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0:29

Just start by telling me your first and last name and

0:31

spelling. My name is Ramon Avilas,

0:34

RAM0N, Avilas,

0:36

a as in

0:37

apple, v as in Victor, ILES. What

0:40

jury number were you? I was jury number six.

0:47

Jear number six. He was

0:49

the one who that eighty four year old witness,

0:52

Dorothy Kennedy, picked out as the gunman.

0:55

To me, it was one of the strangest moments

0:57

in JJ's trial. I

1:00

got in touch with Ramon in twenty eleven

1:02

more than decade after JJ's conviction.

1:05

And he still remembered that

1:06

moment. She

1:08

pointed me out, which

1:11

was something I never than

1:13

expected, but it

1:15

was laughed at or like it was funny

1:17

in a sense. I caught onto

1:19

it because I saw the other jurors looking at me.

1:22

And when I realized I went, oh,

1:25

did she just pick me out? It

1:27

was like, now there's something wrong with

1:29

that. You know? I mean, here

1:31

she is she's at the witness stand

1:33

and she's pointing at the jury box. After

1:37

that happens and you're in a deliberation room,

1:39

How do you vote

1:41

guilty? That's a tough

1:44

one. That's definitely a tough one.

1:47

It kept coming back to the girlfriend.

1:50

Ramon told me some of the jurors didn't believe

1:52

JJ's girlfriend Vanessa when she testified

1:54

that he'd been at home talking with his mother

1:56

the morning of the murder. They

1:59

thought Vanessa was covering for JJ. And

2:01

once they doubted Vanessa's

2:03

story, they had trouble believing JJ

2:05

and his mom too. What

2:06

was

2:06

the first vote? Do you remember the first vote? It was

2:09

pretty much split in the middle, almost

2:11

to being guilty and upset.

2:13

Actually, there was some emotions there that were

2:15

pretty you can see people

2:18

feeling it. Emotion wise. It got

2:20

pretty heated after a while. Yeah. He's in the room.

2:22

Heated plenty of times. In that way.

2:24

I mean, first of all, bickering. It was going

2:26

back and forth, you know, back and forth between

2:28

innocent and killed. Some people weren't

2:30

sure. For me, it was lack of

2:32

evidence state that he was at that location.

2:35

He says the jurors were stressed and

2:37

worn out, especially because they had

2:39

been sequestered. They couldn't go home

2:41

until they reached the verdict. Remember,

2:44

the jury got the case on a Wednesday and deliberated

2:46

for three full days. Think it was

2:48

Friday, if I recall. And a

2:50

lot of jurors were discussing about all,

2:52

I'm gonna lose out on my weekend. I'm,

2:54

well, you know, some people say they had to work, some people,

2:56

you know, a lot of a lot of you can see that

2:58

it was getting to them. We

3:01

we were all tired, we were frustrated. It

3:03

got to a point that it was just you can see

3:05

the toll it was taking especially on

3:07

some of the older

3:09

jurors that were like, you can see, you know, people

3:12

talking about they need to get back into their life.

3:14

But

3:14

you knew what was on the line? Yes. Cors

3:16

is a man's life on the line. That's

3:19

something I've never done that before.

3:22

You know, you're about to put somebody away, but

3:24

I didn't wanna think that way. But that

3:26

was the case. And

3:31

then once we announced the verdict,

3:34

it didn't feel good at all. The

3:37

only thing I can do is just look at the mother

3:39

and turn away because I didn't know what to do after

3:41

that. I thought I made a mistake.

3:45

I really think I didn't do the right thing.

3:48

I'd already had my own doubts about JJ's

3:50

conviction. But what this juror

3:52

told me took it to a whole new level,

3:55

and it turns out he wasn't the only juror

3:57

that felt that way. On

4:01

Dan's leppy and this

4:03

is letters from Sing Sing. Episode

4:18

four. Peer pressure.

4:23

I am driving out to Long Island right now

4:25

to see this cure. To

4:27

hear what she has to say, so

4:30

we'll see what she says.

4:32

I tracked down another juror from JJ's

4:34

trial. She agreed to meet with me

4:36

as LONG AS I DIDN'T DISCLOSE HER NAME.

4:42

HOW ARE YOU? WHEN SHE SEES ME, SHE IMMEDIALLY

4:44

STARTS TO TEAR UP. So

4:47

you walk into this room crying. Yeah.

4:50

Why? Because they

4:52

just I ruin somebody's life.

4:55

That's how I feel life. It

4:58

was just I don't know how else

5:00

to explain it. It's just such

5:02

a horrible feeling to have over your

5:05

head. This is the only I'm so lucky

5:07

because this is the only regret I've never had

5:09

that anything. And

5:11

I just feel so responsible because

5:13

if I would have held my ground and said, no.

