Explicit

#144 Jason Flom with Ronnie Long

Published Jul 29, 2020, 4:12 AM

On the night of April 25th, 1976, a wealthy, 54 year old widow was burglarized and raped in Concord, North Carolina. What happened next paints a stark picture of American policing and race relations that arguably remains unchanged to this day.

Learn more and get involved at:

https://www.change.org/p/demand-nc-governor-to-commute-ronnie-long-s-sentence-immediately

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

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At around on the night of April nineteen seventy six, the fifty four year old widow of a Cannon Mills executive was at her home and Conquered, North Carolina when a man grabbed her from behind. She fought him, scratching her attacker so hard that her nails bent backwards, but ultimately he overpowered and raped her. She described her assailant as a light skinned black man with no mention of facial hair, wearing a dark leather coat and a beanie hat. A rape kit was done and the police carefully collected a mountain of forensic evidence. Meanwhile, across town, nineteen year old Ronnie Long was at home with his mother, on the phone with the mother of his own two year old son until ten pm. A few days later, Ronnie received a court summons for trespassing in a park after hours. He was wearing a dark leather coat at the time. Police would ask the rape victim to be present in court to see if her attacker was pred and on the day Ronnie, the owner of a dark leather coat, was scheduled to appear disguised. She sat in the gallery for two hours in Ronnie's presence, only to identify him as her attacker. When his name was called, the state would present a case without any of the collected forensic or biological evidence, solely resting their case upon this extremely unorthodox and totally unreliable cross racial identification and Ronnie's unscratched leather coat. For that, Ronnie has been in prison for forty four years. This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flower. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's case, Will Um. It's going to upset you know. I'm gonna tell you right now. This is a grotesque injustice that was inflicted and is still being inflicted on an amazing man named Ronnie Long. And we're hoping to hear from Ronnie during the recording. We'll be calling in from prison where he has been since nineteen seventies six for a crime he didn't commit. In this time of COVID, there's all sorts of complications, so we're going to try to make it work with us now as well is Jamie Law. Jamie is an attorney at Duke University's Wrongful Convictions Clinic. And Jamie, thank you for joining us on the show. Thank you for having me. I'm want to do something unusual here. I actually want to start at the end. We we almost never do that. But there's a quote from a judge named James Winn, who's a circuit court judge in the fourth District Court. So this is a serious guy. And Judge Wynn said, and I quote, prosecutors clearly had evidence that any defense counsel in the world, not only in but in the history of this country would have wanted or needed, and which should have been supplied, and yet we did not provide it. He goes on to say, what is it about us that we want to prosecute and keep people in jail when we know evidence may exist that might lead to a different conclusion. Why is that so offensive to us now that we want to protect illegal activity from forty four years ago? What's the harm of looking at the new evidence? He said? When did justice leave the process? So we let our rules blind us to what we all can see. Wow. Well, during the course of argument, it made us optimistic that after forty four years, um end maybe near to the injustice that occurred in Ronnie's case. It's been an incredible difficult journey through the courts to get his case to where it was on May seven of this year, you said we'll start at the end, and the end at this point in time was an argument on May seven in front of the full Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is fifteen active judges, all have been appointed by a President. Judge Win was making that quote in response to arguments from the State of North Carolina that more or less was asking the court to disregard all the evidence that is now known about in this case that was hid from Rannie at the time of his trial in nineteen seventy six. And Judge Win also discussed sort of the circumstances is of nineteen seventy six and the conditions of black males, particularly in the South in nineteen six and how they were wrongfully convicted in great numbers. So at the moment Judge Wynn offered his viewpoints during the course of the stake's argument, we knew that we had succeeded in conveying to the court the seriousness and the magnitude of the injustice that occurred in Ronnie's case. Has promised we got a phone call from Ronnie and I must warn you that there was a poor connection with the prison. So right is a little hard to hear, but what he has to say needs to be heard, so please bear with us. You have a prepaid call. You will not be charged for this call. This call is from and inmate at Albemarle Correctional Institution. This call will be monitored and recorded. To accept this call, press five now to decline this call. Hang up. Thank you for you think link. Hi, Ronnie, thanks for calling me. I know we have limited time, so let's get right into it now. You grew up in conquered North Carolina, right seven brothers and sisters. Can you tell me a little bit about your life before all of this horrible stuff happened? Pretty exports. When I was in how school went wait to call? I learned how to leave. That's work I was doing with my dad. I would go to work with him, sometimes make money with you had a son. I still a lot of time with my son, him, his mother. He's a little of the cool of the game, the game when I never street with three. Now I read about this one time before you had your son, way before the incident that lands you in prison. There was an encounter that you once had with some police officers. They pulled up on you harassed you a bit, Hey, you know what you're doing around here? Boy type of thing, And you responded, isn't this America? Aren't I free to walk on this sidewalk? That right? I was coming from a girl coming from the girl house one night the area that was in he was gonna listen like area, So I'm coming all one night. The two white cups behind me, Ada, what are you coming from? What are you doing in this area here? Perically? Did you walk side walk here? They took me cost me that we down compled me in the rule. I stated about two wow. Not also came up tops ago. You can leave. I just gotta walk up with all one home. And that's it seems to be how he got to be on the radar of the local authorities. And then, on the faithful day of Sunday, April nine, seventy six, around pm, a wealthy white, fifty four year old widow of a Cannon Mills executive was burg arized and raped, an awful, awful crime. And Canon Mills was a major employer in the area, and that name is going to come to play a big role in this In this story, the victim said that while she was preparing food for a beach trip. The following day, a black man snuck into her home and grabbed her from behind. She said the intruder told her that he only had fifteen minutes as his friends were waiting for him outside like a horror movie, and he proceeded to rape her. She later described her attacker as quote yellow looking and quote again not blue, black, maybe wearing gloves, a beanie hat, no mention of any facial hair, and a dark leather coat. She also described the violent struggle where she scratched her attacker so hard that her fingernails bent backward, which would definitely have left the mark on the leather coat. The victim said that whenever she tried to move, he would slam her head against the ground. Then the phone rang, startling the attacker, who gathered his things and left through the front door. The victim then rushed over to her neighbors naked, where she was able to call the police, and they arrived around ten pm. The victim has since passed away um, but that being said, she was rushed to the hospital for a rape kit, and the doctor performed all the tests and collected all the biological evidence and everything else. What happened next is that Detective Eisenhower of the Concord Police Department arrived at the victim's home around ten thirty, photographed the house, and began collecting evidence, including latent fingerprints, carpet samples, suspect hair paint samples, as well as pieces of the victim's clothing and partially burned matches, and he later brought them to the State Bureau of Investigation office at Raleigh for examination. He also lifted a latent shoe print from a column near the porch. Now this is important later as nothing but the shoe print was ever the discussed at trial. And before we go any further, we need to state clearly that Ronnie had a solid alibi. And remember the crime took place at Ronnie at around nine thirty. You were at home with your mother, waiting on your father to get back with the car so you could head out to a party in Charlotte. You were on the phone with the mother of your child. Your mom hopped on the phone a few times to say hello to her grandson. Right, Yes, he on the phone too, but you can't understand what you say it But he's trying to talk and says he on the phone to my mom was on the phone. I'll stay on the phone. I'm gonna stays on the phone. And uh, I'm waiting on my dad to come back with the car with my day. I got that car. I'm trying to call one or two party show. So Jamie, can you take us back to how Ronnie came to be implicated in it and how he could have possibly been convicted in spite of no evidence of all none, zero. Yeah. Ronnie, very much like other young black men in nineteen seventy six and still today, was harassed by law enforcement officers. That harassment directly led to what ultimately becomes this forty four year old wrongful conviction. On April, the victim is assaulted and raped in her home. A few days after that, Ronnie receives a trespassing charge at the local park that was adjacent to his home when he shouldn't have been there, and during that time it appears that he was observed wearing a black leather coat. The officer who stopped him recalled that the person who was described by the victim had been wearing a dark leather coat on the night of April when she gave a description to law enforcement, and despite Ronnie not matching other very prominent features that were included in her description, the officer decided that perhaps he was the individual who had assault at the victim. I mean it was significant the disparities between her description of her assailant and Ronnie. She described her assailant as a yellow black male. In the South at the time, to describe somebody as a yellow black male meant a light skinned black person of mixed origin. She never mentioned her assailant having facial hair. Ronnie had facial hair, and disputed that he had facial hair on April nineteen seventy six when she was assaulted. So despite him having a different complexion having facial