Injustice Interrupted/Reinstated: The Case of Marcellus "Khalifa" Williams and The Societal Damage of Wrongful Convictions

[00:00:00] This past week, the state of Missouri put to death Marcellus Williams, better known as Imam Khalifa Williams, for the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle. Prior to the death sentence being carried out, the Innocence Project, through numerous volunteers and attorneys, worked to have Mr. Williams sentence thrown out.

Why? Because he was innocent, and he, like thousands of others sitting in U. S. jails and prisons, long maintained his innocence. But these people are caught in a legal quagmire, a spiderweb, that while it may take six years, six months, To get a guilty verdict or a [00:01:00] guilty plea, it can take 20, 30, even 50 years to undo a wrongful conviction.

I've got some explaining to do. Let's get into it. Hey everybody, welcome back for another episode of Ayana Explains It, all the podcasts that bridges the gap between current events and human behavior. I am your explainer in chief, your black Muslim lady lawyer, Ayana Fakir, A Y A N A, Ayana Fakir. F A K H I R.

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And it's in a lot of the messages have been resonating with you. I talk about a wide range of things. I say this every time I talk about absolutely everything and anything. for listening. And I don't try to put a deliberate spin on it, but when you listen, you can tell what my politics are. You know what my religion is, you know how I feel about certain people and certain things.

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I've had my friends on the show and uh, yeah, so check us out. This week, I wanted to talk about, because this was in the news cycle a lot, obviously, this is how the news cycle goes, they pick up on a hot story, and it's hot until it's over, and people stop talking about it. But, The case of Khalifa Williams, Marcellus Williams, is something that I learned about last year.

Um, I am a regular contributor to the Ohio Innocence Project, and I've been following the Innocence Project itself, the national organization, for years. And I'm a huge fan of the work that they do. They are not the only innocence organization in the country, but they are one of the loudest and proudest.

And they have helped [00:06:00] to exonerate hundreds of people. And this case was one that had been going back and forth and back and forth for some years. And just recently, because the execution date was coming up, and the case still had not been, you know, finally decided. A lot of people caught on to what was happening and suddenly, uh, celebrities were involved and people were signing petitions and people were going to the Missouri State House and they were petitioning the governor and they were trying to get politicians to help.

And it was just, it was, it was so wonderful to see. And a lot of people were asking, well, how come we hadn't heard of this case before? And my response was, I heard of it. I knew about it. I had been talking about it. I had been posting about it, but I post, I post about a lot of these cases. where people are pushing to be exonerated because they are innocent, [00:07:00] or because they deserve a new trial to prove their innocence, or because they should be exonerated fully, uh, you have to be paying attention to these things because this isn't going to be a popular news story, right?

Because first of all, someone who was in prison is asking for relief and who, who really cares about that except, you know, the lawyers representing the person or the family or the victim's family. And these stories are not making the news cycles and they should be because a lot of these stories are so they're incredible.

You can't believe that. The police would even, uh, find this person was a suspect because they weren't even at the scene at the time that the crime happened, or that a judge or a jury would find this person guilty. You can't believe that, uh, this person has been in prison for 10, 20, 30. There was a man who had been in prison for 48 [00:08:00] years.

There are people who have been in prison for 60 years waiting to be exonerated. And you can't believe that this could happen in the United States of America. Every day people wake up to find out something incredible happened in the United States of America and they can't believe it because it's land of the free, home of the brave, Constitution, and we are the people, da da da da.

Anything can happen in the United States. Anything can and has happened in the United States. Please get over your love for this country, your, your love for the mystique and the patriotism of it all, of thinking that there's no way that could possibly happen here. Anything can and will and does happen here.

Don't be so in love with your country that you forget about justice. Don't be so in love with your country that you forget that there is suffering here. That there are people suffering, that there are people who are actually languishing in the prisons and jails of the United States of America for a crime they did not commit.

And sometimes [00:09:00] that crime is one of the most egregious crimes. Murder. There's murder. There's sexual abuse. There are people who have been wrongfully convicted of sexual abuse. And I did an episode on Ohio's wrongful conviction problem in season 2. And I delved a lot more into a few cases, a few key cases in the state of Ohio.

And one of them was a bus driver, and I believe it was a daycare worker. Who, out of Elyria, it was either Elyria or Lorraine, Ohio, forgive my memory. And these people had been wrongfully accused of sexually abusing dozens of children. And they went to prison for this. And they were completely innocent of it.

Completely innocent. The parents and the prosecutors had made up this story to get these people in prison. I don't know why you would do that. You would have to be a sick person to do that. [00:10:00] And that is what happened to these people. It never happened. The children were in fact never molested at all, but this story had been made up and, and it took years to get these people exonerated.

