Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
Speaker 1: of our series about the murder of Michael Girardi and
Speaker 1: the wrongful conviction of Sharif Couzan Robin. Do you want
Speaker 1: to catch everyone up when we talked about in our
Speaker 1: previous episode.
Speaker 2: Well, this is one of the most outrageous wrongful conviction
Speaker 2: cases we've ever discussed. It took place in New Orleans
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five. Michael Girardi was out on a
Speaker 2: date with a woman named Connie Babbit in the French Quarter,
Speaker 2: but as they were walking back to his truck, he
Speaker 2: wound up getting shot to death and robbed by three
Speaker 2: unidentified black mails. They soon arrested a sixteen year old
Speaker 2: suspect named Sharif Coussen after Connie Babbin identified him as
Speaker 2: the shooter, but that was really the only evidence against
Speaker 2: him other than the testimony of a friend of Sharif's name,
Speaker 2: James Rowel, though it soon became a parent that he
Speaker 2: was falsely implicating Sharif because he had a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of other charges that he was trying to get out of.
Speaker 2: So Sharif was charged with first degree murder and as
Speaker 2: well as four armed robberies that he was alleged to
Speaker 2: have been involved in, even though Sharif claimed that he
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with any of these crimes, and
Speaker 2: the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office announced that they were
Speaker 2: going to try Sharif four separate times on each of
Speaker 2: the robbery charges before they charged him with murder, and
Speaker 2: because he was being represented by a public defender, he
Speaker 2: was told that there's no way we're going to win
Speaker 2: five consecutive trials. So it's probably a good idea if
Speaker 2: you plead guilty to the robbery charges even though you're innocent,
Speaker 2: because you'll get a lighter sentence and we can put
Speaker 2: all of the focus on getting you off on the
Speaker 2: murder charge. Well, he did that. He got twenty year
Speaker 2: cents for the robberies, and when they went on trial
Speaker 2: for the murder charge, Connie Babin identified Charif as the
Speaker 2: robber she saw and that was enough to get him
Speaker 2: convicted and he received the death penalty, even though he
Speaker 2: was only seventeen years old at that time, which generated
Speaker 2: a lot of controversy, and of course it turned out
Speaker 2: to the whole case was rife with corruption that Connie
Speaker 2: Babin had originally made a statement to a police officer
Speaker 2: that she didn't have her glasses on that night and
Speaker 2: couldn't actually see the robber's face, but it seemed to
Speaker 2: parent that police coursed her into identifying Charif as the robber.
Speaker 2: It turned out that Sharif had a rock solid alibi
Speaker 2: placing him at the other side of the city at
Speaker 2: the time that Michael was murdered. But they prosecutors did
Speaker 2: every dirty trick in the book to try to prevent
Speaker 2: this alibi from making it. They even altered the tape
Speaker 2: of Shreif's basketball coach, saying that he dropped him off
Speaker 2: at ten thirty, which is when the murder took place.
Speaker 2: They even falsely detained some alibi witnesses that were going
Speaker 2: to back up Sharif. So the whole thing was pretty outrageous,
Speaker 2: but it eventually generated enough controversy that Sharif's conviction was
Speaker 2: overturned and the murder charges were dropped and he was
Speaker 2: eventually released from prison. But the authorities continue to maintain
Speaker 2: that he was guilty all along, so he never got
Speaker 2: any compensation for his wrongful conviction. And unfortunately, the real killers,
Speaker 2: all three of them of Michael Girardi were never identified
Speaker 2: in cot, so this is technically an unsaw mystery. Again,
Speaker 2: so would you say you were suitably outraged by all
Speaker 2: the details we shared about this story in part one.
Speaker 2: We're not going to turn this whole series into a
Speaker 2: massive crusade against the death penalty, but I will say
Speaker 2: that this story is a case study and how horribly
Speaker 2: the death penalty can go wrong. Even if Sharif Kussen
Speaker 2: was actually guilty of this murder, a lot of people
Speaker 2: still had issues with the idea of executing someone who
Speaker 2: was only sixteen years old when he committed the crime.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like that type of thing is unprecedented,
Speaker 2: as the United States has executed a few people for
Speaker 2: having committed some pretty heinous murders when they were under
Speaker 2: the age of eighteen. But if you're going to do
Speaker 2: something like that, you need a rock solid case and
Speaker 2: much stronger evidence than one eye witnesses who wasn't even
Speaker 2: wearing her glasses when she saw the crime. In an
Speaker 2: ironic PostScript to the story, only six months before Sharif
Speaker 2: was released from prison, the Supreme Court of the United
Speaker 2: States made a ruling on the case Roper versus Simmons,
Speaker 2: voting five to four at a bar capital punishment for
Speaker 2: offenders who commit crimes before the age of eighteen. The
Speaker 2: case in question involved a seventeen year old named Christopher Simmons,
Speaker 2: who was sent to death for his involvement in a
Speaker 2: brutal murder, which he committed alongside two other friends. Even
Speaker 2: though there was no doubt Simmons was guilty, the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute someone for
Speaker 2: committing a crime at that age. So if Sharif Kusen's
Speaker 2: conviction had occurred one decade later, he never would have
Speaker 2: been sent to death row. But then perhaps his story
Speaker 2: might not have garnered as much attention, and that is
Speaker 2: ultimately the most disturbing thing about this case. The people
Speaker 2: in power clearly knew that they were sending an innocent
Speaker 2: teenage kid to be executed, but they didn't seem to
Speaker 2: have any remorse about it. Perhaps they genuinely believe Sharif
Speaker 2: was the perpetrator when his name first popped up in
Speaker 2: the investigation, but once the uncovered concrete evidence that he
Speaker 2: was at another location at the time the murder took place,
Speaker 2: that should have been the end of it. Instead, they
Speaker 2: committed some pretty egregious misconduct in order to secure a
Speaker 2: conviction at any cost.
Speaker 3: This is where the case actually goes haywire when you
Speaker 3: dig down and you see that people are knowingly hiding evidence,
Speaker 3: People are knowingly falsifying testimonies from eyewitnesses and or coercing
Speaker 3: a certain testimony out of them. When someone had to
Speaker 3: make sure that they averted and got the witnesses who
Speaker 3: were at the basketball game to go to another location
Speaker 3: so that they would miss their calling to sit at
Speaker 3: the trial and actually defend him and say he played
Speaker 3: basketball with me that night. These are knowing, they're known actions.
Speaker 3: These are purposeful actions where these people said, if this happens,
Speaker 3: if the truth gets out, this kid's going to be
Speaker 3: released because we're hiding the truth or we're coercing a
Speaker 3: version of the truth that we want to actually exist
Speaker 3: and not the actual truth. It's disturbing because it's not
Speaker 3: just the fact that you have somebody on trial. You
Speaker 3: have someone on trial who's eligible for the death penalty
Speaker 3: in this case, and it's a child. This is someone
Speaker 3: that literally they had no care whatsoever about this individual
Speaker 3: because they said it's more important that we are right
Speaker 3: and that we get our version of the truth across,
Speaker 3: even if it means we need to break our own
Speaker 3: professional and ethical standards. And that's exactly what they did.
Speaker 3: You nailed it, Robin. It doesn't even matter the fact
Speaker 3: if you're pro or are anti the death penalty itself,
Speaker 3: because people can make very good arguments for the death penalty,
Speaker 3: and people can make very good arguments against it. But
Speaker 3: when you start to look at the fact that we
Speaker 3: have had hundreds of people exonerated because they did not
Speaker 3: do the crime they were convicted for, and many of those,
Speaker 3: a large percentage of those are serving time on death
Speaker 3: row before their release, it makes you call into question.
Speaker 3: If you can make a mistake, how do you then
Speaker 3: stand behind such a permanent punishment. There is not always
Speaker 3: a guarantee, even when there's this overwhelming amount of evidence
Speaker 3: that someone's going to be released, because other people stepped
Speaker 3: over the line and did not withhold or did not
Speaker 3: uphold their constitutional rights, did not stand behind their professional
Speaker 3: ethics and do the right thing, and instead they fought
Speaker 3: to win.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what happened in this case.
Speaker 3: The fact that the death penalty was on the table
Speaker 3: is horrific, and you had a child who sat on
Speaker 3: death row wondering if they were going to die for
Speaker 3: something that they did not do.
Speaker 4: Blows my mind.
Speaker 1: It's particularly horrific in these cases where there's a wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: There's somebody, like you just said, is a child and
Speaker 1: you've got the death penalty that's on the line here,
Speaker 1: and these people seem to be colluding and conspiring to
Speaker 1: bury him. And did they actually believe that he was guilty.
Speaker 1: Maybe initially they did, but it seems like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people along the way who could have looked
Speaker 1: at the evidence and went, m he's likely not the guy,
Speaker 1: but he's a guy and we've got him, so like,
Speaker 1: let's just go forward with this and close the case.
Speaker 1: It feels so egregious because we put this trust in
Speaker 1: the justice system, in the police, in the prosecutors, and
Speaker 1: we hope that they are going to uphold the standard
Speaker 1: of justice. So when they do something like this, it
Speaker 1: just breaks our trust, and especially when they do it
Speaker 1: on purpose. These weren't tiny little mistakes. These were big
Speaker 1: mistakes that were made and Sharif paid for those mistakes,
Speaker 1: and it's just so so sad.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you guys, this, if it wasn't knowingly.
Speaker 3: A lot of these things wouldn't have happened. If you
Speaker 3: look at the fact that we want the troops to
Speaker 3: come out. We know we're right. Let the kids from
Speaker 3: the basketball game testify. Share the complete eyewitness this testimony, right,
Speaker 3: share the truth whatever she said. Share the fact that
Speaker 3: you had an audio tape. And this is what the
Speaker 3: full audio tape said the coach right talking about when
Speaker 3: the when the or the referee, when the basketball game started,
Speaker 3: when the basketball game ended. Remember in part one we
Speaker 3: talked about he said, that's not what I said. It's
Speaker 3: like they spliced the audio tape. I recorded on a
Speaker 3: tiny tape. They had a large cassette tape. I think
Speaker 3: they manipulated my testimony. These are why did you avert
Speaker 3: the kids? Like they knew that a story was going
Speaker 3: to come out that did not jibe with theirs, and
Speaker 3: so they had to say, it's worth getting our story
Speaker 3: to be the truth without letting the truth actually come out.