hair, where she never described facial hair, he becomes a suspect. Officers then go to her home and says, we have reason to believe that the individual who had assaulted you will be in the courtroom on this date fifteen days later, May tenth, nineteen seventy six, and we'd like you to come down to the courtroom to see if you can identify the person who attacked you there. So immediately in her mind she thinks they've done some investigation and have identified a likely suspect, But all they had done is made the connect um to the fact that Ronnie had a black leather coat, similar to what she described. The real curious thing with respect to law enforcement asking the victim to go to the courthouse to try and make an identification is they had a picture of Long that they could have shown her when they went to her and asked her to come to the courthouse, And they could have did it in a fair procedure, or as fair as these identification procedures can be, with the inclusion of fillers to ensure that she's selecting him from memory and not because he looks most like the attacker or because she's being presented a suspect in a very suggestive way. They elected to forego that. So she's brought to the courthouse dressed in a disguise because she's fearful that if her attacker was there, he'd recognize her. She describes during her testimony being terror fied. She six in the courtroom for an hour and a half being Long's presence and fails to identify him, and only when his name is called and he walks up to resolve the trespassing charge, which was dismissed that day. Did she say he's the one? But it's telling because we later learned during her testimony at trial that there were only twelve black males in the courtroom. She quickly eliminated several of them because they had afros where they were older. She described one as being old and hunched over, and she says that he was the only one that looked remotely similar to her attacker. And identification evidence is already flawed and highlighting reliable, but here you can just take her words that she's just picking the person that's most likely to be her attacker that's present in the courtroom, so she can in the experience where she's traumatized and terrified, so that in essence becomes the only think seeking. So long, and here we are, forty four years later, trying to undo that identification. And I'm glad you brought that up, Jamie, because we know the most unreliable eye witness identification as cross racial. This fits exactly into that category. And then, of course there's still room for it to get worse. So Ronnie, take us back to the day that you were in court for the misdemeanor trespassing charge when you had no idea. You couldn't have had any idea that there was a rape victim in the gallery who was being led to believe that her attacker was in the courtroom that day. And the craziest thing is that you two were in each other's presence for nearly two hours before she idd you right, Yeah, they misdemeanor just passing. So I go downtown cloth when you call my name, must do it up. We'll walk down for me and my day. When say when they say that she had the same two detectives there was on this case that's been on this case the whole time they were sitting in the jury box, she test a father that it was it's got me twelve black. It's important. There's not an easy people here looking like me. She's supposed to be looking for a young black head that I sawed her, but she distinctly stated that she's looked around and looked around and looked around it to the trash group, and I didn't see nobody. I want you to hold you to think about me, she says. She said in the court room, then for who I on her heads looking around and she still see anymore the people want. She didn't see anyone, your sin said, because of the scriptures that she gave the podies with the light skinned black man with no hand on his face. I'm shouldn't have been there, and you unerstanding the goad skinned but hand on my face. So I didn't match another the description your ston saying that she were looking for. That's why she couldn't pick me out. But you picked me out here, say said, when they called my name and run alone to the front, right alone, if you an court, I said, yeah, you come down front. That's when she said, she's looking now. She ain't recognized me. She's looking down my name. You go, number one, How are you gonna sit in the court room. You know there's a whole hour to head. They were living a twelve blacks in them people sitting there for a whole hour and a half. You don't see this young black man that you're looking for. The really you don't see it because she's not Yeah, he got hell on the the court. Actually this woman could depot eat the part. But that I told you to pick and run alone, she said, they could have I don't know. That's in a trench they could have. I don't know. So the victim makes this shaky identification, tells the detectives. But you've got no idea that any of this is going on. You're there for this misdemeanor charge, which gets dismissed, and then you go home. But that was not the last you'd see of law enforcement that day. We went home with the suite. I'll wake up two hours later my mom don the Morning League. When Ronnie was picked up, he was not told that he was suspected of this rain. Instead, he arrived at the station at six pm, was read his rights, and the police claimed that they asked permission to search his car, but they hadn't, and then they testified to finding gloves, matchbooks, and a beanie in the car. Ronnie maintains that the gloves were his, but the beanie was not. I'll follow a downtown. I used to drive with close. But when I get out of all, I speaking my food my son val I tried to call a locked though. I gotta reflect me of the jacket. Yeah, I'm going there, they kill me. I'm a suspection of ripon Vergerkis. I'll take the keys up and they take the keys up and run out to go with the same to the kids that they was in the court room that morning. Yo, man with at going with my chees bring kees kill. They're just going to look in your car. You ain't gotten in the hide now, but you gave you permission to look at my car either. So they go down look at my car. They come back again. They got mom. She took my other jacket off of me. The maids the mother stuff. They had my glue. They had a lime green to bargain that I had never seen the day in my life. And for anyone who doesn't know, it's a boggain, I didn't know. A toboggan is a hat like the one described by the victim in this case. So the police come back with what they claimed to have found in your car. Go ahead, Ronnie, they said, you guy just got your car. If you won't be ye back when we did complete the investigations, sign your name my heads. You gotta looks on the people for me to sign. To make say, sign your name my head. You won't eat behind mthing. Okay, I I what my jacket back my jacket. I don't want my glue, But I don't know who he is, but I don't know what my jacket blue. So I sund out the treeple come to sign out as a consent for the search car. So they tricked you in order to make it seem like you consented, and that way it would have made the search technically legal. They planted the lime green and pattered toboggan. Now the police gotta lives read the bogging court saying that this is the half of the perpectray of word. I'm telling my log and then I was don't wear that to you, and I ain't ever hear that. That ain't gonna head. My log is get the hat inside out. It's it's red. Is looking at it? Really sad? You gotta live area when I hate it like I got black long a man as night. Yeah, I know what's to be. The States would never let me DNA, just that I won't NAT. They didn't never, they didn't never. So we now come to the conclusion that the police planted this beanie in the car so that they could have another you know, well really another there is no other evidence, so that they could have something that they could use against him. And I say something they could use against him, because remember all of that evidence Detective eising Hard collected from the crime scene. Well if the red hairs that they found in the beanie that are clearly not Ronnie's hair, bother you just wait, because it's about to get way worse again. The crime scene evidence comes back from the state you have of investigation in Raleigh, and none of it matches Ronnie. But since the rich white widow of an executive of one of the biggest employers in town just ideed him as her rapist rather than just doing the right thing, the just thing, the evidence never even made it to the prosecutor's office, let alone the defense. So the police withheld the evidence from both the defense and the prosecution. Let me just repeat that, the police withheld the evidence not just from the defense, but from the prosecution, just in case the prosecution might have decided, hey, wait a minute, we got the wrong guy. That the police decided to play judge jury, and I mean they might as well played executioner, because poor Ronnie has been in prison for forty four fucking years. I mean, this is um yeah, I mean, just when I think I've heard it all, Um, and Jamie, you're living this day in and day out. Now, I mean, what what can you add to that, because it gets worse from there. Right, So, they not only tested this evidence and it didn't match Long. When it didn't match Long, they made the decision that they wouldn't turn it over to the defense or the prosecution, which we contending. We argued this at the May seventh hearing that we had in this case, that there's a possibility that the prosecutor could have decided not to go forward with this case at all had he known that all the forensic test results pointed away from Ronny and towards another suspect. There was suspect hair collected brought to Ralie, examined by the crime lab, determined by the crime lab to be in the parlanks of the lab report of Negroid or Mongolian origin, meaning that it came from a person who was either Asian or black. And we know that that hair that was collected, those suspect hair didn't match long. If it didn't match along, then the suspect, the person who should have been incarcerated for forty four years. There's the evidence of who that person's identity is. And it's remarkable in the fact that they believe this would be probative. They collected because they thought it would be probative. All indications are they did come from the suspect, but when it didn't match Long, they kept it from everybody, so the prosecutor would go forward on the basis of this completely unheard of identification procedure. And I have to tell you, Jason, I'm very skeptical whenever any client offers a suggestion that evidence may be planted. But as you look at this case and what officers did keeping evidence away from the prosecutor, it really makes you stop and say, oh, my goodness, this is completely consistent with the behaviors of the officers in this case. And then when Long says, those are my gloves, but I've never seen that beanie in my life. Do you think why would he acknowledge owning one but not the other. And the only explanation is because the officers in this case set out to ensure Long