Speaker 1: With Dan Ray WBS Constance Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if you can still hear me,
Speaker 2: but that is not a top Chicago White Sox team
Speaker 2: they're playing tonight. This is a little discouraging.
Speaker 3: And not only that, Dan, but the error bug is
Speaker 3: biting the Red Sox again. What was supposed to be
Speaker 3: a good defensive team so far has not shown that.
Speaker 3: I think they've got about three errors already in this game.
Speaker 2: I'm aware of that. You know there's a possibility I
Speaker 2: may have to go in and help Korra manage this team,
Speaker 2: and you couldn't do any You couldn't do any worse, Dan,
Speaker 2: I don't think. Well, certainly not tonight. Certainly not tonight.
Speaker 2: But I mean I talked to him every once in
Speaker 2: a while and try to explain some strategies to him.
Speaker 2: But I think I may need to take a leave
Speaker 2: of absence here for the station.
Speaker 3: It's not where, it's not working, Dan.
Speaker 2: Could you cover it, cover for me for a couple
Speaker 2: of months while I get these guys back. I will,
Speaker 2: I will, Okay, I would appreciate that. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: not deserting Bez, but I have to do something for
Speaker 2: the Red Sox, and you know you're a team You're
Speaker 2: a team player, Dan. I'm a team player and I
Speaker 2: want everybody to be a team player. That's exactly what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. Hell, you've read my mind, you know
Speaker 2: me too. Well, thank you, my friend. I really appreciate
Speaker 2: the support. You're welcome. Thankspellacher of the Red Sox would
Speaker 2: love to have me there. Oh yeah, well probably not,
Speaker 2: probably not, but we can dream anyway. Okay, we're going
Speaker 2: to put the Red Sox aside for the moment. They
Speaker 2: still have two more games with the White Sox so
Speaker 2: they can win the series. I want to get to
Speaker 2: a very serious topic. I spent this afternoon and early
Speaker 2: this evening reading a book that was sent to me
Speaker 2: by a good friend and somewhat of a colleague. Christopher J. Muse,
Speaker 2: former Superior Court judged here in Massachusetts. Was on the
Speaker 2: bench for about seventeen years, but before that practice as
Speaker 2: a lawyer. In one of the most high profile cases,
Speaker 2: that was a case involving Bobby Joe Leister. Many of
Speaker 2: you in the audience are familiar with the case, but
Speaker 2: for those of you who are not, I want to
Speaker 2: welcome Chris Muse. I should say Judge Mws but I
Speaker 2: feel I owe you. I know you well enough to say, Chris, Chris,
Speaker 2: how are you tonight?
Speaker 4: And please call me Chris. I love being a judge.
Speaker 4: I retired. It means I can talk more freely and
Speaker 4: I can make some extra money now, So Chris is
Speaker 4: much better place for me at the age of seventy plus.
Speaker 2: So right, I'm still trying to figure out how to
Speaker 2: make extra money. But I talk freely every night. So
Speaker 2: that's the one thing.
Speaker 4: You would have, the silence you never had, the silence
Speaker 4: I had. But I, first of all, I want to
Speaker 4: thank you so much for inviting me to speak with
Speaker 4: you into your audience. You know, well you know how
Speaker 4: important it was to me and my family, and as
Speaker 4: you know, and I appreciate this fact, it was so
Speaker 4: important to the Boston community at Lodge. So it's a
Speaker 4: thrill for me to be here with you tonight.
Speaker 2: Well, the title is interesting. We will use the title
Speaker 2: as the gateway to the to the conversation. The title
Speaker 2: Justice undergd the the subtitle how Faith, Hope and Charity
Speaker 2: freed an innocent man and help save a thousand lives.
Speaker 2: We'll get into the subtitle, but the title Justice under
Speaker 2: God actually comes from your high school, Boston College High School,
Speaker 2: which of course was the sworn enemy of my high school,
Speaker 2: Boston Latin School back in our days in high school.
Speaker 4: Yes, and and and and I want to let you
Speaker 4: know that that we have Rob Prochbaut right now with
Speaker 4: you and me in respect of what with the Eagles
Speaker 4: and you guys were the what we were the wolf pack?
Speaker 4: Wolf pack. That's it shouldn't be. I was there for
Speaker 4: three years. I shouldn't forget those things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, oh, so you shot you, you talked, you
Speaker 2: took the short course seventh, eighth, and ninth grades.
Speaker 4: No, no, I talked you for three years.
Speaker 2: I believe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they called me a junior master. I mean that's yeah.
Speaker 4: It was very dated. It was great, Oh it was.
Speaker 2: It was very dated, even for the day. It was
Speaker 2: very dated. So justice under God is a phrase that
Speaker 2: emanates from BC High School. It's called it's short for jug.
Speaker 4: Right, you have friends at BC High that and and
Speaker 4: they were They were probably of not bad character, but
Speaker 4: sometimes mischievous, and Judge would be called detention and discipline
Speaker 4: for any any of the kids at BC HID that
Speaker 4: got out of one. In fact, it was a system
Speaker 4: JUG for just about every Jesuit high school on the
Speaker 4: East Coast, and it was an acronym for justice under God.
Speaker 4: So you have justice more than I got more justice
Speaker 4: under God during my senior year when I was very
Speaker 4: restless than any other senior in the class. And I
Speaker 4: think I held the record for about ten years. But
Speaker 4: but I.
Speaker 2: I want I want to I want to talk about
Speaker 2: the title of the book, Justice Undergoden This this is
Speaker 2: a case. You were a newly minted or relatively minted lawyer,
Speaker 2: your dad. It was a legal legend here in Boston
Speaker 2: for many many years. And after graduating from Suffolk Law School,
Speaker 2: working doing that at nights at night, which is always
Speaker 2: tough because you were teaching in the Boston school system,
Speaker 2: you found your your work in life. And one of
Speaker 2: the first cases that landed on your desk, courtesy of
Speaker 2: your dad was the Bobby Joe Leister case. And it
Speaker 2: turned it turned out to be a huge case, and
Speaker 2: you fought every every obstacle that was thrown in your way.
Speaker 2: I can identify with some of those obstacles. Just give
Speaker 2: us some. I'm just going to take a minute or so,
Speaker 2: and then I got to take a quick break. How
Speaker 2: when you first got this case. How long did it
Speaker 2: take you to figure out this is the case that's
Speaker 2: a missed a conviction, that was a that is a
Speaker 2: miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 4: So you know, it goes right back to the the
Speaker 4: starting off point was I finished, I finished teaching, and
Speaker 4: I was given a job as a as a public
Speaker 4: defender in the Marldon Courts. That fortunately gave me the
Speaker 4: right to have a private practice to supplement. And that
Speaker 4: was how I ended up in my father's law office
Speaker 4: on my first day of being a public defender the
Speaker 4: late afternoon, and I was trying to clear space so
Speaker 4: I could, you know, work out of his office and
Speaker 4: they and I told him, I said, listen, I'm getting
Speaker 4: a little bit of money, but I need more. Can
Speaker 4: you give me some casework? And this is four or
Speaker 4: five o'clock in the afternoon. He's going through the mail
Speaker 4: and he opened up an envelope from the Federal District
Speaker 4: Court where he had been appointed to represent this fellow
Speaker 4: Bobby Joe Lista for his third petition to habeas corpus,
Speaker 4: which was unusual usually he get one and he looked
Speaker 4: it over and he said, hah, this guy's being charged
Speaker 4: convicted of murder. He's run out of appeals. Why don't you,
Speaker 4: why don't he Why don't you practice on this case?
Speaker 4: Is what he said. And he said, this guy, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, he must be a cry baby. Why is he?
Speaker 4: Why is he doing this? But this is what he
Speaker 4: said to me that was most vital. He said. I
Speaker 4: said to him, first of all, it's a murder case.
Speaker 4: I can't do it. And he said, and it's sort
Speaker 4: of like what you just mentioned about Alex Cora. You
Speaker 4: can't do any worse. He said to me, you can't
Speaker 4: do any worse than the other lawyers he had. So
Speaker 4: what happened was to get to your point, he said,
Speaker 4: I may you have to go out and talk to
Speaker 4: him face to face. Don't just rely on the papers.
Speaker 4: So to answer a question. About a week later, I
Speaker 4: went out, I spoke with him. I met this very
Speaker 4: gentle guy. He was accompanied by this jailhouse lawyer by
Speaker 4: the name of Victor. That explained to me why it
Speaker 4: was going to be a great appeal for me to take.
Speaker 4: And I walked out of it with an unflinching belief
Speaker 4: that he was telling me the truth and that he
Speaker 4: was innocent. And I went home and I read the
Speaker 4: case summary, and I saw that there were lots of variables.
Speaker 4: It was an identification case, and without knowing anything else,
Speaker 4: I knew that if it was identification, it could have
Speaker 4: been a misidentification. And it was my naivete dan more
Speaker 4: than anything else, that caused me to say, this guy
Speaker 4: is innocent. I just never had it. I was never
Speaker 4: aft to make that kind of evaluation, and that was dominant.
Speaker 4: I convinced my father to go out and speak with him,
Speaker 4: and after he spoke with Bobby, and this is a
Speaker 4: wise old guy that's been around the block many many times,
Speaker 4: and he was convinced of it as well. So we
Speaker 4: started off at this plateau March nineteen seventy seven, believing
Speaker 4: that this guy not only was innocent, but he was
Speaker 4: really screwed by the system.
Speaker 2: Well, we're going to get into the story. We're going
Speaker 2: to have some folks join us. Those of you who
Speaker 2: know that Bobby Joe Leister case, you're more than welcome
Speaker 2: to call and ask questions. It was a case that
Speaker 2: came down at a different time here in Massachusetts. It
Speaker 2: may sound like incredible. There are people who are inside
Speaker 2: the prison walls who are in fact innocent, And I
Speaker 2: always emphasize Christ for people to understand the difference between
Speaker 2: not guilty when a verdict. When a jury comes back
Speaker 2: with a not guilty verdict, they are saying the Commonwealth
Speaker 2: and they're only saying the Commonwealth did not fulfill its
Speaker 2: obligation to prove all the elements of the crime that
Speaker 2: was alleged beyond a reasonable doubt. No jury comes back
Speaker 2: and says innocent, but a lawyer like yourself can get
Speaker 2: a sense sometimes. I had the same feeling the first
Speaker 2: time I met Joe Salvadi in Conquered State Prison and
Speaker 2: I asked him a couple of questions, and you have
Speaker 2: that sort of eerie feeling that this guy actually might
Speaker 2: be innocent. We want to talk about your journey. We're
Speaker 2: going to be joined on the other side by the
Speaker 2: former mayor of Springfield who was on the Governor's Council
Speaker 2: when you were able to secure a commutation, which was
Speaker 2: a very difficult thing to do. But there's so much
Speaker 2: to this story. We're going to try to get it
Speaker 2: all in in the hour. Those of you you have
Speaker 2: a question, feel free to join the conversation. Six one, seven, two, five, four,
Speaker 2: ten thirty. My guest is form of Superior Court Justice
Speaker 2: Judge Chris Muse his book Justice under Got and this
Speaker 2: is a great book. I read it today. It's about
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty so pages give you exactly as Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a little bit longer, about one ninety and
Speaker 2: well written, easy to read, but it really does give
Speaker 2: you an understanding of how the court systems work and
Speaker 2: how reluctant. What I came away with, Chris was the
Speaker 2: reluctance of all the judges up and down in the
Speaker 2: court system to actually say, hey, there may be a
Speaker 2: problem here. Many of the judges who I think you
Speaker 2: reference here in my opinion, went out of their way
Speaker 2: to maintain the conviction, even though you folks had made
Speaker 2: so many really compelling arguments that there were at a
Speaker 2: minimum serious questions and maybe that this was indeed case
Speaker 2: of actual innocence. Back with Chris Muse and phone calls
Speaker 2: and guests, and you're going to have a You're going
Speaker 2: to go to law school for the next forty minutes, folks,
Speaker 2: whether you like it or not. So stay with us.
Speaker 2: It's a great story.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b
Speaker 1: Z Boston's news.
Speaker 2: Radio talk with former Massachusetts superior Court judge for many years,
Speaker 2: a defense lawyer, criminal defense lawyer. His book Justice under God,
Speaker 2: the story of his and his family. His dad was
Speaker 2: a very well respected iconic lawyer here in the Greater
Speaker 2: Boston area for decades himself. His dad a World War
Speaker 2: Two veteran who had quite a military career as well,
Speaker 2: which is incorporated into the book. But they represented the
Speaker 2: young man Bobby Joe Lista, who was arrested at the
Speaker 2: age of nineteen for murder he didn't commit. He spent
Speaker 2: more than fifteen years at a Massachusetts state prison before
Speaker 2: Bob and Chris Muse won his freedom. This is a
Speaker 2: great book. Chris on Us is Michael Albano from a
Speaker 2: mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts. Mister mayor, former Governor's Council.
Speaker 5: How are you, sir, Good evening, be a good to
Speaker 5: be with you and in Justice Muse. Thanks for having Mike.
Speaker 4: Mike nice to hear you too. Great.
Speaker 2: Let me let me, let me let the two of
Speaker 2: you explain. We're going to jump ahead a little bit here.
Speaker 2: After many appeals within the court system which fell on
Speaker 2: deaf ears, I hope I'm characterizing that correctly. Chris. You
Speaker 2: decided that the better tact might be seek a commutation,
Speaker 2: which you did finally get. But seeking a commutation was
Speaker 2: difficult because the practice of commutations in those days required
Speaker 2: that the inmate, before commutation would be given, had to
Speaker 2: express regret and sorrow for the crime that he had committed.
Speaker 2: And your client was insistent that he had nothing to
Speaker 2: apologize for because he did commit the crime. And maybe
Speaker 2: the two of you can explain how you were able
Speaker 2: to work around that. I guess Michae o'bono gave you
Speaker 2: some pretty good advice on this, Chris. Why don't you
Speaker 2: start it then, Mike, we can work you into the conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let me let me get let me get to
Speaker 4: another very important waypoint, as we call it. In nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty five, we'd exhausted all of our appeals. We've been
Speaker 4: out and down the federal courts. We had three times
Speaker 4: in front of the Supreme Judicial Court. We kept getting
Speaker 4: pushed back because the courts are reluctant to overturn these
Speaker 4: kinds of convictions back in the day, and I went
Speaker 4: out to see Bobby and I told them the bad news,
Speaker 4: and he said, explain to me, why did they do
Speaker 4: this to me? And I said, he said, you got
Speaker 4: a fair trial, and he looked at me and he said,
Speaker 4: how could I have gotten a fair trial if I'm innocent?
Speaker 4: And I said, listen, Bobby, you got to be patient.
Speaker 4: You got a second I'm going to get you a commutation. Now.
Speaker 4: At that time, I had no idea how to do it,
Speaker 4: but he did because everyone that was serving a second
Speaker 4: or first degree murder case knew exactly what the formula was.
Speaker 4: And he basically screamed at me a little bit and
Speaker 4: he said to me, I won't even get a hearing
Speaker 4: until I've been in for twenty years, and I'll be
Speaker 4: too old to have a family. I remember that vividly.
Speaker 4: And then he said to me, and I'm never going
Speaker 4: to say I'm sorry, and he won't let me do it.
Speaker 4: So those were the rules. I got the actual regulations myself.
Speaker 4: And then, because I'm always looking for guidance, I knew
Speaker 4: who was going to be my guiding light. It was
Speaker 4: my friend from another source. He was a probation officer,
Speaker 4: and I knew Mike from many many years before this,
Speaker 4: who were very good friends. So I called him up
Speaker 4: and I said, if you go over to the public house,
Speaker 4: I'll buy you a beer and give me give me,
Speaker 4: give me a lecture on how I handle a commutation.
Speaker 4: And he gave it to me, and he gave me
Speaker 4: the best advice ever. I'll sum it and then I
Speaker 4: think summarize it. He said, you're going to have to
Speaker 4: be able to of all, make a compelling case as
Speaker 4: to why it's possible or plausible that this skid is innocent.
Speaker 4: I said, I'll do it. The second thing is, if
Speaker 4: you get through us, you have to go political. That is,
Speaker 4: the governance council has to approve it, so you're gonna
Speaker 4: have to favorable publicity for it. And that was critical
Speaker 4: as well, because if he said, if the board gives
Speaker 4: you the commutation, the governor has to have some kind
Speaker 4: of popular push and as well as a governance council.
Speaker 4: And that caused me to be able to reach out
Speaker 4: to another fellow that ended up recruiting a very important
Speaker 4: cause of this machine, a guy by the name of
Speaker 4: Charlie Kenny, who was a writer of the Globe that
Speaker 4: wrote an incredibly compelling argument about Bobby's case, made it
Speaker 4: into the Boston Globe magazine, and that caused to get
Speaker 4: some new evidence. But I want to go right back,
Speaker 4: and I'll let Mike explain what it was about when
Speaker 4: and how being able to get a commutation dependent upon
Speaker 4: either saying you sorry or getting the board to waive it.
Speaker 4: And Mike, Mike, go ahead.
Speaker 2: We got a couple of minutes here before the newsbreak.
Speaker 2: We may have to pick it up on the other side.
Speaker 2: But again, I know a little bit about commutations from
Speaker 2: the Salvadi case. The NT easy tell us some what
Speaker 2: advice you gave Chris and how he followed it.
Speaker 5: Sure well, you have to also remember that not only
Speaker 5: did a petitioner have to come before us and express remorse,
Speaker 5: and even if they got through the Advisory Board of Pardons,
Speaker 5: then it had to go to the governor. You may
Speaker 5: recall the Governor Ducoccus was in office in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 5: but he had been beaten by ed King in nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy eight, and a lot of it, a lot of
Speaker 5: that election revolved around the fact that Governor Ducaccus issued
Speaker 5: fifty seven commutations of first and second degree murders. That
Speaker 5: was the thing to do in those days. So we
Speaker 5: went from a very liberal criminal justice system and Department
Speaker 5: of Corrections into a conservative mode under Ed King. So
Speaker 5: when Ducacus came back, he was still reeling from all
Speaker 5: the commutations that he'd given and he was not in
Speaker 5: favor of doing any commutations during his second term of office.
Speaker 5: So when Chris came to see me, I gave him
Speaker 5: that advice and I said, look, the advisory board, apart
Speaker 5: in the Parole Board, is really not accepting the fact
Speaker 5: that someone is innocent. This is just the way it is.
Speaker 5: They you do have to make a compelling case. And
Speaker 5: in those days that's how it was. And Chris is
Speaker 5: credit and to his team. They made the case.
Speaker 4: We met with the.
Speaker 5: Individual members of the Parole Board and the case was
Speaker 5: so compelling that we had a hearing and we were
Speaker 5: prepared to issue a favorable recommendation to the governor.
Speaker 2: And this is in the nineteen eighties. This is before
Speaker 2: the Willie Horton debicle that caused Mike Tacacas to stop
Speaker 2: giving commutations after that debiclet this was this was when
Speaker 2: he was returned to office, but before the Willie Horton case.
Speaker 2: But it still was a difficult blessing to get from
Speaker 2: a governor. But again, you I know, were important on
Speaker 2: the board at the time, and there's a lot of
Speaker 2: pressure brought, I believe to members of the Governor's Council,
Speaker 2: were pressures brought to the Governor's Council by law enforcement
Speaker 2: to back off these commutations.
Speaker 5: If I recall, well, there's no question about it, and
Speaker 5: you know very well dealing with Doe Salvadi and Peter
Speaker 5: Lamoni and Lewis Greco and Henry Timilio, which is a
Speaker 5: very tragic case of Massachusetts history. But it's political. It
Speaker 5: does get political. It's very legalistic as well. You have
Speaker 5: to make your case before the courts had exhaust all
Speaker 5: administrative remedies, legal remedies, before you come to the Advisory
Speaker 5: Board of Pardons and the Governor's Council. So it's political,
Speaker 5: it's challenging, and that's why very few of these commutations
Speaker 5: that ever go through.
Speaker 2: And if I'm not mistaken, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: go too far in this, depending upon what you want
Speaker 2: to say, I believe that some members of the Governor's
Speaker 2: Council have at times been actually threatened by law enforcement
Speaker 2: officials or people perhaps who are no longer law enforcement officials.
Speaker 2: If you get my.
Speaker 5: Drift, Well, that has happened, Dan, That's absolutely happened. But
Speaker 5: the Chris's point as well is the media played a
Speaker 5: very important role. And if it wasn't for you, Dan, righty,
Speaker 5: I'm not sure Joe Salbody would have ever been released
Speaker 5: from prison. But the favorable media that Salvadi got and
Speaker 5: Bobby Joe Lister got through Chrismus in the Boston Globe
Speaker 5: played a very big part in the release of Leister,
Speaker 5: and it was critical to this whole process.
Speaker 2: I call it the court of public opinion, and Chris
Speaker 2: was very wise to enlist your advice and counsel. Let
Speaker 2: me do this, gentlemen, if it's okay, I got to
Speaker 2: take a quick break for news to come back. Mike,
Speaker 2: if you could stay with us for a moment or two,
Speaker 2: I'd appreciate it. And Chris muse Obviously, I want to
Speaker 2: get to the story. I want to briefly touch upon
Speaker 2: the frustrations because they don't want to gloss over it.
Speaker 2: But I think it's more important to talk about your
Speaker 2: success and what Bobby Joe Leister was able to accomplish
Speaker 2: as a civilian, as a freedman as a result again
Speaker 2: of your efforts and your dad's efforts, because I think
Speaker 2: that's a big part of the story that people for
Speaker 2: us to tell him, Yeah, he was innocent, he did
Speaker 2: do the crime. We know that, and your book proves that.
Speaker 2: But the results, the fruit of your work is the
Speaker 2: amount of work that Bobby joe Leister did in his
Speaker 2: post conviction period of time, which may have saved a
Speaker 2: lot of lives at a very critical time in Boston
Speaker 2: into the nineteen nineties. I want to get to that
Speaker 2: part of the book as well. I think you know
Speaker 2: exactly what I'm talking about, Chris, I would be back
Speaker 2: on side right after this quick news break at the
Speaker 2: bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: It's Nice Eye with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: We really have two guests. Chris Muse, former Superit Court
Speaker 2: judge here in Massachusetts, who's written a book Justice under God,
Speaker 2: All Faith, Hope and Charity Freed And and how how faith,
Speaker 2: hope and charity freed an innocent man and helped saved
Speaker 2: save a thousand lives talking about his client, Bobby joe Leister,
Speaker 2: who spent fifteen years in prison for murder he didn't commit. Chris,
Speaker 2: if you could, and again, I know this is tough
Speaker 2: to encapsulate on the air, give us a quick encapsulation
Speaker 2: of how you really became convinced beyond your instinct, but
Speaker 2: became convinced legally that Bobby Joe Lester had been framed
Speaker 2: for this murder, a murder of a variety store owner
Speaker 2: that he just didn't do.
Speaker 4: He's a long involved one, and I'll I'll try to
Speaker 4: give it kind of quickly.
Speaker 2: Particularly interested in the suggestive identification.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the most important part. There was a robbery
Speaker 4: September twenty seventh in Cardman Square small variety store, the
Speaker 4: Talbot Variety, and two guys walked in and they bullied
Speaker 4: the woman behind the stand, Missus Whiteside, and her husband
Speaker 4: came out because they had a gun and he wanted money.
Speaker 4: And the husband came out saw them attacking his wife,
Speaker 4: and he took up a glass or a cup and
Speaker 4: smashed it on the one of the assailants who shot him,
Speaker 4: grabbed the money and ran and he was killed instantly.
Speaker 4: The police came and they gave a description over the
Speaker 4: airwaves and it was wanted for armed robbery and murder.
Speaker 4: Two blackmailes six feet tall, both dirty look and eating shaves,
Speaker 4: one of whom was wearing a black shirt in green
Speaker 4: pants and had a hat. Now fast forward to your
Speaker 4: old neighborhood, because I know you played hockey at the
Speaker 4: Boston Arena and I did too, and so I knew
Speaker 4: who this was. And way on the other side of town,
Speaker 4: right way on the other side of town. Bobby was
Speaker 4: walking on the street. He was talking to some friends.
Speaker 4: He's in the south end St. Petel Street, over by
Speaker 4: the Symphony and that neighborhood, and a police car came by,
Speaker 4: did a reverse saw him, pointed to him and said, hey,
Speaker 4: we want to talk to you about that murder that
Speaker 4: happened over in Dorchester. And what they did was they
Speaker 4: picked him up. They brought him down to Boston City
Speaker 4: Hospital under what the court said was to make a
Speaker 4: bedside confrontation with a dying victim. And of course the
Speaker 4: police did not know them as what the judge says,
Speaker 4: in point of fact, mister Whiteside was dead when he
Speaker 4: left the store under a sheet and brought basically to
Speaker 4: the emergency room further and then further to the mug
Speaker 4: In any event, Missus Whiteside is distraught. They said, we
Speaker 4: think we have a guy that you might might have
Speaker 4: been involved with something to that effect. They take her
Speaker 4: outside the pocket lot the sea Bobby taken outside of
Speaker 4: the cruiser. It was actually a paddy wagon. I can
Speaker 4: use that expression. It was taken out of the I
Speaker 4: know you and I could talk later about it, and
Speaker 4: so that he was able to be seeing handcuffed, she says,
Speaker 4: can I take a closer look? They go over there,
Speaker 4: and they do take a closer look and says, yep,
Speaker 4: that's the man that killed my husband. And well that
Speaker 4: was the beginning of the tragedy because that identification was
Speaker 4: as dirty and sullied as it could ever be, and
Speaker 4: she never went behind it.
Speaker 2: Now, yes, essentially, we're just saying she was brought there
Speaker 2: by the police in intentionally knowing an events that that
Speaker 2: was going.
Speaker 4: To be there. Yeah, she she she. The trial didn't
Speaker 4: indicate the certitude of his death, but later on, later
Speaker 4: on we found out from witnesses that one hundred percent
Speaker 4: she she she she knew he was saying, they took
Speaker 4: a run, they took him out with the cup with
Speaker 4: the sheet over said, in any.
Speaker 2: Effect, they in effect they did a one person lineup.
Speaker 4: They did it in the worst of circumstances. The woman,
Speaker 4: the woman had especially seen her husband pronounced dead. The
Speaker 4: police were giving all these indications and in order to
Speaker 4: be able to unravel that identification a trial, well, it
Speaker 4: was impossible because Bobby's lawyer was not that competent, to
Speaker 4: be honest with you, and in any event, uh, you
Speaker 4: asked me how we were able to unravel it and
Speaker 4: keep up heads above water. Is that we just would.
Speaker 4: We were assiduous, We were relentless about getting all of
Speaker 4: the evidence. And that all happened because I was under
Speaker 4: the direction of the master. My father was a great
Speaker 4: lawyer and he knew that you have to get the facts.
Speaker 4: And we just scoured the record for everything, and we
Speaker 4: brought appeals in front of the successive judges to say that,
Speaker 4: you know, the grand jury minutes said that there was
Speaker 4: there was confusion, there was there was misidentifications. The police
Speaker 4: lied about the circumstances of it. Bobby Joe had a
Speaker 4: had a time X watch when he was arrested, and
Speaker 4: the guy that did the killing had lost his Bolivar
Speaker 4: watch at the store. He only had a few bucks
Speaker 4: in his pocket. And the big one they told you
Speaker 4: earlier was that we discovered that there was a They
Speaker 4: called a paraffin test as a shorthand expression, but it's
Speaker 4: a gunpowder residue test that they performed, and when Bobby
Speaker 4: was arrested, he said, we want to take samples of
Speaker 4: your hands and he says, what will it do? He says, well,
Speaker 4: it will show whether you whether you whether you shot
Speaker 4: a gun recently, Which hand do you use? You or right?
Speaker 4: You're lefty. When you heard the explanation, he said to
Speaker 4: the cops, take both of my hands. So they sent
Speaker 4: the sent the test down to the FBI and it
Speaker 4: came back with there was no gunpowder residue on them.
Speaker 4: But the report said that the results were quote unquote inconclusive.
Speaker 4: And that's another storyline that that was that I can't
Speaker 4: get into because it's studios. At the end of the day,
Speaker 4: the end of the day, we weren't able to persuade anyone.
Speaker 2: Well, I know. But the point that I wanted to
Speaker 2: make is that as I read the book today and
Speaker 2: refamiliarize myself with your case, any lawyer I should get
Speaker 2: this book to read it just to understand. You used
Speaker 2: the word assiduous, and that's exactly you would you folks,
Speaker 2: were you got to be a dog on a bone
Speaker 2: on these sorts of cases. Uh, And you certainly were
Speaker 2: dogs on a bone. You were not going to give up.
Speaker 2: You kept digging and digging and digging, and you know,
Speaker 2: to carry the metaphor you you weren't going to bury
Speaker 2: the bone. You were just going to keep digging and
Speaker 2: digging and digging, and that obviously helped you with the commutation,
Speaker 2: and it eventually led to the freedom of Bobby joe Leister.
Speaker 2: And what I want to do is, I want to
Speaker 2: take a quick break, and I want to bring not
Speaker 2: only Counselor and Mayor Albano back into the conversation, but
Speaker 2: I wanted most importantly to have you explain the work
Speaker 2: that Bobby joe Leister did unfortunately fire. Yeah, I want
Speaker 2: to talk about his legacy, which of course never would
Speaker 2: have occurred without your help, your assistance, your legal assistants,
Speaker 2: and your dad's legal work, which again, people often look
Speaker 2: at lawyers and they look at them somewhat skeptically. And
Speaker 2: the only time people don't look at lawyers skeptically sometimes
Speaker 2: when they need a lawyer. We'll take a quick break.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be back with Chris Muse and also
Speaker 2: former mayor of Springfield Michael Albano, who served on the
Speaker 2: Governance Council which gave the commutation, and if I can
Speaker 2: get a couple of calls in, I will buy. I
Speaker 2: most importantly want you to hear the story, and I
Speaker 2: want you to get the book Justice Under God by
Speaker 2: Chris Muse m Us former Superior Court judge. Back on
Speaker 2: Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm w b Z,
Speaker 1: Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Talking with Chris Muse, former Superior Court judge here in Massachusetts, who,
Speaker 2: along with his dad, Bob Muse, a lawyer for many
Speaker 2: many years, a legendary lawyer in Boston, along with his son,
Speaker 2: worked for many years to free a man named Bobby
Speaker 2: Joe Least many of you have heard about the case.
Speaker 2: You can read about it in a new book by Chris,
Speaker 2: Justice Under God. With Us. Also is Michael Albano, former
Speaker 2: mayor of Springfield, amongst other things, that served under the
Speaker 2: Governor's Council and one of the votes that freed Bobby
Speaker 2: Joe Lester allowed him to leave prison. Gentlemen, quick comment
Speaker 2: on realizing that not only Bobby Joe Leister's legacy, but
Speaker 2: Chris your legacy as well as Council Albino's legacy, are
Speaker 2: very much involved in this because obviously, without the work
Speaker 2: of both of your work and Mike's vote, Bobby Jolista
Speaker 2: might have died in prison. Just give us a quick example, Chris,
Speaker 2: of what Bobby was able to accomplish in his life.
Speaker 2: And we don't have a lot of time.
Speaker 4: Left, and I'm going to give it. Yeah, I got
Speaker 4: first of all, say that Bobby came out of reform
Speaker 4: Alabama segregated itself, unblemish record, A happy kid came to
Speaker 4: Boston for freedom, you know, for the liberty that he
Speaker 4: thought he was going to get it till he didn't
Speaker 4: have it anymore. But when he spent the first night
Speaker 4: in Walpole Prison, he describes he was putting the cell.
Speaker 4: It was doc and he cried for his mother, and
Speaker 4: he prayed to God, and he had that indomitable fate
Speaker 4: that a few of us are blessed with. And that's
Speaker 4: the thing that sustained him. He said, he said, I
Speaker 4: left my soul in that he of the Good Master above,
Speaker 4: and he would repeat that regularly to me. He believed
Speaker 4: that everything was going to turn out alright because God
Speaker 4: was going to take care of him. So when he
Speaker 4: got out, we're talking about a guy that is just
Speaker 4: I think he's a near perfect human being, is remarkable person.
Speaker 4: He became not only a former client up front, he
Speaker 4: was like a brother to me, and he was like
Speaker 4: a son to my father. And when he got out
Speaker 4: he was looking for work for future. I encouraged him
Speaker 4: to sign up with the Boston Street Workers program. There
Speaker 4: was a brand new program and it was basically to
Speaker 4: work on the streets with the most at risk kids
Speaker 4: in the city. He did it for thirty years, and
Speaker 4: he did more, and people that are in the city
Speaker 4: that became prominently Tracy Lithgutt and Robert Lewis and others,
Speaker 4: they will tell you that he was the anchor for
Speaker 4: this program to get the kids steered straight. But in
Speaker 4: one year he had what was called the Boston Miracle
Speaker 4: when they were able to negotiate and Bobby was part
Speaker 4: of it, a ceasefire with all these burgeoning gangs out
Speaker 4: there to reduce the homicides for people less than seventeen
Speaker 4: to zero. And before that you were seeing little twelve
Speaker 4: year old girls being shot and killed, and kids all
Speaker 4: over the place, dozens of them, and Bobby and his
Speaker 4: team of street workers brought them all down. He became
Speaker 4: an icon Bobby and I used to speak to youth
Speaker 4: groups and our favorite one is a group called the
Speaker 4: Judicial Youth Corp. We did it for like thirty years.
Speaker 4: We had to stop. I never stopped doing it. But
Speaker 4: Bobby died tragically in a home fire in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: But U Killer's death, he got out in the streets.
Speaker 4: Everyone in the neighborhoods, particularly in Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchester, everyone
Speaker 4: knew Bobby, and Bobby was a peacemaker. Bobby was a
Speaker 4: guy that gave support. He's the one that helped them
Speaker 4: get jobs, etc. And he died. When he died, Mayor
Speaker 4: Walsh during the COVID press release first conferences he had
Speaker 4: every day asked the city to give him a moment
Speaker 4: of silence because he was one of the favorite sons
Speaker 4: of the city. He was just blessed. So I guess
Speaker 4: I'm telling you. You know, in a short hand thirty
Speaker 4: years of working. He told me he had to attend
Speaker 4: more than eight hundred funerals of young people that were
Speaker 4: victims of violence because he either knew them or he
Speaker 4: was there to give protection during the services. So I
Speaker 4: mean he was just remarkable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Chris, when you get a quick comment from Michael Obonam. Mike,
Speaker 2: I know that as the mayor of Springfield you were
Speaker 2: dealing with a lot of these issues as well. How
Speaker 2: important is it in your mind you the vote that
Speaker 2: you cast for his commutation, How important is in your mind,
Speaker 2: particularly with the success and the work that he did
Speaker 2: all these years in Boston.
Speaker 5: Well, when I was mayor, I brought Bobby Joe came
Speaker 5: out to Springfield to do a press conference with us
Speaker 5: because we were opposed to the death penalty at the time.
Speaker 5: This is probably nineteen ninety seven. You may recall the
Speaker 5: State Senate passed a version approving of the death penalty
Speaker 5: by a voter twenty six to fourteen. It also passed
Speaker 5: the House of Representatives, and Governor Weld would have signed
Speaker 5: it at the House not reconsidered. Now, Lester got to
Speaker 5: Tom Finneran, who was the Speaker of the House at
Speaker 5: the time, and he also got to John Slattery of
Speaker 5: State Representative Peabody at the time, and he flipped both
Speaker 5: of their votes with his story that an innocent man
Speaker 5: could in fact be executed in Massachusetts. Now, we don't
Speaker 5: think much about the death penalty in Massachusetts these days,
Speaker 5: but it was a pretty hot issue there, and Bobby
Speaker 5: Joe Leister campaigned across the Commonwealth telling his story and
Speaker 5: it changed the dynamics of the state legislature. And that's
Speaker 5: why we don't have a death penalty today.
Speaker 2: Well, that fight for the death penalty came in the
Speaker 2: in the wake of the killing of the young Curly
Speaker 2: boy though those two horrific human beings who kidnapped him.
Speaker 2: Then we could have a we could have a long
Speaker 2: conversation about that case. But uh, you know, and and
Speaker 2: also Bob Curley, the young boy's dad, I think, also
Speaker 2: came out against the death penalty at that time, which
Speaker 2: was a remarkable show of strength and I know I
Speaker 2: would never have had that is for sure. Well, gentlemen,
Speaker 2: I want to thank you both very much, but I
Speaker 2: want to give a couple of callers who have hung
Speaker 2: on here an opportunity to express their their thoughts. And
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask them to be both very quick.
Speaker 2: But they've waited for almost a half an hour, So
Speaker 2: let me first go to Joe and Belmont. Joe, Uh,
Speaker 2: I know you've waited a long time. A quick comment
Speaker 2: on the case for either Chris Muse, former Superior Court
Speaker 2: judge or former Governor's councilor Michael Albano.
Speaker 6: Go ahead, Joe, Then could I call the twentieth hour?
Speaker 6: Since I called the nine o'clock hour, you.
Speaker 2: Always get a haul passing the twentieth hour. Go ahead,
Speaker 2: talk about question.
Speaker 6: My question is I don't know if the judge Chris
Speaker 6: wants to answer this or not, but does he think
Speaker 6: that Karen Reid has been framed?
Speaker 2: I don't want to go to the Karen read case. Joe.
Speaker 2: We'll talk that about that in the twentieth hour. Thanks
Speaker 2: very much, Mark and Austin. Mark, if you'd like to
Speaker 2: join the conversation very quickly, go right ahead, yup. Then
Speaker 2: it goes Mark. We lost Mark, okay, take Joe was done?
Speaker 2: Please Rob, Thank you very much. Chris. I just want
Speaker 2: to read a little bit of a technical issue there.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, and again bring in the other case. The
Speaker 2: book Justice Undergod is available. It's on Amazon. How else
Speaker 2: can people get it?
Speaker 4: I think that's the way. I think Bonds and Noble
Speaker 4: has a tool. But if you just go on to
Speaker 4: it's not in the stores because it's this is a
Speaker 4: new way of doing it. But if you don't mind
Speaker 4: giving a little shout out I'm dedicating every one of
Speaker 4: my royalties for the next year to the New England
Speaker 4: Innocence Project. And I have a I have a boutique
Speaker 4: publisher if you want that that that put put the
Speaker 4: book on the market. And I want everyone to know
Speaker 4: that if they buy the book, that that five or
Speaker 4: six dollars what I would have gotten is royalty is
Speaker 4: going directly to the New England Innocence Project to continue
Speaker 4: to promote awareness for wrongful convictions that that you and
Speaker 4: and Mike and I know so well and also support
Speaker 4: the funding and they can get it. Basically, Amazon's the
Speaker 4: easiest way jumps right out of that you and so
Speaker 4: I encourage anyone to learn a little bit more. There's
Speaker 4: two things. Learn a little bit about the criminal justice
Speaker 4: system and learn a whole lot about this incredible human
Speaker 4: being that we were blessed to have in Boston.
Speaker 2: It's just it's a great book. And by the way,
Speaker 2: the characters who you were in front of, Federal Judge
Speaker 2: McNaught was a professor Binet b you, as was Paul Leacos,
Speaker 2: the former state Supreme Court justice here in Massachusetts. It's
Speaker 2: a great book, uh, and it will teach everybody a
Speaker 2: lot more about I think the criminal justice system and
Speaker 2: how once you're convicted. We all learned in law school
Speaker 2: what the standard of proof is to convict someone all
Speaker 2: the elements of crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt. There
Speaker 2: is no standard. There is no standard to free an
Speaker 2: innocent man, and you were able to free an innocent man.
Speaker 2: Congratulations to you, Chris Muse, and also congratulations to Mike Albano. Mike,
Speaker 2: we need more public figures in public servants like you
Speaker 2: who will take a tough vote as you did on
Speaker 2: this commutation case and made a big difference in the
Speaker 2: life of Bobby, Joe Lester and thousands of young men
Speaker 2: who he counseled with during his thirty years of freedom.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you both for what you've done well.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me again.
Speaker 5: Thank you to me with you, Jen, Mike.
Speaker 2: Great to talk to you again as well. It's an
Speaker 2: amazing story, folks. It's available Justice under God by Christopher Muse.
Speaker 2: You will learn so much about the case, but you'll
Speaker 2: learn more about the criminal justice system and the concept
Speaker 2: of finality, which is I think still relied upon much
Speaker 2: too often by appellate court justices. But that's my own bias.
Speaker 2: When we come back right after the newscast, we are
Speaker 2: going to talk about home remodeling. We have a design
Speaker 2: build contractor. You have all sorts of questions. He's got
Speaker 2: all the answers back on Night's side right after the
Speaker 2: ten o'clock news