But by then, they didn't have jobs. They had exhausted all of their savings. Their reputations had been destroyed. If you Google their name, the story about them being arrested and charged and convicted comes up. So, I mean, how do you get a job after that?

Even if you've been exonerated, people still associate your name with that case, with that crime. And so you find living is hard. And some people are able to recoup funds from the state. They go after the state. Especially if there was misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct involved, and you are able to recoup as much as the state will allow. Some states allow millions. Some states only allow a couple hundred [00:11:00] thousand. And if you spend 30 years in prison, 30 years in prison, and you get out, and they're like, okay, here's, here's a million dollars.

I mean, that sounds like a lot of money, but it isn't really in the long run, is it? Because when you think of what you have lost, it's priceless. You cannot put a price on the things that you've lost. You cannot put a price on the things that you have lost. People have lost family members while waiting in prison.

And certainly you, your opportunities for education were exhausted. There are people who. I've seen a couple of stories recently about athletes who have been found not guilty of rapes they were accused of. Not only that, not only not guilty, but that the accuser had made up the story. Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that sometimes victims lie. They do not even that they're mistaken. Sometimes people [00:12:00] flat out fucking lie. It's not always the case, but sometimes it is the case. And the police really follow the victim's statements. They fo they don't necessarily follow the evidence.

And as we all know, witnesses are prone to mistakes. Some witnesses, again, like victims, lie. One thing that does not lie is DNA evidence. DNA does not lie. The person interpreting the DNA evidence certainly can lie. We've seen that too. We've seen lab techs and such admit to making up figures, making up, uh, where blood, Spatter came from, where blood came from, where hair evidence came from, the concentration of drugs in a person's urine or blood.

We've seen that. I mean, if you've watched the show Dexter, I recently watched Dexter, uh, this was on Showtime many years ago. Dexter was a lab technician. He was their blood [00:13:00] splatter guy, and he was always making shit up, mostly to cover up the fact that he, spoiler alert, was a killer. So why do we think any of this stuff is infallible?

It's not. It's prone to, prone to mistakes, mistakes of fact, mistaken identity. It's prone to people mishandling evidence. Marcellus Williams was a victim of that. It's prone to police doing a lazy sloppy job, prosecutors doing a lazy sloppy job, just trying to get a conviction, prosecutorial misconduct.

Judges make mistakes. There's judge misconduct. And then there's politics. Politics should not be involved in any of this. But there are politicians like governors and attorney generals, but then there are also Supreme Court justices who are so hell bent on justice being served because they're [00:14:00] hard on crime or they know what the Constitution says and they're going to uphold it.

They do so at the peril of the person who is appealing to them for relief. The governor of Missouri is one of those people. One of those die hard. I'm for the death penalty. I'm for getting justice for the victims and I don't care what this piece of paper says or what the evidence says. This person was convicted, so they did it, which doesn't make any sense.

It's, it's a hard thing. I think people need to understand is a very hard thing to get judges and prosecutors to admit that they made a mistake and the prosecutors in the Marcellus Williams case admitted that they made lots of mistakes, mistakes that led to Mr. Williams being convicted when, if they hadn't made those mistakes, he probably would not have been convicted.

But, uh, the [00:15:00] governor was like, fuck it. I don't care. And his state Supreme Court followed his lead. The Attorney General followed his lead. The Attorney General actually, and I'll get into this later, but the Attorney General actually is one of the people who set in motion Mr. Williams. Death sentence being reinstated.

So people want to know how these things happen. How does, how does someone get convicted of a crime they did not commit? Well, I'm here to tell you, honey. It's pretty fucking easy. Yes, it's easy. You, you think, oh, well, I'm, I've been arrested. There's no way I'm gonna be found guilty because there's, I didn't do this at all.

And before you know it, you're in prison, serving 20 years to life, and you can't believe it. It's pretty fucking easy.

Now, the case of Marcellus Williams highlights the incredible difficulty lawyers and volunteers undertake to appeal and undo [00:16:00] a conviction when new evidence overwhelmingly supports a defendant's innocence. Even the fight to get a new trial is immersed in legal wrangling and takes some years to receive an answer.

Meanwhile, men and women lose years of time with their families, with the fresh air and the clear skies, with the ability to move without having their movements monitored. People have asked how could this happen and no one did anything until the weeks before the death sentence is carried out. Why is this only being publicized now?

I've seen that so many times. Why is this only being publicized now? Why don't, why don't people know that this is happening? It's because you're not paying attention to all of the news. You're reading your little tidbits on, on social media. It used to be that people read newspapers and you would get all kinds of news in a newspaper.

Now you're getting a very narrow set of news stories and a very narrow set of facts. You're also getting narrow opinions that are influencing [00:17:00] you, and I've said this millions of times, you're being manipulated by the news, by newscasters, by politicians. You wouldn't know these stories exist because you don't know that these types of injustices happen because the state State, prosecutors, judges, they don't want you to know that these things happen.

They don't want you to know that these things happen, that they make mistakes because that erodes your faith in the legal system. If it hasn't been eroded already, this would further erode your faith in the legal system. If you knew all of these stories. Now there is actually a database of exonerations and I want you all to go to this database and it's housed by the University of Michigan.

And it's called the National Registry of Exonerations. And it's housed by the University of Michigan School of Law. And they have been keeping track of, and they have been keeping track of exonerations in the United [00:18:00] States since 1989. So it's relatively new. Uh, I mean, there were exonerations long before then, and they have those stories too.

But they have specifically been tracking and researching and compiling statistics about exonerations. In the United States since 1989. And so you can go to this database again, the national registry of exonerations. You can go to this database and look up information about your state. The state with the most exonerations is the state of Illinois.

followed by Texas and New York and Pennsylvania. Um, you can look up all kinds of statistics, racial statistics, uh, gender. You can look up the type of crimes that people have been exonerated for the amount of time they compile. You know, so many years people have spent thousands of years have been, uh, lost.

To wrongful convictions, [00:19:00] you can look up the person's name, they give you information on the person's name, the crime they were accused of, and the appeals process, as well as give some updates on what has happened to the person since then, since they've been exonerated. I mean, it's, it's incredible. It's a, it's a really good wealth of information.

If you want to know what has happened, as far as what's ongoing. Like I said, the Innocence Project has information on their ongoing cases. My state, the state of Ohio's Innocence Project is run out of the Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati School of Law. And you can go to that website and you can find out their list of cases.

There are also ways to support these Innocence Projects. Because of all of the attention These exoneration cases have gotten and because of the involvement. [00:20:00] In the guilty verdicts that lead to these wrongful convictions from prosecutors offices, many states, many counties in many states, not enough, in my opinion, like my, my state has 88 counties and we only have five of these, but they are conviction, integrity, justice.

Units, and these are out of the run out of the prosecutor's office, and they are people who review requests from prisoners for, uh, for wrongful convictions. There are certain criteria you have to meet, and the criteria is different for every county, for every state. It's ridiculous the hoops you have to jump through to get someone to review your case, because reviewing your case takes a lot of time.

It takes a lot of time and a lot of money. And if you can imagine, the state does not have a lot of money for this. They don't have a lot of money for innocence. [00:21:00] They have a lot of money for guilt, but they don't have a lot of money for innocence. And so they only take a certain number of cases. The Innocence Project can only take certain cases.

The criteria, you'll find the criteria on their website. Um, there are some lawyers who will work pro bono to help free a person, which is awesome. There are legal aides that will work to help free a person to help review their case to help with their appeals.

Sometimes the lawyer who does your trial. It's not available to do your appeals

but, uh, so yeah, so you would have to find out what your county is doing. about wrongful convictions, but also look up different, look up innocence organizations. You have the innocence project, but there are other innocence organizations. And if you're looking for some place to donate money or even time to those are great opportunities for, uh, charitable [00:22:00] giving and volunteer work.

Absolutely. 100%.

So people have asked how these things can happen. In a system built on the principles of justice and fairness, what happens when it gets things catastrophically wrong, wrongful convictions don't only mean that an innocent person has lost their freedom.

It means that the real perpetrators are still on the loose free to commit more crimes. It means that It means entire lives are ruined, families are ruined, communities are torn apart, and it means the public trust in our justice system is eroded. The criminal justice system in the [00:23:00] United States, like those in many countries, is built on the principles of fairness and justice.

However, the occurrence of wrongful convictions undermines these values, leading to innocent individuals being punished for crimes they did not commit. Despite advances in legal practices and forensic technology, wrongful convictions persist. They reveal systemic flaws that disproportionately affect marginalized communities, erode public trust in the justice system, and leave the true perpetrators of crimes at large.

 Despite advances in legal practices and forensic technology, wrongful convictions persist, and they reveal systemic flaws that disproportionately affect marginalized communities, erode public trust in the justice system, and leave the true perpetrators of crimes at large.

If we want to understand how wrongful convictions happen, we [00:24:00] need to look at the mechanics behind the errors. The first thing that might surprise you is that one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions is mistaken eyewitness identification. Now mistaken, because sometimes these people lie and you might be thinking, how is that possible that someone can mistake whom they saw?

Eyewitness testimony sounds reliable, after all, what's better than someone saying, I saw the person who committed that crime. But the reality is human memory is fallible. Under stressful conditions, like witnessing a crime, seeing someone being murdered, seeing someone being robbed at gunpoint, which I actually witnessed someone being robbed at gunpoint once.

 People often misremember details. The Innocence Project estimates that around 70% of wrongful convictions that were later overturned through DNA evidence involved mistaken eyewitness testimony.[00:25:00]

Procedures such as poorly conducted police lineups or suggestive questioning can also lead to mistaken identifications. Next, one of the biggest perpetrators of wrongful convictions, false confessions. Now, this is one of the most perplexing causes for many people to wrap their heads around because why would someone confess to a crime they didn't commit?

Well, if you think about it, there are a lot of reasons this happens, especially in cases involving young people or individuals with mental health issues, prolonged interrogations, which are. are found to be constitutional threats. Again, constitutional promises, promises of leniency. Again, constitutional.

The U. S. Supreme Court has held that police can lie to suspects to get them to give them information. And sometimes that results in someone [00:26:00] confessing to a crime they did not commit. All of these things can make an innocent person say, I did it, even when they didn't do it. And this happens more than you think.

When interrogations stretch on for hours, or when law enforcement uses deceptive tactics, vulnerable people often crack under pressure. Then there's faulty forensic science. Now, this is something we tend to think of as ironclad, right? Remember I said DNA, infallible, ironclad. But there are other types of forensic science used that are subject to review.

And there are times when the scientific community goes, well, you know what? This doesn't make any sense. It's actually unreliable. And so we're going to toss it. Forensic evidence feels like hard, objective science, but the reality is far more complicated. Certain forensic techniques, like bite mark analysis or even hair [00:27:00] comparison, have been debunked over the years as unreliable.

There are scientists And lawyers who believe that Ted Bundy was actually convicted of crimes he did not commit because the convictions happened on the use of bite mark evidence, and that has been debunked.

But these techniques were once treated as decisive evidence in courtrooms. And when forensic experts give subjective opinions, juries often take them as fact, even when there's room for error. But one of the principal causes of wrongful convictions are Brady violations.

 Brady violations occur when prosecutors fail to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense, which is evidence that could help prove the defendants innocence or reduce their culpability.

These violations are named after a Supreme Court case from 1963, [00:28:00] a landmark case in which the court ruled that withholding such evidence violates a defendant's right to due process under the 14th amendment. In many cases, the prosecution may possess evidence that could cast doubt on the defendant's guilt, such as witness statements, forensic reports, or documents that contradict their theory of the crime.

If this evidence is withheld, the defense cannot present it during trial, depriving the defendant of the chance to challenge the prosecution's narrative opinion. For example, a prosecutor might suppress a witness statement that clears the defendant or evidence pointing to an alternative suspect. And without this information, the jury may only see incriminating evidence leading to a conviction based on incomplete evidence.

Facts, and we see this often in exoneration cases. Witnesses lie about who they saw, or they say that they saw someone else, but the police and prosecution either [00:29:00] ignore these statements, or they fail to disclose it to the defense.

Resulting in the defendant being convicted when there's a possibility of someone else being the perpetrator. There's also the failure to disclose impeachment evidence. Prosecutors are required to disclose impeachment evidence. And that is information that could discredit the credibility of prosecution witnesses.

If the defense doesn't know, For instance, that a key witness has a history of lying a criminal record or an agreement with the prosecution, such as leniency in exchange for testimony, which was the case and Mr. Williams case as well. The defense cannot challenge the reliability of the testimony effectively.

This can lead to wrongful convictions based on false or unreliable witness testimony. A fair trial also requires that both sides have access to all relevant evidence. Brady violations [00:30:00] skew the legal process in favor of the prosecution, depriving the defense of crucial tools needed to build a strong case.

Juries often end up making decisions based on an unbalanced presentation, based on an unbalanced presentation of evidence, leading to convictions that might not have occurred if all the facts were known. But also, defendants who rely on public defenders or who come from marginalized communities are especially vulnerable to Brady violations.

Public defenders often handle large caseloads with limited resources making it harder for them to discover suppressed evidence on their own. When key information is withheld, these defendants face even greater hurdles in proving their innocence, but they are also susceptible to the ineffective assistance of counsel when it comes to public defenders, because again, they have limited resources.

 [00:31:00] Brady violations can also delay justice for the wrongfully convicted. In some cases, it can take years or decades for the withheld evidence to come to light, usually through post conviction investigations or the work of organizations like the Innocence Project.

By the time the evidence is revealed, an innocent person may have already spent years behind bars. They may, in fact, be deceased.

But going back to inadequate defense, one of the easiest ways, I would say, to get someone convicted of a crime they did not commit is through plea bargaining. Plea bargaining. An inadequate defense Is a contributing factor in plea bargains and indigent defendants often rely on overworked and under resourced public defenders. As I mentioned, they work with limited resources.

They are sometimes appointed by a court [00:32:00] or they work for the state. They may not have the time or expertise to mount an adequate defense, or defendant is coerced into accepting a plea deal without fully understanding the ramifications of pleading guilty even to a lesser offense.

These disparities are real. Disproportionately affect people of color and low income individuals, further entrenching in qualities, further entrenching inequalities within the criminal justice system. And yes, even if you plead guilty, you can appeal the decision based on ineffective assistance of counsel.

 But when you enter a plea of guilty, even to a lesser offense, you waive your right to a speedy trial. The right to a jury trial and a right to confront witnesses against you. As one scholar put it, convicting defendants who would be acquitted at trial is one of the principal goals of plea bargaining.

Half a loaf is [00:33:00] better than none, prosecutors say. When we have a weak case for any reason, we'll reduce to almost anything rather than lose. Prosecutors engage in both odds bargaining and costs bargaining. That is, they bargain both to ensure conviction in doubtful cases. And to save the cost of trial, when a prosecutor has no chance of obtaining a conviction at trial, he may be unable to make an offer that will overbalance the defendant's chances of acquittal.

 In every other case, however, the scholar goes on to say, the prosecutor can reduce the offered punishment to the point that it will become advantageous for the defendant to plead guilty, whether he is guilty or innocent. Trials should only occur when defendants irrationally press their luck, or when prosecutors and defendants disagree about probable trial outcomes and sentences.

And in fact, trials are rare. Most convictions at the state and federal [00:34:00] level are the result of plea bargains. He goes on to say, Plea bargains vaporize the fundamental legal standard of guilt, guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Another scholar writes that instead of prosecutors admitting they do not have enough evidence to meet their burden, they use Which is something a lot of you have probably heard of, they use Alford Pleas.

That's A L F O R D. Alford Pleas. And other bargaining to clear their dockets. And I know some of you have heard of Alford pleas. It's just another form of plea bargaining that essentially usurps justice.

It forces defendants to accept a plea of guilty, but allows them to maintain their innocence. And if they win their appeal, they can withdraw their charges. The plea defendants take a plea and they spend decades in prison. And then, well, what do you know? New evidence [00:35:00] appears that supports they were not the perpetrator.

If they win their appeal again, they can withdraw the plea. But in the meantime, they've agreed to be sentenced to prison. And they are in fact in prison awaiting their appeal. Unlike a guilty plea that requires a waiving of a trial and an admission of guilt, the Alford plea is usually a shorter sentence. Think 20 years instead of a guilty plea, which gets you 40 to life.

 Unfortunately, wrongful conviction relief may be unavailable for those who choose to enter Alford, please. Often, the only source of relief for Alford pleaders is a governor's granting of clemency, as some states ban those who have entered Alford pleas from seeking post conviction relief due to their treatment of the Alford plea as a guilty plea.

So if you choose an Alford plea, [00:36:00] your post conviction relief options may be limited. Think long and hard before you plead guilty. Even if you take an Alford plea, think long and hard before you do that, because that may eliminate some of your post conviction relief.

Now in Mr. Williams case when he was seeking post conviction relief. in January 2024, prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion to vacate Mr. Williams death sentence after DNA testing excluded him as the source of DNA on the murder weapon, He actually had a deal for a plea agreement that was reached as both parties were scheduled to begin an evidentiary hearing however, prosecutors unexpectedly announced that the murder weapon used in the crime contained the DNA of members of the trial prosecution team. They had tainted the evidence.

Yeah. Consistent with his assertion of innocence, the murder weapon does not show [00:37:00] any evidence from Mr. Williams, but now confirms that the crime scene evidence was mishandled by prosecutors. No physical or forensic evidence has ever connected Mr. Williams. To the Felicia Gayle crime scene, marcellus Williams was offered an Alford plea and he accepted it. He was going to, they were going to convert his death sentence into a plea of guilty and he was going to accept a sentence of life without parole. The Attorney General of Missouri asked the Missouri Supreme Court to toss the agreement made with prosecutors claiming that the judge in the case did not have the authority to accept the plea and re sentence him, and ordered the lower court to set aside the plea and hold an evidentiary hearing and when it was determined that the evidence was not exculpatory his death sentence was reinstated.

 A 2021 Missouri [00:38:00] law allows prosecutors to challenge past convictions if they believe the individual is innocent or wrongfully accused. or wrongfully convicted, including Mr. Williams case. This law has been used six times with varying degrees of success., And in Mr. Williams case, the attorney general consistently opposed any effort by Mr.

Williams to appeal his conviction and death sentence in fact, the attorney general's office of Missouri has a decades long history of opposing relief in other innocence cases as well.

 So when people say things like, Why should I vote? My vote doesn't matter. I don't care about voting. But then they also want to know how things like this happen. I just read you two offices, three offices really, that are elected offices that were responsible for reinstating Mr.

Williams death sentence. The Attorney [00:39:00] General, the Supreme Court, and the Governor. Those are all elected positions in Missouri. They're elected positions in my state, the state of Ohio. Our Supreme Court Justices are elected. And we are hiring, we are electing three new ones this election cycle. So when people say that they're, uh, not voting, that they don't care about voting, but then they are also outraged about cases like Mr.

Williams, well, I hate to say this, but you only have yourself to blame. We are all participants in this system of injustice. Not the legal system, but the, uh, system of injustice because we vote for the people who make these decisions about whether someone will receive a new trial, about whether evidence, new evidence will be heard about whether someone was wrongfully convicted, about whether [00:40:00] someone can change their plea.

About whatever post conviction relief is available to them about whether they will be granted clemency. We are the ones choosing these people or not because we don't vote. If you're looking for an easy way to help people like Mr. Williams. Get your ass to vote. To the voting booth

 Now, when you hear all of this, Your head is swirling because you see how easy it is for someone to be convicted of a crime they did not commit, whether through plea bargaining or faulty science or mistaken witnesses or lying witnesses or prosecutorial misconduct or Brady violations, you see how [00:41:00] easy it is for someone to be convicted of a crime they did not commit.

False confessions, police misconduct. What are Are the consequences of wrongful convictions. Well, you've seen the consequences, at least in Mr. Williams case, an innocent man was put to death. An innocent man was executed and the real murderer of Felicia Gale. is still out there. The consequences of wrongful convictions are devastating, not only for the individuals wrongfully convicted, but also for society as a whole.

For those imprisoned, the loss of freedom, reputation, and opportunities can be irreparable. Many exonerees spend years, sometimes decades behind bars before they are cleared of their charges, losing crucial parts of their lives. After their release, they face the challenge of reintegrating into society, often without adequate support [00:42:00] systems.

Moreover, wrongful convictions erode public trust in the individual. legal system. When individuals are wrongfully convicted, it signals a failure of the system to protect the innocent and hold the guilty accountable. This erosion of trust can lead to cynicism, apathy, and reluctance to cooperate with law enforcement.

It also creates an additional burden on the courts as resources are diverted to appeals and post conviction proceedings, leaving fewer resources for other cases. Importantly, Wrongful convictions allow the true perpetrators of crimes to remain free, which poses a threat to public safety. For every case in which an innocent person is convicted, the actual offender may continue to victimize others, increasing the overall harm to society.

Imagine for a second that you're convicted of a crime you didn't commit. You're [00:43:00] sentenced to life in prison, or worse. What does that do to a person? What does that do to their family?

Many exonerees spend years, sometimes decades, behind bars before the mistake is realized. And according to the National Registry of Exonerations, the average time spent in prison before exoneration is 11 years. 11 years. And it doesn't end when the wrongfully convicted are released.

Life after exoneration is often brutal. Many exonerees leave prison without support or resources. Imagine trying to re enter society after decades of imprisonment. You've lost job opportunities, relationships, and even basic life skills. In many cases, exonerees receive little to no compensation for the [00:44:00] years they lost. Wrongful convictions also harm society at large. How can we trust a system that gets it wrong, but how can we trust each other? We have the power to change the people who are in power, allowing these wrongful convictions to happen and we do nothing.

 These are some facts about exonerations from 2023 published by the National Registry of Exonerations

The Registry of Exonerations has recorded 153 exonerations so far from the year 2023. Official misconduct occurred in at least 118 exonerations in 2023. 118 cases contained official misconduct. The continued importance [00:45:00] of professional exonerators, including innocence organizations and conviction integrity units.

play essential roles. They were responsible for 97 exonerations in 2023, 63 percent of the total. Innocence Projects and Conviction Integrity Units worked together on 30 exonerations in 2023. Of the 153 exonerations in 2023, 30 percent were no crime cases. That is, no crime Had been committed. Imagine being convicted of a crime that did not actually happen.

Yes, that is a thing. These no crime cases included wrongful convictions for drug possession, murder and child sex abuse. As in past years, no crime exonerations include a disproportionate number of women. [00:46:00] Female exonerees represent 15 percent of no crime cases in 2023, but only 6 percent of the total cases.

Nearly 84 percent of exonerations in 2023 were persons of color. Nearly 84 percent of exonerations from 2023 were persons of color. Nearly 61 percent of the exonerees were black

persons exonerated in 2023 lost an average of 14. 6 years to wrongful imprisonment imprisonment for crimes they did not commit. Since 2019, the total compensation paid to exonerees has nearly doubled and now exceeds $4 billion, $4 billion. And where does that money come from? Your tax dollars, my tax [00:47:00] dollars. .

So what are some solutions and some reforms that can be used to address wrongful convictions? Addressing wrongful convictions requires, as we know, comprehensive reforms aimed at improving the accuracy and fairness of the criminal legal system. One key reform.

One key reform. Is the implementation of best practices for eyewitness identification, double blind lineups where the administrator does not know the identity of the suspect, along with proper instructions to witnesses can help reduce the likelihood of mistaken identifications. Interrogation practices must also be reformed to prevent false confessions.

Recording interrogations from start to finish provides a record of the interactions between suspects and law enforcement, reducing the potential for corruption. Coercion. [00:48:00] Furthermore, implementing time limits on interrogations and banning deceptive tactics, particularly with vulnerable populations, can decrease the number of false confessions, though the Supreme Court has already said that this is constitutional.

Something that also helps that I shout from the rooftops, do not talk to police without the presence of an attorney. Also, do not talk to anyone. While you are awaiting your trial, don't talk to anybody about your case, except for your lawyer. Your lawyer is the only person you should be talking to about your case and about your charges.

Even when you have been convicted, And you're appealing your sentence. You know that there are people who go on these TV shows. These, um, there's one that comes on A& E and it's called Guilty or Innocent. [00:49:00] And it's all about the process of going from, um, the case in its initial stages through to the verdict or plea in a case.

And a lot of people get on these shows and they just talk and talk everything you say in these TV shows can be used against you, not only in your trial, but also in your appeal. They, they are looking at these Dateline episodes, 48 hours. They're looking at these A& E shows.

And they're writing down everything you're saying, everything. They'll use it against you. My advice, shut up.

Don't talk. There is, uh, there's such a fever people have when they want, they want to get on social media. The second, Something bad happens the second something, some injustice happens or some, uh, you know, they get charged with something or arrested. The [00:50:00] desire is to go on social media and tell your side of the story or talk to TV interviewers

listen, the only person who needs to hear your side. Those TV people can't do anything for you. That record of that TV interview will be submitted to the prosecution. Believe it, honey. Believe it. Do not talk to anyone. Don't go on TikTok and do a 12 part series on why you're innocent. TikTok cannot help you.

They can't. They cannot. And everything you say, again, will be used against you.

It'll be used against you to determine if you should get bail. That's all. It'll be used against you in sentencing. Be very careful. Be very, very careful because again, police are allowed to use any number of tactics to get you to confess to a crime. And there's no reason [00:51:00] that you should even be talking to them for a traffic stop.

Don't talk to them. Don't talk to them. Give them your ID. They ask you your name. Don't lie about who you are. And that's it. Zip it. You don't have to tell them where you're going, where you're coming from. None of that people want to talk because they think it'll help them get out of the trouble they're in.

If you've been arrested. There's nothing you can say that can get you out of trouble. They've already decided that you're guilty of the crime that they're arresting you for. So why are you talking? There's nothing you can do. You can even have an alibi. They will ignore the fucking alibi. They'll ignore the alibi and you'll be sitting in trial going, but I wasn't there.

And you'll still be convicted. People have been convicted of crimes they did not commit, and there was [00:52:00] no way they could have committed the crime because they were not even present at the scene of the crime at the time the crime happened. They were on another side of town. They were out of state. They were asleep.

They were at home watching TV. Police and prosecutors do not care because if an eyewitness or two eyewitnesses said they saw you there, you were fucking there. It's easy. It happens. It happens all the time. It happens more than you think. Don't think it can't happen to you. And, uh, also improving forensic science is another critical component of reform.

Establishing national standards for forensic techniques and ensuring that forensic labs are independent from law enforcement agencies can help reduce the incidents of faulty evidence. If you see these episodes of law and order and all these other TV shows and the police just [00:53:00] casually walk into the ME's office or they casually walk into the lab And they're talking to the technicians about the evidence.

What could go wrong there? What could possibly go wrong with police, police having access to the evidence that's being tested to get this crime solved, to get the suspect that they have in custody, to be found guilty of the crime they're charged with. What could possibly go wrong? You think a police officer wouldn't tamper with evidence?

You think they wouldn't have a lab technician tamper with evidence? Police. Please, please, additionally providing additionally providing defense attorneys with greater access to forensic experts can level the playing field in court as it stands now. You, the defendant have to pay for. a forensic expert.

 If you want a forensic expert to refute what the [00:54:00] state's forensic expert has said, or to present a defense on your behalf, you, the defendant have to pay for it.

And they are not cheap. That's time. That's money. And a lot of defendants don't have that, especially if you are using a public defender.

They don't have the money for that. But making sure that forensic experts are available to defendants would reduce, would help reduce the number of wrongful convictions. It would make it fair, would make an, make it an even playing field. As it stands now, the prosecution has all the cards in their deck and you got a joker.

And I don't mean to laugh, but it really is. It's astonishing how unfair and unbalanced this is. And they have the burden of proof. They have the burden of proof. They have all the money. They have all the power. They have [00:55:00] all the resources. And then there's defendants who have not a dollar in their bank account.

And they're going up against these powerful state agencies, these district attorneys and judges. Sometimes there's a jury, sometimes there's not. You don't always have to have a jury trial. You can have a judge trial in some states and they feel it's unbalanced. And what do people do in those cases?

In a lot of those cases, most of those cases, they accept a plea bargain. They take a plea bargain because they feel that the scales of justice are not tipped in their favor. They're not even balanced. They're unequal and they favor the state.

So, in that sense, we also have to address prosecutorial misconduct and ensure adequate defense for all defendants. Strengthen our [00:56:00] oversight of prosecutors, including the creation of independent review boards. That can deter unethical behavior. Providing more resources for public defenders and ensuring they have manageable caseloads can help guarantee that all defendants receive fair representation.

And as I've mentioned before, innocence organizations and conviction integrity units within prosecutors offices review potential wrongful conviction cases and they play an essential role in helping the wrongfully convicted win a new trial or be fully exonerated. And these Conviction Integrity Units have shown promise, but they must be adequately funded and operate within transparency to be effective, and despite their presence, now, despite their presence, few have yet to result in exonerations.

Certainly not. Certainly they have not [00:57:00] been as effective as organizations such as the Innocence Project. And as I said, my state has 88 counties, 88 and there are five, five that I remember from my research. So you got 88 counties from which a person can be convicted of a crime, but only five of them have these Conviction Integrity Units. And a lot of the counties in Ohio are small.

So they probably would not have the resources, but as big as this place is and the episode I did on Ohio's wrongful conviction problem is, is, it's startling having only five of these and the one in Cuyahoga County where I live, the requirements to have your case reviewed are strict. People often [00:58:00] end up having to turn to innocence organizations and bypassing these conviction integrity units all together.

So yes, they are a step in the right direction, but they haven't resulted in near the number of exonerations that innocence organizations have. So, it's like asking, asking the police to investigate the police, asking the prosecutors to investigate the prosecutors. Draw your own conclusions.

At the end of the day, wrongful convictions remain a troubling reality in the United States, reflecting deep seated flaws within the criminal legal system, within the criminal justice system. From mistaken eyewitness identifications to prosecutorial misconduct, the causes of wrongful convictions are varied and complex. The consequences, however, are uniformly devastating for [00:59:00] individuals, families, and communities. To restore trust in the justice system and ensure that guilty, not the innocent, and ensure that the guilty, not the innocent, are held accountable, meaningful reforms must be implemented.

These include changes in forensic science practices, interrogation procedures, and prosecutorial oversight. By addressing these issues, the United States can move closer to a system that truly upholds justice for all. If justice for all were the goal, Mr. Williams would be alive. However, at the end of the day, wrongful convictions aren't just legal errors. They are human tragedies that ripple through communities, families, and a society as a whole. While the causes are complex, the consequences are more devastating. [01:00:00] Even though reform is possible, reform is slow, and reform is certainly not happening without the support of the people.

Individuals without our voting support, without our physical support, without us using our platforms to spread the word about wrongful convictions and help those who are in need of help. But mostly without our votes, we're voting in the people who are making these decisions. We are. We are. So yes, that makes all of us responsible for wrongful convictions.

We sit on these juries or we don't. How often do you get a jury summons and you roll your eyes? Because you don't want to serve on a jury or when you see the same names being put up for judge positions. [01:01:00] Do you keep checking those boxes without reflecting on the record? These people have for wrongful convictions for misconduct for heavy sentences for crimes that don't deserve those sentences for racial disparities and sentencing for racial disparities and charges.

It's not just about freeing the wrongfully convicted. It's about ensuring that our justice system works for everyone and upholds the principle that it's better for 10 guilty persons to escape than for one innocent person to suffer.

And this has been Ayanna explains it all brought to you by facts, figures, and enlightenment. Don't forget to check out the national registry for exonerations at the university of Michigan school of law. Don't forget to check out the work of the innocence project and find out how you can lend your support to [01:02:00] that organization and other innocence organizations in this country.

Thank you. Take care.