#062 Jason Flom with Guy Miles

Published Jul 9, 2018, 5:59 AM

On June 29, 1998, three men committed an armed robbery at a Fidelity Financial institution in Fullerton, CA. Two bank employees chose Guy Miles from faulty photo arrays and later testified that he was one of the robbers in court. Guy had six alibi witnesses at trial who all testified that he was in Las Vegas–an almost four-hour drive away–when the robbery occurred. He was convicted of robbery and sentenced to 75 years to life. With the help of the California Innocence Project, Guy Miles was freed after 18 years in prison. Their investigation found the three men responsible for committing that crime: Jason Stewart, Harold Bailey and Bernard Teamer. In this episode, Guy is joined by his lawyer, Justin Brooks, director of the California Innocence Project.

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I've never been to trouble of my life. I didn't even have a parking ticket, and you know what I mean. I was brought up like cops are the good guys. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I do know that everything was stacked against me. Everything like everything this isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do with this. How is this possible? I grew up trusting the systems. I grew up believing that every human thing should do the right thing. And that's why, even though I was dealing with corros people, I wasn't going to brave anyone to get me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the fact that I braved my way out of my wife's death. I'm not innocent to proven guilty. I'm guilty until I proved my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me. Our system. Since I've been out ten years, it's come a little ways, but it's still broken, a totally little trust in humanity after what happened to me. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with Jason flam That's me and today we have a great uh program. Um, really really excited because one of the people who I really look up to in the innocence movement is here. Justin Brooks is the founder and director of the California Innocence Project. And so Justin welcome to the show. Thank you very much. And on the phone, we have an extraordinary person named Guy Miles, who served over eighteen years in prison for a crime that happened in California while he was in Las Vegas. And I know that sounds crazy, and it is, but when you hear the story, it's just gonna get crazier. Miles was convicted of an armed robbery in Fullerton. He had an alibi, but in I witness identified him in court. Years later, the real robbers confessed and said Miles, this guy had nothing to do with it. Um. So Guy, welcome to the show. As I always say, I'm I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad you're here. Thank you very much, appreciate it. Okay, So, UM, Justin take us back because this this case. You know, even after twenty five years of working in this field, when I read this case, I was trying to you know, my head was kind of spinning. But can you take us through the circumstances of this case and then we'll get with guy and walk through the whole situation. Sure, so this is a you know, I find myself saying this often, as I'm sure you do that this is a crazy case. But when you look at the facts of this case, it would be literally comical if it didn't have such tragic results for guy. Uh. This guy, Bernard Teamer, was paying in his car off at a savings and Loan and every time he went in there he saw that they had a lot of cash. So he gets a couple of his buddies together and says, let's go rob this place. But they know me in there, so I'll wait outside in the car and you guys go in and rob it. So they pull up in front of the Savings and Loan and Bernard has such a short attention span that he actually gets bored while they're doing the robbery, and he sees an auto parts store, so he decides to do a little shopping, so it gets out of his car locks the car, goes in the auto parts store and starts asking about parts for a rare car that he has. The guys come back who've committed the robbery. They can't get in the car, and the actual guy who's working the auto parts store points out the window and says, hey, I think your boys are waiting for you out there. So he runs out, unlocks the car, they get in, they drive away. So now the the alarms go off. Everybody goes outside, the people from the bank or outside. The guy from the auto parts stars outside. They say, oh, we just got robbed, and he says, oh, I just saw those guys and one of them was in here looking for these parts for this rare car. It start takes them about five minutes to catch Bernard, who is a guilty of this crime, and then they start trying to piece together who are the other two robbers because Bernard's not giving it up, he's not telling them anything. And so the way they do it is this officer puts together um photo rays, but instead of using the descriptions that are given of the robbers, he instead just puts a bunch of people who live in the same neighborhood as Bernard Teamer and they don't match the descriptions at all. As you go through the photos. There's really heavy people, really skinny people, light skinned people, dark skinned people, people along dreadlocks, bald people. It's the most ridiculous set of photo rays you've ever seen, and it's not based on anything except for their associated with Bernard team or only one person vaguely matches the description and the photo rays, and that's Guy Miles. So they went through these photographs of the people in the neighborhood, but they actually managed to somehow forget to put in the photos of the guys who were in the neighborhood, who are the actual perpetrators, who could have been identified by any number of these people that were at the and to match the descriptions that are given by the witnesses. And so we had experts actually go through the photos and they said, based on the description given, the only person that would be picked here is Guy Miles, because they didn't put other people in the photo rays that matched the description, and so they violated the most fundamental thing of putting a photo ray together. And as you know, there's already enough problems with identifications without following any of the basic procedures. And the basic procedure is you have fillers that matched the description given by the witnesses, and there were on in there that fit that description. They were all very specific to people in the neighborhood, right. And so the way memory works is that your mind, especially it's more time goes by and your mind goes towards the one who most resembles. And we know that memory is. You know, some people think it's like a like a like a camera, but it's it's the farthest thing from it, and it's easily everyone is easily influenced. And this is why UM, Mistaken eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. And in this case, one of the witnesses when she came in, she couldn't identify him anyway. When Guy Miles was right in front of her, she couldn't identify him. And the shocking thing that I've seen now in a number of cases is they take a recess, they go out in the hallway, the witness talks to the district attorney, and the next thing you know, they're making the identification. The guy goes off to prison for the rest of his life. Yeah, there's it's pretty easy to see what could go wrong there. UM and we're going to get into more of this. The fact that there was there were nine alibi witnesses who could have who could have been well some of them did play the guy in Las Vegas, right, six of them testified. I mean as you said, I mean, and there is a very comical element to that, right, the idea that the guys in the auto part storeboard and then that's about the cars lock. I mean, it's literally like that's the beginning of a movie that Yeah, you put Robert Downey Jr. And there you got a hit. So, um, anybody put Robert down anything, And if that's beside the point, So let's go back to you guy, because I want to get a sense of what your life was like before this this tragedy happened. That turns your life upside down. Well, if I grew up in cars in California, UM, raised by both my mother and father, UM Christian people, UM, good people you know, inherited and and still good values in me. You know I was I'm not going to say I was an angel. I did get in a little trouble, play a lot of sports, got married, head kids. So yeah, so you're sort of it sounds like sort of a typical childhood. Actually, right, nothing crazy. He does have unusual parents, and that both of them are ministers. And every single court hearing, I've never had a client's family quite like this. The entire courtroom was filled with well dressed, well behaved people, polite to the d a, polite to the judge, even though he'd gone through this total travesty. Wow, yeah, that isn't unusual. Um, I haven't heard that either, And um, it's sort of adds a real interesting element to this. Um. So then fast forward to it was at June nine, long time ago, that faithful day when Fidelity Financial Institution in Fullard in California was robbed by this the band of idiots. Um, it's really like a clown show. And how did you first find out that you were a suspect? What what happened? And uh? And what day was it? Was it the day of or so it was? It was afterwards that you first got arrested, right right, there was no It was actually a couple of weeks after the robbery took place. You know, I got a call from my sister that the police were looking for me, wanted to talk to me. Um, I came down from Las Vegas. UH, came in, talked to the officers. They arrested me, right, They had like seven or eight Orange County police officers there, and you know, I was it was kind of strange to me because I'm like, why is Orange County wanted to talk to me? I thought maybe somebody in cards and wanted to talk to me. They arrested me and told me that I was being booked for robbery in Orange County and I'm like, in Orange County. Haven't even been to Orange County. You know, I was just I was confused, really didn't know what was going on at that point. Did they they read They read you your rights and stuff. They read me my rights and told me that I was being arrested for Orange County robbery and that they were gonna come to my house and do a ray to see if they can find evidence that links me to the robbery. And so they actually drove me back to the house rated my house. Uh, of course they found none because there was nothing to be found, whisked me off to Orange County jail, booked me, and from there death when a nightmare started. When did you first get to see a lawyer? Did you request the lawyer. Did you give an interview voluntarily? How did that roll out? I wasn't even thinking about a lawyer because I knew I didn't do nothing wrong. So that was the last thing on my mind, is requesting the lawyer. Right, And that's something in justin your way, in here, whatever you want. That's something that I talked about on the show frequently, is that if you do get wrongfully arrested, because there's enough people, there's enough people listening to this show right now, that somebody is going to have this experience. Unfortunately, probably several people who are listeners at some point. You don't think it can happen to you, but I think you probably agree it could happen to any one, right, Yeah, right, I agree, I definitely agree. And people think they can straighten things out often and the words get twisted. I thought this would all be cleared up. I wanted to clear it up and go home. And so innocent people almost always give statements because they've got nothing to hide, and often those times those are twisted and justin you know, I think you'll agree, but feel free to correct me because you you're in the front lines, on the front lines every day. But my advice is give your name, your address. And then the next thing you say is I want a lawyer. Absolutely, and that's it, because they're not your friends. They're not there to help you, and nothing you say is going to be is going to help you. Right now, there's nothing you can say that. Literally, of all the billions of wards in the English language, none of them are good except for I want a lawyer. The innocent people come in and and and are much more forthcoming, and guilty people they're going to be totally cooperative because they think I've got nothing to hide. And like most people, like I grew up thinking that East and and prosecutors in the system is fair and it works, and it will. It's there to protect you and to protect and serve. That's what it says on the side of the thing, right so on the side of the cars. But in fact, um you know, in many cases, not always, but in many cases they have a different agenda, and that agenda is just to get you and and and they don't let and guys yours is really a terrible but perfect example of that. They didn't want to let the fact that there was no evidence connecting you to the to the thing, and that the witnesses weren't certain, and that you had alibi. I didn't want to let any of that get in the way of a perfectly good conviction. So you're in there and you're thinking you're going home in twenty or thirty minutes, and you're giving them these statements. You're you're you're accused of a crime in a place that you've never been to that happened when you were in a different state. Yeah, and where And this one, really, when you think about it, came with instructions, right, because this is a crime, and many crimes there's no witnesses, right. In this case, you had lots of witnesses who got very very good views of it. Wasn't there wasn't time. They weren't hundreds of yards away like we see in some cases. They were right there, right. But I mean, and you had the I mean, the probably the perfect witness would have been the guy in the in the auto shop or the whatever, the thing that that that the crazy idiot went into, right, because he was not under duress. Right. And we know that witnesses how much harder time identifying people when they're at the actual crime scene because they're so stressed out in their adrenaline is going crazy. But this guy was just trying to sell them some stuff for his fancy car or whatever, and so he would have had no stress. It was just a typical transaction. And that's why Bernard got caught. I mean, Bernard was was in this thing without a doubt. But when it came to the other I d s. You know, you had guns and people's faces. That was violence within the Savings and loan. They were cross racial. It had all the indish that you've talked about on this show that create for bad identifications, right of course. So when did you get to see your lawyer? Lawyer? The first day at court because we were looking for a lawyer. They they gave me, uh public a defender and the public fender came and talked to me. Uh. He was really talking about nothing. It seems like he was working with them. So my mother and then was like, no, we're gonna find a lawyer. Uh. Finally found a lawyer by the name of Frank Williams, and he came down and talked to me and we went into court pleaded not guilty, and that's when the case commenced. But how about this Frank Williams guy. Was he He's a terrible lawyer, terrible, terrible. We actually hired him because he was a family friend, you know, he kind of grew up with us, so my mom felt comfortable, you know, hiring him. But he came with all kind of sets of problems. His conduct was definitely suspicious. So used to come see me two o'clock in the morning, um, late for court, never prepared. I didn't go talk to any other witnesses out of state. And it was just, I mean, it was crazy. His whole investigation was bizarre. And and how professional was he? Even a criminal lawyer? Yeah, he was a criminal lawyer. He's this barred. Now there's a criminal lawyer and a criminal and we and we see that a lot. It's you know, it's always a smell test when you're looking through that. We get six thousand letters a year seeking assistance, so there's always a smell test with you know, which of the cases we think we got an innocent person here and we can do something about. And it's breathtaking the number of people who we look up the lawyer in the colbar dot org website and find that they're disapinted. So let's go back to the courtroom. Um, you know, you've painted a picture which is really again feels like a movie to think about your parents, um being you know, distinguished members of the community. UM, your friends being there, their friends being there, um, and yet they're like the only distinguished people in the court room. As it turns out, the rest of the system is broken. So how did it? How long did the trial take? And I want to get to what the moment was like, which I'm guessing was probably the worst moment of your life. It's probably a pretty good guess, um, when when you found out that you were going to be spending basically the rest of your life in prison. Well, the trial took actually to get to get to the point of trial, it took like almost two years of thought the cave for almost two years before I actually went to trial. Once I got to trial, um, it was probably like maybe four weeks, four to six weeks before the actual verdict came down. It's a long trial, and they deliberated for a long time. Deliberate, wasn't it five days? They deliberated for seven days seven days? So I mean only you need to hear is that to know that there's problems with the case. If if citizens are willing to sit in a room for seven days and argue about it, how is there not reasonable doubt after a four to six week trial? Right? So these are people who've been want to go home. Yeah, they want to go back to work, they want to go see their you know, whatever the hell they're doing is better than this. Um. He actually came at one point, came with a hung jury, and the judge sent them back in there, uh redeliberate and see if they can come to some kind of you know, agreement. And you were being held in custody this whole time, the whole time. Where were you guilty until proven more guilty? Oh yeah, I've never heard that before. I'm glad you can laugh about it now. Um, so you were guilty until proven more guilty? And where were you being guilty at? Um? Where were they holding you? Orange County Jail, Orange County, California, Santa Anna Court. That's the court I went to. So the moment comes to the hung jury has been sent back and back and whatever, and they're sitting there in days, returning into weeks, and um, finally they come back in Uh, they tell you they've got a verdict. What were you thinking? Did you think that after all of this. I'm sure you had lost a lot of faith in the system by now, but did you still think you were going to be exonerated? Um? I did, and I didn't. But let me rewind a little bit before that that deliberation, before that verdict came down, UM I was. I was in there doing everything I could to get noticed to this court. I um wrote the mayor of Orange County. UM. I even wrote the witness, the victim in the case, and told us he had a right to, you know, really investigate this this this case and see if I'm really the guy who did it. Of course, that letter was returned because they said I couldn't write to a victim. UM. I even wrote numerous letters to the district attorney. We said down and had a long conversation, and she told me in front of him, she said, I don't believe you did this case, but you're good for it. And I couldn't believe she told me that right there in front of my attorney. That was then Assistant d A. That was Karen walk and she was a deputy District Attorney so she came in. I'm just processing this now. So she came in and said what exactly she told me to my face, I don't believe you did this. The pieces to the puzzle doesn't fit. But you're good for it. You've been in trouble before, so hey, you're good for it. And they even tried to um get my attorney to um have me go in the room with Bernard team Er or somebody else and where a wire and all kind of crazy stuff she was they were trying to set up that never even came out, but all that stuff was being set up. UM. I even stood up at the council table while the witness why the victim was on the stand, stood up and asked her if she can get off the stand, come look at me closely, and uh. First, the the d A rejected it. Then she let her come down. The victim came down and said, hey, that's not him, that's not the guy right there. The d A Russia take a recess Russia. Well it was already in recess. Take the victim outside. UM talked to her. She come back, They bring the jury back in and she points out and said, yeah, that's the guy and they said, well, what changed your mind from that time? Excuse me, I mean, I'm just in time, just like so they asked my lawyer actor, what change your mind from the time you said it wasn't him till the time the d a together. Still when she showed me a picture and I said, that's the guy on the picture and it looks like him, and you know, maybe he cut his hair or something. They went on this long tangem about me cutting my hair or whatever. So um, yeah, so they go, so they go back to the they go back to the photo that she ided from, and this is the classic sourcing error for an identification where the witness now is completely confused because they're saying, no, no, this is the person you identified. See this is him. And now they're matching the photo with guy and of course it is him. He's in the photo that they did the I D from. And now you're sourcing is so difficult. You don't know whether your ide and M from the crime scene, your idea and UM from the photo. You're being reinforced by them saying this is the person who committed the crime. And you see this happens over and over and over again. This is not a rare instance. Unfortunately, the d A saying I know it's not you. You have the witness going I know it's not you. Yeah, I and I witnesses saying I know it's not him. Right, nine alibi witnesses going way more than nine. Only nine was accepted, all right, Only nine came to court and I think six were a lot of testify, but you had. That's another frustrating thing about this judge. The judge says, this is redundant testimony. How is it? And he limited the number of alibi witnesses that it just doesn't make And how is it redundant testimony when each individual is a separate credibility determination by the jury, when they might believe one or won't believe another their different circumstances. The judge just was tired of it. Let's move on, Okay, A bunch of you say he wasn't there yet half of Las Vegas ready to testify for you, right? Basically, Yeah, Steve Winn rolled out on the stand. I mean it's like, that's the first time I've ever seen that in a case where judge said alibi witnesses were redundant testimony. Yeah, I mean why let an alibi witness get in the way of a perfectly fiction or perfectly bad conviction in this case, Oh my god. UM, And a little interesting rock and roll tidbit you'll appreciate. It's one of the witnesses described one of the suspects as looking like Warren Gy And that becomes important later on when we find the guy who does in fact look like Warreney and bring him into court and we're looking over him saying, this guy does look like Warrengey. Guy Miles doesn't look anything like Warrengy. And but this elderly white judge didn't seem to be able to make any of those distinctions between Um. So I'm not good across racial identification either he was. He was as bad or worse at it than the witnesses. And while we're on that subject, UM, you know, because we're dropping a lot of knowledge here, which I'm glad that you know. Having you here is really great because of the fact that we can get into some of these topics and the way that we do. UM. But we know now from study after study that as as prone to error as I would say identification is, and it's wildly prone to error, we know that cross racial identification is much worse, much less reliable. It's the worst, it's the worst. Half the people I've walked out of prison have been as a result. They were convicted as a results across racial identifications. Because when you work in southern California, we have we're a mixing pot and it's constant. It's whites and Latinos and blacks and Asians, and they're almost always wrong. So bear that in mind those of you out there who are listening. Um, you know, if you're on a jury and you're looking at somebody in a case where a you know that's the centerpiece of the prosecution, is a an eyewitness identification, be aware that they're extremely unreliable. And then if it happens to be across racial identification, you can basically just throw it out the window, because you know, there have been studies that show that you actually have a better chance of being right just by guessing. Um. And there's a classic study you can look it up from I think it's the eighteen nineties in England and it's been it's been done over and over again where they took people who didn't witness the crime and they got it right more often than people who did and that's due to a number of factors, including adrenaline and you know, pressures of all different kinds and psychological factors and so yeah. Um so it just starts, by the way, with it's the first four years of our life where we code how to do facial recognition. So if your mom is white, your dad is white, your brother's white, your sisters are white, you actually can't develop that skill to do facial recognition as well with other races for the rest of your life. If you come from a multiracial family and those first few years you get a lot of exposure to a lot of races, you get better at it. But it's just as simple as that. It's a human thing that all human beings need to develop facial recognition, and it happens in the first few years of their lives. So back to you guy. Um So, now the moment comes, it's spending an unbelievable ordeal already and now you've dealt with this trial that's gone on for a month and a half or whatever it is. The jury shuffles back in. Um, did you think at that moment that you were going to be found guilty or innocent. I really didn't know. I had a bad vibe looking at the jury, how they wouldn't look at me, And uh, I don't know I was I guess I was hopeful that I wouldn't be found guilty, But I don't know. I just I just have that eerie feeling that those twelve people in there, we're gonna find me guilty, especially after the judge sent them all back in. So you know, I was more on the I'm gonna get found guilty than I would not being found guilty, being found innocent. And then the moment comes, and then a moment comes and they stand up and find me guilty on all counts. And what can you describe that moment? I mean, I'm sure it's painful to even talk about it, but um, you know was it? I mean the court room must have erupted. I'm sure there were tears, and I mean, how did you even process this? At that point? I wasn't even worried about myself. I was looking at my mother. I was watching how she broke down. Um, I knew there was gonna be complications to her health. Um, I just seen the tears. I just seen her tears just coming down. And I knew then that it was gonna be a tough robe. Man. I just, um just put my head down and just I just said, I'm gonna have to deal with it. Whichever way it comes, I'm just gonna have to deal with it. But I was more concerned about my mother than anything else at that moment. Well, that says a lot about your character too, um, And you know, and you're here, I think as a result of your character and of your you know, the strength that you found to withstand something and persevere through something that I think, uh, almost anybody else would have you know, given up, giving in and you know, died in prison because you were sentenced to seventy five years to life. And now you find yourself in this dangerous, hostile, uh environment with no way out where. How can you explain that? Uh? It was a hard journey. Um, I had to. I had to. And I tell the story frequently. I tell adjusting them this all the time. Had to basically just trick my mind into believing that I was going to get out tomorrow, the next day soon. But I knew in my hearts of heart that that wasn't going to happen. But I had to kind of like trick my mind to believe in that. I had to, you know, have long talks with myself. I have to had to walk back and forth, you know, in a sale and just tell myself that it's you know, it's it's gonna get better. Later, you're gonna be out there, gonna find it true. You're gonna go home and all this is going to be a distant memory after three or four years. You know, I'm still playing the same game with my mind. I'm praying a lot. I'm uh, you know, I'm talking to my mom and father. Um, they're keeping me strong. Like I said, as Justice said, they was at every court day, they were at every accepted every phone call, came to every visit they could. Um, they even made sure that my kids got there. They brought them so. UM. I saw them fight for me, so I couldn't let them down. I had to fight for myself too, and that's what I did. But again, at the same time, I had to play with my mind a little bit and make myself really believe that I was getting out the next day or the day after that or the week after that. But in some near Guy's spirit was incredible, and I deal with hundreds of people in prison, every single student who went to see him. Every time I saw him, he'd keep his spirits up. We'd call him Smiley Guy. He you know, he never felt sorry for himself. He just kept committed towards, you know, thinking I'm getting out of here, I'm getting out of this nightmare. And I think you're right, Jason. It's there's a certain kind of special person You've had a lot of them on this show that to survive that situation, like you don't know if you do it. I don't know if I'd do it. And it's hard to believe where people can must up that kind of strength to be in prison for something you didn't commit. Every morning you wake up as a surrealistic nightmare. And yet there are these special people who survive it like Guy. And so justin how many times did you visit Guy in prison? Can you even count? We had a lot of visits, a lot of time in San Quentin. It's a lot of time up there. Um. I every Christmas, I do my Christmas tour and I drive all over the state of California and try see all my clients who are locked up because that's the hardest time of the year for them. So I've definitely see a guy every Christmas. In fact, I just said to him yesterday, I'm glad I'm not going to see you next Christmas in prison. Amazing and it would seem like, you know, getting the California Innocence Project involved. I mean, you literally went from the outhouse to the penthouse in terms of legal representation to go from um and by the way, I'm gonna put in a plug right now for people to support the California Indusence Project and how do they do that? Justin go to California Innocence Project dot org and they can see Guy mile story there and and all the clients that we freed. That's California Innocence Project dot org. And we're gonna get into more of that in a minute. But um. But so it took fifteen years, even with the best team of lawyers you could want or have. And it's interesting too, and we're gonna get to the happy part of the story in a minute. Um. But before we get there, because I saw that amazing video of of you getting out and uh and justin greeting you and driving you and so much joy and that it's just really hard to explain. And and people can watch that too, UM if you if you google it or you go to California Innocence Project dot org, you'll find this remarkable video that's been viewed millions of times, which is so great. Before we get to the the the you know the best part of the story, which is the moment when you were actually declared innocent? Um, is there going back? If you could tell us was there a time you could identify or moments you could identify as the happiest, if there was a happy moment in prison? And was there a moment when which was really the darkest time that you had? Well, I said the darkest, darkest time was finding out my mother had cancer. UM. That's when I felt like, oh man, how will I get through this? If something happened to my mother, How would I get through this? It was always that fear of getting the phone call or sliding the letter under the door saying you need to go see the chaplain. You know. I lived with that every day when she was in the hospital. UM. But luckily she pulled through UM and she overcame the cancer. My happiest day was writing that letter to the California Innocence Project and they finally accepted me as a client. I knew then that there was hope, and you know, I heard so much about the organization, but was just like, I can never get in that. You know, everybody tries to get to the Innocence Project and get turned down or they don't have enough resources to handle their case. So you know, in my mind, hey, I'm probably not gonna make it either, but I'm sure we're gonna try. And I wrote letter after letter after letter, and they responded back to me and told me that they will review my case. It took like maybe six even months for them to review the case. Oh man, I was overjoyed there. It's like, hey, light at the end of the tunnel, but it was a long tunnel. It was a long legal tunnel. Another way this case is extraordinary is we got a habeas hearing, but as often happens in California and other states, it was assigned back to the trial judge. So the trial judge Arety had his own personal biases about the case and he'd heard it and he kind of went through the motions of that hearing, and we lost. So we presented all the problems with the identification. I cross examined the original officer or who did the i D. And in fact, by the time I was done my cross examination and showed him all the mistakes he'd made, he actually came over to me and said, I didn't do any of this intentionally, and if it's my mistake that led to your guy being wongfully convicted, I really hope you win. So he realized he wasn't even intentionally doing these photo rays the way he did it just wasn't trained. Well, this was who said that. This was the investigating officer who did the identification procedure when I showed him saying yeah, when I showed him like, you don't put photos of people who don't match the description, and I took him through all the procedure manuals and how you put them together. So we go through the whole hearing, We show all the problems with the i D s, We bring in the alibi witnesses, we put the whole thing back on and we lose, and then a list of beer Cale, who was an amazing lawyer in my office. It doesn't give up easily. She appealed that decision, and then we went back and did it a second time, and we lost with the same judge again Yes, and then we went back up to the Court of Appeal and there, as a matter of law, reversed the decision, saying that we had brought in sufficient evidence that this conviction should be reversed. And then we came up against another obstacle, which I think is an interesting thing to explore, in that the District Attorney's office, after this whole journey, said where we're prosecuting. So I sat in a jail with guy, and I'm sure he'll remember because it was a year and two days ago, and I said, here's what we look at. Man. You've been exonerated. But they can always reprosecute. And they say they're reprosecuting, and in fact, ALYSSA put together a whole stack of pre trial motions just to see if they were bluffing, and they weren't. They were going back to trial. Best case scenario, you get exonerated at trial, but that means you're gonna sit here in jail until that's over, and I don't know how long that's going to be. Worst case scenario, A jury convicts you again, because who knows. I don't think that will app but I'm sure you didn't think that was gonna happen the first time round. If you take this deal now and play out, they'll walk you out of here today. And what do you do in that situation? And how do you advise your client? I just got to lay it out to him, that's the honest truth. I think I'm gonna win this retrial. I think I'll get you exonerated, but I can't give any guarantee of that this will get you out today. So polae bargains are now defining the entire system. And this wasn't true ten fifteen years ago. When we get an exoneration, everyone would walk away. And now I'm seeing two paths happening across the United States. There's some very astute district attorneys who are getting ahead of these stories, creating conviction review units and getting in on the exonerations. And there's other ones that are digging their heels in and fighting these things to the bitter end because they don't want to lose, they don't want to be sued, they don't want these stories in the news and and it's really terrible because in California, even in Bakersfield, even in San Bordardino, they didn't used to fight exonerations once we won. Now they are. And it's crazy because you know, you know, the public really needs to be made aware that this is your tax dollars at work. Right. You have prosecutors who have been proven wrong, who have had a higher court tell them, huh, nope, you screwed this up. This wasn't your guy, and they're gonna come in and instead of doing their jobs, they're going to go and spend more weeks and months and over time and this and that and everything else, and then they're going all in the hope of reconvicting an innocent guy who's then going to go back to prison, where we're going to continue to pay for that, right, And the cost of incarceration in America are staggering, right, I mean, just you know, just in terms of on a very basic mundane level, just the money that the tax payers pay to keep people it isn't people, but everybody. They even do it, by the way, Jason, they do it in cases where there's no time left. Another one of my clients, Bill Richards, they threatened to reprosecute him, and had he they successfully won that reprosecution, he was already on parole, so they were willing to spend county money going through an entire murder trial again where at the end of that result would be no incarceration. Anyway, what could that possibly about? So we filed a motion that they would using it their office irresponsibly and it was prosecutorial misconduct, and then they dropped the case when that was picked up by the media. You're You're absolutely right. These are our resources. We only have a limited number of resources for criminal justice, and they're just not being allocated correctly because a lot of times people's egos derived those decisions. You said something, by the way, heartbreaking to me that day, guy, and lawyers aren't supposed to cry, but it made me cry. And you said to me that you didn't want to let me down by taking a play. And I've talked to other lawyers about that in our movement because I think it's an important message that lawyers remember that sometimes the clients think they're letting us down. And I said to you, you know, this is your life, man, you gotta do what's best for your life, and I'm glad you did that. You know, they fought so hard, um, since they took my case. I mean it was nitty gritty. They they got down and dirty. They really got out there and got the evidence. I mean they fought too. The nail we had, like I said to evidentially hearing another hearing in the Pellet court, it was like never giving up. So I told just In that because you know, I just watched the dedication in them, the fighting them, and it was just like, man, me me copping out. It was like letting them down after all they did for me, you know. And that's why I told you, Man, I just I just I just felt bad, you know, like basically bailing out on them, And that's why I told him. Mat. So you ended up making the decision that I think almost anyone would make face with that impossible choice, Um and I had and you had to plead down. And you plead it down or do you have to plead guilty to the crime in the first lead no contest to the charges, right, So it's like an Alfred play. Yeah, Um, so you pleaded no contest. Had to be another bit of pill to swallow. Um, And now you have to live the rest of your life as a convicted felon. Don't tell me about it as if they didn't do enough. And we were trying to and we at the same time, we're fighting for clemency for guy. This guy is is part of what we call the California Twelve, which are twelve clients we identified now it's five six years ago as being great cases for clemency from Governor Jerry Brown. And the governor has the power to it any time, give any and clemency he wants to give in the state prison system. Unfortunately, most governors use it in you know, to give it to people are connected to power, or someone who happens to work in the governor's mansion in the garden. It's very random. And so we identified these twelve cases and we actually walked clemency petitions from my office in San Diego. I walked all the way to Sacramento with those clemency petitions, seven hundred twelve miles. Guy's family walked a good portion of that with us. And how long did that take? It took fifty days. It was walking the entire way up the coasts, all in the highways right there. It was I had. I had a far have some If you go on YouTube and say Justin Brooks Mile four fifty Innocent March, you can see how I looked at mile four fifty. I look like far As Gump and and we had hundreds of people with us by the time we got to Sacramento and we presented those twelve clemency petitions to the governor. He has still not acted on any of them. Is now five years later, and in that time we've released five of those twelve. There's still seven left in prison. The governor now has a hundred and I think eighty some days left in office, who's counting, And during that time he could give clemency to these final seven. And so I've been every day on social media asking people to call the governor. Right the governor asked him to grant clemency to the California twelve and um, if anyone can follow me on Twitter at Justin O. Brooks every single day, they can retweet to the governor and he gets these messages, but he hasn't done anything about it yet. And in Guy's case, we're sitting there with a plea offer the possibility of clemency and it's this very high stakes poker that you're playing, and we find to make the decision to play in the card of him taking this deal so he can move on with his life, which, of course guy's decision. There's a rumor going on around that you're gonna do another walk. Yeah, I'm gonna do the final hundred miles, which is actually some of the most brutal part of it, because I'm gonna walk from San Francisco to Sacramento. And Uh, in September, you're definitely coming and walking my brother. Yeah, it sounds like I better get my sneakers out to love that it will be the last hundred on the He will have a hundred days left in October, and so on that day we're gonna walk the last hundred miles and they'll take about five days, doing about twenty miles a day, and we'll go to Sacramento and try and get his attention again to these final seven cases. It's just heartbreaking. They are compelling cases, strong evidence of innocence, every one of them. And you can see him on our website at California Innocence Project dot org. Can people sign up to do the walk there too? Uh? Yeah, then get information about the walk and we'll tell them where the rallies are and and if they follow me on Twitter, I'll be tweeting about it between now and then. And that's justin O Brooks on Twitter. Um, why are the last hundred miles the most brutal because it's so hot and you're just crossing California. I mean a lot of people said to me, why didn't why didn't you guys walk up the five. It's like, if you walk up the five, you'd be dead. It goes through the desert the whole way. So we did the coastal walk and and Big Star is very beautiful. Uh, It's it's not as fun when you're walking in and going up and down those hills, but at least it's not brutally hot. But when you cut Inland and we hit there and around June, uh, it was insanely hot. That last hundred miles when you're walking to Sacramento. That's uh, that's a lot of walk And that's an incredible, incredible story and I'm glad you told it. Um. So Uh yeah, I think Look, I'm I'm very optimistic that this governor will do the right thing. Um, he's certainly been actively pursuing cases for clemency. He's granted, Um, I think more clemencies for lifers than any previous governor or. Probably he's granted a lot of clemencies, but most of them been out of custody people, people with old drug charges. But yeah, this governor has been on the right side of a lot of issues, a lot of progressive issues, which is why I was willing to walk seven D twelve miles because I thought this guy will do this. And uh, I think it's important for people to realize that that stigma is gone. You know, President Obama granted seventeen hundred and sixty something clemencies in the last days in office, and there wasn't a peep from anybody like and by the way, I was advocating for much more, many more than that, but nobody said a word. Right, there was a one article written, are they wait, what's going on? You know, I mean like it's it's not a thing anymore. So you know, it's like it's just not a thing. So pendulum always swings right. So, um, guy, before we get to the closing of the show, UM, I did want to ask you about that moment when the High Court the Court of Appeals reverse your conviction, because it has to be just the opposite of the devastation that you felt, um when you were wrongfully convicted in the first place. Can you describe that moment? I was excited when I got the word that, uh, the pellicord had reversed my conviction. Um, how did you find out? I found Actually I found out through my daughter. She told me. She's like, hey, Dad, Hey Dad. I happened to call my daughter and uh, she was like, hey, Dad, did you hear what happened? I was like what. She was like, you know, you're coming home. I was like, huh, what are you talking about? And she said that we just got word that, um, the pelicort reverse your conviction and they're letting you come home. I was like what. I guess she had it all wrong. She heard reverse and she thought it just immediately I come home that day, So, Uh, I was excited. I instantly called justin in them and they confirmed what she had told me that the pelicord had reversed my conviction. But there was still a process that we needed to go through to see if the digit attorney was going to retry me or just decided to let the case go. We got word that the Supreme Court wanted to look at the case, and so here the agony again. We're now waiting on a Supreme Court to review the appealing courts of decision. But anyway, they elected to um leave the case as it was. But um, I believe they what was that just in they? Yeah, we we passed a new evidence law in California. California had actually the toughest new evidence law in the country. And I know this because I wrote a law of ardicle on topic and read every one of them. And in California, you had to have new evidence that completely undermined every element of the prosecution's case. And so unless you have overwhelming evidence of innocence really anything short at DNA, and you're gonna have trouble winning a case in California. And we got a new law passed in California that mimics the rest of the states that just basically says, if you have evidence that you wouldn't have been convicted at trial had the jury heard it, they wouldn't have convicted you. That's sufficient. And because we had the new evidence law in California. We well surpassed that standard in Guy Miles case. So Guy, you know it's after talking to you and after seeing the video of you on the way home, I feel like I know you already, which is great. I'm looking forward to getting to know you in person. Maybe we'll be doing in some walking together. Um So, but we have a We've come to the point in the show which is my favorite part and I think probably the audience's favorite part, which is a part when I stopped talking. And the tradition here is at the end of each episode, I turned it over to our distinguished guests and let you have the last word, and you can literally say whatever you want about whatever you want. Um I think everybody's me most of all. It's really interested to hear what you have to say. But we're gonna save the best for last, and we're gonna let Justin go first. So Justin, I'm gonna turn it over to you. You know this, this is our collective criminal justice system, right so I don't think we can just sit back and do nothing about all the failings of it, because it's our failings. And that's why I love this show. I love the work that you do. I love our community because we're trying constantly to make the system better. We know we can't perfect it, we know we'll never hit a UM. But there's a lot of changes that can be made so that innocent people don't go to prison, and so the innocent people get out of prison. And Guy Miles is another example of things that can be done to make the system better. Improve identification procedures. Let's stop with the sentences that are so high that people are forced into pleading guilty to things they didn't commit. UM. There's a lot of reforms that we can make. And so I think we learned something about every one of these cases, and we learned something that we need to do. So i'd ask your audience to, you know, take action and get involved, you know, go to our website California Instance Project dot org see things that you can do and and and just get involved. Do jury duty, get involved in your community, be part of the solution, or you're really part of the problem. Guy, we'll turn it over to you now for last words. First of all, I just want to thank the California Innosance Project for even accepting my case, and after accepting my case, going the distance to UM find what was needed to show the judge, the justice system, and everybody else around that there are actual innocent people in jail. My daughter Taja Um, the hardest part being away from her was her first pregnancy, UM, having my grandson. I remember her telling me. I know it was hard for her to tell me that she was praying me at a young age, and you know, I wasn't there too kind of help her through that time, so that was kind of hard for me. But I want her to know that I love her and I don't judge her, and you know, she's always gonna be my little baby. Um. Guy Charles, you know the same to them. You know, those are my boys, and I know it was hard for them while I was away, but I also loved them, and uh, you know, I'm home now. We can put all that behind us and just move forward and just thank God that we're able to, you know, reunite and just you know, be a family and continue doing what we're doing, and that's having fun, talking and enjoying each other's company. And a special thanks to my mother and father, UM definitely for not wavering, being there for me every step of the way, never turning their back on me, Like I there when I got out. They knew I was innocent coming in. They knew I was innocent coming out. Um. They continue to fight for me, even when it looks like things were bad and I wasn't coming home. They never gave up, and they continue their fighting with Justin Ulyssa and the rest of the gang at the California Innocence Project. Um. To everybody else out there who's going through the similar or the same thing that I'm going through, UM, continue to to fight, continue to keep hope alized, just stay strong, and and believe not every d A is bad, not every judge is bad, not every lawyer is bad. But we just have to pray and ask God to just continue giving us strength that we do find a good one. And uh, that's all I want to say. Thank you. Well, it's a it's a pleasure and an honor to have you here. And like I said, I'm looking forward to getting together with you and doing some walking. Um, and I will see you in California and hopefully someday will get you to New York and we'll put the red carpet off for you again. Thanks for being part of it. Give my love to your parents. Guy, I will, I will all right, see you later. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music on the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Say Doug Company Number one

Wrongful Conviction

Hosted by celebrated criminal justice reform advocate and founding board member of the Innocence Pro 
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