The Plea (full documentary) | Investigating Plea Bargains in the U.S. Justice System | FRONTLINE

Summary

Highlights

• The prosecutors often use harsh tactics to push defendants into plea bargains. 😬
• Defendants frequently plead guilty just to return home to their families. 🏠
• Many appointed lawyers are overwhelmed and can't offer adequate defense. ⚖️
• The cases reveal systemic flaws, including racial and economic biases. 🌍
• Plea deals often ignore the truth, focusing instead on clearing dockets. 🔍

Key Takeaways

• Plea bargains resolve over 95% of felony convictions in the U.S. ⚖️
• Many defendants feel pressured to plead guilty out of fear or necessity. 😟
• The justice system can prioritize efficiency over fairness, risking wrongful convictions. ⚖️
• Legal representation quality greatly affects defendants' decisions in plea deals. 📚
• Plea bargains can have lasting negative impacts on individuals' lives and futures. 🕰️

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 05:00: Introduction and Overview The introduction chapter of the transcript discusses the prevalence of guilty pleas in the legal system, highlighting the pressure defendants face to accept plea deals. It features a narrative from an individual who, despite claiming innocence, felt compelled to accept a plea bargain to avoid a harsher sentence for the sake of family obligations. The systemic issue of more than 95% of felony convictions resulting from guilty pleas is highlighted, raising concerns about justice and coercion in the criminal justice system.
• 05:00 - 25:00: The Case of Herma Stewart and Regina Kelly The chapter titled 'The Case of Herma Stewart and Regina Kelly' describes a scene where an individual is caught up in a challenging situation, feeling wrongfully accused ('I haven't robbed anybody tonight'). The narrative highlights the experience of 'ordinary people caught up in a nightmare,' exploring the theme of justice and the pressure to plead guilty. The pivotal moment comes when the individual faces the decision to say a single word—'guilty'—for a reduced charge, which would allow them to 'go home.' This scenario emphasizes the moral and legal dilemmas faced by the characters involved.
• 25:00 - 40:00: The Systemic Issues with Plea Bargains This chapter discusses the systemic issues related to plea bargains in the justice system. It highlights the prevalence of plea deals, implying that many defendants may plead guilty for reasons beyond actual guilt, such as expedience or pressure, rather than the pursuit of truth and justice in a trial setting. The excerpt suggests a conflict between the ideals of justice as portrayed in media and the realities of the justice system, where plea bargains are a common practice. The chapter may critique how these plea bargains can undermine the fairness and integrity of the judicial process, using an example scene in a courtroom presided over by Judge Mark Burns.
• 40:00 - 260:00: Case Study: Charlie Gampiero This chapter delves into the intricacies of a court case involving Charlie Gampiero. Key moments include the introduction of a weapon as evidence and the questioning of an expert witness, who is being paid $3,000 for their appearance. The chapter captures a tense moment in the trial, leading to a deadlocked jury. It also touches on public perceptions of the criminal justice system, hinting at overarching themes of justice and fairness.
• 260:00 - 370:00: Case Study: Kelly Jarrett This chapter explores the misconceptions shaped by television about jury trials. It discusses how popular media often portrays jury trials as the usual method for determining guilt or innocence, contrasting with the realities of the legal system. The chapter emphasizes that even though education systems teach about jury trials, right to counsel, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the actual legal process can be quite different from these depictions.
• 370:00 - 485:00: The Case of Carrie Max Cook The chapter focuses on a courtroom scenario where several individuals, namely Kevin Washington, Rosemary Gonzalez, and Pablo Herado, are addressed, either asked to be seated or to announce their presence. A Mr. Martinez is involved, who pleads guilty to the charge of assault on a family member, mentioned under cause number 95505. It’s emphasized that Mr. Martinez admits to the guilt for the reason of being guilty and has no other reason for his plea.
• 485:00 - 550:00: Implications and Conclusion The chapter discusses the implications of the high rate of guilty pleas in the American judicial system. It highlights that around 95% of individuals convicted of felonies waive their Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury. Instead, they opt for plea bargains wherein the accused admits guilt in exchange for a reduced charge or sentence. This chapter delves into the constitutional rights afforded to defendants and the widespread practice of plea bargaining, raising questions about the justice system's reliance on such agreements.
• 550:00 - 585:00: Preview of Next Frontline Episode The chapter titled 'Preview of Next Frontline Episode' explores the role of plea bargaining in the criminal justice system. It raises concerns about the potential collapse of the system if every case went to trial, arguing that plea bargains are a necessary component to manage caseloads effectively. While some view plea bargaining as an 'unnecessary evil,' the chapter suggests it is essential for the system's functionality, indicating that the process can lead to lesser sentences or reduced charges.
• 585:00 - 600:00: Credits and Acknowledgments The chapter discusses the importance of having competent legal professionals, including defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges, in the plea bargaining process. It highlights concerns about the potential consequences if any of these key legal figures are not as competent as they should be, impacting the plea deals which are a significant part of the legal system. The chapter promises to present several narratives or examples during the discussion.

The Plea (full documentary) | Investigating Plea Bargains in the U.S. Justice System | FRONTLINE Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] tonight on front line the judge told me I will give your son 25 to life so you better take the plea or if you don't take the plea he's getting it more than 95% of all felony convictions are the result of a guilty plea I was willing to plead guilty even though I wasn't because I had to go home some my kids he said um we want to drop the murder charge on you if you'll ple guilty to robbery
• 00:30 - 01:00 and I said but I haven't robbed anybody tonight Frontline tells the stories of ordinary people caught up in a nightmare all he has to say is one word and he gets to go home guilty how do you plead that reduced charge gu are you pleading guilty
• 01:00 - 01:30 because you are guilty and for no other reason yes sir would you tell the court please why you were late arriving at that meeting Mr Cummings every few hours every day all across the country new and old television shows demonstrate Justice at work Americans love trials everyone knows the rules are these the photographs Mr Cummings The Honorable Mark Burns presiding the judge
• 01:30 - 02:00 I show you this weapon Lieutenant drum exhibit one I ask if you how much are you being paid for today's court appearance expert Witnesses $3,000 objection this is irrelevant attorneys I don't see the relevance and I do prosecutors no more questions the defendant the jury we find the defendant guilty not guilty we're deadlocked the public perception of our our criminal justice system is deeply
• 02:00 - 02:30 shaped by television and that perception is that jury trials routinely occur as a way of deciding whether somebody is guilty or innocent of the offense of which he or she is suspected or accused any student in a civics class in elementary school or Junior High School will learn about a system with a trial by jury and a right to counsel and uh proof Beyond A Reasonable Doubt and it won't remotely resemble the system that we have when your name is called please
• 02:30 - 03:00 stand and announce that you are here Kevin Washington thank you Rosemary Gonzalez please have a seat thank you Pablo herado thank you Mr Martinez how do you plead sir to assault on a family member is alleged in cause number 95505 guilty or not guilty guilty pleading guilty are you pleading guilty because you are guilty and for no other reason yes sir and PR guilty or not guilty guilty how do you plead that
• 03:00 - 03:30 reduced charge are you pleading the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to be judged by a jury of his or her peers do you want to give up those guaranteed rights and proceed rep of guilty today yet about 95% of all people who are convicted of felonies across the country give up that right and plead guilty in exch for a ple of guilty most of these guilty pleas involve Bargains in which the accused pleads guilty in exchange
