I can't imagine losing five years of my life, suffering the trauma of prison being separated

from family and friends, being put on fucking death row. And at the end of it, they're like, it's our bad. Here's enough money for a, let's see, a Honda Civic in one year of college. Good luck, everybody. Yeah. Not like a great college or a brand new. But it's the options. Make it stretch.

In 1983, two young black boys named Leon Brown and Henry McCullum described as two young men with quote, very low IQs and quote, were charged with the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl, Sabrina Buie. The boys spent hours getting interrogated without any counsel present and they got them to confess. They quickly recanted the confessions, but that didn't matter. The police also had a sculpted Tory evidence that they hid from the defense. They were convicted, of course, and sent to death row. Are cops just hanging around handicaps, parking spaces like Matthew McConaughey and Fast

Times at Richmont High? What is happening? What is happening? What is happening? 30 years later, they were exonerated when DNA evidence connected these murders with someone who was prosecuted by the same DA for a similar crime a month before who lived next to where the body was found. They were also awarded $75 million for their wrongful conviction. The DA that prosecuted these two, Joe Freeman Britt, holds the world record of death row convictions

and was considered the deadliest prosecutors in the US with 47 death row convictions. That's not a good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And good quote. And of the scientific evidence, Brick refused to acknowledge the men's innocence. Jesus. Come on, tight. And if you had to learn what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be, Cecil? You know, as I was writing this, I just thought to myself,

exonerate would be a great name for a breakfast place. Was that what you were thinking about? That's what I was thinking. This stuff goes in one ear and out the other. See, place. Was that what you were thinking about? That's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking about. This stuff goes in one ear and out the other. See, yeah. And are you ready for the quiz? If it pleases the court, so.

All right, Cecil, the criminal justice system, A, is very unappealing. Ah, appealing. I like it. B, doesn't appeal to me. I think he's the same joke. C, appeals are a token not towards fairness and justice while I'm practicing offering little to nothing

by way of remediating the inequities and failures of the system they purport to keep in check. Ooh, I don't know. I don't know. It's, it's hilarious. See, it's, it's hilarious. Stan, oh. So funny.

You got it. So funny. All right, Cecil, if we insist on still having the death penalty, which apparently we fucking do here, what should the punishment be for getting it wrong? Hey, the death penalty. Oh, never mind, we stopped doing the death penalty. We stopped. It's first to say that it's B.

Yeah, that is correct. All right, so I have one more for you here, Cecil. If listeners enjoyed this episode, what should they do? A, leave us a five star examiner rating. Ah, I'm glad to be. Check out our previous episodes. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, I'm going to go with C on this one. Okay, I'm going to go with C on this one. I love you, insulin, I'm going to stay in execution.

Stay, I get it. The listeners also would see is, see is, see is, see is, see is, see is, see is, see is, you're listening to this on your commute. You must have enjoyed. Oh, you guys still Donate to us and make sure that dot com slash citation pod that's see. Oh, all right. Obviously. Yeah. So he still wants to feed my baby. So he will.

I choose Noah. Maybe he'll pick something a little more, I don't know, bright and fun and I'm sorry guys. Oh, I got one. You didn't say a little less obscure. Okay, great, okay, I got one. All right, well, for Cecil Noah, Tom, and Heath, I'm Eli Posthek, thank you for hanging out with us today.

We'll be back next week and by then, Noah will be an expert on something else. Between now and then you can watch Cecil make delicious food over on season, liberally on YouTube with this fancy new set. No big deal hasn't invited me on for like an episode guest spot yet. I'm not sure I'm gonna random. I don't happen. I will not. Absolutely. Also we have podcast. not gonna do that and if you'd like to help keep this show going They can't kick me off this one yet. You can make a pair of the So at Patreon

Leave us a five star review okay everywhere you can now you can And if you'd like to get in touch with us check out past episode episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com Alright, any progress with that one? Nothing! I've been beaten on this guy for an hour and he still won't talk! Alright, alright, let me try a good cop. I'm gonna do the good cop thing. Hey, hey, sorry about that guy. So, can I get you a little water? you