#080 Jason Flom with Crystal Weimer - RE-RELEASE

Published Dec 17, 2018, 5:33 PM

Curtis Haith was beaten to death and shot outside of his home in western Pennsylvania. Police determined that the evening before Haith had attended a party in Uniontown, PA. Crystal Weimer, whose sisters hosted the party, and her cousin had driven Haith home and returned directly to the party. Crystal became the focus of the investigation after an ex-boyfriend told authorities she confessed. The charges were dropped when he recanted, but police re-filed the charges in 2004 with the use of statements given by Joseph Stenger, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy of homicide of Haith while he was serving time for unrelated robbery charges. Stenger testified that Crystal had an earlier physical altercation with Haith, and she enlisted Stenger and two unidentified black men to return to Haith’s house after where she lured him outside, and they beat him to death and shot him in the face. At her trial in 2006, the only physical evidence that directly tied Crystal to the crime scene was an alleged bite mark on the victim’s arm. Expert odontologist Dr. Constantine Karazulas told the jury that a mark on the victim’s hand was a bite mark made minutes before he died, and that Crystal is the one who bit him. During closing argument, the prosecution told the jury that the jailhouse informants who testified against her at the trial had not asked for any leniency on their own cases in return for their testimony. Crystal Weimer was convicted of third-degree murder and conspiracy to commit homicide and sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison. She continued to fight for her innocence, acting as her own lawyer and filing motions for post-conviction relief, but all were denied until a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed on her behalf. In December 2014, Joseph Stenger ultimately recanted all of his statements and admitted that prosecutors dropped more serious charges against him in exchange for his testimony against Crystal. In early 2015, Dr. Constantine Karazulas, that same expert declared his own trial testimony "junk science" and "invalid." In February 2015, Crystal, represented pro bono by the Pennsylvania Innocence Project and the firm of Jones Day, filed a motion for a new trial based on the discredited bite mark evidence and the recantations of key witnesses. Her lawyers had also discovered that the prosecution had failed to disclose to Crystal’s trial counsel that the jailhouse informants had written letters to the prosecution requesting favorable treatment, which showed that the informants had testified falsely at trial when they denied they sought deals for their testimony. A new trial was ordered on October 1st, 2015, and Crystal Weimer was released the same day on bond after serving 11 years in prison. She was forced to wear an electronic ankle bracelet for another nine months until the judge dismissed the charges with prejudice, and she was finally exonerated in June 2016. Crystal is joined by one of her attorneys from the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, Nilam Sanghvi, in this episode.

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I think we have the best legal system. It's just the people that implemented they get lost along the way and forget what the job really is. He just kept on trying to remind me that who was in the authority, who was in control, and how easy it was for my body to be found in any reality of New York City. It's a tough prison when you have the guards going against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison. They do that. They'll give a guy a life sentence and go home and eat spaghetti like it was nothing. And anybody that would say, well, why would you confess to something that you didn't do? My question to them will be why wouldn't you confess when somebody is threatening to kill your life? Judge? He said, how you feel? I said, I'm okay, he said, with the Dad's you're lucky thing you go on. This is wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Today we have a very special episode. We have two fabulous Pennsylvania ladies. Are very special. Guest is Crystal Weimer, who is an exonerree from Western Pennsylvania. January two thousand one, someone killed Curtis hath outside his Fayette County home. He had been beaten and shocked after being convicted of plotting the murder that spanned three towns in Fayette County. Crystal was behind bars for twelve years at the time. They said her teeth led them to her. The dental impression was taken of her teeth and they were compared to a picture of a bite mark on the victim's body, which were found to be a match. Actually, that's not true. A scientific expert who testified to all of that in court later said it was junk science and he was wrong. At today's post conviction Relief Act, doctor Contatine car Zulas testified that a bite mark fan on the victim's hand was Wimer's do to a bite mark analysis that he now considers to be junk science. After Dr Carrazulas testified and without hearing any further testimony, President Judge John Wagner granted a retrial for Wimer. It was Crystal who started her own path to freedom, acting as her own attorney, filing paperwork. The Pennsylvania Innocence Project and the Jones Day Law Firm got involved. They found other problems with the police investigation and the prosecution and convinced to judge she is not the killer. Wimer's attorneys believe the real killer has never been caught. Crystal, Welcome to the show, Thank you. And with Crystel is her fabulous lawyer, Nilam Sanvi, who is the legal director of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, and really looking forward to hearing from you and learning from the first time we've had someone from the Pennsylvania Instance Project on the show. So welcome, thanks, very happy to be here. So, Crystal, your story is insane, even by our very lofty standards of insanity. Here at wrongful conviction. You had the whole pot peri of causes of wrongful conviction. I mean, your case involved false confession by a co defendant, It involved police and prosecutorial misconduct. It involved bite mark evidence, which we know is what a politely horseshit right. And there's more. It's a fascinating study and terrifying study into just how many things can go wrong. So let's go back to two thousand and one and even before you grew up in Pennsylvania and what was that like, what was your We always like to spend a few minutes talking about what life was like before this catastrophe happened. It was good. I used to work at a plan in newsday and assembling TVs and radios and things of that nature. And I was working three on three off, two on two off days, twelve hour shifts. I was a single mother, raising my children by myself. My oldest is Rose, she was ten, Miranda was seven, and the baby was Bridget and she was four. The high life of my life was them raising them and making sure they were off to school. And I went to work, and I was living life on an everyday basis. Not an easy life by any stretch, right, working a difficult job, but a good job, and still raising three kids. And I have so much respect for single moms everywhere I see the amount of work that goes into raising children. It's incredible. So the idea that you were able to hold it together, you know, while working, is really my hat's off to you. So how could this have possibly happened? How could you sort of, I guess you could call a typical American, right, working, raising children, living sort of a regular type of place. Right, How could you become ensnared in this craziest possible situation? I don't even have the answers. I don't know how to even say how it all began. Or let me give some details to the audience, and then, Neil, if you could jump in any time you want. So, this was a case where a guy named Curtis Haith was murdered outside his apartment building around four am on January seven, two thousand and one. And I guess the only reason that it even any attention was paid to you in the first place was because that night you had been at a party with him, right, with a lot of other people. Yes, attending a party with somebody and murdering them or very different legally speaking, right, I mean, I think what the police did made sense because when this man died, they wanted to know, okay, who else saw him, what was he doing? So it actually kind of made sense as a starting point for the investigation to talk to everybody'd been with. But then obviously things took a wrong turn from that point on. Right, So, Crystal, you and a friend had given him a ride home from the party around ten o'clock, right, it was me and my cousin, yes, But then you went back to the party. I went back to where I was right, and he was murdered six hours later or so, at four o'clock in the morning. And by that time, I'm assuming you were home asleep with your kids. So how did this start to go wrong? Because it took a long time. I mean, this kid, this was a cold case, right, you know right? They investigated for about a year after Mr. Hayes murder and really didn't have any leads. They questioned Crystal and a lot of other people, but I didn't really have any leads. And then about a year into it, they brought in a Pennsylvania State trooper from the Cold case Squad to try to investigate more. Because this is a relatively small town and an unsolved thomaside is kind of big news. So they brought in the cold case squad and it's at that point that they started looking into the potential bite mark evidence that really became a lynch pin of the case against Crystal as things went for word. So the victim had been bitten, well supposedly, we don't based on what we know now, are not even sure whether it was a human bite mark. There was an oval shaped bruise on the victim's hand that was not identified as a bite mark during the autopsy. But when this person from the cold case squad came in and was looking at the autopsy photographs, she saw it and said, well, I think this is a bite mark, even though she was not a dentist or an odentologist by training, and then started looking at it from that angle. So the trained mortician or a corner right, the forensic pathologists right that did the autopsy wasn't able to see a bite mark and clearly was looking for any signs that they could find because it was a murder, right, And we looked into this when we were investigating the case. What do you look for in an autopsy? And if you're a forensic pathologist, bite marks are one of the things, even at that time, that you were supposed to look for, an account for, and preserve in a certain way if you saw it. And the pathologist did none of those things, right, So when I'm what I'm trying to wrap myself around here is and this is just the first of so many I mean, wacky is is a weird way to put it, but so many whacking things about this case. But I'm trying to wrap myself around is the idea that you have a trained pathologist, forensic pathologist who is examining the body and looking with a fine tooth comb or microscope, would ever wanna call it for any signs of foul play, but yet does not see or report anything to do with any bite marks. But yet a state trooper, right, there's no train in this area. Right, A lay person is going to look at a photograph one dimensional a year later and go, I got this. I figured it out like some sort of Sherlock Holmes moment and say, oh, that's a bite mark. And we know, from having examined an uncovered and had to undo cases around the country related to bite mark evidence, it is probably the junkiest form of science that there is. I mean, there's so many cases that we've seen where they don't know whether it's a human bite mark. It could be an animal, it could be totally something totally right, it could be a right exactly. So this was the beginning of what became a real life nightmare for Crystal. So then things start getting really tangled, right, and really complicated, because there's a whole cast of characters here that are all out for themselves and are all working across purposes and all working at trying to will save their own asses. Right, this is where the incentivized witness thing comes into play, right, Do you want to talk about that a little bit. Yeah, So, the incentivized witnesses in this case, it's interesting, actually didn't start even coming forward until Crystal had already been arrested and charged with the murder. So after this spite mark story comes out there talking to other people, and there's a guy in the county jail named Joey Stenger who offers to give the police some information about Crystal and about this murder, and he's got a bunch of charges, so I think he was hoping for something, but at this point he wasn't promised anything, so it wasn't really incentivized at that point. But he essentially confesses to committing the murder and implicates Crystal in it with him. So they moved forward based on the spite mark evidence, based on this witness Joey Stenger, and some other things they had cobbled together. And then years after Curtis's death in two thousand four and two thousand five, when Crystals in the county jail, you get other prisoners coming out of the woodwork saying they've heard Crystal confess to them, which just seems ludicrous given the you know, in particular the amount of time that had passed since the murder, and they, as it turns out, we found that much later, we're all asking for deals in exchange for implicating Crystal. Again, we're supposed to believe that you, in an effort to purge your soul, are going up to total strangers in the jail and telling each of them your story about how you murdered Curtis hath one night in January of two thousand and one. But the sad part was, I didn't even know a lot of the people. I just met them through testimony or paperwork and stuff to that nature. I didn't I never even met him, like on a face to face basis, So I didn't even know who most of them were. So what happened here, it sounds to me like is going back fifteen years to win all this stuff was taking place, is that, as we see time and again, the police and prosecutor came up with a theory and then in the absence of any physical evidence, because it wasn't any, they had to figure out a way to convince a jury that you were this cold blooded killer. Did you have prior violent arrests in your past? No, you never murdered anybody else, never like you can blow up anything record. No, you weren't like a You weren't like a mugger, car thief. That he was kidding. I mean, like I said, you find sense of humor and all this madness. I tried to because otherwise it's just too depressing. So yeah, they would have had without having gone to these lengths that they did to fabricate evidence against you. The very hard to imagine the jury would have convicted you, because what would they have said, Here's this woman who is raising three children, working a job, respectable citizen, with no prior history of violence. One day just up and murdered this guy four o'clock in the morning, and we have no evidence to show you, but you should take our word for it. That basically would have been the case of judge. I mean, somebody would have thrown that thing out. Our jury would have said, they would have taken ten minutes, and they would have said, this is ridiculous, We're going home, right. And actually the charges against Crystal were thrown out the very first time they tried to bring them. This is when the additional informants and people start coming in, and they charged her again, and it was the second time that the charges stuck. So what you're saying actually did happen essentially the first time around. Yes, that's in two thousand four, right, which is already more than three years after the crime was committed. The case was dismissed against you because Beale recanted his earlier aim that you committed the murder and he refused to testify. He was the very first one that recaned. Joey Singer was the second one that recaned his statement. So whenever Bill recan it, they released me. But they never released me because of prejudice. They just released me and the judge gave them the option to refile charges against me for the second arrest. So I was begging to go back to prison, which is absurd, knowing that they were going to do this again to me, just to have a trial so I didn't have to go through all this again the second time. And then who's taking care of your children this well, my two oldest daughters were with their grandmother whenever all this took place. She was putting them off to school and making sure they were okay. Well that year, whenever I got released, I had three different apartments, Like I was trying to come out and get myself back together, and here they come again. It was just crazy. So I couldn't get myself together and make sure that I was taking care of them, not knowing what they were going to do to me again. So I wanted to make sure they were in a stable environment, which I left them with their grandparents, not knowing if they were going to come re arrest me again for the second time, or what was going to occur. So I wanted them in a safe environment. That's why I left them where they were. But even still, the idea, I mean, what is that like being locked up for something you didn't do and then not being able to tuck your kids in or read them a story or you know. I mean, especially as they're sort of their only parents and as their mom, like, how how did you deal with that when you're in prison? How did you keep your sanity? It was extremely hard. I mean as far as being depressed and crying all the time, emotional. I would go see a therapist and they counsel all the time. I tried to go to church. It was just so hard on a daily basis. A part of you just gone. Your baby is just gone. And no words can even describe that feeling, like that's horrible. That's the worst feeling in the world. Like the babies that you bore, that you were supposed to be secure and love and nurturing a mom and make sure their needs are met, and just quality of time, security time, just everything just being ripped apart and away from Oh, it is this horrible, horrible in my heart and my mind, my emotions. I don't even know how I cope and dealt with it. I just I don't know. I just try one day at a time. I just kept praying. I didn't know what else to do. But it pushed me to be persistent. Knowing I was