Speaker 3: Like it's very purposeful in this case. Sometimes it's just
Speaker 3: hey they dropped the ball, or hey, they didn't understand
Speaker 3: what they were looking at. It feels like in this
Speaker 3: one they knew every time they turned around. Ooh, this
Speaker 3: isn't lining up. Ooh, this isn't lining up. Let's hide it,
Speaker 3: let's lie about it, let's manipulate, let's hide it. And
Speaker 3: when that happens, everyone's blood should be boiling. Pro death penalty,
Speaker 3: anti death penalty, whatever you are, your blood should be boiling.
Speaker 3: You signed up to have a justice system that provided
Speaker 3: justice and fairness and constitutionality. In this case blows every
Speaker 3: aspect of genuine truth and goodness about our country and
Speaker 3: justice system.
Speaker 4: Out of the water.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like Juill said, the disturbing part was the collusion,
Speaker 2: because it wasn't just one bad prosecutor. There were multiple
Speaker 2: prosecutors and multiple police detectives who all did these unethical
Speaker 2: things together to get this conviction to work. And it
Speaker 2: just is very disturbing that none of them had a
Speaker 2: conscience and didn't feel bad about setting an innocent kid
Speaker 2: to death row.
Speaker 1: Sharif's family and his supporters were always convinced that his
Speaker 1: realmful conviction was driven by racism, and as we're going
Speaker 1: to discuss in a little while, the Orleans Parish District
Speaker 1: Attorney's office had a pretty troubling history of sending innocent
Speaker 1: African American men to death Row, but I can see
Speaker 1: why the authorities would have felt pretty desperate to close
Speaker 1: this particular case. To put everything into perspective, New Orleans
Speaker 1: was experiencing a serious wave of violence back in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five. In the first three months of the year,
Speaker 1: there were over one hundred murders, including twenty one which
Speaker 1: occurred in a single week. Michael Girardi's murder was one
Speaker 1: of the most problematic because it took place in the
Speaker 1: French Quarter, New Orleans' most popular tourist spot, and tourism
Speaker 1: has always been the city's biggest industry. An innocent white
Speaker 1: man was senselessly shot in the face in cold blood
Speaker 1: by three black men during an armed robbery after leaving
Speaker 1: a popular restaurant with his date, so I'm sure the
Speaker 1: higher ups were terrified of a sharp decline in tourism
Speaker 1: if the perpetrators weren't brought to justice immediately. It's been
Speaker 1: reported that New Orleans Police chief was notified and brought
Speaker 1: in only fifteen minutes after the crime took place, which
Speaker 1: should give you an idea of what a top priority
Speaker 1: it was. Dariff and his supporters believed that since the
Speaker 1: shooter was a black man. The police were always going
Speaker 1: to pin the murder on someone, regardless of whether or
Speaker 1: not they actually did it. To me, one of the
Speaker 1: biggest red flags here is that even though only one
Speaker 1: person shot Michael Girardi, he still had two accomplices with
Speaker 1: him when it happened. Yet, when Shariff was charged with
Speaker 1: the murder, it doesn't seem like the police made any
Speaker 1: attempt to find these two accomplices, even though they were
Speaker 1: technically accessories. That signifies to me that they knew Sharif
Speaker 1: was not the killer. If you're so convinced that you
Speaker 1: have the right guy, why not try to arrest everyone
Speaker 1: for their role in the crime.
Speaker 3: Exactly If you're really trying to bring safety and justice
Speaker 3: here one, where are the other two? But also remember
Speaker 3: your argument is you are a top tourist destination and
Speaker 3: you've got to make sure that your community is safe
Speaker 3: when you knowingly go after the wrong person, and it's
Speaker 3: brought to your attention that there's some issues in this
Speaker 3: case that you now need to bend and break all
Speaker 3: the rules to keep your story as the truth right.
Speaker 3: You also have the real killer out on the streets,
Speaker 3: So that's another problem that they should have been considering
Speaker 3: here did not cross their mind. It is interesting when
Speaker 3: you look at this is not just someone getting on
Speaker 3: a soapbox and you know, ranting about racism, but when
Speaker 3: you look at the fact that there are areas in
Speaker 3: our country that have always been let's say, even overtly racist. Okay,
Speaker 3: the South has been a and it's not just it's
Speaker 3: not just black against white, or white against black or
Speaker 3: Hispanic against black, like, there's just racial tension all across
Speaker 3: the board. South is incredibly prominent for that. And when
Speaker 3: you look at New Orleans, you have a incredibly you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know, the further we get in our lives,
Speaker 3: it's more and more covert racism, but it's still there.
Speaker 3: I don't think anybody would tell you that across races,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of racism back and forth. And so
Speaker 3: when you look at these crime statistically, when there is
Speaker 3: a black offender and a white victim, you see a
Speaker 3: much stronger pursuit of harsh, quick punishment for individuals, and
Speaker 3: that makes way for mistakes. I would be very interested
Speaker 3: to see what would happen had this been a black
Speaker 3: man who was shot in the face by three white
Speaker 3: boys young teenage boys. I'd be very interested to see
Speaker 3: what would happen if this was a black sex worker
Speaker 3: who had been shot by a white teenage boy or
Speaker 3: something like that, or even a black boy. Right that
Speaker 3: you have a difference in value of life, right, because
Speaker 3: maybe it was a sex worker or something to that
Speaker 3: extent here, Like you said, it was portrayed innocent white man,
Speaker 3: which he was walking out of his date with his
Speaker 3: innocent girlfriend and shot. One of the most horrific thoughts ever. Right,
Speaker 3: we went to dinner and I lost my life. However,
Speaker 3: in this part of the country, there was a quick
Speaker 3: need to get it solved because this is a tourist place.
Speaker 3: We need to present as if we're safe and that
Speaker 3: this wouldn't happen to you and your family if you
Speaker 3: visited New Orleans. But when you rushed and you didn't
Speaker 3: care that as the time went on you knew this
Speaker 3: person was innocent. You let a real killer who's potentially
Speaker 3: maybe committing some of the other murders in New Orleans
Speaker 3: the rest of that year out on the street.
Speaker 4: It makes no sense to me.
Speaker 3: You want justice, you want safe streets, you want fairness,
Speaker 3: you want to make sure charges stick, do things the
Speaker 3: right way. Where were the other two kids? And why
Speaker 3: were you so quick and so adamant that it's this kid?
Speaker 3: After time and time again it has shown it was not.
Speaker 1: Just to piggyback on your point quickly. I think what
Speaker 1: you said about it being a black sex worker or
Speaker 1: any black individual. We see the police chief coming out
Speaker 1: and he's there within fifteen minutes of the crime. How
Speaker 1: often did the police chief with those one hundred or
Speaker 1: so murders show up at the crime scenes of black individuals.
Speaker 4: If it's black on black two jewels, right, Like, it's
Speaker 4: just it is.
Speaker 3: That's just not a valued a valuable victim, right like, Oh,
Speaker 3: that's just what happens in that part of town.
Speaker 4: No, it's not.
Speaker 3: And honestly, like you said, let's say race is not
Speaker 3: even an issue. Look at the value that we place
Speaker 3: on someone who is a sex worker or drug dealer.
Speaker 3: They could be white on white. But when we look
Speaker 3: at those kind of factors, it would have changed. I
Speaker 3: guarantee you it would have changed the response a sex
Speaker 3: worker found dead, a drug dealer found dead, no matter
Speaker 3: what race they were. I don't think the chief of
Speaker 3: police is getting up in the middle of the night
Speaker 3: and coming down there to make sure that they get justice.
Speaker 4: I just don't think that's going to happen now.
Speaker 2: One of the strangest aspects of this case is that
Speaker 2: before his murder trial took place, Sharif willingly pled guilty
Speaker 2: to four unrelated counts of armed robbery, even though he
Speaker 2: insisted he was innocent of those particular crimes as well.
Speaker 2: As a result, when Sharif had his murder conviction overturned,
Speaker 2: he did not actually get released from prison, since he
Speaker 2: still had to finish serving time on those robbery charges. Now,
Speaker 2: Sharif would probably be the first person to tell you
Speaker 2: that he was no angel. He was definitely a troubled
Speaker 2: kid at the time he was arrested and allegedly accompanied
Speaker 2: his friend James Rowell on some armed robberies, though Sharif
Speaker 2: maintained that he did not do anything more than a
Speaker 2: wait in the car. And of course, we also know
Speaker 2: that following his release from prison, Sharif stole his boss's
Speaker 2: identity to commit credit card fraud and wound up back
Speaker 2: behind bars. It seems like Sharif has finally gotten his
Speaker 2: life back on track and has not had any trouble
Speaker 2: with the law in several years, but he certainly was
Speaker 2: an immune to criminal behavior. It's unclear if Sharif actually
Speaker 2: was one hundred percent innocent of those four counts of
Speaker 2: armed robbery, but regardless, there was still a number of
Speaker 2: issues with how the Orleans Parish District Attorneys off Is
Speaker 2: handled things. Sharif was potentially looking at ninety nine years
Speaker 2: in prison if he was convicted on those robbery charges,
Speaker 2: which seems pretty harsh for a sixteen year old kid
Speaker 2: who had no criminal record up until that point. It's
Speaker 2: pretty sad how Sharis's defense team felt that he had
Speaker 2: no shot of beating the murder charge unless he pled
Speaker 2: guilty to the armed robberies, as they felt that doing
Speaker 2: ten to twenty years in prison was still a better
Speaker 2: option than facing the death penalty. It was an intentionally dirty,
Speaker 2: strategic tactic from the District Attorney's office to say they
Speaker 2: were going to try Sharif individually on each of the
Speaker 2: armed robbery charges before the even put him on trial
Speaker 2: for murder. There's just no way the defense attorneys for
Speaker 2: a poor African American kid would have the money or
Speaker 2: resources to secure an acquittal in five separate trials. But
Speaker 2: as we're going to talk about momentarily. This is not
Speaker 2: the first time that this particular district attorney's office has
Speaker 2: used this questionable tactic.
Speaker 3: It's really sad because he's facing ten to twenty years
Speaker 3: if he pleads guilt, which basically the the public defenders
Speaker 3: are saying, look, man, they're going to charge you four
Speaker 3: different times up to one hundred years in prison the
Speaker 3: rest of your life, Like you have no value in life,
Speaker 3: So you're either going to spend the rest of your
Speaker 3: life in prison or you're going to die via an execution.
Speaker 3: Pick your poison, right, And this poor kid, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's a baby sitting there going okay, ten to twenty
Speaker 3: years sounds better than life or death, right, and both
Speaker 3: of those are my other option. So he's sitting there thinking, Okay,
Speaker 3: I don't have the money or the resources my defense
Speaker 3: attorneys who are supposed to advocate for me, or saying
Speaker 3: this is my best bet. Honestly, it doesn't help him
Speaker 3: when he pleads guilty because look, guys, he's a criminal. Right,
Speaker 3: they're going to start assuming he confessed to this. He's
Speaker 3: a criminal.
Speaker 4: It is what it is. They knew that that was
Speaker 4: too daunting of a path for him. To take and then.
Speaker 3: He'd be forced to plead guilty to that if they
Speaker 3: lost their murder trial. At least this kid's away for
Speaker 3: twenty years. But it's just, oh, it just makes me
Speaker 3: so angry because yes, yes he made mistakes, Yes he
Speaker 3: was hanging around the wrong people. Yes he was in
Speaker 3: the wrong several times, and he takes accountability for that.
Speaker 3: But the reality is is that even as an armed
Speaker 3: robber at age sixteen, Okay, horrible choices, bad decision, sharif right,
Speaker 3: if he did do it, But does that mean that
Speaker 3: ninety nine years that literally that kid needs to be
Speaker 3: taken out of an adult prison in a pine box.
Speaker 3: That's the only way he's ever going to see an
Speaker 3: exit strategy from prison. It's crazy to me the attitude
Speaker 3: that these people had, that there's no redeeming qualities of
Speaker 3: this sixteen year old kid sitting in front of him,
Speaker 3: like as a mother, as a human being, as somebody
Speaker 3: who's like, look, we're trying to protect justice and our
Speaker 3: community and things like that, let's look at this baby
Speaker 3: and see he has zero value. I don't care if
Speaker 3: he dies. I don't care if he dies via lethal injection,
Speaker 3: and I don't care if he dies behind bars, that's
Speaker 3: what he deserves.
Speaker 4: If he committed an armed.
Speaker 3: Robbery, and if he killed somebody like right, the armed
Speaker 3: robbery alone, they said was worth a death sentence. For
Speaker 3: him to die in prison, that's insane.
Speaker 2: And think about how something like this could prejudice the jury.
Speaker 2: If they found out that he's pled guilty to forearmed robberies,
Speaker 2: they're probably going to be looking at him as a
Speaker 2: defendant and saying, well, he's trying to say he's innocent
Speaker 2: in the murder, but he's obviously a criminal. And I
Speaker 2: think that kind of warped their perception and probably encouraged
Speaker 2: them to give a guilty verdict in what was otherwise
Speaker 2: a very weak case. And I think it says something
Speaker 2: about the prosecutors where it's like, well, if you are
Speaker 2: so confident that you're going to get a murder conviction,
Speaker 2: and what's the point trying him four separate times for
Speaker 2: armed robbery because if he's found guilty and murder, he's
Speaker 2: going to get the death penalty and he's never getting
Speaker 2: out of prison. So it just seemed like a desperation
Speaker 2: tactic saying that we have to give him all these
Speaker 2: obstacles to overcome before he even goes on trial for murder,
Speaker 2: and no matter what, he's going to do prison time,
Speaker 2: even if he is found not guilty.
Speaker 1: Does it feel like a waste of taxpayer money?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And you want to know why they did it.
Speaker 3: Think about the act of armed robbery? Okay, you think
Speaker 3: about the sixteen year old kid is so brazen. He's
Speaker 3: going to take a lethal weapon and he is going
Speaker 3: to go and harass people, to abandon their goods, to
Speaker 3: give them their money, to give them their car, whatever
Speaker 3: he was robbing them for. Right, He's gonna do it
Speaker 3: with a weapon that can cause lethal consequences. So who's
Speaker 3: to say the night this poor little couple goes to dinner,
Speaker 3: comes out, and a man loses his life when confronted
Speaker 3: by three black men, Right, who's to say that wasn't
Speaker 3: an armed robbery gone wrong.
Speaker 4: You're setting him.
Speaker 3: Up to look like someone who wields a weapon, who
Speaker 3: uses force to get what he wants. And it would
Speaker 3: have taken one hair to go from being an armed
Speaker 3: robber to a killer, because all you had to do
Speaker 3: is pull the trigger out of fear anger whatever. So
Speaker 3: if they can get him to confess to that, like
Speaker 3: you said, Robin, what does that then say to the jury.
Speaker 3: He's a dangerous weapon wielding like minutes who needs to
Speaker 3: be killed is what they decided here.
Speaker 1: So now we're going to talk about Harry Connick Senior,
Speaker 1: who was the Orleans Parish District Attorney when Sharif was convicted.
Speaker 1: So if you listen to a recent series of episodes
Speaker 1: about the murder of Crystal Champagne and the wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: of Damon Thibodeaux, we had words of praise for his nephew,
Speaker 1: Paul Connick Junior, because even though he convicted Damon and
Speaker 1: sent an innocent man to death row, he was actually
Speaker 1: willing to take responsibility for his mistake and played a
Speaker 1: huge role in getting Damon's conviction overturned. Well, unfortunately we
Speaker 1: can't share the same words of praise for his uncle.
Speaker 1: You're probably familiar, as we talked about in our previous
Speaker 1: episode with the famous jazz singer actor Harry Connick Junior,
Speaker 1: and yes, Harry Connick Senior is his father. Conic Senior
Speaker 1: was elected district attorney in nineteen seventy when he beat
Speaker 1: Jim Garrison, who was best known for his investigation into
Speaker 1: the John F. Kennedy assassination. Knick wound up holding the
Speaker 1: position for thirty years until his retirement, and made it
Speaker 1: to the age of ninety seven before he passed away
Speaker 1: in January of twenty twenty four. However, Conach left behind
Speaker 1: a tarnish legacy as Orland's parish District Attorney, as during
Speaker 1: his tenure there were allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in no
Speaker 1: less than thirty six cases that his office tried, and
Speaker 1: nineteen of them resulted in being either overturned convictions or
Speaker 1: reduced sentences. Even though Conic did not personally try Sharif Couzin,
Speaker 1: he was named as a defendant in Sharif's civil suit
Speaker 1: because of his failure to properly train and supervise his prosecutors.
Speaker 1: Shariff is not the only innocent person who was sent
Speaker 1: to death row on Conick's watch, and the most infamous
Speaker 1: example of this has a number of parallels to Sharif's case.
Speaker 3: I mean, here, you have this idea, it's almost like
Speaker 3: linking this to a surgeon, right that when you deal
Speaker 3: with a human being who's asked to perform any task,
Speaker 3: there's going to be times that you make a mistake,
Speaker 3: an honest, horrific heavy mistake.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So you have a surgeon who's operating on somebody's spinal cord.
Speaker 3: Their patient wakes up and they can't feel their feet,
Speaker 3: and you say, oh my god, oh my god, something happened.
Speaker 3: I don't know what happened. Let me trying to the
Speaker 3: bottom of this. Right, Let's look at the procedure that happened.
Speaker 3: Let me do X rays and cat scans and everything
Speaker 3: else and see where I went wrong. Something happened. You
Speaker 3: acknowledge I made a mistake, something happened. I'm so sorry,
Speaker 3: and you try to fix it, or you do what
Speaker 3: a surgeon does who wants to avoid any kind of
Speaker 3: legal prosecution, and that's the only thing, right as civil
Speaker 3: lawsuits the only thing they want to protect themselves against.
Speaker 3: And they say, well, I don't know what happened, and
Speaker 3: they don't validate, they don't acknowledge, they don't.
Speaker 4: Explore where they could have messed up.
Speaker 3: And to you, your reputation was more important than that
Speaker 3: patient who was sitting before you.
Speaker 4: Happens every single day.
Speaker 3: Happened to my parents, right they my parents are crazy
Speaker 3: for the fact that my dad's paralyzed out after he
Speaker 3: should have walked out of an easy outpatient surgery.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Doctor never acknowledged it. All they had to do was say,
Speaker 3: I made a mistake. Let me help, let me see
Speaker 3: what we can do. Had they done that, things can
Speaker 3: be fixed. That's what happens here when one of the
Speaker 3: conics says, uh, looks like I made a massive mistake.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, how do I fix it? Let me
Speaker 3: be on board with you, Let me fight to get
Speaker 3: this kid free. I messed up, and I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of integrity. Remember he goes on to
Speaker 3: win his race and to continue to be a prosecutor
Speaker 3: and things like that, because I think there's value in
Speaker 3: saying someone who deals with such heavy consequences says, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: I messed up. Now it's my responsibility to help make
Speaker 3: it right. And then you had this case where they say, oh,
Speaker 3: I'll double down. I'll triple down, just like with the
Speaker 3: West Memphis three, where everyone just looked away and said like,
Speaker 3: it's not my fault, not my fault. If you had
Speaker 3: taken accountability and said, wait a second, something went wrong
Speaker 3: in this case, there would have been a whole lot
Speaker 3: more integrity and respect for these people and they didn't.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's the thing with a lot of prosecutors
Speaker 2: is that they're worried that if they admit to a mistake,
Speaker 2: it's going to ruin their career and then they'll have
Speaker 2: to lose reelection, we'll be forced to resign. But Paul
Speaker 2: Konnig Junior is an example of this paying off because
Speaker 2: he admitted his mistake and the public forgave him, and
Speaker 2: he keeps getting reelected and is still in his position
Speaker 2: as district Attorney, like thirty years after he made this
Speaker 2: wrongful conviction. So obviously he has a lot of trust
Speaker 2: from the public who feel, well, he made a mistake,
Speaker 2: but he admitted to it, so let's keep reelecting him.
Speaker 2: Whereas with Harry Connick Senior, he kept trying to cover
Speaker 2: up his mistakes and he kept getting re elected and
Speaker 2: was only after he retired that he had all these
Speaker 2: horrible allegations come out about all these these aximus conduct
Speaker 2: that he did while he was in office.
Speaker 1: Have you guys heard of what's going on in the
Speaker 1: ad on say Ed case with them the State's the
Speaker 1: Baltimore State's Attorney Ivan Bates, No, yes, Yeah, it's pretty insane.
Speaker 1: He wrote this scathing report of basically fraud committed by
Speaker 1: the previous people who were in office as State's attorney
Speaker 1: and all the people there in trying to make ad
Speaker 1: On look innocent and like it's like eighty pages long.
