Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 11/19/21 Samantha Melamed on the Epidemic of Coerced Confessions in the Philadelphia Police Department

Episode Date: November 23, 2021

Scott is joined by Samantha Melamed of the Philadelphia Inquirer to talk about a series of articles she wrote called The Homicide Files. Since 2018, a total of 22 people convicted of murder have been exonerated. Melamed tells a couple of these stories and ties them into the broader historical context of the decades of gross misconduct in the Philadelphia Police Department.  Discussed on the show: “The Homicide Files” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)  Samantha Melamed has been a reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer since 2013. She covers issues of identity, race, social justice, as well as prisons and the legal system. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamelamed This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Dröm; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt; Lorenzotti Coffee and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, time to end the war in Afghanistan, and the brand new, enough already, time to end the war on terrorism. And I've recorded more the 5,500 interviews since 2000. Almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at Scott Horton.4. You can sign up the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. All right, you guys, introducing Samantha Malamid.

She is a reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and she has this incredible news series out. Well, it really came out, started last month, in the Inquirer, and it's called the Homicide Files. It's a five-part series and a full investigation of many aspects of the murder prosecutions in Philadelphia over the last 40 years and more. Welcome to the show. How are you doing? I'm great. How are you? I'm doing really good. Appreciate you joining us today. So congratulations on this. I kind of feel bad for you that the Pulitzer is so tainted now with this Russiagate stuff because you're sure to win one.

But, no, you really did a great job on this. And I learned so much. And I spent all morning finishing up the whole series here. And I really encourage people to read it. It's really something else. Can we start with, I guess, just sort of the basic background of how all this got started? is it it's one of these new progressive prosecutors decided to review some things or some cases came to ahead and then it all sort of unraveled or what's the background to what all's going on oh and also i guess

if you could stipulate how many people have had their convictions overturned so far um so i want to say right now it's about 20 it's something like 22 people in 23 cases because one of those people has now been exonerated of two separate murder cases and four murders in total. Wow. So it goes pretty deep. The backstory of this actually goes all the way back to the 1970s. At that time, some investigative reporters at the Philadelphia Inquirer had uncovered in a series that they called the homicide files, just a rampant abuse in the interrogation rooms at the homicide unit, I mean, to the point

that people were being hospitalized, you know, after some of these interrogations. There were a series of reforms that followed, and, you know, they did, you know, stop, you know, severely injuring people in a lot of cases. But it seems like they found other ways to get the statements that they needed to get to close cases. So what happened, you know, over the past decade or so, is that in 2013, 2014, a police commissioner put in some reforms. He said, you know, you have to tell witnesses that they are free to go,

that you can't force them to stay until they give a statement. He said, you have to record interrogations. So, you know, when someone confesses, we should know what led up to that confession. And, you know, maybe. it's a coincidence. Maybe it's not, but what we saw was that after those reforms went into place, the clearance rates dropped pretty precipitously. So Pennsylvania, I mean, Philadelphia had had one of the nation's highest homicide clearance rates, which means the rate at which that they're solving these cases. It was like 80%. Some of years, like 90%. And right now it's about

43%. So in 2018, District Attorney Larry Krasner came into office. He came in on sort of a reform agenda saying that the old way of doing things was corrupt, was, you know, not fair, not transparent. I mean, you know, I probably don't have to tell you he's an extremely controversial figure here for many reasons because people feel. You know, some people feel like he is, you know, not respecting the work of the police or is letting criminals off the hook. But one thing he did do was reopen a lot of old cases and take a sort of different approach. He created a really robust conviction integrity unit. And they are charged with reviewing these cases.

And what they found is in a lot of cases, really important evidence was hidden illegally. They found evidence of coercion. of witnesses, you know, I mean, even before the DA took office, there was a really high profile exoneration of a guy named Anthony Wright, who was cleared by DNA of a rape and murder that took place in 1991. They recharged, I mean, they retried him anyway, even after the DNA came through and his conviction was overturned and he was acquitted. And now we've just seen a ton of other cases that have followed off and involving some of the same detectives and the same prosecutors. All right. Now, on the narrative there about how out of control it got in the

70s, if I read you right in here, I think he'd say that they made some reforms in the early 80s, but that really didn't last. And it was kind of the, most of the horrors we're talking about here in this series take place in the 1990s and 2000s. Is that correct? Yeah, I mean, I think 80s, 90s, 2000s, there was a series of cases in the early 80s that I wrote about in an article called Sex for Lies, which is what, you know, one person described the scheme to me as where they were, you know, they said, okay, the stick isn't working, so we'll try the carrot instead. And they were getting these jailhouse informants, people who were incarcerated in the county jail, often facing very, serious charges. And they were bringing them down, according to these informants, to the homicide unit, offering them sex, offering them drugs, you know, right there in the police headquarters, if they would participate in framing people for murder. And, you know, right now, one of the men involved in one of those cases, Willie Stokes, the DA, just agreed that

his conviction should be overturned in federal court, so we're waiting to see what the judge does on that. But so anyway, to answer your question, I mean, it's sort of, it's been sort of different detectives have had different tactics, certainly not everyone. I mean, of course, like, there are many, many detectives whose names never appear, you know, in my research. So it's, you know, it's hard to say how widespread it is, but it definitely has sort of been, you know, there have been different groups through the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and you may know right now in January, Detective Philip Norto was set to go to trial. He was a detective up until, I think, 2017, and he's charged with raping and grooming witnesses and suspects.

to frame others in murder cases. So I guess the reforms in the early 80s, they didn't really take. They just kind of adapted. That was what you're saying about the, they got in trouble for the stick. So that was when they adopted the carrot there. That was the only real deviation.

I see. All right. And now, so I want to emphasize here to the audience, you have so many profiles of so many people. I mean, each one of these things is five or 10,000 words or something. And you have so many stories. of people who were set up here, but, you know, I want to give you a chance to talk about a few of them to make it real and not just statistical. Like, could you start with this guy, Wright, that you mentioned before?

Yeah. So Tony Wright, you know, like I said, he was arrested in 1991. A woman who was in her 70s, Louise Talley, was, you know, brutally raped and assaulted in her home in North Philadelphia. And they, you know, they picked up right for this case. And it's not entirely clear how they settled on him. But, you know, there were so many pieces of this case that seemed to be just, you know, like, for instance, they found these, the detective said they found this Chicago Bulls shirt in his home. that had been worn to the crime scene. And then they found two juveniles who they interviewed without their parents present or any adult present who said that they had seen right at the scene with, you know,

wearing that shirt. And then when they did DNA testing, they found that the shirt had been worn only by the victim of the crime, not by right. So, you know, here's a situation where, like, you know, it seems pretty clear, according to the defense and now, according to the DA's office, that, um, that, uh, the shirt was planted and it never was at his house at all at all and the witnesses were coerced. So, you know, he's someone who spent decades in prison, you know, and just, you know, like really struggled with not only the fact that he was in prison for life, but that he had been categorized as a murderer and rapist, you know, having done this really sort of repulsive and awful

crime. And so, like I said, he was exonerated at trial. I think the jury deliberated for about 45 minutes. And they said, you know, he's clearly innocent. And they let him out. And the detect, three detectives who worked on that case are actually now being criminally prosecuted for perjury at his retrial. So that's amazing. Wow. Yeah. It's a really rare. instance. And now, did the DNA lead to the actual perpetrator who's been free all these years? The DNA actually did lead to another person, which again is, like you said, that's super rare that they are able to not, you know, to actually match the DNA to someone else.

That was a guy named Ronnie Bird who had died in prison sort of long before they even made the match. But, you know, he was someone who was a drug used. who was living in an abandoned property close by and, you know, I think his name, if I'm not mistaken, has sort of been in,

you know, appeared in the investigation. And then, you know, none of that information, if I'm remembering correctly, none of that information was turned over. And then can you talk a little bit about the 17-year-old girl who has an ironclad alibi that for some reason it just didn't count? And she might, and this goes really to