5:15

And okay, how long were here

5:17

for? Because I never thought

5:19

he was guilt I never thought he was

5:21

guilty from the get go. I never thought he was

5:23

guilty.

5:23

So why did you defy the way you felt?

5:26

Because III felt the pressure,

5:29

the immense pressure in that room.

5:31

There were a few older people, and they were like,

5:33

this is ridiculous. He killed the cop,

5:35

and this Like, he didn't

5:38

kill the

5:38

cop. You don't know that.

5:40

Tell me about the deliberations. Okay.

5:44

After we got out, you know, the first

5:46

day of trial, everyone was like exhausted.

5:49

And we were all trying to

5:51

figure out, like, a timeline that

5:55

would make sense because we got all

5:57

this information, but

5:59

None of it made sense.

6:01

For the people who were saying that he was guilty

6:04

and they were so certain about that, what

6:06

was do you remember what their argument was?

6:08

Between me and you, I think some

6:10

of those people, and I don't know if I'm correct

6:12

in saying this. I think some of the people in that

6:14

room might have been racist. Because

6:17

all they knew, all they had in their head

6:19

was, there's a cop

6:21

that's

6:21

dead. We have to defend the police. That's

6:24

it. And I remember saying this is

6:26

a twenty I don't know -- Right. -- twenty

6:28

three year old kid. That's what I said,

6:30

he's a young boy. We're gonna put

6:32

someone in prison for the rest

6:34

of their life and we're not a hundred percent

6:37

sure, they

6:40

were totally reasonable down. That's

6:42

why I have such high emotion because in

6:44

my heart of hearts, I knew he was

6:46

innocent. But I could not

6:49

I could not

6:50

get enough people to

6:53

see that point.

6:56

Now you're sequester. Do you remember being sequester?

6:58

Yep. We would taken in that little

7:00

van, I don't know, to some place in

7:02

Queens, I think by LaGuardia Airport.

7:05

That's where we weren't. We all in our separate

7:07

rooms and it was horrible. It's horrible. Horrible.

7:09

Horrible. Who could sleep? I couldn't even sleep.

7:14

So take me to this moment now on

7:16

Friday afternoon at that final vote.

7:19

Friday afternoon, I

7:21

think there was just two of us left

7:23

that said, he's innocent. We

7:26

believe he's innocent. It's,

7:28

like, everyone was, like, leaning in, looking,

7:30

like, come on, come on, like, we wanna go home.

7:33

Basically. That's what it was. It's like a

7:35

life against we wanna go

7:36

home. And it

7:39

just said, Alright.

7:44

What is going through your mind when everyone is

7:46

staring at you in that moment? Complete.

7:49

Peer pressure. People would

7:52

would be mad because then it would have meant

7:54

going back to be sequestered

7:56

for Saturday. You

7:58

didn't want to hang in long enough

8:01

to make it a hung jury?

8:02

I guess I don't think I understood

8:06

that I could do that. Because if I

8:08

thought I

8:08

could, I would have done that. What

8:12

you're essentially saying to me is

8:14

that JJ was

8:16

convicted not necessarily because

8:18

of the facts or the

8:19

evidence, but because the jury was tired and wanted

8:21

to go home. Is that true?

8:24

I I'd have to say yes. I think that's

8:27

that's the truth. Yes.

8:29

When

8:30

the jury headed back into the courtroom to

8:32

deliver the verdict, She says she felt

8:34

horrible.

8:35

Everyone, you know, like, looked at us and

8:37

I remember he was looking at us and

8:43

I cut my, you know, my head down

8:46

a lot of times and they

8:48

went around and asked us each,

8:51

you know, what we thought with

8:53

each charge

8:56

And then they said, thank

8:58

you very much for your service. We

9:00

got up. Did you look

9:02

at him?

9:03

Oh my god. I couldn't know.

9:06

I couldn't look at him. I walked out. And

9:08

as soon as I got, I guess, in

9:10

the hallway right beyond the courtroom,

9:13

very close to the judge's chamber. I

9:15

just lost it. I just started crying.

9:17

And he pulled me in. He goes sit down.

9:20

He goes, calm down. Calm down. He

9:22

goes, you did, you know, you did a service.

9:24

You did the right thing. And I was

9:25

like, I don't think I did the right. How

9:29

long did it sit with you? To

9:32

a while ago. I mean Man, it

9:34

looks like it still is. It is. Because

9:36

it's a terrible thing. I you

9:39

know, we have a house

9:41

upstate. We would drive by like,

9:43

I knew Ossining and I knew Ossining,

9:46

and then when I when I connected

9:48

everything, but my husband's,

9:50

like, watch me, like, look out the window and he's

9:52

like, what's up? Because I haven't really.

9:55

I I spoke to him about this a little, but

9:57

he has no idea how upset.

10:02

I was about it. It's just a horrible

10:05

a horrible thing that I carry around

10:07

and because I've ruined somebody's life.

10:11

You you feel like you did the wrong

10:13

thing. Totally did. From the beginning, though.

10:15

From the beginning.

10:20

It was hard for me to process what I just

10:22

heard. On the one hand,

10:24

I felt enormous empathy for this juror.

10:27

She seemed honest and vulnerable, and

10:29

she didn't have to talk to me,

10:32

but said this had been weighing on her conscience.

10:35

That she'd been haunted by her decision to

10:37

convict JJ since the day of the verdict.

10:40

But

10:41

on the other hand, she believed he was innocent.

10:43

And still voted to convict

10:45

because of peer pressure.

10:53

That fact alone made me wonder if

10:55

the jury hadn't been sequester, would

10:57

JJ have been convicted? We'll

11:02

obviously never know the answer to that question.

11:05

But here's something interesting. In

11:07

two thousand one, nineteen

11:09

months after JJ was found guilty, New

11:11

York state changed the law. It's

11:14

no longer standard practice to sequester

11:16

juries in criminal cases.

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11:56

Time for a quick break

11:58

to talk about another great deal at McDonald's. If

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12:24

By the time I got in touch with those jurors,

12:26

I had been digging into JJ's case for

12:28

nearly a decade. I'd

12:30

spoken to eyewitnesses, interviewed

12:32

dozens of people with thousands of

12:34

pages of documents. I

12:36

finally felt like I had enough to produce an

12:38

hour of TV for Dateline. But

12:41

there was still one big thing that

12:43

had been bothering me from the very beginning.

12:46

Two men had entered the numbers spot that day.

12:48

The shooter had an accomplice, the

12:50

man with duct tape, Gary Daniels. JJ

12:54

swore he didn't know Daniels had never even

12:56

said a word to him. So what

12:58

if anything connected them? Here's

13:02

what I knew from my investigation. Dairy

13:04

Daniels had a long criminal record,

13:06

including convictions for drug possession,

13:09

assault, and robbery. He

13:11

never brought up JJ in a statement to the

13:13

police. The Manhattan DA

13:15

offered Daniels a deal, twelve

13:17

years if he pleaded guilty to the crime.

13:20

He took it. When

13:23

Daniels appeared in front of a judge, he

13:25

gave what's called a plea alocution

13:27

to establish the facts of what happened the day

13:29

of the crime. The prosecutor asked

13:32

him, can you tell us what was your role and

13:34

what was mister Velasquez's role? Daniel

13:37

said, my role, I was duct tapeing.

13:40

Then the prosecutor said, what was mister Velasquez

13:42

doing? And Daniel said,

13:44

his role was the gunman. That's

13:47

basically it. Daniels

13:49

never even said JJ's name. And

13:52

neither the judge nor the boss secular

13:54

asked for any more details. Like,

13:57

how did you know JJ? How was this

13:59

plan hatched? Nothing.

14:02

And then Daniels disappeared from

14:04

the case. He never testified

14:07

at JJ's trial. By

14:13

twenty eleven, Daniels had done his time

14:16

and was out of prison. It wasn't

14:18

easy to track him down, but I finally found

14:20

out he was living in Newark, New Jersey.

14:23

I drove to his place and knocked on the

14:25

door. No one answered. So

14:27

I sat outside for hours, waiting for him

14:29

to come home.

14:32

When he finally did, I approached him on his

14:34

front steps. Daniels

14:37

was hostile. He made it very

14:39

clear he didn't want to talk, and

14:41

then he slammed the door in my face. That

14:45

was a dead end. But

14:49

I did try for months to find any

14:51

connection between Derry Daniels and JJ.

14:54

I looked up all of their addresses as well

14:56

as their relatives to see if they'd ever lived

14:58

in the same

14:59

neighborhood. I spoke with dozens of

15:01

people. I tried to find anything,

15:03

anything that could link the two of them.

15:07

But I found nothing. And by the

15:09

way, neither did the police or prosecutors. They

15:12

did interviews. They checked prison visitor

15:14

records and call logs, but

15:17

they couldn't find any connection either. Other

15:20

than Daniel's plea alocution, there

15:22

was absolutely no evidence that

15:24

these two men who'd been accused

15:27

of committing a murder together had

15:29

ever even met each other. It

15:36

seemed obvious to me that John Adrian

15:38

Velasquez did not get a fair trial.

15:41

There was so much the jury hadn't heard.

15:43

And so much of the evidence

15:45

that did convict JJ no longer

15:47

held up. But I'm not a lawyer.

15:50

So I wanted to talk it through with someone who

15:52

is. Someone I've known for

15:54

years, someone who knows a

15:56

lot about wrongful convictions. I'm

15:59

Barry Scheck, I'm co founder and

16:01

special counsel of the innocence project

16:04

and a professor of law at the Benjaminend

16:06

Cardoso School of Law.

16:08

Barry is basically the godfather of the

16:10

American innocence movement. In

16:12

nineteen ninety two, he and Peter Newfeld

16:14

cofounded the innocence project. It's

16:16

dedicated to freeing innocent people and preventing

16:19

wrongful convictions. I recently

16:21

met up with him. So let's start from the

16:23

beginning, and I'm just gonna give you some

16:26

details about his case, and then you tell me

16:28

what you think factors would play into that.

16:30

So this murder happened at the end of January nineteen

16:32

ninety eight, at an illegal numbers parlor

16:35

in Harlem, a retired police officer,

16:37

ran that illegal numbers parlor, and it

16:39

was in the confines of the precinct in

16:41

which he used to work. So

16:44

when these two guys come in and they rob the place

16:47

and the retired officer is down,

16:49

a huge presence shows up to command units,

16:52

they start arresting people right away. Well,

16:54

in the literature of wrongful convictions,

16:56

which goes way back before the innocent's

16:59

project, This was known in the

17:01

trade as a quote unquote heater case.

17:03

A heater case is one that attracts lot

17:05

of media attention. Barry says

17:08

in these cases, there's often a rush to make an

17:10

arrest, and that did lead to mistakes.

17:12

I can show you in the

17:14

animals of wrongful convictions that

17:17

you were in big trouble if it

17:20

involved the death of a police

17:22

officer on the force who retired.

17:25

All stops were pulled up. There

17:27

is gonna be a focus on solving

17:29

that

17:30

case, and all the formalities

17:32

are pushed aside. You're gonna try

17:34

to get that done. So the

17:36

reason JJ became a suspect

17:39

was because one of the eyewitnesses

17:42

who took off after the murder

17:45

was found two days later on the street

17:47

selling heroin, and the police bring him

17:49

to the precinct. He admittedly

17:52

has ten bags of heroin in his underwear,

17:54

They put it on the table in front of him.

17:57

And then he proceeds to look at

17:59

mug shots, mug shots, mug shots,

18:01

more than two hundred and thirty

18:02

pages. Just that

18:05

scene alone. What does that tell you?

18:07

Well, first of all, he has an enormous

18:09

incentive to make an

18:12

identification because

18:14

he's gonna wanna help the police. He

18:16

has a natural incentive to

18:18

get a deal. I mean, he's

18:21

sitting there with the bags of heroin.

18:23

They're gonna ignore the bags of heroin or

18:25

they're gonna help him out with the

18:26

case. If he can identify

18:28

somebody. What do you make at the fact though that

18:31

he looks at hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of

18:33

mugshots? Is that a good way of identifying

18:35

a

18:35

suspect? Well,

18:35

we all know that it isn't. It is extraordinarily

18:38

dangerous to do what

18:40

we call trolling. What all

18:42

the studies show is that this

18:45

trolling method is

18:47

asking for a wrongful conviction.

18:50

Trolling, that's exactly what happened

18:52

when the key eyewitness, Augustus Brown,

18:54

was shown all those mugshots.

18:56

Think of it as searching for a needle in a haystack

18:59

if the needle is even in there. Trailing

19:01

is considered so error

19:03

prone. It's no longer widely used.

19:05

There's lots of studies that

19:07

show that before you show

19:10

a photo array to a witness, you

19:13

would get more accurate identifications

19:17

if you had some evidence

19:19

that the person who is the suspect

19:23

in that array has something to

19:25

do with the crime. In

19:27

other words, Barry says this process should

19:29

be about confirming a potential suspects.

19:32

Not finding one. If

19:34

you were to witness a crime or somebody, anybody,

19:36

were to witness a crime. And a couple days

19:38

later, you take that person and show them hundreds

19:41

of pictures, do you think they

19:43

would get it right more often or

19:45

wrong more

19:45

often? But we actually have numbers on this, Dan,

19:48

that eyewitnesses make

19:51

a mistake about a third

19:53

of the time. This comes from both

19:55

data in the laboratories where we conduct

19:57

eyewitness experiments and also archival

20:00

footage. And how can I be so sure of that

20:02

number of the third? Because they

20:05

go in and they select

20:07

what's known as a filler. That

20:09

is to say the person in the photo

20:11

array or the live lineup who

20:13

you know is not the suspect.

20:16

Who you just pulled off the street, right,

20:18

had nothing to do with the crime. A

20:20

third of the

20:21

time, they'll pick a filler. In

20:23

fact, he says eyewitness misidentification is

20:26

the leading cause of wrongful convictions. We're

20:28

just not very good at accurately remembering

20:31

what we saw, especially as more

20:33

time passes. That's why the

20:35

initial description a witness gives to police

20:37

is so important. In this

20:39

case, all the eyewitnesses initially

20:41

described the shooter as a light skin black

20:44

man. But three days later,

20:46

JJ, who's not a black man,

20:48

was picked out. And

20:51

that raises another issue with JJ's

20:53

case.

20:54

Now, he's in a photo array and

20:57

he should not be in that photo ray, and

20:59

I'll tell you exactly why. The

21:02

person should be selected based

21:04

on the description given

21:07

by the witness. So you

21:09

don't put in the photo array

21:12

a light skin Hispanic. You

21:14

would wanna get six people

21:17

in addition to the suspect

21:20

that matched the initial description.

21:22

So JJ's case, there should have

21:24

been light skinned black men with braids.

21:27

That's what they should have had. Absolutely.

21:29

And he should never have been exposed or

21:31

anybody that looked like him should have been

21:33

exposed. Under any scenario. Under any

21:35

scenario. So so from day one

21:37

of JJ's case, literally, the day one

21:39

he gets involved.

21:41

If I understand you correctly, because

21:44

the detective knew the description was a light

21:46

skinned black man with braids, as soon as Augustus

21:48

Brown picked him out after hundreds

21:50

of pictures, there should have been a high

21:52

level of

21:52

skepticism. Well, they should not

21:54

a high level of skepticism. It shouldn't have

21:57

happened in the first place. The

21:59

act of making an identification

22:02

is cognitively difficult.

22:05

And there are many, many factors that

22:07

have to be accounted for in

22:09

order to increase reliability. You

22:11

wanna give a warning to a witness.

22:14

I'm gonna show you a series of people

22:16

or photographs And if you don't

22:18

see anybody that's familiar to

22:20

you, don't worry, the

22:22

process will continue. That

22:24

warning will cut down the

22:26

number of misidentifications by twenty

22:29

five percent Why? Because

22:32

people wanna help So that's one.

22:35

Number two, whoever is in that

22:38

photo lineup or live lineup

22:40

has to match the description given

22:43

of the assailant. Right? And

22:45

that

22:46

was not done in this case. That was not done in this

22:48

case. And I should emphasize

22:51

most important of all The identification

22:54

procedure should be double blind.

22:56

That is to say that the person

22:58

who is showing the photos or arranging the

23:00

live lineup should not know

23:02

who the suspect is because

23:05

they might subliminally suggest stating

23:07

someone. It's not even an

23:09

issue. It's cognitive bias.

23:11

It's human nature. People will

23:13

have facial expressions. Right?

23:15

Especially when you're in aged in the competitive

23:18

enterprise of trying to catch the bad guy.

23:21

Right? If somebody comes in and points

23:23

to the person that you've spent

23:25

all this time investigating and believe committed

23:28

the

23:28

crime, you know, you're gonna betray something.

23:30

So

23:30

the fact that the lead detective knew JJ was

23:33

a suspect and conducted the live lineup

23:35

was a problem. Of course, it's a problem.

23:37

It's a huge problem. It's one of the

23:39

key factors in leading to wrongful

23:42

misidentifications. I

23:50

also asked Barry about JJ's alleged

23:52

accomplice, Gary Daniels. JJ

23:55

says he doesn't even know the guy. How

23:57

does that Like, I don't I really

23:59

don't understand how these

24:01

two people who have never met each other before

24:03

that the detectives who are responsible for putting these

24:05

people in prison have no theory about

24:07

how they committed the

24:09

crime? Well, just as an ordinary

24:11

investigative step, if

24:13

you have a two person crime, and they

24:15

appear to be acting in concert. You would

24:17

figure that the people have some connection or

24:19

newage each other in some way.

24:22

Right? Right. But if there's no connection

24:24

between these two guys, any trained

24:26

investigator would

24:27

say, that's a problem. But

24:29

if

24:29

if you're a guardian of the law and

24:32

justice, How do you prosecute a

24:34

guy if you don't know how his accomplice knows him?

24:37

With difficulty. You

24:40

wanna know how and you wanna know Where

24:42

did you meet him? When did you meet him?

24:45

When did you guys go out and get the gun?

24:47

Where did you meet beforehand? Everybody

24:49

should know. So why isn't anybody asking? It's

24:53

it's it that part is troubling.

24:57

When you look at the blades of grass, of

24:59

this case, what troubles

25:01

me about it now more than

25:03

anything is that I don't

25:05

understand how they could possibly

25:08

believe JJ was guilty because there's

25:10

no theory of the crime.

25:11

Look, we keep on talking about this as an eyewitness

25:14

case. Alright? But this is an

25:16

alibi case, first and foremost.

25:19

The problem the jury's always have

25:22

is alibi witnesses are

25:24

notoriously difficult for

25:27

jurors to believe in because invariably

25:31

you are with your loved ones. Right?

25:34

People will have the reaction that

25:36

the the jury Yeah. Which is

25:38

how am I gonna believe his mother? How

25:40

am I gonna leave the mother of his children?

25:43

Right? They have every incentive to

25:45

lie. And that's what

25:47

makes alibi testimony

25:49

so difficult. For,

25:52

you know, a defense lawyer to put on

25:54

persuasively. Barry had

25:56

told me that JJ's case was riddled

25:58

with problems. From the investigation all

26:00

the way through the prosecution. But

26:03

what I kept coming back to was how it all

26:05

began. The

26:08

whole case against JJ led back

26:10

to a single moment. The

26:12

moment Augustus Brown picked out his mugshot.

26:15

Barry had told me that JJ's picture should

26:17

have never been shown to him. But

26:20

I learned it went beyond that. JJ's

26:22

mugshot shouldn't have been in the police

26:24

database in the first place. Here's

26:27

why. In the year

26:29

before his arrest, for the murder of Al Ward,

26:31

JJ was shopping at the Gap in New York.

26:34

He says as he was getting into his car, a police

26:36

officer stopped him and accused him of shoplifting.

26:39

He wasn't. He had receipts

26:41

for everything, but the officer searched

26:43

his car anyway. And in the glove

26:45

compartment, he found some drugs. JJ

26:49

was arrested. His mugshot was taken.

26:52

But a judge later determined that it had

26:54

been an illegal search. The

26:56

case was thrown out and the record sealed.

26:59

And that mugshot, it

27:02

was supposed to be removed from the police database,

27:05

but it wasn't. And

27:07

that was the mugshot that Augustus

27:09

Brown picked out.

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28:18

So what I wanna do is kinda get a moment in

28:20

time of where we are. Here

28:22

we are April second two thousand eleven.

28:24

Mhmm. What's going on? Why are we

28:26

here? What's been happening in the in the

28:28

family? I'm

28:30

with JJ's mom, Maria. We're going

28:32

to see JJ's older son, John.

28:35

How old is he now?

28:36

He's six teen, he's

28:37

gonna be seventeen in August. It's

28:39

been almost two years since John told me

28:41

about the time he was chased by an undercover

28:43

police officer.

28:45

Nothing happened then, but now

28:47

he's got into some trouble. He

28:51

got involved with the wrong crowd in the street

28:53

and just kept becoming one

28:55

big problem after another. And

28:58

although he's very smart and when he applies

29:00

himself in school, he does well.

29:02

He wasn't, you know, going to school, he

29:04

wasn't doing what he needed to do, and,

29:07

you know, the family court got involved,

29:09

and then he got into situation with another

29:12

kid and the cops were involved,

29:14

and that's why he's here at the Phoenix Academy

29:16

trying to get his life together and understanding

29:19

that, you know, you have to learn how to

29:21

how to cope with your problems in different

29:23

ways. The Phoenix sounds Academy

29:26

is a residential program for kids who have gotten

29:28

into trouble with the law. A judge

29:30

ordered John to spend six months

29:32

here.

29:33

How much do you think his dad's incarceration

29:35

has TO DO WITH WHAT HE'S GOING THROUGH

29:37

NOW?

29:39

IT WAS SAD BECAUSE IT WAS SORT OF LIKE HE

29:41

WANTED TO BE HIS FATHER

29:43

Like he told me one day, I'm gangster,

29:46

and I said, you're not gangster. And

29:48

and if you're saying you're gangster because you think

29:50

your father is gangster, your father is not gangster.

29:52

You know that your father, you know, didn't

29:55

do what they say that he did. you

29:57

know, if if you wanna be your father, then

29:59

you'd be your father, your father is

30:01

a decent human being who's

30:03

trying to make his life

30:04

better. It's not about being

30:06

in the street. We

30:09

jump into her car and head to the Phoenix Academy.

30:12

John's been given permission to leave for weekend

30:14

to spend time with his grandma. It's

30:17

probably anxious. I'm

30:20

a little late. Oh, wait wait. When

30:25

he comes out, I can't believe how much

30:27

he's changed.

30:29

Wow. Do you guys look like your problems? Yeah.

30:35

He's almost as big as you.

30:38

Seriously, he's changed? No. I know. Braces

30:41

are off.

30:43

We head to a small coffee shop. It's

30:45

noisy inside. John tells

30:47

me what it's been like for him at the Phoenix Academy.

30:51

So I had to take this in the management course.

30:53

And when I first came in, like, I'm

30:55

not gonna lie, have have been having anger since

30:57

I was young, like, sometimes I don't know how

30:59

control it. Sometimes it's just

31:01

something that happens, and I I've

31:03

I've blacked out. So And he

31:05

had, like, they had told me something called Corporal

31:08

Scopes. Corporal Scopes is

31:10

They see, like, when I'm mad, I just go to

31:12

my room and think, or play cards, or

31:15

read letters, like, something that's gonna keep

31:17

my mind of what just happened. Not,

31:20

like, to keep it inside me,

31:22

but to to let it out on weight as

31:24

positive,

31:25

not to retire being a negative weight.

31:28

Did

31:28

you ever thought about why you get so mad at it?

31:31

Sometime I like to blame it on my father,

31:33

but then, like, I don't want to because

31:35

it's again, it's, like, my life. Like, it's my choice

31:37

is why I get my life. I don't like the fact that

31:39

he's not gonna pay. Certain things

31:41

get me mad. Like, when I see

31:44

people with their father, like, kinda doing

31:46

things I can't do, like, knowing school

31:48

when they when they have, like, parent teacher

31:50

conference. You know when there's a lot

31:52

of school, they always ask about your parents You

31:54

gotta tell them where your father's at. It got

31:57

me mad, but I got over it, and I

31:59

really believe my father's medicine. That's why I don't bug

32:01

me too much.

32:09

I first met John and his brother Jacob

32:11

when they were just little kids. I'd

32:13

watch them grow. And over the years,

32:15

I'd seen the toll JJ's incarceration had

32:18

taken on them, especially John.

32:21

Now he was almost seventeen, old

32:24

enough to visit his father on his own.

32:26

He'd never done this before. On

32:33

the Dave John's visit, I wanted to know how

32:35

JJ was feeling about all this. I

32:37

was allowed to stop by his cell before his

32:39

son showed

32:40

up. Let's talk about

32:42

this visit today. What is different?

32:44

What's different about today is this.

32:47

I've been incarcerated over twelve years.

32:49

I've never had the opportunity to just spend

32:51

a few hours with just him. He's

32:54

never had an individual time where it

32:56

was just father and

32:57

son. He doesn't know what that is. I

32:59

don't know what that

33:00

is. You know, and today,

33:02

we're gonna find out what that's about. You

33:05

know, we're the time is just me and

33:06

him. The focus is just me

33:08

and him.

33:10

There's a lot that I would like to say that I've never

33:13

been able to say and part

33:15

of it is I really wanna know how my

33:17

incarceration has affected

33:18

him. I got permission

33:21

from both JJ and the prison to tape the

33:23

visit. In

33:25

the prison's visiting room, JJ sneaks

33:27

up on his son from behind. He

33:29

wraps his arms around John and gives him

33:31

a kiss. Love

33:35

you. Love you too.

33:39

How you been?

33:41

I just made five months to name my program. Five

33:44

months?

33:44

Definitely growing, man. What's

33:47

lifelike, man? Don't

33:50

know. I

33:52

now respond to the same

33:54

thing every day. Basically, like,

33:56

so much what you do. I do the same thing every

33:58

day. Yeah. I do the same every day.

34:01

Yeah.

34:01

What do you think your biggest issue is that

34:03

you need help with? Be honest

34:05

to yourself. I'm not I'm not going a lot.

34:08

Only thing is anger. We've got a lot

34:10

of anger. I'm not going a lot. Like,

34:12

have you figured out when that anger is coming out.

34:14

So we cannot go up has to

34:16

do it. What happened with me. Right? Yeah.

34:19

A lot of them do that. I felt you'd there would be different.

34:21

I I know I know I wouldn't do where I'm at right now.

34:23

I was there.

34:26

I know that what's happened to you

34:28

is a product of what happened to me,

34:30

and you have a right to be angry about that.

34:33

You have a right to be upset, but we're gonna

34:35

have to find a way to deal with it together

34:37

because you being angry is leading

34:40

to what, And

34:42

I'm leading to anything

34:43

positive. I don't want you to live this

34:45

life, Jake. I don't want you to live this

34:48

life. You have to choose your own path

34:50

for

34:50

life, but you have

34:52

to make that choice. You're

34:54

sixteen. You're about to turn seventeen. Do

34:57

you know the seriousness of a seventeen

34:59

year old committing a crime? What's gonna happen to you?

35:02

A seventeen year old ain't gonna get over the way a fifteen

35:04

year old

35:05

dude. You're not going back to another

35:07

program if you make the wrong choice

35:09

again. I

35:13

I wanna go I always want little college. I

35:16

wanna go on I wanna go on to business,

35:18

and I'm not really sure what what

35:20

else, but right now it's business.

35:22

Alright. You need to apply your vision. And

35:25

say that I'm gonna take this and

35:27

use this. For me,

35:30

you need to look for those out opportunities. The

35:33

only difference between obstacles and opportunities

35:36

is how we use them. Prison is

35:38

an obstacle for

35:39

me. But I've used

35:41

it as an opportunity. I'm

35:43

gonna get a bachelor's in behavioral

35:45

science, so I'm finally gonna get a degree.

35:48

You know what I'm saying? The

35:50

only way to predict the future is by

35:53

create. That's one of my favorite

35:55

quotes.

35:56

What I'm

35:57

trying to tell you is that, look

35:59

at how life is because

36:02

your choice from this point

36:04

on, when you get out of Phoenix house,

36:06

your choices will predict where

36:09

you rest your head. Don't

36:13

automatically assume because your father's incarcerated

36:15

for a crime, you didn't commit that that's gonna happen

36:17

to you. That is not your future, Jay.

36:20

That is not your future.

36:28

JJ likes to say the only way to predict

36:31

the future is by creating. That's

36:33

what he did all those years ago when he wrote

36:35

me that first letter He

36:38

challenged me to look into his case, to

36:40

find the truth. I

36:42

finally felt like I

36:43

had, AND NOW MILLIONS

36:45

OF OTHERS WOULD KNOW HIS STORY TOO. Adrienne:

36:49

WELCOME TO DATE LINE, EVERYONE. I'M LESTER

36:51

HALT. It was one of the first

36:53

murders of the year. On

36:54

February twelve, twenty twelve at seven

36:57

PM, eastern day. My hour about JJ

36:59

aired nationally on

37:00

Dateline. THEY YOUNG MAN WHO WAS CONVICTED

37:02

OF THAT MURDER HAS NOW SPENT ALMOST HALF

37:04

HIS LIFE BEHIND

37:05

BARS. YET MANY SAY

37:07

HE SHOULDN'T HAVE SPENT A SINGLE DAY.

37:10

IT'S A STORY THAT NIGHT PEOPLE ALL

37:12

ACROSS THE COUNTRY LEARNED ABOUT J. J. AND

37:14

HIS FIGHT TO OVERSURN HIS CONVICTION. A

37:16

FIGHT. Was about to enter a

37:18

new phase.

37:23

Dear Dan, one thing I can honestly

37:26

say is that I have never felt so close

37:28

to freedom

37:28

before. I understand the odds

37:31

and I know what we're up against,

37:33

but I also know my heart. We

37:36

are almost there. Next

37:44

time.

37:45

Right from the beginning, I knew there

37:48

was a problem.

37:48

It was an interrogation. It was a three

37:51

hour interrogation. They had no interest

37:53

in the truth. They had no interest.

37:56

And whether I was innocent or guilty.

37:58

We can end all of this tonight,

38:01

I need somebody here.

38:03

And the response

38:04

was, why are you calling me on

38:06

a Sunday?

38:11

Letters from Sing Sing was written and produced

38:13

by Prisivarathon, Rob Allen, and

38:15

Me. Our associate producer is

38:17

Rachel Young. Story editor

38:19

is Jennifer Gorn. Original

38:21

score by Christopher Scullion, Robert

38:24

Real, and Four Elements Music. Sound

38:26

designed by Cedric Wilson, back

38:28

checking by Joseph Freshmuth, Bryson

38:31

Barnes is our technical director Breathing

38:34

Barathon is our supervising producer. Sariah

38:37

Gage, Reed Jirlin, and Alexa Dana

38:39

are our executive producers. Liz

38:41

Cole runs NBC News studios. Special

38:44

thanks to Sean Gallagher. Letters

38:47

from Sing Sing is in NBC News

38:49

Studios production New

38:52

episodes run every Monday. See

38:54

you then.

39:00

Time for a quick break to talk about another great

39:02

deal of McDonald's. If you're feeling like a sausage

39:04

mcmuffin, sausage burrito, or hash browns

39:07

for McDonald's, You're in luck because right

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39:11

just three dollars. Also, feeling Coke

39:13

Zero Sugar? Add any size soft drink to

39:15

your two for three mix and match for just dollar twenty

39:18

Price and participation may vary. Cannot be

39:20

combined with any other offer. Single item at

39:22

regular price.