[train horn sounds]
[Dr. West] This is the old downtown.
It was actually vibrant in the early '70s,
when I first came to Hattiesburg.
Now it's just a ghost of its former self.
Now, here's the county courthouse.
About every courthouse
in every county in Mississippi,
you'll find a Confederate memorial.
I'm trying to think of... Have, uh...
any of the courthouses I've been to,
which have been numerous,
if there was one that didn't have a Confederate memorial,
and I don't believe there is.
And you'd have to admit, you know,
from an artistic standpoint, it's very beautiful.
Very detailed.
Taking it away does not better anything.
Erasing history is ignorant.
It benefits no one.
They want to erase me from history.
When I was active in death investigation,
we used the state-of-the-art, the best that we had at the time.
To come back 20 or 25 years later and criticize us for it is ridiculous.
It's our job to be controversial.
If you don't like the way I do it,
get up off your dead ass,
go to the morgue every weekend,
spend it with 15 or 20 dead babies,
come out of there without being a fruitcake.
I'm just the messenger
who collects the evidence and brings it to the jury.
And if somewhere down the road,
some new scientific method comes out and says,
"This man is innocent,"
we can open the door and let him out.
[opening theme music playing]
Court's in recess.
[cheers and applause]
[Peter Neufeld] When we first started out taking these wrongful conviction cases,
we were very much focused on just using the DNA
to exonerate people.
- [judge] You're free to go. - [applause]
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm free. I'm free.
[applause and cheers]
Oh, yes!
[Peter] But we quickly realized that
the much more pressing question to answer is,
how did they get into prison in the first place?
And that's what we set out to do.
[elevator dings]
We set up what's called a strategic litigation unit,
a special unit of lawyers who will look at systemic problems
and try and change the law.
[Chris Fabricant I think we need to do more talking with him as a general matter.
Didn't you talk to Spencer about how rigorously that rule is applied,
and it sounds like medium?
Okay. I'm going to be gone the next couple days.
With policy work, it's very important to do an upstream fix,
because by the time unreliable forensic evidence is in front of a jury,
it's really too late.
Most lawyers are terrified of science. So are judges, you know, so are jurors.
Part of my job is to highlight the areas
where forensics really have never been established
as valid and reliable evidence.
Courts have been admitting this evidence for 50 years,
and they were wrong.
Every single time.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. They didn't know what they were talking about, right?
You have, in popular culture,
scientific evidence that's presented as infallible.
Right? There's a CSI episode with bite marks, it goes...
[mimics beeping] "Match!" Right? "We got him!"
Just because somebody is an expert witness doesn't mean they're right.
They're as full of shit as anybody else.
Let me ask you a question:
How many of you have heard of the 2009
National Academy of Sciences report on the state of forensics in this country?
That's good. That's good. It's getting much better.
It's probably the most important document that you can have
as a defense attorney as it relates to forensic sciences.
The NAS report was a thunderbolt across the forensic science community in 2009.
The National Academy of Science is the foremost scientific body
in the United States.
It's their responsibility to advise the federal government
on all policy involving science and medicine.
What the National Academy is saying
is that, for dozens of different forensic disciplines,
the fundamental principles of science was never there.
It's called forensic science,
but it didn't start as a science.
It started as creative ideas by detectives to solve a crime.
People think it is so powerful.
[Peter] They call it the CSI effect.
People get to see some good-looking, young forensic scientist
go out to a crime scene
and solve the murder.
See these drag marks?
They match the shoes your victim was wearing.
[Peter] With crime shows like Law & Order and NCIS...
[woman] And I give you...
the killer's incisors.
[Peter]...it's really hard for jurors to set aside those preconceived notions.
Somebody walks into a courtroom wearing a lab coat,
they must be telling the truth.
[Chris] Because bite mark analysis
is the curious manifestation
of the worst types of forensic sciences,
we decided to start there, with bite mark cases.
My paralegal at the time came across Keith Harward's case.
[woman 1] The evidence against Keith was incredibly weak.
None of the physical evidence pointed to him.
In fact, there was physical evidence known
that pointed away from Keith.
All of that exculpatory evidence was rationalized away
because the dentist said he was the biter.
Innocent or guilty, there's something wrong with that conviction.
[Chris] Nobody had heard from Mr. Harward for decades.
He'd just been literally dying in prison.
[Keith Harward] To the day I was convicted, I felt like,
somebody's going to say, "Uh, this is a mistake."
I am a true railroad case
where they put me on that train and sent me down the tracks,
and didn't look back.
[man 2] It was a big deal.
When somebody comes into a family's home...
murders a husband,
and sexually assaults the wife...
In Newport News,
that's a pretty sensational crime.
[woman] He was in my house for about three hours.
I was hit several times,
and I was repeatedly raped.
He threatened to kill me and get my daughter.
He kept reminding me how nice and tight she would be
if I did not do what I was told to do.
He bit me from my ankles all the way up to my thighs,
and left perfect imprints of his teeth marks.
That was the hardest thing, not to...
scream or make a noise while he was doing that.
But I didn't want to wake the kids up.
I don't know how long I was there before I got up and called the police.
The guy was young,
clean-shaven, kind of like a sandy, browny-blonde hair.
He was thin.
He had a sailor uniform on,
with those little Vs on his shirts,
and those little dog tags.
I remember the dog tags 'cause they were cold up against my chest.
[Keith] I wanted to travel, I wanted to see the country.
Travel round and meet people, and do that kind of stuff.
So that's how I ended up in the Navy.
In Newport News,
I was stationed on the Carl Vinson.
And that's kind of where that story started.
[Teresa] The police couldn't find out who it was.
They kept coming up with dead end after dead end, so they didn't know.
The days went by.
I was petrified every minute.
I couldn't be alone.
I was afraid he was gonna come back and get me.
[Keith] I met a local lady at a bar,
and we start up a relationship.
We got into a fight, and it got physical,
and I bit her on the shoulder.
She went to the hospital
and that's apparently when the detectives got involved with it.
They arranged to have Teresa attend a lower court hearing
where the sailor had to go to answer the assault charge.
[Teresa] The police took me in a courtroom.
I was petrified to be there.
They tried to ask me,
"Can you identify him? Is that him?" I'm like, "It doesn't sound like him."
They were really hoping that I would just say, "Yes, it's him."
But if I could have recognized his voice,
I probably would've lost it.
[Frank Green] She couldn't identify him. However, a few days later,
a security guard said he had seen a sailor come in
who had blood on his uniform early that morning.
The security guard was shown six mugshots,
and he identified Keith Harward as the sailor he had seen
walk through the gate early that morning
with blood on his uniform.
[Keith] They took me down to a local dentist
and had molds made of my teeth,
so they could send them off to these odontologists.
[Frank] Two different forensic odontologists
both agreed he was the person,
within a reasonable scientific certainty,
who bit Teresa.
The bite mark evidence was exotic, it was new.
Without it, they really didn't have a case.
[Ken Murov] Shortly after Keith was indicted,
the chief judge called me on the phone and he said,
"I want you to represent Harward.
Do you have a problem with that?"
And, being a 33-year-old lawyer,
I wasn't gonna tell the chief judge, "No."
It was a high-profile case.
Downtown Newport News, circuit court.
I was not expecting a finding of not guilty,
because of the compelling nature of the bite mark evidence.
The forensic dentist,
Lowell Levine from New York City,
testified that Keith had a central incisor
that was chipped at a 45-degree angle.
And so he just focused on
how Keith's dentition matched up with that impression on her thigh.
...within a reasonable scientific certainty.
[Frank] Dr. Lowell Levine,
he was a celebrity in the field.
By the time they were done qualifying him as an expert,
the jury was willing to believe anything he said.
[Keith] So when he gets up with a pointer and a big four-by-six photograph
and starts pointing, "See this...
it's shaped like a fish hook, and the tooth is turned this way
so that matches, so,
by God, it's him.
And I say so because I'm an expert,
and I'm a world-renowned expert."
[Ken] It was like he was spoon-feeding the jury,
you know, they were eating it up.
[Keith] I was done.
That was it. The jury, I was guilty.
He didn't have to say anything else. I was guilty.
[keys jangle in lock]
[door closes]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[Peter] You think you know somebody when you visit them in prison,
but you don't.
It's only when you meet their mothers
and their siblings and their neighborhoods
that you finally see that this is a complete human being.
[indistinct chatter]
[Peter] Levon and Kennedy's cases were particularly special to me,
being able to be there when they won their freedom.
We stayed in touch with Levon, and then we found out that...
he was sick.
You gave us a great day.
- [Peter chuckles] - [man] It's so good to see you, man.
[laughing] It's good to see you, too.
Oh, man.
How's it been going?
Things are going well. Dinah!
- How are you? - Good to see you, too.
[Dinah chuckles]
[Peter] How many chickens you got?
Oh, I can't count 'em all.
- Do they do different things? - Yeah.
What do they do?
[Levon] That rooster right there
produce green eggs.
Solid green eggs.
And then I got some in that pen over there, light blue eggs.
[rooster crows]
So, when Easter time comes,
you don't have to color no eggs if you get 'em from me
'cause they already colored.
[Peter] You ever talk to that doctor from New York any more?
- [Levon] Mm-hmm. - [Peter] Did, uh, he have anything to say?
[Dinah] Uh, no, he was just basically saying that
they could do what they said they would try for the surgery,
and he said he wasn't gonna try to go through that.
[chickens cluck]
When I was doing chemo,
they was running that, um,
that medicine through me that makes my hands numb.
I didn't have the touch that I had to draw with, I wasn't still enough.
Now the feeling's kind of coming back into my hands since they took me off that.
The feeling is kind of coming back into my hands now.
Maybe I'll be able enough to finish my artwork out.
When I got out of prison,
I was selling greeting cards and I was making key chains too.
This is one of my favorites, one of my best sellers.
It's the hummingbird and the flowers.
Okay, this design was a hot seller.
Got a little love in it, got a little...
little scrape to it, was this.
I don't think I'm through with this one yet.
No. I got to complete it.
But, like I said, I feel better
and I'm a go back to doing my artwork.
I've always been strong in my life.
What I'm going through, I'm gonna fight it with everything I've got.
I'm 'a make it just the same way when I went on and did them eighteen years.
I'm 'a make it.
I'm 'a put God first, I'm 'a fight with everything I got, like I did then.
[engine starts]
Me and my brother James, we always have been close to one another, you know,
and since I haven't been working whatever job it is he can get
he'll ask me to help him out with it.
I help him all the time.
[Peter] Kennedy and Levon were each given the sum of $50,000 a year for ten years.
That ten years has come and gone,
so there's no more compensation.
So for the rest of his life,
he not only has no compensation for the wrongful conviction,
but he isn't eligible for Social Security because he didn't work enough quarters.
It's very hard to find meaningful employment
after being locked up for something you didn't do.
[singing softly]
[indistinct chatter]
Well I told you if you ain't cookin' get out the kitchen.
Would've been through by now I done got hungry.
[continues singing]
I don't know what I'm 'a do.
I'd rather work though, 'cause you know just sitting around here
every day not having nothing to do would be boring.
[Annie continues singing softly]
I just can't walk around holding a grudge.
It's happened. It's over. I'm not just gon' dwell on the past. I just,
I just move on.
[Dr. West] All murder cases are forever.
Either the suspect dies, or you die.
That's the only way you get out of it.
You will always be bound together.
The Innocence Project won with the Brewer and Brooks case.
They feel that now they have the impetus
to reverse every case I ever testified in.
Yes, I can be wrong.
Have they presented me any new evidence
that would change my opinion?
No.
They will not allow a 1% error rate.
They will not allow 0.5% of error rate.
You must be perfect,
or the Innocence Project say you shouldn't testify.
[Chris] Because there are dentists that are willing to go into court
and spew nonsense,
we have to be resistant.
Resisting means coming to the conferences,
it means resisting them in court, it means resisting them in the media.
For many, many people in this industry,
the American Academy of Forensic Sciences' annual meeting,
it's the most important meeting of the year.
There is no manner of forensics that are not up for presentation here.
It's too short - stop.
[Chris] Separating out real science from faux science is very difficult to do.
Blood pattern analysis.
Blood decomposition.
We actually do fire investigation.
Forensic podiatry.
The science of footprints, actually.
[Chris] There are real scientists,
there are junk scientists,
and there is everything in between.
It's important to keep a finger on the pulse of what's emerging.
Cops always think that someone lit the fire.
Now we can go in and we can figure out where we're losing DNA,
and we can make it better.
[Chris] I have an opportunity to meet with the experts we're going to use in trials.
So that was, like, your first exoneration?
The science is what it is. It's either good science or bad science.
[Chris] There has to be some pushback when you just get nonsense
being spewed as scientific reality.
We're talking about life and liberty.
During this study, I trained and tested two dogs.
Very important.
Sex determination from the footprint.
In females - in females, the ridges are very fine.
[Chris] Suddenly a wild idea here
will be presented and end up putting somebody in death row.
That's what we're trying to avoid.
[man 2] Welcome to Just Science,
the podcast for forensic science professionals.
I'm your host, John Morgan.
Today we have a very special episode about the non-controversial topic
- of bite mark evidence examination. - [laughter]
You guys are ready for that, I hope.
Dick, I want to turn to you, because bite mark evidence,
it was very, very much popularized when you worked the Ted Bundy case,
which, of course, was a great success for bite mark examination.
At the trial, you said,
"They made the marks." Ted Bundy's teeth made the marks.
Would you testify in the same way today?
In a heartbeat.
- Even with the uncertainties associated... - You bet.
Yes, sir. In that case, with that kind of a bite, yes, I would.
There were so many teeth that matched,
plus the uniqueness of the fractures of his upper front teeth.
Talking about chipped teeth or unusual bite marks, anything like that,
is gross subjective speculation
masquerading as science.
What we advocate for is that the research be done,
it's done in a rigorous way,
it's repeated,
and that we know what the thresholds of the technique are.
Do you all have any special expertise from dentistry that makes you better
at bite mark examination than you would be otherwise?
We do have expertise, because we take bite records on patients all the time.
With bite marks, we know that there are changes due to temperature...
- [Chris coughs] - ...gravity, humidity,
and time on a live individual.
Now, on a dead individual, it's a totally different picture.
Any critic that wants to throw out bite mark evidence altogether
is making a huge mistake.
Forensic odontology is accepted worldwide.
Bite mark testimony was given by Dr. Richard Souviron.
He's an important member of the ABFO
which is the American Board for Forensic Odontology.
Ted Bundy's teeth had unique, distinctive features
which were clearly visible on the bite mark pattern on the victim.
Now in India, a landmark case where bite mark testimony was used
was the case from Maharashtra in which I was involved.
A fourteen-year-old girl was brutally raped and murdered.
There were protests to hang them immediately.
We need to realize what are the limitations of a science.
And at the same time realize that it would be foolish to ignore it completely.
In India, we follow guidelines from the American Board.
The ABFO guidelines.
[man] The ABFO is the standard-setter for the world
as far as it comes to bite marks.
They are the ones that say that you have the educational and practical experience
to be able to do this work.
When I was president of the ABFO,
more exonerations started coming out.
People were starting to think more research needs to be done.
If we can prove that bite marks work,
then let's do it.
So, we developed a study.
We developed 100 cases,
and those were then sent to all the diplomates,
every person that's board-certified only,
and they were asked, is it a bite mark,
is it not a bite mark,
or it's suggestive of a bite mark?
We're trying to look at levels of agreement among diplomates.
I thought, going into this research project,
that we were going to prove this first step.
And then the results started to come in.
Some of the cases are a third of the people say
that is absolutely a bite mark,
a third of the people say that's absolutely not a bite mark,
and a third of the people say, well, that's suggestive of a bite mark.
We are the ABFO,
we are the subject matter experts on this,
and we don't even agree on what a bite mark is.
This is how you do things in real life.
I'm presented a case,
and I'm asked by a police department, typically,
"Please take a look at this. Is this a bite mark?"
I'm asked to give an opinion.
I don't think there's a single case
where everybody agrees it is a bite mark.
That's where we get into trouble.
People bruise differently.
You go in and you get your blood taken,
somebody sticks a needle in you. If you have a bruise afterwards,
the needle was, you know, tiny,
and your bruise is this big.
You're making these comparisons
and, at the end of the day, really,
you're looking at a bruise.
[Eric Lander] The premise of bite mark evidence is that teeth are unique,
and that when you look at a bite into human skin,
it records that uniqueness.
There's no evidence for either of those things.
If you actually look at a bite mark, it's a mess.
You might be able to tell, oh, it's a big mouth or a little mouth.
But the whole idea
that you could tell whose mouth that was based on a bite mark,
that's just total nonsense.
[Dr. Freeman] After our study, I said,
"I'm no longer going to do bite marks for the prosecution."
It is my responsibility
to look backward and say,
"If I made a mistake, let me see if I can correct it."
It is my duty to do that.
[Dr. Souviron] There have been some egregious mistakes
with forensic dentistry.
In the Bundy era,
we were able to say, "His teeth left this bite mark,
to a reasonable degree of certainty,"
or, "Indeed and without doubt."
And that's backfired in a lot of cases.
As you can see,
these are all boxes with models of bite mark cases.
If this gives you any idea of the volume...
I mean, I'm impressed myself. These are... These are three deep.
Since the Bundy case, I have been asked
to go back and look at old bite mark cases.
In this case in Boston, I have some records,
so the attorneys called me.
He said, "Well, since you testified in 1983,
why don't you re-evaluate the evidence?"
There was a conviction. He's done,
I guess, 35 years now on... in prison.
My testimony at the trial was that
these teeth fit into the impression
to a reasonable degree of certainty.
They want to know if my testimony today
is going to be identical to what it was in 1983.
And it's not.
I can tell you, it's not going to be the same.
In 1983, I didn't have the experience that I have 35 years later.
I've become a lot more conservative in my opinions now.
"We can't eliminate this person." That's what we say today.
I hope they have a lot more than just this
for convicting a guy, putting him in jail for the rest of his life.
[Peter] People were sentenced to death as a result of these screw-ups,
and what the forensic dentists need to do,
they have a moral and ethical obligation to go back and look at all those cases
to see if there aren't more innocent people.
[man] We're now going back on record
- with tape number two. - [man 2] Okay.
I'm going to go through some of these really quickly, with the same question.
The State of Mississippi vs. Donnie Silcox...
Don't remember that one.
William Giles Jr?
Do you remember that? Wound pattern case?
- [Dr. West grunts] - No?
Stacey Lynn Waltman? State of Mississippi vs. Stacey Lynn Waltman?
You remember that case? It's a bite mark case.
State versus Charles Ralph David?
It's a bite mark ultraviolet case, do you remember anything about that case?
[Dr. West stutters]
I'm sorry. I've...
You know, you've seen one dead girl with bites on 'em, you've seen 'em all.
- Is that right? - Yeah.
Was that a dead girl case?
- I have no idea. - Oh, you don't know?
- I was just... - Okay.
Are you on any medication that makes it difficult to remember,
or are you...
- Yes. - What medication is it?
- High Life. - High Life?
- Miller High Life. - Miller High Life?
- Okay. - Yes.
- And that makes it difficult to remember... - Oh, you can forget all sorts of stuff.
[music plays inside]
[Dr. West] This is Nick's Ice House. It's a legend in Hattiesburg.
This is a place where people can come and not be bothered.
Everybody leaves everybody else's business alone.
This is our retreat. It's our clubhouse.
And this bar is a repository
for all the old signs and businesses that have closed.
West DDS, that's me.
[music continues]
My last testimony in court,
I had to go to Columbus, Mississippi for a post-conviction hearing.
[yelling] Can we turn that shit down for just a minute?
- [music stops] - Thank you very much.
I left the courtroom, went outside, sat down on the bench, got me a cigarette.
Well, here comes Peter Neufeld,
the founder of the Innocence Project,
a man that I despise and have no respect for.
He walks up to me while I'm sitting on the bench,
smoking a cigarette, and he extends his hand, he says,
"Dr. West, I'm Peter Neufeld. We've never met."
You couldn't use a D9 'dozer to move my hand to shake his.
I just ain't going to do it.
Well, that pissed him off.
So he turned and he walked about three or four steps,
there's about a dozen of his assistants and other attorneys.
I said, "Hey, hold on!"
He stopped and he turned around, and I said,
"Look, don't forget, take some time out this afternoon and go fuck yourself."
[Chris] It just takes one bad scientist
and the whole system gets it wrong.
We need to demonstrate over and over again
just how unreliable it is.
Something new that we recently learned about,
apparently a false confession case that was brought home
with bite mark evidence.
I think it's a single tooth mark on a finger.
It's not going to go away until we make it go away.
[Keith] The Innocence Project kept bugging Newport News
about any kind of evidence.
[Chris] One of our fellows called the local court in Newport News, Virginia,
to see whether or not any of the evidence still existed.
He got on the phone, he called, and a court officer picked up.
"Yeah, there's a box right here. Says 'Keith Harward' on it," right?
"Is this what you're interested in?" "Yes! Yes! Hold on to that!"
There was DNA all over the scene.
There was DNA from a diaper that was used to cover the victim's face.
There was a rape kit.
Keith Harward spent 33 years of his life in prison,
and all this evidence was sitting right there all along.
[Olga Akselrod] On average, Innocence Project cases
take about five years from the time we initially open it
to the time of exoneration.
You never know until you get the DNA test results
what's going to happen.
[Keith] They found a lab that would do the DNA,
sent it off.
They get it back.
I've been excluded.
I knew it, you know, I... [chuckles]
You're telling me something I already know. Thank you.
[Chris] After we got the results of the DNA,
the next step was to to do a CODIS search and solve the crime.
[Olga] They ran the profile through the DNA data bank,
and that's when it hits to Jerry Crotty.
[Frank] Jerry Crotty was a sailor on the Carl Vinson.
And he was in and out of prison for most of his life
up until the time he died.
[Keith] You've heard people say, "Oh, he got away with murder."
This guy actually did.
Forget about me being a victim.
The poor woman, she found out that the monster,
me, was not the monster.
[Teresa] I've never seen a picture of him.
[sighs]
It's scary.
He don't look anything like the guy that they put behind bars.
And it's not fair.
It's really not.
[man] When the criminal justice system gets it wrong,
when it fails to deliver justice,
we have to say so.
In this case, the Commonwealth got it wrong.
[Frank] I've covered a number of wrongful convictions.
Normally, it goes at a snail's pace.
This case, however,
once the Attorney General saw there'd been a cold hit,
he very quickly called a press conference
and asked the Virginia Supreme Court
to let this man out of prison and clear his name.
[Keith] I was sitting in my cell
when they shook the door and said, "They want you in Medical."
So, the guard came over and took the handcuffs off of me.
He says, "Come with me," so we walked out and turned left,
and I cross that red line.
You cross the red line, you get shot.
I didn't get shot.
They put me in this conference room, and the warden walked in,
reached over and shook my hand and said, "Mr. Harward, you're a free man."
He says, "I can't let you back into prison because you're a security risk to me.
You're a free man now."
[camera shutters click]
- [man] Do you have any words for us, sir? - My attorney's going to speak first,
and then, if I don't pass out or wet myself,
- I may have a few things to say. - [laughs]
Now, if any of y'all, later on in a couple weeks,
once I get a chance to have a breath,
y'all want to call me,
talk to me or have me come up,
put me up in the Marriott or whatever,
and sit down and discuss prisons and parole,
because I can give you firsthand facts on this stuff,
'cause I lived it for 33 years.
Sir, is this the happiest day of your life?
Probably so.
It would be overwhelming if my parents were here, but...
[Keith exhales]
I mean, wouldn't you be?
You see, I'll be able to grow a beard.
- In there, I can't do that. - [laughter]
You've got a fine beard there. I can grow me one now if I want to.
I grew up in the country.
I lived on a lake, and I would fish almost every day that I could.
I loved to be out there on the water and just fishing.
I rode my bicycle everywhere, played in the woods, hunted.
And I missed it.
Mowing the yard, raking leaves,
just goofing around.
Going to have some for the small birds, too.
A little smorgasbord of food for the birds.
Last time I cut my hair, I was in prison. In prison, you can't have long hair.
- And it's almost as long as hers. - [chuckles]
[Mary] I help him out, though.
- Yeah. - I trim it up.
- Right, she trims... - Keeps his mustache trimmed and stuff,
so you can see his lips.
And one day I'll shave it all off, start over from scratch.
Uh...
If I want to.
The State of Virginia offered me a compensation package.
$1.55 million is what they gave me.
This is my little Honda Civic.
I put mag wheels on her, she's got little mags.
My tractor, my little riding mower,
my little mini bike, I got a little Honda mini bike.
Where we're going to start it would be here,
and where we want to end up is...
Idaho Falls right there, so we've got to go from here to there.
Let me just see the map.
[Mary] He had talked about it all along,
that that was one of the things that he wanted to do,
going across country in his bus.
[Keith] There it is, that's Tater Blue.
Mary's the one that came up with the name.
My nickname in prison was Tater,
because it originally started out as Couch Potato,
because when I first got locked up, I kept to myself,
I stayed in my cell.
And over the years, it got cut down to Tater.
So I figured if I put Tater Blue on it,
one out of 100 say, "Why Tater?" and I say,
"Sit down, let me tell you a story."
That's my job now, is to tell people my story about wrongful convictions.
They're still doing bite mark cases, and this stuff should not be allowed.
This should not go on.
If there's a bite mark case that they're trying to allow,
I will show up and tell them,
"No." I will stand out front with a placard
and say, "This stuff's junk."
Maybe I can catch one juror before these odontologists come in
with all their smoke and mirrors.
[bell tolls]
- Hi, fine to meet you. - Nice to finally meet you, too.
- You doing alright? - So far, so good.
Welcome to Richmond.
Now, look, today, you're going to have about five minutes
to tell that compelling story to a panel.
You're going to have to convince 15 senators
that this bill's worthy to get to that floor
and get voted on in three days, okay?
[Keith] Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Please excuse me.
Half my life, I was a convict. Still am,
I'll never shake my being from that. That's something you just can't get past.
If it wouldn't have been for DNA, I would still be inmate 1125797.
I'll remember that number the rest of my life.
I believe, in my heart of hearts,
if you go out to all three corners of the state of Virginia,
and speak to the citizens,
explain to them we're going to pass a bill
that will allow people who were convicted behind junk science
to have a law that will help them get themselves back into court,
they would say, "There's not a law already?"
It's just that simple.
I think the people of Virginia deserve it.
I deserve it.
It's just not right. It's not right,
and if you don't understand what this bill is about,
then I'm sorry for you.
If you oppose it,
you should be ashamed.
Ashamed.
Thank you.
- Senator Lucas? - Aye.
- Senator Edwards? - Aye.
- Senator McDougle? - Aye.
- Senator Stuart? - Aye.
- So what does this mean? - It goes on to Finance.
It's the first step in the journey to get it to the floor of the Senate.
So we expect it probably on the floor of the Senate next week.
Outstanding.
I enjoyed that.
Outstanding.
Been there, done that, many times.
- [Senator] I rise for an introduction. - [man 2] The senator has the floor.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Members of the Senate and those in the gallery,
I would direct your attention to our gallery,
where we have a very important person
sitting here and observing us today.
And this is a person who has had a great injustice
brought upon him by the Commonwealth of Virginia,
who spent 33 years in prison
for a crime he did not commit.
Mr. Harward has spent his time since his release
making sure that those who are innocent
are not wrongfully convicted.
So for those reasons, I ask that you look upon Mr. Keith Allen Harward
with admiration and recognition,
and accept our apology from the Commonwealth of Virginia
for being wrongfully convicted
and for that 33-year loss of liberty.
Mr. President, I ask that you extend the warmest of welcome
to Keith Allen Harward.
Would Mr. Keith Allen Harward please rise to the gallery, if you are able?
I would ask everyone to join me
in extending the warmest welcome of the Senate to Mr. Keith Allen Harward.
[applause]
- [man] Could I have your name? - [Gloria] Gloria Williams.
All right, and the name on the monument?
Levon.
- Spell that for me, please? - L-E-V-O-N.
L-E-V-O-N.
[Gloria] Brooks.
[man] And date of death?
Um, January 26th,
2018.
I think he's going to like this.
He's gonna like it 'cause I like it. [laughs]
I think he's gonna smile down on me.
- Levon would like a day like today. - He would.
- Every day. - Every day.
- Good to see you. - Oh, yeah.
[laughing]
[quiet chatter]
- [Peter] Hello. - [Gloria] Hey, Peter!
I want a good hello.
- How you doing, ma'am? - I'm good.
- [Peter] You got the whole crew? - [Gloria] Yes, the whole crew is out here.
- [Peter] That's wonderful. - [Gloria] You remember Mama?
I do.
- Hi. Peter. - This is my son.
Hey.
We was wrong, and I don't know how we could have...
- been so foolish. - I know.
- But we were. - It's not fair. Yeah.
[man] "I will lift mine eyes unto the hills
from whence cometh my help.
My help come from the Lord.
The Lord is thy keeper.
The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil.
He shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out
and the Lord shall preserve thy coming in,
from this day forward
and forevermore. Amen."
[all] Amen.
[Peter] The day comes when you walk somebody into freedom, and...
you are bonded for life.
Levon and Kenny are family.
He was locked up for 18 years and only had ten years to live after that.
It's not fair.
It's much too short.
[minister] By God, we ask you, God, to go along with those that came...
[Peter] To change people's hearts and minds about criminal justice,
people really have to care more about accuracy
and reliability than they care about retribution.
We want to try and set aside all of our preconceived notions
about what kind of person is innocent
and what kind of person is guilty
to make it less likely
that innocent people will be convicted in the future.
Levon died,
but his story lives on.
[woman] 62-year-old Gary Cifizzari walking out of court a free man
for the first time in 35 years.
There's a death penalty case in Pennsylvania that's going on now,
and the judge is going to allow bite mark evidence.
How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize
that this stuff's all bogus?
[closing theme music playing]