Speaker 1: And the prosecutors on their podcast went through it, and
Speaker 1: they didn't go through like all the eighty pages or
Speaker 1: whatever it was, but they went through some of the
Speaker 1: language that he used in certain parts and it was titillating. Like,
Speaker 1: if you're interested in the ad on On say ed case,
Speaker 1: I highly recommend going and listening to that.
Speaker 4: Arguing for or against his guilt.
Speaker 1: Oh, arguing for his guilt?
Speaker 4: Okay, okay. Interesting.
Speaker 3: I think I think we failed to recognize though, like
Speaker 3: in that case, that's interesting.
Speaker 4: I'll be going to read that.
Speaker 3: But I think it's interesting how we downplay the value
Speaker 3: of the grace that most human beings can offer. Like
Speaker 3: even these individuals who you see that are wrongfully convicted
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, before they've gotten any kind of money.
Speaker 4: People are like, well, it's because they got paid. No.
Speaker 3: Acknowledge that I'm not crazy, Acknowledge that I'm not bad,
Speaker 3: Acknowledge that you made a mistake, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: grace that human beings have the ability to offer one
Speaker 3: another when there's vulnerability and responsibility and accountability that someone
Speaker 3: takes on. That takes a big person, That takes an
Speaker 3: emotionally mature person to say I messed up and I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: and here's how I know that affected you, and let
Speaker 3: me help make it right. That's what being a human
Speaker 3: being is all about, and not some selfish like I
Speaker 3: don't know, narcissistic kind of human being that says like
Speaker 3: I don't care what happened to you. All I care
Speaker 3: about is me. That's it's just not a good look.
Speaker 3: Like I have so much pride when I see someone
Speaker 3: who humbly says I messed up and I'm sorry, and
Speaker 3: I know what it did, and tell me more of
Speaker 3: what it did to you, and then how do I
Speaker 3: make it better? That's what humanity's all about. And so
Speaker 3: I don't understand money's more important to you than human
Speaker 3: value in relationships, and I don't know integrity.
Speaker 4: It just blows my mind.
Speaker 2: So on December sixth, nineteen eighty four, a businessman named
Speaker 2: Raymond Lyouza Junior was fatally shot to death during an
Speaker 2: armed robbery, and shortly thereafter two African American men named
Speaker 2: John Thompson and Kevin Freeman were arrested for the crime.
Speaker 2: The murder weapon and a ring which was stolen from Liuza,
Speaker 2: was found in Thompson's possession, but Thompson claimed that Freeman
Speaker 2: sold him these items after the crime took place and
Speaker 2: he had nothing to do with it. However, Freeman claimed
Speaker 2: that he and Thompson committed the crime together and Thompson
Speaker 2: was the shooter, so he agreed to testify against him
Speaker 2: in exchange for a five year sentence. Shortly thereafter, the
Speaker 2: family recognized Thompson's photo in the newspaper and identified him
Speaker 2: as a man who had robbed them during a carjacking
Speaker 2: several months earlier. Thompson maintained that he was innocent of
Speaker 2: both the murder and the carjacking, but Harry Connick Senior
Speaker 2: made the strategic decision to try Thompson separately for the
Speaker 2: carjacking before he took him to trial for murder. As
Speaker 2: you might have noticed, this is very similar to how
Speaker 2: the District Attorney's office planned to try Sharif four separate
Speaker 2: times on on robbery charges before they tried him for murder. Well,
Speaker 2: in this particular case, Thompson was found guilty of felony
Speaker 2: carjacking and was sent to forty nine years in prison.
Speaker 2: So by the time he went on trial for Raymond
Speaker 2: Lyuz's murder, Thompson was advised by his attorneys not to
Speaker 2: testify at his own defense because if he did, the
Speaker 2: prosecution would have been able to share his previous carjacking
Speaker 2: conviction to the jury. As a result, Thompson was unable
Speaker 2: to testify that Freeman sold him the gun and Lyuza's ring,
Speaker 2: so he wound up being found guilty of the murder
Speaker 2: and sends to death.
Speaker 3: So here's what he's doing. Here's what they're doing here.
Speaker 3: They're scene that it's much easier for a juror to
Speaker 3: be sitting there to say, hey, we're looking at an
Speaker 3: armed robbery, we're looking at a carjacking, okay, And they
Speaker 3: have taken resources in time and money. This person who
Speaker 3: is shackled and in a jumpsuit, they're coming to sip
Speaker 3: before us, and we are trying them for a violent
Speaker 3: crime right period, But it's not murder. And you think
Speaker 3: about the idea that, Okay, this person is going to
Speaker 3: trial this person, they're pretty convinced did it, and by
Speaker 3: the time they've walked into the courtroom, I think the
Speaker 3: jury one assumes they did it unless you can prove otherwise.
Speaker 4: Even though that's not the way or do justice system
Speaker 4: is supposed to work.
Speaker 3: And honestly, the stakes just quote aren't that high. We're
Speaker 3: not talking life or death. We're talking a violent offense.
Speaker 3: And so when you're asked, hey, let's make a ruling
Speaker 3: on a carjacking, I think senses are less heightened in
Speaker 3: that moment, like, Okay, is this kid robbing people at gunpoint?
Speaker 3: Is he forcing people out of their car at gunpoint?
Speaker 4: Yes? Or no?
Speaker 3: It's just not the same type of scrutiny. I think
Speaker 3: that people which they should be, but I don't think
Speaker 3: as a juror you would put the same kind of
Speaker 3: weight on your own heart as if you were ruling
Speaker 3: on a murder. So I think strategically they're saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: rule on this, it's an easier win for us. And
Speaker 3: then what does that paint about this individual? They're a
Speaker 3: terrible human being, They're a dangerous human being. They make
Speaker 3: horrible decisions, they use a weapon. One action could turn
Speaker 3: them into a murder and it did in this case.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Look, they've already said that they rob people at gunpoint.
Speaker 3: They already say they hijack and they steal cars at gunpoint.
Speaker 3: What would make you think that one time it didn't
Speaker 3: go too far and they killed someone. So they're really
Speaker 3: setting these people up in that kind of situation where
Speaker 3: let's try them for the minor minor, the less let's
Speaker 3: say the les severe. It's not minor less severe case first,
Speaker 3: and then how can the jury see them any other
Speaker 3: way but a complete monster and they're very capable of murder.
Speaker 3: If they can do this, why not the next best thing,
Speaker 3: which is something went wrong and they shot the person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as Jule said earlier, it does seem like a
Speaker 2: major waste of taxpayer money to try someone on a
Speaker 2: lesser crime before you take them to trial to murder,
Speaker 2: even though if they're convicted of the murderer, they're never
Speaker 2: getting out of prison. But it seems like that was
Speaker 2: the strategy of this particular district attorney's office, where they think, well,
Speaker 2: we have a weak murder case, so let's just find
Speaker 2: some other random unsolved crime and pend it on them
Speaker 2: as well, and then take them to trial. So that
Speaker 2: we pretty much prejudice the jury before they even go
Speaker 2: to trial for murder.
Speaker 1: Well, Thompson languished on death row into the blood stain
Speaker 1: which had been left behind by the robber during the carjacking,
Speaker 1: was tested and it didn't match him. It turned out
Speaker 1: the KNIC had already tested the blood at the time
Speaker 1: of the original trial, but suppressed the results from the defense.
Speaker 1: As a result, Thompson's carjacking conviction was overturned, and this
Speaker 1: eventually led him to receiving a new trial on the
Speaker 1: murder conviction. This time, several new witnesses testified that they
Speaker 1: had only seen one person running away from the scene
Speaker 1: when Raymond Lauza was murdered, and it seemed very likely
Speaker 1: that Kevin Freeman, who had received the five year sentence
Speaker 1: for testifying about Thompson, was the real killer. As a result,
Speaker 1: Thompson was acquitted and finally released from prison after serving
Speaker 1: eighteen years. Thompson leader won a fourteen million civil lawsuit
Speaker 1: against Connick and the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office, but
Speaker 1: Conic appealed to judgment and the case wound up making
Speaker 1: it all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: In the case Conac v. Thompson, the Supreme Court voted
Speaker 1: five to four to overturn the fourteen million dollar judgment,
Speaker 1: ruling that the district Attorney's office was not liable for
Speaker 1: Thompson's wrongful conviction. The Thompson case is pretty outrageous in
Speaker 1: its own right and could probably be the subject of
Speaker 1: its own podcast episode, But it just demonstrates the conic
Speaker 1: and the Orleans Paris District Attorney's office had a very
Speaker 1: troubling history of misconduct and railroading innocent people, particularly African Americans.
Speaker 3: Here's my thing, It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter the
Speaker 3: intent behind it. So like again, let's go back to
Speaker 3: the surgeon. You paralyzed somebody because something happened, something went wrong.
Speaker 3: Was there mal intent? Was there a did you want
Speaker 3: to hurt the individual?
Speaker 4: No, you could have.
Speaker 3: Followed everything to the tea. And if your patient wakes
Speaker 3: up and there's a bad outcome, why would you not
Speaker 3: want to make sure that they got resources to make
Speaker 3: it right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: You now need a caregiver.
Speaker 3: You now need you know, a van that allows you
Speaker 3: to use a wheelchair like you have expenses because something
Speaker 3: went wrong. It was never intended there was no you know,
Speaker 3: mal intent there, but something went wrong, and for that,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. Here's resources that we can provide you to
Speaker 3: try to make life a little bit better and a.
Speaker 4: Little bit easier. Here.
Speaker 3: You hear people all the time, they're like, how much
Speaker 3: money did they get? I'm sorry, I couldn't survive a
Speaker 3: day in prison. I don't know if you sentenced me
Speaker 3: to death row and I didn't do something right. I
Speaker 3: can't imagine anybody who would say, well, let me make
Speaker 3: sure that I prove it's not my fault.
Speaker 4: Something happened. It doesn't even need malintent.
Speaker 3: You could have done everything right and this poor person
Speaker 3: innocently got convicted. Why can't the state take accountability to
Speaker 3: say something happened, the outcome was wrong. We did everything
Speaker 3: by the book, We upheld ethical standards, we were very professional.
Speaker 3: Something wrong happened, and therefore this poor person is going
Speaker 3: to need resources and access to money, services support to
Speaker 3: make sure that they can now be integrated back into
Speaker 3: society and have a healthy, productive life because we made
Speaker 3: a mistake.
Speaker 4: Why is that so hard?
Speaker 2: And it's even more outrageous when you hear that Conic
Speaker 2: appealed the fourteen million dollar judgment, even though he was
Speaker 2: not going to be the one who had to personally
Speaker 2: pay the money. It was going to be taxpayer money.
Speaker 2: But he didn't want his reputation tarnished. He says, I
Speaker 2: have to do this so they won't think that I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: And it is a major shame that the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: ruled in his favor because I hate to say it,
Speaker 2: but they were liable for Thompson's wrongful conviction. He intentionally
Speaker 2: suppressed evidence, he used, he orchestrated misconduct, so they should
Speaker 2: have been responsible for that money in paying it out
Speaker 2: to Thompson.
Speaker 3: I mean, you look at it when they take away
Speaker 3: people's like fifty years of productivity and like you know,
Speaker 3: you say, well they only.
Speaker 4: Served ten years. They have the rest of their life
Speaker 4: to make their money back.
Speaker 3: Listen, if you're convicted of murder and sentence to death row,
Speaker 3: I don't care if the Pope himself says you didn't
Speaker 3: do it, you are forever going to be tarnished with
Speaker 3: a reputation of maybe he did.
Speaker 4: And people that are just.
Speaker 3: Ignorant and don't know what you what happened, their life
Speaker 3: is forever altered and stolen away from them.
Speaker 4: Who they could have been.
Speaker 3: Yes, they could have been in a lifestyle of crime. Yes,
Speaker 3: they could have been in a place where they shouldn't
Speaker 3: have been, and therefore, yes, they got falsely accused. But
Speaker 3: who's to say that at eighteen they were irresponsible and
Speaker 3: immature and at twenty eight they weren't married with kids
Speaker 3: in a stable job, Like, who are you to know
Speaker 3: where their life was going and the rest of their
Speaker 3: life is going to be changed and tarnished and manipulated
Speaker 3: because of the label that at one time they were
Speaker 3: a murderer on death row. You can say they're innocent
Speaker 3: all day long. You can say it's because of DNA acceneration.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of ignorant people who will say, oh.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I actually think he did it.
Speaker 2: In the end, the District Attorney's office barely faced any
Speaker 2: repercussions at all for what they did to Shrief Cussin.
Speaker 2: The worst that happened is that the lead prosecutor, Roger Jordan,
Speaker 2: wound up receiving a three month suspension for misconduct, but
Speaker 2: would not have to serve it as long as he
Speaker 2: didn't commit any more ethical violations year. So yeah, it
Speaker 2: was essentially nothing more than a sentence of probation. But
Speaker 2: believe it or not, Jordan still had the nerve to
Speaker 2: attempt to appeal this ruling and complain that it tarnished
Speaker 2: his record and could affect his future employment prospects. Well,
Speaker 2: if he doesn't like it, maybe he shouldn't try to
Speaker 2: execute innocent seventeen year old kids. It's mind boggling to
Speaker 2: me that Jordan would believe that a three month suspension
Speaker 2: was unfair punishment for something that egregious, I mean putting
Speaker 2: aside the unethical stuff like failing to turn over evidence
Speaker 2: to the defense. It was alleged that Jordan flat out
Speaker 2: doctored a tape recorded interview with Shreif's coach, Eric White,
Speaker 2: and illegally detained three of Shreif's alibi witnesses at the
Speaker 2: District Attorney's office so they would miss their schedule time
Speaker 2: to testify at trial. Those are the actions of someone
Speaker 2: who clearly knew they were railroading an innocent person, but
Speaker 2: did not care. Even though Harry Conic Senior was not
Speaker 2: directly involved in this trial, you can see why he
Speaker 2: was named as a defendant in the civil suit because
Speaker 2: he created a culture where his prosecutors believed that they
Speaker 2: could get away with stuff like this without consequences. Now,
Speaker 2: I've seen a number of cases where the state offered
Speaker 2: plea deals to wrongly convicted people which would allow them
Speaker 2: to plead guilty and walk out of prison. It's a
Speaker 2: convenient tactic which allows them to save face without actually
Speaker 2: having to admit they made a mistake and convicted an
Speaker 2: innocent person. The Orleans Parish District Attorney's office attempted to
Speaker 2: do the same thing with Sharif, and he turned it down,
Speaker 2: But remarkably, it was literally only hours later when KLNIC
Speaker 2: publicly announced that they were dropping the case. You see,
Speaker 2: the main reason inmates are sometimes willing to accept these
Speaker 2: plea deals is because it means they can immediately walk
Speaker 2: out of prison. But no matter what, Sharif was still
Speaker 2: going to have to serve more years on the armed
Speaker 2: robbery charges, So what motivation would he have had to
Speaker 2: plead guilty to murder? So yeah, this was a pretty
Speaker 2: pathetic attempt at damage control.
Speaker 3: Okay, so everyone who's listening, if you ever want to
Speaker 3: cry and feel angry and in fired, google Dewey Bozella's
Speaker 3: sp speech where he wins an SP for the Courage
Speaker 3: Award and Dewey Bozella. It was a wrongfully convicted individual
Speaker 3: who was a boxer. It was a way that in prison,
Speaker 3: he said, I thought I was going to literally lose
Speaker 3: myself and maybe literally die if I didn't find an
Speaker 3: outlet for my anger for being wrongfully convicted. He had
Speaker 3: been accused of killing an elderly woman I believe in
Speaker 3: the Bronx, and he went to prison for her murder.
Speaker 3: And there was a time where he was married to
Speaker 3: an amazing woman named Trina, who helped him fight for
Speaker 3: his freedom. But there was a time where he was
Speaker 3: approached with Trina aware of the deal, and they said,
Speaker 3: plead guilty to this case and you can leave today
Speaker 3: and go home to your wife. And she actually begged
Speaker 3: him come home to me, like, I know you didn't
Speaker 3: do it. We've been fighting this for decades.
Speaker 4: Please please plead guty to this. And he said, there
Speaker 4: is no fiber.
Speaker 3: In my bean as a man, as a human being,
Speaker 3: who can say I not only killed someone, but like
Speaker 3: I abused an elderly woman and took her life. Zero
Speaker 3: Ever will I say yes, I did this? Literally Trina
Speaker 3: in the video of the SB speech, she says, my
Speaker 3: heart was broken because he said no to me, like
Speaker 3: it wasn't worth him saying I did it and he
Speaker 3: could have been free. He said no, his integrity and
Speaker 3: saying I didn't hurt her was more important to him,
Speaker 3: and he went on to fight.
Speaker 4: I want to say.
Speaker 3: He was in prison for like twenty three years, and
Speaker 3: sure enough, one day they the Innocents Project goes to
Speaker 3: the old an old detective's house and says, hey, do
Speaker 3: you know the Dewey Bozella case? And he said, I
Speaker 3: retired like fifteen years ago, and the only case I
Speaker 3: ever kept, the only file I ever took home, which
Speaker 3: I shouldn't have, was Dewey Bozella's because that man is innocent,
Speaker 3: and he joined the fight to help free this man.
Speaker 3: But oh, oh my god, doesn't hurt that. Matthew McConaughey
Speaker 3: narrates the entire video. But Dewey Bosella, I want to
Speaker 3: hug his face. I just want to I don't know,
Speaker 3: I just want to cry and celebrate with him. But
Speaker 3: same kind of thing they did, the same thing with
Speaker 3: the West Memphis three, where you had Damien Eckles on
Speaker 3: death row and his two accomplices were serving life in prison,
Speaker 3: and the two young men that were serving life in prison,
Speaker 3: they said, I'm never going to confess to something I
Speaker 3: didn't do, and Damien Eckles said, that's easy for you guys,
Speaker 3: because you're not facing death. I am going to be
Speaker 3: killed for something we didn't do. Can you please take
Speaker 3: the Alford plea in that situation.
Speaker 4: You gotta say you did it.
Speaker 3: You gotta say I did it, but I didn't do
Speaker 3: it with an Alfred play and he said, my life
Speaker 3: is on the line. They're going to kill me. And
Speaker 3: that's what drove the other two boys to say, I'll
Speaker 3: take an Alfred plea with you and basically say we
Speaker 3: did it without saying we did it.
Speaker 4: It makes me so mad.
Speaker 3: The only reason for that is to protect themselves from
Speaker 3: financial contributions to a civil lawsuit that they would lose
Speaker 3: as a state.
Speaker 4: How dare you not say, hey, evidence shows you didn't
Speaker 4: do it. Shame on us.
Speaker 3: Sorry, we saw your entire life and your future life
Speaker 3: from you. Here's a little bit of money that might
Speaker 3: help you along the way.
Speaker 4: Fourteen million.
Speaker 3: Guys, When you hear that that guy was awarded fourteen
Speaker 3: million dollars, that is not normal. If you look up
Speaker 3: state maximums. If you look up what's required. Some states
Speaker 3: require DNA to prove you didn't do it. Some states
Speaker 3: require that you didn't contribute to your guilt whatsoever. AKA,
Speaker 3: if you make a false confession, you get zero dollars.
Speaker 3: So there's tons of loopholes where the state says I
Speaker 3: don't want to give a dime to this person. In fact,
Speaker 3: I'll fight through the Supreme Court not to pay them.
Speaker 3: And it's just bad. There are people's lives at stake.
Speaker 3: There's fathers and daughters and wives and husbands sitting on
Speaker 3: life in prison and death row situations, and if we
Speaker 3: got it wrong, we owe them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard of the Douey Bozela case, and there
Speaker 2: are countless examples of people like that who say that
Speaker 2: I'm not going to plead guilty to something I didn't do,
Speaker 2: so I'm willing to stay in prison longer until I
Speaker 2: clear my name. But there are other cases where people
Speaker 2: are like, well, I just want to get out of prison.
Speaker 2: I can't take it anymore. So that's why they take
Speaker 2: al Ford, please, and why they're willing to plead guilty
Speaker 2: even though they maintain their innocence. What was Sharifa was
Speaker 2: particularly ridiculous because he was not going to walk out
Speaker 2: of prison. He would still have to serve time on
Speaker 2: arm robbery charges, which he claimed he didn't do, so
Speaker 2: it seemed pretty pathetic that they were going to try
Speaker 2: to save face by having offering him a guilty plea,
Speaker 2: even though he pretty much gained nothing.
Speaker 1: Anyway. Even though many people believe the racism played a
Speaker 1: role in Sharif's wrongful conviction, it should be noted that
Speaker 1: the jury who found him guilty actually consisted of ten
Speaker 1: blacks and whites. You might be wondering how they could
Speaker 1: have reached that verdict with so much convincing alibi evidence
Speaker 1: to support Sharif's innocence, but hearing testimony from a traumatized
Speaker 1: victim who personally witnessed the crime can have a strong
Speaker 1: impact on juris. Anyone who follows wrongful conviction cases knows
Speaker 1: that eyewitness testimony can be unreliable and has played a
Speaker 1: role in sending a number of innocent people to prison.
Speaker 1: But back in nineteen ninety six, the average jury member
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't have known this, and when they saw Connie
Speaker 1: Babin point to Sharif in the courtroom, and positively identify
Speaker 1: him as the man who shot Michael Girardi. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they had no reason to doubt her, particularly since her
Speaker 1: earlier statements about not getting a look at the killer
Speaker 1: were suppressed at the trial. It would be easy to
Speaker 1: feel angry towards Connie for identifying Sharife, but let's not
Speaker 1: forget that she went through a pretty traumatic ordeal, and
Speaker 1: I'd say there's a good chance that she was pressured
Speaker 1: or manipul related by investigators. We've seen a couple of
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction cases in which eyewitnesses have recounted their original testimony,
Speaker 1: claiming that even though they weren't certain that the defendant
Speaker 1: was actually the person they saw committing the crime, the
Speaker 1: police assured them that they had the right person, so
Speaker 1: if they could still identify the defendant a trial, it
Speaker 1: would strengthen their case and improve their chances of conviction.
Speaker 1: I don't believe Connie was knowingly implicating an innocent person,
Speaker 1: as I think she genuinely believed the police arrested the
Speaker 1: right guy and probably did not expect her testimony to
Speaker 1: be the crux of the prosecution's entire case. I don't
Speaker 1: mean to make light of the whole thing. But this
Speaker 1: situation reminds me of the scene in the comedy My
Speaker 1: Cousin Benny, where Joe Pashi Cross examines a witness who
Speaker 1: positively identified the perpetrators even though she had bad eyesight
Speaker 1: and wore very thick glasses. People should not be sent
Speaker 1: to death row over things like this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the judge is like, what did you say that?
Speaker 4: Like the two youths Okay, sorry, your honor the two Uh.
Speaker 3: Yes, It's so true when you look at this poor witness,
Speaker 3: I mean, I have just as much empathy for her
Speaker 3: as I have for Sharif in this situation. We've seen
Speaker 3: this a million times. Same with like Jennifer Thompson in
Speaker 3: the Ronald Cotton case. Right where you have somebody who
Speaker 3: has been a victim of a crime.
Speaker 4: They're in an.
Speaker 3: Incredibly traumatic situation, and you have law enforcement officials who
Speaker 3: are the safe people who are good, and you've been
Speaker 3: dealt with a group of people who are bad. And
Speaker 3: so when the good guys say, hey, help me out,
Speaker 3: let me help you, let me give justice to this
Speaker 3: person you were with her, to yourself, and they lay
Speaker 3: out exactly what they they believe happened, and they're able
Speaker 3: to convince a witness that, yes, this reality the police
Speaker 3: have must have been what happened. They falsely create a
Speaker 3: memory in that eyewitness his mind. And it's really sad
Speaker 3: here because again she told the truth. She said, Uh,
Speaker 3: it was dark. These were some young black guys. I
Speaker 3: couldn't see them.
Speaker 4: It was really dark.
Speaker 3: I didn't have my classes on, I didn't have any
Speaker 3: contacts in Uh. She's like basically telling the police like,
Speaker 3: I'm not that much help, and yet they craft a
Speaker 3: story and they convince her, and they change and alter
Speaker 3: her memory, and they confirm her memory, and they confirm
Speaker 3: her memory, and they confirm her memory, and they tell
Speaker 3: her that by being so strong and so brave, that
Speaker 3: she's gonna help bring justice to her dates killer. And
Speaker 3: by the time she gets a trial, it's been a
Speaker 3: year of her thinking like, it's this all hinges on me,
Speaker 3: and I've been so empowered because these people are so
Speaker 3: good to me, and I'm going to get justice for
Speaker 3: my date. And she testifies with one hundred percent confidence.
Speaker 3: But remember she was honest at the beginning and she
Speaker 3: said I'm probably not the best witness. They convince her
Speaker 3: that she is, and that makes me so mad because
Speaker 3: she also becomes a victim who, for the rest of
Speaker 3: her life is going to carry a weight of saying
Speaker 3: did I cause? Am I the reason why this poor
Speaker 3: kid also really lost his life? Because the man I
Speaker 3: was standing next to lost his and I basically caused.
Speaker 4: Another person to lose theirs. She did not.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that, but that's a guilt that she
Speaker 3: would carry, a psychological damage that she has to carry
Speaker 3: because these people didn't care about her. If they didn't
Speaker 3: care about the victim, and they didn't care about Sharif
Speaker 3: if they did, they would have said, ooh, I need
Speaker 3: to pause because this poor witness is not giving me
Speaker 3: what I need.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as far as I can tell, Connie Babbittt is
Speaker 2: pretty much shied away from the spotlight completely ever since
Speaker 2: the trial took place. And who can really blame her
Speaker 2: because I'm sure she feels awful because she was probably
Speaker 2: unaware of all the other corruption and misconduct going on
Speaker 2: in this case. So when she eventually found out that
Speaker 2: the person she identified was probably innocent, I'm sure it
Speaker 2: was a pretty traumatic ordeal and I can only imagine
Speaker 2: why she wouldn't want to talk about it to this day.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about about James Rowl, the guy who
Speaker 2: originally implicated Sharif, to begin with, I do not think
Speaker 2: anyone was expecting him to recant his story on the
Speaker 2: witness stand and say he lied about Charif, bragging that
Speaker 2: he committed the murder. When Rawl admitted that he was
Speaker 2: facing eight hundred years in prison for multiple armed robberies
Speaker 2: but was offered a lesser sentence for testifying against Sharif,
Speaker 2: you can understand how this situation likely unfolded. Testimony from
Speaker 2: unreliable criminal informants is another primary cause of wrongful convictions,
Speaker 2: as demonstrated by the afore mentioned John Thompson case, where
Speaker 2: the real killer, Kevin Freeman, made a deal to testify
Speaker 2: against him in exchange for a lighter sentence. I don't
Speaker 2: think the lead detective in this case, Anthony Small, ever
Speaker 2: faced any repercussions for his conduct, but some of the
Speaker 2: allegations against him are insane. In order to secure the
Speaker 2: uress warrant for Sharif, he completely fabricated two other eye
Speaker 2: witnesses to the crime who did not even exist, and
Speaker 2: he supposedly phoned in a tip about Sharif to crimestoppers
Speaker 2: so he collect the reward. I mean, it's bad enough
Speaker 2: that a police officer could railroad an innocent person for
Speaker 2: the purposes of closing a case, but when they're also
Speaker 2: profiting and receiving reward money for their actions, that shows
Speaker 2: an almost cartoonish level of corruption.
Speaker 3: Oh, one thousand percent. One thousand percent. When you look
Speaker 3: at this idea that you have things like tip lines
Speaker 3: where people fraudulently make reports and they lead to progression
Speaker 3: in the case, and or you use jail house informants
Speaker 3: and those kinds of things. When you have other criminals
Speaker 3: or individuals that you're making deals with, you're providing money,
Speaker 3: you're simplifying their sentence. You know, one in five wrongful
Speaker 3: convictions has the use of a jailhouse snitch or another
Speaker 3: criminal who's involved in some other crime that's getting an
Speaker 3: incentive for sharing information that was either planted akai like,
Speaker 3: positioned you in a cell and then I asked.
Speaker 4: You, Hey, did you get that info we fed you?
Speaker 3: All I have to do is say, yeah, you told
Speaker 3: me to ask about this murder. I did, and here's
Speaker 3: what they told me. But you already know the information anyway.
Speaker 3: I mean, a corrupt officer will say, like, make sure
Speaker 3: they tell you that the girl was x y and
Speaker 3: z or the man was x y and z, and
Speaker 3: therefore I just come back and tell you what you
Speaker 3: already told me and I get a reduced sentence, I
Speaker 3: get money, I get a charge dropped, whatever it is.
Speaker 3: And what's interesting is that in many jurisdictions, the prosecutor
Speaker 3: does not have to disclose any kind of reward that
Speaker 3: was given for any information that was received.
Speaker 1: As bad as it is to say, even though he
Speaker 1: went through a terrible ordeal, Sharif actually fared better than
Speaker 1: many others in his situation as he only spent two
Speaker 1: and a half years on death row, as opposed to
Speaker 1: someone like John Thompson, who had to endure this for
Speaker 1: eighteen years before he walked free. Well, the situation was
Speaker 1: extra terrifying for Sharif because of his young age, as
Speaker 1: he did not even understand how the death penalty and
Speaker 1: disappeals process worked at that time. Since he was never
Speaker 1: given an execution date. Time I'm on death row was
Speaker 1: filled with uncertainty about how long he had left to live.
Speaker 1: But there's one tragic aspect to this case which always
Speaker 1: gets overlooked. Will Shariffe is most definitely a victim. His
Speaker 1: story wound up taking a lot of the attention away
Speaker 1: from Michael Girardi, the person who lost his life. Sadly,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest side effects of wrongful conviction cases
Speaker 1: is that the actual murder victim often gets overlooked.
Speaker 4: If you research the.
Speaker 1: Story online, it's very difficult to find any photographs of
Speaker 1: Michael Girardi, as the only place we've seen them are
Speaker 1: on a YouTube documentary about this case, containing snippets of
Speaker 1: old news segments which display Michael's picture. These segments featured
Speaker 1: interviews with Michael's parents, who seem pretty devastated by the
Speaker 1: whole ordeal, and I'm sure it must have been difficult
Speaker 1: for them to think that they received closure when Sharife
Speaker 1: was convicted of Michael's murder, only to find out that
Speaker 1: they got the wrong person. There really isn't much information
Speaker 1: out there Michael, but from what I can tell, he
Speaker 1: sounded like a sweet guy. It seems like he had
Speaker 1: really fallen for Connie and even told his mother that
Speaker 1: this may be the one before they even went on
Speaker 1: their first date. When Michael showed up for the date,
Speaker 1: he gave Connie a red rose and things seemed to
Speaker 1: be going really well until an unspeakable tragedy took place.
Speaker 1: I think it demonstrates Michael's character that when he saw
Speaker 1: the three blackmailes approaching him and felt threatened, his first
Speaker 1: instinct was to turn to Connie and to tell her
Speaker 1: to run away, a decision which probably saved her life
Speaker 1: since she may have also been shot if she remained there.
Speaker 1: This was a completely senseless crime because I'm sure that
Speaker 1: if the perpetrator simply ordered Michael to hand over his
Speaker 1: wallet at gunpoint, he likely would have done so without
Speaker 1: any resistance, and there was no need to kill him.
Speaker 1: This really isn't a complex crime to analyze, as it
Speaker 1: appears the only motive was robbery and Michael was just
Speaker 1: an unfortunate, random victim in the wrong place at the
Speaker 1: wrong time. But who could have been responsible?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really sad.
Speaker 3: Like you said, his family is a victim, just like
Speaker 3: the eyewitness is a victim, just like Sharif is a victim,
Speaker 3: and just like the whole community of New Orleans is
Speaker 3: a victim. You can't falsify information and give people a
Speaker 3: false sense of security and justice and healing in those
Speaker 3: kinds of things, and then rip it back out from
Speaker 3: under them when you're proven to be a fraud and
Speaker 3: someone who didn't have any kind of concern about the
Speaker 3: individual who was murdered, the individual who was being held
Speaker 3: as the lynch pen in this entire case, the poor eyewitness,
Speaker 3: and especially this kid who all of a sudden, the
Speaker 3: family has been rejoicing in certain ways of saying like, yes,
Speaker 3: it's sad that this kid got caught up in this,
Speaker 3: but he killed our baby and he's getting justice. It
Speaker 3: is what it is. The court decided that we can
Speaker 3: move forward and try to regroup and build a life
Speaker 3: without our baby in it. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: the eyewitness, the family, the community finds out what if
Speaker 3: they got the wrong person. Oh my lord, they got
Speaker 3: the wrong person. And you have to undo all of
Speaker 3: the fake promise you gave to everybody. You have to
Speaker 3: undo the justice that you gave to everybody. You have
Speaker 3: to undo the safety and security that you gave to everybody,
Speaker 3: and say, oh, not only do we mess up, but
Speaker 3: we actually might have purposefully lied and cheated to get
Speaker 3: you this outcome. It's just a whole another like my
Speaker 3: whole just world perception kind of crumbles and it's so
Speaker 3: much more devastating than people acknowledge. Right, it's not just
Speaker 3: the offender, it is people like the victim, the eyewitnesses,
Speaker 3: the surviving family, those kinds of things. They become victims
Speaker 3: in a game that these people are playing with criminal behavior,
Speaker 3: and it's just wrong.
Speaker 2: Well, it turns out that before Sharif was arrested, investigators
Speaker 2: had turned up a fairly promising lead which pointed towards
Speaker 2: some alternate suspects. On the night of the murder, Crimestopper
Speaker 2: received a tip from an eye witness who was in
Speaker 2: the French Quarter when Michael's shooting took place. Since the
Speaker 2: man was a bird watcher, he often carried around his
Speaker 2: binoculars and used them to catch a glimpse of the
Speaker 2: license plate number on the perpetrator's getaway car. The number
Speaker 2: wound up matching a red nineteen eighty nine Ford Escort
Speaker 2: registered to a woman named Krystal Baham. Just over a
Speaker 2: week later, crimestoppers received another tip from an anonymous caller
Speaker 2: who implicated three potential suspects in the crime, Antonio Harper,
Speaker 2: Derek Smith, and a third person known only as Brandon.
Speaker 2: When investigators attempted to track down Antonio Harper, they discovered
Speaker 2: a red Ford escort parked outside his address. It had
Speaker 2: the same license number provided by the bird watcher, and
Speaker 2: it turned out that the registered owner, Krystel Baham, was
Speaker 2: Derek Smith's mother. However, once Charif was charged with the crime,
Speaker 2: the investigation against these three suspects was dropped, and of
Speaker 2: course none of this information was ever turned over to
Speaker 2: Shreef's defence team at his trial. Now there really is
Speaker 2: a much information out there about the alternate suspects. But
Speaker 2: I did manage to find an obituary for a New
Speaker 2: Orleans resident named Derek Smith who died in December of
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen at the age of forty. Since it listed
Speaker 2: Crystal Baham as his mother, this is definitely the same guy.
Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, I also found an obituary for a Robert Harper,
Speaker 2: a New Orleans man who passed away in September of
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, and lists Crystal Baham as his sister, So
Speaker 2: I can only assume that he's related to Antonio Harper.
Speaker 3: Okay, so all this is withheld from evidence. But also,
Speaker 3: don't you guys remember that one of the individuals actually
Speaker 3: involved in this case had had people call in a
Speaker 3: crime stoppers tip that was implicating sharief so that they
Speaker 3: could collect and split money. Was it a detective or
Speaker 3: the prosecutor himself?
Speaker 4: Well, who was that?
Speaker 2: It was Detective Anthony Small. The guy who phoned in
Speaker 2: the tip was a friend of Small's and Small was
Speaker 2: able to use it as like leverage in order to
Speaker 2: get the arrest warrant for Shreef. And then afterwards his
Speaker 2: friend collected the reward and then Small split it with them.
Speaker 2: So it was just like a very It's a corropt
Speaker 2: scheme where he not only sent an innocent person to prison,
Speaker 2: but he made money off the whole thing.
Speaker 4: Incredible.
Speaker 3: Okay, So you've got that kind of erroneous stuff happening.
Speaker 3: You also have real tips that are called in that
Speaker 3: aren't followed up with. And again, when you have a
Speaker 3: narrative and a tunnel vision, than saying we've made our claim,
Speaker 3: this is who we've said did it, I don't care
Speaker 3: what information comes across our desk. We need to disprove it,
Speaker 3: we need to hide it, we need to manipulate it
Speaker 3: so that it doesn't work in this case. Why right,
Speaker 3: It's really interesting when you look at this idea that
Speaker 3: these three suspects were called in and there was information
Speaker 3: that maybe just maybe someone else did it, or that
Speaker 3: there was information that other people should at least be explored.
Speaker 4: It was all shut down. It's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you think to yourselves, would it just be easier
Speaker 2: to find the guys who actually did it instead of
Speaker 2: like running around in circles trying to fabricate a case
Speaker 2: against an innocent case.
Speaker 3: And what to do to your community when you don't
Speaker 3: like what does it do for the community. When you
Speaker 3: do not do that, you are setting other murders up
Speaker 3: for success.
Speaker 4: This person got.
Speaker 3: Away with it before they know they can do it again.
Speaker 3: It creates a brazen sense of security for that person.
Speaker 3: And then again, you robbed a baby. You robbed a
Speaker 3: baby of their life, and like you said, yes, he
Speaker 3: went on to make other mistakes. What do you expect
Speaker 3: when you take a sixteen year old kid who didn't
Speaker 3: have resources to start with, who didn't necessarily have good
Speaker 3: examples to start with, You put him in prison with
Speaker 3: a bunch of adult men who are dangerous, scary, violent
Speaker 3: people who teach you to survive in prison by being
Speaker 3: dangerous and violent, and then you release him with a
Speaker 3: like a hangar over his head that says, hey, I'm
Speaker 3: a murderer even though they released me and said I'm not,
Speaker 3: and you expect him to be successful, like, of course
Speaker 3: he took his boss's identifications that I got babies to feed,
Speaker 3: I need help. No one will trust me or hire
Speaker 3: me for a wage I'm worthy of. It's oh, it
Speaker 3: just makes me mad. I'm a little passionate about it.
Speaker 3: If you can't imagine that, yeah, we noticed, Yes.
Speaker 1: No, I totally get it. I think we've got prisons
Speaker 1: that are focused on punishment and not rehabilitation. You put
Speaker 1: a child in prison with some scary, scary individuals, and
Speaker 1: if you weren't a criminal to start with, you're very
Speaker 1: likely going to end up being a criminal in the
Speaker 1: end because you have to take on a certain persona
Speaker 1: in prison in order to protect yourself. And I think
Speaker 1: it's so easy to snap to judgment and be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: he committed another offense after like, what does that say
Speaker 1: about him? I don't think it says anything except for
Speaker 1: what actually just said that it is a really difficult place.
Speaker 1: It is at dogg eat dog, and it is a
Speaker 1: miracle that he survived and was able to come out
Speaker 1: the other end, be an advocate and speak up for
Speaker 1: the wrongfully convicted. I think that he's allowed a little
Speaker 1: bit of grace considering what was done to him. Now,
Speaker 1: we're not going to go so far as to accuse
Speaker 1: Harper Smith and the guy named Brandon of being Michael
Speaker 1: Gerardi's killers, but I think that if investigators had been
Speaker 1: able to continue pursuing these guys, they may have potentially
Speaker 1: built a case against them. It's worth voting that this
Speaker 1: particular lead was investigated by three other detectives besides Anthony Small,
Speaker 1: but Small pretty much pushed their work to the side
Speaker 1: after he set his sights on Sharif and the money. Yep,
Speaker 1: it seems like the moment James Raoul said Sharif's name,
Speaker 1: Small decided that he was their fall guy and they
Speaker 1: were going to pin the crime on him no matter what.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the most frustrating things about this story.
Speaker 1: I know law enforcement desperately wanted to solve this case,
Speaker 1: but they may have actually had the right guys on
Speaker 1: the radar get ultimately chose to railroad an innocent kid.
Speaker 1: I mean, my god, when you consider the amount of
Speaker 1: of work the police and prosecutors had to do in
Speaker 1: order to fabricate a casey in Sharif, they might as
Speaker 1: well have devoted all of this energy to, you know,
Speaker 1: actually finding the real killers.
Speaker 2: I mean, if these three guys were brazen enough to
Speaker 2: shoot an innocent man on a public street just to
Speaker 2: steal his wallet, who knows how many other crimes they
Speaker 2: may have gone on to commit. But even after Sharif's
Speaker 2: conviction was overturned, the people in power still continue to
Speaker 2: maintain that he was the right person, and it would
Speaker 2: not surprise me if they still hold the same attitude
Speaker 2: nearly thirty years later. If so, then I can't see
Speaker 2: anyone else ever being brought to justice for this crime.
Speaker 2: All that being said, if you happen to have any
Speaker 2: information on the murder of Michael Girardi, please contact the
Speaker 2: appropriate authorities. Jules Astley, any final thoughts in this case.
