Julian Dorey Podcast - 😨 [VIDEO] - The HEART-BREAKING Case of Tyree Wallace | #159

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

- Julian Dorey Podcast MERCH: https://legacy.23point5.com/creator/Julian-Dorey-9826?tab=Featured - Support Our Show on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey  (***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Keir Bradford-Grey & David Perry are both attorneys. Keir is a Partner at Montgomery McCracken and was formerly the chief defender of the Defender Association of Philadelphia. David is a partner at Blank Rome where he specializes in IP Law. Both Bradford-Grey and Perry have been supporting Tyree Wallace’s Fight for Freedom. Bradford-Grey is Tyree’s chief defense attorney. SIGN PETITION FOR TYREE: https://www.change.org/p/free-tyree-wallace  Tyree Wallace Website: https://www.freetyreewallace.com/  Tyree IG: https://rb.gy/iye00  Tyree Keynote (Starts at 39:10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5_XjW6zckA  ***TIMESTAMPS*** 0:00 - Background on Tyree Wallace 3:21 - Keir Bradford-Grey Intros herself 7:52 - David Perry Intros himself 12:41 - John Kang’s Murder Story 17:31 - Appeals Process; Court Appointed Lawyer vs Public Defender 21:46 - Clemency vs Pardon; Dark Days for Tyree 25:52 - Julian’s calls with Tyree in Prison 28:55 - Julian talks about a prison guard he spoke with; Tyree works on Prison Hospice 33:29 - Gamification of Prosecutors 38:46 - WITNESS 1: Brian Brooks (The Liar) 49:42 - Keir analyses Brian Brooks’ situation 53:51 - Brian Brooks gets bailed out and tricks Tyree 59:30 - Tyree gets arrested; Witness says he wasn’t there; Tyree’s terrible lawyer 1:04:19 - Timeline of case; Government had ZERO hard evidence 1:09:11 - WITNESS 2: James Davis 1:12:54 - THE WITNESS WHO NEVER WAS: Muldrow 1:17:10 - The trial begins; How cross examination of Brooks went down 1:20:44 - WITNESS 3: Sheriff John Hamilton 1:25:20 - John’s background as prison guard 1:32:58 - Murder trials happen so frequently without media coverage 1:34:15 - How often did a witness ever tell Sheriff they lied? 1:36:42 - When Tyree first contacted John 1:39:07 - What happened the day Brian Brooks testified & what happened right after 1:44:43 - The Terrifying Holmesburg Prison; “Little Mikey” Story 1:47:34 - John always wondered what happened after Brooks’ testimony 1:52:44 - The Trial Judge: Judge Greenspan 1:56:45 - The Dead Prisoner w/ white shoes story 2:00:18 - John’s message to Tyree 2:03:50 - The judge who soiled himself; My Cousin Vinny; “One bad decision away”  2:07:24 - “I was an expert at picking juries”; Uneven justice system 2:12:32 - Institutionalized Prisoners & M3ntal H3alth 2:16:12 - John’s final reflection 2:19:26 - Keir breaks down Tyree’s appeals process 2:24:01 - The witnesses who have reached out to offer testimony for Tyree, Shackleford coming forward story 2:27:22 - Why is Shackleford afraid to testify?; Tyree’s thoughts on Shackleford 2:34:01 - Julian appeals to the audience 2:35:33 - Tyree’s polygraph test; Tyree wants complete innocence 2:39:21 - Keir talks about conversations with Brian Brooks 2:45:26 - The family of the victim have moved on; Woman who testified for Father’s murderers story 2:50:17 - The attention on the case is brewing towards a real breakthrough 2:52:58 - How donated money helps Tyree 2:55:08 - Putting yourself in Tyree’s shoes ~ Get $150 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover (USING CODE: “... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up guys? If you're on Spotify right now, please follow the show so that you don't miss any future episodes and leave a five-star review. Thank you. He said, I didn't want to say that. And do we know, have we seen this? Do we know who the sheriff is? Yeah. What's his name? John Hamilton. The sheriff was relaying Brian said he, that this wasn't true. And so they let Brian get back on the stand to say what he said to the sheriff. Pretty damn credible. Now, I have someone here who I think could help clear this up a little bit.

And I'd like to bring him in if you don't mind. So we're going to have to move that table. Sure. In a sec. But Alessi, can you bring him in? so so here david thanks for being here thank you for having me i've been looking forward to this for a long time this podcast i just want to give some context for people out there who are just seeing this for the first time i haven't been talking about this publicly so i want to make sure everyone follows along but we've been working on this for around six months. So we were originally going to do this, I think, in the end of March when I was first talking with you, Dave.

And then here we got on the phone and suddenly I was like, oh, shit. All right. We definitely need to do both people here. It's very it's way better that way. You are going to get to exactly your role and your role as well dave but this is about our mutual friend tyree wallace who has been sitting in prison now for i believe 26 years life without parole for a crime that he did not commit that's right and you know i i have a real i have a special place in my heart for people who are innocent of crimes that they are serving the time for because I think my ultimate fear is to be stuck in an eight-by-eight box for something I did not do. I couldn't fathom that. So in getting a chance to speak with Tyree a bunch over the past three, four months and getting to know him and hearing how positive he is and all the things he does, which we'll also talk about today, inside the prison and outside the prison is an amazing thing.

This is somebody who was locked up when he was 19 years old. So I want to do right by him, and I want to get the story out and and that's really the main point here when you look at the story of this case it's tragic because we have a guy with crazy proof that he was not at the scene of a crime that he was then very quickly convicted of and sent away forever so that little monologue to open this aside, can we just start one by one for both of you just to say who you are and how you got involved with the case? And, Kira, I'll have you kick that off. Yeah, so first of all, just thank you for this, Julian. This is exactly what we need to do to be raising awareness of these issues.

But my name is Kira Bradford Gray, and I'm currently a partner at a law firm, Montgomery McCracken, walking roads. But prior to that, I ran the city's Philadelphia's public defender office. And before that, I ran Montgomery County's public defender office. And I've been a public defender pretty much my entire career, both state and federal practices. So I'm really in this as a subject matter expert in terms of the criminal justice process and re-looking at what happened here during the trial. Quick question on that, if you don't mind. As someone who's obviously an expert in public defenders, a lot of times guys like me who aren't lawyers, we hear about cases like this, especially when it's people who don't have money and means. And it's easy to kind of punchline the whole public defender thing.

Do you think that outside the fact that it does help fill in people's constitutional right to an attorney, do you think that the public defender programs that you've been a part of actually had like effective attorneys who could do the job for their clients, or was that something that you were constantly trying to improve because it wasn't good enough? No, that's such an excellent question. And I would say this. First of all, it's individual. You know, each attorney is going to go proactively and aggressively after the advocacy they need to. But it's also a resource thing, too, right?

So when you have people who have real— So you're hosting the family barbecue this week, but everyone knows your brother is the grill guy and it's highly likely he'll be backseat barbecuing all night. So be it. Impress even the toughest of critics with freshly prepared Canadian barbecue favorites from Sobeys. Serious cases where you need other experts to testify to help bring about what happened. That's where you get the scarcity of the resources and the quality of the defense. I'd say most of the people that I've met are very well-reasoned, very highly intellectual people that can look at a crime statute, look at a fact pattern, and be an advocate. But cases like this need much more than just a lawyer.

They need an expert. They need forensics. They need people who can go out and take pictures and do real thorough investigations. That costs money. And many public defender offices don't have a budget to support those types of defenses or what it takes to truly – and I say this tongue-in-cheek – prove someone's innocence right you're not supposed to have to prove your innocence the government is supposed to prove your guilt but generally it works the other way around you're accused and it seems like you're guilty until proven innocent we can definitely talk about that later i i agree wholeheartedly it's like you pull any of these people after the fact when they do jury duty they always say like well i assume they did something wrong because they're in there especially the more serious the crime so that's that's a really good point but before we get over to dave what how did you get involved with tyree when did you meet tyree yeah so i was pulled into the case by a woman named asada um and asada had been talking with dave for a very long time asada is a huge supporter of Tyree. And I know her through social justice, I guess, coalitions that she's been a part of. So she knew that I had done high profile cases. I've challenged Larry Krasner on high profile cases.

Philadelphia DA. Yeah, Philadelphia DA. I was his counterpart on the other side. So as the chief public defender, we go kind of neck and neck on at least 80% of the cases that come to Philadelphia, through Philadelphia, I should say. And she just said, look, I need someone who understands the system, has the relationships with the players to really shed light on these things. But Larry also wanted a lawyer, a defense lawyer, who is well traversed in criminal law, to make sure that we are raising the appropriate legal issues before he would be able to look at and re-review this case. So I talked to Asada. She was already working with Dave. Dave has been extremely invested in Tyree in this case. And we started

to connect. And I said, you know what, let me take a look at it. And when I took a look at it, I just my heart dropped that this is where we are. We're in 2023 now. And we are still continuing to perpetuate this type of fraud against an innocent man. Horrible. So I agreed to be a part of it. Well, I'm glad you came on board here. It's been a huge, huge help for Tyree. And hopefully we can add to that and get this taken care of. Absolutely. But Dave, as we alluded to, you are not a defense attorney. What kind of attorney are you? So I am an intellectual property attorney.

So how does an intellectual property attorney end up on a highly criminal case? since I was a summer associate, which was 25 years ago this summer. A few years ago, pre-COVID actually, a request came through from the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project looks to law firms and lawyers around the Philadelphia area for help. And an email came through and said, would anyone be willing to answer some questions for a client of the Innocence Project who had some IP questions? And what I learned is that Tyree Wallace had co-founded an organization called Man Up, an organization inside SCI Phoenix, State Correctional Institution Phoenix, which is a bit of a misnomer. It's actually based sort of near Skipback, Pennsylvania, so outside Philadelphia. And he started this program, and he had questions about the naming. He had questions about the

curriculum. He had questions about the materials, because the program was actually sort of a, it was a wonderful sort of self-help program run by the prisoners to you know man up to be better men and they would tackle all kinds of topics from anger management to fiscal responsibility you name it and it was a program I knew nothing about the prison system culture organizations, organizations, how it worked. I'd never visited a prison before, or a federal prison, that is. I had done pro bono work, I think, one time before for a prisoner in a New Jersey state facility. But ultimately, it was IP questions. I decided that I would go and meet with him. Needless to say, it's not easy to

communicate with somebody who's inside prison. So it's cumbersome. It was just going to be easier to go there and talk with him. And so I did. What happened is that gradually over time, I would say to Tyree, what's going on with her case? You know, I don't really understand that area of law. That's not my area, but what's going on with your case and what's the innocence project, you know, what's the status. And I would learn more and more about it.

But ultimately I learn a good year or so in he needed, he just needed advocacy. And Tyree will tell you about me, know he was he's like you know you were you were a little guarded about that because you know lawyers are cautious and that's not my lane this is not my lane I did not know you know what PCRA even stood for which we get into. But I have to look up a lot of these acronyms. I have acronyms in my own space, but this was all new. So eventually, I just sort of realized he needed an advocate. And that I have to do the right thing, which is to be a conduit and a connector, whether it's to help Keir do what she has to do as the expert, the subject matter expert, as she said.

So it basically is it had an IP origin. It morphed into sort of using my platform. Blank Room is a great law firm with a lot of resources and a lot of I realize you know a platform that people like Tyree you know most of them don't have any access to anything like this and it is the right thing to do and so I try to help in whatever way that I can well I'm glad you have and you really have walked the talk with that in every way how many years years again ago was it when you first got involved? You might have said that at the beginning there. It was probably – so COVID is probably 2018.

So you've been on this for like five years working with this. And anytime I get on the phone with Tyree, very often you're on there in the middle of a business day with him, andree we keep talking about the fact that you know this is a case where he's been in prison but let's let's talk about the case let's let's give the details here so back in the late 90s i believe 97 right that's when the alleged crime occurred so can we just and i don't care who takes this one but can we just get into how old tyree was what happened and just the background of the case you can go ahead dave i mean no seriously you've been involved in this with tyree for a very long time october uh now 1997 october of 1997 i was trying to remember the date because i've really i've really delved into the details, but there's so many documents in a case like this, and it's hard to keep track sometimes.

But October of 1997, there was a corner store in Tyree's neighborhood. John, they called him Mr. John, John Kang, as Tyree will explain, was sort of, to him, a bit of a hero in the neighborhood. He was the storekeeper. And as Tyree sort of has explained it to me, you know, in a culture at that time where most people would only employ people of, you know, their kind, you know, Koreans who ran Korean shops were only employing Korean neighbors and African Americans were only employing African Americans. He would give jobs to whomever. He was a real neighborhood hero. Tyree would tell me that he looked up to him. His mother was, you know, huge. His mother's passed away since then. But ultimately ultimately you know this this corner store robbery occurs in october of 1997 um and tyree got caught up in you know a group of individuals that

eventually would become you know in the crosshairs for this investigation, he was, Mr. John was shot. It was supposed to be, it was basically supposed to be a stick up for money. Obviously, it went sideways and he was shot and he was murdered. And Tyree got caught up in that i think as he would describe sort of naively felt very early on for a while well there's no way that i i'm not gonna you know go to prison for this because i had nothing nothing to do with this so he figured at that time it would all work out he was 19 years old um he was a minor which will become an important fact um in the story so and there were other people obviously allegedly there who was who was the other guy convicted with him

raheem shackleford and he was 17 at the time yeah he well i should i should correct that right tyree wasn't a minor um he was just shy of being minor, just past being minor, I should correct that. So, but Raheem Shackelford was. And that is ultimately what would enable when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned life without parole for juveniles, it enabled a resentencing opportunity for those who were. You could speak to this. Please. That's a big area, right? Because contextually, look, in the eyes of the law, once you're 18, you're an adult, even though we know differently, right, from the brain science that's just never made it into the courtroom, right?

However, everyone had redress in this situation. They had what? Meaning they've been able, thank you for saying that, right? I'm talking like a lawyer. Sorry, I'm not the legal guy. No, I'm talking like a lawyer. Meaning you get a shot at reviewing your case because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said, okay, for juveniles, if you had done something heinous and you were convicted of it, we're going to give you an opportunity to be resentenced because you're a juvenile at the time you did it. Even though we're talking about a year's difference in age, right? So Tyree, if he was 18

and Rahim is 17, Rahim gets relief through the resentencing of juveniles because you can't keep a juvenile in jail for life, but Tyree doesn't. Rahim actually is involved in this and has admitted guilt. He's out because of an opportunity through the law. Tyree has no real opportunities through the law after so long. And Rahim's been out for a while now, right? Yeah, I'd say since 2018. Okay, so he gets through this redress opportunity. He gets out. Tyree wasn't a minor, so he can't get out. He's stuck in there.

With very little remedies. Other than the very litigious appeal process, which none of us who aren't lawyers understand. Well, let's put it in context. So after 26 years, you don't really have any appeal issues other than what's called newly discovered evidence, right? How do they determine that? Yeah, that's very tricky. That means information that came to you, that you didn't know about at the time of your trial, that if you knew about, would bear upon your innocence. Now, how do you really look at what would bear upon someone's innocence? Well, if a witness says, you know what, I lied. That wasn't true. That didn't happen. DNA evidence

usually helps with that too, newly discovered evidence. Or some kind of like crazy, because back then videos weren't really prevalent and we didn't have a lot of the technology, but some kind of witness that says, hey, I've been in hiding for 20 years and I actually know who did it, but I was afraid to say so before. And so no one ever had my name. So it's like these really like aha moments that now after 26 years, a person only has the ability to file an appeal against their lawyer one year after their sentence so an appeal against their lawyer yes so where and we hopefully we get into this but Tyree's lawyer at the time who wasn't a public defender but was a court appointed lawyer which is different can you explain that difference yes a public defender, but was a court-appointed lawyer, which is different. Can you explain that difference?

Yes. A public defender works in an institution, the public defender office, and they are assigned to represent anyone who cannot afford a lawyer. If the public defender takes a co-defendant, they can't represent the other person charged with the crime, because that could be a conflict in your defense theory. So private lawyers, it could be a private lawyer like Dave, they can have intellectual property, but these lawyers at least should be certified to do homicide cases. Private lawyers then say, hey, court, I will represent someone in a court-appointed capacity, and the court will then pay them to represent the co-defendant. So each person has their unique lawyer so they can put on the defenses that they need to.

Got it. Okay. So what was the name of his attorney again? Daniel Green. Daniel Green. Who's no longer living. Well, that's unfortunate. So either way, though, there's no appeal one year out, I think you said, on something like that? So Daniel Green, when I look at this, Daniel Green made a lot of mistakes. Yes.

And really should have called certain witnesses or should have raised certain issues, but did not. Tyree could have complained about what Daniel Green did, but he would have only had one year after he was sentenced to do that. And there was a point, I think, early on when Tyree actually did ask the court. I think he and his father at the time were advocating for Tyree to get a new counsel, and the court refused at the time. There's a situation there I know that Tyree still talks about when he knew he wanted new counsel and he wasn't able to get it.

Are you saying still during the trial, not after the fact? Not after the fact. Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. And I should say, you asked the question about, you know, lanes available. He does, we should say, and I mentioned the Innocence Project, we should say he does have an application this very moment, you know, for clemency pending, you know, winding its way through the Board of Pardons in Harrisburg, which is, from what I've learned a lot about that process, slow and, you know, a bit of, there's been a new, there's a new governor, obviously, in the last year in

Pennsylvania. It's a slow process. It's a five-member board of pardons i think for a conviction like tyrese it has to be a unanimous vote five out of five not three out of five not four out of five unanimous which includes the attorney general um and the rec and they make a recommendation to the governor so there's a victim's advocate on there that's appointed i think there's there's in english here there's basically several layers this has to go through at the highest levels. Just to clarify, clemency, what that means? That just means when someone's saying, hey, can you suspend the rest of my sentence? I've served a long time. I've changed. They pretty much have to admit guilt, even if they didn't do it. Some people are saying,

if this is the only way I can get out, okay, I'll take it on. I've changed. I've done wonderful things while I've been in prison. I've not been a problem. I've had no disciplinary issues. And the doctors and the psychologists say that I'm an individual that will have no problems in the community. Right. And that's the tricky thing because, again, like putting yourself in the shoes of someone who's

been sitting in a box for 26 years is impossible i don't care who you are like 26 minutes and exactly i haven't spent two days in the same room you know what i mean so i always try to check that at the door when i'm looking at extreme situations like this which with the types of people i bring on this podcast i'm constantly bringing on people that it's like, you know, they can tell me about it, but I can't really understand it if I haven't done it, you know, but selfishly, like when I think about it,

of course, I want to see this guy get fully exonerated. I want to see him be able to say, I'm innocent. I got nothing on my record. By the way, he also has things to come back to. Cause like we said,

he has organizations that exist outside the prisons already. So he a purpose already to go to like he's just a great guy in in the meantime yeah like whatever it would be to at least get him on the other side of the wall we'll take that and and i understand like i know in tyree's head that's not how he thinks and i would be the same way I would imagine if I were him. I'd want to be like, no, you need to clear my name completely. And we can try to do that. But I do want to help however I can in my seat here. And with other people, we get involved with this in making sure that at the very least,

we get something like a clemency on the table and realistically through. I mean, he's maintained his innocence consistently. For 26 years. For 26 years. But as a human being, over the last five years, and especially the last couple of years, maybe COVID has had a big impact on a lot of people. It's amazing how he keeps his head up.

It's amazing that he isn't more downtrodden. Agreed. You'd think he would be, and maybe most of us, maybe any of us would be if we were ever, you know, in that situation. But it's beginning to, it wears on him. Sure. And some days are definitely better than others, where he's just

like, you know, and he'll just flat out, I mean, put yourself in our shoes, or anyone's shoes, your shoes, when someone says to you, Dave, I just don't, I'm going to die in here. Literally, I will die and be taken out of this prison, you know, in a coffin unless we find some way, you know to to give me some freedom and i can hang up the phone often you know a 15 minute phone call that abruptly ends in the middle of a sentence or a zoom a zoom session that we that we can get for 45 minutes which abruptly ends at minute 45 but i can you know i can hang up the phone or finish a Zoom and go back to my normal, my work of the day, my normal job, my day job, or whatever other issues. But

like you said, you try to check it at the door. It's hard to do. I can never completely put myself in his position. And some days he he has frustration but despite all of that and we should we should definitely talk about him as a person and his organizations it's kind of an amazing like human story yes has to be of resilience and like it's got to mean something that somebody can maintain that and be he's's become, you know, he's a mentor to others. There are people that I have met who are now outside young guys who, who looked to him in their time with him as, as a mentor. I get it. I've talked to him now about 10 times, I want to say. So I've talked to him on zoom. I've talked to him on the phone and I can,

I now recognize the number, the four, eight, four, when it comes through. And I know what it is now. And, you know, it's kind of, it's hard to explain, but I get like this weird sensation because then I hop on with him. We have a great 15 minute call and then I hang up. And just like you said, Dave, I go about my day after that. But there's this, there's this like feeling I get where it puts my life in perspective a bit because I realized like how much he values having 15 minutes to talk with me. I mean, the guy fucking thanks me for saying the sky was up. You know what I mean? Like he's, he's just the nicest person ever. And I'm like, Tyra,

he, you don't have to do that. Like, you know, but the, the, he's, he's an intelligent dude who has so many thoughts about the other people who are in there. He's not just worried about his own case. He's constantly talking to me about the things he's doing for the other guys. That's probably been 75% of the conversations I've had with him. And to keep that type of a positive attitude, as you just said, Dave, is remarkable. I mean, it's just remarkable. I mean, he literally is writing programs to combat recidivism programs to be implemented out here in the community i mean he reduction of violence gun violence he's basically doing the

work that community groups and i mean he's he's he's championed a non-profit from within the within the walls and he only can do that with the support of people outside. But it's amazing. You know, I think it gives him hope and it gives him. Yes. He needs that. If it were, you know, I think if it weren't there, it would be filled with despair. It's that basic humanity, right? He still is holding on to it even though no one has it for him. I mean, the way he's gone through this system and what happened to him, no one had any

decency for who he was as a human. He wasn't valued whatsoever. And I mean, from the system actors to the people that were supposed to be his quote-unquote friends, I don't see how he can have that. I mean, I get pissed when I'm cut off on the road. Like, seriously, I had a

whole bad day just navigating traffic. And when you just talk about how he can stay positive knowing he's wrongfully accused. I don't even know how old you are, but he's probably been in there as long as you've been living. Yeah. Right? 26 years. I don't know if that's your age or not. But in any event, I would give up. I know it. know i think i might too i don't have that will

i don't and i don't again like i'm always careful with the if i were blank then i would blank because i don't you don't know till you do it but with a high degree of probability if i knew i were innocent of something and i were stuck there and no one was helping me and this went on for years and years and years I would lose the will to live me too I mean I would just there's nothing there's nothing to hope for but this guy has not done that and you know I was talking with a with a prison guard recently not on the podcast but on on the side and he worked in a in a high security very maximum security prison for about 10 years and this guy's stories of humanity were about as visceral and incredible of a memory as i've ever heard i mean he he viewed the prisoners as human beings good you know which let's be

honest there's a lot of stereotypes where guards don't really do that and so this guy was was different and i didn't put words in his mouth but it was almost like when he was talking about some of them it was like i don't know if he used the word my friend so and so but he might as well have done that which was very interesting to me but one of the things he said is that everyone is innocent when they come into prison, right? Everyone – oh, I didn't do this, man. Nothing happened, whatever. He said there's something about the monotony of the human spirit, especially when you know things in your head maybe that aren't so good about yourself where –

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Maybe it's a year. Sometimes it's two. At worst, it's three. Where you're saying that, but eventually you stop saying that. Even if you don't come out with the words, I'm guilty,

you stop trying to get in touch with lawyers, you stop sitting in the library trying to work on cases, you know. You're in here for something you did he recognized that even at that maximum security prison though there was a percentage of people and it wasn't one percent it wasn't two percent it was more than that who were completely innocent of what they did and the guys who were actually completely innocent one of the main tells he had was that they never stopped saying they were innocent and working on their case. And so when I hear a case like this and you talk about a guy since he was 19 years old, he has now spent more than twice – more than double his life. How do I say that right? He was 19.

Now he's like 45, 46. So he spent 26 years in there. He went in when he was 19, more than being on the outside. And he is still in there working on his case every day. And so doing something like this is, you know, it's like the least I can do. It's the least we can do. Yeah. You know, and I'll just add, I mean, Tyree called me, I talked to him in the car on my way here this afternoon. And he said, you know, he wanted to say thank you to you and to you. And he's so appreciative of any support that he gets. But you know, this is an interesting

thing. Like, think about this. Think about what you do in your spare time. You know, one of the things Tyree does in his, I guess, quote unquote, spare time, he volunteers at the hospice in the prison. Can you imagine what a hospice is like in the prison? I didn't know he did that. Yeah. And I remember last winter or the winter before, someday, usually when I get on the phone with him, I'll be like, how's it going?

And he'll be like, oh, I had a good day, really productive. I mean, he'll often say very productive. But one day he called me. He's like, I just came from the hospice and um it was really cold in there and all the guys wanted a few of them anyway was a hat they just needed a knit hat and they didn't have it and he was telling me how many hoops he had to jump through just as an advocate inside the prison to basically get to the guards and the administration be like man these guys like they're dying here please can we get him a hat

they're cold and think about it he's probably looking at that's my fate right yeah i mean he's dealing with people who are dying in prison yes and this is him seeing this for himself. I just, I mean, I, Julie, I can't tell you how important these stories are. Because as a public defender, I've seen it time and time and time again. And there are very little remedies for people in the legal field. But I'll tell you, the spirit of social conscious community sometimes makes its way back into these systems. And we've seen a lot of people exonerated because their stories are now reaching real life people

who would never know these things go on in a system. But for someone telling these stories and getting it out there for it to be a household conversation, for people to say, that's not right. We can't have people dying in jail because someone won't admit to right the wrongs. Well, on that note, with how this happens, it's not like every time someone who's innocent and in prison, it's a result of a dirty prosecutor or something like that. That doesn't – now, that does happen sometimes, of course, and we definitely want to call that out when it does. But that – it's usually like the system hasn't worked. Maybe they didn't have a good enough lawyer.

The detectives did something wrong in the case a combination of things but i one of the topics that i'm obsessed with is the gamification of a system like this where it is life and death right and so you've spent a lot of time on the public defender's side but from the prosecutorial side because you've dealt with them your whole career they have a job to do i fully understand that and when they get a case after a mountain of evidence is built and someone is charged, their job is to go in there and make the case for the government and win. My issue is that they are disincentivized from going through a case and as the case is going on, if they realize in their gut that like, ooh, this person didn't do this. They are completely disincentivized from saying that, at least from what I've seen, because in reality, they're a prosecutor making 90 grand a year who are looking at a record and that record needs to be whatever it is, 90 and 0 on cases so

that someone else way higher than them on a Tuesday in November can say, I won X number of cases, right? There's this system that works all the way up. And at the bottom rung, you now have people who are basically sent in there to win the case at all costs. How do we fix that in the system so that, you know, someone can brag about being 71 and 17 instead of 88 and 0. And the 17 isn't because they're a bad lawyer. It's because they realized, oh, wait a second. No, this person didn't do this. Right. That's such a great question. So I would say this. Look, I think a prosecutor's job is to do the ultimate, which is seek justice, not just for the person who is victimized, but for the community. And this is the issue. Politics plays a huge role in this.

When someone is killed, it is not going to be good enough for the police say we can't find him because the public is going to be bubbling up in fear saying, wait a minute, what are our local politicians doing? When we can start to get to a point where we are not politicizing the justice system, and we're actually doing the will of reaching the ultimate goal, which is justice, then we'll have more honesty and integrity in our convictions. But because the general public, who's very ignorant of the fact that politics and justice don't necessarily mesh, but they want what they want, they want someone to pay when something happens, they want to know that someone was arrested, they want to know someone was convicted,

because that makes you sleep at night, right? So when Dave was talking about Mr. Kang, Mr. Kang is a pillar in the community. It's not going to be good enough to say we can't find the shooter in a situation like that. You're going to have to find someone and build a case to make sure that, hey, this seems to be okay, who, you know, and most of these are happening on the backs of poor people in communities that are mostly black and brown, and Asian and other, you know, minority and immigrant communities, where they're not really valued in terms of their humanity. They're fungible for these types of situations. I don't want to sound sound cynical but i am as an insider of the system i know this happens oh sure i mean look at when's the last time you heard about sam bankman freed i haven't heard that name in six months he's sitting in a mansion right now with an ankle

monitor you think if he was like poor or from a shitty community he'd ever be in that no he'd be sitting in the bottom of a ditch in a jail somewhere. Right. For the record, he was literally thrown in prison like the day after we recorded this, but the point still remains. It's sad, but you're 100% right. Yeah. But we're picking apart how the justice system should work for people who are wealthy, for people who should be given a benefit of the doubt. That's never how it works for people like that I used to represent. I've seen people go to jail and be convicted with little to no evidence at all. I mean, this is just how it works. You arrest an ex-Western later. But the world is getting a view of the

justice system and how it should work through a different lens when you're talking about using it against powerful people. And the different worlds about how the justice system works for people who some have no money, some who have money, is two total different processes and analysis. For Tyree, he got the, oh, well, we'll see what happens. You know, someone, something happened, we got some information. It doesn't seem that credible. It may not even be credible when it holds up to when we start getting into it. But we're going to push it anyway. And we see another system of justice where it's like, let's give you every benefit of the doubt before we use the system against you. Yes.

It's just an amazing, amazing thing. They're not two sides. It's two different coins here. 100%. amazing amazing thing they're not two sizes it's two different coins here 100 it's not two sides of the same coin but i i would get stuck on a lot of this right now we can come back to some of this stuff because i'm so interested in it i just don't want to have like an add moment and get off the case so thank you for pushing me back too because i get those moments back to where we left off on on what happened with tyree we explained exactly who the victim was, what went down,

but when did, let's get to like when Tyree got arrested, how he became a suspect, what the types of evidence they brought against him was. Dave, do you want me to kind of? Sure, yeah. We can't talk about that unless we talk about Brian Brooks.

Well, let's talk about Brian Brooks. Let's talk about Brian Brooks. Brian Brooks was a friend, and I say that tongue-in-cheek, a friend of Tyree's that used to hang out with him and other people in the neighborhood. They were all neighborhood young men, and, you know, young men like doing what they do,

right? So Brian Brooks on the day of Mr. K's murder, I'm sorry, earlier on that day, so it K's murder, I'm sorry, earlier on that day. So it was October 28th, 1997. 4.50 p.m. Yeah, look at that. See, you say you don't know details.

Dave, no flies on you unless they're paying rent. Yes. So Brian Brooks gets arrested on a domestic violence situation with his girlfriend at the time, Tracy Drayton. Tracy Drayton calls the police on Brian Brooks. Brian Brooks gets arrested. Well, when he's arrested earlier that day, the same day that Mr. King was murdered,

the police must have had him on their radar because they start putting information in front of him about gunpoint robberies that he was involved in. I say he was involved in because he ends up admitting at that time that he's involved in all I say he was involved in because he ends up admitting at that time that he's involved in all these gunpoint robberies. In the interrogation. In the interrogation.

This is about 4-something p.m. the same day Mr. King was murdered. Brian Brooks is spilling his guts to the police because whatever they're putting in front of him, they're probably telling him, we've got solid information here. Now, Mr. King had not yet been murdered, right? But at that time, Brian Brooks, you can see he does the same old-fashioned thing that most of my clients would do. Once you get confronted with evidence, that's pretty damning. And now you have to, you know, admit.

Now you're trying to work off, well, you know, what can you give me as a sentence? And now I can cooperate with you. I know about some other people that are doing some bad things. And therefore, if I bring them people in, you will give me a reduction on my sentence. So you see that happening. And as a defense attorney, I can see this playing out. His conversation with the police officers take a different turn. They stop being on what Brian is admitting to that he was involved in, and then now he starts opening up the doors for other people in his neighborhood. Well, this person did this before. And I know a guy named Weeb, and this is Tyree. He's saying Tyree was involved in things before, right?

Never talks about anything that's going to happen later on that evening now several hours later this robbery takes place where um mr kang is murdered now we know brian brooks is not involved because he's in police custody right uh but brian brooks is talking about everything he may know about crimes in the neighborhood where the police want to kind of clear their you know clear this off of their palates real quick how the the explanation you just explained about the the interrogation we have the files to review that is that how we know that we have his statements to the police got it okay so yes so we have brian brooks is making statements police are interrogating him and when they that, they're writing down what he's saying. So does the public have access to that or do you have access to that?

We have access to that. OK. Yeah. So that's confirmed basically. Yes, it's confirmed. And as you go through these statements, you can hear him trying to do the quintessential. Hey, I know about other things that if, you know, I've got these six gunpoint robberies that I just confessed to it. I'm looking at it.

Yes. Six, right? I'm looking at a pretty healthy sentence, I'm sure. Because remember, this is 1997. This is dead in the middle of the war on crime. This is Lynn Abraham's Philadelphia. This is the war on crime, right? This is everybody's political issue.

Tough on crime, stiff sentences, mandatories, going to jail for like years for drugs, all of that. This is like three years after the bipartisan crime bill. Absolutely. We're in the midst of that. So anyone who is going to confess to a robbery, whether it's gunpoint, knife point, whatever, they know they're looking at some serious time. So I was a public defender like in the late 90s. And I know, if you are looking at something, you better start cooperating with police. That's the only way you're going to work off this healthy sentence. So you see, that's what Brian is trying to do. Do you want to add something, Dave? Well, we could talk about the subsequent statements and the timeline.

Oh, we will. Yeah, we should get there. But just to start it. So Brian is bringing Tyree's name into things. And sometimes I had clients that would bring, just throw people's names out in the window because they think that, hey, you know what? If this guy, if they go out and find this guy, I don't know, maybe they'll give me some credit for something they can find on him or whatever, if they can. But in any event, they just start throwing everything on the wall, see what sticks. And you can see him doing that in the statements that he's given. Never once does he mention the robbery that later is revealed through him that he knew about that was about to happen right with mr. King and I'll you know if you want to get into that with a subsequent statement I'll let you do that yeah

well I I think what what happened is that come February I'll skip ahead about four months later February of 1998 at this point yes Brian Brooks gave another statement the gist of which basically was so you know Brian remember we met in in December right yes did you tell us the truth no do you want to tell us the truth now now pause there for a moment december yeah where's this december statement yeah it comes up in the trial it's never memorialized so there's some sort of a december meet up with the police it comes up a trial i think the police officer is actually questioned about it and basically and tyree's lawyer is asking the policeman the police officer what about this you don't you don't write it down don't you always write something down he he said he had he didn't know anything about it I had nothing to write down so what's the it

it it the the well the crime or the planning of the the planning of the of the murder Mr. King the plan the planning of mr kang's murder so one of the things in tyree's story here is there is a december 1997 statement that brian ostensibly gave that has never seen the light of day because perhaps it never was written down if it ever occurred but go back then to february now 98 so is that lee I'm sorry. Is that legal? No. Anytime a homicide detective talks to a person about a homicide, it is protocol. And I wouldn't say legal. It's not policy, right? It is the police department's policy to memorialize those statements.

Yeah, because my friend Jim DiIorio, who is a high-up special agent in the FBI, he always talks about the distinction that at the FBI they don't have to record interrogations. Now, we're back in the 90s now, but when he's talking about it, at least today, Jim's like, the cops have to record everything. Like, it's not even just writing it down. Like, they have to actually video it. Yeah, and that came later with the video, but at least they have to do what a police department a police report or a statement they have to write it out and make sure that this person is you know give it a chance to review it and adopt it but we should say brian talked to the police on four different occasions at least three now when he was first brought in there though that first day like you said he

admits to six armed robberies. He admits to robberies that they're putting in front of him. Are these statements coming from them going to a jail to meet with him, or is he coming in on his own recognizance? He's brought from prison. I think he's brought from – Well, he was brought in – when he was brought in on the domestic violence, he's in the police station at that point. Yes. And they got him in there they're they're saying you know what brian yeah we got you in here on a domestic violence but uh i i i know and i believe that

you've been involved in these other things right and whatever they told him to get him to admit it they must have been very convincing i mean here's the think think of this sort of, I'll present it as a trio. October, Brian's statement, same day of the murder, doesn't forecast, you know, something's going down tonight. So keep, you know to tell the truth, Brian? Yeah. What do you want to say? He goes into excruciating detail, describing how Tyree had, I think, rode his bike by the stoop. They were hanging out. He planned this murder. He's completely in detail recanting and reversing a statement of which we have no copy and no record of. But somehow the police knew in February 98 that Brian wants to come in and now tell this truth.

To change the December statement. To change a December statement, which we don't have, which basically places a planning session the day before the murder, October 26th. And he places Shackelford and Tyree at that session with him. He doesn't say much about Shackelford. He says Tyree planned this robbery of Mr. Kane. Which would mean that on October 27th at 4.50 p.m., when he's being questioned about all this other stuff he's about six hours away from a from a murder that's about to go down so when the police say to him in that questioning anything else you would like to tell us says no i just don't want anyone else to know i don't know what that means don't want anybody to know he's spilling his guts yeah i mean we know what it

means but that's what he says i don't want anything else to know's spilling his guts or bringing people in. the road it was all historical revisionism and so and look it's this isn't about um this isn't about persecuting brian per se but brian plays a very key role in tyree's and we could go into now yeah so this is where i come in right um and the testimony when i start looking at that piece i knew right there oh brian is working to work off his sentence. Because the only way he could do that is now by solving a murder that had already happened. Right? He had already given the police all this stuff and trying to bring people in when it was just about his situation, meaning his crimes that he's confessing to. And we're talking about robberies. Now you got another robbery. So say for argument's sake,

that if Brian's telling the truth, that Tyree planned this the day before, why wouldn't you say, since you're confessing to all these robberies that you were involved in, why wouldn't you say, by the way, Tyree, since you were bringing Tyree into it for other stuff, other things, by the way, I believe there's a robbery that's going to go down tonight in my neighborhood because Tyree came to my house yesterday to plan this. So this is, remember, this is October 28th, 1997. Now the police talked to Brian Brooks again in December. I know how that happens. What happens is Brian is like, man, I'm really getting ready to be jammed up right here right i better figure out if i got some more information for the police so he would contact

his lawyer and say i'd like to talk to the police i got some more information for him so they come back and talk to him again in december december he probably has nothing good to say nothing to say about mr kang's murder because, because honestly, they said that he said he didn't know nothing about it. Why would you want to talk to the police if you weren't going to be able to share what you knew before the murder happened? Because he didn't. So he goes back to the prison, sits some more. And now he's thinking, well, you know what? I know a sure way to get myself out of this and out of jail. I might as well say, hey, I definitely know about Mr. King's murder,

and I can bring you the person that's responsible for doing it. Now, just to refresh, as I'm trying to keep it all straight, when he was going through any of those other six robberies, did he mention Tyree in those? I think he mentioned Tyree. He said, oh, well, Tyree was with me for this robbery or tyree did this robbery those things never came to fruition nothing there was no information no evidence nothing corroborating but he didn't just say tyree he brought other people saying other people were doing these things too um nothing corroborated that information so he couldn't get his he couldn't

get his cooperation because they couldn't corroborate that Tyree had anything to do with some of these other robberies that he just admitted to doing. So now you got December. He wants to talk to the police again. And whatever he talks to them about must not have been much because, one, they didn't even write it down. And two, they want to talk to him again in February where they said, hey, you didn't tell us the truth before. So we know that he must have said, I know nothing about that robbery. So now we're talking about months later where he's now saying, well, you know what? I guess I remember something. And I want to tell you the truth now, which is absurd. Because if Brian, everything I know tells me if Brian knew about that murder the day before he was arrested and confessed, he would have talked about it then. He would have talked about it in December. He would have talked about it now. He found an opportunity to do something for himself. And that was, okay, I know how to bring someone in. because Tyree lived in that neighborhood. So this is not like random. Let's just pick someone out of the blue.

Let's pick someone in the neighborhood that I kind of know I run with. You know, I do whatever with, you know, we're just kind of people that hang out all the time. And in February, as Dave was saying, he now for the first time says, actually, Tyree planned this whole robbery, and I know Tyree is one of the ones who did it. And I didn't tell you about that when I was with you the whole day when it was going on and you guys had me pinched for other stuff. And I didn't tell you that months later, right? And I didn't tell you that until now while I'm sitting in the jail cell thinking about my fate. Ironically, Brian Brooks gets an opportunity to get bailed out. How does this happen?

That's where we're looking at. Because I'll tell you how it happens in other cases that I have, when someone is cooperating with the police, and they're going to get out and work and bring someone in to be prosecuted for something that has happened where the cops are looking to kind of clear that case, they're able to make bail, get out, and they keep in touch with police about what they're doing, what they know. I went over to his house. I saw firsthand he's still bagging up drugs, whatever that is, right? so that's generally how it happens that's how my clients would get out if they were cooperating with police when did he make bail in

it was uh either was it after december was it before the february meeting no okay so it was after that meeting yes sometime after that meeting he Yes. Sometime after that meeting, he gets bail. He makes bail. He tells the police, my family's going to bail me out. That also red flag. Anyone who would be bailed out under normal circumstances never telegraphs the police. Hey, guess what? You're going to get bailed out.

They don't have to know all that, right? Right. And most people wouldn't want them to know that. But for some reason, Brian is telling the police that his family's going to bail him out. Now, generally, the prosecution will agree to lower bail if they're working for police. Now, we don't have that information definitively in Brian Brooks' case, which we're still working on getting that. And I'm looking to work with the district attorney now to get that information about Brian Brooks' bail reduction. We try to get it from the

court of administration. They don't have what his bail was and what it was reduced to and why, but we're going to be looking at doing that. He gets out and, you know, I don't know if you want to pick up from there. Well, there's the, I don don't know i guess i'll call it the sort of i'm sorry moment the the the right triangle um incident the the robbery the robber there's so well you gotta you gotta put it in context so brian gets out right he tells the police he's getting out he gets out a few weeks later he goes and links up with Tyree. Who's not arrested yet, obviously, at this time. He's still in the neighborhood. He's out doing his thing.

They go to the store, another store in the neighborhood. I think it was called the Right Triangle. And as Tyree describes it, they go to the store. They walk in, Tyree and Brian. Brian turns to Tyree and says. You know, they go to the store. They walk in. Tyree and Brian. Brian turns to Tyree and says, sorry, man. Walks up, pulls out a knife, and threatens the woman behind the counter. And robs the store.

And robs the store. And Tyree is now ostensibly positioned at the door. And they scramble out of there they bolt out of there of course right they shortly there you know the woman is okay she's some a little bit of money I think is taken from her at knife point but she's okay shaken for sure based on the statements but that would then lead Tyree to getting arrested for that. And his lawyer at the time... Wait, before you go to the lawyer, think about the significance of that.

Brian, you're getting out. Police know you're getting out. Within a month, you're committing another robbery. This is a setup. This is a setup. Because the only way to bring Tyree in is if it's the propensity, he has the propensity to commit robberies, right? So are you saying, am I understanding you correctly, that you're saying possibly that the police wanted to put Brian and Tyree at the scene of another robbery where Brian initiated it?

This may not have been the police. This may have been Brian's way of bringing Tyree into the fold. That would make more sense. Right? Because Brian now is looking at, how am I going to work my numbers down? How am I going to prove that Tyree had something to do with Mr. Cain's robbery? I know if he's involved in another robbery, it's more likely that he committed the first one. You know, the way the streets work, they come up with creative, crafty ideas to do certain things.

Brian would never rob another store while you're out on bail, told the police that you're out on bail with six gunpoint robberies over your head. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. First of all, it doesn't make any sense that he was out unless you're cooperating. But now he's got to set him up to prove that Tyree has the propensity to rob stores. Because now that's more likely to get Tyree arrested and prosecuted for Mr. Kang's because we got to remember when he was throwing out names before nothing came about it so now you got this this robbery that Tyree is involved in with Brian and there was no camera footage of any of this 1990 yeah so they didn't have any security cams in this store when Kang got hit no I don't think so because that wasn't even a thing back then. Right? I mean, it didn't start coming.

Store video cameras didn't really start reaching the neighborhoods and small mom and pop shops until like maybe later in the 2000s. Right. I mean, they're not cheap and pretty expensive. So this is not something that stores were investing in. Yeah. And so now we got Tyree being arrested for this robbery what month is this this is gotta be in march 98 yes it's definitely 98 so it's some weeks after brian gets out of out of jail and he and tyree uh tyree link up again because they're old you know neighborhood friends.

So now we got Tyree arrested on that robbery, right? And I think Tyree even said he has the letter from the lady that was in the store who wrote him a letter saying, I know you didn't have anything to do with this. Really? Yeah. He has the letter. Tyree still has the letter. Still has it. Yes.

Well, that's huge. It is huge. But now this is where his lawyer comes in and now so remember tyree is now charged with robbery with the knife point robbery that just happened in 98 and now because brian brooks said tyree planned the other one they're charging him with homicide so wait how fast did that happen so they arrest him for this robbery and then they bring him into the station and the same day that they make the decision like oh by the way we think you were at this other one so you're charged with murder or did it take a little more time i think it took a little more time but it definitely

the the need for tyree to defend himself against the murder was absolutely right then and there hanging over his head when he had an opportunity to either plead guilty or defend himself and take the advice of his lawyer at that moment for the for the corner store well just just backing up a little you got to remember so now tyree it's not a long period of time where they charge him with a homicide, right? Not a very long period of time. So now he's got two cases looming over his head. Robbery, homicide. He's thinking, what?

I'm charged with a homicide? Now, he knows what happened with this robbery. He thinks it's, like, really ridiculous. And he would have wanted to fight it. But he's now thinking about, wait, you're charging me with killing someone. So his lawyer gets this offer from the district attorney, basically saying, hey, if your client pleads guilty to the robbery, we'll keep him here in the county. If he doesn't plead guilty to the robbery, we're going to ship him upstate where he's going to have a harder time talking to the lawyer. The lawyer brings that to Tyree and says, Tyree, they're offering you something.

19-year-old Tyree. Right. Tyree, they're offering you something like, I don't know, I think it was a minor sentence to stay in the county. Let's say like 11 months. And don't quote me on that, but let's just say whatever keeps you in the county is anything less than a year. They're offering you, if you plead guilty to this robbery, they'll give you this small amount of time. Now, this is after some time that Tyreerese had both of these cases hanging over his head. The DA finally says, plea to this robbery. And the lawyer takes it to Tyrese and says, hey, you should get rid of this case so that we can really deal with the major case. This case is minor, doesn't have a lot of time or weight to it. And if you don't plea, I'm going to have a harder time defending you at a homicide

Because they're gonna ship you upstate but now we're gonna set a precedent of you're involved in robberies and there's a homicide And yet it's a lot right and yet it seemed logical to Tyree at the time because in his 19-year-old mine at the time there is no way that I'm going to prison for a murder that I had nothing to do with right So it's gonna shake out. Okay, right? Yes, and the robbery to do with. Right. So it's going to shake out okay, he thinks. Yes. And the robbery, it's just a right, like, it's like, okay, look, this happened. It's hard for me to explain. I wasn't really involved or I didn't know anything about it.

So fine, get that out of the way. And he's 19. He doesn't know how these things are going to work against him. But I'll tell you something specific. Whenever someone pleads to a crime of dishonesty, whether it's a theft or robbery or whatever, they lose the ability to testify on their own behalf. So now not only did the lawyer have a conviction on the record of Tyree for a robbery, now Tyree can't even take the stand on his own behalf because that robbery comes up and the jury will now hear oh once a robber always a robber so that that was red flag mistake number

one um it's something that i don't think he got very good advice on at all yeah but he took it because his bigger problems which was homicide that's all he was thinking about, like Dave said. Okay. So Brooks basically gets Tyree arrested. He agrees to this lesser charge, as he puts it. Stays in county. At some point in this process, obviously before that, was charged with homicide. Now he's going to be going to trial to defend himself for a crime that he had nothing to do with.

That's right. Okay. Trial happens what? In like October, November that year? Something like that? Yeah, into December. Of 98, yeah. Okay.

Or is it 99? I think the trial happened in 98. And he's charged with murder. At what point does Shackleford come into the picture? The guy who was the other person charged directly in this case. And there was another person, Matt Corpru. Corpru. How do you say it?

Corpru. Corpru. Who was charged with something lesser and not involved in the trial, but may have had something to do with it. So let's focus on Shackleford, though. When did he become a suspect and when did he get arrested and how'd that all go down? Yeah, so I don't have those specific transcripts, but he was definitely tried in the same trial as Tyree. So it had to have been not too long after that Tyree was charged that Shackelford was charged because they were on the same track. Got it.

So it had to be within the same month or so that they were both charged. And when you read all of the statements that the quote-unquote witnesses gave to the police, all of them really describe Shackelford because Shackelford's kind of heavier and shorter many of them describe Shackelford as being one of the people that were there so this was like these people who were in the store at the time one of them were one of them was a guy who worked at the store his name is Van Griffin and he didn't really identify who the shooter was. But he identified a guy that looked like Rahim, who had come in the store about 10 minutes before closing that night. Did anyone claim to identify Tyree? No, I mean, not at this

time. Because all the all the statements when the police were going back and interviewing people at the time that this happened you don't see anything describing tyree who is very tall i've always tyree's got to be like six foot two six foot three yeah very distinctive in his in his height like meaning if i were to describe him, I would say tall, right? At the very least. No one talks about that. They talk about a short, and one guy says, fat guy, right? That's definitely not Tyree. Tyree is tall and slim. And so I don't see any reference to Tyree as a person that was there at the time that they were interviewing people to see what they saw what they knew

yeah i mean van griffin is he's the young he's the young kid who's working at the store he's the only one working at the store van griffin was 23 years old at that time so he was older than tyree yeah i mean and even he in the course of the last several years, you know, has explained that that is not, you know, Tyree was not involved. Right. So we have, by the way, what about the murder weapon? Did they ever recover that? Never. No murder weapon, no gunpowder residue on anyone.

Well, they didn't even bring them in that day. So they probably wouldn't even have known in that day so no right so they probably wouldn't even have known what that was so there's no let's put this way there's no physical evidence whatsoever connecting tyree to this truck to this homicide so as i understand it the reason tyree got convicted and the only reason that Tyree got convicted is because of Brian Brooks. Because of witnesses who had a lot to lose and who were pressured that if they didn't help in some way, their cases would be detrimental. Because we haven't even gotten into the trial yet where they now are developing these witnesses who got got their own things going on all of them

have a open case right in some way brian has the worst of it is he's got robberies he's dealing with now but van griffin had drug issues and things like that that you know he he had looming over him and so for somehow the police get uh van griffin brian brooks and a guy named james davis to say that well van griffin doesn't talk about tyree planning the robbery but brian brooks and a guy named james davis say hey you know yeah ty Tyree is the one that planned this robbery. Wait a second. Who was James Davis again? So he was another young man that lived in a neighborhood where when the robbery was planned, they were all at his house.

And they, not including Tyree, but it was James Davis. Raheem Shackelford came to James Davis' house, and a guy named John Muldrow, who the police also spoke to, was also there. John Muldrow was the one that puts that into a central location when he first heard about the robbery from Raheem Shackelford. And they're saying that this is the same meeting that... They claim Tyree planned. Yeah, but that Brooks knew about the day he was in the police station before the murder happened and he didn't tell them about it. Yeah, well, the funny part is no one puts Brian Brooks at this house that day that this happened. Meaning that day that Raheem Shackelford came over to James Davis' house and talked about committing a robbery.

But he claims to have been there. He claims to know about it, right. To know about it. Well, he claims to have been there. He had to have said he was there because he says Tyree came and told me. Not at all. So James Davis' house, they're at James Davis' house playing cards, and it looks like it's James Davis, it looks like it's John Muldrow,

and it looks like it could be Matthew Corporate. I'm not really sure if Matthew Corporate was there. But in any event, a guy named what they call Pete, that's Raheem Shackelford, get this from John Muldrow's statement and James Davis' statement, that Pete comes by, a.k.a. Raheem Shackelaford and talks about committing a robbery james isn't there for that conversation he doesn't say anything in his statement that brian's is there and john moldreau ends up saying tyree is not there john moldreau says that at the time that the police are investigating the crime when it recently happened. John Muldrow was never used or called by the prosecution. Why is that, you think? Because he said Tyree's not there.

Yeah, Muldrow. yeah moldrow but couldn't the reason i say why is that is because if they're coaching these other guys hypothetically like let's say there's some framing type things going on here because they're trying to clear a case if they're coaching these other guys why wouldn't they coach moldrow to say something like this well at the time that they took his original statement they weren't coaching they were just trying to figure out who had any knowledge and what happened right so this is like before brian brooks brings tyree into the fold yeah moldrow mojo as he was known was pretty clear about uh what he said to the da um or the prosecutor that tyree was not there. Now, we've spoken to Muldrow of late. And Muldrow said to us, and it's really fascinating because we've spoken to a lot of these people.

They remember it like it was yesterday. They really, they're not just like, who Tyree? They know. Everyone, all these guys and everyone in the neighborhood knows. Some of them who have been sort of proponents of Tyree's position ever since the beginning, but they all talk about it. They all know. The truth about Tyree's innocence is like, I don't know. A worst kept secret. Everyone knows Tyree. Everyone knows that Tyree Wallace is innocent and is languishing in prison. And all these guys are walking around. But we spoke to Mulger, and he was very willing to speak with us, and he's very open. And he said, I told the prosecutor that Tyree wasn't there.

They told me that I'm going to be called to testify, and I said, I will be there. And that was the last he ever heard of it. He never was asked to testify now to to kira's point shouldn't tyree's lawyer of course my next question i'm so glad you said that so that if you read molder a statement in fact molder in writing now i think molder has said to us his reading skills aren't great so his ability to read his police written statement, you know, what's memorializing his statement, you know, whether he read it, whether it was what he actually said, who knows. But we know that. His lawyer can read.

Yeah, of course. Muldrow is questioned and says, Tyree, did you see Tyree Wallace? No. And then the question comes, could he have been there? This is at the planning session. Could he have been there, I think, are the words the police officer asked, the detective asked. And Muldrow says, I guess he could have. I mean, at some point I go inside.

Wait, make sure we know what we're talking about. We're talking about the day before when the robbery was planned. That's what he's saying, that he wasn't there that day. And the police say, could he have been there? I guess. But I don't even think that matters. He says, Tyree's not there. And ultimately when this robbery is planned allegedly with all these

different people there it's not like these other guys ended up even taking part in in it so a guy who's not even there according to some of the people who were was then like a ringleader of it according to brian brooks yeah it's crazy yeah i mean john john moldrow for one believed then and believes today tyree had nothing to do with it. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale expertise and innovative payment solutions. Learn more at Visa.ca slash fintech. Anyone who asks and actually has wondered until we spoke with him for years, I think he has wondered, why was I never asked to testify about this?

That's also new evidence. What was that term? So it's definitely not new evidence. And this is why. This is why this is so tricky. Why not? Because he didn't testify. Because the lawyer had access to it.

Oh. I had access to it. So new evidence is whatever, if I'm Tyree's lawyer, and I never even knew that the police spoke to John Muldrell until now, now it's new the district attorney doesn't call them as a witness, because it's not going to help their case for John Moser to get there and say Tyree wasn't there, the day of the murder. If I now see that the district attorney didn't call him, it's my obligation to reach out and subpoena him and call him as my witness and say, hey, you spoke to the police that day about the robbery of Mr. Kang. Did you talk to them about who was involved in the planning? Could you, let's say you introduce new evidence, though, and it got a hearing in court. But new has to be new.

Right, right, right. Let's say you got something actually new. Could you then, after getting that and putting that into court, call in him to testify on top of that to corroborate, say, what the new evidence is? Yeah, so once you get a hearing, you can fashion your information that you're putting to the court in any way that's corroborative. That's good. But you can't get in there unless it's something that wasn't available to you at the time of the trial. So it would be nice because this would be the easiest way with this new one. But there are other ways we're going to be talking about right here that are certainly admissible. So, okay.

So we have the full meeting. If Muldrow was not called to testify, that would have been something good for Tyree. Sure should have the main witness it seems like we had what was it van so van griffin was a guy who was working in the store right so that's one of them james davis is the other one and the big one once again is brian brooks so fast forward to the trial now is that okay yeah okay brian brooks gets on the stand he's like the star witness he as we've already laid out as someone who is testifying to help his own case he's brought into the courtroom what happens well he testifies that tyree um had you know had had a gun that he had seen the gun

i think even you know weeks before the crime i mean it completely implicates tyree and planned it um right over the over the you know a good a good period of test testimony and then um i guess something nags, Brian. I mean, the fact that he's testifying in court and having to look at Tyree face to face and everyone else face to face and say what's just blatantly untrue, according to everything else. He then gets off the stand, has a come to Jesus moment. Yeah, he ends up in the adjacency area, I think they call it. The adjacency area? Yeah, so there's like,

in the criminal justice center, there's an area where people who are witnesses can go where they don't have to interact with the general public. So that there's no intimidation. There's no, you know, anyone saying, hey, you better say something different. He ends up in, it's called called like an adjacent room to the courtroom.

Have you seen, I'm curious, have you seen extensively, like, studied whatever the cross-examination was of Tyree's lawyer on Brian Brooks, what that looked like before we get to the next part? Yeah, because this is the area that's really critical. I think, so Tyree's lawyer, there's two lawyers that cross-examine him, Rahim's lawyer and Tyree's lawyer. Okay. Tyree's lawyer basically says to him,

asks him, was he given a deal in exchange for his testimony? Promises. Promises, anything. And promises come in terms of you'll get some time off of what you could be looking at if you give us and cooperate with us and testify against these two people. And I think he says no. Right. It was obvious to Tyree's lawyers at the time that something didn't quite smell right about the veracity of what Brian was saying.

Right. Given how much was weighing on him, you know, in terms of his sentence. His own potential defeat. Right. You know, are you sure that there weren't promises for your testimony in any way? And he was asked a couple of times and he said no. But I guess it got to him a little bit. Well, he also was asked about the multiple statements that he made

and the contradicting of the statements. This is the key part, really. Yeah, right? And then this December statement that just no one seems to kind of understand. But Brian sticks to his original statement saying, yeah, Tyree planned it. Tyree had a gun. I've seen the gun before, blah, blah, blah. Now, they still never found a gun.

There was no gun ever brought in to the trial. Right. But in any event, Brian Brooks puts the gun in his hand, gets off the stand, and then you can tell. Yeah, he ends up in the adjacency. I think he actually,

maybe he wasn't supposed to be where he was, but he ends up in the adjacency area. There's the sheriff or the bailiff is there. And he turns to the sheriff or the bailiff is is there and he turns to this to the sheriff and says hey I got a question for you and the sheriff I think says what's that and he says what's the penalty for perjury one of my homies is on trial he didn't do it they made me you know they made me say that I didn't want to say that and do we know have we seen this do we know who the sheriff is yeah what's his name john hamilton so john hamilton has

this guy basically walk off the stand like fresh off this and ask what the penalty for perjury is i think if i recall i'd have to go back to the transcript i think that the sheriff would later be soon be called to testify himself does it from memory he wasn't writing anything down but i think he so he did testify in this i think he was brought to the stand and there was some discussion about this and i think i think the sheriff knew i better i gotta go talk to the to the judge and did and then of, of course, Tyree's lawyers, I think they called for a mistrial. That was... Denied.

That was denied. And the prosecution, you know what the prosecution did? The prosecution basically pulled out the, you know, pulled out the... Police statement. The 19th, pulled out the February statement, the very excruciatingly detailed statement, and basically said, Brian, let's go back over all the specific details you gave us in February.

And I think there's readings of a lot of that statement. I think we didn't even – you didn't tell the best part. Brian gets back on the stand and recants his story. Wait, he recanted it? On the stand in the same trial so there's also a serious jury mistake here because very very clearly you have there's no murder weapon there's no one who places tyree at the crime there's slightly someone who places shackleford there so and he ended up admitting to some of this stuff later so we know that and you have the main witness say this

to the sheriff of the court who then gets on the stand reports that and then the same guy gets back on the stand the witness gets back on the stand says oh yeah no no this is wrong and he's not charged with perjury no because what happens is once he does that the the DA cross-exams him. And I'm just going to say in their closing, the DA convinces the jury that the only reason why Brian Brooks gets back on the stand and recants is because he's afraid. Because now he's going to be intimidated. Now something's going to happen to him. And the jury buys that, right? Because look, we're talking about 1997, a homicide, right?

We got these two black males charged with homicide. And now you've got a guy who's saying he did it. And of course, the DA is very artful and skilled, knows that anyone in the same neighborhood who's going to get up on a stand and testify against his boy is going to have problems. But he told a cop. He told the sheriff of the court the man in the the law enforcement officer in charge of the court the one that's in charge of bringing the and we should say brian brooks was in custody at this time so the sheriff is you know he's being transported from prison to testify at trial because he's in custody on that knife point robbery uh so he's now back in custody um and he's only back in custody because he's going to be back in custody

because he knows he's got to face the music for his other stuff. So he's working that stuff down. He goes into court, and he testifies that first Tyree has something to do with it, goes off, has a change of heart, says to the sheriff, hey, I just lied pretty much, you know, has a change of heart, says to the sheriff, hey, I just lied, pretty much. I committed perjury, was perjury. Gets back on the stand, tries to recant. The DA cross-examines him.

And then in her closing, says, hey, what Brian said in the beginning was the truth, and the only reason he recanted is because he's afraid and intimidated as to when he gets back into the neighborhood, something's going to happen to him. And they took the prosecutor's word there on this trial and clearly ignored, in this long order time, right? They ignored the sheriff who got on the stand. Well, the sheriff doesn't know if it's true or not. The sheriff was just relaying. But he's reporting what he heard. The sheriff was relaying.

Brian said he didn't, that this wasn't true. And so they let brian get back on the stand to say what he said to the sheriff pretty damn credible now i have someone here who i think could help clear this up a little bit and i'd like to bring him in if you don't mind so we're gonna have to move that table sure in a sec but alessi can you bring him in hey hi everybody how you doing i'm good i'm good we're gonna move this right. How are you doing? I'm good. We're going to move this right here. How are you?

David Perry. Hi, I'm Kira Broderick-Gray. How are you? Nice to meet you, ma'am. Hello there, Leslie. We're going to slide you right there. Dave. I'm going to send you right back out.

That's good. Welcome back to meet you. And then I'm going to send you right back out. That's good. Thanks for that. All right. Welcome back to Philly. Yeah. Not right. Well, Jersey. If we can just, if we can pull your mic, Dave, like sit down and then we'll pull yours towards the middle and kind of set it up between you.

You want this one? Here. Can I just scoot around? You sure can. I'm not taking your seat. Am I, young lady? Would you say so? I'm not taking your seat. am I, young lady? What'd you say, sir? I'm not taking your seat, am I?

Not at all. You're good. You're good. So, Kier, we'll leave your mic on you, and then, Dave, can we just move your drink right there and pull this in towards you a little bit? So good to meet you. Yes, ma'am. All right, well, I'm going to swing this camera.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. I'll do this one right here. Sorry, everyone listening listening we're doing a little bit of an extra production here because we got our special guest but in case you didn't hear us with the little intros back there can you i don't think you can see his face can you yeah not on yours but we can on dave's so we're good in case you didn't hear the intro thank you for being here chef john no problem i was i was on the phone with tyree about two months ago and he had

mentioned that he had gotten you on the phone once and this is years later and everything but he had said you know i wonder if he would do a you know a video testimonial we could include with this podcast and the minute he said that i was no, we got to get this guy here. We got to talk to him, see what he saw. And so, number one, thank you for taking a couple days to come up here and do this. I'm glad you could see your family while you're up here, too. You're down in South Carolina now. Yeah, I'm looking forward to going back down. But just to –

Nothing against Philly anymore, but, you know, it's – He gets off the plane. He's like, God damn, I need to get back there already i hate this place right away i used to love the city but i want to do a little background on you just so that we can get this all the way through what i want you to do is pull that mic in a little bit to you so yep nice and good so you can talk right into it but how many years did you spend on the force and can you just explain your background with Philadelphia? Yeah, I started in 86 as a prison guard at Philadelphia. In nine years, I made sergeant, spent about a year and a half as a sergeant. When I was a prison guard, I applied to the sheriff's office for the job and out of the clear blue, I get a call one day to meet with the sheriff and he says,

you interested? And I said, yes. So I switched over to sheriff's office and spent i think the next 17 years there so you before we get to you in in the courtroom and being in charge of the homicide court for what was it 10 years about 10 years with the sheriff's office serious job but before that when you were working in prison because you and i had a chance to go out to lunch yesterday and talk about your career and one of the things that really struck me is that your memory is unbelievable i was telling these guys on camera just so you know because you've been downstairs during this time you know you had talked about guys always come in there they're innocent for the first year maybe two three if they're really committed if they're really committed but the guy right the guys who are actually innocent they usually never really give that up.

They don't stop. It's been my experience. They don't stop. I mean, think about you're in prison. You got found guilty. Let's say you're doing 10 years for a robbery. Talking to it a little more. You're doing 10 years for a robbery.

Yeah. Okay? First year in jail, you're bored. You don't have your homies on the street. You got to do something. I'm going to fight for a robbery. Yeah. Okay? First year in jail, you're bored. You don't have your homies on the street. You got to do something. So I'm going to fight for my innocence. I mean, everything's for you that they give you. And, you know, you're accommodated to do all that.

And it seems like the guys that are just trying to beat time to get to their next thing are the ones that, you know, they're just playing. They're not, you know. But the guys that are innocent that didn't do it, they're the ones that will, they will protest that until the day they die. They will tell you I didn't do it. And it's not just, oh, I didn't do it. It's I didn't do it and for these reasons.

And when you spend, and I didn't know it was 24 years, but when you spend 26 years in prison, how does that happen? I mean, if this guy, and let me say this, I hope to God that this man does get out and get a chance. I'm afraid for him if he does, because this world has changed so much. They didn't have cell phones back then. They didn't have a lot of things back then. I know he lost his mother.

So how do you come out after 24, 25, 26 years and start again? It's hard. How? Now, I don't know. I've always been the champion for the bad guy. You know, not the bad guy. Like when kids were, when I was growing up, kids got picked on, I stood up for them. You know, when I took the job in law enforcement and in the prisons, I saw things that I never thought I'd see. I was a North Philly boy raised in Bridesburg, didn't know anything about that.

First week in the prison, I'm seeing guys getting whacked up 30, 40 times, getting killed, and I'm like, I made a mistake. But I like the fact that in that time I met people that I really believed were innocent because they would talk to me a different way than the hood rat would. You know, as a defender, you know them all. As soon as you meet the guy, you spend five minutes with him, you know the guy's, look, he's just playing. He did it. Most of the lawyers I would hear say, look, I know this guy did it, but I'm doing my job. I mean,

if you don't see that, you're kind of blind if you spend that much time in the system. But when you hear about a guy like this, when I first heard about this, when I had moved from the city and went to Georgia, I was like, damn, he went to jail for that? Wait a minute, I thought the testimony. And then I never heard anything. Then I moved to South Carolina. How many trials, in 10 years, ballpark, how many homicide trials were you overseeing the courtroom for? I was assigned to room 702.

That was Judge Greenspan. As a matter of fact, she married me. Very good. Very good, Judge. I did all the homicides in that room. The last case I did in that room was a child homicide, and I wouldn't do it. I told them I won't do homicides anymore. I'll transport.

I'll go to any courtroom. I'll do the rape courtrooms, but I don't want to do the homicides anymore because I just couldn't deal. I did some very well-known cases that it was up to me, but it's not up to me. I have a job. My job says A, B, and C. I do A, B, and C. If it says if A happens, you have to do B, and if A happens, I'm going to do B. Because number one, I don't want to get hurt. Number two, this guy's got, he's got a dad,

he's got a brother, he's got a daughter somewhere. I mean, you know, let's give him the benefit of doubt. What's going to hurt? He's already in jail, right? But yeah, I probably did over the years, a thousand homicide cases maybe everyone that went through that room i was there and the thing you know that i often forget in my seat you guys know well but you know we see these murder cases in the media right and they're the ones they choose to correct so you're looking at every goddamn move of a pencil in there if it's not a federal court obviously you have the cameras in there people are tweeting about it on social media every little thing is analyzed but the fact of the

matter is a lot of these cases no matter how high the stakes are and they're the highest in the homicide sure case right because it's someone who's going to go to jail for life or death yeah exactly you know we don't we don't see the fact that you walk in there and maybe you, John, have one hearing scheduled for one case at 9 a.m. and the next one scheduled at 11. And it starts off with case number 9, 4, 7, 5, 8, people versus so-and-so. And it could be – you could have a homicide one, a murder one prosecuted in five days and someone has decided like, oh, you're going to jail for life. And no one knows about it. No one knows about the evidence. And this is really one of those cases. This didn't have a lot of attention in the media

so what what struck me is obviously the fact that you went out of your way to speak to the judge and say like hey i just heard this from this guy i need to this is my duty to tell this to the court and then you get called to do it. Can I ask? Yes, please. Yeah, come on in. How often did you hear a person who had just gotten on the stand and testified to one thing come into, I guess it would be the holding room. Right, the cell room. And say to you, what I just said up there was a lie. I really need to.

Just once. Thank you. And that was that case. A thousand cases. Never happens. that was the case i've never heard that i've heard he should have got more i should have done this but i never heard anybody say look what i said was all bullshit and i didn't do i didn't do any of that i shouldn't have said that so this one stuck with you oh yeah sure it did not not the fact that it stuck to me because of who what and where is because

i never heard of it and when i went down and told my fellow deputies told my sort of judge they were like what are you an inmate lover no i'm not i believe in being fair that's all there is that's nothing to do with inmate lovers or not did he do it or not yeah if somebody come up to me and said he just testified that he did it and in close he said, look, I was all lie. Well, I got to report that. That makes me no worse than the guy who did the crime.

I have to report that. And I did. Well, that's what a good police officer should do. I mean, I was a sheriff. I wasn't a cop. Still law enforcement. Still law enforcement. I enjoyed my job. I made a lot of law enforcement. I enjoyed my job. I made a lot of good friends. I made a couple enemies, but most of the people that I dealt with in custody, if I've seen someone on the street, it's always been either Mr. Hamilton or it's been Deputy Hamilton

or Sergeant, and it's always been a thank you. It's never been a, oh, man, I know. I mean, because, I mean, I'm with my wife, my kids, whatever. Never in a Christmas one year in Walmart, and I'm walking with my new wife, and I hear, hey, Sarge. And the first thing I thought was, okay, I'm strapped because, you know, I'm in kind of a messed up neighborhood. And then when I look back, and I don't know who it is, and I said,

what do you want? I know what he wants. I mean mean he's he's seen me from the jail other sarge sarge i just wanted to tell you that when you were in jail and this is you said something to me and i'm out today and the guy says there's my wife and there's my child i was like damn i just don't i don't remember you from a can of paint but i'm glad you made out okay i really am because that's what you're supposed to do. Yes. That's what it's about, human beings, man. Yeah, I mean, we're all human, man.

Yeah, yeah, pull that mic towards you just when you're talking. So there was a point you were saying 10 years later, give or take. I mean, this trial took place in October of 99, but there's a point in time where you hear from Tyree or Tyree's team somewhere between then and now. Now, wait for the mic. Yes. When I was in, when I left the city, I moved to Georgia.

Bought a nice big grand house and all that. Kids were supposed to come. They didn't. So we ended up moving after a year. We were in Georgia. I got a letter. I got the envelope downstairs. You know, Mayor Parncourt from, I don't know this lawyer's name from the pennsylvania prison society this is maybe a decade ago ish yeah i've been in south

carolina seven years so it has to be eight years nine years maybe got it something like that and it i forget the lawyer's name i left it downstairs i should have brought it up and it said uh case tyree wallace isn't that the other thing do you remember the case I remember the case I spoke to it Emily Weaver stay with them Mike if you know I was in Pennsylvania I spoke to an ever and Everly Weaver Emily Weaver her name was Emily Emily Weaver from the Prisoner's Society she was a paralegal and I was still in Pennsylvania and she said I hope you don't mind me calling you. And I said, where'd you get my number? And you know, you got to wait to get numbers. And I said, okay, what can I do for you? And she told me. And I said, yeah, I remember that case fairly well.

Because, you know, it doesn't happen all the time. And she said, you know, we're trying to do this, we're trying to do that, yada, yada, yada. And I said, I agree to that. Whatever I can do to you, I'll help. She said, okay, again, I'm a paralegal. It's going to go to this individual, and they'll get in touch with you. I think at one time, I got a letter from a female attorney. I might have been in Pennsylvania still. And I called their number, and I said, yeah, I'm calling about Tyree Wiles and this and that and the other thing.

And the woman, the gist of it was, don't worry about the case, it's not going to go anywhere. And I said, okay, you have my number just in case. I hadn't heard nothing until I moved to Georgia. Then I got this letter with the transcripts. And truthfully, I didn't even read the transcripts until two weeks ago. Because I really don't care about the transcripts. It truthfully, I didn't even read the transcripts until two weeks ago

because I really don't care about the transcripts. It doesn't matter to me. I know what I said. I know what happened. So I read them just to fresh myself, educate myself more. Yeah, we had, just to let you know, right before you came in,

we had described what happened, but we're paraphrasing things. So if you don't mind, can you just relive it and we'll get it straight from the horse's mouth? Don't ask me to date. Don't ask me the time. I know it was a long time ago. I was doing a case. I was assigned to bring up a prisoner from the state to testify in this case. And I went down to the basement, grabbed the prisoner, brought him up, put him in a cell, let him know I had the prisoner, brought him out to testify. I don't know if I, I think the guy was handcuffed and shackled before the jury came in because Judge Greenspan didn't like, you know, to give the impression that the person was in custody, which I thought was pretty cool.

Giving him a better chance. And I brought the guy in and, you know, he testified, and they answered him. I think Charlie Merarky was one attorney. And Mandel was one of the others. I think Ruiz was the DA. Ruiz, yeah. And the cop, I believe, was. I know who the cop was.

I didn't much. Oh, yeah. And the cop, I believe, was... I know who the cop was. I didn't much... Well... Oh, yeah, can we talk? Because we didn't... You guys didn't know about that. I knew about this because you and I talked yesterday. But you mentioned you had some issues with the lead detective in the case, was it? Or was she...

He didn't know me. I didn't know him, but I didn't like him. I've seen cases before. Look, you sit in the courtrooms as long as I do. You know. And I see thousands and thousands of cases. I can smell bullshit and I can smell roads. And 90% of the times I'll smell bullshit.

Prime example. How are you going to tell the judge that you saw me buying a little dime bag of dope from 100 yards away with the binoculars of three to nine and you saw me make that transition and you knew it was dope come on man right who are we speaking about this we're talking about this this is just generally i saw a lot of look drives down a young cop trying to make his case whatever i'm not saying any bad was wrong i respect the police you know i'm law enforcement myself there If there's bad cops, just as there is anybody else,

be that as it may, I was assigned to this room. I'm bringing this guy up. So I bring him up, put him in the witness chair. They start asking him questions. The DA, I wasn't really, I didn't really like this girl because I had, did cases before where she acted like

this is it. Yeah. Like I wasn't the law in the courtroom. Look, when I go to a courtroom, I'm the law. I take care of the judge, the prosecutor, defense, defendants, and the people in the court. My first response is to take the inmate or the prisoner and secure them. Then my second response is to look out for the judge. Get her out of there, do whatever. So they do this case. And oh, anyway, with this female DA, one time I had a rule that if you brought a firearm in the courtroom,

it had to be cleared by the sheriff. And that was my rule. And a lot of sheriffs did that. It's a rule now. If you bring a firearm to the courtroom, you better go right to the sheriff and clear that firearm. Because if it's not, I'm taking it off you. I don't care about your case. You're losing that firearm. Let you deal with my bosses. But if you have a firearm in the courtroom, I want to know. So I didn't really like this individual. And she always talked down on me like I wasn't.

She always talked down on a lot of people. The deputies, like she didn't really. And once you start talking down on me and I say it, I got a problem with you. I'm human. And I really wasn't liking her, but, you know, I'd listen to the cases and this and that and the other thing. Well, the guy testifies and this and that and the other.

Okay, I believe the jury went out. I take the guy up, bring him back, put him in a cell, and he says, Mr. Hamilton, can I talk to you? I said, yeah, you can talk to me. And I was busy, and I think I got I talk to you? I said, yeah, you can talk to me. And I was busy and I think I got on the radio and I said, yeah, I got one going down. And he said, Mr. Hamilton, I want to talk to you. I said, why don't you talk to your lawyer?

He said, I don't have a lawyer. I said, what's wrong? He said, everything I said out there was a lie. I said, what do you mean? Everything I said on the stand, it was a lie. It was all bullshit. He said, I don't want my homie to go down for this at the time i didn't care who his homie was i knew that oh and then he said to me what's the penalty for perjury at the time i said i don't know five to ten years depends i mean i think it was in the five tack it on he might be in the ballpark he actually gave him a time okay i said maybe five to ten years why he said i didn't i don't know nothing this was all wrong i didn't do this okay well now

i gotta go out and tell the judge because this guy admitted to a court officer that he lied under oath if i don't report it now i could go to jail i could be be held responsible so no i'm reporting it so i told the judge did So no, I'm reporting it. So I told the judge. Did you tell him you were reporting it? Yeah, I told him I was going to. Or were you thinking that in your head? No, I told him.

I sent him downstairs. I said, when I send you down, I'll go out and tell somebody. I went out and told somebody what happened. And I told the judge. I wrote the Greenspan. I told her everything that was said. Back in the chambers? Yeah, I went right to the chambers.

And I told her exactly what happened. And I guess the court staff wasn't real happy because this case was really moving along and now I throw a wrench in there. That's real. And I really don't care because, you know. It's only a murder case, you know, life or death. I got kids. I mean, when I first started in prisons prisons i didn't have any kids i have children now and and when i first started you know i filed the the the morocco everybody gives you you know everybody's bad you gotta do this you gotta do that then i started working in holmesburg oh and i found out security maximum security five and a half years in holmesburg

started prison 86 they sent me to pick for two years and then from there i could transfer to holmesburg and i was in holmesburg for five and a half years yeah it was yeah one of the worst prisons and so i heard the shutdown but what was good about holmesburg i could write my own paycheck i could work 20 hours a day if i wanted to and i did sometimes because they did not they had staff and problems who wants to go especially in the summertime you're doing a holmesburg there's no air conditioning the walls are sweating it's 110 degrees the cockroaches as big as birds they're coming at you but i learned a lot in holmesburg i learned i can make money i could write i could tell my wife hey we're gonna go on a trip let's do this i'll make

extra money we can make the money going but i my wife, hey, we're going on a trip. Let's do this. I'll make extra money. We can make the money going. But I learned a lot. I learned how to deal with prisoners. I learned how to deal with other people, guards. One thing I learned about the prisoners is there's some people in this jail that shouldn't be in this jail. This is a maximum security facility, and you got people in here for, like, stupid shit. Like I told you, this one kid, Michael.

Mikey, yeah, yeah. He gets arrested for stealing an aluminum base off a street. What was he, like, 18 or 19 or something? Something like that. Yeah. He's in the homeless part. You know, I'm doing my tour, and I'm like, what the hell is this kid doing here? The kid was a little nuts, and they got him in a cell with another guy who's a little psychotic.

And he ends up getting this guy to drink Comet and water. And then a couple months later, I'm not in Holmesburg. Years later, I go to take a hospital case at PIC. There's this kid sitting there, Mikey. And I was like, Mikey, what are you doing here? And he's just sitting there, and he's got this rag around his neck, and he's just sitting there, and the sergeant said, yeah, he cut his neck. And I said, well, I don't see any blood.

I said, Mikey, move your hand. He went like this, and the blood just went. Oh, he tried to kill himself. Put your hand back up there, man. I mean, he cut that artery, man. He just did a good job. You saw stuff like this a lot. Shit that I see scared me, man.

Yeah. Really did. I think I see scared me, man. Yeah. Really did. I think I became a, instead of being a good father, I think I was a bad father to my kids because I didn't allow them to do anything because I knew it was out there. You know, I mean, I grew up in the Northeast where you didn't see that kind of crap. You know, we'd go play football at Harding with the project kids, and we were just kids. Nobody lived in the project. We had to walk a little farther to play football at Harding with the project kids, and we were just kids. Nobody lived in the project. We had to walk a little farther to play football. But this kind of situation was like, you know, I wasn't good with it.

And so you have that perspective when you then go and you work in this court and you see these cases because these are the types of cases where the people who get convicted do go to Holmesburg. Sure. Absolutely. So this one, you go, you tell the judge. Hugh officially, so the defense called you to the stand. I guess the judge informed the defense about this happening. Judge informed both the attorneys what had happened. And the judge said, I'm going to put him on the stand so you can question him.

And the judge asked me, I said, oh, no problem. Testifying, I mean, the guy's down, no problem. And again, this is the only time you ever had to do that. Only time I ever had to put him on a stand seat and question him. And the judge asked me. I said, oh, no problem. Testifying. I mean, the guy's down. No problem. And again, this is the only time you ever had to do that. The only time I ever had to do that. And I got on the stand, and I testified to what I heard. I brought him back.

And he said, I want to talk to you. And I said, yeah, talk to your lawyer. No, I want to talk to you. It was like kind of one of these things. Look, I got to get you out because I got another assignment. Right. And then when he said what he said, that's when I had to tell. So the judge got me on a stand to answer questions.

I told him exactly what happened, what he had said, got his homie, yada, yada, yada, gross exam, and that was it. Done, and I never heard anything else from him again until I got the first call. Did the DA cross-examine you? She did, but I think it was very limited. Right. I have my records downstairs I think it was very limited. Right. I have my records downstairs, but it was very limited.

I think at that point in time, it was like, you know, like she's looking at me like, son of a bitch. Right. But I was like, what motive do you have to lie about that? I didn't even know this kid. It's not like he's paying me. I could care less about this kid that told me about it. Not to be ignorant, but I dealt with 100 people a day. I mean, we transported almost 400 a day then from the prisons to the courts.

But it always stuck in my mind that, like, I always wondered what happened. You know, if my understanding of the law at that time was if there's testimony that a person testified and lied, and the person that lied makes that confession to a law enforcement officer, then there should be consequences, like perjury. Was the guy charged with perjury? I don't know. No, because they got a conviction. And now, not to be ignorant, but I didn't...

How did the conviction come about? Well... What happened to my testimony? Nothing. Nothing? You heard... So this is, if I can summarize, you heard what you heard. You don't know if it's true or not.

You just want to make sure that you told what you heard. So you did what you did. That's noble, and that told what you heard so you did what you did right that's noble and that's what you should have done then brian brooks gets back on the stand and tells the truth which was that what i said before was a lie okay no i wasn't there for that but he did tell the truth yes or supposedly truth whatever it was okay He said, what I said before is a lie. The DA cross-examines him by using his statement he gave to the police saying that Tyree was involved. Okay. Why these conflicting statements from the same person happened was because he was afraid that when he gets back into the neighborhood, he is going to be retaliated against.

And so, therefore, he wanted to say that what I said before wasn't true. Now, we both know nobody does that. I don't buy that. Me either. No. I know that. I've represented many people. And if they're going to get up on that stand that i've represented many people and if they're going

to get up on that stand and say one thing it's that's what they're going to say this guy had a conscious yeah and and i could tell because it wasn't like hey homie you know i lied and this because i've been like you know hey i'll see you you are it was like hey mr hamill not you know like like he couldn't look at me at first. You don't see that a lot. You know, the only reason you're not looking at me is because, what, you're either afraid of me or, but he wouldn't look at me. And something's telling me. Your gut's telling you things.

Yeah, my gut's telling me this, you know, this kid might have been put up to something because it didn't take long. Once I got him in the cell, that's it. He said, I want to talk to you. That's it. He said, I want to talk to you. That's it. This is what happened. And I said, well, you know, this was kind of stupid putting yourself out there. But okay.

It just didn't seem right to me. And I did what I, I reported it. And I thought, okay, it's done by now. And when I heard this man's still in prison, I'm like, I know I missed the most of the trial. But did anybody listen to the testimony that I gave? And then did anybody, I know at one point they were questioning me or they were going to question me. Charlie Malarkey was arguing with either the district attorney or somebody else, and they were trying to straighten things out.

And Maraki says, we have a question. Why is the detective still in the room? I'm sitting here at the wrong time, this guy. I noticed that too, but I'm not going to say nothing. I'm not going to tell the lawyer. Hey, this guy's in the room. And then they finally asked him to leave. And I thought, well, I'm sitting out of the mistrial right there

because this guy's doing everything that he told me. Now he can turn around and say, well, no, that's not what happened. This is what he said to me on the street. So I thought, okay, well, Judge Greenspan, I have nothing but the utmost respect for Judge Greenspan. I think I learned so much from her about the law, criminal law. And I learned so much from her about, what word am I looking for? Like humanity.

Compassion. She had compassion. I did a case one time. This girl was being robbed. Young girl. Her brother came to her aid. Got the gun off the guy and went off. The guy was killed, not the brother.

The guy attacked the guy's sister, was shot and killed by the brother because the gun, they fought over it at discharge. Judge Greenspan had the case. It wasn't a jury trial. I felt bad for the kid. The kid was defending his sister's honor. Even the lawyers were like, I mean, come on, he's defending.

Right, yeah. You know, I mean, and he ended up going to jail. And I remember the judge saying, he has to go to jail because, you know, it's clear cut, but I'm not going to give him the maximum sentence. I want to have, he needs to have hope to get out, and his sister needs hope that he's going to come out soon to take care of her. They had no parents.

Most judges would have said, don't worry about that. That bothered the judge. And I worked with a lot of judges in that, in Justice Center. There wasn't that many judges like that. And I respected that. And in turn, I think the judge respected me and she respected my decisions. Or if I saw something that was out of line or wasn't secure. She took it seriously. She took it seriously because I took my job serious. And you would never get a sheriff doing

that. So if someone does that, it has to be real. In my entire career, I've never had that happen. And I'm sure. And he has won. Yes. But I'm sure people go back to that holding cell and say all kinds of stuff, you know, because, look, you're just getting off the stand or you're just coming out from court and you're debriefing. That's the only place you debrief until you go back downstairs with everyone else. Right. But his response was, I need to talk to somebody.

He just talked to somebody. And I'm like, you know, I'm trying to brush him off. And he says, I need to talk to somebody. I said, talk to your lawyer. I don't have a lawyer. Right, because he was a convalescent. I don't have a lawyer. So now I got, okay, I got to put you down.

And, you know, it was no big deal. Part of the job was done. Got a little ribbon, no big deal, fun, all done. Well, look, the bottom line is I know it was very black and white to you, and I'm glad it was. But you did something that – I think it's still black and white. Absolutely.

But you did something that for whatever reason, not to read into it too much, but a lot of guys don't do, as we just laid out. And, you know, to get that on the record then and so again this isn't something that would fall under that category we were talking about newly discovered right because it happened in a trial right but which is amazing again that this got ignored and all that but adding that to what we have here with potential new evidence with some of these guys we're going to talk about shackle ford when when sheriff john's out of here and everything and with some of the things we could possibly bring bring forward this

is amazing and i i think you know to go back to the point i made a little bit ago about the fact that we don't see all these trials they just kind of happen it's just a case number to walk in here and sit in that seat as we're talking about this for the people watching this right now and learning about this case and trying to make their own judgment on it for the first time to hear that you know this is a podcast it's not a jury like we we don't really have the system in that way but what we do have is an ability to then get people involved to get the system to work and so in a lot of ways you just had a jury of however many people are watching this right now. Listen to what you said and take that into account and maybe do something about this and maybe get this guy out of prison.

And so I just want to say once again, like, thank you so much. No, thanks for doing this. Look, I love my job. I still carry my badge today. I'm proud to be a deputy sheriff. I'm proud of the things that I accomplished. I wanted to get full retirement, but getting hurt and getting a 32, different story. I wasn't happy about that, but it's the way the cookie crumbles. I worked all my career waiting to get to that part where I could see the light.

I'm on the time sheet. I'm halfway up, so I get first course on my vacations. Took me years. I couldn't get Christmas off. Now I can take Christmas and New Year's off. No question. And then, boom. Your knees, right?

I'm not there. I'm gone. And I don't feel that I can, well, I used to enjoy my job because I thought, and I said this to you before, this is the greatest show on earth that I had front row seats to. And that you do. And you. And now you do. And you. And now that you.

Because you wouldn't believe what goes on in jail. You would sit here and listen. I could tell you stories and you'd say, man, that's kind of bullshit. No. No. I mean. Well, you would know. Yes.

I mean, like I told you the story about when a guy got carried out and he got killed in the jail and all that because he was his white shoes. Coroner takes him out that night and I got the spotlight on the body from the tower and it struck me funny like why didn't somebody steal Skip's? You know,

Skip's are... This guy had them. He's like dead on a gurney. Oh, he's dead on a gurney like the guys that told me D-E-D when the hanging

story were told. But all I could think of was why didn't somebody steal them shoes? Because that's what you're trained. You're trained to see the simple shit like that. And you ignore the crazy stuff because it's every day. It bothered me that there was a body on the gurney.

And out of habit, I blessed myself and said, Lord, you know, you didn't know what was going on. So, you know, do what you got to do. And because I'm a Catholic. But it didn't bother me that he was dead. It was like, why didn't somebody steal them shoes? Then they come to find out, I think you remember the, I don't know if I can talk about that case or not. Which one?

The one, the guy that was killed. Oh, the one where the guy was screamed. He was stabbed for the robe. And he was a pedo? No, this was the one who had the sneakers on. He got caught with the robe. Oh, because he was the boyfriend of the guy. Yes.

Another inmate saw him wearing this robe, and Holmesburg was on the gate, key up! One of his inmates yelling, key up! Now, I wasn't working. I had a friend of mine who was working there, and they're like, hey, open this gate this gate finally somebody opens the gate for him walks right up to this kid on center sergeant standing there and he takes his push rod almost three feet long plunges it right

through his chest and his heart my buddy's right there he responds he's a prison guard he was my training officer we're best of friends now and all he said you see a little tiny drop of blood that was it and he picked them up they were taking them to D block to the hospital and he said the guy just

and he knew he was dead eternal bleeding right to the heart knew he was dead I came in 11 to 7 that night he's filling me out in the Sally port

yeah we got a stab in this and that and the other thing okay my last day of the week they put me in a tower because last day

you got a break. And they tell me, be on the lookout, they're going to bring this guy out. And I'm thinking, how screwed up am I? The only thing I'm thinking about is, why did somebody steal his shoes? They're brand new. The guy came for money. That's why he had brand new shoes on. I don't know why anybody

didn't steal them. Maybe because who he was to whatever prisoner that murdered him. I told you all about that yep and um yeah it's just like but you had that's what i'm saying like your perspective on on how you reacted to these things and then how that carried forth later in your career and and to to be that guy who then you know is the leader in the room it's it's it's a beautiful thing yeah yeah i'd like to try to be that way and and you the leader in the room. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, I'd like to try to be that way.

And, you know, if I can say this, I don't know if I'll talk to Tyree again. I don't. He might call at 6.30. But what I would like to say to him is, look, man, I'm sorry if this isn't the way it was supposed to work out for you. Not through any fault of me, but I hope that something happens that the powers to be decide that this wasn't done right. Like I said, I can't talk about the whole trial because I'd be wrong because I was only there for that part. So I can't tell you what happened, why my testimony or was.

I can't tell you what happened, why my testimony or what it was. I can't tell you. All I can say is, look, if I could see him sitting in me right now, I'd say, Tyree, I don't remember what you look like because it was so many years ago. And I would look, I'd like to say to him, look, if you do get out and you're blessed enough to, call me. I want to have a drink with you. That's nice. Because. That's beautiful. I got nothing against, look, you. That's nice. Because I got nothing to get. Look, any prisoner I ever dealt with, I got nothing against.

Maybe the guys that tried to spit in your face or give you AIDS or try to stab you or something like that. Yeah, I got a problem with that. But, you know, like I said before, I realize there's a lot of innocent people in jail. Yes. There's a lot of innocent people going to court that are scared shitless. They can't afford a lawyer. And they're being railroaded. I'm not saying, don't get me wrong, I don't know anybody saying, oh, this guy's a sheriff, everybody's a sheriff. No.

I'm just saying, we're all adults. We know if a system works and a system doesn't. We do have the best legal system in the world, but it doesn't work all the right times. And that's just natural. It's not 100%. It's not 100%. Nobody has 100%.

But it is the best. Yes. Used to be. I don't want to see that change. And if he gets out, like I said, I would love to sit with him, have a drink, and tell him, look, man, I'm sorry that this all happened to you. And what can I do to get, I mean, I don't have any money.

I'm on a tight pension and all that. but whatever I can do to help you out, I'd be glad to. Well, you're doing a lot right here. And, you know, and I do remember you. I'm looking at you now, and I remember I did many cases with you. Many. Many. I don't think, I haven't seen you.

I don't know you. Not me at all. But I've done many cases with you because I'm looking at you. I'm like, yeah, you're awful familiar. Yeah. But there was. They don't even know me. Yeah.

We totally know Dave. Yeah, we just met him when we walked in here. Oh, really? He's just hanging out upstairs? No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Damn, man. If it wasn't for Dave, I wouldn't even be in this.

So this is the one. It's a crazy part. I was talking to somebody who's not the defense attorney. He was the patent attorney who got involved. Very cool. Yeah. Yes. He's a smart attorney.

Yeah, he's one of those. Yeah, he's an attorney. Yeah. Didn't attorney. Very cool. Yes. He's a smart attorney. He's an attorney. Didn't go this way and take the low. You know, ever since I remember when I worked with guys like Vega, Roger King. He was a judge

after that for a while. I worked with Judy Rubino. I worked with all the old greats. Oh, Roger King. He was a judge after that for a while. I worked with Judy Rubino. I worked with all the old greats. Dan, Charlie, a lot of the guys, a lot of the women. Were you Jason Bologna? Did you work with him? I remember his name. Okay.

Do you remember of his... I did a case with Carlos Vega one time. Yeah. We were in front of Judge Lerner. Ah, Ben Lerner. Many, many years ago. Who was the chief public defender. Like many, many years ago.

Yes. So he's sitting on a bench and we're doing a jury trial. Real quick, funny story. And Carlos Vega's doing the trial. It's probably his first one. One of the first ones. So they're doing Vladier the jury. It's probably his first one. One of the first ones. So they're doing Voidier the jury. Void Dyer.

Void Dyer. If you watch my cousin Benny. I'm going to Void Dyer the jury. Those Utes. The Utes. What Utes? Oh, that was an amazing show. I still love that show.

I train lawyers with that. Oh, you should. I do. Oh, they were the best. It's funny. Pesci was the best. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

But this guy, he ends up taking a sick day. Vega. Because he has some type of a boil on his arm. So we're in front of the courtroom and Judge Lerner's on the desk. He's, you know, teeth are, they didn't fit right. He talked and teeth were chatter and he was an old guy yeah he also he was a he was licensed doctor he was he was an md and he was a lawyer he's very smart man lived with his mother for a long time sorry yeah this is old judge learner gotcha himself on the

bench real good guy very good attorney he gave me good advice many years ago. Incontinent. Incontinent. I guess it happens. And they say Vega's not coming in. So he proceeds to tell the jury pool that Mr. Vega can't come in today because he's got this boil under his arm, you see? And he says, and you know how when they get them boils, he says, yeah, HIPAA wasn't bad. That pus is running all over the place. And he said, you know, and they get them boils, he says, yeah, HIPAA wasn't bad. That pus is running all over the place.

And he said, you know, and I see the people in Jericho. And I'm just sitting there just smiling. Can't make this stuff up, right? Can't make this shit up. He ended up passing. He was a very good, he gave me some advice one time, and he was a good guy. Most of the lawyers and the judges and the DAs, the defense attorneys. Thank you for including the defense attorneys. Oh, yeah.

I mean, come on. Who else is? Look, the bottom line is you've got a rough job because you're taking a job that nobody else wants to do, defending people that nobody cares about. That part. Nobody cares about these people. That's the part. You send them all to jail.

They don't care. No. Wait a minute. When are you going to start caring about people? Yeah. You know when I started caring? When I had my first daughter. And I was like, whoa, wait a minute, man.

I'm going back to jail. What did you say to me yesterday? You said you realized everyone, your kids included. You are one step away from going to jail for the rest of your life, and your life changes forever. Like that. One bad decision. One second away, you're done.

Yeah. And I've seen it. This kid defending his sister. But he's defending his sister, gunning her off, guy gets killed, he goes to jail. That was a decision he made to save his sister, but it cost him. Any one of us could make that decision, whether if you're a millionaire, a lawyer, a podcaster, a retired sheriff. You make that one mistake, you're done. Everything that you worked for your life is gone.

Reputation's gone forever, too. Yeah, I have to hand it to you because the public defenders never did get a good shake. A lot of deputies really didn't like the public defenders. Look, I just looked at it as like, these are guys working just like... I mean, we had a lot of good times. We would talk bullshit around. I was an

expert at picking juries. I picked so many homicide cases. I would tell... A lawyer would come to me and say, Ham, what do you think? And I'd say, that one there? No. What made you say yes or no? Because I could.

Size them up. I could tell. I heard it for so long. And I've seen a picture. I mean, it must have been through thousands and thousands of juries. And I'd say, that one's going to cause you trouble. And before they even get to the trial, that one's gone. That one's going to be a problem why? because he's just got this

thing where he's just looking at this lawyer and he's just like starry eyed you don't want him there it'd be a problem I think you missed another calling there jury consultant it's something that I looked at it's something that I looked at because it was like

man I'm getting really good at this. I mean, all I do is sit there all day listening to homicide trials. You know, I get a pretty good. Sure. I used to think, hey, one for me, you know. But it's a rough job that you're doing. And I believe that you're from. Blank room.

The prison society or he's the Innoc project no no no no he is the patent attorney who got brought on by the innocence project connected to tyree originally yes thank you for that because with people like you not doing that who's going to do it yeah she's got so much to do how many how many prisoners they bring down now a day in a courtroom oh well i am no longer at the defender office. Good for you. Well, you know, I enjoyed working on behalf of people that no one else cared about and asking for justice when it was deserved and when it was right to have justice. And even justice means just a fair process.

Even if someone did it, just give them a fair process. Exactly. Let them take what they need to take. Exactly. So that we all can have credibility in the decisions that are that are made um but you know when i was at the peak when i was at the chief of the defender office i mean we had almost 56 000 people a year that we represented that's a lot of people that doesn't even include juveniles and how many lawyers to represent them so it was over 250 lawyers but that's still not enough with the type of cases that you have to like i was

telling you before when you've got to put together you have to recreate the situation you know how hard that is you need and back then there were no cameras all the experts you got to bring right forensics all of that right i mean you know we get more sophisticated the more the more weighty that the case is and when i went to the federal office i mean we had link expert money for linguists you know just saying hey this confession is not a confession right this is not how this guy talks this is like this these uh you know people putting some of these words together but you don't have that in the state no because the money's not there no people i think when i was still on the job what really tainted the juries i don't mean tainted but made them

think that nah this ain't right it's because they'd see so many shows like csi where they could do this and they could do that and they could get dna in an hour it doesn't happen that way no and first of all if it does it costs Where's that money going to come from? From a guy on the street like Mr. Wiles who got jammed up on this. Where's he going to get that kind of money? Doing a DNA test. Right. You know, or something like that. All that stuff.

Right. And then you'd see the juries with that and they're like, well, no, that's not, you know, I hear him talking. It's like, you know, you don't know what you're talking about because it's just not available to everybody. If I'm sitting there with a lot of money in my pocket sure it's available to me but but this guy there ain't no money for him whatever's in your budget whatever have for your case if it's not there i'm sorry it's not happening yeah and it ties your hands because you're you learn how to to to defend the

law and defend people that are accused of it but your hands are being tied because you don't have the budget for that. Yeah, that's unfortunate. And I don't think there's ever going to be a budget for defendants. There should be something where at least everybody is entitled to a fair and impartial trial and, if possible, investigation up to the point where they can prove innocence or guilt. That doesn't happen. That's on society though too

because i mean the bottom line is we have to figure out ways to earmark our tax dollars to do that you know how do we set up systems that are going to make sure stuff like that happens i'd love to have that conversation about this julian because when you the wrong person goes you know the real person's still out there that's right well that's the thing this is like a facade but you have someone now in in our case obviously, Shackleford did this one. But with so many of these cases, someone goes to jail. You were telling me about another case where another guy was bragging about doing a murder, right? And it actually did happen to be him.

And they got him the second time around. But like he was sitting out there the whole time and they didn't know he did that one. This guy was going for a homicide case. And he said, Mr. Hamilton, he said, I know it's going to sound stupid. He said, they didn't know he did that one you know and i was he's going for a homicide case and he said mr hamilton he said i know it's gonna sound stupid he said i didn't do this but i'm taking the body and i said why would you end up taking the body if you didn't do it he said i got away with so much shit there's so many things that they don't know i did i'm glad to take this body and relax a little bit i can remember being working in the prisons in the wintertime. The same people would come in the intake unit because they're institutionalized. They didn't know how to live.

We had this one old guy that came in every wintertime when it got cold and he couldn't live in the streets. Smash a window. He'd come to jail. Because I know for, he knew for at least a month or so, he had three hots and a cot and he had a window. He'd come to jail. Because I know, he knew for at least a month or so, he had three hots and a cot and he had a meal. And there was a lot of people that did that because when they empty Bybury,

a lot of people that were, Bybury was the state hospital. When that closed years ago, everybody just got thrown on the street. Whether you were a psychotic criminal, it didn't matter. You all went on the street. I can remember working at the prisons

in the vehicle patrol. I found this one woman. It was the middle of January. It was like minus 20 degrees, and there was an old woman walking up State Road wearing a mama or a muumuu's dress like my grandma used to wear, like the old road, with slippers.

It's cold as hell out. So I stopped. I'm in the vehicle, and I said, why are you out here she said i don't know where'd you come from she said i don't know i said please step in the vehicle come on in the vehicle i got the heat on so i put her in a vehicle i call center control center calls the police well this is what they were doing ben salem would find somebody homeless hanging in ben salem or bucks County that was from Philly,

they would take that person back to the Philadelphia line and drop them off. Might still happen today. I don't know. This woman, she got out of the nursing home right behind the prisons. Riverview? I don't even know if it's a nursing home anymore. It's Riverview. It was like a public nursing home.

City run. Yeah. Shit hole. Well, she ended up getting out from there, somehow got to Ben Salem, and in the middle of the night, they sent a squad car with her in the car to take her back to Philly to get rid of her so they didn't have to deal with her. That's where she walked as far as she did from Andalusia down to, on Street Road, down to the prisons where I

saw her. That's a long walk. That's a long walk. This woman was almost blue. And what'd they do? Well, first of all, they found out that she belonged in Riverview, but they were getting ready to send her ass back. Yeah. What, you gonna send somebody? She ain't even dressed. I remember being in Riverview when I remember being a river that's a whole

another thing too because we have a we had and you know you got to be careful where you draw the line with this stuff sometimes but there's also like a massive line of like the mental health crisis with some prisons too i'm not talking like necessarily people commit murder and stuff like that but there's other guys who are just in and out of prison where you know we had such a poor history in this country with mental hospitals doing horrible things and we still we kind of correct it on the other side now we don't really have a lot of those services on like a mass scale and we kind of just put people in prison which i mean that's an insane asylum for someone like that exactly you know and that's what byberry was before they shut it down really i mean

they were just warehousing people that had mental problems and that were criminally insane and nuts when they finally closed it man i mean i can remember cops were going nuts people were going out they were getting hit by cars they were stealing cars they were doing all kind of shit but they're they're not all there because they didn't have treatment they didn't have any treatment and then you're putting them on a street that's like what are they going to do? Exactly. It's crazy.

And again, I appreciate you having me on, and I know you have a rough job, and I really do. I'd take it like a badge because, you know what? You should. If I can represent the most vulnerable, then I can represent anyone. That's right. That's right. And it's got to be a good feeling that if you can represent somebody and get them out from under this because that is i just can't imagine that

pressure yeah i couldn't imagine go to jail after working in it yeah let alone 24 years 26 26 i mean i mean after 20 years does it really matter but like, God damn, there's nothing the same when this guy comes out. Yeah. Why? Well, the good thing about him, like we were talking about, is that he has created organizations that are outside the walls as well. And guilty people don't do that. Unlike so many other people who have nothing to go to, I think the one saving grace for Tyree, like as a friend of his, is that he has a purpose to go to, and I want him to do that purpose.

And I hope he does. I hope when he gets out that he has that same drive that he has now, because there's a lot of temptations out there, much more than there was 25, 26 years ago. I mean, God knows the neighborhood he came from. Is it a shooting gallery now? Or I mean, it's got to be crazy. I don't even know. It might be all different.

New homes are there, all that. I wish him the best and tell him for me that if he gets out, I'll have a drink with him. I mean, look, we're all human, man. You know it'll be his first drink, right? Yeah, yeah. He's never even had one. I'm going to get him shit-faced. Yeah, okay.

But no, I mean, I'd like to shake his hand and tell him, look, yeah, he's never even had one. I'm going to get him shit-faced. Yeah, okay. But no, I mean, I'd like to shake his hand and tell him, look, man, I wish that this wouldn't have happened to you. And I'm sorry that it did. From no fault of my own, but I'm sorry that it did. Yeah, no fault of your own. It does happen. I mean, people slip through the system all the time. And we see it.

And again, you don't hear these cases. I mean, come on, a guy in 20 years 24 26 years this should be all over the front though he's been in jail for 26 years for murder he probably didn't commit yeah come on man it's crazy biden's that i mean that they got the kid in there oh he's there was coconut in the white house big deal somebody cares about coke in the white house there's a kid who lost his life they never solved that problem they just stopped the investigation they're like you know what they destroyed the coke i'll tell you what they did yep oh no we got a free one you know what if you look at my facebook

page i posted a picture yesterday there's three people and they have white on their nose oh my goodness but yeah you you are a treat man listen i i know your son is coming to meet you i can't wait so if if we're not done before you're gone thank you so much for doing this i hope to see you right after brother no thanks needed and i want to thank you for your hospitality bringing me up next time the learjet maybe you know but no that was cool being on that plane because there was room in that plane i I got you an aisle seat. Yes, you did. And I'm getting an aisle seat on the way back. So that's good.

I did get you an aisle seat on the way back. Yes, you did. We got it. What are you, like 6'6"? 6'6". I used to be 330 when I was on the job. Holy shit. And nobody messed with you.

Yeah. No problems. And I lost about 100 pounds. But I'm... You look great. Yeah, man. I'm feeling good. I'm trying to stay healthy and, you know, spend a lot of time with my grandkids.

I have a grandson who's two years old. Nice. That's awesome. That's my heart. And I was talking to him last night. I can't wait to see him when I get home on Sunday. Well, thank you again. We're going to stop for one sec just to reset the camera.

So we'll be right back. Well, I wanted just to watch time here and make sure we get to everything. I want to get back to where we left off the obvious is that we know after what we talked about with sheriff john he was found guilty he was sentenced to life without parole we talked about earlier kira you mentioned that there's like a one-year statute where after which you cannot sue your attorney or use that as a grounds for an appeal yes correct so he couldn't do that no so. So it's under the Post-Conviction Relief Act. That's PCRA. And basically, most people don't even know what their remedies are for the little time that they have to raise them. So they only, what happens is once you're convicted, you have 30 days to file an appeal

saying that the court made mistakes. And then you have only up to a year to file an appeal saying that the court made mistakes and then you have only up to a year to file an appeal saying that your lawyer made mistakes well many people don't even know what what their lawyer should have done i mean he's 19 how does he know the law and how to how to say that the lawyer messed up you know so i mean he didn't even realize his lawyer messed up at the time he felt something wasn't right but he didn't realize oh my lawyer should have called that witness or my lawyer should have asked for that information my lawyer should have made a discovery quest for this he didn't know all that so by the time you find it out or figure it out your your remedies are gone can we actually get a little education on some of the appeals process we've touched on some of it already we're touching on some of it right now but you get convicted of a major crime in america they obviously make the appeal way high because

now the burden's on you it's not on the state so it totally flips so you know you're really fucked but they make it it seems like the most drawn out years-long process so where do you even start with it? Do you start with something like, well, he should have started in this case with something like the lawyer, or is there a specific thing you have to file? How does it work? So if I'm the lawyer trying the case, right, and I would say that I'm not going to mess up. So if something goes awry with someone I think is innocent, then I'm going to look at what happened with the trial. Did the court rule wrong? Did the court let in evidence that shouldn't have come in? Did the

court not allow evidence that should have come in? So that's the first look, right? Looking at what happened in the process that screwed this up. So then once you get past that, if there was nothing in the process, know a defendant who is found guilty then says is there something my lawyer should have done or didn't do or did do and was really totally messed up um that's where you look next if there's no errors on the court then you find where there are errors in your legal team but that's as far as it can go after that everything else has to be newly discovered evidence that's it evidence that you didn't know about but if you knew about it it would have exonerated the person well also doesn't this vary in in the way that that is

what's the word i'm looking for the procedure with which that's done state to state? Like the types of things you have to file, who files it, stuff like that? For the most part, I believe, yeah. Because, I mean, you know, I can't really say the appellate process in another state that I'm not really well traversed in. But I know there's plenty of states that, after a year, your remedies become very slim to none. And I'll say this. Let's just say newly discovered evidence is DNA.

Okay. It's a common one these days. That's generally what happens. Occasionally, you'll get the person that says, I want to confess. I testified at the hearing, but it wasn't true. That is even hard. You know why? Because once you say that, then they've got to go through a scrutiny of, well, why are you saying this now? Are you saying this now to carry favor? Are you saying this now for some nefarious reason? What's your motive for saying it now now and even though the person may not have

any connection to the person that was found guilty they weren't they're not they looked at as what's your motive for coming out now to say to tell the truth and they're scrutinized so much so not even every time that's not even accepted that basically the baseline is set and forget even the guilty person anyone that comes along now the burden's against them the hurdle is so high and i mean i've we've had people that have reached out to our office the defender office and said you know what i want to tell the truth it's been a decade or two decades they moved on with their life and they're not believed who's reached out to you on this case this case i have had uh raheem shackleford has the other guy convicted the the co-defendant yes he's out of prison now because he got as we outlined earlier he got that second chance. What was the term you used? Redress? Yeah, I say redress, but let's put it this way.

The court said it's called juvenile lifers, right? Anyone who is serving a life sentence when they were under the age of 18 got a chance to get resentenced. So he got out in 2018. 2018 because he was 17 years old at the time. And he has since contacted you he has his cousin contacted me and said hey my cousin rahim wants to talk to you and i said okay give him my number or give me his number so i think he gave me rahim's number so i reached out to rahim i said hey rahim is there's this is tyree shagelford. I mean, I'm sorry, Tyree Wallace.

I apologize, Tyree, if you're ever gonna hear this. Tyree Wallace's lawyer, your cousin called me and said, you'd like to talk to me. I said, is it about Tyree? And do you want to tell me about whether or not he was there? He says, Well, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do anything that's gonna mess me up. I said, I get it. I get it. But, you know, just is it something you want to say about Tyree? He said, well, you know, Tyree wasn't there. I mean, you know, I've got to figure out if that's going to mess me up.

But he wasn't there. I said, so just to be clear, Tyree wasn't there at the time of the robbery? No. So unequivocally, no, he wasn't there at the time of the robbery? No. So unequivocally, no. He wasn't there at the time of the robbery. When did he say this to you? Had to be January? When did I come on?

It wasn't too long. Well, I heard it as well. You heard it as well? In a separate phone call. Oh, that happened. Tyree called me he said that his cousin also had he had been in touch with his with Raheem his cousin that he wanted to broker a conversation with Raheem we called his cousin his cousin said you know that's great but you should just talk to him directly hung up the phone hung up that line added it added another line called rahim directly

and tyree spoke to rahim for the first time probably in i don't know how many years trial yeah or i think there was a point where they were both in the same prison somewhere years and you know years ago could it be a decade ago but i was was on that call January 9th, I think it was. I remember, you know, because I remember thinking how surreal it was that the two of them were talking after all this time. And he echoed the same thing or said the same thing. Yeah.

You know, I think Tyree's words were something like, you know, bro, I didn't do this and you know I don't want to die in here. And he was sort of like, yeah, I know, but you know what I need, which was immunity. Some immunity, right? Some guarantee. So what is – hold on a minute. What could go wrong with him?

He was sentenced guilty. He served his time. He was let out by the system in a legal manner. In the eyes of the law, he has served his time. What is wrong with him coming forward? He's still on parole because the resentencing – so let me give you this. Did he testify? No, no. The resentencing, when you're a juvenile lifer, it's not that you're found not guilty. You're let out on parole. Yes. So being let out on parole, first of all, you have to admit what you did.

So you did. And the district attorney said to him, not only did you do this, but do you agree that you did this with co-defendant Tyree Wallace? Oh, shit. He says yes, right? So he's saying, I mean, look, this guy is getting ready to get out of jail and they're putting this scenario in front of him he's like yes um and so also with the parole board because he's still on parole how long how much longer is this parole it could be lifetime i don't really know what his is but most of the juvenile lifers got lifetime parole so they're on parole for a lifetime and so this is why he's still under parole and so even

for parole to get released to be paroled you have to admit what you did and again he admits what he did and puts tyree in it but now he's saying that's not the case so he's afraid that if he comes forward they're going to say well you, you perjured yourself. You're going back to prison. You violate your parole. Now, was he – hold on a second. Was he – because he was a juvenile with this program. He was a juvenile lifer. So is there just a re-sentence or would they say, no, now you're in prison for life?

No. So the person – I mean, look, Larry Krasner, if he wanted to charge him with perjury, he could. I doubt Larry would be interested in doing that because Larry wants to see real innocence, right? If you're coming forward and saying, hey, this guy didn't do this, even if you testify, I mean, said it at the hearing, yes, he did. But if you want to tell the truth, I'll tell the truth. However, his main problem is he's on parole. So he had to give the parole board a statement, too.

And the parole board, that's a part of your decision to release. So if I'm going to go for the parole, and you've seen movies, you're coming up for parole, you've got to admit. Remember Shawshank Redemption? Yes. You've got to admit what you did, right, if you go to parole. And so as a part of his release, he had to admit what he did. And he then says, yes, I did this and I did it with Tyree. Because that's the narrative that was going on in court.

But you said a few minutes ago, maybe I misheard you. Part of the deal is you have to admit what you did in it and admit to whatever stipulations they put in front of you so you said he admitted that he did it and admitted once they it sounded to me like you were saying once they put in front of him you admit you did this crime with tyree wallace and he said yes so those aren't his words he just now he still says he still admits it but like couldn't he say i was pressured pressured? Oh, absolutely. But then he's got something that he told the parole board that he wrote down. Now, that's a hard thing to recant without coming.

I mean, look, he can overcome it, right? Because quite frankly, look, he's scared. He's getting out. He doesn't know what else to do but just to accept what you're telling me. This is the same thing Tyree would have to do, right? For clemency. Tyree would have to say, yes, I did this. I did it with Raheem. All that. There's not a lot of wiggle room there because if you don't admit the way the factual scenario is, then you're at risk to not be paroled. I honestly, I feel in my bones that if he wanted to right the wrongs, no one is going to ding him.

But I can't say that definitively. So I can't protect him and say, hey, look, no one's going to come after you. I couldn't say that. And so this is his dilemma. I don't want to go back to jail. I feel bad for Tyree. I feel bad that you know i can't help him and i think this is why he keeps having this moral issue where some people keep

calling us telling us that he wants to confess to to us but then when it comes down to sitting in front of the district attorney sit in front of someone who's going to take your statement down and bring it back into court, is he willing to do that? Does Larry Krasner have the power to grant him immunity from the parole board? No. You may have said that. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to follow. No, that's strictly within the state parole board. Larry can only deal with stuff that happens in Philadelphia County the parole board is a statewide board

that is such a tough situation I mean I'm thinking about a kid who did a horrible thing when he was 17 the worst thing you can do 17 years old not from a good background does something dumb gets a second chance at life he's

out and i mean i i under he doesn't want to go back in there i understand that it just sucks because it's like you have another guy who's right and you know after all this if you talk to tyree about it tyree doesn't it's not like people might think that Tyree would have animosity towards it. He doesn't. He doesn't. No. Tyree, this isn't about it isn't, you know, for Tyree, it's not about him. It's not about any of these other people. What's frustrating for Tyree is that

there is a long list of people that are all saying the same thing. And yet somehow, it's like watching a bad sitcom you know you know you just want to scream at the tv from an eight by eight box yeah like you can't get all the how can all of these people say all of the same thing from all these different perspectives over all these years how do you draw all that out into the light i mean that's that's the benefit i think of this

podcast and and of what people can do who are watching the podcast right but how do you draw all that out into the light? I mean, that's the benefit, I think, of this podcast and of what people can do who are watching the podcast, right? But how do you get this truth? This truth has to finally coalesce into a nice tight ball and roll its way onto someone's desk, Larry's desk or someone's desk, to say, you know what what this just can't all be this this this can't all be true and yet he belongs in there you know it it's too compelling well the the first thing to say here in the middle of this conversation for all of you listening out there the the number one and we'll talk about some other ways that you can get involved to help out with this in a little bit.

But the number one way to at least give this attention – and this isn't to be self-serving. This is just what it is – is for this podcast to be viewed by the most people possible. So if you have not subscribed to the channel, if you have not liked the video, these little things that help us with this goddamn stupid algorithm, please do that. Please share this episode with your friends. Please share it on reddit on twitter on facebook put it in groups that are dedicated to this type of thing i'd love to get this further in front of the innocence project i'm not the kind of guy who like hits up jason flom and says hey look at this jason flom's looking at a million cases right like if

he could take all of them he would but i'd love to see jason get involved with this project and I'd love to see it come from the natural form of, hey, we got attention on this because that is a big part of the calculation that he has. He needs to see that there's a lot of people who can help with it and have the heart to recognize what's going on with this guy to get this as much attention as possible. But in the meantime, the organization is just called Free Tyree Wallace, right? And people can donate to that to be able to fund things like the legal process that we're doing right here and some of the experts and stuff. I know in the past, one thing we haven't mentioned is that Tyree took a polygraph test as well. This is something I discussed with him for a while on the phone the other day. Dave, do you know about this whole thing? Yeah, it's been a little while since I reviewed the report, but I believe the wording of the conclusion of the polygraph the polygraph was requisitioned by a lawyer he had at the time which as i understand it and you would know better

was a bit of a crazy thing to do like lawyers normally would not have done that they said never do it yeah and she did that this was a good 10 years ago, maybe. And he, if you read the polygraph report, the conclusion, I think it says something like, I forget what the wording was, but it says something like virtual certainty of innocence or non-involvement or something. I mean, it's as unequivocal as a polygraph report goes. Now, I did think about bringing that guy in here. I didn't want to – Sheriff John Hamilton was the main person I felt like we needed to have in here. I didn't want too much cooks in the kitchen, if you know what I mean, because obviously we've had a full house today. But that guy shook Tyree's hand at the end and said it's nice to shake hands with an innocent man. Did he really?

Yes. And you hear things like that and like you were just highlighting, lawyers are always like, don't do that because something could go wrong. There could be one heartbeat off and suddenly they're like, oh, there it is. But you saw – remember the movie Richard Jewell about the guy with the 96 bombing? And that was true. This is something he did. He said, give me a goddamn polygraph. I didn't do shit.

And you don't see that very often. There's a lot of things like this. I'd love to have my CIA guy, Bustamante, break down – look at that report and break it every turn no matter what it is whether it was in court something outside of court like that not only has tyree maintained his innocence not only does the evidence point to his innocence not only do all the people involved with the case now at least off the record at the very least or on the record to someone like john hamilton say that he had nothing to do with this but he has it's like he's screaming into abyss and showing you that he had nothing to do with this and we just have to get it more attention we do yeah

and at the board of pardons and you know in harrisburg my understanding what one of the things i've learned about that is you know innocence cases as they call them innocence cases are not really well liked right because that's not you know the board of pardons doesn't i imagine doesn't want to feel like they're the they're resentencing someone yes no no well you guys remember a pardon doesn't mean you're innocent it means you're admitting your guilt but you've changed and i'm going to pardon you doesn't mean innocent clemency for a minute no the same thing yeah but i know clemency is like yeah so it's kind of clemency is like you don't have to do the rest of your sentence pardon is you're like you know we can expunge your record right doesn't mean you didn't do it but i'm gonna

pardon you for whatever good reason look i think after 25 years tyree could feign you know contrition if he felt that so sad yeah if he felt that he wouldn't have to sleep in prison for the rest of his life. And think about this. Even if he feigns contrition just to get out, once he's out, he's going to be a convicted murderer. That still limits your things that you can even apply for. You can't get a bank account. You can't even live in this. You can't get public assistance.

You can't live a bank account you can't even live you can't get public assistance you can't live in public you know housing there's a lot of things that you can't do because of that type of conviction right can't go volunteer to school work at a school nothing yeah and it's nothing is as simple as oh just do this it just it just isn't and i'm sure it's better than being in a it's it's definitely better than that. Let's be clear about that. I don't want to sit here and not state the obvious. That's why if you could get that first or find a way to do it like that and then try to clear his name, which does make it more difficult to clear your name afterwards obviously. I would take that for him because it's better.

But I just – I know in speaking with him, and I say this, and this is not a shot. I'm saying this in a complimentary way. The pride of him as a person, the idea of people thinking he could do something like this bothers him to no end. It's not just about get me out of this box. That's a part of it for sure. It's a huge part of it. But it's like, no, I also – I want to walk down the street and know my fellow man if they pulled up anything about me knows i didn't do this and i would feel the same way if i were him right yeah i mean and we're now still working with the da's

office to try to get some traction the problem is is that trying to get these newly discovered witnesses in with their now new found revelation of information has been tough very tough who else has been tough besides shackleford brian brooks have you even talked with him oh several times really yes now how does that conversation go i can't even begin to describe it but i'll tell you this um brian has a whole reason why he testified the way he did which is seems a little inconsistent with what we've seen but dave and i were on the phone with him one day and we literally had a moment where he stopped he goes ah ah kind of like what that sheriff was describing. He has this consciousness that he wants to say the truth.

And it was like he was getting ready to say it. I know Dave was probably hanging on the phone. I was like, oh, my God, is he going to tell us? I think he might have said something like, we were talking for a while. And then he said, you know what? And he goes, ah. And we waited. And then I think. someone came back in the room when he was in yeah i think i think that led to okay well let's let's meet up let's try to get together

i mean so we when you gotta tell that that's a dramatic moment so wait wait you gotta like let that draw that out so we're talking him like you know brian just tell like did did they force you or or you know was this a mistake you know, Brian, just tell, like, did they force you? Or, you know, was this a mistake? You know, just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Because, look, he was a young kid too, right? And, you know, he's getting pressured to do these things or else you're going to jail for the rest of your life. So we're trying to give him an out.

And he's like talking in this weird way about why he did something. It didn't make sense. And then all of a sudden he goes, I said, listen, this guy is going to die in jail and he shouldn't. He goes, you know what? He goes, oh. And he's struggling. And then someone in his household comes back in the same room he's in. And he goes, can I meet you sometime?

Can I just meet you somewhere? And we lost that moment that I felt like he was going to say something monumental that we could have picked up and used, but... But you still got to get it on the record, though. That's the thing. Well, one, we got to get him to say it to us, right? So that we can go and do other things with that statement. What could you do with that if it's not on the record?

Well, one, what we can do if he says he was working with them is we can say to the District Attorney's Office, hey, we have some newly discovered evidence. The newly discovered evidence is that he was working as a cooperator with police and that was never turned over to the defense counsel. What if he then doesn't go on the record with that? No, as long as he was working, work if it's true that should have been turned over to defense counsel they didn't have that information and the lawyer asked him were you getting a deal were you promised anything no but i'm saying if he just says it to you guys on and off the record call he doesn't need to say it because it'll be written down in his file so we go to look at his file to see if there's any documentation by the prosecution so you're

saying it would give you just cause to be able to go look at his file if he said that to you on the phone absolutely yeah quite frankly i think we still have it by the scenarios and the facts so that's what i'm saying why can't you go do it it's a little harder when you don't have a concrete statement but i know for you for being honest about it by the way yeah i know that i know the process and i know what i'm looking at is cooperation and then not to mention for all of his robberies he got five to ten years what was it six armed robberies yes yes yeah but despite it all it's not and i'll sort of reiterate this it's none of this and none of these folks who were hisree's contemporaries or witnesses or whatever, I mean, like Keir said, they all were leaned on for one reason or another. They had their own problems, their mother had problems, their brother had problems. disadvantaged, pressured kids with a bus driving around the neighborhood,

and someone's being thrown under that bus at all times, and you better hope that one day it's not you, or you can get dragged out from under. Tyree was not. But despite all, it's not about, none of this is about, just to sort of put words in Tyree's mouth, none of this is about persecution of these people. It's about bringing all these people that Tyree...

Imagine the frustration Tyree has, because you've talked to him and I talk to him almost every day, or certainly every other day. The frustration of all these people saying the same thing that he's been saying please just come out into the light and work with us to free an innocent man that we all agree there's not one it's not like there's a countervailing voice where there's well but we should talk about him or her because they say he did it there's no other point of view here what about the guy the kang the guy who died where's his family they've moved on. His family was never a part. That's a fair question because in the clemency process, you know, victims' rights and families, and I think they naturally are required to make efforts. Absolutely.

And I have a ton of empathy for him, by the way. The truth is I've asked Tyree about this, and he's never had any – there just, it hasn't been a factor in all this. He revered him. Mr. King. who has become um was an advocate for the horton brothers and has become an advocate for felony murder when i say that what i mean is in pennsylvania to get life without parole for second degree meaning you had you had you didn't have to pull the trigger you said to have involvement yeah that's crazy um not even a not even a gun case right could if someone can have a heart attack when you're trying to go steal something from a store yeah so that's my example so california as i understand it has reformed that law pennsylvania has not maybe will it ever one of three states that still have it

but this is the thing one of the women that i met was introduced to me um through fam the organization fam and i met her and the head of fam said to me you know you should really meet her she's really an advocate no not celeste but um oh geez her name escapes me but this woman's story is that her father was carjacked by two brothers. You might remember this story. Her father was carjacked by two brothers. This is probably, I think it's a good 20 years ago, maybe 25 years ago. Her father was carjacked by two brothers.

Father had a heart condition. He said, you gotta let me, like, I'm not well. I have a bad heart. You gotta let me in. They pulled up to a payphone They they let him out later. How does he later had a heart attack and died? They served I've you can look at the story. It's been written about but these brothers were eventually pardoned they served I don't remember 20 some years, but

She and her name escapes me we can look it up She's really lovely woman she testified at the sentence at the at the at the pardon here on their behalf wow because she told me that she's like look this was my dad and of course i've i wanted justice and all of that. But she said it reached a point after I don't remember how many years it was. She's like, justice was no longer served. And they didn't kill him. They actually let him out. They're caught up in this felony murder conviction. And she's become an advocate now for that on behalf of two guys that played a role in her father's ultimate, you know, dying.

And so, you know, justice, there are people out there who I think, there are a lot of people out there, certainly in Pennsylvania, who want to see this law reformed. And I don't know that that will ever happen or will ever happen to benefit Tyree. situation you got people in jail for things that they didn't even fit like fathom they're now geriatric and all we're doing is spending I mean they're going at it from the practical dollars and cents yeah they age out right we you know how much it cost it to take care of a geriatric person in prison yeah a heck of a lot of money and let's just put it this way too when people think about felony murder if they just look at people who were involved in January 6th, anyone who was involved in January 6th, people lost their lives, right? So anyone who conspired to go in and commit a felony and people lost their lives, they technically would be charged with felony murder if they were here in Pennsylvania. Which we could – that's a good point because then we could all say, well, that wasn't the intention.

That's not really most of the people. All right. Yeah, that's interesting. And I'm not advocating for January 6th or nothing like that. No, I know exactly what you're saying. I'm just saying it's that arbitrary in terms of what your intent was, what your knowledge is, and what your understanding of what could happen is. That's good. Yeah, that's a really good one.

So it's a really sad situation. You know, look, Dave's been working hard. He's been believing. And I think, you know what I got to commend you for, Dave? No matter what, you're always there to pick up the phone for Tyree. And, I mean, sometimes when you were calling me at like 9 or 10 o'clock at night, I'm like, listen, Dave, I'm tired, but I'll stay on this phone because you are on this phone. And I mean, if it weren't for people like him who are steadfast in like, I may not have

the subject matter expertise to do all the nuances, but I've got access, I got resources, and I've got compassion a heart and i'm going to be if i'm going to be your friend i'm going to be your friend um honestly you know it would have kept me going because i've been involved in so many of these things so many times and it gets slimmer and slimmer and slimmer the opportunities and so swear, I get jaded saying, you know, I wish there were more I can do. It hurts me that there's not more I can do right now. But I can't make the evidence. I can't make the people come forward. All I can do is do my best to try to bring them. Now, the good thing about it is that I think whatever is going around the buzz, this conversation now again about Tyree,

and now it's allowing me to re-engage with the DA's office to see if I can get that file for Brian Brooks so we can now have definitive newly discovered evidence. And then we bring in the totality, we bring in the whole story, but you need that in road to at least get into court because everything has to have a legal premise if i'm going in and saying oh uh john moldrell said that tyree wasn't there and he wasn't called they can knock me out the park and say well that's not

new the lawyer knew that and that's it we don't get any other chance you only get one shot yeah and now that i'm a new council on it that one shot i don't want it to go to waste well and it's unfortunately taking a little longer than everyone would like but you you gotta get it right when you get it and um you gotta hope that that's that's it that wins the day well let's let's hope we can get Raheem to come forward and say that on the record. Let's hope Brian Brooks comes around. We got a lot done today, and I want to wrap it up in a minute here because I don't want it to drag out too much so that people stop listening to all these things. I think we got the facts out there, and I really, really appreciate you guys doing this and for all the work both you do oh we appreciate you on the case and and however we can help with this we're going to but david's everyone can donate it free tyreewallace.com is that right yeah and i

think we'll maybe we'll put some links um everything you know if you want to look the reality is that tyree wallace needs money for different things. He needs, you know, these guys, most of them are flat broke. Yes. And so if you wanted to donate on there and earmark something and say, you know, podcast or something, you know, just to know where you heard his story. But getting his story out into the light, making a donation, you know, help him with basic expenses, help him with legal defense fund. You know, he obviously, you know, we work, you know, we're pro bono, you know, Tyree doesn't have a bucket of money that he's paying us. We do this because, you know, I hope next year I don't have to do any pro bono hours for Tyree Wallace. I hope next year Tyree Wallace is running his nonprofit SRC,

Systemic Reformative Change. I mean, he should be out here doing what we need him to do to help communities. But go on freetyreewallace.com. There's an Instagram page as well. All the links are there. But before even that, like Kier said, I think sharing or like you said, sharing. And this is a story that should go viral, but it isn't born sexy. Right. It's unfortunately a bit pedestrian if you look back. It's complex and it's like, it's frustrating. It's also not, in some ways, it's not unique, sadly, if you go back to, you know, some of the convictions of the 90s and even until today.

So everyone who's watching has a voice and has a platform and has friends and people are like you know what you should listen to this this is like this is one human being people talk about pay it forward like this is someone you could you could help you can really tyree's a real person who really does need people to to hear his story and think think about yourself living in a box like that for something you didn't do that's what i try to do because i can't really imagine it but i know that it would be unimaginable pun intended so you know however we can help we're doing it here we'll continue to do it and shout out to tyree if he gets to listen to any of this i don't even know how that works in there if he gets to hear any of it. But, you know, I really, really appreciate

all the work you guys are doing and for coming in here and helping us go through this today. And we'll keep people apprised to what's going on with this case, obviously, and however our audience can help, we will. Thank you. All right.

All right, Julian. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace.