Rafael Madrigal and co-defendant Francisco Olivares were charged with committing a drive-by shooting in East Los Angeles on behalf of the Ford Maravilla gang and convicted in January of 2002. Rafael contended his innocence from the beginning; at the time of the shooting he was at work at Proactive Packaging & Display in Rancho Cucamonga, approximately 35 miles away. The petition submitted on Madrigal’s behalf established his alibi and argued that his trial counsel was ineffective in his representation, failing to call an alibi witness or properly investigate the case. During an evidentiary hearing on November 3, 2008, alibi witness Robert Howards, Rafael’s direct supervisor at Proactive, testified that the production line would have shut down had Rafael not been at work. Rafael was the only employee trained to operate the laminating machine and his failure to operate that piece of machinery would have impacted production. Howards was never called as a witness, despite his submission of a notarized alibi statement in Rafael’s defense. An audio tape was also produced during the evidentiary hearing. On the tape was a telephone conversation between Olivares and his girlfriend. In the conversation, Olivares admits that Rafael was not involved in the shooting, nor did he know any details of the crime. The audio tape was never entered as evidence. The alibi witness and audio tape prove Rafael Madrigal’s innocence, and together, both pieces of evidence were crucial in the reversal his conviction.
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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 coming 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 I have an extraordinary person as my guest, a man named Rafael Madrigal. Rafael, welcome to the show. Good morning, And Rafael, you know I often say, and I'm gonna say to you, I'm happy you're here, but i'm sorry you're here because there's absolutely no excuse for what happened to you. And as a member of as an American and as a human, UM, I apologize to you on behalf of everyone because this this story, it literally makes no sense whatsoever. Are you you know better than anyone, UM, And I want and I want to get into all those details because your story has so many things that we see again and again right. It has mistaken ey witness identification. It has an incompetent defense attorney. It has an airtight alibi that anybody in you know, any with any degree of sanity or education or knowledge of justice with nobody could have possibly convicted you based on those factors. But we're gonna unravel all of that and find out how you got charged with first degree murder and how you got exonerated as we go along. But before we do that, let's go back, like at a time machine to uh, when you were a kid, where where did you grow up in California? Yes? I did. I grew up in Los Angeles. So was it a difficult childhood or a happy family life? What? What can you paint the picture for us? So the audience? What what was it like growing up? Actually, it was a lifestyle. I mean, yeah, it was in a ros neighborhood. I mean my early teen years. I mean it was just the bigger people that everybody was going on and you know, trying to find themselves. But later on and if we started getting older than yeah, people started changing. Um, you know, it wasn't rouse the neighborhood. A lot of game violence around and the ninety started hitting. Then yeah, I started getting a little bit worse and worse and worse as time went along, you know, but as myself and then I made the best of it. I graduated from high school. I got a job right after high school. College wasn't for me. I tried it for about a year, and I think, do you know what college is gon for me? So you know, I decided, you know what, I think I've read the work and being that I was already gonna be a father at nineteen, then you know, I knew my responsibility and and that's the Both of those things you just mentioned are important parts of your story. Right, The fact that you did become a father very young, and we know what what this wrongful incarceration took from you. We're gonna we're gonna discuss that. But also the fact that you did start working very young is an important thing as your story was along because of the fact that in your alibi, what made it so air tight, I mean, I was gonna say bullet proof, you know, is the fact that you were a highly skilled person who was the only person that could operate the machinery at your job, which meant that, you know, there's no way you could have committed this crime fifty miles away when you were the only guy there that knew how to do what you were doing, and the whole factory would have shut down, right, So the whole operation was so But let's get into that by way of this crime, right, because it was I mean, this sounds like it was a hit, right, I mean, this was a this was a shooting. Can you can you explain the crime itself? Obviously weren't there, but you're super familiar with. It was a guy named Aguilera, right, the victim, his name was Aguilera. I mean I ended up seeing him when he came to Crisiping Court. But other than that, I've never had seen the gentleman. You know. It wasn't right again that was going on at the time and sloughs Ange List. You know, I was away from the hills today, you know, nowhere near it, and I was still put in a situation where I lost the news of my life. Well, how did and and but and you were since the twenty five to life, which is I mean unimaginable to think of how that must have you know, just devastated you. But how did your name come up in the first place when you so obviously weren't there and you could prove it? And who was it that first? I know there were witnesses that identified you, but how did they even come to bring your name up? Did you ever find out how that happened? Or you know, it all started off with the picture that the sclass Angels, the sheriff had on myself. It pictually took on me when I was it just turned six years old. Um at the time of the crime, I was twenty five already, so they used that picture to show the witnesses in the Victim and they all started with one of the witnesses sag, Okay, wait a minute now. First of all, wait, wait, let's go back. Let's go back for a second. So I fail you were sixteen when your picture was taken. Um, was it even appropriate for that picture to still even be in the books? Isn't that supposed to be sealed after you turn eighteen? I'm not sure. I don't know how exactly that words any stamp using almost a ten year old picture? And what was the original? And IM sorry interrupting, but why why was your picture in the book in the first place? What were what were you picked up for when? And I don't judge anything because I know where you grew up, as a lot of people get picked up for a lot of things. They do the sweeps and everything else. And you know, um, we've had people talk about how they were almost tricked into having their pictures taken and put into the muck Chat book when they were just barely teenagers. And it's also sort of ridiculous to point out that you were they were using a nine year old Can imagine how much your appearance changes from sixteen to um. But yeah, so, so why why was your picture in the book in the first place? A picture that I said it was taking um when they were in front of my house and uh, game unit ended up stooping by and everybody I was there inside my house. They pulled U home out of it, took pictures of us, and they went on their way. Remember did I imagine in my life that that picture was coming? Had me almost ten years later? So yeah, so you were literally doing nothing standing around in front of your own house and they took a picture that ended up turning your life completely upside down for the most random of reasons. And and we'll get into that too. The fact is that we know that there are ways to improve eyewitness identification procedures, including the fact that I'm guessing in your case, like in most cases, they were using six pictures on that page in the Mugshot book. And you know, decades of research have now proven scientifically that the human mind, if you give it that many options, will go towards somebody that sort of resembles a little bit. They'll start, You'll start to make up things subconsciously that don't even that aren't real because you see all these different pictures. So by making the simple change of putting one picture per page, we know that the incidents of wrongful identifications go down by around fift So that's the change that we're trying to get made all over the country and in any case. So so I mean, this is this is an unbelievable thing. So you're now far away, you have no idea what's going on. Somewhere in a police station in these Los Angeles, these witnesses, one of them randomly picks your photo and then what happens. And then from there I knew the Nightmary just started. Um from when the internet happened, I believe the internet took please on it. And uh from there after the incidet I believe they showed the pictures, the pictures to the witnesses. Tell you about that to the witnesses. And fifteen days later after the incident, that's when I got picked up. I got picked up bunch of d that twenty July twice. So paint this picture for us, please. So you're July the twenties, Where were you right July and twenty I had just dropped off my wife's at work. I was because she went a little bit earlier than I did. I talked to us at work. I was heading back home to get ready myself. And when I was driving into I used to live in a could effect at the time. When I was driving in, I noticed that there was a bunch of a shelf deputy patrol cars on the side of the street and they were all putting under gear. And really see them. I say, Oh, they're gonna give somebody a woude awakening right now. Little did I know they were going to my house. And you. I read an article about you in San Francisco magazine, Um, where you were talking about how you were literally I mean they quote you. You said, I was literally living the American dream. And then I got everything pulled out from under my feet. Um, you had two kids at this point, your wife was pregnant, you had a good job, right, so life was looking pretty pretty damn good, right, Yeah, I mean literally had we had just pretty had been in years that we had bottle in a house. Well, I mean I mean that when we were striving for its by own house. We're trying to paint, right, so I mean we put we put on a stick together and everything that we had saved upfore we used to when he would lose. But literally did we know that, I mean, this nightmare was going to start on it. So you had two boys six and three and a little girl on the way and then you get picked up taken in for questioning. I assume right, and explain explained that process. Well. So the funny point is when I when I see the ship of the choke cards in the Coolnest act, I came to the stop sign and they's had a picture of me, I blown up picture that they were going to my house with. So when I got to stop sign, one of the deputies that we had the picture. It just happens to me. He had to peel was looking at the picture at the time when I turned around and I looked at him his left eight and to each other, and he drew his weapon on me and he yelled at me, come to get off my lad So, yeah, surely nothing. I'm off the van. And they said the first thing telling me all they need to talk to you that the station. So I tell him all of this here because they need to talk to me, and he said, you know what, they'll explain to a little bit more. Well, from there, they took me to the station. Um, they put me in a vat outside of the station and they left me there for it, and I say, a good four hours. Um for what reason, I'm not sure, but I was here that four hours. Fowers lady to put me inside the whole degree and I asked again who they talk to me? What do we need to talk to me about? And they said, oh, you know what, they'll talk to you, don't talk to you. Um, that whole day went through, nobody came to talk to me. Uh. Finally there was two other inmates in the cell next to me. When the detectives involved in my case, Kim's talk to them, and I asked him, he who's gonna talk to me? And he says, you know what way to turn, I'll talk to you in that time. So I told him, I'm looking, you're not gonna talk to me now. Let me know. I'm gonna bail out because I gotta go to work. And his words to me, where you know what, I'm gonna got to give you some advice, save your money because you're gonna need it. Who said that to you? One of the leadings all the my case. Now you're there. First of all, this I'm trying to process this whole idea of sitting for four hours in a van, not knowing what's going on, just like just left there. No, I mean, it's got to be a terrifying thing in and of itself. But okay, So now finally they come and talk to you and they tell you you're being charged with first degree murder. Yeah, no, I actually no, they didn't come back to me. It was into my arrangment because I gotta rested on Thursday morning. I got a rained on Monday morning the following week. When I went into my arrayment, the seem to take the can you talk to me? And he asked me, but my co defended and he asked me, what was the last thing you see him? Right? And this is an important point because the co defendant ultimately testifies that you were not involved. Right, No, he didn't testify to it. What it was was that there was a type recording from the county jail because me and me and my co defended. I was fresh to tell me who did this? I know, I haven't what you to do with this? Somebody else was with you? And he just got like very upset because I was questioning them, and I told me, you know what I'm mean it to be is this. I have nothing to do with this. So me and him got into a real big argument and we ended a bid to a fight. Two days later, his girlfriend came and visit him in the county jail. Well, when his girlfriend came to visit him, he had a black guy and his girlfriend started question what's going wrong with you? What's going on with you? And said of the jail. So he told us, you know what, I'm gonna tell you. The children's when that's going on. You know what, Ralph has nothing to do with this. He's asking around who who was involved? And I told him a spell of his business and he needs to keep this his questions to himself and he shouldn't have nobody else asking about this crime. And that was that was That was all of ours who said that, Yes, that was all of artus. And originally when the KIP recording came to life, um, they had told my my my attorney that it was me in the in the temper recording confessing to the claim. So right, he said, Travis said, we gotta tempically was he confecting to the crime? Were didn't use it? So when my attorney asked me about this recording, I said, look at Andrew's names. That understand. I said, look at from the day that I hired. I told you I had nothing to do with this. I'm not going to change up on you. I still stand a d percent that I have nothing to do with this. So he teld me, Okay, you know what, We're gonna ask for an extension and I'm gonna listen to the recordings and we'll come back in a month. So hope later we come back. And I asked him what happened the recording? Well, let's know what, don't worry about it. There's nothing that can help you and there's nothing that can hurt you. None of that makes any sense. So first of all, let me backtrack. Were you out on bail or you and were you locked up this whole time? Well? I was, like I I told this whole time because originally when I went from my rain and my bail was at verty cousin. When I went to my rain and they raised my bail for thirty kinds of dollars to two million dollars, two millions so they didn't want you going anywhere. Um. And and this attorney who we know um made a series of mistakes that are literally out ages is the only word I can think of to explain um the nature the so many of them and so egregious that any law student would have been able to handle this case better than he did. Obviously this was a quarter point of attorney. I'm assuming No, actually he was a private attorney. Wow, So this was a private attorney. I mean, was he Do you have any theory as to what was wrong with him in terms of was why why was he so ill suited for this job? Like? What was there something going on in his personal life? Was there some did you ever find out? No? Actually, you know what when when my family first tired of I mean, he talked a real good story to my friends and you know that I'm gonna get a home and I'm gonna prove the innocence, and I mean he just said everything that need be said. But as turn was going buying postponement of the postponement, it's like his hold meanor just change is like you know, like he just literally gave it up from the case because he of the almost three years that I spent in the county jail fighting this case. One time he came to visit me. That was when my family hired him. After that, never again did he come and see me, asked me questions, nothing, It was just I would only see him one would go to court. He came to see you one time in three years. In three years, Oh my god. You know this is so it's so outrageous, and it's amazing too. You know. I'm just finishing reading the amazing book by Anthony ray Hinton called The Sun Does Shine. How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony ray Hinton with Lara love Harden, and in it he talks about Brian Stevenson, the legendary attorney who would visit him on death row over fifteen years, like incredible in a remote prison in Alabama, and here it is like one time in three years. I like, I'm you know, I'm so angry at this whole thing. It's like I can't I can't process how that could even be. And then in the meantime he also made like mistakes that are unimaginable in terms of the idea that you had a tape recording. I'm just reflecting on this, Right, you had a tape recording with the actual perpetrator saying that you his co defendant, wasn't there, and and he he couldn't even work with that, Like he couldn't even and he's telling you that the tape recording doesn't matter, and then he doesn't bring it up at court, among other things, right, because I'm not stopping there. I mean the idea that during the trial he was unable to he did well, he wasn't unable. He didn't call your coworker who would have testified and said that it was impossible for you to have committed this crime since, as I said earlier in the podcast, the whole you were the only guy there that could operate the machinery. So and we know that the machinery was operating, and we know that you were. You were there, you were clocked in, you were I mean, it's just mine aggling to me how you know how this could have transpired the way it did. But but and you lived it, so so I want to get to this, so it finally comes to the trial. It took three years to get to trial, Yeah, about two half years, which is crazy in itself, and Meanwhile, your your kids are are growing up without their father. Your wife is in the situation of trying to figure out how to make ends meet, which I know that ultimately she had to move out of the house that your dream house, because I mean, who can raise three kids and work a job and I mean it's uh, you know. And in the meantime, she's left with the task of trying to explain to the kids. I'm sure they're asking, when's daddy coming home? Right, I mean, it's just it's so I mean, it's so much. It's just so much. So you finally come to trial, and by the time you've got to trial, now, I mean, you've got to be almost a basket case by this point. I'm literally just I mean words wouldn't need and paper explain it. And just the worst part about it was that the doubt was there from the beginning year for the prosecution. Keep in mind, I went through fort just t attorneys. It wasn't until the fourth one that decided to take you to trial. The first three came in. I mean the first one, Mr Dan Baker, which was the top gang prosecutor in Los Angeles County at the time, and he came and he told my my my attorney at the time, you know what, I have an offer for him. My offer for him is twenty five a life. That's the anything that will offer him. You know. A year later he leaves the case. They bring another prosecutor in form another another city, and he comes in the same way. You know what. There's no deals, there's no deals. Finally, when he's up, maybe about ten months into the case, he says, you know what, I might have a deal for you. Um, we'll see how that turns out. Uh. The following went, he was off the case. They bought another gentleman from the figure Compton. He was on the on the case for a month. He let the case go. They finally brought in Mrs Ramis Mariams, which is the one that finally took me to trial, and she's the one that finally convicted me, you know. And my team was Rob, Rob, Well, you tried, uh if it's okay if I call you rap? Were you tried together with all of ours or separately? No? Together? But he didn't take the stand and you had the tape recording. But but the lawyer didn't bother to to tell anybody about this tape recording where he was admitting that you weren't there exactly. It's like the same recording. The prosecution is the one that brought them to light. But at the end nobody used them. And when we when we got our appeal granted, and we came to the Federal Court hall and he asked Mr Stein about the tape recordings. All he responded was, you know what I did. My secretary listen to them. Wow, my secretary listened to them. Doesn't that say at all right? That that that is what's so nuts to me is that there are that there are people in this less justice system I call it sometimes injustice system that are so cavalier about someone's life. Because in your case, we really it really was your life. Life is a life sentence, let's face it. I mean, there's life sentence. As a twenty five year old man, you're basically looking at spending the rest of your life behind bars. And this guy had his secretary listen to the recording. Okay, that's I'm just gonna think about this for a second. So when you went to trial, by now you I mean, I'm assuming you had lost faith in your attorney, had had did you consider firing him, hiring somebody else, well thought a system of which you could and can do. It was my first time, in opinion, a position like this. Keep in mind out I have never been arrested the food I have never been before, So I really was lost. You know, My only guidance was by its right. And you want and you want to have you want to have faith in him at this point, I'm assuming because you need to have faith in somebody or something, and he's your advocate, he's your champion. But when you went to trial, did you feel like, how can I say this? Did you feel like you were going to be exonerated? I mean, at this point the system had already, you know, showing you it's its worst sides. So but but still you knew you were innocent. So what was your like going in to the court room finally after all these years or two and a half years, three years, did you feel like you were going to be exonerated? Or you were you like, oh, you know that they've got me and that's going to be it? No, actually know, I like, honestly, I never did my feet in the truth. I was always under the impression of what once I go to trial. I'm going to be able to prove my innocence. I'm gonna prove it. And the trial messed two days deliberationousness in my childhood, deliberations on four days, and they kept and they kept on coming back, they kept on coming back. Question mean my alibi. So the doubt was there from the beginning. It wasn't but out just to the jury, it was. It was there from the beginning, even with the prosecution. But here's another thing. As I was reading and rereading your story, I was thinking, you're sitting there next to your lawyer. He's not calling your alibi witness. Uh, from the I don't know what the guy's name was, from the factory or was it a factory, or what was the place that you were working at? What was it called? It was it was a manufacturing company to inn And what was the name of the guy who never was called that should have been called and could have actually, you know, absolutely without any doubt, established your your alibi as being factual. That was the manager Bob Howard's Was he in the courtroom? No, he was never in the com room. Actually he got to the pod. And to my understanding, my attorney told him that he was not going to be called testified, but he did show up. Did you at any point say to your attorney, where is Bob Howard? Why isn't he here? Why aren't you calling him to the stand? No, I mean I was. My head was just just so lost when I kept on just hearing how the persecution kept on just making me look like this animal, you know. And even when the victim himself got up on the stand and they asked him, do you see the person who shot who shot you here today in this school, the gentleman said, the person shot me, he's not here. He wasn't lying, he was on the lame. He was saying the truth. But what would make that bad was that right after he got us to stand, was that they detected the room, understand, and they asked him to take to the mood. Why do you feel I'm the struglia is saying that the person who shot him is not here. So his comments were, oh, why he feels he didn't want to be labeled a snitch. He doesn't want to be labeled a rat. He doesn't want any repercussions. But it was never that the gentleman was saying the truth, a person that shot him was not important. Um Um again trying to figure. I'm trying to put myself inside the mind of the jury because even with such even with such a I mean inadequate is not as strong enough word, but even with such an incompetent, it's interested. Even still, with that alone, you would think that the jury would go, well, okay, I guess that's it, you know. But and obviously they thought long and hard before they finally decided what they decided and and sentenced you to to this this terrible uh, this terrible term in prison. Um. So that moment, it must have been the worst moment of your life. Um, I mean, I can't imagine anything worse. When the jury came back in, did they look at you with your family in the courtroom? Can you was it hot? Was it cold? Do you remember? Can you paint the picture for us of what that was like? Um? And I don't remember clearly, Like it was yesterday. It was almost days in for the jury, and that I was under their passion. It was I believe a flighting. They were gonna just bring us back on Monday. Um. The bailiff called us, called us in from the from the holding tank decision of when I think they came back with the verdict three o'clock to me thirty in the afternoon, and I remember my palms were sweating so bad, and I don't know if it was hot and narrow it was cold. I was. I was like this, you know, and the jury came back and just hearing those words, you know, when we find the defending guilty, It's like if I had the world on my shoulders at the time of the world just came crashing down on me, and you can't help thinking, oh, sorry, go ahead, rough. I mean, it was just then turning along to see my family and just everybody breaking down, trying because they knew the truth. I mean, nobody better than my family knew the truth. And them hearing the words guilty is like they just took the air out of their all of us. And I can't help thinking that the fact that it was the weekend coming up and the jury didn't want to have to come back or be I don't know if they were sequestered, but that probably played a role inside that room of them saying you know what. Maybe there was one or two holdouts and they finally said, you know what, this weekend and Monday, and I gotta go to work whatever. And so for anybody who's listening, I always say, please, if you get called for jury duty, first of all, show up and know it's annoying, it's difficult, it's in a position on all of our show up, serve under jury, pay attention, and remember that somebody like Raphael is hanging in the balance. His whole life is hanging in the balance. When you're sitting there, and you know that's it's all of our duty to our fellow citizens, urfel human beings that we give it, you know, all the attention that it deserves, and that we remember that these mistakes happen as often as they do, and you're living proof of it. So you go to you you're now convicted, a sense of the twenty five years to life. The worst thing that could possibly happen. You go to prison. I guess I want to get to the I want to get to the good part, right that the exoneration and what's happening now. But if you can tell us during those see you have been waiting almost three years for the trial, and you were in for another almost seven and the maximum security prison. Yeah, and was that as bad as as everyone is imagining it to be? Was there anything? Was there any bright spot in that whole time? Were there what was the best and the worst aspect of that entire miserable time of seven years? And and then again this is an adding because you're in for almost ten but the seven years inside prison after you had been tried and convicted, you know, I could honestly say the best point almost of those ten years was coming across um Eric Moultop, which was the the attorney who originally contacted the California into spudget. Mr Moultop was referred to me by my state appointed appeal attorney, Laura Stiffer. And when Laura SI forgot my case originally after I got sentence, you know, she was very honest with me. She told me the way it was, the system works. She says, Look, if you've gotta understand, we're state appointed appeal attorneys. They don't pay us to do extra lay words. They just pay us to do push payboard three days. You know, but after going through your case, you're not supposed to be here. And I told him, you know what, I know, I'm not supposed to be here. And she went as far as tell him, but you know what, You're gonna have to get a private attorney to be able to help you out, and she referred me to the gentleman Eric Moltop out of Valley, California, and the ghentleman from the beginning. When he got ahold of my case, he contacted me and within a month a month and a half, I want to say, he wrote me a letter and it's doing to me. Goes, look at uh, I write your case already. I don't know what you're doing in president. You know, we need to get you home. And from there he got the bond rolling. He started investigating. And the first thing that I came him when he came to visit me, I told him, Eric, I don't think I need you to do is because I have never listened to the tape recordings. I asked him, please listen to the stape according to something there is always still in the back of my mind. There has to be says there, and he goes, okay, you know what, I'm gonna listen to him. I kid you know. Maybe within a month he went back to the prigms in the game and he asked me, is that you know, the typical. I said, look, Garrett, I haven't listened to them. I don't know what's in them. So he brought a copy and tape recordings and he played it and assuming as he the first word came out of the tape recordings, I told him that's Francisco. I recognized his voice immediately. He said, are you sure, I said, look at him, A hundred Percentially that Francisco. The waters and the tape accordions, and that's what just got the ball rolling. We're able to admit the tape recordings back into over it because originally the prosecuted prosecution is the one that you brought them out to light, but they were never used. So there it goes, you know what, I gotta get this back in there. And sure enough, that was one of the key things that the magistrate in the federal appeals court asked, why were these tape requardies never used in his defense? The damn good question, um, And and it was newly discovered evidence at that point as well, which is great. So okay, so let's fast forward. Now, what must have been maybe other than the to your kids or I don't know, but must have been the happiest day of your life, which is the day that you were back in court. How did you get end up getting exonerated? Released? And it must have been like this million pound ways lifted off your shoulders now, so can you explain that? Well? The flip site was that we first had a final motion for nevile injury hearing um, and we got that adventurer hearing granted. So I was brought from prison back down to Orange County with the evident you're here was going to take place. So during that evidence you're hearing, we were able to call my attorney who represented me, we put him understanding, and we were able to bring Mrister Bob Howard's and put him on the stand. So, I mean, all the pieces that we're missing at the trial, we put them in front of the federal courthouse and that's what was able to bring the light. So um. Once we got Mr Stein under Stein understanding, he was able to just literally deny everything that he did and also put Mr Was understanding him admit you know what he was at work. I'm a positive he was at work. There's no way he could have been gone. You know. That's what took turn bottom. Uh, this was in October. In June of two thousand and nine, my appeal was granted. I mean, how did you feel? What were you? Were? You freed from the courtroom, explained the whole thing, because this is my favorite part of the show, right, the good part. Right. Well, the next day, all that day I just said all night, literally, I slipped not one hour of shout. I the next morning, I'm thinking, Okay, they're gonna clume me early in the morning. Then they're gonna watch me out seven o'clock, y in eight o'clock. That then finally at when the deputies came to the to myself and said, you know, Wenna, get your stuff ready. I gotta take you down to our which is receiving a release and U he told me, oh, you're turning supposed to be here to pick you up at eleven o'clock. But if he's not here, we have to at your gor those best of court order, so you live in o'clock king And they walked me to the gate and Mr Eric Boltop was there waiting for me. You know, it was it was an unexplainable relief happiness. I don't know if there was just a bunch of emotions going for me. You know, my dad just passed away eight months earlier, so it was it was just a bunch of things going through my mind. You know, how was I going to get back into society? What was I gonna do? You know, it's just a million things going through your mind. I get home, man, there's a bunch of cameras waiting for me, my family. I mean literally, it was the best day of my life. The only bad about it, and then my dad wasn't there waiting for me. I want to talk about something else that's really important in your case, and I know we don't have a lot of time left, but you were ultimately fully exonerated, conviction, reverse charges dropped, declared, actually innocent. Is that right? And so it's amazing rough because I've been doing this work for six years now and I talk about it all the time, no matter where I am, I'm always talking about it, and I tell these stories about your case, about all these different cases that I know, because it drives me crazy. And the first question everybody asks me is did he get did the person, the men or woman the exonery did they get compensated? The first thing everybody wants to know, their eyes get real wide, they say, did the guy get? I hope they got. And I have to tell them, well, it's not what you think. And your living proof of that, right because you have gone through almost like another trial. It's real. It is another trial, just trying to get what's do for you. And in California the compensation statute and I'm I'm working on getting it fixed. But it's so crazy. Can you explain that a little bit? Because most people think you get out they send you a check. Hey man, sorry, we've messed up your life, like, uh, you know, let me give you a little way to get started here, you know, but that's not the way it is. It's actually total opposite. I mean California, and it's sad to say that California open until recently, their whole evonerae invaleration passes was never there. I mean, the gates open for you, and you know, there's no apology, there's no like you said, a check waiting for there's nothing waiting for you. It's the opening and they just kick you out into the world. You know, I've been out um as a matter of fact, it's been nine years. On Saturday, October six, it's been my nine year anniversary that I've been home. Happy birthday. Thank you. Up until now, I haven't seen any type of help from the State of California. I've been to hearings after hearing, and every time we go with it's like a new trial because you have these people on the board who are more into denying you, not the compensation, but the truth, denying you to keep on denying the truth, you know, for what reason. I don't know. I don't know what The holes gome back from saying, you know what a mistake was made here, we have to fix it. But up until this day, nobody, nobody in the State of California, I said, you know what we done? These people aren't. We have to fix it. And I'm not the only one. There's several individual exagnories that out here in California where I've been compensated during the same situation that I'm in. They've been fighting for their competition for six and eight nineteen years now, I know, and I've read some of those stories and it's really horrible, including some that have ended up going back to prison just because they haven't been able to support themselves because they're facing the same thing that you're facing, which is that coming out and having to tell their perspective employer that they have a conviction even though it was overturned, and then they're either not getting hired or getting uh fired from the jobs that they you know that they should have. UM. I think as a society, we have to open our hearts and minds, and we have to open our companies. I talked to c e O, S and and and other people in positions of power that run big companies about this all the time. I think there's a lot more openness to this now, UM to this concept that we need to give people a second chance, innocent or guilty, but particularly if you're innocent, UM, to get back on their feet and um. And yet people like uh Kenneth Foley is a classic example, right, who was convicted of arm robbery ty five years to life and exonerated two thousand seven and then denied compensation and I couldn't get a job and ultimately had PTSD and all these other things that ended up with a fifteen year sentence for a vehicular manslaughter because he was high on drugs or whatever it was. I mean, it's a tragedy on top of a tragedy. So it's amazing to stay is willing to pay all this money to keep you locked up, but they're not willing to pay anything to help you when you get out. It's so strange. What do you and and and Rob? It's like to me, it seems like the people sitting on that board their job should be to figure out how to get you this money and how to help you manage it once you do get it. That would be the job of that board. If I was running it, I would say, Okay, let's make sure that not only are you gonna get it, but you're gonna know how to invest it. We're gonna show you how to you know what I mean any because a lot of people in your situation coming out and what you are actually successful businessmen already, but many people are not and their first experience having a lump sum of money. So how would you fix this? Because it's crazy you're literally having to prove your innocence again after a judge and a jury and and a prosecutor everybody else has decided you're innocent. How would you fix the system? What do you think it should be? Well, I think the first thing off the top. It makes no sense to me for you to put a prosecutor on the compensation board. I mean, to me, that's the number one the biggest mistake they can do. You know, a prosecutor. To me, it will always be a prosecutor no matter how you look at it. You know, he's never gonna go against other prosecutors who probably convicted you and they know for a fact you were innocent. Um, this is a situation that happened in my in my, in my situation. You know, Mr Mike Romos, who was no longer on the board, But I mean this, he never once did he even take the time to say, you know what, I have an innocent individual here in front of me. What am I going to do fixest problem? Instead, he was up on that seat being a prosecutor. He questioned me so much in regards to what took place twenty years ago, instead of focusing on you know, we have an individual case of it. It's important to recognize that there are thirty one states that have compensation statutes and nineteen that have none. And even then in some of those states it's only you have to have a DNA proof or you have to have this or that. Um, it's not. It's not a streamlined system like it should be. I think to me, once you've proven innocent and you're out, there should be there's like in Texas, there should be a very ironically, Texas has the best system. You get eighty thousand per year for every year you in you get an annuity. And sort of ironic that Texas, which most people would think would have one of the worst systems, actually has one of the best. UM. I know why that is. It's thanks to uh Rodney Ellis, who was a state senator who passed a bill that that just really changed it, uh turning it upside down. And we need to do the same thing in California, and and and there are a lot of you should know, there are a lot of good people working on it. And I'm going to be helping to lead this charge to fix it for you and for everyone else like you, because it's absolutely it's it's disgusting in my opinion that you are now having to fight. And by the way, not only is it as you said, it's the opposite of what it should be because on top of everything else, you have to make time in your life, which you have enough obligations with three kids, work, struggling, everything else, to go and appear at all these different hearings and everything else. It's ridiculous. There should just be a check in the mailbox for you with your name on it that says, hey, good luck, sorry this happened to you, you know, looking forward to seeing you succeed, moving forward, hope to help something like that, you know what I mean. But man, it's it's really uh. I think it's so important that you're here and talking about this because that problem has to get fixed, and it has to get fixed at the highest levels, right And I think I'm gonna be I'm gonna be keeping in touch with you. It's all right, because I'm gonna call on you maybe to have some meetings with some you know, people in positions of power who can who can make these changes, because I believe if if the people that make these decisions are made aware, which is why it's so important that you're here, they're going to want to fix this because it's it's it's just it just doesn't make any sense. But I just think people aren't really focused on it. So the more attention we can bring, the better it's going to be obviously for you and everybody else. So before before we have to wrap up, UM, I wanted to ask you one more question. There's actually two more questions. One question, UM, how are how is your How are your kids doing? My kids are doing great? UM, thank god. You know. My oldest Andrew, he's turning forward. He has about one more year, about a year and a half left a Long Beach State, UM to complete his major. My second oldest, he just gotta to accept this letter to a Long be State and went to Kell State Foods. And also so I mean, family wise, I cannot complete one bit. You know. I thank god that I came out. That my wife done so a great job with them in those ten years, you know, guided them in the right direction. And now these kids are and they're they're leading a good life. It's amazing that that's really an amazing testament to them. And like you said to your wife, because to grow up in that situation without their dad, um, and and to be able to you know, take that adversity and turn it into we can call it triumph. Because it sounds like they're they're they're knocking it out of the park. I mean, they're they're doing amazing and that's UM. And it's also it's also a tribute to you, UM. I mean, you obviously have had a tremendously positive influence on them. So you know, I wish I wish you and them all the best, UM and everything that you deserve before we go, and I know you have to run, but I always like to end the show the same way, which is that I like to This is I think everyone's favorite part of the show. And I stopped talking and I just first of all, want to thank you again for being here, taking time I'm out of your schedule to share your story with the audience here on wrong Conviction. And now I'm going to turn it over to you just for any last thoughts that you want to share about anything. So the microphone is yours, and thank you again for being here. Thank you. UM Well, I just want to take the time, more than anything to thank my family and my wife, my kids, my mom, my dad who was no longer with me, but I mean all my things comes to him because he was one of the ones always in the front right with me fighting for this. UM. I also want to thank Justin and all of the California Instry project Eric Moltop. Eric Moltop was the key piece two invonerating me to getting me home, you know, and last but not least, you know, to those prosecutors and to take this out there, you know, if usually we need you know, take the time to investig get your cases. Don't just look for a conviction. It's not right putting people in prison for times. If they commit you're not only destroying their life, but you're destroying many lives behind, their kids, their families, I mean, their parents. It just takes a toll on society itself. You know. I was one of the lucky ones who had only took two years too. But there's gentleman's out there who were concerted for twenty thirty years. Thirty years later, there's not a life AUTI for you. You know, everything has changed. UM. I think that's that's a great way to wrap up. I'm glad you brought up the California Innocence Project. UM. I've had Justin on the podcasts UM a couple of times, I think, and he is a huge source of inspiration for me and everybody in the movement. Of course, right now he's marching to Sacramento, UM to deliver to deliver petitions for clemency on behalf of the California twelve. And uh, he's he really is just a great, great man. And I want encourage everyone to go to UM California Innocence Project dot org. That's California Innocence Project dot org. Get involved, volunteer, donate, hold the fundraiser, do a big sale, whatever your thing is. There's too many people in the same situation that Raphael was in and we need to go get them out. And uh, and I will say to you now again, Rafael, and I'll never stop fighting. Um. There's a there's a ton of good people who care about you and everyone else like you out there. So UM, I'm gonna I know you've gotta get to work, so I'm not gonna hold you up anymore. But thanks again. I'm looking forward to meeting you uh in California the next time. And uh and uh and all my best to you and your family. 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 joy in me and 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 in 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 Signal Company Number one