was convicted. That included lying, hiding, and with the beanie, manufacturing evidence to ensure that he would spend the rest of his life incarcerating convicted for this crime. And for whatever reason, the state of North Carolina is just willing to ignore that all together and continue to argue that Long is guilty of this crime. Crazy right, And there's no evidence that he ever owned a beanie. There's no photographs of him at a beanie, there's no nobody knew about any beanie. There's also the fact that the victim has fought her attacker um with with all of her strength, and she had scratched the attacker so hard that her own nails bent back. You know, did you take a love of check, did you spread did you look at it a mom a microscope? You know, when will you can sing that stresco media, because yeah, my coat look upon the microscope. But yet still she says, that's the coat, that's the jack, that's the perpetrated world. And when those sage all mean and when no pet exact, well, there's a good explanation for there being no scratches on you, your face, your leather coat. It's painfully simple. It's because you weren't there that night. But she idd you. They were trying to make the square fit the circle, and they were willing to bend the rules pen break the rules. They planted evidence in your car and tried everything they could to make sure that they got a conviction in this case, and people were out in the street protesting as well. Right, So when they arrested you, they offered you a plea deal so they could make all of that public outcry just go away. Now they love me, or when they love me, or they're offered me or seven years three. They offered me a seven years three, told me that I would be back home and three. And it made it explicively clear that if I didn't take the plea, if you were trying me for my life. So I mean, I got people in the street, did the stream, I got my family, I did the street. I got people in the street deals. Theresa is supportful. I knew exactly what they wanted. Man. They wanted me to keep keet out to that charge so they could put it in on front page. Oh let us long past a great job. So I always you only got holler and yether and throwing bag then you're going. But I knew I couldn't do that to cause number one, my dad said, I didn't raise yuh say you did something? When you didn't do it, I turned down to peep, So I was fishing to est I was serious way people he took me the same year see the norcom Abouts stilty. But then we get to the trial itself, and this is gonna shock exactly no one. But the jury was all white. Let me just say that again. This is an all white jury conquered North Carolina six. The jury was handpicked by the Cabas County sheriff. And get this, three of the members of the jury worked for Cannon Mills. And you'll remember that the victims husband worked at Cannon Mills as well. So the jury chairperson at the time created a master list of jurors. To get us somethings for jury duty, you had to be on that list. And prior to Long's trial, he brought that list of master jurors first to the sheriff and allowed the sheriff to strike through any person on that list that the sheriff deemed unfit for jury duty. He then brought the list to the conquered police department, and testimony is that the chief of police and some of his deputies sat there and did the same. So law enforcement, the very people who investigated this case, end up lying about this case. About the evidence collected in this case, played a role in the selection of the jurors who ultimately found Mr. Long guilty. And in this trial, every single witness that testified for the State of North Carolina was white. Every single witness that testified on behalf of Ronnie Long to demonstrate his innocence, to prove his alibi, to show that he was nowhere near the victim's home on the night this attack occurred, was black. And by selecting an all white jury in segregated Concord, North Carolina in ninety ultimately what we had was a circumstance where the jurors were being asked to decide between finding their neighbors truthful or finding the people from the other side of the tracks, the black side of town. They would have had to find them truthful over the officers who were their neighbors, who are the people who lived in their community, their side of town. That's what it would have taken to find Long not guilty. And of course we all know how it played out, and this courtroom, there was a racially divided court with blacks on one side and whites on the other um And of course, now the really awful result, but predictable result of this sham trial was that on October first nine, with his whole life in front of him, Ronnie Long was convicted and sentenced to to life terms. His mother fainted, and a riot nearly ensued. Um Long himself has called his conviction a quote modernized lynching sanctioned by law. When they found me guilty, they started fighting in the cool room. They started fighting. Man. I started to I started my molester, she said to me. She grabbing up a bill, looked at She said, you would make it up to fronto Jos holds me. Luck, they're right there. Get that, man. I wanted to Ronnie tonight and listen to this. So after Long's conviction, concord bubbled over with fury. The next day, hundreds of protesters descended on the city's downtown, staging a demonstration in front of the courthouse, and for days fifty or more police officers in full riot gear stationed themselves at a nearby park, and the at least chief warned protesters that violence would be met with force. So I mean nothing has changed. And that and the bravery, the courage of these people who protested, putting themselves in grave danger from the same police force that had just framed their friend, their neighbor, their fellow human. I had spoke with his trial counsel, Jim Fuller prior to the May seventh arguments, and he said, Jamie, I've only been maced one time in my life. And it was after the verdict when outbursts occurred in the courtroom and law enforcement decided to clear out all the supporters of Long. And he said officers were beating a young man and he tried to pull the officers away, and they turned and sprayed him Long's trial attorney in the face with mace. Nothing has changed. Um, it's really uh, it's really hard to you know, it's I mean, I'm trying to be optimistic, and you know, I think we are on the verge of change, and but it's it's remarkable how much things are as they were forty four years later. The post conviction litigation history. Can you walk us through that, Jamie, because it's quite extraordinary in and of itself. It's been a long process. So it began in the nineties. After he was convicted. He filed his first what we call here in North Carolina motions for appropriate Relief. They're the post conviction review petitions that initiate uh post conviction proceedings, and it was related to the jury. He was ruled against during the course of those proceedings. That was then appealed in federal court, arguing the same things, that he didn't commit the crime and that his trial was unfair in part because of the way in which the jury was seated, and he was ruled against in federal court. Over the years, he tried to get people to help him, and then in two thousand five, the Innocence Project at the University of North Carolina took interest in the case, and the present litigation began. They found an attorney to work with Ronnie. That attorney did all the work necessary to uncover not just the lies, but the evidence that was withheld from long at the time of his trial, and they went into state court and held an evidentiary hearing where the judgured testimony related to the withholding of this evidence. That's a real interesting proceeding because the prosecutor, the individual who tried running along back in nineteen seventy six, took the stand and testified for long that he didn't have copies of these reports. He didn't know that this testing was done. Had he known that it was done, he would have required that had been turned over. He also talked about a sexual assault kit that we haven't even talked about, that they collected one from the victim and then it subsequently disappeared. Yeah, so he testified for long but despite all that, the judging state court ruled against long and found that he hadn't proven that his rights were violated. The case then went to the North Carolina Supreme Court. There are seven justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court. One set out the decision, and as a result, the Supreme Court split three three. So TI went to the state. Ronnie's conviction was upheld and he was still incarcerated. It then went to an organization in North Carolina called the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, and they reviewed the case and their focus was trying to find the sexual assault kit that was collected and disappeared. They did not find it, but they actually discovered that in two thousand and eight. During the course of those proceedings, officers light again by saying that they had no physical evidence remaining in the case. In their custody winning fact, they had all the latent fingerprints that had been collected from the crime scene. That's when I got involved, and as you're reacting to how just atrocious and an affront to justice this case is. I had the same initial reaction the other attorneys I work with at the Wrongful Convictions Clinic. We worked to file another habeas petition on Ronnie's behalf. It was dismissed because the district court said that we had failed to bring the fingerprint related evidence in state court prior to filing our habeas petition. Of course, it would have been brought in state court had it not been hit during the time that the state post conviction litigation was ongoing. We appealed that dismissal. The Fourth Circuit reversed and sent it back to the district court. Then the district Court once again granted a dismissal on behalf of the state. The district court said that while we had shown that evidence was withheld, that it was favorable too long, but that the state court was reasonable in determining that the evidence was immaterial to the outcome of his trial. So it was dismissed again, and we appealed that decision, which came in July of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments. In May of twenty nineteen, a panel entered a decision two to one saying that Long had failed to demonstrate the materiality of the evidence of the State court again was reasonable. That decision came down in January of We then asked for full court review, called a petition for rehearing in Bunk. And what that triggers is that full fifteen judge review of the case. The court agreed to hear it while sitting in Bunk. And that's the argument we had in on May seven. So it's been it's been a long fight to get to the point where we know that the judges are at least, you know, seeing the injustices here that we saw as evidence by the statement of Judge Wind during the course of those oral arguments. And so here we are ending where we started with the words of Judge Winn expressing his frustration over how this happened to Ronnie amongst so many others. I hope you all feel that same frustration and anger right now, Judge Winn said, quote, prosecutors clearly had evidence that any defense counsel in the world, not only in ninety six, but in the history of this country would have wanted or needed and which should have been supplied, and yet we did not provide it. What is it about us that we want to prosecute and keep people in jail when we know evidence may exist that might lead to a different outcome. Why is that so offensive to us now that we want to protect illegal activity from forty four years ago? End quote? And of course he was referring to the illegal activity on the part of law enforcement in this case. Quote what's the harm of looking at the new evidence? He said? When did justice leave the process? So we let our rules blind us to what we all can see? End quote. You know the fact that the the cops took all the evidence from the crime scene and never turned it over alone, that should be it. They knew it wasn't him from the beginning. It just hurts my heart to think of this life, this this this poor fucking guy. Since we recorded this podcast with Jamie and Ronnie, I read a quote from Ronnie's mother saying that she is just waiting. Is a quote from her, just waiting on Ronnie to get out. God let me live to see him get out of there. End quote. Since Ronnie's grandmother, his two sisters, and his father have all passed and unfortunately they were joined by his mother on July eleven, Rest in Peace. The family asked Jamie to speak at the funeral about Ronnie's case. Ronnie still has his wife, Ashley Long waiting for him. She started a petition on change dot org that I've already signed, asking Governor Cooper to commute ronnie sentence. I hope you'll join me. There's a link in the episode description. Just scroll down, click and let's bring him home. Now through the episode as it was previously recorded. Now it comes to the closing of the show, which of course I call closing arguments. This is where Jamie, I thank you again for being here. Ronnie, thank you for calling in. And now I'm going to turn off my microphone and leave my headphones on and just listen. Jamie, thank you. Jason Um. What I would add is the listeners here, I'm sure have heard about cases that involve hiding exculpatory evidence. Separately, They've heard of cases involving misconduct and potential lies told on the witness stand, cases involving racial injustice. And here we have everything together in one We have the original trial prosecutor test fine on behalf of the defense, acknowledging that materials were not only hidden from the defense but from him as well. We have evidence pointing to another individual as the perpetrator. We have evidence of misconducting wise from officers, and despite all that, forty four years later, Ronnie Long six in a prison in North Carolina. I ask everybody listening to this to seize this particular moment that we are living through in history by taking one action among what I hope is many, to help Ronnie achieve justice in his freedom. To do that, I hope not only that you'll go to change dot org and sign the petition, but also contact the Governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper. His email is Roy dot Cooper CEO P E R at NC dot gov and tell him to free Ronnie Long now, because while we prove his innocence in court, which we plan to do, the governor can make this injustice right tomorrow by commuting long sentence to time served and letting him walk free. And it's forty four years past due for that to occur. And I hope you all will send a message to the governor that if he truly believes that black lives matter, that lives matter, that he would use his executive authority to see that Long goes free, not next week, not next month, that Ronnie needs to be free. Now, thank you, Jason, Yeah, and thank you Jamie. And I'm going to just jump in for one more minute and say that if anyone here knows someone who knows, the governor, direct outreach can be a game changer. So thank you very much, Jamie, and now I'm gonna turn it over to our featured guests. Ronnie Long, you know, I appreciate the platform that you appreciate, and you'll let me tell my stuf. There's a lot of people don't say. They still don't know who am. A lot of people youselve heard of me, but they don't know the circumstances behind the chase. I appreciate what you did from me or what you're doing for me, and hopefully one day understands And it's four circuit compectancies. I chose every thing you have standard I'm saying here, Yeah, the evidence stare against but no more than the eyewitness or gonification. Yeah, all the flaws and they know what I'm saying. They knew they had the right man. If they knew they had the right man, then why did they pick about ourselves to suchet if they think they had the right man nstance? And why did they would hold sixty physical ever that day just about the d if any of that ever has had a point to rule with me, and they would have put off that evidence to court. They know that they had they had the wrong man. They know that I wouldn't know him personally, a solid and worn but yeah, still just still put me the other game, gave me his life ship us not a done for it for years he regardless of understands here the world or not, I'd beat us case down whatever. I don't feel supportful view of that line, don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music on the show is by three time Oscar nomind 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 Signal Company Number one

Wrongful Conviction

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