0:02

On March twenty fourth, nineteen eighty four,

0:04

five children and their mother, twenty eight

0:06

year old Elva Lupercio, were killed

0:09

in an apartment building fire. It

0:11

was originally ruled accidental, but a fire

0:13

captain who was unseen unofficially

0:16

may have had some reservations about that finding.

0:19

Then, in November nineteen eighty seven, a man

0:21

named Dwayne Glasgow, who lived nearby

0:24

the nineteen eighty four fire, was arrested

0:26

for burglary and offered some information that

0:29

back in nineteen eighty four, looking

0:31

out an attic window, he had seen his

0:33

old roommate James Kluppelberg walking

0:35

back and forth to the building before the fire and

0:38

later admitting to setting it. And then,

0:40

in December nineteen eighty seven, while coincidentally

0:43

reporting an unrelated arson, James

0:45

Kloppelberg was questioned about the nineteen eighty

0:47

four fire and allegedly gave an oral

0:49

confession in January nineteen eighty eight. Even

0:52

though allegations of coercion shed

0:54

doubt on the statement, testimony from

0:56

Glasgow and the fire captain were enough to

0:58

send James away for six natural life

1:00

sentences plus fourteen years.

1:03

But this is wrongful conviction

1:15

Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. This

1:17

is an arson case. I hate arson

1:20

cases. I think it's one of the

1:22

worst of all the junk sciences. It's

1:24

also a torture case because

1:27

the man we're going to be speaking to is

1:29

just another victim of the torture

1:31

crew in the Chicago PD under

1:34

Lieutenant John Burge. And before

1:36

I even introduce James Kloppelberg,

1:39

I'm going to first reintroduce

1:42

somebody who our listeners will probably recognize,

1:44

Carl Leonard. Carl is an attorney at the Exoneration

1:47

Project in Illinois.

1:49

So Carl, welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.

1:51

Thank you. It's great to be here.

1:53

So James, I'm sorry.

1:55

I think, like the city of Chicago, Illinois,

1:58

the country, everybody owes you in a post and

2:00

more. But I'm so glad you're here and I

2:02

appreciate you being here with us today.

2:04

My pleasure and thank you for having me. It's a true

2:06

honor, James.

2:07

Before we get into the awful

2:10

occurrence that happened in Chicago

2:13

that led to the deaths for which you were years

2:15

later wrongfully convicted, your life wasn't

2:17

easy from the beginning. Is that fair to say?

2:20

Yes, that would be a fair representation. I

2:22

had a low income childhood,

2:25

so to speak, with three sisters and

2:27

a brother and my mother. We moved around

2:29

a lot. I think at one point, probably

2:31

about once a year for like

2:34

a decade ish or so. Growing up.

2:36

I remember going to a lot of different schools, almost

2:38

a different one every year, and things were tough, you know,

2:40

as far as finances and

2:42

everything. But for the most part, my mother

2:44

always made sure there was food on the table and

2:47

we were loved and taken care of.

2:49

By the time James was eighteen years old, he had

2:51

been married, and during a rough patch, he was

2:53

temporarily staying with his friends Don

2:55

Graymont and Dwayne Glasgow, who

2:58

lived about four doors down from where this far I occurred.

3:00

A few weeks later, the couple had their own troubles,

3:03

along with two kids and another one on the

3:05

way.

3:05

On February sixteenth

3:08

of eighty four, she gave birth

3:10

to her third child and Dwayne

3:12

took her to the hospital and

3:14

I was staying over so I watched

3:17

the other two children. I got a phone

3:19

call from her that evening. He had

3:21

not returned yet, and she asked if

3:23

I was still looking for a place to stay. I said

3:25

yeah. She said, well you can move into

3:27

the bedroom up in the attic. You want to help

3:30

me out with the bills, fine, whatever.

3:32

I said, Well, what's he going to say about this? She

3:34

said, I don't care. That's the catch. I want you to

3:36

pack his stuff. I want him out. Apparently,

3:38

while she was giving birth to his third

3:41

child, he was in the waiting room with his

3:43

girlfriend and a gym bag

3:45

with some beer, kicking back, having a good

3:47

time. The nurses told her what

3:50

was going on, obviously, and so

3:52

when he came home that evening, his stuff

3:55

was packed and I told him there's the door.

3:58

She basically dumped

4:00

Dwayne because of things

4:02

that weren't working out between the two

4:05

of them. Me and down ended up starting

4:07

a relationship.

4:08

Somehow, this didn't cramp

4:11

your friendship or theirs?

4:12

Right, Well, that was the thing. A couple days

4:15

before the fire, he had came

4:17

back, knocking at the door, asked to talk to

4:19

her. She came into the kitchen. She's like,

4:21

he's got nowhere to go. Can he stay

4:23

upstairs? I'm like, this is your house because by

4:25

that time, obviously I'd moved downstairs.

4:28

I said, this is your house if that's what you want.

4:30

Fine, and so he was actually staying

4:32

there in the upstairs where I was

4:34

originally staying, and I

4:37

was gone all day that day the fire

4:39

occurred. I was at my ex wife's house

4:41

taking care of things over there. Came home that night.

4:44

They were him, his girlfriend and

4:46

Dawn. They were fairly intoxicated,

4:49

and several hours into the night,

4:51

you know, me and Don had had some arguments,

4:54

and I entered and left a few times

4:56

to cool off, and came back in and we were

4:58

sitting around the kitchen table talking and next

5:00

thing we know, we see this fire. We

5:03

got the kids out of the house, put them

5:05

in my car. The fire went on

5:07

for several hours.

5:09

Carl, if you could take us back and explain

5:11

what happened on that awful, awful

5:13

night. This was back in nineteen eighty

5:16

four, March twenty fourth. I mean, whether whether

5:18

it was arson or not, we know that James

5:20

had nothing to do with it. But this was a tragedy.

5:23

It was a tragedy. It's an incredibly

5:25

sad case. It happened

5:28

early in the morning. There was an apartment

5:30

building on the south side of Chicago. The

5:32

first floor was vacant, and

5:35

a fire started on that first floor

5:37

and there was a family

5:40

that lived upstairs. Seven people

5:42

in the family, a husband and wife, five

5:44

kids, and the fire unfortunately

5:47

killed the mom and the children.

5:49

Twenty eight year old Elva Lupercio

5:52

and her five children Santos, Sonya,

5:54

Cristo, Bell, Gadira, and

5:56

Annabel, all of whom were living on the second

5:59

floor, died and her husband managed

6:01

to escape. His name was Santos, but

6:03

he suffered a frash, furt skull, and severe

6:05

burns.

6:06

So just a terrible, terrible tragedy.

6:09

At that time in Chicago, fires

6:11

were investigated by the Chicago Police Department.

6:13

It had a bomb and Arson unit

6:16

which was in charge of investigating

6:18

suspicious fires, and they did

6:21

an investigation and concluded that

6:23

the fire was most likely an accident.

6:26

Testing for the presence of accelerants came

6:28

up negative, closing the case as

6:30

a tragic accident not a

6:32

crime. Until November nineteen eighty

6:34

seven when Dwayne Glasgow was arrested for

6:36

burglary, theft and violating probation, and

6:39

he brought up to nineteen eighty four fire. According

6:42

to Glasgow, he had watched through an attic window

6:44

as James went back and forth to the building

6:46

right before the fire, and that James

6:48

later admitted to setting the blaze.

6:51

Meanwhile, back in nineteen eighty seven,

6:53

now twenty two years old, James was

6:55

a plumber and electrician while moonlighting

6:57

as a security guard. He and his girlfriend

6:59

Bonnie had plans to get married when

7:02

in December nineteen eighty seven, coincidentally,

7:05

a month after Glasgow's statement, James

7:07

reported an actual arson.

7:10

While working at his security job.

7:12

One of the apartment complexes that I was

7:14

assigned to, an automobile caught

7:16

fire. I saw somebody running from the parking

7:19

lot that night and a couple police detectives

7:21

came to see me. I was at a job site

7:23

and they said they needed me to look at mugshots.

7:26

I said, sure, no problem, but it'll have to wait

7:28

till I'm done. I'm in the middle of one of the

7:30

worst winners Chicago had had and like forever,

7:33

and I was thawing frozen pipes at this building.

7:35

They informed me I was going with them one way or

7:37

another. They took me to a leventh

7:39

and State informed me that there

7:42

was a witness that claims to have saw me start

7:44

the automobile fires, but that he

7:46

couldn't get down there for several hours because

7:49

he was at work. If I wanted to go

7:51

home, now, all I had to do was take

7:53

a polygraph test proved that I didn't

7:55

do it, and they'd let me go. I said, sure,

7:58

no problem, let's go. They

8:00

take me to another floor inside

8:03

a dimly lit room. It soundproofed.

8:06

A gentleman says he needs me to sign a waiver,

8:09

and I was barely able to make out that

8:11

it said that I was about to be questioned

8:13

for a fire concerning six deaths

8:16

in nineteen eighty four. I told the examiner

8:18

that this is the wrong form, that this is not

8:20

what I was here for. I said, I'm not

8:23

signing that, and he

8:25

stepped out of the room. The detective

8:27

that brought me down burst into the room,

8:30

threw me up against the wall, put a pair of handcuffs

8:32

on me, drug me upstairs, and

8:34

him and his partner then proceeded to beat

8:37

me for next several hours.

8:39

So you were one of the countless

8:41

victims suspects, as well as some witnesses

8:44

who were brutally tortured inside

8:46

these Chicago ped torture

8:49

chambers disguised as interrogations.

8:53

Yes, they laid me face down on

8:55

the ground while one of them pulled

8:57

my cuffs my arms

9:00

towards my shoulders. The other one

9:02

proceeded to kidney shot me or

9:05

continued to beat me in my lower back area

9:07

until I started hemorrhaging blood through

9:09

my urin. I was a urinated myself.

9:12

There was a lot of blood in the urine at the time,

9:15

and I uttered the words I did it,

9:17

and they stopped the beating.

9:18

I mean, you probably would have confessed a Kennedy

9:21

assassination, truthfully.

9:22

Yes.

9:23

At one point they wanted me to sign a confession

9:26

and also removed his weapon

9:28

from his holster and said I was going to sign

9:30

it or else, And I said, at that point he might

9:32

as well just go ahead and pull the trigger, because signing it

9:34

would be the same thing.

9:51

Wrongful. Conviction has always given voice

9:53

to innocent people in prison. Now

9:55

we're expanding that voice to you.

9:58

Call us at eight three three T seven

10:01

for six sixty six and leave us a message.

10:03

Tell us how these powerful, often tragic

10:05

stories make you feel outraged,

10:08

inspired, motivated. We

10:10

want to know. We may even include your story

10:13

in a future episode. Call us A

10:15

three three two O seven for six

10:17

six six.

10:24

The way it works is after the police have

10:27

gotten the soon to be defendant to

10:29

the place where he or she is saying what they

10:31

want them to say. They'll oftentimes

10:34

rehearse it, and then they bring in the Felony

10:36

Review States attorney who take

10:39

a statement from them, and at

10:41

the end they ask the person to sign, and

10:43

then that's often the last time the

10:46

soon to be defendant ever sees the outside

10:48

of a jail cell.

10:49

The state's attorney wanted to take my statement.

10:52

I started to give him a statement basically

10:55

saying I did it. I told him that

10:57

I needed to talk to my then girlfriend.

11:00

He allowed me to make a phone call

11:02

to her. She made a three way

11:04

phone call to my then attorney.

11:07

I told him what was going on. He

11:10

told me to put the state's attorney on the phone. They

11:12

had a brief conversation. State's

11:14

attorney slammed the phone down, went out

11:17

to the hall, told the officers to process

11:19

me, not to speak to me, not to touch

11:21

me, and to get me out of there.

11:24

A couple days after the beating on my intake,

11:26

I was so badly beaten that the

11:28

Cook County officers wouldn't turn a

11:31

blind eye to it, and they actually documented

11:33

all of my injuries.

11:35

The state's attorney. I mean, he had

11:37

to know that you had been tortured. There was no

11:39

question, right, Carl, What do you think

11:41

he was thinking at that point in time.

11:43

I you know, I have no idea, but I think

11:45

that the mechanism they used

11:48

in Chicago in Cook County, I think

11:50

is very unique, where we bring in an

11:52

assistant state's attorney a prosecutor

11:54

to take the actual statement, and

11:58

I think the entire felony of view system

12:01

is designed to sort of inoculate

12:03

against allegations of torture and abuse

12:05

by the time you get into court. Because

12:07

there were so many people claiming

12:10

a lot of them truthfully that their statement

12:12

had been beaten out of them. You put a lawyer

12:14

in the room who has a law license

12:16

on the line, who can then come to court and

12:18

say, look, I'm just a lawyer. I

12:21

didn't see anything wrong, and I don't

12:23

know what was going through this particular states

12:25

attorney's mind, but it may have

12:27

been there's no way I can go to court and say

12:29

that nothing bad happened here, so I

12:31

need to protect myself.

12:33

Nevertheless, Cook County sought the indictment

12:36

in January nineteen eighty eight.

12:38

The officer that presented the case

12:40

for the state at the grand jury

12:42

outright committed perjury. One

12:44

of the jurors had asked him why I had

12:47

done this at the completion of the state's

12:49

presentation, and he replied that

12:51

it was my pattern that when I

12:53

got mad at my girlfriend, I went out

12:55

and set fires. Another juror then

12:57

asked, so he had been caught for this before,

13:00

and he replied yes. The only problem

13:02

is I had never so much as been questioned

13:05

for an Argiston fire in my entire life,

13:07

let alone caught or convicted.

13:09

So on January twenty seventh,

13:11

nineteen eighty eight, James, you had dieted on

13:13

charges of arson and six counts

13:15

of.

13:16

Murder, actually eighteen counts of

13:18

murder. Eighteen counts they charged me

13:20

three times on each victim, along

13:23

with seven counts of attempted murder.

13:25

My entire indictment, I believe was around

13:27

thirty one counts.

13:29

But the well documented evidence of torture

13:31

shed doubt on James's statement to officers

13:34

and the state's attorney.

13:35

When my lawyer put

13:38

on a motion to suppress my

13:41

statement due to the abuse, and

13:43

the judge granted it because

13:45

of the abuse was so blatant the

13:48

state's attorney stood up and said, your

13:50

honor, are you also suppressing

13:52

what he told the state's attorney that night.

13:55

The state's attorney didn't beat him, and

13:58

I just sat there and I was just

14:01

stunned into amazement that he swore

14:03

up onside and down the other I wasn't beaten, And

14:05

now he was basically conceding I

14:07

was beaten, but that what I told the state's

14:09

attorneys should be allowed in because he didn't

14:11

beat me.

14:12

Pretty freaking devious.

14:14

Well, you have to keep in mind the judge that suppressed

14:16

my confession got removed from

14:18

my case after suppressing my confession

14:21

because he went against the system.

14:23

Wow.

14:23

Within two weeks of that, Judge

14:25

Loretta Hall Morgan was assigned my case.

14:28

And it didn't register really at the

14:30

time, but the judge who

14:32

was going to be sitting at this bench trial already

14:34

knew about my confession because it was part of

14:36

the record that it was suppressed.

14:39

And this doomed bench trial finally began

14:41

in July nineteen eighty nine.

14:43

The state put on six witnesses, two

14:45

people that they call life or death witnesses

14:48

that said that we survived the fire and

14:50

the family was alive when we went to sleep woke

14:52

up to smoking fire. They didn't

14:54

implicate me at all. They put

14:56

on a medical examiner who said that

14:59

in his opinion, the cause of death

15:01

was smoking fire carbon monoxide

15:03

poisoning, and that the manner of debt

15:05

was homicide. When asked why he

15:07

originally said there were accidents, he said

15:09

that's because that's what he was told by the police,

15:12

and that four years later the police told him

15:14

that they wanted to charge somebody and he had to change

15:16

his death certificates to homicide.

15:19

They then brought a gentleman in from the Chicago

15:21

Fire Department who was there that night as

15:23

an observer who was training

15:25

a class for a future fire investigating

15:28

team that was going to take over

15:30

fire investigations in Chicago, called

15:32

Ofi. He testified that due

15:34

to burn patterns, he was

15:36

positive that this was an arson fire,

15:39

but yet he told nobody for

15:41

four years, and the reason that the state used him

15:43

as a witness, in my opinion, is because

15:45

he filed no reports, so there was nothing

15:47

to impeach him with. Whereas the original officers

15:49

who investigated the fire that said it was an

15:52

accident, they would had to have went back on

15:54

their original report, and then they put on don

15:56

Graymont, who was my girlfriend at the time, who

15:59

told the truth that I had nothing to do with

16:01

it. They then proceeded to impeach

16:03

her with a grand jury statement

16:05

that she made that after

16:07

making it, she went to the Office of

16:09

Maternal Affairs and said I was

16:11

just forced to commit perjury in front of the grand jury.

16:14

And then they brought Dwayne glasgow In, who gave

16:17

the testimony that he gave in exchange

16:19

for going home. The next day, my attorney

16:21

presented no defense whatsoever. At

16:24

the end of the state's case, he stood up. He asked

16:26

for a directed verdict of not guilty. The

16:29

judge said motion denied. He said, oh, well,

16:31

the defense rests, and he sat down, and

16:34

the judge said she was going to take a ten minute

16:36

break to have closing arguments. She took a

16:38

ten minute break, came out and found me guilty. My lawyer

16:40

just sat there.

16:41

No closing arguments.

16:42

There were no closing arguments.

16:44

Carl, help

16:46

is he talking about no closing argument?

16:48

It doesn't make any sense. So many things about

16:50

James trial don't make any sense.

16:53

Right. Well, what happened was, like I said, she

16:55

took the break we came back and I was expecting

16:58

closing arguments, and she

17:01

sat down and started reading

17:03

her findings. And I'm looking at my attorney,

17:05

like what's going on here? And he's like, don't worry about It'll

17:07

be okay. And she said, as to counts

17:10

like twenty five through thirty one or

17:12

whatever it was, or twenty four through thirty

17:15

one, those are the attempt counts, there's going to

17:17

be a finding of not guilty because

17:19

there's no evidence to indicate that the defendant

17:21

intended to harm those individuals. As

17:24

to the remaining counts in the indictment, there's a

17:26

finding of guilty. I

17:28

was, for want of a better

17:30

word, I was just in shock. I mean,

17:33

I couldn't believe that she had found

17:35

me guilty. I was just dumbfounded

17:38

at the fact that if a person was

17:41

guilty of this crime, how could

17:43

they have been not guilty

17:45

of attempting to kill the people that jumped out

17:47

the windows and lived, but guilty

17:50

of killing the people that perished. It wasn't

17:52

like this was a crime with a gun or a knife.

17:55

Fire is indiscriminate. If I had

17:57

set the fire, I would have intended harm on everybody.

18:00

Apartment building not just certain

18:03

people. Her verdict held no sense

18:05

to me whatsoever. And then

18:07

she so nonchalantly after finding

18:09

me guilty, she literally

18:11

said the words, gentlemen, what's your pleasure?

18:14

And it was at that point that the state's attorney stood

18:16

up and said, your honor, at this time, we'll

18:18

be asking for the death penalty.

18:20

Gentlemen, what's your pleasure? That's

18:22

what she said, what's your pleasure?

18:24

As if this is some sort of sick game.

18:27

I don't even have the right words for this. So

18:30

they asked for the death penalty.

18:31

The next step, you have to have a hearing. When it took

18:33

me a couple of days to process what had

18:35

happened, and somebody else who

18:38

was incarcerated awaiting trial at

18:40

the time, told me that I needed to get down

18:42

to the jail's library, the

18:45

law library, and speak to somebody

18:47

down there because what was happening wasn't right.

18:49

And that's when I found out a

18:51

lot of things, you know. I found out

18:53

that I was actually able to demand a jury

18:55

for the death penalty phase because I didn't

18:58

want her to make that decision.

19:00

In case the story isn't crazy enough, there's a crazy

19:02

footnote to this whole thing, which

19:04

is that on October seventh,

19:07

nineteen eighty nine, while you were waiting

19:09

sentencing, you had walked out

19:11

of the Cook County jail after bond

19:14

records were altered to lower your bond

19:16

from no bond to twenty five thousand dollars,

19:18

and your mom posted twenty five hundred in cash,

19:21

and then the jail officials discovered that a jail

19:23

employee had been bribed with three thousand

19:26

dollars to alter the record, and then you

19:28

were arrested days later and brought back. What

19:30

in the world again, I've never

19:32

heard anything like this before.

19:34

What you're speaking of hold some truth

19:36

to it. I don't recall as to what

19:39

my ex wife actually did

19:41

for the jail official that altered

19:44

the record, but nobody was listening

19:46

to me. I was going to be put to death for

19:48

something I did not do, and

19:50

so yes, I bonded out. I

19:52

was hoping that while

19:56

out I could probably get enough

19:58

notoriety to the case to where people might look

20:00

into it and see the errors that were

20:02

committed. Technically, I was arrested,

20:06

but I actually called them

20:08

and told them where I was. They

20:10

were making threats against my family

20:13

that if I did not come

20:15

back. They were going to take

20:17

it out on them, so I called

20:19

the state's attorney and told him where I was.

20:22

It was not my proudest moment in

20:24

all of this, but again, when

20:27

somebody's talking about taking your life,

20:29

and after what I had already been through with

20:31

the beatings and everything and what I had seen

20:33

happened to this point, I didn't know what else

20:36

to do.

20:36

James was back in Cook County Jail in November

20:39

nineteen eighty nine, where he began all kinds

20:41

of proceedings trying to save his own life,

20:43

including demanding a new attorney and

20:45

a new judge.

20:47

When it came time for my sentencing,

20:49

I had requested to remove my attorney

20:51

because I did not feel that I was being

20:53

represented in a manner to save

20:56

my life. The judge denied the request,

20:58

so I went to the Attorney

21:00

Disciplinary Commission and said that I'd given

21:03

my attorney a large amount of money

21:05

to hire investigators and things like

21:07

that, and he did nothing. He

21:10

never came to see me, he never spoke to me, at

21:12

which point my attorney notified the judge

21:14

that he was under investigation by the

21:16

commission and that she had to let him

21:18

out of the case. She wasn't happy

21:20

about it. At that point, I also moved

21:23

to remove her as a judge because she

21:26

was not giving me what I felt was

21:28

a fair shake, so to speak. One

21:30

of the things that I had alleged as

21:32

to why my judge needed to be

21:34

removed was because she

21:37

had made a statement after the first day of trial.

21:39

She had said something like, I start

21:42

my vacation the day after tomorrow. This

21:44

case is going to be done tomorrow regardless,

21:46

or something like that. And I was just

21:48

trying to build some type of a record

21:50

for appeal of what was actually happening to

21:53

me. And she finally, after that motion

21:55

was denied, she finally appointed public

21:57

defender. And that's when they found

22:00

the evidence that Duayne committed

22:02

perjury by saying he said he saw

22:05

the back door of the building, that he saw

22:07

me enter and leave the building. They obtained

22:09

evidence that photographically

22:11

shows it was impossible that he could not have seen

22:14

the building. They tracked down people

22:16

who used to live in the buildings from years

22:18

ago that before that had said,

22:21

now, there's no way you could see from

22:23

point A to point B. And

22:25

even faced with all of this, the judge refused

22:27

to correct her mistake and emotion for a new

22:29

trial.

22:30

And here it was March twenty second, nineteen

22:32

ninety, when somehow James had escaped

22:34

to death penalty.

22:36

Yeah. The reason she rejected the whole

22:38

premise of the death penalty was she wanted me

22:40

out of her courtroom. Here we were almost

22:42

eight months from my conviction and

22:44

she still had been unable to sentence

22:47

me because of court filings

22:49

and things that I was trying to do to save

22:51

my life. And she literally asked

22:53

me what was it going to take to get me out of

22:55

her courtroom? And I said I did

22:58

not want to fight this from death row. She

23:00

said, well, the only other sentence I can give you

23:02

is natural life. The sad reality

23:05

of it is, had I known then

23:07

the things that I know now, I probably

23:10

would have accepted the death penalty

23:12

due to the fact that I think I would

23:15

have been out sooner.

23:15

Well, you would have been entitled to an

23:18

attorney for post conviction, which

23:20

you're only entitled too if you are sentenced

23:22

to death. The judge rejected the death

23:25

penalis and sentence you to life in prison

23:27

without the possibility of parole.

23:29

Six natural life sentences and

23:31

three fourteen year sentences.

23:44

I went to Joliet. I was there maybe

23:47

four weeks at most, and then

23:49

I was sent to Minard, where I spent the next

23:52

ten years of my life. They

23:54

called it pit for a reason because it

23:56

was literally built into

23:59

the side of of what was an old rock

24:01

quarry. Finally

24:04

winning a transfer out of that

24:06

hell hole, I then did another

24:09

four years, almost in jolliev

24:12

before they closed it down. I

24:14

was then transferred to State Blle. I did

24:16

almost ten years there and was

24:19

transferred back to Minard for my last eleven

24:21

months, where I met Carl for the first time.

24:24

Over the course of two long decades, James's

24:26

direct appeals and his first post conviction

24:28

petition were denied, and then

24:31

when he was about to file a federal habeas

24:33

the Exoneration Project got involved, filing

24:36

a second post conviction petition in two thousand

24:38

and nine, including expert testimony

24:40

from a doctor Ogel disputing the fire

24:42

captain's trial testimony that was based on an

24:44

ancient and now debunked Arson

24:47

investigation method. For clarity,

24:49

listen to our coverage of Arson investigation

24:51

on wrongful conviction junk Science.

24:54

We're going to have it linked in the episode description.

24:56

The Exoneration Project was also able

24:58

to bolster their expert with previously

25:01

hidden exculpatory evidence.

25:03

We haven't talked about that there is an alternate

25:05

suspect that there's somebody else who was

25:07

setting fires in that neighborhood at that time. Doing

25:10

some research into media

25:12

coverage of fires in the neighborhood at the time,

25:15

law students Ashley Schumacher and

25:17

Cadence Mertz uncovered a small

25:20

neighborhood newspaper that had run an article

25:22

with the headline something like, Who's starting these fires?

25:24

Are amazing?

25:25

The night before, if I remember correctly,

25:27

that the fire at issue here, there was

25:29

another fire that had happened, which

25:32

the police. The same police investigated

25:35

and determined that the

25:38

fire was set by a woman who lived

25:40

in that building, Isabel Ramos,

25:42

because she was mad at her landlord about something,

25:44

so she decided to burn the place down. And

25:48

in the course of questioning

25:50

her about that fire, they said, hey, what

25:52

about that fire down the street? Did you

25:54

start that one? And she said something. I

25:56

don't know what her exact words were, but basically,

25:59

I was really I set a lot of fires?

26:02

How can I remember?

26:03

They pulled the court file and her

26:05

original confession from her

26:08

trial was still sitting there in the court.

26:10

File, and none of this is disclosed to

26:12

the defense before James trial, and

26:14

we filed this petition. There was also a habeas

26:17

petition which was in front of Judge Saint Eve here

26:19

in Chicago, and she

26:22

was not able to advance it because we had the pending

26:25

state court matter. But there was an opinion entered

26:27

by her agreeing to stay the habeas

26:29

petition because she felt that there was potential

26:32

merit to it. So in the state court we

26:35

proceeded towards an evidentiary

26:38

hearing to present the new evidence.

26:40

In one of the little side note. After my

26:42

evidentiary hearing was granted on

26:45

April fifteenth of

26:48

twenty ten, the state

26:50

said they needed time to obtain

26:53

an expert of their own to

26:55

review the fire science

26:57

evidence that Carl and Gale and

27:00

everybody had put together with doctor

27:02

Ogle. It wasn't until

27:05

a few years after I was released that

27:07

a document accidentally got turned

27:09

over to my legal team

27:12

that said that the state's attorney had,

27:15

for a full year in their possession

27:17

a report that basically

27:20

said what doctor Ogle had said in

27:22

his report for me, and they were steadily

27:24

going to court telling the judge they needed more

27:26

time because they couldn't find an expert to

27:29

look at the evidence. So for

27:31

an entire year they held me knowing

27:34

that what was said by doctor Ogle

27:36

was true, that this wasn't an arson

27:38

fire.

27:39

And right before we were supposed to

27:41

have this hearing, the state determined

27:43

that they would no longer oppose postconviction

27:46

relief.

27:47

They chose to act two

27:49

weeks after Don

27:52

Graymont died, she was in hospice.

27:54

They went to her room. My ex wife

27:57

was there that day that they showed up

27:59

and tried to get her to give a deathbed

28:02

statement that I was actually guilty

28:04

of this. Within two weeks

28:06

of her passing is when my

28:09

court date was that. Carl and

28:11

Terror went into court that day and the state just

28:13

said, nah, you can let him go now. But that's

28:15

how unwilling they are to admit

28:18

when they make a mistake.

28:19

They went to her in the

28:22

hospice.

28:23

Yes, I don't let to

28:25

say.

28:25

Anymore, but I do know that

28:28

finally, Circuit Court Judge

28:30

Ricky Jones vacated all your

28:32

convictions and the charges were dismissed.

28:35

And on May thirty first of twenty

28:38

twelve, after a quarter century

28:40

in prison, you left prison.

28:42

I met Carl for the first time on the day

28:44

he came to pick me up, and it was one

28:47

of the most surreal parts

28:49

of my entire life because we

28:52

walked out and Carl had told me how

28:54

it was raining the whole way down there, and

28:56

we walked out of prison and it stopped. It

28:58

was the weirdest thing.

29:00

I will never forget that day. James was the

29:02

first person I was with when he walked out of

29:04

prison after being exonerated, and

29:06

it was really exciting to be part of that with James.

29:09

Because of him handsome, extremely

29:12

dedicated people. I have a

29:14

new lease on life.

29:15

And as I understand it, not

29:18

that this dampened your mood as

29:20

the rain was lifting, but you

29:23

walked out with fourteen dollars and

29:25

seventeen cents right.

29:26

Well, it's all I had on my prison account at

29:28

the time, and because I was no longer a

29:31

convicted felon, I was not

29:33

entitled to all the benefits

29:36

that he convicted felon would be

29:38

given upon their release. Had

29:40

Carl not come pick me up, I

29:42

had no way to get back to Chicago because I

29:44

wasn't even going to be afforded in a bus

29:46

ticket. The opportunity for housing assistance.

29:49

I mean, it was the exoneration project

29:51

that put me up in a hotel. All the things

29:54

that he convicted felon receives. I

29:56

was afforded none of it.

29:57

Yeah, they literally kicked you out the door.

30:00

But the good news is that in May twenty

30:02

and thirteen you filed the federal

30:04

wrongful conviction lawsuit against the City of Chicago

30:06

and the Chicago PD, and even

30:09

in the case as egregious as yours,

30:11

it took what almost five years to get compensated,

30:13

right, Yeah, it.

30:14

Was almost six years. But what was filed first

30:17

was a stifficate of innocence request, because

30:19

in Illinois you have to have one of those before

30:21

you can move forward really doing anything,

30:23

which meant not only did I have to prove

30:26

that I wasn't guilty, but Carl

30:28

and his team had to prove

30:31

that I was actually innocent. So

30:33

they obtained that for me. On

30:35

August fifth of twenty

30:37

and thirteen.

30:38

After I contested hearing, the very same

30:40

state that agreed that James was

30:42

innocent enough to come home

30:45

fought us on the certificate of innocence.

30:47

Finally, you know, some daylight in

30:50

this now almost thirty years by the time you

30:52

were compensated. This long, long, dark

30:54

chapter. So that is a

30:56

happy ending. How's your life now? Understand

30:59

when you came home, you were living nearby

31:02

your son and daughter in law.

31:03

It took me almost a year to

31:05

find my first job. One of the

31:08

worst moments of employment seeking

31:10

came the now defunct

31:12

Kmart Corporation. They were going to hire me

31:15

to do maintenance in one of their warehouses in Illinois.

31:17

When I got in there to fill out my paperwork,

31:20

in the middle of it, the human resources woman

31:22

asked me, what happened to all this gap in

31:24

my work history? I said, didn't you read

31:26

my resume? Because my resume stated

31:29

from the onset, after being wrongfully convicted

31:31

for twenty five years, I'm now re entering

31:33

the workforce. She started reading it.

31:35

She made some gasps and some oh mis.

31:38

She got up, she left. She came

31:40

back and she said, I'm really sorry to have

31:42

wasted your time, but we don't

31:44

hire convicted murderers. I said,

31:47

but I was exonerated.

31:49

I'm innocent. Yeah, but you were convicted.

31:52

I'm like, but I didn't do it. She's like, but you were still

31:54

convicted, so we can't hire you. And

31:56

I just I mean, I was just stunned

31:58

at that point. I was like, well, you know, I didn't know if

32:00

this was ever going to end. To this day,

32:03

I have no Social Security because

32:05

I will there's no way for me to be out long

32:07

enough to work long enough because

32:09

of my age to qualify for

32:11

Social Security. So when I

32:14

can no longer work, I'm pretty

32:16

well screwed because even though

32:18

I did receive compensation,

32:20

the money that I did walk away with, which

32:23

was about two million dollars at the end of it,

32:25

you know, is long gone. I do have my

32:27

house thankfully that that's paid for

32:30

in my vehicles, but when I get too old

32:32

to work, I'm really not sure what's going

32:34

to happen. If I'm being totally honest,

32:36

if somebody wants to hear me speak, somebody

32:38

wants to hear about my story,

32:41

I'll go wherever, whenever to try

32:43

to enlighten people and open their eyes

32:45

to what has happened in the

32:48

system. I am part of the program

32:50

for the Police Training Institute that

32:52

has been initiated in Illinois, where

32:55

there is now a mandatory

32:57

four hour class in Illinois

33:00

for every police Academy

33:02

class that goes through where

33:04

an attorney and a couple xeneries

33:07

and the project director

33:10

go to each class and spend about four

33:12

hours with the cadets. The class is on

33:14

wrongful conviction, avoidance and Awareness,

33:17

where we get to speak to these future

33:19

police officers and hopefully

33:22

open their minds to what

33:24

can go wrong.

33:26

Well, we'll have some way to contact you linked in the

33:28

episode description for speaking engagements.

33:30

And additionally, maybe what you were talking about

33:32

earlier should be the call to action this

33:34

week. We need to be building

33:36

ramps, not walls, for folks like James

33:39

to re enter society. We need legislation

33:42

to provide exouneries with the same things that are

33:44

available to paroleees. I mean, it's a

33:46

no brainer, and I'm

33:48

glad that we're bringing awareness to that once again.

33:51

And with that, we're going to move on to closing

33:53

arguments. First of all, I want

33:55

to thank you both for being here today and sharing

33:57

this insane story. And with

33:59

that, I'm going to turn my microphone

34:01

off, kick back in my chair, and leave

34:04

your microphones on for anything

34:06

else you guys want to say, Let's start with you,

34:08

Carl, because we always save our honored

34:10

guest for last. You're an honored guests, Well, don't

34:12

get me wrong, but our featured guest

34:14

of course is James. So Carl

34:17

over to you and then just hand the mic off to James

34:19

and he'll take us off into the sunset.

34:21

Well, first, just thank you for this

34:24

show and all the work that you do to give

34:26

people like James a voice, a voice

34:28

that was taken from them for

34:31

a very long time, and I think it's important

34:33

that we get to hear their voices now.

34:35

I think James has

34:38

obviously not had an easy life

34:40

before or after getting out of prison,

34:42

but he's done an amazing

34:44

amount of work to help himself

34:47

and help those around him. He's

34:49

advocated on behalf of initiatives

34:52

to change laws in Illinois to avoid

34:54

wrongful convictions in the first place, and not just

34:56

in Illinois, He's worked on this in

34:58

many states. So I'm glad

35:00

that this episode will air so

35:03

people can hear about James' story

35:05

and not just the part of the story

35:07

that's tragic about the fire and

35:09

what happened to that family and what happened to

35:12

James, but about who he is now.

35:14

So I'm honored to have gotten

35:16

to work with James. I'm honored that he's

35:18

still someone that is in

35:20

my life, who I see from time

35:22

to time, who I text. He's a great

35:24

guy, and I'm just I'm glad

35:26

that he has this opportunity to tell his story.

35:29

Thank you, Carl for that. I mean, you

35:32

constantly downplay

35:35

how important you are and the things that

35:37

you do. That's enough but true

35:39

to begin with. And you know, a

35:41

lot of people talk about good

35:43

people in this world. And when

35:46

you start thinking of people like Carl Leonard

35:49

and Tara Thompson and Gail

35:51

Horn and John Lovy, the reasons

35:53

that they do what they do, I like to call

35:55

the right reasons because they

35:58

save people. They save people in

36:00

ways that we as average

36:02

citizens don't think of. When we

36:04

think of people saving people, we think of firemen

36:07

and police officers and things like that. And

36:09

who step in in the instant. You

36:11

do it for the right reasons, and you

36:14

do it selflessly, I

36:16

mean with your family and

36:18

the sacrifices that they make, because at

36:20

the time that you're not spending with them,

36:23

they're just as important and just as

36:25

special. I have no idea how many

36:27

hours of his life he gave to

36:29

give me my life back, but it's

36:31

a debt that no matter how many times he tells

36:33

me, I don't owe him anything. I'll never be able

36:36

to repay because I wouldn't be here talking

36:38

to you guys if it was not for people

36:40

like him and Tara and

36:43

Gail, and I don't think that anybody

36:45

realizes just how special these

36:48

people are.

36:55

Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You

36:58

can listen to this and all the Lava for podcast

37:00

one week early by subscribing to Lava

37:02

for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

37:05

I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall

37:07

and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow

37:09

executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin

37:11

Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music

37:13

in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR

37:16

nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be

37:18

sure to follow us across all social media platforms

37:20

at Lava for Good and at Wrongful

37:22

Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram

37:25

at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction

37:27

is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and

37:30

association with Signal Company Number one