• 03:30 - 04:00 for a lesser sentence or a reduced charge how do plead to agravated robbery alleged the system would collapse if every case that was filed in the criminal justice system were to be set for trial the system would just entirely collapse a lot of people call it unnecessary evil I look at it as a a necessary component in our Criminal Justice System no talk but have to understand that a plea bargaining only only works
• 04:00 - 04:30 if you have experienced competent defense attorneys experienced competent prosecutors and a judge who will oversee and make sure this is done done correctly how do you plead that reduced charge gu sir or you but what if one or more of them these key legal figures are not as competent as they should be what happens then to the plea Bargains which are now so much a part of the system tonight T we will tell several
• 04:30 - 05:00 stories different people different charges different parts of the [Music] country all with one thing in common the difficult dilemma of confronting a [Music] plea on November 2nd 2000 in Hearn a a small town in East Texas herma Stewart
• 05:00 - 05:30 then 30 years old a single mother of two was arrested the officer just come up to me and sayma Stewart I said yeah and um he just you know say you want arrest you know he know me told me to turn around and he put the handcuffs on me and I asked him for what and you know he just never did say nothing he you know just put me in the car go down there
• 05:30 - 06:00 right here go down Regina Kelly a waitress 24 at the time and a single mother of four was also arrested I was at work police officers came in and asked for Regina Kelly I said that's me and he said ma'am we have to take you into custody and I was like oh my God I knew I had tickets and I just I told my manager I said I'm going to jail because I have tickets that I haven't paid for I just haven't paid my traffic tickets
• 06:00 - 06:30 and the police officer told him it's not for tickets and that was it the cases were prosecuted by the district attorney of Robertson County John Pascal I tell you what I'm going to write this down I'm going to put it down what I with the offer that I made to you and you get back with me next week and I'll do the paperwork up okay thank you bye the case began with narcotics task force that operated in this County conducting an undercover operation and they made the cases then once they made the case and turned them over to the district
• 06:30 - 07:00 attorney's office those cases were then presented to a grand jury and the grand jury returned indictments in those particular cases it was part of a big drug sweep based on a confidential informant who would later be proven unreliable he implicated 25 men and two women with felony drug distribution charges many lived in this public public housing project all but one were black
• 07:00 - 07:30 they claimed they were innocent they were thrown into jail with Bond set as high as $70,000 each Regina and herma shared a sell with two other women it was hard it was a sale for two people so me and the other girl had to sleep on the floor it's concrete it's hard it's cold what made it bad was because you are in there and there's
• 07:30 - 08:00 nothing you can do about it and you in there for something you didn't do and it was hard just wondering what's going to happen next they put their faith in their courta appointed lawyers our lawyers that's really all you have to just help you you know they went to school for this they know what to do but it didn't happen like that like when we all went to court and got our court appointed lawyers I wanted to to talk to him sit
• 08:00 - 08:30 down and talk to him and say Hey you know this is the type of person I am you know you can look at my background you can ask people in the community just you know I wanted him to know about me so he have a better sense in how to represent me know what type of person I am he didn't want to hear it he didn't have time you know it didn't matter it was always an excuse somewhere herma did not fair much better I had as my lawyer you know
• 08:30 - 09:00 what they going to you know do about that he going you know he had told me that I was looking at 10 years PR I'm turn I had told him I'm like for what I ain't did nothing but I want everyone church amen to get into the service of worshiping the my lawyer came to me and suggested 10 years probation and like I told him I wasn't going to take this if I did not do this I didn't do this they have no evidence no nothing and everything is screwed up and you still want me to play
• 09:00 - 09:30 out with them and I wasn't going to do it later on he came back with 5 years probation the da went from 10 years to 5 years and I told him the exact same thing and he kept urging me encouraging me to take it because if I went to trial then I would be facing 5 to 99 he was like pushing me to take the
• 09:30 - 10:00 probation he wasn't on my side at all he wasn't trying to hear me he wasn't trying to explain nothing to me and I even had told him you know my understanding you know is not that good so you know um just you just going to have to really break it down to me for me to understand he didn't no our name herma fa Stewart I don't believe that I represented herma fa Stewart or I have to double I have to
• 10:00 - 10:30 double check my records on that Bruno shimik herma fe's courta appointed lawyer whose name was on her plea agreement did not remember her nor could he find any record confirming that he ever represented her I don't have a file on her you know went through and looked at all those uh and she's not a person that you know Robin Stewart I represented Aaron Stewart Eric Stewart checked all those but not
• 10:30 - 11:00 Irma of your honor he has executed a way Steve brigh is a defense attorney professor of law both at Yale and Harvard and the director of the Southern Center for human rights in Atlanta well it's not unusual for lawyers who handle a high volume of cases to not know their clients names I go to courtrooms all the time where you see the defense lawyers coming in and they'll stand up in the front of the courtroom and call the names of their clients because they don't know who the
• 11:00 - 11:30 clients are and ask them to raise their hand when your name is called if you do not have an attorney and you wish to have an attorney appointed because you cannot afford one if you will please so indicate we will see that you get an attorney appointed and Mr Sher would you stand this is Mr John Sher he's the public defender for chrisp County I'm going to stand aside and give the public defender and the attorneys an opportunity the public believes that every criminal defendant
• 11:30 - 12:00 has a right to the effective assistance of counsel that is just so far out of touch with reality it's hard to even begin describing it it doesn't matter that the lawyer may be conscientious just the system makes it impossible for that lawyer to to do his or her job Nicholas Octavius Johnson people may be not guilty people may be guilty of some less serious Behavior than what they're accused of 8 James Bryant many of the
• 12:00 - 12:30 people that come into the court system are mentally ill may have been put up to it by somebody else uh the lawyer won't know any of that I do not contend that our jails are stuffed with people who pleaded to things that they didn't do I think most people who are prosecuted of serious crimes are guilty of at least what they're charged with and ought to have serious criminal sanctions attached but the problem is most isn't the way we do
• 12:30 - 13:00 business in a free society that cares about individual rights and individual liberty happens every day in every courtroom in the United States people come into arraignment they meet their attorney they have a brief conversation they're informed of the charges they're informed of what they could plead guilty to possibly to get out of jail that night possibly not they have to make a decision that's the truth less interesting story than the one that
• 13:00 - 13:30 Lauren order tells people but that's the truth 3 weeks after her arrest Regina's parents managed to have her bond reduced from $70,000 to $10,000 and she went home to await trial herma stayed behind when she heard me on the phone saying I'm going home it was over with from that point on it was
• 13:30 - 14:00 I mean it was downhill cuz she was going to be by herself herma then offered to plead guilty even though I was guilty I was willing to plead guilty because I had to go home to my kids my son was sick and I asked him what you know you know I can ple for on five year probation you know just just let me go home to my kids the the district attorney herma
• 14:00 - 14:30 says did not agree to 5 years probation he demanded 10 years I had signed the paper he had took me back in front of the judge he had you know told the judge that that I took the 10 years and you know they took me back to my after that they took me back to my and an hour later um you know they had released me of the 27 people arrested said seven plad guilty and most of them got out on
• 14:30 - 15:00 probation a few posted Bond and the rest stayed in jail one reason that a lot of people plead guilty is because they're told they can go home that day uh because they'll get probation uh what they usually don't take into account is that they're being set up to fail ium you serve five years in State Penitentiary when L serve that Senate's own probation with credit for the 3 months that you've already served there are about 4 million people on on probation across the United States
• 15:00 - 15:30 offenders who live in the community under supervision among their obligations they often have to pay fines Court charges probation fees and for different treatment programs that they must attend all of which constitutes a sizable source of revenue for local governments also impose a fine amount of $1,000 Plus cost and sirar charge and I also order that you receive many of these people are poor they're destitute they have no money at all and yet they're going to be
• 15:30 - 16:00 told to pay a fine prob they're going to be told to pay a fee to a probation officer every month have talk me probation officer I mean there all sorts of consequences that are going to flow and perhaps the the the one that's least understood uh is that the failure to meet these payments and meet the conditions of probation is going to bring that person right back into court and they're going to face probably more time uh in prison uh than than they did originally because now they're going to
• 16:00 - 16:30 be punished for violating their probation there's a lot of harsh consequences you may not be eligible for public housing you may lose the right to vote you may not be able to get certain employment if you're an immigrant you may be deported so uh it's no great shakes to get a conviction and probation well it's a punishment but it certainly beats going to the penitentiary Michael Wells is not so sure when he was arrested in the drug sweep in Hearn he had been serving the
• 16:30 - 17:00 last 4 months of a prior 10year probation for a drug rated crime to which he had admitted guilt when I first got on probation I told a judge I was going to complete it and he said when you complete it I'm going to shake your hand I was looking forward to that day let him know hey I did 10 years of probation so it is people out there that make mistakes and they corrected you know themselves by doing and then when they came with the drug bus is like a this a bunch
• 17:00 - 17:30 of this stuff sucks the whole system probation sucks I'll never take it again you [Music] know recently Michael fell behind in his probation fees and was hiding from the probation officers I don't got the money I get harassed every time I go in there uh you needs to pay this here I was going Faithfully before then but now since I ain't got no money and I'm I'm just at a struggling point right
• 17:30 - 18:00 now so that's why I don't want to look in their faces and hear they criticism of come up with this money cuz every time you go in there that's how it go down the courts are sort of like finance companies now uh they're trying to collect all this money from people and of course the people don't have any I mean this is like trying to get uh blood out of a turnup I mean we're talking about the poorest people in our society who are who are really barely surviving uh and so they can't pay so the probation officer renegotiates with them and sometimes they even go back to court
• 18:00 - 18:30 and extend the probation um and so they're always paying and it really is very much like a highin loan I mean there it's like you can never get a paid off those indicted in the drug sweep who refused to take a plea and couldn't afford Bond spent 5 months in prison awaiting [Music] trial the first trial opened in the Robertson County courthouse on February
• 18:30 - 19:00 19th 2001 it soon became clear that the evidence was worthless and that the confidential informant had lied to the prosecution the informant that was used by the law enforcement was not credible in his testimony and if someone is not credible to me then I cannot see putting that person uh on the witness stand uh and trying kind of case so we dism I
• 19:00 - 19:30 dismissed the cases see I'm to within a few weeks all the cases except those who had plad guilty were dismissed but the neighborhood remained wary even though it was thrown out that's still not seeing you're not guilty the deum went in the newspaper and said even though the cases were thrown out dismissed out they still are guilty you know you still telling people we're guilty I believe every one of them was
• 19:30 - 20:00 guilty but I don't believe the state had enough evidence to convict them Beyond a reasonable doubt it's hard my children my oldest daughter she felt like I lied to her children in school making fun of her your mom's a dope dealer you know there oh you big girl I want a formal apology the same way you know that you put it
• 20:00 - 20:30 out there to the world that I'm guilty of this crime I want you to put it out there to let them know that you made a mistake no apology would help herma 3 years after she plad guilty in order to go home and take care of her children she was destitute because of the plea she's ineligible for both food stamps for herself and Federal Grant money for Education she cannot vote until 2 years
• 20:30 - 21:00 after she completes her 10year probation and she has been evicted from her public housing for not paying rent her children sleep in various homes and she is homeless she spends her nights outside the housing project waiting for the morning when she can go to her work as a cook her job pays her $5.75 an hour I honestly don't believe she really understood the full extent of
• 21:00 - 21:30 everything she's a single mother I'm a single mother there's no way we can live without help from the government we need that help you know and you can't get that you cannot get that if you ple out to this you know my peop they W looking out for my kids you know like I look out for theirs but you don't deserve this you really don't you don't deserve if I would have stayed I wouldn't have let her play out for or anything I know i' have made her stay
• 21:30 - 22:00 right there with me please don't cry he you got to be strong you got to no it's just I don't know just I just you know try to M you know I don't know just sometime I'm always you know thinking to kill myself to just get away from this the pressures
• 22:00 - 22:30 don't do this to your kids they look at your face and they know something wrong your oldest child she know she old enough she know she can just look at you and just tell Mama something not right they saying I owe them $1,866 she going to be depressed she not going to live her good life she owes a $1,000 fine court costs and late probation fees they pressing me to pay this money which they know I already have they said it like long as I have a job
• 22:30 - 23:00 you know I can pay but you know I even explain to them you know I'm you know trying I'm having a hard time you know I have to buy my son medicine I have to have his medicine for his asthma they didn't really care about that all they wanted you know was the money one of the corrupting influences in our courts is that many uh localities
• 23:00 - 23:30 depend upon the courts as a major source of Revenue uh that the speeding tickets and the driving while under the influence of alcohol tickets and the uh money for marijuana possession and all of these crimes is to generate money uh but when the courts are in pursuit of profit um that that's in conflict with being in the pursuit of [Music] Justice herma will be under probation for at least seven more years the fact that her case would have
• 23:30 - 24:00 been dismissed with all the others had she not taken the plea makes no difference it's very difficult once you pleaded guilty guilty plea sort of puts a lid on the box regardless of what's inside the box it's a system that's designed to keep the truth from coming out pleuron has nothing to do with with Justice it has to do with convenience expediency making the the life of prosecutors and and defense attorneys
• 24:00 - 24:30 easier and and uh more profitable uh it's it's designed to avoid finding out the the truth it's a it's designed to avoid hearing uh the defendants uh a story if that's true in a small town in East Texas it's just as true in the big city take the case of Charles gamp pero of Brooklyn New York
• 24:30 - 25:00 on December 11th 1994 an incident happened outside a bowling alley a 33-year-old man was killed his name was John weingrad one of the detectives greeted me and he said your son took a a beating and I said how bad how badly was he beaten and he said he died I said oh my God I said are you
• 25:00 - 25:30 crazy a 20-year-old man Charlie gampero was charged with murder in the second degree murder with intent to kill the defendant had no criminal record and the two did not know each [Music] other Charlie's father Charles gampero senior was in the bar of the bowling
• 25:30 - 26:00 alley that night Charlie told me he had a fight I mean when he came back into the bowl Alle he was wearing beige he he he wasn't scuff his clothes weren't messed he was it was like he had just walked in like he had just gotten dressed left the house and walked in there was no question that John weingrad and Charlie gampero had a fight very late at night outside the bowling alley what was in question was how did the fight start and more importantly how
• 26:00 - 26:30 it ended the photographs the police took of the dead man showed a badly bruised face the defendant claimed he left him unharmed according to Charlie G pero he was trying to prevent a fight outside the bowling alley when the victim turned around and punched him he then punched him back and kicked him leaving him on the ground but he says very much alive my father came home later that night and
• 26:30 - 27:00 he had said that the guy I had a fight with passed away I couldn't believe it I say how what happened so I had assumed that maybe something happened afterwards I don't know cuz I I didn't think that would have anything to do with me I mean he was sitting up when I left the details were murky there had been a fight at the bar of the bowling alley between John weingrad and other people early in the evening before the defendant got there it quieted down but left people
• 27:00 - 27:30 angry was that a connection to the killing there was something else the victim's car was found outside the bowling alley wrapped in toilet paper according to Joseph weingrad the victim's father this kind of harassment had started happening a few weeks before was this connected to the killing the only thing I could tell you I said is that he was sub objected to a lot of harassment beginning back around
• 27:30 - 28:00 Halloween when he came home uh from a Saturday night and his car was covered with eggs and I asked him John what happened and he said I don't know I came out of the bowling alley and these eggs were all over the car we just assumed that it was just kids but you see the harassment continued there were times when his car was
• 28:00 - 28:30 moved as a matter of fact my wife and I actually sat one night John Park this car three blocks away on a Saturday night and we sat up here till about 1 1:30 in the morning just sitting here watching his car to see if anybody would come along and try to do anything to it pick it up or move it or what have you but nothing happened that night and so we went home and
• 28:30 - 29:00 John came home there was no problem and then the following week he was killed the prosecution's theory of what happened was completely different they believed they told Mr windrad that his son was killed because of a phone call there was a a phone call for Charlie gamp pero that night on the pay
• 29:00 - 29:30 phone at the bowling alley it was his girlfriend looking for him someone answered it and apparently spoke obscenely to her the prosecution's theory was that the person who answered the phone was John weingrad and that's why Charlie gamp pero went after him and killed him Charlie gampero says that's not true that he was trying to break up a fight but he never got to tell his version of the story he has never been questioned
• 29:30 - 30:00 by the police before or after his arrest we went in for questioning in the morning when we got there we went to the detective's room and uh detective turned to my father are you Charlie senior he said yes turned to me are you Charlie Junior I said yes and he turned to the female detective and says okay ROM is rights that was it in a matter of 5 minutes that Charlie was there my husband called me to tell me get get a lawyer they arrested
• 30:00 - 30:30 Charlie all the theories evidence and testimonies were to be presented to a jury in a Brooklyn Criminal Court in November 1995 of course I wanted to go to trial because murder is where you intend to hurt somebody that wasn't my intention I didn't intend to hurt anybody I wasn't there to get into any type of fist fight I wasn't looking for trouble um so I didn't understand how they would
• 30:30 - 31:00 have these major charges against me I really thought that um Charlie probably would have went to a trial you know and he would have been acquitted because you know he didn't do it Joanne Charlie's mother is remarried and lives in Florida Charlie came down with a friend of his to tell me that this had happened it was just a fight you know they didn't think that was was too serious then my ex-husband called and
• 31:00 - 31:30 said we are going to court and something will happen and that's when I flew in and that was the first time that I really realized what was happening and how serious and so on and so forth did anybody ever discuss the possibility of a plea bargain with you no there was never a plea bargain on the table to my knowledge ever but unbeknownst to them there was a ple bargain on the table in fact one had already been negoti at between the prosecutor and the victim's
• 31:30 - 32:00 father I would say probably within 2 or 3 weeks prior to going into court I was brought in by the district attorney Mr Gad to his bureau chief she sat there and she said to me Mr wein gr there are some problems with this case and we feel we can win the case in court but I just want you to know there are some problems in the case and it might be advol I isable to uh let him
• 32:00 - 32:30 plead to a lesser charge so I was thinking clearly I'd say what are the problems but I wasn't thinking that clearly at the time after discussing various possibilities in the DA's office they agreed upon a manslaughter charge and a sentence of 7 to 21 years in prison I said to the district attorney and his boy I said if you can guarantee me that he cannot get out of
• 32:30 - 33:00 prison before that seven-year term that he must spend that full seven years I think I will agree then to accepting a plea bargain and they said oh he'll send the whole seven years as a matter of fact he said or she said rather um guarantee you he'll do 10 because even when they come up for parole they never granted parole on the first time around I said okay and that was
• 33:00 - 33:30 it unaware of what had transpired between the prosecutor and the victim's father the Garo family went to court to meet the judge I mean he scared me like nobody has ever scared me in my life I I he he tells us his name is Frank ago but they call him maximum Frank judge aito who served on the bench for
• 33:30 - 34:00 30 years is now retired and serves as a Judicial hearing officer I admit it my sentences may be a little more harsh than somebody else's but I have to do it according to my conscience not someone else's conscience I have to be able to sleep nights I'll tell you this I'm a very peaceful sleeper looking at the minutes of the case judge aito remembered something happened as people were
• 34:00 - 34:30 exiting this particular bar the defendant claims that the deceased struck him the defendant responded not with a punch but knocking the deceased down kicking and punching him while he was on the ground stomping him while he was on the ground he just went in my opinion he just uh lost it and it was a a mean vicious uh attack now he's telling us if
• 34:30 - 35:00 we go to trial with this he will give my son the maximum of 25 to life he doesn't want to know if he's innocent we had started to pick the jury already I think there were two jurors picked if I'm not mistaken then they came up with a plea deal naturally we said that's crazy we didn't want a deal the deal offered by the prosecution was manslaughter with a and A3 to 25 years in prison an offer higher than the one
• 35:00 - 35:30 agreed upon with Mr weingrad which was 7 to 21 then the judge intervened saying he would try to do better than that so the judge goes out comes back and tells us uh all right I just was uh on the phone with my boss or whoever that was and uh they're allowing me to offer you 7 to 21 at that point it was just like like I wasn't there like you know you're just in
• 35:30 - 36:00 shock you know you just go through the motions you can't believe it's happened to you it doesn't seem real I'm sick to my stomach because at that time I was I was 48 and I said by the time my son gets out if he gets 25 to life he'll he'll he'll be my age there'll no forget about raising a family forget about anything I didn't feel it was my decision to make I just felt that they had to decide um um it was going to affect my ex-husband more than me and if I would have pushed to go
• 36:00 - 36:30 to trial and it didn't turn out uh he would have never forgiven me he told me Point Blank told me and my ex-wife he said if I I will give your son 25 to life so you better take the plea or if you don't take the plea he's getting it according to Professor Green these kinds of threats are constitutional and legal some years ago a defendant argued to the
• 36:30 - 37:00 Supreme Court it's inherently coercive if the prosecutor says to me you can plead guilty and get three years in jail otherwise you can go to trial and have all your trial rights but if you're convicted you face 30 years in jail that sounds like coercion and to you and me and most ordinary people that sounds pretty coercive but under the Constitution that's not considered coercive and so if you plead guilty with uh in order to avoid a infinitely
• 37:00 - 37:30 harsher sentence that's considered a voluntary plea the Garo family was given the night to weigh their options they had to decide whether to insist on a trial knowing the risk of a maximum sentence of 25 to life or take the guilty plea with its sentence of 7 to 21 years in prison they wrestled deep into the night
• 37:30 - 38:00 two decades before paty Kelly Jarrett was faced with the same quandry being outside it's just like a fading memory it's been so long ago so much has changed the whole world's changed since I've been out there I've been in Bedford Hill since 1977 I'm one of the longest serving inmates when you're in prison you you die inside you just
• 38:00 - 38:30 die and what keeps you going is people that love you and care about you and reach out to you and say we love you we care about [Music] you one of those who reached out to her was law professor Claudia Angelos Kelly Jarrett and I are exactly the same age we are of the same generation and anyone else who was of that generation will I think understand the social circumstances in which she grew up this was in the early '70s and she was a young woman maybe 21 22 years
• 38:30 - 39:00 old she was pretty marginal she's from North Carolina kind of a trailer girl but a good kid she had a car and she had a job and she had some friends in 1973 23-year-old Kelly Jarrett took her first trip out of North Carolina it was a trip that would change her life forever she had a friend who suggested oh let's just get out of here for the summer so uh she in the this friend was a guy um drove up up through the South
• 39:00 - 39:30 into the Northeast and up to utic New York and they kind of landed there for a few weeks her friend did some day laboring kind of work used her car and she kind of hung out played softball had a little summer vacation um a couple weeks later they made their way back to North Carolina and resumed the lives they had had about 3 years passed there was a knock on the door and the police were there the waren for my arrest for murder from tican New York and I was shocked I
• 39:30 - 40:00 was really upset I you know I called my parents you know I went down to the police station they came down and met me there um I took a polygraph while I was there and I was locked up until my parents obtained a counsel and attorney for me to help represent me it turns out and it's beyond any doubt that the guy she was with um while they were in UA robbed a gas station and murdered the gas station
• 40:00 - 40:30 attendant it was the most brutal murder ever seen in the small town of Cheryl near UA New York 17-year-old star athlete and high school graduate Paul David hatch was bound gagged and killed by a white young man during an armed robbery of a gas station it was clear that two people were involved according to the eyewitness testimony of an elderly man the second person was outside in a car he wasn't
• 40:30 - 41:00 sure if it was a man or a woman there was no other evidence against Kelly Jared at all that was the evidence a man who had said I couldn't see the face I don't know if it was a boy or a girl 2 and 1/2 years later said it was her that was the evidence there was nothing else connecting her to that crime she was tried jointly with her codefendant the man she was with that summer whose fingerprints were found at the crime scene I learned in the courtroom what
• 41:00 - 41:30 happened how when it was just awful you know it was just awful to be sitting there and to be um accused of something like that it was just a horrible experience the evidence against her friend was massive the evidence against Kelly Jared was weak it was an extraordinarily weak case this very poor extremely unreliable identification and nothing else so she was offered a plea of 5 to 15 years um if she would
• 41:30 - 42:00 plead to the robbery um not to the um to the murder uh the a plea 5 to 15 years in those days meant that absent any serious misbehavior a person would be paroled at 5 years without any question the system is different now but it certainly meant that then she would at that time she would have served 5 years she had already been in jail waiting for trial for certainly over a year as I recall so she would have served only about four more years I know she was advised to think seriously about that plea by by
• 42:00 - 42:30 her lawyer and I told my attorney you know I can't I can't do this and he said well you know my hands are tied he said um we want to drop the murder charge on you if you'll plead guilty to robbery and I said but I haven't robbed anybody the notion of pleading guilty to something she absolutely didn't do on the evidence of a man who didn't even see the face of the person who was there was ridiculous and I don't think she seriously considered taking that plea
• 42:30 - 43:00 for a minute she faced the jury claiming that she had nothing to do with either the robbery or the murder I believed in American system of justice I believe that you just tell the truth and the judge and jury will hear you and you know nothing will happen to you but I was wrong and I got convicted and was I was sentenced to 25 to life innocent people are convicted a
• 43:00 - 43:30 trial so this happens at trial people who defend plea bargaining will say well sending people to trial doesn't necessarily guarantee perfect results but what the guilty plea system guarantees is that when you have miscarriages of Justice the victim of it is going to face staggering sentences because those sentences are not a consequence of Justice those sentences are a consequence of the need to grease the wheels of the system so they become
• 43:30 - 44:00 the example they become the grease or they become the object lesson and what we see that the next time around the prosecutor says well you want to go to trial that's your right you can be just like Mrs so and so and look what happened to her after after a night of soul searching Charlie gamp pero came to the same conclusion that Kelly Jared
• 44:00 - 44:30 had he wanted a trial his parents were anxious Charlie had decide he was not going to take it Charlie wanted to plead night guilty and uh you know I I didn't say anything at that time when he said you know I'm pleading not guilty we're going to go to court with this so I I I didn't say anything I was you know nervous and the attorney said well you know this was a this is a Friday and we do have a lot of family out of town and would like to have till Monday to think about it and
• 44:30 - 45:00 discuss it um so he said no no no he said if you do that the DA's got to work all weekend getting their Witnesses together and you know we can't do that and you know put it off and I and it says in the minutes let's get this in and out you know he was in a hurry to you know get it off the table and on the judge oh yeah yeah my job was to expedite the movement of cases my delaying this case delays the next case which delays the next case if I went till Monday and then they
• 45:00 - 45:30 decided not to take the plea on Monday the I would have to adjourn the case again for the purpose of the da make making sure they had all their Witnesses I'm saying to myself it's been a year if the prosecution doesn't have their case already ready what's the difference whether I tell them I'm going to trial over the weekend or not were they going to get it ready in two days and the judge said no you've got exactly 15 minutes you go
• 45:30 - 46:00 outside you talk to your clients and you're back in here in 15 minutes with the decision and I'm telling you now if you do not take the plea and I we find your client guilty he's going to get 25 to life and once the trial commences I will not entertain any please the trial will go through to its conclusion and if he's guilty 25 to
• 46:00 - 46:30 Life go talk to your your clients so we're in the Hall of the courtroom someone came out and told us the judge would like you to come inside they're bringing in another case for the sentencing the case was a young man who had charges similar to Charlie's so the kid came in they found him guilty and he told the kid I am sentencing you to 25 to life now whether he did this to
• 46:30 - 47:00 scare us which he already had me scared so he made made it much much worse anyway I go out in the hallway and it's me my father and my mother and they're telling me I think my mother had says you know if you get 25 to life I might not be alive when you come home uh who knows what could happen in that many years I had to walk away and I just walked away you know hysterical crime by myself I mean it was really it was very emotional very very very
• 47:00 - 47:30 emotional very sad we were crying like babies but that's all he wanted he wanted that decision then and now he didn't want to know anything I'm saying to myself well this is the judge that's going to be handling the trial this guy is going to make the decision if my lawyer objects something he's going to decide whether it you know it's going to be upheld or sustained whatever who you know now I'm against everybody who's on my side here my
• 47:30 - 48:00 lawyer was standing like on the other side of the hallway and I was kind of looking at him like are you going to give me any type of advice here are you going to tell me anything like should I do it shouldn't I do it you don't have to guarantee me anything but you know better than me explain something to me tell me something you didn't no I just don't think that he was either I won't say that he wasn't prepared but I don't I don't think maybe it was over his head or he didn't know what to do and I don't think he had a good solution to the problem he turned around and he said to me Charlie he says I'll tell you the
• 48:00 - 48:30 truth he says I I don't even I I can't even give you an answer cuz I said what should I do he says I don't know he says I have a he has a young son also he says I can't even tell you what to do I mean he felt for us he says I've never seen it where they force you or put you back against the wall like this a lawyer who goes to trial has a strong duty to investigate the case to interview witnesses to look for defenses
• 48:30 - 49:00 to prepare for cross-examination a lawyer who plans to plead guilty can make a tactical judgment that it's not worth his time so in effect the defendant not only waves his right to a public trial and all that that entails he also in practice is waving his right to legal research and to thorough factual investigation by his own lawyer Charlie gampero now believes that his lawyer was not prepared to go to trial and since he never previously
• 49:00 - 49:30 told the family about the plea he may have been just as surprised by it as they were the lawyer refused to talk to Frontline or help in any way with this documentary I guess at that point Charlie felt that maybe it was a good idea to take it judge aito kept making us think that he had this good deal for us of 7 to 21 you know there'd be programs it'd be this it'd be out in 7 years you know yeah we're on we just passed the 8-year Mark we took the plea agreement thinking that the judge knew
• 49:30 - 50:00 what he was talking about and my son would be home by the time he's 27 27 I said Charlie you could still raise a family you could you could still have a good life it didn't work out it was just like you know I just wanted to take it away from them you know why they my why is my family got to go through this so it seemed like this is what they wanted not that they wanted me to go to prison
• 50:00 - 50:30 but so I you know I decided I told my lawyer all right we're going to take the 7 to 21 that was it any of us will plead guilty if the disparity between what we're threatened with if we go to trial and lose and what we get if we don't is increased enough
• 50:30 - 51:00 there is no greater disparity than in a death penalty case when the choice is between a guilty plea with an immediate release and a possible execution in February 1999 an unprecedented fourth capital murder trial was about to begin in bastrup Texas it had a 20-year-old history three trials had already taken place prosecutors and defense attorneys
• 51:00 - 51:30 had come and gone a death sentence had been imposed reversed reimposed and then reversed again this was to be the end of the road the very last trial of Carrie Max cook Paul nent has been his defense attorney since 1991 we're actually in the courtroom for a pre trial hearing the District Attorney's first assistant comes to me and pulls me aside
• 51:30 - 52:00 and kind of stuns me says we we'll carry consider a plea bargain it was it was shocking and surprising because for 20 years all you had heard from the District Attorney's office was this vicious rhetoric that Carrie was this heinous Criminal Who deserved to be executed for the rape and mutilation of this young woman and all of a sudden are offering him Freedom all he has to say is one word and he gets to go home guilty Carri Max cook was arrested in
• 52:00 - 52:30 August 1977 when he was 21 years old charged with the brutal murder and rape of 21-year-old Linda Joe Edwards in Tyler Texas he was tried one year later Carrie was a young kid he was a high school dropout and his biggest sin in East Texas in the 1970s was he was allegedly homosexual it's a very religious community there uh it's it's part of the
• 52:30 - 53:00 American Bible Belt uh that was a a major strike against carry I can't tell you what that was like sitting at that defense table having the prosecution raise his voice like in that southern baptist way with the fire and the brimstone and and uh pointing almost inches from my nose I and screaming it's time to put all the Freaks and the Mur murderous homosexuals on the scrap heap of humanity where they belong I mean just screaming I'm sitting there like his breath is blowing my hair
• 53:00 - 53:30 back out of my face convicted and sentenced to death he spent years on death row where he was abused and raped he tried to commit suicide and was saved he then tried again by mutilating himself left a note I really was an innocent man the prosecution did not see it as a
• 53:30 - 54:00 desperate act but as a confirmation of a disturbed killer he had spent 13 brutal years on death row when his sentence was reversed based on a technicality that's when Paul nent became his lawyer the issue is has the state proven their capital murder Case by proof the new trial with a new district attorney took place in
• 54:00 - 54:30 1992 and resulted in a hung jury beond the state then retried the case once more Edwards and Ray Edwards and Jimmy Edwards to find this defendant guilty of capital murder because that is the crime he committed on June the 10th 1977 the death penalty was reinstated then once again in 1996 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction it also published a scathing critique of the conduct of both the police and the
• 54:30 - 55:00 prosecution going back to the first trial in 1978 they wrote that the investigation was intentionally misleading the key witness Robert Han's testimony was prejudicial and the first conviction was obtained through fraud and in violation of the law the highest Criminal Court in the state of Texas found substantial in egregious and systematic prosecutorial misconduct in Ker's case we're not talking about an isolated act we're not
• 55:00 - 55:30 talking about one instance of police or prosecutorial misconduct we're talking about systematic misconduct even the then new first assistant DA the man who fiercely prosecuted cook in the last two trials David dobs agrees let me make it real clear to you this prosecution of Carrie Max cook was mishandled from the start there were problems and there's no question that there were things that were done that were unfair to him I've never indicated anything
• 55:30 - 56:00 other than that and yet that didn't deter dos from going on fighting to put cook to death I'm completely 100% convinced that Carrie Max cook is guilty he wanted to use the final chance of a fourth trial to convict cook but this time he had to do it without the testimony of his key witness he was worried the text Court of Criminal Appeals which is the highest court in Texas had ruled that we could not use
• 56:00 - 56:30 the testimony of the man that was with Mr cook just prior to the commission of the offense based on prosecutorial misconduct that had taken place in the 70s we uh without that testimony we could not Place Mr cook at the crime scene the night that the actual capital murder took place the irony was that the testimony of the witness Robert Han who had died in the mean time was the example cited by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals as prejudicial and
• 56:30 - 57:00 contradictory so what the prosecutor was saying was that if he couldn't use the prior testimony he couldn't win the case if we could have read in his testimony even though as you as you have pointed out there are some you know it's there are some problems with it like any other testimony there's some good with the bad if we could have read in the testimony and proved his proximity to the crime scene we would have gone ahead and tried the case he weighed his options he could go to trial with what he felt was a weak case
• 57:00 - 57:30 he could try to get cook to take a guilty plea or he could dismiss the case we were not about to dismiss the case because he's guilty the prosecutor offered if Carrie would plead guilty he'd get out his case would be over with he'd have to plead guilty to time served I went and talked to Carrie and Carrie looked me in the eye and said I want to go home I want to be free I want this behind me but I will go back to
• 57:30 - 58:00 death row I will let them strap me to the gurnie and put the poison in my veins before I lie before I plead guilty it's all I had left I was innocent they after what they had done to me and and they' convinced the people of the uh of America that I was just raping homosexual maniacal murderer alls I had left was was my integrity my honesty and and and the truth and the truth was that I did not rape and kill into Joe Edwards and no one was going to say that I did
• 58:00 - 58:30 no one was going to make me carry that burden what happens when the defendant refuses to plead guilty and the prosecutor is afraid to lose the trial but will not dismiss the case there was one more possible option the Supreme Court decided in 1970 that it does not violate the constitution for a defendant to make make a deal and plead guilty while still maintaining his innocence such a plea is
• 58:30 - 59:00 called an Alfred plea or a no contest plea it's perfectly constitutional to accept a plea of guilty but not guilty that is the defendant can say I didn't do it but I want to take the deal and the judge can say okay which means that it's not necessary for an innocent person to lie to take the deal he can say he's innocent and still take the deal the Supreme Court says you can plead no content test you you can you know but but Mo most prosecutors will not let a defendant enter a plea of uh
• 59:00 - 59:30 no low contend array or no contest the way speo agnu did defendants are pretty much required to either go to trial or admit their guilt this prosecutor felt he had little Choice he offered Car Max cook the no contest plea which means that cook can maintain his innocence while knowing that the court has convicted him it's the only time it has ever happened in a death penalty case in
• 59:30 - 60:00 Texas it's the hardest decision we've ever had to make but unfortunately we were faced with the choice of doing something that would ensure that he was convicted of murder or running a a very in my opinion substantial risk that without the testimony of Bob Han he would walk the streets free from this they couldn't admit they had made a mistake they couldn't admit that per perhaps the state of Texas almost executed an innocent man uh so it was cover for them it was
• 60:00 - 60:30 political cover is what the plea bargain was cook now had to make his life or death decision my lawyer told me it was my decision Hall New it said we could win it car I think you'll be acquitted this time I'd heard that before the truth had rung in my ears for so long I couldn't hear it anymore i' given him 22 years I just didn't want to give him anymore Doo much so you took it took it
• 60:30 - 61:00 and I regret it every day then almost out of the blue 2 months after Car Max cook took the no contest plea and 22 years after the murder the result of a DNA analysis of a seamen stain found on the victim's patties came out it did not match Cooks the prosecution says that these findings were not
• 61:00 - 61:30 exculpatory and that Carri Max cook was and remains guilty it's just a a nightmare for me the state of Texas has executed me over a thousand times Carri Max cook went on to play himself in the play the exonerated I get these nightmares sometimes I forget I'm really here of the eight characters on the stage he is the only one who is still a convicted murderer he'll show the world once and for all that he
• 61:30 - 62:00 committed that murder the idea that he's going around the country in a play that purports him to be exonerated and innocent is very distressing to me but the important thing for us was to ensure that he got a conviction for murder that would follow him for the rest of his life 22 years it does follow him married with a young child he says the state granted him his freedom but neither his dignity nor his peace of mind the punishment never
• 62:00 - 62:30 ended say one of my tail lights goes out I'm unaware of it and the police pull me over uh they run that license plate and um first of all they don't get out of their car until they've got two or three more backups I'm sitting there waiting looking the rearview mirror saying I know what's going on but I wonder how bad this is going to be cuz I'm Carri cook with a capital murder conviction so it's get out of spread them you have any knives don't you have any guns you have any drugs or where were you at last last night I don't have any rights left it's a very very traumatic
• 62:30 - 63:00 ordeal so you know was it worth it sometimes when I'm holding my son I can say yes sometimes when I'm I'm by myself I say no they w 10 years have passed since Kelly Jarrett rejected her plea bargain and was sentenced to 25 to
• 63:00 - 63:30 life then she suddenly got another chance at Freedom when she met Claudia Angelos in 1986 Claudia was a young law professor at New York University I had a little program in which some law students went to the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility to teach inmates about the law and I had been doing this for a couple of months when I got a phone call from the warden we call him a superintendent of Bedford Hills a man named Frank Hedley who said
• 63:30 - 64:00 um I wonder if you can help me I have someone in here I think is innocent Abby Smith now a professor of law at Georgetown University was one of the law students at the time it was my second year in law school and uh I signed up to be part of what was then called the prison law clinic there were a bunch of cases that we could have worked on and the teacher Claud Angelo basically sort of presented all the cases and she described Kelly's case and I immediately said that's the one I want
• 64:00 - 64:30 to work on and we filed ultimately a petition for um habus Corpus it's called in the federal court um challenging the validity of the eyewitness identification by the by the old man to their surprise and Delight the habius was granted Kelly Jarrett was to be released or retried Claud it ca me say we won it's fantastic we won and I said that's great and she said not so fast
• 64:30 - 65:00 you know the state is going to appeal it and the circuit Court's not going to be as good and in the meantime Kelly's offered a plea if you'll take the plea we'll give you time served essentially time served if you'll just take this plea she asked me what I would do I told her I would take it she asked me what I thought she should do I told her she should take it um she asked what if I don't and I said I'll fight for you I'll keep fighting
• 65:00 - 65:30 for you um we'll do our best but we might lose uh she said let me think about it she said no I'm not going to do it no I'm not going to do it I said please think about it please talk to other people about it um I think you're making a mistake but it's your decision I I told them I in my heart I just couldn't do it it just my conscience and in my heart and it's just morally wrong to to say you did something you know in your heart you didn't do I couldn't live with myself if I did
• 65:30 - 66:00 that I couldn't just I just couldn't live with myself um I saw the pictures of the young man and you know just just for them to want me to say that I did something so horrible just to get out of prison I just couldn't do it I understood that I understood it I thought it was foolish but I understood I let her do it she couldn't convince you she tried she she really tried she said you know if you don't take this plea you may
• 66:00 - 66:30 spend the rest of your life in in prison and I said I just can't do it I just can't do it she couldn't do it that God she's a religious woman that God wouldn't let her do it that it would be wrong it would be lying um and that she would rather stay where she was than commit a commit fraud just to get out and I accept I accepted her decision
• 66:30 - 67:00 and I left after Kelly Jarrett refused the plea offer the state won the appeal and she remained in prison to serve the rest of her sentence which may be the rest of her life and I regret it every day of my life every day of my life I could have insist I think I could have as I've often thought I should have reached across the table and grabbed her
• 67:00 - 67:30 by the throat and said I'll quit I won't represent you you must do this you have no choice and and these last these last 20 years she'd have been with us instead of buried in there I love Abby and Claudia but in my heart it's just not the right thing for me to [Music]
• 67:30 - 68:00 do well in the end of the day in this case evidently the client has certain values that she places above Liberty now it's a sad thing and what occasions it is uh the conviction of an innocent person but from the lawyer's perspective you have to respect the client's decision at the end of the day if she understands what the stakes are and she knows her own values she's entitled to say I just
• 68:00 - 68:30 won't say I'm guilty because I'm not Abby Smith who has been Kelly Jarrett's attorney for the last 10 years does not see it that way I would have made her plead guilty I would have been Relentless I would have brought her brother up to Bedford Hills prison to put pressure on her to plead bill I would have brought her father who was aging and infirm up there to Bedford Hills prison if I had to drive down to North Carolina myself and put them in my car I would have brought them up to the prison and I would have ganged up on her
• 68:30 - 69:00 and I and I and I would have had them beg her and I and I would have had them cry and I would have had them say please you know you only have this one life I I you know I don't I would have had her father say I don't want to die while when you're in prison and I would have said to Kelly you know what you can fight for your good name outside the Prison Walls but but get out first no we not Bruce barquette is a defense lawyer in Long Island New York I know what I tell my clients out is out out is out get out get out I mean
