It was May. James Daily was out bar hopping with his roommates Jack Pearcy and Gayl Bailey, as well as their friend Ozis Shaw when the four of them ran into fourteen year old Shelley Boggio. At some point, all of them went back to the house that James, Jack and Gail shared, and James Daily went to bed. While Gail, Jack's pregnant girlfriend was using the bathroom, Jack snuck out with Shelly Boggio, dropping Osa Shawl at a pay phone on the way. In the early hours of the morning. Jack Pearcy returned alone, at which point he woke James Daily and dragged him out for a few more beers. When they returned, James's pants were wet. The following day, Shelley Boggio's body was found choked, stabbed, and drowned in the Florida Intracoastal Waterway. Jack Pearcy admitted to his involvement of the crime, but implicated James Daly as the primary culprit. The prosecution in turn promised leniency to jail house informants who could help him send James Daily to where he's been since nineteen seven. Florida's infamous death row Jack Piercy has since claimed sole responsibility for Shelley Boggio's death, but has so far avoided actually affirming that claim in a court of law. We're going to speak with James's attorney, Josh Dubin, a man whose name you've heard on this podcast from me many times and also from the mouths of several of the people that he's helped free. And he'll tell us about the evidence that he's uncovered that the state of Florida refuses to hear, even though it clears James Daily's name with or without the word of the one and only killer, Jack Piercy. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason flamer Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamo. On today's episode, we're going to tell the terrifying tale of James Daily, man who was wrongfully convicted decades ago in Florida and sentenced to death. And with us to tell that story is his attorney, Josh Dubin. And for listeners of the show, you'll recognize Josh's name because I reference him often. Josh is not only a pro bono council of great repute for the Innocence Project. He is a jury selection expert and has been an integral part of many cases that you've heard on the show, including just a few names, John Rastevo, Clementia gear Ay, Herman Atkins, and he is a sort of a force of nature. So, without further ado, let me introduce my friend and the personal hero of mine, Josh duben Well. That made me blush. I appreciate it. So when you're old and gray and sitting in your rocking chair and someone asks you what case troubles you the most, I know that the is one case that will come to mind. Is that fair statement? I mean, I feel like it's making me old and gray and putting me in a rock and chair already, especially coming off this latest decision by the court. It's just, um, yeah, it's doing a number on me. But it's really not about me. It's about the victim, Shelley Boggio, her family's fight for justice and closure, and a clearly innocent man that's been sitting on death row for more than three decades for a crime that his co defendant has admitted he committed on his own. So yeah, it's it's troubling to say the least, let's go back to fourteen year old Shelley Boggio was found choked, stabbed over thirty times, and finally not even dead yet, was drowned in Florida's Intracoastal Waterway. Josh, can you take us back to the circumstances this case and explain how James Daily came to be a suspect. Yeah, he was roommates with the person that committed the crime, like gentlemen by the name of Jack Piercy, and God, I said a gentleman, I want to shove those words back in my mouth. I mean Jack Piercy was a guy that had a very, very violent criminal past. He had been implicated in a murder for higher scheme where he flipped on his co defendants and got himself immunity. He had been arrested for terroristic threats against the mother of his child. He had been in and out of jail, and James Daly didn't know this about him. James Daly had done a tour in Korea, two tours in Vietnam. His criminal record was all of one arrest for like a one punch bar fight, and he met Jack Piercy. I think playing pool at a bar. You know, he didn't really know too much about Jack, but they were hanging out in Kansas. James Daly's having a hard time after getting back from Vietnam, just getting along and adjusting, and you know, his wife had sort of had it with him and kicks him out. So he was sort of down on his luck, had a where to go. I didn't really know too much about Jack Piercy, but they ended up living together in Florida with Jack Piercy's girlfriend, Gayl Bailey, who was pregnant with Jack Piercy's child, and then May there's a group of them, Gayle Bailey, Jack Piercy, of course, James Daily, and a man by the name of Oza Shaw. Osa Shaw was a friend of Jack Piercy's from Kansas. He was down there staying with them, and they are, you know, going from a bar or to a bar, and they see Shelley Boggio and her sister, and Jack Piercy knows them. He had been to their house before and bought drugs from their father, and he had hung out with Shelly Boggio before. He had, in fact been told by Shelly Boggio's father, look, you're too old to be hanging out with my young daughters, and especially Shelly. They end up going to some bars, and there's really no dispute about the fact that Shelley bow Gggio, Jack Piercy, Gayle Bailey, James Daily, Osa Shaw are back at the home where Gayl, James and Jack live. What happens afterwards had been the subject of sort of great debate. Who was with Shelley Boggio alone during the time frame that the state established at both the trial of Jack Piercy and James Daily she was murdered. They said it was between one thirty and three thirty am. That's never really been challenged, all right, that is the window of the time of death. At some point Jack Piercy leaves that house was Shelley Boggio. In the past, Jack has tried to push back the time frame of when this happened because he knows what the state's been able to establish in terms of when Shelley Boggio died. So he claims I left with Shelley Boggio around eleven thirty. I then came back to get James Daily and the three of us went out together, which makes absolutely no sense. He was with this girl that he obviously want to have sex with. He was flirting with her by all accounts, Gayle Bailey hasn't even admitted that he had been flirting with her earlier in the night that he danced with her, Gayl Bailey got Piste off, so it makes no sense that he would want to go back and get James dally get another man involved. But he claims that he went back to the house and got James Daily, and it's during that time that they went to a bar and that James Daily, Jack Pearcy, and Shelley Bogio drive to an area close to the bar, and before he knows what's going on, James Daily pounces on top of Shelley Boggio when she rebuffs his advances and and just starts stabbing her like a madman. So let me get this straight. Jack Piercy tells the police of story placing James Daily with he and Shelley Bogio between one thirty and three thirty in the morning, the timeframe of her death. But what prompted him to implicate his friend was it just the simplest way to shift the blame from himself. Well, we don't have to speculate because I asked him that I went to visit Jack Piercy back in December and January and March. He confessed to me that he did this alone. He doesn't know me. I just walked into the person off the street. I tell him, I'm from the Innocence Project. There's a death warrant signed for James Daly. Um, what are you going to do? The right thing? That was literally almost the extent of my conversation. And I remember counting to seven dred and sixty one, just sitting there and getting comfortable in the silence and just letting him think. He you know, got a kind of emotional and he said, do you have an affidavit? And I, you know, handed him one sheet of paper that basically said I did this alone. James Daily had nothing to do with it. And he signed it and he said, just to make sure my family's not there. So it was clear to me that he had not only done this. I knew that he had done it. He knew that he had done it, and he just didn't want to admit to it in front of his family. And I said, why did you even implicate James Daily in the first place? And he looked at me kind of like, do you really need to ask me that question, kind of smirk on his face, and he said, well, who admits to committing a murder on their own? He said, I was trying to get the attention off of me. And look, he had done this before. He had accepted money to murder someone, staked the person out, and he got caught. He never actually went through with the murder because there was too much sort of heat on him, but he ended up flipping on his co defendant and getting himself out of that crime. He had done this before and he figured, I'm gonna do it again, and he told me that, So we don't have to speculate there this. Let's call him what he has, a scumbag. Piercy kept slipping through the cracks, and he should, by anybody's definition, have been in prison. And had that been the case, Shelley Boggio would still be alive and your client would not be in prison for this crime because it never would have happened. And that's a tragedy on top of a tragedy. So, Josh, we know this story that Jack Piracy made up, but what about the real story of what happened that awful night. You know, they say that the truth always catches up to the lie, especially when someone is talking. Jack Piercy has talked over the years. He has confessed to this crime. He has signed affidavits, declarations, and what ends up happening is he ends up getting pressure applied on him by his family and he ends up having to go to court to affirm the affidavit or the declaration, and he gets cold feet, as family says to him, you know you should not be admitting to this. You're gonna break our hearts. We've been telling people you're innocent, and now we can't do that anymore. Your son will never come visit you again, and so forth. And when he goes to court, he then just takes the fifth. So here's what really happened. And now Jack Piercy has admitted it, although he didn't realize he was admitting it. And I'll explain that in a minute. What really happened is that they go back to the house. Gayl Bailly, his pregnant girlfriend, is in the bathroom, James Daily is in his room, Osa Shaw is on the couch, and Jack Piercy uses this as an opportunity to leave with Shelly Boggio. Jack Piercy says, Shelly, let's get out of here. Osa Shaw says, I want to go with you. I have to make a phone call. And remember we're in the mid eighties, So they took him to a pay phone. Osa Shaw has been consistent that he leaves the house with Jack Piercy, Shelly Boggio. It's just the three of them. James Daily and Gayle Bailey are back at the house, all right, There is no dispute about that. Jack Piercy drives Osa Shaw with Shelly Boggio to a pay phone. Osa Shaw is calling his wife and a girlfriend of his and he's on the phone for ten fifteen minutes, and Shelly Boggio and Jack Piercy get impatient and they start honking the horn. Osa Shaw finally says, go ahead and take off because the payphone is a short walk away from where the house is. So Shelly Boggio and Jack Piercy leave and they're alone now. Up until March of this year, Jack Piercy has always maintained that, yes, that happened, but it was at about eleven thirty at night, because he knows what the time of death is. He knows what that window is, so he always pushes this event back to earlier in the evening. He claims that he went back to the house and got James Daily. There's a lot of problems with that. Oza Shaw has always been consistent to the following. At some point in the evening, Jack Piercy comes back to the house and he does not have Shelly Boggio with him anymore, goes into James Daily's bedroom, wakes James Daily up, and the two of them leave together. And this is critical, right because when was this? When in time was this? And you know, we get to the next part of the story, which is Jack Piercy's unwitting admission in the latest turn in this case, and he gives me that time. Yeah, but he's done this to you time and again, an admission which he then won't fess up to in open court. How many times has he played this game with you? So Jack Piercy, back in back in two thousand seventeen, and then as recently as late last year, has admitted and sworn statements that he committed the crime alone, that James Daley had nothing to do with it, and then he always wiggles out of it. So after he gives me the affidavit, I have to file it in court, and the papers in Tampa back in December and January pick it up. Piarcy has confessed again. But I have phone calls between his mother and him after the papers pick up that he's confessed now to me. His mother starts telling him, how could you do this to us? We've always maintained that you were innocent. Now we can never say that again. Your son will never come visit you again. And he comes up with this crazy story to his mother on the phone and he says, you know, I just did this because they're digging around, these lawyers for James Daily, and they'll be able to do something that will benefit me one day. How in the world could something that we are doing as James Daily's lawyers to show that Jack Piercy committed the crime alone somehow help Jack Piercy one day. I mean, it's just the opposite. But putting that aside for a minute, I then go see him in Um I believe February or March of this year, because the court has set a hearing. I asked to go and take his deposition, and he tells me, I've changed my mind. I'm no longer going to say I did this alone. You know, I guess not out of the realm of possibility that he would try to wiggle out again. So I am there deposing him. Okay with me, There's a prosecutor from the state of Florida sitting there, and it's myself and an attorney from Millbank who is working on the case with me, Scott Edelman, and I'm asking him questions, all within the context of him now recanting and saying James Daley committed the crime. I was just there and I say to him, when was it that you were with Shelly Boggio alone? He says, how about eleven thirty at night, because remember he knows the time frame. So I said to him, well, was it before or after you dropped Oza Shaw off of that phone booth. He says, without a doubt, I went with Shelly Boggio alone to have drinks after I dropped Oza Shaw at the phone booth. The following is not known to Jack Piercy. I have phone records from that phone booth call. I have the people that he called their phone records showing that the calls happened at one fifteen in the morning, and that the wife and the girlfriend claim as Oza Shaw does, that the calls took forty five minutes and hour. So now we're at two fifteen in the morning, that it takes fifteen minutes to walk back to the house, that Oza Shaw gets back to the house and Jack Piercy isn't back yet, that he sits on the couch for forty five minutes an hour with Gayl Bailey, and Gayl Bailey is distraught that Jack Piercy left with Shelley Boggio. Hours pass by Oza Shaw's estimation. It's now three thirty three, forty five in the morning, that is when Jack Piercy gets back alone. That is the truth catching up to the lie. That is the very first time Jack Piercy had ever under oath put himself square in the time frame that this murder is committed between one thirty and three thirty alone with the victim. And this should have been earth shattering to the courts. It's, sirly, was earth shattering to me. And as you know, I'm speaking these words just two days ago, you know, got an order from the court denying my motion to have a cumulative hearing of all of the overwhelming evidence of James Daily's innocence because they now claim that the deposition that I took was a quote discovery deposition and it's not admissible, and it is just you know, if I um had any tears left in me, I would cry them. You know, it's just beyond it frustrating. Doesn't do it justice. I mean, the fact that Jack Piercy has been able to wiggle out of these confessions and that the criminal justice system in Florida just continues to look the other way and allow it to happen because of these ridiculous legal technicalities. I don't even think that the judge respectfully was right about it is just mind bending. So Jack Piercy finally gave an admission that he couldn't wiggle out of. However, the court then won't allow it to be admitted as evidence, which is just fucking insane and of course doesn't make any of it less true. But I still have a few questions about the night of the crime, what happened when Piercy came back to the house to get James Daily out of bed, and how did his pants get wet, So it can be no earlier than three forty five in the morning. And Jack Pearcy gets home and he's by himself, and Oza Shaw is rock solid about this. He has never wavered on this in all the years he's given testimony in this case. Jack Pearcy goes into James Daily's room, wakes him up, and then they leave together. Now, look, I don't know whether that was because Jack Pearsy was freaked out, he was looking for an alibi. Who knows why he did what he did next, He probably didn't want to face the wrath of his girlfriend who he had just treated so horribly, right, I mean he left her pregnant in the house while he went out to try to have sex with this underage girl. I can tell you that he told me that he was freaked out and then he just wanted to talk and have some beers. He takes James Daily to a different location than the murder occurred. They have beers and smoke a joint and he says, look, you need you to move out. We need your room because the baby is coming soon. Remember, Gayle Bailey is pregnant, and what James Daly has said. And what Jack Piercy in fact told me is they popped the trunk on the car to sit on the back bumper, and that there's a frisbee in the backseat and there parked on the waterway, and that James Daily whips it up in the air. That was like his thing. He would always like fling the frisbee up in the air and try to boomerang it back to himself. And that at some point it went into like the shallow water, and that James Dailly waited it out there and got it, so he had wet pants when they both got back. Osa Shaw and Gayle Bailey see them come home, and Piercy is dry and James Daily has wet pants, and the police say, ha ha, he must have been the one that murdered Shelley Boggio. And look, Jack Piercy has told me that what happened with the frisbee happened. And you know, to any of the listeners that are thinking, well that sounds odd, well you know what it might. But I can tell you that in every single case that I have worked on where somebody is innocent, they always live with what can be an inconvenient fact and I'm gonna leave you with this thought when Jack Piercy implicates him. James Daly is living under his own name. He has moved to California at this point. It's six months later. He started a kitchen cabinet company with a friend and the police asked him. Six months later, we heard from Oza Shaw and Gayl Bailey that you had wet pants that night. You know, he can quickly compute. While Gayl Bailey is the mother of Jack Pearcy's child. At this point, Oza Shaw is an old friend of Jack Piercy's. They're both going to cover for Jack Piercy. He could have quickly said bullshit, I did my pants were dry, But he lives with the inconvenient fact because he's innocent, and he says, yeah, they were wet then night. Here's what happened. That is a hallmark of innocence. Hallmark of innocence. He lives with that because he thinks that the police are just gonna believe him and actually investigate this. Right, It's not like they could have gone back in time and found some wet stain on something. It would have been the easiest thing for him to say that you're absolutely right. That being said, Piercy goes to trial, it sounds like he didn't have a snowball chance. And how in sure enough, he's convicted and the state seeks the death penalty against Jack Piercy and they don't get it. He gets life. My understanding and correct me if I'm wrong, is that there's a line between the fact that the state failed to get the death penalty that they sought against Piercy, so they wanted to execute somebody for this awful crime, and that led them to do a number of terrible, terrible things. What happens next is the prosecutor send police in to the Penellas County Jail where James Daily is being held pre trial, to start building a better case against James Daily. And they don't have anything to go on with James Daily except these wet pants. And it is Operation Frame James Daily. And if you want more about exactly what happened, we could never cover in this timeframe you. Pamela Koloff wrote an amazing investigative piece of all jailhouse snitches in particularly the one in this case, in pro publica in the New York Times. But they start pulling people off the paw where James Daily was housed had been housed, and what they start hearing from inmates is over and over again, he tells us he had nothing to do with this, He's innocent. And then the detectives let it be known to inmates that if you have information leading to the conviction of James Daily, if you can help us with the case, there's a deal to be had for you. And at first they get no takers. They start pulling some of the same inmates off the pod and now they have newspaper articles about the crime sitting in front of them, and one of these inmates has has said in Pam Koloff story, look, I could have easily made something up by reading the newspaper articles that they put in front of me. But they get no takers. They ultimately sort of giving up hope getting a snitch against James Daily, and then enter Paul Skealnick. And Paul Skalnik was housed at that jail and he was uh someone that was known to Panellis County police officers. He was known to that prosecutor's office. He had cooperated in forty some odd cases, and they knew he was a liar. They knew that he had no way of knowing the things that he knew, and they knew that he was a liar in this case from the outset. Because what happens is Paul Skalnik had already tried to get himself a deal in connection with Jack Piercey's case. He goes to investigators and he says, I have information about Jack Piercy, and they said, duh, he's already been convicted. We don't need information about Jack Piercy. So then he takes another try and he says, well, now I have information about James Daly. They should have said to him, come on, buddy, enough, but shockingly they listened to him. And the tale he tells them has already been found by the Florida Supreme Court to be impossible. They have, in commenting on appeals that James Dally has made, said the layout of the jail makes his story nuts. It doesn't make any sense. Now, remember he's a known snitch. In this jail, Paul Scalnik is radioactive. No one's going near him. He's cooperated in countless cases. Everybody knows he's in a single cell. So Scalnick tells us crazy story at James Daly's trial that James Daily is mosing past the cell stops, turns to him for some unknown reason and says, she wouldn't shut up and I killed her. So we cannot overstate the disgusting practice of using lying, incentivized jail house snitches who basically condemned their victims to death in exchange for extremely lenient treatment. And Skalnik is one of the most grotesque examples of this. And what I mean by that is two he was charged with sexually assaulting a child. The case was strong and the victim, this brave little girl, was prepared to testify, but officials never prosecuted him for the crime. Instead, he pleaded no contest to a separate and far less serious charge of grand theft. There is incontrovertible evidence that the prosecutors knew that Paul Scownick lied on the witness stand about his past charges of of sexual assault against miners, and they did nothing about it. They didn't correct it. And you know, Paul Skalnik lies to the jury and says that he wasn't promised any deal. He ends up walking out of jail five days after James Daily is sentenced to death the State of Florida. Where and I'll never forget you saying this to me as we've spoken one of our many, many conversations about this case, Josh's five or six months ago, he said to me, you know, my client, James Daily is either going to be the hundredth person executed by the State of Florida or the thirtieth exonerated from death row. And that gives me the chills because what that says to us is that the State of Florida, even if everyone who they've executed before was guilty, and we know that that is not the case because Jesse to Pharaoh, and the list goes on. But they're not even batting seven hundred, and yet they continue to let the machinery of death wind its way, grind its way through, and and Daily is in their sights. M has been for a long time, but now so more than ever, which makes this even more urgent that you're here. This case has gained so much attention, and hopefully through this podcast it gains more because it is just the perfect unfortunate storm of injustice. James Daily has been sitting there in this narrow, dank cell for thirty US years suffocating in the eventuality that the State of Florida is going to take his life for something he did not do. And you know, if the courts are not going to give him the justice that he deserves and give the Boggio family the proper closure they deserve by making sure that we don't compound a tragedy by taking another innocent life, I have to keep fighting. You know, the state of Florida has an opportunity to be a catch all, a fail safe. Governor Rhonda Santis can make clemency in Florida matter. Pam Colloff said it best. There is a problem with the death penalty in Florida. It is no small wonder and it is not some coincidence that Florida has more death rogues generations than any other state in the country. And there's a clemency process in Florida that does not really apply to death penalty prisoners unless they're willing to go and show some sort of contrition. And James Daily is not going to show contrition for something he didn't do. So there's a lot to fight for these days, and the James Daily cases one of them we're seeing right now. The power of united voices, Unity, brings change, pressure breaks pipes. To stand by Idoly. You know, in the face of injustice is not an option anymore. That applies to cases of innocence, police brutality against people of color in this country. We have to stand up to it all. I'm sure people are listening saying, I want to do something about this James Daily situation. It's awful. Is there something that people can do in terms of the James Daily case. We need as many listeners as we can to sign the petition to the Governor's office that this cannot stand. That if the courts do not give James Daily justice, that we need there to be a real clemency hearing where I can present all of the stunning evidence of James Daily's innocence. Please everyone, scroll down into this episode's description, click the link, sign the petition and help bring James Daily hume. There really is a wind at all cost mentality when prosecutors. It's at the heart of a lot of the problems plaguing our criminal legal system, you know, resorting to the use of jailhouse snitches who are totally unreliable and notoriously incentivized and wrongly incentivized. It's just one of the many, many symptoms of a systemic disease at the root of so many wrongful conviction cases. Now, Josh, if you could focus on one particular way in which wrongful convictions are obtained, what's the first thing that comes to mind. The first thing that comes to mind to me is reverse engineering, working from a place of wanting to get a desired result, having an a hunch, of feeling a notion that someone did something, and then using pseudo science or some justification for it. And that's what we see in so many of these cases. The almost every single case that I have worked on that involves an innocent man or woman involves some form of junk science. You know. Look, the gold standard for forensic science in this country is the National Academy of Sciences. And there was a bombshell report in two thousand nine when the National Academy of Science has found that many of these so called forensic disciplines that are used in cases all over the country going backwards thirty fifty years and still to this date. This is in two thousand nine, found that they weren't science at all. Called out bite