Speaker 2: I doubt you'll have any thoughts. There's nothing else to
Speaker 2: talk about, right.
Speaker 4: It just makes me mad. This is one of those cases.
Speaker 3: I think, his age, his vulnerability, the lack of advocacy
Speaker 3: for him, it makes me and the lack of an advocacy
Speaker 3: for Michael, like you had a murder victim who literally
Speaker 3: is shot with this woman. It reminds me of this
Speaker 3: is just sidebar. I remember our first date, my favorite
Speaker 3: first date with Buddy, my late husband. He had called
Speaker 3: his mother before our first date and said, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: marry the woman that I'm about to take to dinner.
Speaker 4: So I just want to let you know. And it's
Speaker 4: like I can.
Speaker 3: Put myself in that position of this young woman who says,
Speaker 3: look at this like Casanova is bringing me this rose,
Speaker 3: We're going to dinner. I'm going to maybe be going
Speaker 3: to dinner for the last first date of my life,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to be with Michael.
Speaker 4: That's what Michael thought.
Speaker 3: And so literally, like you said, he jumps in front
Speaker 3: of these people saying I'm going to protect her and
Speaker 3: if I lose my life, I do. It's this amazingly
Speaker 3: heroic moment and he dies and no one seems to
Speaker 3: care about him, her or getting the right people. In fact,
Speaker 3: they didn't care about the sixteen year old that they
Speaker 3: falseleep arrested. And as the case progresses, they have more
Speaker 3: and more facts and more and more players who know
Speaker 3: they got it wrong, and everyone said.
Speaker 4: Who cares? That's what blows my mind, who cares?
Speaker 3: They should have cared on a million levels about a
Speaker 3: million different players in this game, and they didn't. And
Speaker 3: so it's not just sharif you know that there was
Speaker 3: the victim here, but he truly was so unimportant in
Speaker 3: this conversation that they said, if we can't get him
Speaker 3: on the murder charges, let's at least steal his life
Speaker 3: away from him with these armed robbery charges. And then
Speaker 3: who cares if this kid who literally should be getting
Speaker 3: ready for junior prom right like he's sixteen, he just
Speaker 3: got his driver's license. Think about the sixteen year old
Speaker 3: in your life. They're all dumb and naive and make
Speaker 3: poor choices. Right, not murder, but they're dumb. And so
Speaker 3: you think about this sixteen year old kid you thought
Speaker 3: his best punishment his life to truly execute him. Thank
Speaker 3: God for Roper Simmons that took that off the plate.
Speaker 3: For every juvenile who commits a crime. I just don't
Speaker 3: think you can say that a child has no redeemable ability,
Speaker 3: that there's no way to teach them, to love them,
Speaker 3: to give them resources that show them they're more valuable
Speaker 3: than the environment they were born into. So Lord have
Speaker 3: mercy this is one of the best and most egregious
Speaker 3: cases we've looked at. On a million levels, I feel
Speaker 3: sorry for the eyewitness, I feel sorry for the victim.
Speaker 3: I feel sorry for the victim's family. I feel sorry
Speaker 3: for the people of New Orleans who were told they
Speaker 3: were safe. I feel sorry for the tourists who said
Speaker 3: who were told they were safe because a murderer had
Speaker 3: been caught. And I feel incredibly horrific for Sharif who
Speaker 3: as a child went to an adults world of violence
Speaker 3: and sat on death row wondering if the phone call
Speaker 3: was going to occur that said you're going to die
Speaker 3: in a couple months. Unbelievably disgusting because it wasn't a stake.
Speaker 3: It was many people knowingly dropping the ball or coercing
Speaker 3: and manipulating facts so that they got a conviction, and
Speaker 3: afterwards they were unwilling and did not want to be
Speaker 3: called out for It.
Speaker 4: Blows my mind.
Speaker 1: Let me just preface this conclusion with Ashley, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for giving your insights on these past couple
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction cases, because you've done such an excellent analysis
Speaker 1: and an excellent job, incredibly thorough You covered every single
Speaker 1: point that I could possibly think of, and your conclusion,
Speaker 1: I agree with every single point that you made. Charis's age,
Speaker 1: the fact that they went to such great lengths to
Speaker 1: essentially bury him, the fact that Small collected that money.
Speaker 1: It just feels so egregious. And the Conic Senior was
Speaker 1: involved and clearly didn't train the prosecutors properly, and they
Speaker 1: were willing to go to whatever lengths it was to
Speaker 1: get a conviction. And I think it comes down to
Speaker 1: actually said earlier, speaking of what a great job you did,
Speaker 1: ash she talked about the victims in the case. We
Speaker 1: not only have Michael Girardi and Connie Babin and Sharif Kuzen,
Speaker 1: but we also have the city of New Orleans because
Speaker 1: they don't get justice. And what it comes down to you,
Speaker 1: I think, is having a tourist city where the majority
Speaker 1: of income that you have is coming from tourism. That
Speaker 1: gives a motivation to the police department, probably coming from
Speaker 1: the mayor's office, and to the prosecutors to find a
Speaker 1: suspect and secure a conviction. And I think that that
Speaker 1: can be done in haste, and that can be done
Speaker 1: without doing your proper due diligence, like what we saw
Speaker 1: with Connick Junior going back over the case and going, Wow,
Speaker 1: there was a miscarriage of justice here. I made a mistake.
Speaker 1: Let me rectify that that wasn't done here. He looked
Speaker 1: back in retrospect and saw that the difference was he
Speaker 1: wasn't in the moment trying to bury somebody. There was
Speaker 1: corruption and there was collusion in this case, and it
Speaker 1: was basically a.
Speaker 2: Fraud on the court.
Speaker 1: And it is so disgusting that Sharif had to endure
Speaker 1: this and the Connie had to deal with the trauma
Speaker 1: of having to testify and put the wrong man behind
Speaker 1: bars because she is a victim too, and that Michael
Speaker 1: Girardi ends up getting lost in the sea of the
Speaker 1: whole wrongful conviction case against Sharif, and that Sharif had
Speaker 1: to languish behind bars as a child doing those two
Speaker 1: years on death row at the age of seventeen. I
Speaker 1: cannot imagine what that would have felt like and what
Speaker 1: that can do long term. That will leave an indelible mark.
Speaker 1: This case is just heartbreaking across the board.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've studied a lot of wrongful conviction cases and
Speaker 2: I see a lot of recurring themes. I find out
Speaker 2: that a lot of the time they're convicted for the
Speaker 2: same reasons because of mistaken eyewitness testimony, or prosecutory misconduct
Speaker 2: or jailhouse informants, and this case all of those. But
Speaker 2: it did have some other moments which just truly shocked
Speaker 2: me and made my jaw drop, Like when I read
Speaker 2: about alibi witnesses being detained in the district Attorney's office
Speaker 2: to miss their testimony and them giving the excuse, well,
Speaker 2: it was January, so we thought they would want to
Speaker 2: be in there when it's air conditioned, even though it
Speaker 2: was a cold winter day outside. And of course like
Speaker 2: allegedly like altering the original tape recorded interview of Sharif's
Speaker 2: coach where they actually changed the time that he said
Speaker 2: he dropped to Sharif off at home in order to
Speaker 2: kind of dispute his alibi. I mean, this is the
Speaker 2: type of stuff that should get people thrown to prison.
Speaker 2: But the worst that ever happened is that one prosecutor
Speaker 2: got a three month suspension, which he didn't even have
Speaker 2: to serve because he was essentially put on probation. And
Speaker 2: of course we talked about how the detective Anthony Small
Speaker 2: actually like phoned in a phony tip to crime stoppers
Speaker 2: and split the reward money with a friend of his,
Speaker 2: so he was profiting off this wrongful conviction. So yeah,
Speaker 2: this is one of the absolute worst that I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: And Sharif, I don't want to say that he was lucky,
Speaker 2: but because nobody deserves to spend any time on death
Speaker 2: row if they're innocent, let alone two years. But he
Speaker 2: also had to spend other time in prison for armed
Speaker 2: robbery convictions which he probably also did not commit. And yes,
Speaker 2: he ran into trouble with the law after his release
Speaker 2: from prison, but he does seem to have changed turned
Speaker 2: his life around and he is fighting now to be
Speaker 2: an activist against the death penalty and to help wrongly
Speaker 2: convicted people, and he deserves to live happiness and peace
Speaker 2: for the rest of his life after what he went through.
Speaker 2: But yeah, this is definitely a case of just the
Speaker 2: justice system going horribly wrong. The death penalty got horribly wrong,
Speaker 2: where clearly the people in power knew they were sending
Speaker 2: an innocent kid to death row but just did not care,
Speaker 2: which is just terrifying that people can do this and
Speaker 2: not have a conscience about these wrongful acts which nearly
Speaker 2: got an innocent kid killed. And another tragedy, of course,
Speaker 2: is Michael Girardi, who sounded like a nice man who
Speaker 2: pretty much sacrificed himself to save his date and got
Speaker 2: shot for it, but he never received justice because the
Speaker 2: authorities just wanted to solve the case as quickly as
Speaker 2: possible and put anyone in prison, no matter as if
Speaker 2: who is the right person or not. And we talked
Speaker 2: about these other three suspects. For all we know, maybe
Speaker 2: they went on to commit more crimes, and maybe they
Speaker 2: went on to commit more murders in the years since
Speaker 2: Shreep's conviction because they were allowed to get away with
Speaker 2: it and no one was looking for them. So yeah,
Speaker 2: this case is an absolute nightmare that went wrong on
Speaker 2: so many levels. But I think I'm glad that we
Speaker 2: shared this story because it's a good cautionary tale on
Speaker 2: how the justice system can go horribly wrong.
Speaker 5: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 5: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 2: and signed thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
Speaker 2: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes which
Speaker 2: I talk about cases which are not featured on The
Speaker 2: Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon,
Speaker 2: and if you join our highest tier, tier three, the
Speaker 2: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
Speaker 2: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries,
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 2: Tier three.
Speaker 5: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 5: about the Jewels and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 5: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Speaker 5: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 5: so they're not very many, but they're just too short
Speaker 5: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
Speaker 5: so we hope you'll check out those patreons will link
Speaker 5: them in the show notes.
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
Speaker 2: any chance you have to share us on social media
Speaker 2: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciated.
Speaker 2: You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So
Speaker 2: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
Speaker 2: trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy