0:02

South central Los Angeles was plagued

0:04

by gang violence, and in Kierra Newsom's

0:06

neighborhood, the block crips and the eleven Deuce

0:08

Hoovers ran the streets. Kiara avoided

0:11

the gang life, but it still took the life

0:13

of her boyfriend Markel Norman on

0:15

December tenth, two thousand. On

0:18

April sixteen, two thousand one,

0:20

in retaliation for another gang

0:22

shooting, three female hoovers rolled

0:24

up to some block cribs and one of the women

0:27

got out and shot into the crowd, mortally

0:29

wounding Christian Hinton. She

0:31

got back into the car and shot again

0:34

as she sped away, grazing the torso

0:36

of Seante Allen. The shooter was

0:38

described as African American in

0:41

her twenties, with a lazy eye and

0:43

a tattoo on her upper right thigh. This

0:45

incident happened at eleven thirty

0:47

am on a school day, ten miles

0:50

from where Kierra Newsom was in class.

0:52

But despite this rock solid

0:54

alibi and the fact that she didn't have

0:57

a car or even a driver's license,

0:59

the prosecute a shan came up with a theory

1:01

that Chiara, in retaliation for

1:03

her boyfriend's murder, had somehow

1:06

snuck out of her lockdown school, changed

1:08

her clothes, dyed her hair, drove

1:10

over thirty minutes of the scene, committed

1:13

the crime, and somehow managed to

1:15

return to her desk just seven feet

1:17

from her teacher, with her absence

1:19

going completely unnoticed,

1:21

but with coerced eye witnesses and

1:23

the fact that she happened to have a tattoo

1:26

on her upper right thigh, Kiara ended

1:28

up serving nearly twenty years, tormented

1:31

by her co defendant Donnielle Flynn,

1:33

a k astro, who is believed

1:35

to have been the actual shooter. This

1:38

is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam

1:52

Welcome back to Ronful Conviction today.

1:55

I am so excited

1:58

and honored because I have,

2:00

first of all, Chris Hawthorne.

2:03

Chris is the founder,

2:05

director and clinical professor

2:08

at the Juvenile Innocence and Fair

2:10

Sentence and Clinic at Loyola Law School.

2:12

Welcome to Raapiction. Thanks Jason, I appreciate

2:14

it, and with him, the featured

2:17

guest on our show today is the

2:19

one and only Kiara Newsom and

2:21

Kiarra thank you for being here. Thank you

2:24

and this story it's

2:26

a California story and

2:29

Kira, you grew up in South central l

2:31

A. Can you tell us what that was like growing

2:33

up in South central l A. My father

2:35

grew up without his dad, so

2:38

he gravitated to the gang lifestyle,

2:40

which most young men do. And

2:42

the neighborhood I grew up in, the

2:45

blocks and the Hoovers are what we consider

2:47

to be enemies. They always

2:49

have gang violence. Before I

2:51

was seventeen years old, I went

2:53

to so many funerals I can't even tell

2:55

you. But one thing I can say is

2:58

that my mom was always the

3:00

type of person. She really

3:02

imposed education on this big time

3:05

you know. Yeah, and I understand

3:07

you did very well at school, and that's

3:09

despite all of the violence

3:11

and hardship that surrounded you, including

3:14

one murder that hit so close to

3:16

home. And that was the murder that

3:18

actually started the snowball effect

3:20

that ended in your tragic, wrongful

3:22

conviction. I'm referring, of course, to the

3:24

murder of your boyfriend, Mark L. Norman,

3:26

who at the time of his death was in

3:29

fact on eleven deuce Hoover, but he wasn't

3:31

in a gang. At age thirteen

3:33

when you started dating Markel at

3:36

the time was the straight a student living with

3:38

his grandmother. So when his grandmother

3:40

passed away, Markelle and

3:42

his sisters had to go back and live with his

3:44

mom. She was addicted to crack

3:47

cocaine. So when he went back

3:49

to live with his mom, there were times that they

3:52

didn't have food to eat. So

3:54

I will sneak food out of my grandmother's

3:56

house and my mother's house to make sure

3:58

that they would be able to eat. So

4:01

one day in particular, remember

4:03

him calling me and he told me that

4:05

he was gonna be put on the gang, and

4:08

I was so upset, But

4:10

then he started to explain to me the

4:12

benefits that the gang was giving him.

4:15

He'll have means to provide for his sisters

4:17

and his mom, and everything was gonna be

4:20

okay. And he really believed

4:22

that. He believed this so

4:24

much that he could go to school and be the

4:26

straight age student and be a gang

4:28

member outside of school. And

4:30

that's what our whole little bet

4:33

was about. And he was able to keep up that

4:35

little facade for like the first

4:37

report, Carter so and I lost the bet, and

4:39

that's how I ended up with the tattoo that

4:41

I have. So after

4:44

that, things begin to change. Marquelle

4:46

got deeper into the gang, and I was barely

4:48

seeing them. And I will never forget

4:51

when my mom looked me in my eyes

4:53

and she said, I'm

4:55

gonna end up walking you to a

4:57

jail to see this boy. Um end

4:59

up ging you to a grave site to

5:01

see this boy. And of course you're talking

5:04

about what happened on December tenth, two

5:06

thousand and I was on a Sunday. It

5:08

was a church today, and it

5:10

was early and I remember walking outside

5:12

and I remember seeing Marquail and he

5:15

had on all black and I remember a car

5:17

driving down the street looking at us. When

5:20

we turned around, these guys were

5:22

no longer in the car. One

5:24

was on the sidewalk, one was standing

5:26

in the street. They both had their

5:29

arms posted to us, and they had something covering

5:31

their arms, and you can hear

5:34

the gunshots. Marquelle

5:36

pushed me out the way and I ran into

5:39

the house and I look out the window.

5:41

I see Marquelle land on the ground, and

5:44

I remember when he turned his body

5:46

around, he had a gash

5:48

at the top of his head, and

5:51

that's when I knew that he was shot. I

5:53

don't think many people have probably

5:56

ever lived through anything nearly as traumatic,

5:58

because that and it's it's hard to believe it. That

6:00

was just the beginning of this

6:02

awful journey. It's at this point,

6:05

too, that the first hero in the story emerges,

6:07

right when I'm talking about the principle at

6:09

Duke Ellington High School. Yes,

6:12

his name is Mr McLynn. When

6:14

that happened to Markoe and I

6:17

became a witness, I didn't

6:19

know at the time that the gang members ran

6:21

into the school looking to kill me. Mr

6:24

mclinn called my mom and he said, no,

6:27

don't bring her back here. I got

6:29

a school for her. If it wasn't for

6:31

him, I probably wouldn't be here today.

6:33

So the school, sEH charter

6:36

was they locked down school normally for kids

6:38

who were involved in the juvenile justice system.

6:41

Kira wasn't involved in the juvenile justice

6:43

system, but she was definitely in danger

6:45

and so she was safer at a lockdown

6:47

school than at a regular school.

6:50

Now things get really complicated

6:53

April fifteen, two thousand and one,

6:55

Easter Sunday, when three

6:57

associates of the Hoovers were shot

6:59

in the acting a lot of Red's Liquor store on

7:02

West Century Boulevard. That's Rudy tiny

7:04

Head and another man, and then

7:06

the victims returned to a party, and police

7:09

showed up at the party to ask questions about the shooting.

7:11

One of the things about gang shootings is

7:14

most people who participat in gangs are teenagers,

7:16

and they tend to be really reactive. Most of

7:18

what they do is very impetuous and

7:21

very sudden. So it makes sense that

7:23

the next day someone from the eleven Duce Hoovers

7:25

would try to take a shot at the

7:27

block cribs. It's not typical

7:29

you wait around for four months before you decide

7:32

to react to a shooting. So why

7:34

the police didn't look at Red's liquor store

7:37

is a mystery to me, especially since

7:39

Rudy, who was one of the guys in the car

7:41

who was shot at, was the

7:44

boyfriend of one of the women who

7:46

was in the car. The next day, Yeah,

7:48

I mean this is we're talking literally the day afterwards.

7:51

At eleven thirty in the morning on April

7:54

thousand and one, when three young African American women

7:56

pulled up in front of fourteen West

7:59

Street and the Westmont neighborhood of Los

8:01

Angeles, there was a group of men

8:03

outside, all of whom were block crips.

8:06

One of the women got out of the car and

8:08

this is important. So she

8:10

was described as wearing all red

8:13

tube top corduroy short sneakers

8:15

and advisor. One or more

8:17

of the men on the scene described her as having a

8:20

lazy eye and a name tattooed on her

8:22

upper right thigh. So she

8:25

asked about someone named Nakia, but

8:27

none of the men knew who she was talking about.

8:29

The young woman then walked back to the car, turned

8:32

and fired a handgun once into the group of men,

8:34

mortally wounding Christian Hinton,

8:37

and the woman got into the car, They sped off

8:39

and she fired a few more rounds, grazing

8:42

Shaunte Alan's tour show, but Alan

8:44

luckily survived. Hnton, however,

8:46

died two weeks later in the

8:49

hospital. They said that the woman

8:51

who had shot Christian Hinton was

8:53

in her early twenties and fairly tall.

8:56

Here's still looking kind of like a baby. Then she's

8:59

still a teenage yours. I mean, it would have seemed

9:01

obvious for them to look towards a

9:03

hoover named Donnie L. Flynn,

9:05

also known as Astro, who would

9:07

have been retaliating for the shooting of her boyfriend

9:10

and the two other hoovers. The night before, right,

9:12

But one way or another, the really

9:15

important part of this is that we

9:17

know exactly where Kiara was

9:19

at the time of the shooting, in my classroom.

9:22

And how do we know that you were in your classroom?

9:24

I signed in in the morning, My

9:27

teacher collected hay counts all throughout

9:29

the day, and they would have noticed

9:31

if I would have left, they would have caught the police

9:33

on me, because that's what the school does. Would

9:36

you have been able to show up at school wearing all red,

9:38

No, I wear a uniform, white polo shirt,

9:41

black pants. A couple of other things about

9:43

that school. The classroom she was in

9:45

where her teacher, Rebecca Woodroffe taught

9:47

her, is very small, and

9:50

Rebecca's desk was about

9:52

six to seven feet from Kira's desk.

9:56

Hi'm Rebecca Woodroft. I was Kira Newsom's

9:58

teacher in the spring of two th and one. There

10:01

was only one door to my classroom,

10:03

and I always had a view

10:05

of the door, whether I was at my desk

10:08

or in front of the class, and my desk

10:10

was actually positioned between the door

10:12

and the students. So it's just impossible

10:14

for somebody to get out and come back

10:17

and have me not noticed right away, and

10:19

even if somebody were to have gotten past

10:21

me, which wouldn't happen. The front door

10:24

was operated by the secretary, and she kept

10:26

it locked, and they would have to be buzzed

10:28

in or out. And the back door led

10:30

to a locked gate. On top

10:33

of the locked gate was barbed wire. Um

10:35

And it was the day after Easter that

10:37

day, and I had actually noticed

10:39

that Kira had purple hair

10:41

braided in She had said that her grandmother

10:43

had done it for her. So

10:46

everyone knows what African American ladies

10:48

to take braids. Now that would have

10:50

to take you anywhere from three to

10:53

six hours. It just don't make

10:55

sense. No one's going to miss the

10:57

fact that you have purple hair, but straight

11:00

usually enough. Nobody said that in the description.

11:02

But still anyone who wanted

11:05

to believe that you were actually the shooter

11:07

would have had to believe is that somehow

11:09

or other, you vanished into thin

11:11

air without your teacher, who was seven feet away

11:14

from you noticing it, snucked through

11:16

multiple doors that were locked, climbed

11:19

over barbed wire, got into a car which

11:21

I don't even know if you had a car, changed your

11:23

outfit, drove ten miles

11:25

which would have been at least a thirty minute drive because

11:28

l a traffic god knows it could be a two hour

11:30

drive, and then killed. Someone calmly

11:32

changed your clothes back, disposed of the other outfit,

11:35

and magically snuck

11:37

back into the thing, sat down at your seat.

11:39

And she also managed to dye her hair on the

11:41

way while she was speeding through traffic. It's

11:44

also preposterous, So the state

11:46

had nothing except for

11:48

three eyewitnesses. These

11:51

guys who were on the lawn were definitely

11:53

intimidated, not only by members of their

11:55

own gang, but also by Danielle Flynn, who

11:58

had a fearsome reputation in the neighborhood.

12:00

In addition to that, they really didn't want to

12:03

talk to the police. They didn't think it was any of the police's

12:05

business. I've had local

12:07

law enforcement complained to me saying, like, you

12:09

know the problem talking to gang members, that they just don't want

12:11

to talk to us, And I said, the problem is that nobody wants

12:13

to talk to you. It's never a good thing when a

12:16

policeman is walking up your front walk and appearing

12:18

at your door. No one wants to talk to

12:20

police in these neighborhoods. They're not bringers of good

12:22

tidings. They're not people who help you. Uh.

12:25

They are only people who make your life more

12:27

difficult. Ryan Faust, of course,

12:29

only appeared in court because the

12:31

police threatened him with an arrest. In

12:33

another matter, Joe Cook,

12:36

of course, didn't appear in court. After his preliminary

12:38

hearing. He fled to Mississippi where they were apparently

12:40

unable to find him, and they had to arrest Bobby

12:43

Johnson to get him into court. But none of them

12:45

particularly care about telling the truth

12:48

on the stand because they don't regard

12:50

this as a police thing. This

12:52

is a blocked crypt eleven Duce Hoover

12:55

thing, and frankly, they don't care

12:57

who goes down for it. What they care about

12:59

is their own value system and what

13:01

they're going to do about it on the street. But

13:04

talking about the street, every person I talked

13:06

to in this case knew who actually did

13:08

this crime. It's not a secret

13:11

that Kira is innocent. So June

13:14

fifth of two thousand and one, they brought

13:16

you to the precinct right under the auspices

13:18

of looking at a lineup to find your

13:21

boyfriend's killer, But that was not what

13:23

they had in mind. By this time, they

13:25

already came out to my grandmother house the least

13:27

five or six times, trying to get me

13:29

to put the murder off on a

13:32

block crypt member, and I wouldn't

13:34

do it. So I'm like, Okay,

13:36

I'll go see these lineups.

13:38

So I remember them picking

13:40

me up and my dad said, Kia, the longest

13:43

they could hold you was seventy two hours. And

13:45

I'm thinking in my head, like why

13:48

would he say that? You know when

13:50

we got there, and they were like

13:53

Kiara Newsom and I'm like yes. So

13:55

I walked to the guy. I'll never forget this.

13:58

He has a poster in his hand, and I

14:01

was so in shocked. It's like

14:03

my soul left my body. It's

14:05

that oneed for murder, and

14:08

I'm like, murder, Who

14:11

did I murder? And they

14:13

put the handcuffs on me. All you hear is

14:15

chained. I was placed

14:17

in the hallway. The woman stripped

14:20

me down and look for tattoos

14:22

in a room full of men. I

14:25

was only seventeen, and I'm not

14:27

understanding why I'm here. I believe

14:29

for seventy two hours that

14:32

I was arrested from the murder

14:34

of Marquille. This

14:41

episode is brought to you by Stand Together.

14:44

Stand Together is a philanthropic community

14:46

dedicated to helping people improve their

14:48

lives. For more than twenty years, Stand

14:51

Together and its partners have been on the front lines

14:53

of criminal justice reform. By empowering

14:55

people to take action, supporting nonprofits,

14:58

and working with businesses, Stand Together

15:01

tackles the root causes of problems in our

15:03

communities and empowers those closest

15:05

to the problems to drive solutions.

15:07

Solutions like reducing unjust

15:09

prison sentences through the First Step Act,

15:11

empowering community based programs that help

15:14

people re enter society, and now

15:16

working to bridge divides in our communities.

15:19

To learn how you may get involved, visit

15:21

stand together dot org slash conviction.

15:31

When did they reveal to you that they were going to charge

15:33

you with a different murder? Entirely? I

15:35

walk into the room and I noticed

15:38

one of the old detectives from our Kales

15:40

case and a new detective. I

15:42

remember sitting down and them

15:45

starting to ask me about

15:47

Mr Christianient and and all

15:49

these people. Then they're saying

15:51

all this stuff about retaliation

15:54

from our Kale and listen, and

15:56

I'm confused, and then

15:58

they bring up as now

16:01

I'm really confused. Then when he

16:03

say the day that it happened, the

16:05

time, it's

16:08

all hit. I'm in school at that time

16:10

and now and I'm hopeful because I'm like,

16:13

as soon as he go back, he talks

16:15

to my parents, they go down to the school,

16:18

they get the paperwork, they bring it. I'm

16:20

free to go. I've seen all the

16:22

investigative materials in this case,

16:25

and the police were focused on Kiera

16:27

very early in this investigation, and they

16:31

didn't check her alibi out until after

16:33

they had arrested her in June. They

16:35

originally targeted Kira as

16:37

the driver of the car in this murder,

16:40

I think because they thought that the person

16:43

who was the shooter answered the description of

16:45

Don Yelled Flynn pretty well. But then they

16:47

discovered that Kierra couldn't drive, and

16:49

so suddenly they put her on the street shooting Christian

16:51

Hinton, right, And so now you know, she would

16:54

have had to have been leaving school and then driving

16:56

a car that didn't exist with a license she didn't

16:58

have. They're willing to go to just

17:00

extraordinary lanes, and not to serve

17:03

and protect, but to frame and destroy.

17:06

Now comes the next phase, going through the

17:08

courts and the juvenile and the jail

17:10

systems. You were a minor, so

17:12

they started you off and Juvie where

17:15

you were at least safe from Dannielle

17:17

Flynn's reach at that time. But that was temporary.

17:19

It was only until you turned eighteen, and then

17:22

you were sent to the women's jail. So now

17:24

Dannielle Finn has access to you for the first

17:26

time. I've heard about her,

17:28

but I've never seen her in action,

17:30

you know. So my attorney

17:33

at the time, Mr Tahan,

17:35

he felt that the best thing was to

17:38

get me separated from her. He did a

17:40

court order. They come through and they switched my wristband

17:43

so we were to not even be in the

17:45

same dorm as each other, let

17:47

alone the same hold intink as each other, or

17:49

the same bus. So

17:52

when we went to court that day, and that was

17:54

my first time run into our seeing or, she

17:56

walks into the room and she sits down next

17:58

to me and then lady,

18:00

it's like the devil itself.

18:03

She says, Oh, everything is

18:05

gonna be fine, It's gonna be all right. I

18:08

need you to take this one for me. I need

18:10

you to go to trial with me. That's how she

18:12

does me. What what

18:14

do you need me to go to trial with you for because

18:17

at this time we're trying to separate this case

18:19

and get far away from her as

18:20

possible, you know. And right

18:23

then and there, it was like a switch

18:25

popped off in her head and she just went

18:27

crazy. She spit on me and

18:30

I jumped back, and the officers

18:32

came in, grabbed her, They took her out. That

18:35

was the first attack. So they

18:37

separate us. We went on two separate buses and

18:39

everything, and then all of a sudden,

18:42

we're through the jail. Was I was a snitch.

18:45

Don't snitches tell on people.

18:48

Don't snitches know what actually happened.

18:50

I don't understand how she manipulated these

18:53

people to believe that I was a snitch.

18:55

And our next court date, the police

18:58

officers put us on the same floor. Her

19:00

and I walked past and I heard somebody

19:02

go snitch. It

19:04

was her. She kicked me and

19:07

she got a hold to me, and it was the officer.

19:09

I'll never forget this. She jumped on top of

19:11

my back and she had me down and she said, don't

19:13

do anything. We've seen everything. So

19:16

we were late for court that day. We're

19:18

talking December fourth, two thousand

19:20

and two. During jury selection, Kierra's

19:23

lawyer files to

19:25

dismiss on the grounds of the teacher, Rebecca

19:27

Woodruff's testimony. The judge dismisses

19:30

the case on the credibility of the testimony.

19:33

Okay. Then six hours later

19:35

the d A reindics and

19:37

Kira was re arrested. So when she's alone

19:40

with the detective in his car, he

19:42

drove her to a motel, the Magic

19:45

Carpet, where he offered her a deal, have

19:48

sex with him and he'll give her an hour

19:50

to run. Kira refused.

19:53

He brought her in and while booking her and

19:55

taking her fingerprints, he asked if the finger

19:57

he was holding at the time was the and

20:00

she masturbated with The room

20:02

was full of chuckles from the other officers.

20:05

I sometimes think that

20:07

the police never actually wanted

20:10

Kiarra to go down for this murder, but they

20:12

were hoping that if they put her in terror,

20:15

in fear of her life, that eventually

20:17

Kira would break and she would tell them everything

20:20

she knew. Unfortunately, she

20:22

didn't know anything because Kira

20:24

is not a gang member, and in part

20:27

that's why she ended up getting

20:29

convicted here, because everybody else

20:31

in this case is a member of a gang

20:33

and people have their back, but no

20:35

one ever had Kiarra's back because

20:38

she was not a member of a gang. She was

20:40

an outsider. The police were looking out for themselves,

20:43

gang members are looking at for themselves. No

20:45

one's looking out for ki Era and that's just wrong.

20:48

I mean, we get to the trial. They put her on trial

20:50

with Danielle Flynn, who the prosecution

20:52

had now decided was the driver on that day

20:54

and Kierra was defended by Anthony tay

20:57

Hunt at rand, a guy named Larry Williams offended Flynn,

21:00

and the witnesses had described this tattoo

21:02

on the upper right thigh of the shooter. The thing

21:05

is, both Chiara and Donniell

21:07

Flynn have a tattoo on their right thigh.

21:09

It's it's it's a crazy coincidence, but

21:11

in a preliminary hearing something

21:14

quite consequential and very

21:16

shady transpired. Kira

21:19

has a tattoo under thigh, very very

21:21

high under thigh, almost on our hipphone. Danielle

21:23

Flynn has a tattoo much lower

21:25

on the thigh, which is quite visible when you're wearing

21:27

shorts. However, at the preliminary hearing,

21:29

when Joe Cook was testifying, Danielle's

21:32

lawyer did something that I think should

21:34

be in the museum of clever tricks

21:37

by defense attorneys. He said,

21:39

I'd like to have my client, Danielle

21:41

Flynn, pull up her pants leg and show that she

21:43

doesn't have a tattoo on her thigh, which

21:46

don Yelle did, but she only pulled it up about three

21:48

or four inches above her knee, and so the tattoo

21:50

wasn't visible. And even though this tattoo

21:53

is in police reports, there are pictures

21:55

of it, that tattoo exists. And

21:57

yet during that preliminary hearing, the

22:00

dispute attorney allowed the court

22:03

to place on the record that Danielle

22:05

Flynn didn't have that tattoo. So

22:07

in the jury's mind, Kira is the only

22:09

one of the two defendants with a tattoo on her right

22:12

bye. But the defense presents her alibi

22:14

very well. Again, she had signed

22:16

in at eight am. Again, Mark President attend fifteen

22:19

am and twelve fifteen am, and the murder

22:21

was at her Teacher,

22:24

Rebecca Woodruff, gave testimony

22:27

verifying her presence in class and

22:29

presented six dated assignments.

22:33

The way that I taught class, I

22:35

would teach and then I would give assignments.

22:38

All of the assignments had to be completed

22:40

during class time. For example, you

22:43

you would not be able to get a packet of

22:45

assignments from me if you had missed something

22:47

from before. You'd actually have to be there every

22:49

hour of the day to get each of the assignments.

22:52

And Kira had completed all six assignments

22:54

that day, so it just would have been impossible

22:56

for her if she had left and come back. So

23:00

this is where gang evidence plays such

23:02

an important role in this trial. The

23:04

gang evidence, which is put in evidence by

23:06

a gang expert who's just a gang

23:08

policeman who works the neighborhood, is

23:11

really a way to get race into the courtroom.

23:13

Gang evidence is race evidence, and the people

23:15

who are the victims of this kind of evidence are

23:17

always black and brown youth. It

23:20

convinces the jury that the person sitting

23:22

at the defendance table is capable of anything.

23:25

Kiarra Newsom gang member can

23:28

commit murder and then go back and finish

23:30

her civil rights assignment that afternoon without

23:33

breaking a sweat. That is what

23:35

gang evidence does to a trial. Now,

23:38

in this case, gang evidence was appropriate

23:41

for some of the people involved. Christian

23:44

Hanton, Bobby Johnson, Ryan

23:46

Foust, Danielle Flynn, We're all

23:48

in the cal Gangs database and

23:50

all had what we call FI cards validating

23:53

that they were gang members. Kierra Newsom

23:55

had only one thing. She had a boyfriend

23:57

tattoo on her upper thigh

24:00

and it was a tattoo so high under thigh that the

24:02

only person who was going to see that tattoo was

24:04

Markel. That tattoo

24:07

was identified as a gang tattoo

24:10

by the gang expert at the trial. He

24:13

said, you could not have a tattoo on

24:15

your thigh like that unless you were a

24:18

fully paid up gang member or you would

24:20

be shot on site on the streets of South l A.

24:22

Now that's a myth. You don't

24:24

walk around with an invisible boyfriend tattoo

24:27

and other gang members are prowling the streets

24:30

looking to waste you. But that was the myth

24:32

that they pushed at that trial, and frankly,

24:35

it is the myth that I

24:37

think convicted Kira Newsom. So

24:40

Seante Allen, who was shot in the toy so, testified

24:43

that he had gone to school with Kiarra

24:45

and knew her. He spelled

24:48

the identification is saying that it was not her in the

24:50

car at the shooting. How the fund could she

24:52

get convicted in spite of this, Chris, you gotta you

24:54

gotta help us out here. Kira is

24:56

convicted of the murder of Christian

24:58

Hinton, but she's acquitted of

25:01

the attempted murder of Shauntey Allen, even

25:03

though clearly the woman who

25:06

shot Christian Hinton is also the person

25:08

who shoots at Shaunta Allen halfway down

25:10

the block. That feels the irrational,

25:13

but I suspect it was the

25:15

jury had a momentary

25:17

crisis of conscience and wondered

25:19

maybe if they got the wrong person, and so they

25:21

thought they'd throw Kiarra a bone, even

25:24

though they convicted her of a crime she

25:26

never committed. July two thousand

25:28

and three. Carry You've now been through almost

25:31

everything the human being can go through, and

25:33

you're still just a kid. And now

25:35

the jury goes out. They called Danielle

25:37

Flynn, they called her team out first.

25:40

It was like, not guilty first degree murder,

25:42

not guilty second a murder, All these not

25:44

guilties, you know. And

25:47

she's sitting in the courtroom and she's

25:49

crying, she's happy and everything, and

25:52

they're like Karen News not guilty attempted

25:54

murder and guilty first degree murder,

25:57

and I'm like what and

26:00

I'm in tears, and she looks

26:02

at me and say to that's

26:04

what snitches get. It

26:08

walks out with many wrongful

26:10

convictions. The person who actually committed the murder

26:12

is still out on the street. What's even

26:14

stranger is the person who committed the murder is sitting

26:16

next to Kira at the defendant stable, Daniel

26:20

Flynn stays out and years later

26:22

she's convicted of an

26:24

execution style drug murder on

26:26

the streets of Las Vegas, and she's

26:28

now doing twenty to life

26:31

in Nevada State Prison. And

26:34

you could say that that poor guy in that alleyway

26:37

might be alive today if justice

26:39

we're done at this trial. So here

26:41

sense to six years a LAFE And now the

26:43

torture wasn't over by any stretched

26:45

the imagination. When I had prison,

26:48

not only did they have me as a Hoover Crypt

26:50

member, but also the

26:53

people that was already there had got

26:55

where I was a snitch, you know. So

26:57

not only am I this gang member now supposedly,

27:01

but I'm a snitch too. When

27:03

I got up there in my first few years. Um,

27:05

all I did was fight, fight, fight, fight,

27:07

fight, And the only people that ever

27:09

fought me was the hoovers. The

27:12

blocks never fought me. They

27:14

lost someone, but they knew the truth. I

27:17

wasn't the best fighter,

27:20

but I learned to become good at it because

27:22

I did it so much for

27:25

at least like three years straight.

27:28

I had at least like two fights

27:30

today, if not more. But

27:33

there were some correction officers

27:35

that looked out for you. There's one named

27:38

Lieutenant Norman who was one of the good

27:40

guys. Is that right, Yes, he's he's

27:42

one of the good guys, you know. And

27:44

Lieutenant Norman, he had me in his office

27:47

and he told me, you're gonna tell me what's going

27:49

on with you now. Mind you, the other

27:52

life fers had already told him

27:54

what was going on. The fact that I was innocent,

27:57

they already had told him. But my

27:59

whole perception of the law in

28:01

the system and police officers was

28:03

to not talk to them about anything because

28:06

then a get twisted the wrong thing that happened.

28:08

I was in fear of the justice system,

28:10

you know, And he let me know that

28:12

I can trust him. So I laid everything

28:15

out to him and explained to him what was going on

28:17

with me and what actually happened, and

28:19

he reassured me that he already

28:21

knew. So as long as he was on

28:23

the yard that I was on, I

28:25

was okay. I didn't have to worry. He started shifting

28:28

people over, moving them to different yards

28:30

and different things to make sure that these gang members

28:33

stayed away from me. That was good for

28:35

like a few years up until the

28:37

time when he moved further along up

28:39

to captain and he was no longer on the yards anymore.

28:42

Every so many years you have people coming in

28:44

like, oh, yeah, that's the girl that's nitched on the astro,

28:47

and I'm like, are they serious If

28:50

I said something about this lady, wouldn't

28:52

this lady be incarcerated right now? It

28:55

was just crazy. So I just physically

28:57

and mentally fun hall

29:00

art to approve to people I'm innocent, I'm

29:02

innocent. I'm innocent, to the point to where I just

29:04

gave up one day and said, you know what, I'm gonna

29:06

stop doing that, and I decided

29:08

to write letters. I was write every day and

29:11

I wrote the Innocence Project. The first time they

29:13

told me they had too many people at the day

29:15

that I planned my own suicide.

29:19

I get a paper from the Innocence Projects saying

29:21

that they accepted my case, and that's the only

29:23

reason why I decided to live to

29:37

California Innocence Project. They did something

29:39

great. They recognized that since

29:42

you were a juvenile at the time of

29:44

the alleged incident, they could reach out

29:46

to the Juvenile Innocence and Fair Sentenced

29:48

and Clinic at Local Law School also

29:51

known as Jeff's And Chris,

29:53

that's when you got involved. What year did

29:55

you get involved in? And then how did things progress

29:58

from there? Winter Justin

30:01

Brooks came up here to speak at

30:03

Loyola Law School and he

30:05

brought Kierra's file with him

30:08

and we went out to dinner that and Idea handing me this file,

30:10

this big red weald full of random papers,

30:12

and he said, we kind of reached

30:14

a dead end on this case. Can you

30:16

put your students on this case? And

30:18

we were a relatively new clinic, and I said, yeah, I'll

30:21

take this case on. And I just want

30:23

to tell you how that Jeff's clinic works. I

30:26

mean, students do everything in the jeffic clinic.

30:28

So when we got the case, we noticed

30:30

that C. I. P Had had interviewed a lot of people

30:33

from the school, but they hadn't been able

30:35

to get to people in the neighborhood, and so we

30:37

thought, well, that's where we need to start our work.

30:40

So we went down to

30:42

South l A. And with the help of Kierra's

30:44

mom, we started fanning out and talking to

30:46

people in and around the neighborhood. And

30:49

then we caught a lucky break. Um we were

30:51

able to throw a documentary filmmaker who

30:53

was making a movie about that neighborhood. We

30:55

were able to get in touch with Ryan Faust, and Ryan

30:57

simply said, well, you know, I know that it was

31:00

and Kira who did that. I was under

31:02

pressure from my family and

31:04

from the police to identify somebody. When

31:06

they walked in with the six pack, they had already circled

31:09

Kierra's face, and so I

31:11

knew that's what they wanted. So I simply initialed

31:13

that photograph and that became part of my testimony.

31:15

And once I had that testimony, I felt like I

31:17

had to keep going into court and saying the same

31:19

thing or I was going to get arrested and

31:22

sent away for this bottle of vodka

31:24

he had lifted from local Albertson's.

31:27

I sent an investigator to talk to Joe

31:29

Cook. Joe Cook didn't want to help because he'd

31:31

been trying to avoid this case for I don't know how long.

31:33

He said, I don't want to help anybody. I don't

31:35

want to change my testimony. And then he says

31:38

to my investigator, he said, but the one thing I remember

31:40

is that woman who pulled

31:42

her pant leg up at the preliminary hearing, that

31:45

was the shooter. And I'm not even

31:47

sure Joe knew that. He was saying that

31:49

was Danielle Flynn. And then we talked

31:51

to somebody else who was the neighborhood who said

31:54

that Danielle Flynn had shown up at his house

31:56

the day of the murder and had

31:58

been looking for other to help her

32:00

do this thing, and then had said to this

32:03

guy, there's gonna be something going down.

32:05

You better, you know, better lie low for a while. And sure

32:07

enough, not long after that, the sirens started

32:09

going off and that murder took place.

32:12

Um So we put together what I thought

32:14

was a pretty compelling case, but

32:17

we still had to deal with the requirements

32:19

of habeas corpus and the incredibly

32:21

steep hill you have to climb in order

32:24

to prove that in superior court,

32:26

and frankly we were unable to prove

32:29

it. To the satisfaction of

32:31

the Torrent Superior Court, they

32:33

rejected the petition. Now,

32:35

luckily, in

32:38

the California instance, Project needed an

32:40

extra person for their California twelve

32:42

March, and someone had dropped off that bank.

32:45

He was wow. Okay.

32:48

And and by the way, if you haven't seen the movie

32:50

by that same name, I suggest you do watch

32:53

it tonight. I mean, Brian is a great,

32:55

great guy. And for those of you who don't

32:57

know what the California twelve Innocence

32:59

March was, justin Brooks, Alyssa

33:02

ber Cow and Mike's so magic of the California

33:04

and this is Project March. Get this all the

33:06

way from San Diego to Sacramento,

33:09

seven hundred and twelve miles to deliver

33:11

clemency petitions to Governor Brown's

33:13

office for twelve clients aka

33:15

to California twelve, all of whom had

33:17

compelling evidence of actual innocence.

33:20

The march took something like fifty five

33:23

days and it started at the end of

33:25

April of two thousand thirteen. So

33:27

in May they said, can we

33:29

submit a clemency petition to the governor of Kierra

33:32

Newsom. Will you co sign that petition? And I said, absolutely,

33:34

we will do that. That was early in the

33:36

Jerry Brown governorship. So

33:39

towards the end of Jerry Brown's

33:41

governorship, I got a call from

33:43

a Border Parole hearing investigator and

33:46

she said, I want to talk to you about Kierra Newsom's case.

33:48

And so I sat down with

33:50

my petition and the investigator

33:52

sat down in Sacramento and for

33:55

two hours we went through every piece of evidence

33:57

there and I made the case that Kierra Newsom

33:59

was innocent. At the end of that, the

34:01

investigator said, thank you very much. And

34:04

that's the last I heard until

34:06

on Christmas Eve, Christina Linquist and

34:08

the Governor's office called me up and said, I've just

34:10

talked to your client. Her sentences being

34:13

commuted to twenty years to life, she should be eligible

34:15

for parole. Immediately, I thought I

34:17

was gonna be sent directly

34:19

home right away. I didn't know

34:21

that I was going to have to go before the parole

34:23

board, but I had to tell myself.

34:26

I said, Carre, you already said whether

34:28

through the boardroom or through the courtroom, he

34:30

was gonna get out of here. You you

34:33

can fight another day. Just do what you

34:35

have to do. I'll do the court thing later.

34:37

Is not justice all the way from me, but it's something.

34:40

And like I told them, the only thing that

34:42

Kara k Newsome is guilty of is

34:45

dating a gang member. I

34:47

feel so bad for the victims

34:50

family. They still don't have the justice

34:52

that they deserve. Okay, this is about

34:54

them. I'll have my moment one day,

34:57

and I believe that that day has coming eventually.

35:00

So April seven, you

35:03

walked. You walked out of prison a free

35:05

woman after serving nearly nineteen

35:07

years in prison for a crime you didn't commit,

35:10

you didn't know about, you had no knowledge of. And

35:12

what did you do when you walked out of prison?

35:14

Well, the first thing I did is run

35:17

into the arms of my fiancee. But

35:20

when we got out the gates, Rebecca

35:23

was right there. And I was told

35:25

that Hawthorn was not going to be there because of this

35:28

pandemic. And when I seen

35:30

him, even though it was a pandemic,

35:32

you know, I'm like, I'm gonna hug him anyway.

35:35

I got to see my top two people

35:37

outside of my family, and I saw a

35:39

you know, my loved ones and then my career was there,

35:42

Marissa, all the students, everybody

35:44

was there and it was just so

35:47

exciting. I mean, here it is

35:49

now and you're seven months pregnant,

35:51

right, Yeah, that's

35:54

that's exciting, you know. So do

35:56

you know if it's a girl or a boy? It's a boy?

35:58

Okay, do you have a name picked out? I'm

36:01

gonna name him Champion. I've

36:04

been through a lot as

36:06

well as you know. His father has a

36:08

tremendous story too. We both went

36:10

to that school together, you know, So

36:12

this baby deserved to be called Champion. Has

36:14

baby been through a lot even

36:17

even since Yeah, even since I've

36:19

been out, this baby has still been through a

36:21

lot because whatever I feel, he feels. And

36:24

I'm still going through it out here, still

36:27

trying to find work. I have all these college degrees,

36:29

and this big felon just keeps popping

36:32

up, you know. But eventually

36:35

things is going to change. I know

36:37

something's gonna happen for me. What remains

36:39

to be done for Kira Newsom? How do

36:42

how does this eventually get truly

36:44

righted? And what can people do to help

36:47

her? And help you help

36:49

others? So Kira

36:51

is out of prison, she's

36:53

free, but she's not exonerated.

36:56

The next step for us, as you may have heard,

36:58

we have a new DA in town here,

37:00

George Gascone, and he

37:03

is going to revamp the Conviction

37:05

Integrity Unit where I hope to take

37:08

this case again. We will have

37:10

a petition up on change dot org.

37:12

Eira should get the justice she's been

37:14

deserving for so long and should be able

37:17

to walk around a woman without a

37:19

conviction to her name, which has kept

37:22

a lot of doors closed for her so far. And

37:24

it's it's not fair she should be

37:26

walking around without this conviction

37:28

to hanging around her neck. And so

37:30

if you want to help, please look at the

37:32

change dot org petition and also

37:35

support the Juvenile Innocence and Fair Sentence

37:37

and Clinic so that we can help more kids

37:39

who were convicted and sent to the

37:42

California prison system, kids like ki

37:44

Era. So we will put a link in our

37:46

bio to support Kira and to

37:48

support Jeff's as well. And now

37:51

we have what we call closing arguments. Closing

37:53

Arguments is the section of the show where once again

37:55

I think all right to extraordinary guests Chris

37:58

Hawkern and Kierra

38:00

Newsom and Chris and Kira, here's

38:03

how this works. Um, this is the part of the show

38:05

where I turned my microphone

38:07

off, kicked back, close

38:10

my eyes and just listen anything

38:13

that you want to say. It's all

38:15

yours for the close out. So Chris

38:18

Hawthorne, why don't you go first, and then you can just

38:20

hand the mike off to Kierra and she

38:22

can do the mic drop. We started

38:24

the Juvenile Innocence in Fair Sentence in clinic

38:26

in because

38:29

Los Angeles is the capital of juvenile

38:31

over sentencing. There

38:34

are so many kids during the nine

38:36

nineties, during the early part of this century

38:39

who got sent off to California prisons

38:41

to serve really long sentences, some of them wrongly

38:44

convicted, all of them over sentenced. It

38:47

is so important for

38:49

us as a city and a county to

38:51

live up to the ideals we

38:54

believe Los Angeles stands for, to

38:56

be the city that we say we are, this

38:58

big, beautiful, diverse city which

39:01

values its citizens, values

39:04

every citizen. Kara

39:06

Newsom is just one

39:09

of the most egregious examples of

39:12

how unjustly children are

39:14

treated in the criminal justice system

39:16

here in Los Angeles and were for many many

39:19

years. I have a lot of faith that the

39:21

new District Attorney's office is going to change

39:24

that. I'm hoping that we'll be able

39:26

to continue the work we've been doing, and

39:28

I'm so excited to be able to do it

39:30

with Kira Newsom free and

39:33

at the side of all of our amazing

39:36

students and staff who are going

39:38

to keep doing this work as long as we can

39:40

possibly do it. First of

39:42

all, I would like to thank each and every one

39:44

of you guys for taking the time out

39:46

to listen to my story. I

39:49

am not the first that this is what happened

39:52

to, and I know that I'm

39:54

not the last this is what happened to. And

39:56

I also know that where I come

39:58

from, there are many

40:01

many others I

40:03

was just incarcerated, and I

40:06

know at least ten more meat

40:08

that's there that don't even have the opportunities

40:10

that I have right now. I won't

40:13

for anyone that ever has to do

40:15

jury duty and deal

40:18

with cases that has to deal with gangs

40:21

and threats and violence

40:23

and things like that to really really pay

40:26

attention to the evidence, because one small

40:28

mistake this can happen

40:30

to anyone. And I

40:32

just want to say that I blame

40:35

no one for this happening

40:37

to me and I realized that everyone had

40:39

a job to do, whether it was a judge,

40:41

whether it was a d a, whether it was

40:43

the officers. In

40:46

due time, God would deal with everybody

40:48

accordingly. I just want

40:50

everybody to have a peaceful and

40:54

enjoy themselves, and each

40:56

one teach one and each one reach

40:58

one and go out there and make

41:00

a difference in the change in someone else's life,

41:03

because you never know who you'll touch. Don't

41:11

forget to give us a fantastic review wherever

41:13

you get your podcasts. It really helps.

41:16

And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence

41:18

Project and I really hope you'll join me in

41:20

supporting this very important cause

41:22

and helping to prevent future wrongful

41:25

convictions. Go to Innocence Project

41:27

dot org to learn how to donate and get

41:29

involved. I'd like to thank our production

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team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.

41:33

The music on the show is by three time OSCAR

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nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be

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sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful

41:40

Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful

41:43

Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction

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with Jason Flam is a production of Lava

41:47

for Good Podcasts and association with

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Signal company number one