Episode 7 of 10
Shabaka Shakur is in court and Louie Scarcella is on the witness stand. It’s Shabaka’s last shot to prove he was framed. The courtroom drama doesn’t disappoint. A famed civil rights lawyer does the cross examination of a career, and “gets” Scarcella. A judge takes a hard look at the legendary detective, and changes history.
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Hi, Steve Fishman here, creator of The Burden as well as the number one true crime podcast My Friend The Serial Killer. For those of you who liked The Burden, I have good news. Season two starts August seventh. It's a series called The Burden Empire on Blood and it's the director's cut of the true crime classic Empire on Blood, which reached number one on the charts when it debuted half a dozen years ago. Then the fat cat funders abandon it. I wrangled it back and now I'm thrilled to share this story of a man who fought the law for two decades, fought against the Bronx's top homicide prosecutor and a detective sometimes known as the Louis Scarcela of the Bronx. It's all coming to you August seventh, wherever you get your podcasts.
Previously on The Burden, and I was like, are you crazy?
I never made no confession, confessed with no murder.
And I'm telling him, fuck your lawyer, man, you got to be the most smartest guy in that court.
When where you're going one thing, you got to remember them in your whole ray. Do not postpone my truth.
The danger though in litigation, sometimes they break in your favor and sometimes they break against you.
I don't trust the system. I want to tell my story. I want my hearing.
Now.
After twenty seven years in prison, Shobacca Shakur is about to have his day in court.
So one of the decisions, of course, was whether we should have Lewis Carsela or the stand.
Chabacca calls his lawyer Ron Kobe from prison.
He will be called a testified to hear it.
Well, that's an interesting question.
My mentality was I want him to understand because I had dealt with Louis Scarsella.
I'm surely not gonna call him because what's he gonna say. He's gonna say that, yes, you confessed, Yes he was being truthful. No, he never made anything up.
He's a person that doesn't like questions. He doesn't want his integrity to be questioned. And I wanted to judge to see that.
Chebacco was often on the phone with Derek Hamilton too, his partner from the actual Innocence team.
Put the damn cap hormle?
Was it? I was that with you? What do you want to stand? Put the damn cap homle?
But Koobie was afraid.
Scarcella is the most dangerous, most difficult witness that I've ever cross examined in almost forty years of cross examining witnesses.
Feel your body shaking, the switch on you.
You're gonna turn me on.
I'm gonna turn on you.
Welcome to the burden. I'm Steve Fishman.
And I'm Dak Stevin Ross. In this episode, Shebaca's last shot.
We gotta attack Scarta, give me a lie detective test, shoot me up with truth serum.
We gotta show that he's a corrupt cop.
He needs to be put on a stand, he needs to be questioned.
Come and get me.
You gotta hold old time.
One of the things that became very clear after I said yes to Shabaka was that this was not going to be a case run by the lawyer.
And you just thought Ron Koby would be the perfect guy for Shabaka's defense. I mean, Kobe had built this career, this storied career as a champion of lost causes, and he's represented nudis, terrorists and of course the wrongfully convicted. But Shabaka, he has his own ideas.
I came in here telling them I don't care who you are, h I know my case, and we're going to do this my way.
He made that clear from the beginning, and he said, look, I respect your skills and everything, but you're not going to be making all of the decisions here.
And he was like, listen, I know how you feel. I said, no, no, you don't know how I feel. All right, I want to.
Get out of jail.
Last time I trusted a lawyer without saying nothing, I ended up with forty years.
So Shebacca questions every Koobe angle, every decision.
Tobacco. Yeah, hey, Truby, how did you get my letter? I haven't had a chance to read it yet.
This is the way I look at it from my point of view. You know what I'm saying. I need you to look, you know, really good through my eyes for a second. It took me twenty six years to get this kill.
Shebacca evinced its frustrations to Derek.
I'm a lot. It's so man. His way of thinking to me is like, so, homie, you don't see what's going on. Is like he's trying, you know, like this is going in You're pushing it in another direction. I lismit to what I'm telling you what. Every time I'm telling you something is correct, we'll tell you. So I'll tell you, We'll see I told you is that I will peat to you.
I don't like the guy, but you got to take advantage of what you've got.
I gotta have a serious discussion whatever, because I was thinking of other day. But it just throw him off the case.
It all gets very annoying later and very very very very annoying and difficult and a slog and it's debate. He was clearly a very smart guy. Is a very smart guy. I had no idea just how smart he was till I got to know him better.
There is nothing about this case that I haven't researched and know the answer to. I have went over every document, every minute, every transcript, every police report.
To win his case, Shabacca has to discredit Scarcella. Remember, Scarcella is the guy who said Shabacca incriminated himself.
The most damning piece of evidence against Shabaka was his so called confession.
Getting confessions when no one else could. That was Scarcella's superpower. It's what made him so successful as a detective. It's what got him on the Doctor Phil Show.
It's having the ability to get insight to that person, sould whatever way you can and get the person to say what you need to hear. I believe everybody wants to infests and it's up to the detector to get it out of them.
Scarcella took hundreds of statements and confessions, and a lot of them helped close cases. But about a year before shebaka is Big Hearing, New York Times reporter Frenchie Robliss said she noticed something peculiar about a few of those confessions. It was very late.
It was like eleven o'clock. I'm in the office at the New York Times and I'm typing. I don't have the most sophisticated filing system, Like I write notes by hand and then I type them up, and then my computer crashes and I lose everything, and you know, I'm a little bit of a disaster sometimes, and so I'm transcribing my handwritten notes into the computer. And that's when I come across the phrase you got it write I was there, And I'm like, oh, well, I did this already because I remember that. I remember that sentence. So I searched on the document, the word document. You got to write I was there, it was, there's, there's, there's, there's there, and I find it, but it's not from the case that I have in my hand.
I'm like, what is that?
Going to listen to different cas so, And that's when I realized the thing with the confessions. I realized that he's using the same two sentences in confessions, and as the first two sentences of a confession would be you got it right, I was there.
And then she heard him use the phrases on doctor phil I.
Take him into the bath room and he says to me, Louis, you were right.
I was there.
So what's important about that. The thing that people forget is a lot of people say, oh, Scotolo was accused of coercing confessions.
No he wasn't.
He was not God accused of coercing confessions. He was accused of making them up at a whole cloth.
Actually he was accused of coercing confessions. But Frenchie's article made a splash. She offered three examples. One confession used the phrase you got it right, one used the phrase I was there, and the third used both you got it I was there. To small sample size, which is Scarcella's defense. So the other thing they talk about is similarities and confessions.
Well, can I tell you something that's a very good point.
There were three I took.
Do you know how many confessions I took?
Oh god, I took a lot.
You got to see similarities. Yes, some of them started off the same way. You're right, you got it.
I was there.
I never never influenced a confession. I never put words in people's mouth.
As Kooby prepared for Shabaka's hearing, that report by Frenchy in The Times caught Kuby's attention. It made him think about Shabacca's alleged confession.
Like so many Scarcella confessions, it wasn't a full confession. It wasn't you know I did it? Yes, I killed them. It began with a variation of the you got it right.
I was there, And there's this key moment in what Scarcella claimed Shabaka said, and it provides motive. And here it is, you know what happened, You have it all. They were gonna kill me. They deserve to die.
You have it all.
It is really kind of similar to you got it right, and it's kind of crazy. It's as if what that the suspects are congratulating Louis on his police work.
They have to give a shout out to the intelligence and cleverness of the detective.
I just don't think about what they're gonna say.
That's Leah Busby on the phone. She's Koopy's associate, and as Shabaka told Derek, she's poured her heart into this case.
Lon, don't be doing shit.
Really, you know what I'm saying?
What the little chicken I.
Got meal Oi? She is a little dynamo man be runing away to kill everything. So I give a something.
She goes on to Tawn, but frankly she's nervous.
We'll see.
I don't know.
I don't have a great feeling about what they're gonna say about your case, because the prosecutors are saying they don't believe their witnesses.
She was worried about the hearing, whether we have enough evidence to win the hearing. And I used to always telling Leah, you got the best evidence in the world.
You got me. I'm going to get on the stand and tell my story.
But Schabacca still wants someone else to take the witness stand. He wants Garcella telling his story.
That's in a moment well Schobacca was arguing with his attorney. Derek was right laying support on the outside.
We would get our family members to hold rallies in front of city Hall.
We orchestrated it off from jail. I want to thank everybody that came out today. We would have shirts made that say free Shabacca chakor this issue.
Is a very serious issue to me as a very serious issue is Shabacca chicaor we would have signs put together and all the news reporters, like the TV news like they was really showing up.
Then the day finally.
Comes and dying number four three nine.
It's July first, twenty fourteen.
People that say New York as Lewis Holmes and Aka and Shabaka Shakur councils make your parentss PA.
Shabaka's birth name is Lewis Holmes. In prison, he converted to Islam and adopted a Muslim name.
In the courtroom, Derek Hamilton sits in the back with a few of those support orders from the rally. They wear black baseball caps. Stitched in white are the words victim of Detective Scarsella.
And presiding over the courtroom is Judge Desmond Green, middle aged black man and former prosecutor. He has a dark mustache and gray white hair. He's all business.
Judge Green surveys the courtroom from behind that high perch his bench. On the defense side sits Ron Koby. Ron's got the gray white ponytail halfway down his back. Next to him is associate Leah Busby, and next to her Shabaka.
He's an incredibly impressive person physically. He's big, he's strong, he's handsome, he's got beautiful eyes. He speaks with tremendous authority. This is a guy that you would going to battle with.
Sabaka is ready to tell his story. He's been ready for twenty seven years.
The questioned me for two almost two days.
Leah Busby leads Shabaka through his story. Sabacca describes the environment growing up in Brooklyn in the eighties. Here's Sabaca reading from the court transcript.
There was a chop shop on the corner where they sold stolen cars. It was a dope house on the other end of the block. There was a gambling house across the street.
The defense strategy is to admit that Schabacca had not been a model citizen thirty years earlier. When he was first convicted Get It Out in the Open in nineteen eighty eight.
Gates Avenue between Irving and Nickobaca was I guess what you would call a high crime area.
He talks about how he'd always carry a gun and the time he went to jail for attempted arm robbery to get.
Caught up, I was trying to make some money. What I wasn't trying to go back.
To jail, Schabacca says he was trying to get out of the drug business. He said he landed a legit job.
His first I was working at the Queen's County Register's department.
Schabacca then recounts his conversation with Detective Scarcella, the one he had in the precinct the day after the double murders. Shabaka is being questioned as a suspect, so.
As soon as he walks in the room, he started making accusations, banging on the table and telling me I'm trying to help you here. Nobody cares about them. They're drug dealers, you know, they are the ones who deserve to die.
And then a dramatic moment so Leah Busby has a screen up. The lights in the courtroom are dimmed and she projects and exhibit. It's the confession Scarcella says he took from Shabacca, and she reads it aloud. After each line, she pauses and asks Shabaka, did you say this?
And each time he answers no. Then it's the prosecutor's turn.
So as they were trying to depict me as a liar, I'm showing them that I've been consistent from the very beginning.
At the precinct, a detective, not Scarsella, had asked Shabaka, where were you the night of the murder in Queens. He responded. The detective then said, we talked to people who said you were in Brooklyn where the murder occurred. On the stand, Shabaka explained he was in both places. He traveled from one to the other, but he was not at the site of the crime when the murders occurred.
I said, I did go to Gays Avenue last night, and I said I took the train to go to Queens.
Shots on the witness stand and he's being cross examined by the DA's office, and they're serious about trying to keep him in prison.
The people, that is, the prosecution, decide to spotlight what they claim are suspicious calls Shabaka made from prison.
Of hey, now, what's going on with truth?
In the courtroom, they play excerpts from calls he made to Derek.
They had some conversation about the amount of money the city's going to have to pay them after they get exonerated.
Anybody in they right mind would be thinking, I'm going to sool the hell.
Out of these people when I get out of jail.
One of the ada's looks at Shabaka and says, who is Derek Hamilton? And at the back of the courtroom, Derek jumps up and says, right.
Here, I'm Derek, and I said I'm right here, I'm right here.
The ADA as Shabaka, you're gonna make yourself a millionaire after this, Sean said, no, no, you're gonna make me a millionaire for what you did to me.
At one point, Kooby is listening to the prosecution summarize its case against Shabaka and he notices something odd.
So Kuby stands up and asks the judge for a clarification. He wants to know why the prosecution isn't mentioning Detective scar Seller, even though Scarcella was a crucial witness in Schebacca's original trial. The judge throws it back at Kouby, why don't you give me a subpoena for Detective scar Seller? He will have to show up, He's like any of the rest of us.
At which point Koby responds, well, I tell you a judge in all fairness and in all honesty, when I can possibly avoid it, which has been most of my legal career, I try not to put liars on the stand when I know they're going to lie.
Schabacca has been insistent he wants Scarcella on the stand, but for the moment he defers to his attorney.
Judge Green had some place that he wanted to go, and none of us, including Scarcella's lawyers, really knew where that place was. Turned to Shabacca and I said, have you ever gone to us like a party where everybody knows what's going on with this party except you? He said yeah. I said, it's kind of what I feel like. I didn't want to call Scarcella, and we went through the whole hearing without calling Scarcella, and we rested without calling Scarcella, which Sabacca was against, but he trusted me.
The hearing ended. About a month went by, and then something strange happened, something that really doesn't happen in court. Judge Green summoned the defense and prosecution to a conference and he let them know he had bad news for Shabaka.
Judge Green says that I've come to a determination based upon your failure to call Detective Scarcelling, and my determination is to deny your four forty motion.
His four forty his appeal. In other words, the judge is prepared to send Shabaka back to jail.
On the other hand, I am willing to reopen to hearing for the purpose of you call it Detective Scarcelling. Judge Green wanted Scarcella on the witness stand in his courtroom, being examined and cross examined.
That's after the break.
So the judge said it right there court. He said, I hope somebody's planning on colling Scarsella.
Mister Koby, if you don't call Scarcella, you will lose this case. But I will reopen the hearing to allow you to call him. I mean, usually judges are not in the business of suggesting emphatically the need to call a witness.
Shabacca turns and looks at Kuby.
I didn't say anything.
I just looked at him because he understood, like, obviously the judge agrees with me.
Yeah, Sbacca, you got that one right, boys, that's you. Sure did nail that.
On December fourth, twenty fourteen, six months after Shabaka testified, Scarcella walks to the witness stand. He's sixty three, debonair in a suit and tie, confident.
He still had that image that he was a top cop. He looked the same, a little older, looked good. He came in there, he had a lot of officers there supporting them.
And he had two lawyers.
All the bed press out there, and there's tons of it. He's usually referred to as disgraced detective. None of it appears to have gotten to him, except for one thing. The media likes to say. Scarcella wore thousand dollars suits. This one annoys him.
I want to go on record. I want long Gooby to notice, as I sit here before you today under oath, I swear I never paid more than one hundred and twenty ninety dollars.
For a suit.
As Scarcela takes the oath, Koby feels anxious.
My relationship to Scarcella was he beat me in one set of hearings in the nineties. He destroyed me a trial. Scarcella is the most dangerous, most difficult witness that I've ever cross examined in almost forty years of cross examining witnesses.
Plus, Kuby has no idea what Judge Green wants to hear from Scarcella.
He basically said, you're gonna lose unless you call Scarcella. I had no idea why.
Scarcella settles in. Kuby tries to bring up his alleged past misdeeds per Schabaka's request to bring up Derek's case, but Judge Green shuts him down. Not interested, the judge says, mister Kooby, you're running out of time. Mister Kooby didn't know there was a time limit. But now he gets to the heart of the matter, Schabacca's so called confession.
Remember it was just Scarcella and Shabaka alone in the room in the eighty third precinct. Shebacca had already been interviewed by another detective, and he didn't confess to that one. Kooby asked Louis how long he talked to Shabaka.
Scarcella doesn't remember much. The case was almost thirty years ago. He looks at his reports to refresh his memory. This is Scarcella recalling to us what he said.
I was asked to go talk to him, and it didn't take very long. I don't know if it was an hour. It was in the eighth three precinct. I don't know if we connected. I don't know how we connected. I told him where I was and I said, you know.
I don't know what.
I don't remember what I said to him, but I remember him saying, this is bigger than you and me. They deserve to die. They were no good. I wrote it on a legal pad because it wasn't my case. I didn't have a Stenel pad. Did the DD five which exists today, and put the legal sheet on the report.
A DD five is a detective's report. This is where Kooby digs in. Where are those notes he wrote on the legal pad which were the basis of the d D five.
From the transcript? Kooby, what became of those notes? Scarcella response, I don't know. Koby asks again, well, did you subsequently indicate that they were either lost or destroyed? Scarcella responds yes, and were you aware at the time that you were under an obligation to keep those notes?
Somebody lost my handwritten statement, ron Koby said, I didn't record it, the DA didn't record it, and I lost and I destroyed the written. But why did I destroy the written If I have the DD the copied of the DD.
Five, Scarcella says he wrote the d D five maybe ninety seconds after leaving Shabaka, So, in other words, there is a record of his conversation.
What's the big deal? Okay?
So back to the transcript. Cooby continues, you went into the room alone, is that correct? And Scarcela says I believe I did. Yes, Okay, replies Koby. And you made contemporaneous notes of important things, yes, okay. Did you ask mister Shakur to sign those notes? I don't remember, Scarcella replies, do you know if he ever did, as I sit here now. No. By the way, mister Shakur, he says he didn't sign any notes. He doesn't even believe notes were taken.
Okay.
Back to the transcript, and here's Ron Kuby again. You had a suspect who was talkative, he was telling you things. Kube makes a good point. Listen in Scarcella's account, Shabacca's chatty, he's incriminating himself. So Kuby asks, why not get the corroboration, get Shabaka on camera? Tags back to the transcript. Okay, So here's Kube again. Was not the procedure, under the circumstances at the time to call an assistant district attorney and try to get this on videotape? Scarcella says, yes, And did you do that? I don't know if I did. I can't. I don't know if I did. I believe I did not. So just so you know, there was no video made of Shabaka's quote unquote confession. So back to the questioning, Okay, did you ask anybody else, either of the assigned detectives, to come into the room and have mister Schakour repeat the statement that is not indicated anywhere on the DD five so I would have to say no. And then Koby goes in, Okay, and is it fair to say that as you sit here right now, the only proof whatsoever that you know of that mister Chakour ever made these statements? Was your testifying to it? Scarcelli says, yes, So.
The only place where this exists is out of your mouth, right.
Yes.
The prosecution had no questions for Scarcella. For his part, Scarcela felt Kooby was twisting what actually happened.
Well, I had a my dd five made it look like I framed him.
I felt it was a draw. I never thought at this hearing that I was going to get Louis Scarcella. The parameters of the hearing quickly made it clear that I was not going to get him. My goal was first, do no harm, which, frankly, if you can get through Scarcella's testimony and not do yourself harm, I mean that's a plus.
Shabaka and Koobi and Leah Busby wait patiently for Judge Green's decision.
The judge took another six months to make a decision.
And then the news finally came in. Holy shit, we won.
We won.
Leah initially called my wife and told her that my case had been reversed. So I didn't want to get excited. I said, let me call Leah because you may not even understand what she said. I called Leah as she said, yeah, the judge reverse the case.
Then I read the opinion and there were more and more and more holy shit moments.
Judge Green wrote, quote, there is a reasonable probability that the alleged confession of the defendant was indeed fabricated. Translation Scarcella lied. Judge Green reversed Shabaka's conviction.
Judge Green, who I'm not going to talk about. He made that decision, which is preposterous, preposterous.
It's important to note the Judge Green did not declare Shabaka actually innocent. In other words, he did not exonerate him, which means the district attorney could choose to try Shabaka again. So now the ball is in the DA's hands.
The judge player is safe.
He said, I'm going to reverse the conviction, but if you guys think he's really guilty, take him back to trial. I'll give you that option. And they initially say, yeah, we'll take them back to trial.
In court, Judge Green turns to the district attorney.
Based on the court's decision, will you retry this case?
Will you appeal and watch your position? Than you.
People do not have the ability to retry to defend it. Therefore, the people have no alternative but to move to dismiss the indictment.
The defendants ordered release.
Kooby steps outside of the courthouse to address the media.
It's been twenty seven very very long years. It's a long time to take away from another human being. There's really nothing that can be done except to recognize that what happened was an avoidable tragedy because Detective Scarsella didn't act alone.
Sabacca Leaf's prison in June twenty fifteen. He's fifty years old. He had entered at age twenty three. This is Shabaka on the day of his release. He's sitting in a car with his wife.
Actually, this is like my first time dealing with any smartphones or laptops.
Okay, how do I get to my Facebook?
Say no, that's not the face of those emails.
It's my first outside of jail. It's a turkey.
Roast turkey on a croissant sandwich with that is tomatoes, you know, the regular sandwiches and some French fries. I have my mind set on a lot of different things that I want to do, so I want to just I'm anxious to start doing them.
I want to be able to just, you know, experienced life.
Chbacca heads to Kooby's office to celebrate. Kooby is standing near the entrance of his office waiting to greet Chabacca.
How you doing.
Chavaka is wearing a pair of jeans and a white polo shirt patterned with small blue anchors or cry from his state greens. His head is shaved and he's wearing glasses. Chabacca puts out his hand, but Kobe extends his arm and pulls Shabaka into a bear hug.
It's about time, definitely about home.
There's a surprise waiting for him.
You may recognize the voyage, if not the face.
How you doing.
Chabacca is already shaking Frenchy's hand when she introduces herself. His demeanor shifts as soon as he realizes it's her. His shoulders drop forward, his handshake is more enthusiastic. A smile stretches across his face.
Oh, I was wondering if he was going to be here. I'm okay, I'm really good, not.
Welcome, but the euphoria of that day soon fades. There's a difference between being free and feeling free.
The emotional aspect of it. I didn't feel till probably four months after I was home. I know it sounds weird because you would imagine that I was happy, But I always thought I was going to get out right. I always felt that if I was able to tell my story, they're gonna let me out.
It wasn't until months later.
I actually remember exactly when I was sitting in a car driving down the street in Halloween and I seen people walking by me in costumes. The shack of seeing people in costumes, you know, I haven't seen in twenty something years.
It brought tears to my eyes. And then I started realizing all the work that we had went through. It just hit me like I'm home. I'm really home.
Schebacca is out, Scarcella is in trouble, and now Derek is setting his sights on finishing what he started with the AI team.
See, I can't run off in the sunset if you get the souls left behind right. I knew Shobacca was innocent. I knew Robert Hill was innocent. See, when you know certain things, you can't tell me what I know. I know nothing included is innocent. You can't tell me isn't I know it for a Faggy Innerson Right, your.
Body shaking, I'm got to switch on you.
You're gonna tell me, I'm gonna turn on you.
The Burden is created by Steve Fishman. It's hosted and reported by Steve Fishman and myself. Doc's definitely Ross. Our story editor is Dan Bobkoff. Our senior producer is Simon Rittner. Our producer is Sonam Skelly. Our associate producer is Austin Smith. Our fact checker is Sona Avakian. Our production coordinator is Davon Paradise. Mixing and sound design is provided by Mumble Media. Our executive producers are Fisher Stevens, Steve Fishman, and Evan Williams. Additional production help has been provided by Josie Holtzman, Isaac Kestenbaum, Naomi Brauner, Lucy Souchek, Drew Nellis, Micah Hazel, Priscilla A labby Saxon Baird, Katie Simon and Katie Springer. You want to give us special thanks to Ellen Horn, Zach Stuart Pontier, Lizzie Jacobs, Nathan Tempe to buy a black Rachel Morrissey, Mark Smirling and Lila Robinson. Special thanks to Marcy Wiseman. We want to thank our agents, Ben Davis and Marissa Horowitz. Legal support has been provided by Mona Hook at mksr L, and a very special thanks to Evan Williams, one of our executive producers and the person who made this podcast possible. We are honored to feature the song black Lightning from The Bell Rays is our theme music. The Burden is a production of Orbit Media and association with Signal Company Number one.
Season two of The Burden Empire on Blood will be available everywhere you get your podcasts on August seventh. All episodes will be available early and ad free, along with exclusive bonus content on Orbit's newly launched True Crime Clubhouse, our subscription channel on Apple Podcasts. It's only two ninety nine a month.