mark evidence is saying there's no scientific basis for it whatsoever. And still to this day, courts all over the country except bite mark evidence. They were critical blood spatter evidence of footwear impressions. Arson Are these disciplines objective, reliable? Can they be repeated? Can they be confirmed? And because of this phenomenon called legal precedent, where judges just say, well it was accepted before, I'll keep on accepting it, they keep on admitting it all over the country, and innocent men and women are having their lives destroyed because so called experts get on a witness stand and say, well, I can match these teeth marks to this individual, on these bite marks on that victim, and to a degree of scientific certainty that individual did the biting. They were the perpetrator. And Clementia Geary's case, there was blood all over the crime scene. It was no small wonder that the blood came from the two victims. The reason that they were collecting the blood of the crime scene was to try to determ who the perpetrator was. And that's not because I say so. The crime scene investigators in that very case admitted that the reason that they were collecting the blood was to figure out who the perpetrator was. They never tested a single drop of blood. We had to test it. They were analyzing footwear impressions, and Clementia Geary had admitted that he happened upon the bodies and walked through the crime scene. There was no small wonder that his shoes made some impressions. There were impressions that were never looked at. That's a case of just ignoring the the forensic evidence. But you know, in so many cases, the conviction comes down to the jury buying a so called expert that says only the defendant's teeth could have left that mark on the victim, when in fact you find out that the mark on the victim wasn't even a bite mark at all, or that the blood spatter came from this direction, and an expert reconstructs the crime in a way that sounds so convincing to the jury, and they use acronyms and fancy words, and you find out that this so called x for doesn't even have a high school education and took a forty hour course from a man that you know, gave birth to the discipline of blood spatter and a basement in Corning, New York that he called the Forensic Institute of Science. If we really peel back the curtain and people really see what's going on, what I think is going to happen is I think you are going to be just horrified that courts admit this stuff, people rely on it, and it's not juris false. It sounds super convincing. But what what I would like is for there to be a greater awareness about what this is, had a spot it if you're a juror, and had to scrutinize it, so that we are not convicting innocent people for crimes they didn't commit. I emphatically agree with you, Josh. That's why I'm particularly proud and actually humbled to announce that we are going to be presenting a brand new series, Wrawful Conviction Junk Science, and the host will be none other than Josh Stubin, the man you've been listening to today. And I'm so excited to be involved with it because I think we're going to do what I've always wanted to do, which is to help make better decisions that will lead not only to less wrongful convictions, but to more rightful ones. Yeah. So let me start by saying I'm I'm the one, and there's like a big love fest. I'm the one that's humbled and honored. I mean, Jason, you're a personal hero of mine. I tell you privately all the time, I'll tell you publicly now, I mean I'm I am honored, humbled and everything in between. To be the host of the what I think is a really important podcast. Um, it's inspiring and I think it's a real opportunity for people to instead of asking how do I get out of jury service, which I always tell people, Well, if you were wrongfully accused of a crime, wouldn't you want you on the jury? Um, instead of getting out of jury service if you're there wanting to be a part of it, especially in a criminal case, and make or that justice is really done and that you're highly inquisitive asking the right questions to yourself throughout the trial and to your fellow jers when you deliberate. So we do not have more of these stories about people getting out after decades have passed, and rather more stories about them getting acquitted before the damage is done or more damage is done, because any criminal prosecution against the innocent is damaging to their families, to them, and of course to the victim and the victims families. So, Josh, as we get ready to sign off, this is the part of the show where I first of all thank my guest in this case you for being here, and then turn my microphone off and kick back and listen, because this is the segment of the show called closing arguments, you know, because I feel like this fell on deaf ears to some extent. I'll just read to you my closing argument to the court that was recently denied, and let the listeners judge for themselves how they would have ruled if they were the judge. This is no ordinary case. There is no more important legal question in the American system of justice than whether someone may be executed without ever had a meaningful opportunity to present the complete evidence of his or her innocence. Recognizing that the execution of an innocent person is quote the quintessential miscarriage of justice end quote, the request is simple. This court should hear and consider the totality of the evidence before permitting the State of Florida to execute James Daily. Jack Piercy has confessed time and time again that he killed Shelley Boggio and that James Daily had nothing whatsoever to do with it. There has been some debate over the years about the motives behind Piercy's confessions. Indeed, throughout the course of James Daily's three decade long fight to clear his name, many have speculated as to why Jack Piercy would repeatedly confess to sole responsibility for the murder only till later account But if in fact James Daly was the person who murdered Chili Boggio, and makes absolutely no sense that Jack Piercy would ever confess to her murder. After all, it would be James Daly who was responsible for Jack Piercy's three decade long wrong phonecarceration for in essence, ruining his life. No person in Pearcy's position would ever confess to a murder that would allow Daily to escape responsibility. Piercy's most recent effort to explain why he would have given such a false confession is so irrational and self serving that it is obviously made up. He claims that he hoped to gain some advantage of his own by capitalizing on the efforts of James Daly's legal team to overturn Mr. Daly's conviction. But how could Pearcy's legal position ever be helped by his confession that he committed the crime alone. Once he confessed, there's no chance that anything Mr Daley's legal team would be doing could somehow benefit Piercy. Moreover, we James Daley's legal team remain engaged in a tremendous effort to fight his wrongful conviction. So even if you take Piercy at his word that he confessed against some sort of legal benefit of his own, which again makes no sense, he would be more incentivized than ever to sit back and see how things unfold. So what changed? The only thing that changed is that Piercy's mother read about his latest confession in the newspaper and expressed her genuine despair. Piercy's mother also alerted him to the consequences of his confession with respect to his son. So what is far more probable is that Jack Piercy's guilty conscience, burdened by the knowledge that he may be responsible for yet another innocent person, has caused him to confess his sole responsibility numerous times, only to recant when faced with his mother's grief and the fear that his family might shun him if he finally comes clean about what he did. The court need not reach a conclusion on this issue. Reasonable minds can disagree about the motive behind Jack Piercey's confessions and ensuing recantations. However, one thing is for certain. Jack Piercy has managed to wiggle out of these confessions in the past by disgracefully gaming the legal system at the expense of James Dally's grueling pursuit of the truth and the Boggio family's right to closure. At long last, the games should end here under oath, when the state, at the full and fair opportunity to cross examine him, Piercy let the truth slip, and he did so in the context of yet another recantation of a confession that he committed the crime alone. This is earth shattering for James Daily's fight for justice. This is the truth catching up to the lie. Now, the Florida Evidence Code requires that this new evidence, in fact, this critical admission that places Piercy alone with Shelley Boggio during the time frame in which he was murdered, be held up to the bright light of the truth. Indeed, let it be placed on the scales of justice along with the cumulative extraordinary evidence of James Daily's innocence that until now has been hidden from the eyes of the law due to procedural obstacles. Let us then see how the scales tip once and for all. Now that was rejected by the court. And I ask you, is that asking too much? If the courts are not going to listen and simply have a hearing and let us present the evidence. I would ask your listeners to please help by joining the fight. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music 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 Lava for Good Podcasts in association with signal Company Number one

It was May. James Daily was out bar hopping with his roommates Jack Pearcy and Gayl Bailey, as well as their friend Ozis Shaw when the four of them ran into fourteen year old Shelley Boggio. At some point, all of them went back to the house that James, Jack and Gail shared, and James Daily went to bed. While Gail, Jack's pregnant girlfriend was using the bathroom, Jack snuck out with Shelly Boggio, dropping Osa Shawl at a pay phone on the way. In the early hours of the morning. Jack Pearcy returned alone, at which point he woke James Daily and dragged him out for a few more beers. When they returned, James's pants were wet. The following day, Shelley Boggio's body was found choked, stabbed, and drowned in the Florida Intracoastal Waterway. Jack Pearcy admitted to his involvement of the crime, but implicated James Daly as the primary culprit. The prosecution in turn promised leniency to jail house informants who could help him send James Daily to where he's been since nineteen seven. Florida's infamous death row Jack Piercy has since claimed sole responsibility for Shelley Boggio's death, but has so far avoided actually affirming that claim in a court of law. We're going to speak with James's attorney, Josh Dubin, a man whose name you've heard on this podcast from me many times and also from the mouths of several of the people that he's helped free. And he'll tell us about the evidence that he's uncovered that the state of Florida refuses to hear, even though it clears James Daily's name with or without the word of the one and only killer, Jack Piercy. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason flamer Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamo. On today's episode, we're going to tell the terrifying tale of James Daily, man who was wrongfully convicted decades ago in Florida and sentenced to death. And with us to tell that story is his attorney, Josh Dubin. And for listeners of the show, you'll recognize Josh's name because I reference him often. Josh is not only a pro bono council of great repute for the Innocence Project. He is a jury selection expert and has been an integral part of many cases that you've heard on the show, including just a few names, John Rastevo, Clementia gear Ay, Herman Atkins, and he is a sort of a force of nature. So, without further ado, let me introduce my friend and the personal hero of mine, Josh duben Well. That made me blush. I appreciate it. So when you're old and gray and sitting in your rocking chair and someone asks you what case troubles you the most, I know that the is one case that will come to mind. Is that fair statement? I mean, I feel like it's making me old and gray and putting me in a rock and chair already, especially coming off this latest decision by the court. It's just, um, yeah, it's doing a number on me. But it's really not about me. It's about the victim, Shelley Boggio, her family's fight for justice and closure, and a clearly innocent man that's been sitting on death row for more than three decades for a crime that his co defendant has admitted he committed on his own. So yeah, it's it's troubling to say the least, let's go back to fourteen year old Shelley Boggio was found choked, stabbed over thirty times, and finally not even dead yet, was drowned in Florida's Intracoastal Waterway. Josh, can you take us back to the circumstances this case and explain how James Daily came to be a suspect. Yeah, he was roommates with the person that committed the crime, like gentlemen by the name of Jack Piercy, and God, I said a gentleman, I want to shove those words back in my mouth. I mean Jack Piercy was a guy that had a very, very violent criminal past. He had been implicated in a murder for higher scheme where he flipped on his co defendants and got himself immunity. He had been arrested for terroristic threats against the mother of his child. He had been in and out of jail, and James Daly didn't know this about him. James Daly had done a tour in Korea, two tours in Vietnam. His criminal record was all of one arrest for like a one punch bar fight, and he met Jack Piercy. I think playing pool at a bar. You know, he didn't really know too much about Jack, but they were hanging out in Kansas. James Daly's having a hard time after getting back from Vietnam, just getting along and adjusting, and you know, his wife had sort of had it with him and kicks him out. So he was sort of down on his luck, had a where to go. I didn't really know too much about Jack Piercy, but they ended up living together in Florida with Jack Piercy's girlfriend, Gayl Bailey, who was pregnant with Jack Piercy's child, and then May there's a group of them, Gayle Bailey, Jack Piercy, of course, James Daily, and a man by the name of Oza Shaw. Osa Shaw was a friend of Jack Piercy's from Kansas. He was down there staying with them, and they are, you know, going from a bar or to a bar, and they see Shelley Boggio and her sister, and Jack Piercy knows them. He had been to their house before and bought drugs from their father, and he had hung out with Shelly Boggio before. He had, in fact been told by Shelly Boggio's father, look, you're too old to be hanging out with my young daughters, and especially Shelly. They end up going to some bars, and there's really no dispute about the fact that Shelley bow Gggio, Jack Piercy, Gayle Bailey, James Daily, Osa Shaw are back at the home where Gayl, James and Jack live. What happens afterwards had been the subject of sort of great debate. Who was with Shelley Boggio alone during the time frame that the state established at both the trial of Jack Piercy and James Daily she was murdered. They said it was between one thirty and three thirty am. That's never really been challenged, all right, that is the window of the time of death. At some point Jack Piercy leaves that house was Shelley Boggio. In the past, Jack has tried to push back the time frame of when this happened because he knows what the state's been able to establish in terms of when Shelley Boggio died. So he claims I left with Shelley Boggio around eleven thirty. I then came back to get James Daily and the three of us went out together, which makes absolutely no sense. He was with this girl that he obviously want to have sex with. He was flirting with her by all accounts, Gayle Bailey hasn't even admitted that he had been flirting with her earlier in the night that he danced with her, Gayl Bailey got Piste off, so it makes no sense that he would want to go back and get James dally get another man involved. But he claims that he went back to the house and got James Daily, and it's during that time that they went to a bar and that James Daily, Jack Pearcy, and Shelley Bogio drive to an area close to the bar, and before he knows what's going on, James Daily pounces on top of Shelley Boggio when she rebuffs his advances and and just starts stabbing her like a madman. So let me get this straight. Jack Piercy tells the police of story placing James Daily with he and Shelley Bogio between one thirty and three thirty in the morning, the timeframe of her death. But what prompted him to implicate his friend was it just the simplest way to shift the blame from himself. Well, we don't have to speculate because I asked him that I went to visit Jack Piercy back in December and January and March. He confessed to me that he did this alone. He doesn't know me. I just walked into the person off the street. I tell him, I'm from the Innocence Project. There's a death warrant signed for James Daly. Um, what are you going to do? The right thing? That was literally almost the extent of my conversation. And I remember counting to seven dred and sixty one, just sitting there and getting comfortable in the silence and just letting him think. He you know, got a kind of emotional and he said, do you have an affidavit? And I, you know, handed him one sheet of paper that basically said I did this alone. James Daily had nothing to do with it. And he signed it and he said, just to make sure my family's not there. So it was clear to me that he had not only done this. I knew that he had done it. He knew that he had done it, and he just didn't want to admit to it in front of his family. And I said, why did you even implicate James Daily in the first place? And he looked at me kind of like, do you really need to ask me that question, kind of smirk on his face, and he said, well, who admits to committing a murder on their own? He said, I was trying to get the attention off of me. And look, he had done this before. He had accepted money to murder someone, staked the person out, and he got caught. He never actually went through with the murder because there was too much sort of heat on him, but he ended up flipping on his co defendant and getting himself out of that crime. He had done this before and he figured, I'm gonna do it again, and he told me that, So we don't have to speculate there this. Let's call him what he has, a scumbag. Piercy kept slipping through the cracks, and he should, by anybody's definition, have been in prison. And had that been the case, Shelley Boggio would still be alive and your client would not be in prison for this crime because it never would have happened. And that's a tragedy on top of a tragedy. So, Josh, we know this story that Jack Piracy made up, but what about the real story of what happened that awful night. You know, they say that the truth always catches up to the lie, especially when someone is talking. Jack Piercy has talked over the years. He has confessed to this crime. He has signed affidavits, declarations, and what ends up happening is he ends up getting pressure applied on him by his family and he ends up having to go to court to affirm the affidavit or the declaration, and he gets cold feet, as family says to him, you know you should not be admitting to this. You're gonna break our hearts. We've been telling people you're innocent, and now we can't do that anymore. Your son will never come visit you again, and so forth. And when he goes to court, he then just takes the fifth. So here's what really happened. And now Jack Piercy has admitted it, although he didn't realize he was admitting it. And I'll explain that in a minute. What really happened is that they go back to the house. Gayl Bailly, his pregnant girlfriend, is in the bathroom, James Daily is in his room, Osa Shaw is on the couch, and Jack Piercy uses this as an opportunity to leave with Shelly Boggio. Jack Piercy says, Shelly, let's get out of here. Osa Shaw says, I want to go with you. I have to make a phone call. And remember we're in the mid eighties, So they took him to a pay phone. Osa Shaw has been consistent that he leaves the house with Jack Piercy, Shelly Boggio. It's just the three of them. James Daily and Gayle Bailey are back at the house, all right, There is no dispute about that. Jack Piercy drives Osa Shaw with Shelly Boggio to a pay phone. Osa Shaw is calling his wife and a girlfriend of his and he's on the phone for ten fifteen minutes, and Shelly Boggio and Jack Piercy get impatient and they start honking the horn. Osa Shaw finally says, go ahead and take off because the payphone is a short walk away from where the house is. So Shelly Boggio and Jack Piercy leave and they're alone now. Up until March of this year, Jack Piercy has always maintained that, yes, that happened, but it was at about eleven thirty at night, because he knows what the time of death is. He knows what that window is, so he always pushes this event back to earlier in the evening. He claims that he went back to the house and got James Daily. There's a lot of problems with that. Oza Shaw has always been consistent to the following. At some point in the evening, Jack Piercy comes back to the house and he does not have Shelly Boggio with him anymore, goes into James Daily's bedroom, wakes James Daily up, and the two of them leave together. And this is critical, right because when was this? When in time was this? And you know, we get to the next part of the story, which is Jack Piercy's unwitting admission in the latest turn in this case, and he gives me that time. Yeah, but he's done this to you time and again, an admission which he then won't fess up to in open court. How many times has he played this game with you? So Jack Piercy, back in back in two thousand seventeen, and then as recently as late last year, has admitted and sworn statements that he committed the crime alone, that James Daley had nothing to do with it, and then he always wiggles out of it. So after he gives me the affidavit, I have to file it in court, and the papers in Tampa back in December and January pick it up. Piarcy has confessed again. But I have phone calls between his mother and him after the papers pick up that he's confessed now to me. His mother starts telling him, how could you do this to us? We've always maintained that you were innocent. Now we can never say that again. Your son will never come visit you again. And he comes up with this crazy story to his mother on the phone and he says, you know, I just did this because they're digging around, these lawyers for James Daily, and they'll be able to do something that will benefit me one day. How in the world could something that we are doing as James Daily's lawyers to show that Jack Piercy committed the crime alone somehow help Jack Piercy one day. I mean, it's just the opposite. But putting that aside for a minute, I then go see him in Um I believe February or March of this year, because the court has set a hearing. I asked to go and take his deposition, and he tells me, I've changed my mind. I'm no longer going to say I did this alone. You know, I guess not out of the realm of possibility that he would try to wiggle out again. So I am there deposing him. Okay with me, There's a prosecutor from the state of Florida sitting there, and it's myself and an attorney from Millbank who is working on the case with me, Scott Edelman, and I'm asking him questions, all within the context of him now recanting and saying James Daley committed the crime. I was just there and I say to him, when was it that you were with Shelly Boggio alone? He says, how about eleven thirty at night, because remember he knows the time frame. So I said to him, well, was it before or after you dropped Oza Shaw off of that phone booth. He says, without a doubt, I went with Shelly Boggio alone to have drinks after I dropped Oza Shaw at the phone booth. The following is not known to Jack Piercy. I have phone records from that phone booth call. I have the people that he called their phone records showing that the calls happened at one fifteen in the morning, and that the wife and the girlfriend claim as Oza Shaw does, that the calls took forty five minutes and hour. So now we're at two fifteen in the morning, that it takes fifteen minutes to walk back to the house, that Oza Shaw gets back to the house and Jack Piercy isn't back yet, that he sits on the couch for forty five minutes an hour with Gayl Bailey, and Gayl Bailey is distraught that Jack Piercy left with Shelley Boggio. Hours pass by Oza Shaw's estimation. It's now three thirty three, forty five in the morning, that is when Jack Piercy gets back alone. That is the truth catching up to the lie. That is the very first time Jack Piercy had ever under oath put himself square in the time frame that this murder is committed between one thirty and three thirty alone with the victim. And this should have been earth shattering to the courts. It's, sirly, was earth shattering to me. And as you know, I'm speaking these words just two days ago, you know, got an order from the court denying my motion to have a cumulative hearing of all of the overwhelming evidence of James Daily's innocence because they now claim that the deposition that I took was a quote discovery deposition and it's not admissible, and it is just you know, if I um had any tears left in me, I would cry them. You know, it's just beyond it frustrating. Doesn't do it justice. I mean, the fact that Jack Piercy has been able to wiggle out of these confessions and that the criminal justice system in Florida just continues to look the other way and allow it to happen because of these ridiculous legal technicalities. I don't even think that the judge respectfully was right about it is just mind bending. So Jack Piercy finally gave an admission that he couldn't wiggle out of. However, the court then won't allow it to be admitted as evidence, which is just fucking insane and of course doesn't make any of it less true. But I still have a few questions about the night of the crime, what happened when Piercy came back to the house to get James Daily out of bed, and how did his pants get wet, So it can be no earlier than three forty five in the morning. And Jack Pearcy gets home and he's by himself, and Oza Shaw is rock solid about this. He has never wavered on this in all the years he's given testimony in this case. Jack Pearcy goes into James Daily's room, wakes him up, and then they leave together. Now, look, I don't know whether that was because Jack Pearsy was freaked out, he was looking for an alibi. Who knows why he did what he did next, He probably didn't want to face the wrath of his girlfriend who he had just treated so horribly, right, I mean he left her pregnant in the house while he went out to try to have sex with this underage girl. I can tell you that he told me that he was freaked out and then he just wanted to talk and have some beers. He takes James Daily to a different location than the murder occurred. They have beers and smoke a joint and he says, look, you need you to move out. We need your room because the baby is coming soon. Remember, Gayle Bailey is pregnant, and what James Daly has said. And what Jack Piercy in fact told me is they popped the trunk on the car to sit on the back bumper, and that there's a frisbee in the backseat and there parked on the waterway, and that James Daily whips it up in the air. That was like his thing. He would always like fling the frisbee up in the air and try to boomerang it back to himself. And that at some point it went into like the shallow water, and that James Dailly waited it out there and got it, so he had wet pants when they both got back. Osa Shaw and Gayle Bailey see them come home, and Piercy is dry and James Daily has wet pants, and the police say, ha ha, he must have been the one that murdered Shelley Boggio. And look, Jack Piercy has told me that what happened with the frisbee happened. And you know, to any of the listeners that are thinking, well that sounds odd, well you know what it might. But I can tell you that in every single case that I have worked on where somebody is innocent, they always live with what can be an inconvenient fact and I'm gonna leave you with this thought when Jack Piercy implicates him. James Daly is living under his own name. He has moved to California at this point. It's six months later. He started a kitchen cabinet company with a friend and the police asked him. Six months later, we heard from Oza Shaw and Gayl Bailey that you had wet pants that night. You know, he can quickly compute. While Gayl Bailey is the mother of Jack Pearcy's child. At this point, Oza Shaw is an old friend of Jack Piercy's. They're both going to cover for Jack Piercy. He could have quickly said bullshit, I did my pants were dry, But he lives with the inconvenient fact because he's innocent, and he says, yeah, they were wet then night. Here's what happened. That is a hallmark of innocence. Hallmark of innocence. He lives with that because he thinks that the police are just gonna believe him and actually investigate this. Right, It's not like they could have gone back in time and found some wet stain on something. It would have been the easiest thing for him to say that you're absolutely right. That being said, Piercy goes to trial, it sounds like he didn't have a snowball chance. And how in sure enough, he's convicted and the state seeks the death penalty against Jack Piercy and they don't get it. He gets life. My understanding and correct me if I'm wrong, is that there's a line between the fact that the state failed to get the death penalty that they sought against Piercy, so they wanted to execute somebody for this awful crime, and that led them to do a number of terrible, terrible things. What happens next is the prosecutor send police in to the Penellas County Jail where James Daily is being held pre trial, to start building a better case against James Daily. And they don't have anything to go on with James Daily except these wet pants. And it is Operation Frame James Daily. And if you want more about exactly what happened, we could never cover in this timeframe you. Pamela Koloff wrote an amazing investigative piece of all jailhouse snitches in particularly the one in this case, in pro publica in the New York Times. But they start pulling people off the paw where James Daily was housed had been housed, and what they start hearing from inmates is over and over again, he tells us he had nothing to do with this, He's innocent. And then the detectives let it be known to inmates that if you have information leading to the conviction of James Daily, if you can help us with the case, there's a deal to be had for you. And at first they get no takers. They start pulling some of the same inmates off the pod and now they have newspaper articles about the crime sitting in front of them, and one of these inmates has has said in Pam Koloff story, look, I could have easily made something up by reading the newspaper articles that they put in front of me. But they get no takers. They ultimately sort of giving up hope getting a snitch against James Daily, and then enter Paul Skealnick. And Paul Skalnik was housed at that jail and he was uh someone that was known to Panellis County police officers. He was known to that prosecutor's office. He had cooperated in forty some odd cases, and they knew he was a liar. They knew that he had no way of knowing the things that he knew, and they knew that he was a liar in this case from the outset. Because what happens is Paul Skalnik had already tried to get himself a deal in connection with Jack Piercey's case. He goes to investigators and he says, I have information about Jack Piercy, and they said, duh, he's already been convicted. We don't need information about Jack Piercy. So then he takes another try and he says, well, now I have information about James Daly. They should have said to him, come on, buddy, enough, but shockingly they listened to him. And the tale he tells them has already been found by the Florida Supreme Court to be impossible. They have, in commenting on appeals that James Dally has made, said the layout of the jail makes his story nuts. It doesn't make any sense. Now, remember he's a known snitch. In this jail, Paul Scalnik is radioactive. No one's going near him. He's cooperated in countless cases. Everybody knows he's in a single cell. So Scalnick tells us crazy story at James Daly's trial that James Daily is mosing past the cell stops, turns to him for some unknown reason and says, she wouldn't shut up and I killed her. So we cannot overstate the disgusting practice of using lying, incentivized jail house snitches who basically condemned their victims to death in exchange for extremely lenient treatment. And Skalnik is one of the most grotesque examples of this. And what I mean by that is two he was charged with sexually assaulting a child. The case was strong and the victim, this brave little girl, was prepared to testify, but officials never prosecuted him for the crime. Instead, he pleaded no contest to a separate and far less serious charge of grand theft. There is incontrovertible evidence that the prosecutors knew that Paul Scownick lied on the witness stand about his past charges of of sexual assault against miners, and they did nothing about it. They didn't correct it. And you know, Paul Skalnik lies to the jury and says that he wasn't promised any deal. He ends up walking out of jail five days after James Daily is sentenced to death the State of Florida. Where and I'll never forget you saying this to me as we've spoken one of our many, many conversations about this case, Josh's five or six months ago, he said to me, you know, my client, James Daily is either going to be the hundredth person executed by the State of Florida or the thirtieth exonerated from death row. And that gives me the chills because what that says to us is that the State of Florida, even if everyone who they've executed before was guilty, and we know that that is not the case because Jesse to Pharaoh, and the list goes on. But they're not even batting seven hundred, and yet they continue to let the machinery of death wind its way, grind its way through, and and Daily is in their sights. M has been for a long time, but now so more than ever, which makes this even more urgent that you're here. This case has gained so much attention, and hopefully through this podcast it gains more because it is just the perfect unfortunate storm of injustice. James Daily has been sitting there in this narrow, dank cell for thirty US years suffocating in the eventuality that the State of Florida is going to take his life for something he did not do. And you know, if the courts are not going to give him the justice that he deserves and give the Boggio family the proper closure they deserve by making sure that we don't compound a tragedy by taking another innocent life, I have to keep fighting. You know, the state of Florida has an opportunity to be a catch all, a fail safe. Governor Rhonda Santis can make clemency in Florida matter. Pam Colloff said it best. There is a problem with the death penalty in Florida. It is no small wonder and it is not some coincidence that Florida has more death rogues generations than any other state in the country. And there's a clemency process in Florida that does not really apply to death penalty prisoners unless they're willing to go and show some sort of contrition. And James Daily is not going to show contrition for something he didn't do. So there's a lot to fight for these days, and the James Daily cases one of them we're seeing right now. The power of united voices, Unity, brings change, pressure breaks pipes. To stand by Idoly. You know, in the face of injustice is not an option anymore. That applies to cases of innocence, police brutality against people of color in this country. We have to stand up to it all. I'm sure people are listening saying, I want to do something about this James Daily situation. It's awful. Is there something that people can do in terms of the James Daily case. We need as many listeners as we can to sign the petition to the Governor's office that this cannot stand. That if the courts do not give James Daily justice, that we need there to be a real clemency hearing where I can present all of the stunning evidence of James Daily's innocence. Please everyone, scroll down into this episode's description, click the link, sign the petition and help bring James Daily hume. There really is a wind at all cost mentality when prosecutors. It's at the heart of a lot of the problems plaguing our criminal legal system, you know, resorting to the use of jailhouse snitches who are totally unreliable and notoriously incentivized and wrongly incentivized. It's just one of the many, many symptoms of a systemic disease at the root of so many wrongful conviction cases. Now, Josh, if you could focus on one particular way in which wrongful convictions are obtained, what's the first thing that comes to mind. The first thing that comes to mind to me is reverse engineering, working from a place of wanting to get a desired result, having an a hunch, of feeling a notion that someone did something, and then using pseudo science or some justification for it. And that's what we see in so many of these cases. The almost every single case that I have worked on that involves an innocent man or woman involves some form of junk science. You know. Look, the gold standard for forensic science in this country is the National Academy of Sciences. And there was a bombshell report in two thousand nine when the National Academy of Science has found that many of these so called forensic disciplines that are used in cases all over the country going backwards thirty fifty years and still to this date. This is in two thousand nine, found that they weren't science at all. Called out bite mark evidence is saying there's no scientific basis for it whatsoever. And still to this day, courts all over the country except bite mark evidence. They were critical blood spatter evidence of footwear impressions. Arson Are these disciplines objective, reliable? Can they be repeated? Can they be confirmed? And because of this phenomenon called legal precedent, where judges just say, well it was accepted before, I'll keep on accepting it, they keep on admitting it all over the country, and innocent men and women are having their lives destroyed because so called experts get on a witness stand and say, well, I can match these teeth marks to this individual, on these bite marks on that victim, and to a degree of scientific certainty that individual did the biting. They were the perpetrator. And Clementia Geary's case, there was blood all over the crime scene. It was no small wonder that the blood came from the two victims. The reason that they were collecting the blood of the crime scene was to try to determ who the perpetrator was. And that's not because I say so. The crime scene investigators in that very case admitted that the reason that they were collecting the blood was to figure out who the perpetrator was. They never tested a single drop of blood. We had to test it. They were analyzing footwear impressions, and Clementia Geary had admitted that he happened upon the bodies and walked through the crime scene. There was no small wonder that his shoes made some impressions. There were impressions that were never looked at. That's a case of just ignoring the the forensic evidence. But you know, in so many cases, the conviction comes down to the jury buying a so called expert that says only the defendant's teeth could have left that mark on the victim, when in fact you find out that the mark on the victim wasn't even a bite mark at all, or that the blood spatter came from this direction, and an expert reconstructs the crime in a way that sounds so convincing to the jury, and they use acronyms and fancy words, and you find out that this so called x for doesn't even have a high school education and took a forty hour course from a man that you know, gave birth to the discipline of blood spatter and a basement in Corning, New York that he called the Forensic Institute of Science. If we really peel back the curtain and people really see what's going on, what I think is going to happen is I think you are going to be just horrified that courts admit this stuff, people rely on it, and it's not juris false. It sounds super convincing. But what what I would like is for there to be a greater awareness about what this is, had a spot it if you're a juror, and had to scrutinize it, so that we are not convicting innocent people for crimes they didn't commit. I emphatically agree with you, Josh. That's why I'm particularly proud and actually humbled to announce that we are going to be presenting a brand new series, Wrawful Conviction Junk Science, and the host will be none other than Josh Stubin, the man you've been listening to today. And I'm so excited to be involved with it because I think we're going to do what I've always wanted to do, which is to help make better decisions that will lead not only to less wrongful convictions, but to more rightful ones. Yeah. So let me start by saying I'm I'm the one, and there's like a big love fest. I'm the one that's humbled and honored. I mean, Jason, you're a personal hero of mine. I tell you privately all the time, I'll tell you publicly now, I mean I'm I am honored, humbled and everything in between. To be the host of the what I think is a really important podcast. Um, it's inspiring and I think it's a real opportunity for people to instead of asking how do I get out of jury service, which I always tell people, Well, if you were wrongfully accused of a crime, wouldn't you want you on the jury? Um, instead of getting out of jury service if you're there wanting to be a part of it, especially in a criminal case, and make or that justice is really done and that you're highly inquisitive asking the right questions to yourself throughout the trial and to your fellow jers when you deliberate. So we do not have more of these stories about people getting out after decades have passed, and rather more stories about them getting acquitted before the damage is done or more damage is done, because any criminal prosecution against the innocent is damaging to their families, to them, and of course to the victim and the victims families. So, Josh, as we get ready to sign off, this is the part of the show where I first of all thank my guest in this case you for being here, and then turn my microphone off and kick back and listen, because this is the segment of the show called closing arguments, you know, because I feel like this fell on deaf ears to some extent. I'll just read to you my closing argument to the court that was recently denied, and let the listeners judge for themselves how they would have ruled if they were the judge. This is no ordinary case. There is no more important legal question in the American system of justice than whether someone may be executed without ever had a meaningful opportunity to present the complete evidence of his or her innocence. Recognizing that the execution of an innocent person is quote the quintessential miscarriage of justice end quote, the request is simple. This court should hear and consider the totality of the evidence before permitting the State of Florida to execute James Daily. Jack Piercy has confessed time and time again that he killed Shelley Boggio and that James Daily had nothing whatsoever to do with it. There has been some debate over the years about the motives behind Piercy's confessions. Indeed, throughout the course of James Daily's three decade long fight to clear his name, many have speculated as to why Jack Piercy would repeatedly confess to sole responsibility for the murder only till later account But if in fact James Daly was the person who murdered Chili Boggio, and makes absolutely no sense that Jack Piercy would ever confess to her murder. After all, it would be James Daly who was responsible for Jack Piercy's three decade long wrong phonecarceration for in essence, ruining his life. No person in Pearcy's position would ever confess to a murder that would allow Daily to escape responsibility. Piercy's most recent effort to explain why he would have given such a false confession is so irrational and self serving that it is obviously made up. He claims that he hoped to gain some advantage of his own by capitalizing on the efforts of James Daly's legal team to overturn Mr. Daly's conviction. But how could Pearcy's legal position ever be helped by his confession that he committed the crime alone. Once he confessed, there's no chance that anything Mr Daley's legal team would be doing could somehow benefit Piercy. Moreover, we James Daley's legal team remain engaged in a tremendous effort to fight his wrongful conviction. So even if you take Piercy at his word that he confessed against some sort of legal benefit of his own, which again makes no sense, he would be more incentivized than ever to sit back and see how things unfold. So what changed? The only thing that changed is that Piercy's mother read about his latest confession in the newspaper and expressed her genuine despair. Piercy's mother also alerted him to the consequences of his confession with respect to his son. So what is far more probable is that Jack Piercy's guilty conscience, burdened by the knowledge that he may be responsible for yet another innocent person, has caused him to confess his sole responsibility numerous times, only to recant when faced with his mother's grief and the fear that his family might shun him if he finally comes clean about what he did. The court need not reach a conclusion on this issue. Reasonable minds can disagree about the motive behind Jack Piercey's confessions and ensuing recantations. However, one thing is for certain. Jack Piercy has managed to wiggle out of these confessions in the past by disgracefully gaming the legal system at the expense of James Dally's grueling pursuit of the truth and the Boggio family's right to closure. At long last, the games should end here under oath, when the state, at the full and fair opportunity to cross examine him, Piercy let the truth slip, and he did so in the context of yet another recantation of a confession that he committed the crime alone. This is earth shattering for James Daily's fight for justice. This is the truth catching up to the lie. Now, the Florida Evidence Code requires that this new evidence, in fact, this critical admission that places Piercy alone with Shelley Boggio during the time frame in which he was murdered, be held up to the bright light of the truth. Indeed, let it be placed on the scales of justice along with the cumulative extraordinary evidence of James Daily's innocence that until now has been hidden from the eyes of the law due to procedural obstacles. Let us then see how the scales tip once and for all. Now that was rejected by the court. And I ask you, is that asking too much? If the courts are not going to listen and simply have a hearing and let us present the evidence. I would ask your listeners to please help by joining the fight. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music 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 Lava for Good Podcasts in association with signal Company Number one