innocent and I was wrong. Then I was coming home, So it pushed me even more so to fight and take a stand for what I believe in. And I knew in my heart I was going to come home. I just didn't know when or how long. Well I'm getting the chills thinking about this. So you were rearrested in September of two thousand four, and you went to trial. Yes, and you were represented by a public defen on earth at the time. Yes, right. I have a lot of respect for lawyers in general, but we do know that the public defender situation this country is a crisis, nothing less than a crisis. We have a situation I think in every state where they are underpaid, they're overburdened, they're overworked. Some of them are incompetent, but many of them are are very competent, but they have an impossible task. So if you're in this situation and don't have money to defend yourself, and sometimes if even if you do, you have really a snowball's chance in hell of getting justice, and you now go to trial, it must have seemed like a circus. It was a circus. I was just in awe with all these people coming on and stand and testifying, and I was just like, what where did this come from? I'm shaking my head and looking like wow. And you know, not only were they coming in and saying a bunch of stuff that wasn't true, but they were also changing their lives. There were there were different lives on different days, right from the same person. The Stinger guy changed his story again and again. I mean doesn't. At some point somebody go, wait a minute, this guy is totally full of shit, right, I mean, I forgive my language, but I mean he just kept coming up with new lies. Yeah. By our account, by the time we got through the trial, the post conviction procedure and we're looking at a potential new trial, Stanger had given about fifteen different accounts of the events, and there were changes every time. So you wonder how the jury could believe this guy, which they really had to do because he was the only evidence that claimed to have firsthand knowledge of Crystal being at the scene, which of course was not true. But the jury really had to believe him, and they did, which I think just shows you that if if it's the prosecution putting up the witness, sometimes that's really all you need and it doesn't matter that much what they say. He admitted that he was coached by the police, right, which is again it's a fact. I think most people sit there and go, well, that can't happen. That's not allowed. And he admitted that the police told him what to say. Yeah, he recanted. He said that they fed him the information basically, right, And that's done in ways both subtle and not so subtle, right, you know, the fact that we see in so many of these wrongful convictions police that feed information either like I said, sort of artfully, right, but in a suggestive and a roundabout way. In this case, it was much more blatant. Right. They just told them what they wanted him to say. But juries I mean, sometimes they don't hear that. Sometimes they don't know. If it's not videotaped, it should be video. They should always be videotape. That's one of the things we are working so hard on at innocence projects around the country, especially one in New York as the mandatory videotaping of interrogation. Strange enough, New York State doesn't have it. In Pennsylvania we don't have it. A couple of counties have started doing it just within the last year or so. In this case, it's interesting one of Joey's statements to police was videotaped, but they didn't start the tape until after they had already been taught sucking him for a few hours. So by the time he's on the tape there's a relatively, for lack of a better word, canned story coming from him. So we didn't get to see what went into it, which really you want to see the whole thing obviously, to see how it unfolded. Okay, so let me get to my soapbox here for a second. So, Crystal, one of the reasons that I'm so happy you're here is because you literally represent everybody in America. I mean, I think it's fair to say that if this could happen to you, it could happen to anyone, because you just don't fit the profile of of somebody who would get picked up, you know. And I think there are some people who say, well, they must have been involved with something else, And people have these different attitudes about axonorees. We know that half of our Axonore's had no prior record before they were wrongfully arrested and convicted. But the fact is that everyone should be concerned and everyone should be angry as I am now at the idea that we don't have mandatory videotaping of interrogations. It is preposterous. What could possibly be either reason why we wouldn't want to be able to see what goes on inside that interrogation room and know that the person is actually the right person right, None of us want murderers walking the streets. But the idea that we forget as a society upon basically arrest and certainly upon incarceration, we forget that you are one of us, right, You're an American, you're a person, you're a human, you're a woman. All that's gone out the window. You're just somebody to be chewed up and spit out by the system once you're in it. And I don't get that. I don't. I don't. I'm not okay with it, and I'm going to continue to do everything I can't fix it, Okay, So I'm gonna get off my stubbucks now. So anyway, when you were a trial and you're watching this crazy circus unfold in front of you and you're unfortunately stuck in the middle of it, did you think that this was still going to be okay, that the jury was going to make the right decision, that you're gonna go home. I believed in my heart that the church was gonna send me for it. I was confident. I felt really good about everything, and I knew that I was innocent. So I felt like I was going to walk out that courtroom and go home where I should have been but when they came back and after they gave the verdict it was guilty, guilty, guilty. I was just in all like, what where did that come from? Can you describe that scene? Because nobody can imagine going through that, like the pressure of of being in that situation and the idea that they're coming back in and they're going to decide your fate literally with a life in that situation, and so how do it was a murder charge to at that, and I'm like, what what are we talking about? Like a murder trial? And then you're sitting there and you're waiting for all these people to decide your future. What's going to happen to you? It's just it's like your heart wants to stop, like your throat and everything. Everything's just like ah, you want to scream, and it's just like all bottled inside to you because you don't know what they're gonna say. But yet on this same note, on the good side of your head, you're like, oh, well you're fine, you're getting ready to go home, and hey, you're happy. But then there's another side like what's going to happen? So it's like a mixed emotion thing going on. Inside to you, just waiting to hear what they say, guilty or not guilty, and imagine that. So I mean, and I think that people again have a tendency to be able to distance themselves when they're serving on a jury from that emotion from that person that is sitting in front of them, and they have a tendency to trust the system and want to believe people in positions of authority who are telling them this woman is a murderer, she's terrible, she's all those things they're saying about you, right, And I always say that people have to take an extra hard look at what's being shown to them when they're on that jury and realize that there's a lot of bad actors in the system, there's a lot of good ones, there's a lot of bad actors in the system, and that people like you get caught up in the crosshairs, and that in fact, those roles could be reversed one day. I highly believe that. I believe that then, being in the position that they're in, some people have more heartfelt and are educated in that area. But they also need to be mindful as well that it's not always good. The system isn't always for you, and there is people out there that do corruption and do do bad things and harmful things. How about this logic? Right, So, if you're on a jury and you especially in a small town like yours, and you actually are witnessing and unfortunately playing an unwitting part in a terrible deception and a wrongful esecution, not only are you then subject to being victimized by the actual murder who's still walking the streets, but also those people, those the various corrupt people, police and prosecutors who are perpetrating this terrible act on you and in fact on the public. Well, I'm going to do it again because it's convenient they get away with it, and that could be you, juror number seven sitting in the jury box. That could be you or somebody you love that next time could get caught up just because they can't solve the case and they need they need somebody because they need to get it off their desk, and they want to keep moving up the ranks. And we see that people get promoted even when it's exposed that they were responsible to these ron plantmakers. So so you get found guilty and the worst moment of your life I'm assuming, right, Yeah, it was a shock. It was just unbelievable. And then you get taken away in handcuffs and taken to well back to jail, but then ultimately to prison. Right. Yeah. Well they had to escort like my sister out of the core room because my dad, he had to walk out and calm her down, because she was with me that night. And of course your sister could lie for you, but there's a difference whenever you see her with your own eyes with you. So she was so determined to try to help me, to get me to the truth, to get me freed. And when they say guilty, she just like it was just a mess in that whole core room that day. Right, that's a crazy thing because for her, I can I'm just trying to put myself in her shoes, and you're sitting there going, not only do I believe that my sister, my my son, whatever it is, is innocent. She knew you were right. I mean, you can't be in two places at once. That's why she was like so determined. She was like, I'm not going to give up fighting for you. I'm going to do everything in my willpower just to get you freed. There's no reason why they should have did this to you. It was just like she was mindset. And of course like, yeah, your family might tell a little fib or a little story here or they are, but whenever you know, without a shadow of doubt, with your own personalized and it's a total different story. What can you tell us about the experience that you had in prison? Was every day the same? Were there any bright spots? Was there somebody that inspired you? Just give us a sense of what that was like. Um, it was really difficult. Like whenever I first went in, there was only five and maybe eight individuals women incarcerated. Towards the end there was over women, so the prison population increased like over half. As far as um survival. On an everyday basis, I would have a routine. I would try to walk, y'all, go to the yard a lot. There was a lot of spiritual churches and services. I would always go to them to try to help me to get through at all. There was people that would visit me through the prison society. They would come and see me. They were like Menny Knights. They would come and visit me. That helped and inspired me as well. There was definitely support as far as church and stuff like that. But um, it's just hard being surrounded by people from all different nationalities college roles. You just don't know these people. They're just strangers and you're just thrown in this cell with these different people. But you do grow close to some of the individuals and you really find out who is loyal and who is really honest and genuine. And every person and individual would find like their sense of group and they're fitting in and belonging. That's all I could do, just on a daily basis, just trying to maintain in journal and keep myself mentally going. Well, it's remarkable and of all my respect for having persevered through this and actually found a way out, And I want to get to that. How did the Pennsylvania Innocence Project first here about the case? Why did you decide to take this particular case, and how did you unravel this web of lies and deceit? So Crystal wrote to us, that's how we get all of our cases. We won't even start to look at a case until a person writes us a letter. So that's how she first got into our process. And Crystal's letters were really compelling. You know, going back to what we were talking about earlier with her being a single mom, a refrain and all of her letters was I'm a single mom of three girls and I just want to get home to them, which doesn't speak to innocence necessarily, but it was really personally compelling. So she went through our review process, which takes years. She was sometimes patients, sometimes not with that, but we really vet the cases through a multi step process. We read every piece of paper we could find, every trial transcript, We talked to prior lawyers, We meet with the with the person to really assure ourselves this is an innocence case. And just from you know, talking, you've seen how complicated Crystal's case was. So it took us a long time to try to even figure out what the heck was, the prosecution's theory, what the heck actually may have happened, Who are all these players. There's so many different strands to it that it took a lot of time just to figure out what a coherent narrative of the case might have been. But Crystal really did a lot of the work herself. She lost her first couple of state court appeals, and so she went to federal court on her own to ask for a new trial. There after, she had already written to us and we were reviewing the case, and the federal judge appointed a lawyer for her from the Federal Defender's Office in Western Pennsylvania, and they started investigating the case. They talked to Joey Stenger. He recanted his testimony and said everything he said was a lie. They knew we were looking at the case, and they knew we'd have to go back to state court. So we ended up partnering together with them, and that's when we really started getting actively involved and representing Crystal because we determined by that point it was an innocent case. She met all of our criteria. So we started working together with the federal lawyers and developed more about what was wrong with Stanger's testimony. We went back with them and then again on our own to interview this dentist that had testified against her, claiming she bit the victim, and he said everything he'd said it trial was complete junk based on advancements in the field since then. So we went through every piece of evidence that they put on and tried to see was there any validity to it, And it turned out we could debunk every single piece of it, and so we went back into state court based on that task for a new trial. And I want to just take a second here to say, you know, you've mentioned something very important, which is the length of time it takes for the Pennsylvanians this project, anything is this project to get to these cases. And that's why it's so important that people who are listening out there donate money. I mean, time is great too, but money is important because very simply, if you donate to the Pennsylvania's project, what is the website, by the way, Innocent Project per dot org, Innocence Project, per dot org, because then they can hire more lawyer layers or lawyers or paralegals, more more office space for students law students to come in and take more cases like crystals in a more expeditious manner and get more innocent people out because unfortunately, we know from the best social science estimates that over a hundred thousand people in prison in America are innocent. And that's a lot. And every one of those hundred thousand people has a story, not all as crazy as crystals, but they all have a story, and they all have families, and they all have hopes and dreams that are being taken away from them. So yes, donate Innocence Project per dot org. So now things have gone full circle. You went from hitting the jackpot of all the causes of wrongful conviction, not all of them, but so many of the cause of wrongful cos it went from that to having this wonderful team of lawyers representing you and to having them not just debunk one theory of the prosecution, but all of them. Right, I mean, that's that's pretty unusual too. I mean to be able to come back at the court and go, not only was this piece of evidence wrong, it's all wrong and we could prove it. And I see you starting to break out in in a big, warm smile. They're thinking about it because how incredible is that victory after fighting all them years and being persistent and just getting turned down state Superior, State Supreme and just all these different news and just fighting and just keep going. So you go back to court feeling very confident. I guess right, you know, we felt pretty confident. And Crystal Bay this point had the Federal Defender's office. She had every attorney in my office, which at that point was just three were not very big, and also this private team of lawyers from the Jones Day Law firms. So we felt like we had put together the best kis we possibly could. So we thought confident and we were prepared to put on a three or four day hearing with multiple pieces of evidence witnesses. But in Pennsylvania we have one of the most restrictive post conviction laws in the country. So we had put together, we thought the strongest case we could. We were nervous because in Pennsylvania, the judge can't even listen to your request for a new trial, can't even hear those witnesses if he determines that you didn't file your petition on time. So the d A is always argue like, well, us is great, you have all those new evidence. You should have found it sooner. You're too late. Doesn't matter what the evidence is, and we were really worried about that aspect, whether we could even get over that initial hurdle and have the judge listened to what we had to say. So we were confident on the one hand, but we also knew the legal landscape that we were facing is incredibly tough. How do you feel about that? By the way either one of you can answer this. The idea that it's I guess it's called the sunset clause, right, The idea that the courts can say, well, sorry but or not even sorry, but you know what, you may be innocent, but we don't care because you didn't get the you didn't get the information to us on time. I mean, it's like the Twilight zone, right, I mean, how can that be personally? I think sometimes the system just wants to wrap case is up. They don't care if it's right, if it's wrong, if it's indifferent, if it's personal, if it's biased. Not always, but a lot of times when they get in this little hump and they have no other way out, they have no other choice. It's just wrapping that case in, that whole outcome, in that situation up. How is it that we are able as human beings to say that we no longer care about you. We don't care because we have to feed the system. The system has to go on, machine has to go on. And we've seen it over and over again. I remember Florida years ago tried to pass the sunset clause where they were saying, in some states have this right where even if you had DNA evidence of your innocence, you had to present it within like a month after your Otherwise they weren't going to look at it. Who the hell is going to have it a month after their trial. But there are states that have that. In Pennsylvania is one of them. Yeah, in Pennsylvania, it's pretty traconian. Once your conviction is final, you have a year to seek a new trial, which is not that long, especially if witnesses, you know, they just testified against you, not that long before they're really going to be prepared to tell the truth. Now, after that year, if you file that new trial motion and you lose, your presumptively barred from ever seeking relief again. With a few exceptions. So if you find new evidence of innocence, like in Crystal's case, we had a witness recantation, we had this spite mark expert disavowing its testimony, etcetera, you only have two months. You have sixty days to go back to court, and even if you get in within the sixty days, that doesn't mean the judge is going to find that your petition was filed on time. It means that he's going to look at Okay, while you've got in with sixty days, but could you have found that evidence even earlier sixty days from what sixty days from? Basically, when you get an inkling at the person might be willing to recant, or you have a new expert opinion, whatever you knew evidence is. So it's a really short period of time, particularly if you don't have a lawyer. But it also isn't the end of the game because you get in within sixty days, that's just the start of the process. The judge then has to see whether that literally was the first time you could have brought this evidence, or if you could have found it sooner somehow, And the d s will always say, well, they could have talked to this person a year ago, six months ago, whatever it is. In my job, this is what makes me bang my head against the desk the most. Are you talking about the pc R? A pc R okay, And it's what we call a jurisdictional requirements. So if you don't meet these things, the judge, even if here she wanted to, has no authority to hear the actual evidence. It's so maddening it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So then the day comes you're back in court at this point, you've been through everything. Had you resign yourself like oh, they're just gonna screw me again, or like what was your me and lone we have been through so much like my good days, my good times. I've done fired her one time and then rehired her the same day. But it was just all from anger, frustration, preseverance, just everything bottled up in me. I mean, it wasn't her personally, it was the fact about this system, what happened to me, and um, what's been done? And here she is trying to assist and help me, but yet I'm firing her and hiring her back in the same day. So um, yeah, that's been real interesting. I mean I was just so grateful though here comes my whole team and I'm soon to get victory. I was happy, but on the same note, I was like, ah, they're not gonna help me. It's gonna be the same stuff. Over crap, I'm saying in my mind over and over because I wasn't getting a where it seemed like. But then all these doors started opening so fast. It was just like one court date, here we go, another court date scheduled, you know, here I'm going back to the county. Here, they're coming to see me every day. I'm getting visits and getting out of my room and out of my cell, and I'm all excited because I know it's getting closer. Here comes the big day. So um, when the big day came and they said we're releasing her. October first, two thousand and fifteen was the very special day. Very next day, they just opened the doors and just released me right to the street. Here it is freezing outside in the middle of rain, and you know, we have jackets and different possessions and properties and things like that. After being there for what ten twelve years, so you accumulate a lot of belongings and things being in there, and it was just unbelievable. Here I am just being released to the streets. I didn't even get to go back to my home prison to collect what a little bit of belongings I had. So I was this released rate from the county Joel, and uh, you know, I had to give myself ship to me. So it was just shocked. I was just in awe with everything and how they went about doing the results of everything. I mean, totally unbelievable. Twelve years and here you just throw somebody out on the street and don't give them there a little bit of belonging, some possessions and let them have transportation and have everything in order. They could care less, it didn't matter to them. So it is full circle because you went into the first trial thinking that justice was going to be done, and it wasn't. And then you went into the second trial thinking that justice wasn't going to be done, and it was. And then all of a sudden, here you are like a baby being born right out back into the world, like you said, like what the hell do I do now? Type of thing. Right, But but the good news is you're free. Um at that point you're exonerated, formally exonerated. We didn't get exhonerate. I got exonerated October first, two thousand and fifteen, was my hearing. That's whenever I got free. They put a GPS monitor and was still dangle on with me for nine months. So from October to June two thousand sixteen last year, I had a bracelet one that was my fully exoneration day. When they were they took that bracelet off and released me. From that point. Yeah, So in Pennsylvania, when somebody is innocent, you can't. You know, some states you can ask for like a certificate of innocence, and that leads to an exoneration. All we can get is a new trial. So in October we were lucky enough to be able to get Crystal the new trial. But all that that meant was that the d could appeal if they wanted to. They could retry her if they wanted to. Luckily, they didn't appeal, but they did say they were going to proceed to trial. So she was out on bail as if she had never been convicted, and it was back as if she'd been before the first trial, and she was on this electronic monitoring, and the judge said a really aggressive trial schedule. We got a pre trial order saying you're going to trial in December January, and so we hit the ground running and did pre trial work for Crystal. In the course of that, more information about incentivized witnesses came out that we hadn't been able to get during the post conviction process, and we filed motions to have all the charges dismissed with prejudice, meaning they could never charge her again, and ultimately, after a bunch of hearings on that that was finally granted in June, so it wasn't over with the release. That took another good nine months of lawyering and of Crystal hanging in there being on this electronic monitor before she could be truly free. And that's one of the things that drives me crazy too. What people don't understand is that the indictment, the original indictments, still stands, even though the conviction has been overturned. Basically, what the court saying is that your trial was wrong, the result was wrong, but the original die missile stands and they can still try. We talked about that moment when you were convicted something you didn't do, and the horror and shock of that, your sister and your dad and the whole terrible scene in the courtroom. What was the moment like when you were exonerated. Oh she was to so wonderful, Oh man, happy tears again. I always call him a moment because I always cry, you know, amost one seriality just thinking of it, it's just like the victory after like persevering and fighting and just everything for so long and so hard and you know, want to give up poop and you know throw the towel in. You just got to keep going, and then it's just like all that weight is finally off of you. You're just like, oh wow, you're in awe. It's like all a moment. I call it all a moment, but um, it's just relief. Just like ten things off of your chest, your heart, your mind. You'll know how to start, where to begin, but you know you're ready and you're doing something somehow, some way. So it's just amazing. It's amazing. Like I'm so grateful and thankful, just small things that people take maybe for granted on a daily basis. I just I'm just grateful and thank God just to be out because I could have still been in there, and you know, they might have tried to put me through trial again and give me a life sentence and say, oh death rows signs, who's this say? You never know. With all this being said, you know, I'm just so happy and grateful that all this is just now it's behind me and I can move forward to my future and what lies ahead. And I'm just grateful to my team and all the ones that did all the work and put up with all my notiness and my good days. And bad days and moments and times and you know, and here I am today and I'm so grateful to meet too and be here and spend this time with you is a blessing. Well, um, I mean I'm honored people who listen to the show. No, I'm really at a loss for words, but this is one of those moments. Um. I do know that when we're done talking, I'm gonna give you a big hug. So the um And And when you meet Chris, it's the first thing you think, is this I want to give this person a hug If you don't know um so anyway, But you know, I think you may have already done this. But at the end of each episode, we have a tradition here at Wrangful Conviction where I'd like to ask if there's any last words you'd like this year, I feel like you may have already just done that. So in this case, we'll do it differently, and we will turn it over to your distinguished attorney Neil lem and see if there's anything. Is there anything you'd like to leave with the audience, or any final thoughts that you have. Oh, I'm just grateful that you have shows like this to get this in the public eye, to help people to be more aware of their surroundings and what occurs out there in the world in our society, to make change and make a difference for good and better. Well said, I'm so happy that you invited us here and that it gives Crystel a chance to give voice to her story and also the other women exonorees. You know, there's a lot more men in prison. We've only had two female clients in our office, but I think the challenges are really different, and it's a story that's not told as much as it needs to be. So grateful that we had the opportunity to be here and have Crystal give kind of the women's perspective on this problem in a in a mom's perspective as well. Well. This has been an extraordinary experience talking to both of you and learning from you, and you are a perfect example of why those of us in this Innocence movement are so passionately devoted to doing what we do. Now your home and with your children and your grandchildren and able to get on with your life, which is great. I want to thank both of you, Crystal and Nilam for joining us and Trekking all the way here from Pennsylvania. Yes, thank you and thank you everyone for listening. This has been a very special episode of Wrongful Conviction. Thank you 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 INNS 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 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 in association with Sicktal Company Number one

Wrongful Conviction

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