the larger question, of the coerced confessions and just how well torture works. And you could define torture so broadly as to mean a big fat cop with the stinky bad breath in a small hot room. And that's enough to get anybody to say anything. Yeah, India Spellman, she was a teenager when she was picked up for a murder that had happened. And someone, it was a girl and a boy, or perhaps a woman and a boy who had, you know, robbed a woman at gunpoint and had then, you know, robbed another man at gunpoint and ended up shooting and killing that elderly man. And her juvenile co-defendant, who was taken into custody pretty quickly, named India as his co-conspirator, he did so in the presence of a detective, James Pitts, who has been repeatedly accused of coercion, of assaulting people in custody, of

targeting juveniles, people in addiction or with mental illness or otherwise vulnerable and of fabricating statements. He is still employed by the Philadelphia Police Department, although he is on some sort of desk duty, not in the homicide unit at present, but he's still drawing a paycheck. In any case, India was taken down to the homicide unit. Her father was not allowed in the room with her. Her mother described to me just being downstairs at the front desk, like pleading to be let in. And then the detectives came out and they said, like, no, she's already confessed to this murder. And at the time the murder happened, according to her grandfather, I mean, he was at home with her and she was on the computer. And she has cell phone

records showing that she was talking in the phone and she has a friend who has, you know, given statements that she was in the phone. So it's like, and, you know, the, the, she was also identified by eyewitnesses in court only, not through like any kind of photo array, not through a lineup, but in court, they said, yes, that's her. Even though she didn't actually match the descriptions that they themselves gave the perpetrator, because she was, you know, like, a skinny, light-skinned, 17-year-old girl, and they had described the perpetrator as being heavyset, being dark-skinned, being potentially, like, in her 20s or 30s. So it was sort of a mismatch, but despite all that, she was convicted by a jury, and her

co-defendant has- I'm sorry, by the way, could you slow down for just a sec there? On that part, did her defense attorney get up and do you know this part, is this part reported about the trial that under cross or under, you know, whatever direct evidence introduction or or witness examination, did the defense explain to the jury the cell phone records prove her phone was on the phone with this other 17-year-old girl or so at the same time and that the cell phone towers indicate she was in her living room and not at the scene of the crime and how that's science and you can't really get around that because the only other explanation would be that her grandfather was the one on the phone with the 17-year-old girl for an hour and a half that day?

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, that alibi evidence wasn't presented at the trial. Wasn't presented at the trial. Was that because the judge excluded the evidence at the trial or the defense attorney was, didn't bother? Do you know? You know, my understanding is that the defense attorney who's since died, you know, was really someone who had been around for a long time. and was, you know, late in his career and perhaps, you know, perhaps, like, didn't quite have it the way he used to, you know, I mean, there's no real evaluation of, you know, competency of or effectiveness of counsel until you get to the post-conviction, you know, appeals and then, and then those questions come into consideration. Sometimes they do, right? But, I mean, a lot of times, a lot of times the argument after conviction has to be that, well, there wasn't a fair trial, there was a mistake in the process, or there's a new scientific

method that's been developed that we can use to re-examine evidence or something like that, where just saying, well, we have proof of these cell phone records may not be enough to overturn anything at all if, as you say, her lawyer dropped the ball, that's her team's fault in the eyes of the court, you know, a lot of the times. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think she is arguing ineffective assistance of counsel, which could be grounds potentially to overturn her case. I mean, that's pretty ironclad evidence. She's either there or she's not, you know, it's kind of, yeah, one of those. And then, yeah, it's just one example of so many. In fact, so you mentioned this guy, the detective pit, who got this confession out of her. Can you talk about

what we know about how he did that? Because you write about that. So according to India, you know, she wasn't literate and she, you know, even though she was a teenager and in high school, it's really unfortunately not that uncommon in Philadelphia for people, you know, who are sort of interfacing with the system and are in their late teens to say that they actually aren't literate. So, you know, she said that he hit her. she said he threatened her and ultimately she said that he simply put a false confession in front of her and told her to sign it and if she signed it then she could go home and she didn't know what it was according to her and she asked him to read it to her and he said no and she finally I mean broke down and signed it and I think you know she would say that that's you know sort of one of her one of her great regrets but at the time you know she didn't understand the situation she

never been in trouble before. And then, so what's going on at the prosecutor's office where no matter what kind of garbage cases the police department brings to them, they go ahead and prosecute it anyway? I mean, obviously that's not how they would, how they would sort of interpret it. And, you know, I think, you know. 22 overturned conviction so far is kind of, again, that's science, right? that's not an opinion. That's a quantitative fact at this point, I think. I mean, going back to Anthony Wright, you know, when I've talked to detectives who worked on that

case or to prosecutors, I mean, they still think that Anthony Wright is guilty. Like, the DNA really doesn't change their mind. So, you know, like, you know, I think the DA's office, you know, what type of screening is done in sort of bringing. these cases forward is I agree like more more clarity on that would be would be helpful but you know a lot of times I think that there's probably a confirmation bias aspect that's happening you know there's a sense like this is the person and it becomes easy to sort of overlook these flaws in the case and you know there's probably also like pressure to close cases Even though a lot of people will deny that, you know, there's, you know, sort of a history of, you know, like a culture of like a bit of a win at all cost culture in the prosecutor's office. And, you know, I think some of these errors or, you know, you could say that they're errors or you could say that they're, you know, malicious. But, you know, I think they're sort of a consequence of a culture.

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Scott Horton.org slash donate. Well, you know, if you watch Law and Order, they got to make the show last an hour, right? So in the first 15 or 20 minutes, they got the wrong guy. And then they figure it out and they admit it. They go, oh, whoops, we were mistaken. It's actually this other person is the guy who's guilty, who we want to prosecute. And they're never wrong about who they want to prosecute. And he's always guilty.

The only question is whether, you know, by the. end of the episode, they get the right guy at least. The only question is whether he's going to get away with it or not. But it doesn't sound like you have a lot of that here. And in fact, this is something that kind of permeates through the series as I read it when you profile the detectives and the district attorneys in question and all that kind of thing. And, you know, I don't think it's just the way you portray it. I think it really comes through your reporting here that these are not impressive men. This is not the guy who's the star of law and order who's this brilliant genius who follows the clues in all the best ways and figures out exactly the thing. These guys are

a bunch of meathead idiots who could basically be a junior high school gym coach or could be pushing the carts at the grocery store and instead they're in charge of solving crimes. And so they do the job that 105 IQ murder detective would do, which is find a guy, pin a crime on them and move on to the next one. I mean, I'm not going to step into that, but I will say a couple things. When is that, like, as you alluded to, I think for years there has been sort of a huge deficit in attention to forensic evidence, in attention to sort of like using cell phone technology to verify, you know, like, is.

Is there sufficient training? I mean, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the read technique, this sort of method of accusatorial interrogation, where you're potentially reading people's body language to sort of detect deception. I mean, these things are like very out of date. You know, are they being trained on, you know, ways to, you know, ways to, you know, better go about their investigations? Are they being given the tools that they need to do proper? forensic investigations. I mean, when I went into the police, the police headquarters, and I interviewed the captain of homicide, and I asked him what he's doing to prevent false confessions, you know,

he just, he just, it was pretty clear that he thought that I was, you know, sort of making something up. And he just, he said, you know, we don't think that that's a problem. And if it were a problem, then recording would solve it, you know, which, you know, many proponents of recording say it doesn't solve at all because you can still, you know, you cannot even know. There's a homicide, former homicide detective and now, I think, consultant James Traynham, who often talks about how he once took a false confession. and when he went back and actually watched the video, he realized that he wasn't even doing it intentionally, but he gave, you know, the person, the defendant,

all the information that ended up being in that confession. So, like, you know, if they're not even aware of it, how can they possibly be working to prevent it? Right. Yeah, and in fact, I followed that link, and I read that op-ed, and he talks about, too, how he had set up all of the incentives as a perfect kind of little maze for her where there's only one exit, you know,

and just made it where it just made sense for her to confess in that moment anyway, in her eyes. And then, yeah, it's an interesting one where he's, I guess it was, he said later evidence came out that proved ironclad alibi beyond a shadow of a doubt she was somewhere else and that her confession was just wrong.

It's nice to see somebody even be that honest about it, a DA be that honest about it. So let me ask you this. There's something that seems to be glaringly missing from your series, but maybe you're just still working on Chapter 6 here, which is the judges. Because there can only be a handful of judges in charge of these criminal cases

over these decades in this town, overseeing this charade. These people getting railroaded day in and day out like this. And, of course, they have absolute immunity from any criminal prosecution. But what about immunity from investigative reporting? and at least having to face the shame that all of this happen on their watch

and that they're responsible for it. Yeah. I mean, I do think that, you know, you're probably right. It's sort of complicated because obviously, you know, a lot of these cases are decided by juries. You know, so the judges would probably sort of, you know,

I mean, and then, too, you know, like it becomes a situation where in so many of these cases, it's like you have the witness or defendant saying, you know, I was coerced. And then you have the detective coming in and saying like, you know, no, no, it was voluntary. And now they're just, they're probably afraid of the defendant. It's witness intimidation. That's why they're recanting, whatever. So, you know, I mean, I think the judges are sort of probably in many cases, you know,

feel like, you know, well, it's up to the jury to decide who's telling the truth. And so like suppressing this confession, you know, like the jury, you know, that isn't sort of, it doesn't meet that standard where I know that it's involuntary. You know, I do agree, though, it's an interesting question. And, you know, there are certainly some judges in Philadelphia who do have, you know, historically had a reputation as sort of, you know, perhaps making improper decisions or sort of letting the prosecution run rampant in their courtrooms. But, yeah, there's obviously a lot of players involved, whether it's the judges, the, you know, sort of asleep at the wheel, incompetent, or underpaid defense lawyers, prosecutors who may be hiding

evidence, or, of course, the police who built the cases in the first place. Yeah. I think there's a lot to that about the incompetence. You know, I was one time I admit a state's witness. I didn't flip on any co-conspirator of mine. I just walked in on an armed robbery at a quickie mark. And I did not identify the guy. because I didn't, I didn't, I didn't not get that good of a look at his face. I was looking more at the weapon on his hand. So, um, but I just talked about what I saw there for what it was worth. But I do know that the DA, who did the direct examination of me, the ADA. I met her like two nights before, told her, you know, what my testimony was going to be, essentially, gave her my side of the story. Then two days later, she examines me. And basically, I had to do all the work, because she didn't even know, how to even get, you know, what she wanted for me on direct. That was all very cut and dry stuff. I walked in, I saw a guy hitting another guy in the head with a stick.

You know what I mean? Easy. And then the defense attorney got up, and he also was completely incompetent. And the way that he was trying to get me to contradict himself, he just wasn't even doing a good job at that at all. And I thought, well, this poor schmuck, for all I know, they got the wrong guy. But this idiot isn't going to get him off, you know? And in fact, in the written house thing, not to take a side, but just as an example, I saw

the prosecution's close and the defense close, not all of them, but most of both. And I think I could have done a better job of both on like the key questions of the parts that they were trying to answer. They were like, meh, and kind of glossing over it and not even really hammering the point home before they move on to the next one. When it was everything hinges on this question and they just make it like one of six questions when this is the one that it all hinges on and i'm just thinking man this is this is what happens when you put a camera in a courtroom for a high profile trial as people see that this is what goes on like this is the best you could get it's pretty sad honestly it's nothing like matlock or uh you know law and order where all the oak paneling on the wall

ensures that everything going on in this room is on the up and up. It just isn't really like that. It's more like a government program, like the DMV or something, only with people going to prison for decades. Yeah, I mean, one thing that sort of is mind-boggling sometimes is when you look at these cases and how little evidence it took for people to be convicted on. And I do think, you know, that might be changing a little bit, maybe, you know, probably depends where you are in the country. I do think, like, in Philadelphia, juries are, you know, not as willing to accept such a thin case now. And they are, you know, not, not all the time, but, you know, sometimes they are saying, like, no, this, this doesn't smell right to me. Or, like, you know, what, you know, what is the actual

evidence here? But, yeah, in your, the case of the, the girl, India, the 17-year-old girl, I think you quote, the eyewitness statements said that the, and the victim statements, right, said that the woman had like a Iranian Muslim veil over her face or all you could see were her eyes. Heavy set, darker skin from what they could tell. Here's this light skin, skinny girl. And then they say at the trial, this is the testimony against her, I'll never forget those eyes. so even think of just marvel at that that the prosecution would put on the stand someone who has already said they could only see the eyes and the rest of the person's face was covered that they would even put them on the stand as an eyewitness in the first place you're an eyewitness to eyeballs only no other facial features at all but i'll never forget those eyes and then the jury nods and says well she seems sure about those eyes I mean, that's completely crazy. That sounds like a sitcom or something. And then this girl's in the penitentiary now, and I think you said she's 27 now.

Yeah, I mean, and it's, you know, at the time it was a highly covered case in the media. And, you know, the way, you know, to look back at the news reports, including at the Inquirer, it really was presented as if it was overwhelming evidence. And, you know, and she's, like I said, she's still in prison. She hasn't been exonerated. But when you actually go back and look at the evidence, it's, you know, it does raise really serious questions.

Yeah. Well, and that was going to be my final question, too. What about the culpability, the failed responsibility of the Philadelphia Inquirer over the last 45, 50 years that you cover here for all of this happening on their watch? taking the cop's side, taking the DA's side on what it all seems to mean every time at the expense of the innocent civilians you're sworn to protect. And I know you're the one doing a good job, but I mean the rest of them. And I mean going back. And shouldn't that be part seven of this thing after the judges?

I mean, you know, I think it's a mixed bag. the inquire, like, you know, like I started off the conversation saying, does have a really amazing history of investigative reporting on police misconduct. They were the ones who broke open this story, you know, 40 plus years ago. And, you know, we've seen like a ton of coverage, you know, about, you know, out of the inquire, especially from the investigations teams that has led to, you know, like prosecutions of police who were, for instance, I don't know if you remember that there was a squad of narcotics police that were federally prosecuted some years ago after, you know, they were accused of, um, cutting the CIA out of the deal. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Shaking down, robbing, you know, assaulting, terrorizing people. And they were, and they were charged in federal court and they were all acquitted and they're back on the job most of them as far as I know. So, you know, I guess what I would say, and then, you know, of course, you're absolutely right. I mean, there is certainly in our newspaper as in newspapers across the country, a long history of what people now call police denography, you know, which is to say, you know, just taking the word of the police, you know, cultivating those sources, like potentially at the expense of the truth. So, you know, I think I agree. It's a really challenging legacy. And, you know, potentially if these stories had been exposed earlier, maybe some people, like, would not have

had to do, like, the many years in prison that they've done for crimes they didn't commit. But, you know, this is also, it's incredibly difficult reporting. It's incredibly difficult to know, you know, when you're reporting a story where, like, the crux of the story is, like, who lied, you know, trying to find the closest thing you can to the truth of that is really difficult. So it's like, you know, I agree. it's it's a legacy that we need to sort of grapple with and you know i don't know if this series is addressing some of that but um yeah it's really it's a really difficult one yeah i mean you know

i think using the word claimed instead of said when a government employee speaks from time to time would help a lot you know instead of just where the tone built in and i know this isn't your job editing the paper, whatever, but just, and this goes for every TV, you know, local TV news channel in America, too, and all the papers, too, is the government said comes with, you know, because this person is called an official, that means that the words they say are official somehow, and we're just supposed to accept it until proven otherwise. But anytime anybody else says something, you could get acclaimed on that. But when it's the government, then, you know, in fact well never mind anyway i think you've done a great job on this i hope that the paper will

follow your lead and everyone will be jealous of you and try very hard to you know one-up you and do their own series about how corrupt the government is in your city and and protect your people from it because it is obviously the greatest danger to their lives and liberty so um and congratulations on your bullets are in advance if i don't get a chance to talk to you again because i'm sure you're going to win one for this thing thanks so much um yeah thanks for having me all right you guys that is samantha malamid and she is writing at the philadelphia inquirer you got to check this thing out the homicide files and um we have dozens accused a detective of fabrication and abuse about pit james pit sex for lies the case that collapsed and the king

of death row this is the first one i read that actually we didn't touch on as much which is about this prosecutor who kind of oversaw a lot of this as well. That's part five. This whole thing is just great. Losing conviction at the Philadelphia Inquirer. And thank you again, Samantha. Thanks so much. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A.

APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scott Horton.org, and Libertarian Institute. Thank you.