• 69:00 - 69:30 and I tell them that when they're confronted with whether or not to plead guilty I don't want to stand next to somebody who's pleading guilty to on a crime they didn't commit um but I I don't want to be standing next to somebody when they're wrongfully convicted of a charge they didn't Comm a crime they didn't commit and get much more time so I say I mean I'm not shy about trying cases I'm not shy about fighting the government but out is out there's a line
• 69:30 - 70:00 that you can't cross and it's not clear where the line is but at some point what you're doing stops being giving information stops being persuasion and it starts becoming coercive and you're not supposed to cross that line if you're a lawyer you know most of us don't become criminal defense lawyers because we want to make innocent people plead guilty but the system stinks and here's some somebody who had been locked up for 10 years in a Maximum Security Prison and everybody knew that the court of appeals was going to reverse that there
• 70:00 - 70:30 was this one moment this one opportunity to free her and I would have done everything within my power to get her to plead guilty that's like um say like you had a a daughter and she's carrying a baby and she doesn't want to have an abortion but you're forcing her to have one I mean I feel she should have the choice not to do that and I feel that I should have the choice for my own life not to do something that I feel is is
• 70:30 - 71:00 wrong hers is an exceptional reaction most people do the obvious self-serving thing and that is they Buckle in those circumstances and they bear false witness against themselves that's what plea bargaining asks you to do confess yourself guilty in Brooklyn New York after Charlie gamp pero took the guilty plea he learned
• 71:00 - 71:30 that he then had to confess to every detail of the crime he had pled to the judge wants me to say what happened he asked me what happened that night so I told him that you know I when I went outside um he hit me Mr wi grad hit me and and I hit him back when he fell on the floor I kicked him and I punched him he went crazy that was not what he
• 71:30 - 72:00 wanted to hear Bruce barquette is Charlie's present lawyer the judge knew that allocution that statement by Mr Campero didn't uh warrant a guilty play should go to trial if that's the truth so the judge I want a guilty ple I know it has to be sufficient he says that's not right you got to tell me more so he start he yells at my lawyer and tells my lawyer can you please explain to Mr gampero
• 72:00 - 72:30 that he has to say what happened here he has to be honest with what happen what happened here judge aito agreed to go over the minutes the court I went out of my way to try dash dash I want a cand the statement of what happened what transpired this man did not die from one punch I saw the pictures my lawyers basically tell me you have to agree with what he says so now the judge tells me what
• 72:30 - 73:00 happened the court kicked them and stomped them the defendant I kicked them yes and you stomped them yes and by doing that you intended to inflict serious physical injury to this person yes yes yes and I just kept yesing whatever anything he said I just said yes to yes yes sir yes sir yes sir you weren't s satisfied with just knocking him down and walking away were you answer no you wanted to make sure he didn't get up again right yes the
• 73:00 - 73:30 defendant so he basically went down and said everything that happened I just yes and knowed it the court is that please satisfactory Miss block the da yes you're honor and he tells me off the Record he says make sure that when you go for the preens report make sure you tell them the same thing and that was it we walked out of the courtroom you mean don't change your story yeah basically not my story don't
• 73:30 - 74:00 change my don't change his story it wasn't my story anymore it's a coerced confession you can sort of satisfy your conscience uh with this Sav of I made him say he did it you know and he's saying uh well okay you son of a if I got to say I did take the deal I'll say it do you feel better now do you believe that what the defendant was saying when he was answering all your questions was the
• 74:00 - 74:30 truth do I believe it I have to otherwise I couldn't have taken I would not have taken the ple I would not have taken the play because he started by saying that he punched him and kicked him once and and you said in no way but then he came around to P before I said anything else he kept around to punching and kicking him while he was on the ground and I added the word and stomping him and that's when he said yes but I never put those words in his
• 74:30 - 75:00 mouth right I only eded the word stomping those were his words not mine he knows what he was indicted for he knows what he did Joseph weingrad the victim's father is not as sure anymore a former investigator himself he began to have doubts about the police investigation and the sentence if you don't go to trial and
• 75:00 - 75:30 you don't get this discovery and you don't get people getting up there putting their hands on the Bible and swearing to tell the truth you're not going to find out what really happened he began his own investigation he filed a civil suit against the bowling alley and combed through all the facts the investigator discovered he came to believe he said that the police investigation was sloppy that the so-called Witnesses were
• 75:30 - 76:00 inconsistent and that no one saw his son take the phone call he felt that other people who had harassed his son before had to be involved and the Charlie gamp pero who punched and kicked John weingrad was probably not the one who killed him he went to see the district attorney I just hit him straight on I said I'm not faulting you as a district attorney
• 76:00 - 76:30 I believe that you did a terrific job in that courtroom you bluffed that defense attorney I said Paul you didn't stand a chinaman's chance of convicting Charles pero if they went to trial as a matter of fact if I had been the attorney I would have blew you out of the water there's no way you could have convicted him I said but you know with your list of
• 76:30 - 77:00 so-called Witnesses and the judge telling g g paro's lawyer you got 15 minutes to make a decision or else you're going to trial and if we go to trial and you're found guilty you're going to get 25 to life and I won't entertain any please once the trial commences the trial will go through to its conclusion and he'll get 25 to life if he's guilty scared the hell hell out of everybody on that side and they caved in he left the District Attorney's office he said
• 77:00 - 77:30 unsatisfied what did he say he didn't say anything well I had nothing more to say at that point because I own said right then and there he had no intention of going any further with this so I dropped it Charlie gamp pero began his prison sentence of 7 to 21 years in January 1996 there was no early
• 77:30 - 78:00 release the earliest he could be out if granted parole was [Music] 2003 it was also in 2003 when Kelly Jarrett got a hearing in front of the clemency board after 26 years in prison she began to think for the first time of life on the outside I had plans for my life to go to
• 78:00 - 78:30 the convent become a Franciscan sister and to just uh live my life outside of Prison Walls the clemency was not granted there was no explanation only two clemencies were granted by Governor Pataki that year one of which went to the IST Lenny Bruce who died 37 years before as my grandmother would say he should rest in peace but I don't think
• 78:30 - 79:00 he's up there in heaven saying that you know it was good that he got clemency he's probably saying she should have gotten it give it to her very disappointed yes so what's going to happen now but it's up excuse me is up to the PO
• 79:00 - 79:30 board the first parole hearing for Kelly Jarrett will take place in 2005 but her dilemma may very well follow her parole boards expected mission of wrongdoing and expression of remorse locked up for almost 30 years for claiming she is innocent it would be hard to imagine her saying she is
• 79:30 - 80:00 not towards the end of his seventh year in prison Charlie gamp pero appeared before his parole board by then Witnesses had come forward testifying that they saw other people beating and kicking John weingrad after Charlie had left the scene Charlie was hopeful he talked to his parole office officer who thought he had done everything that the prison had asked him to do and that he was ready to be released I told him that even though
• 80:00 - 80:30 there was other people involved and something happened after I left I still take responsibility for the crime because I I said you know I I put him there uh I explained to them you know what my ambitions were when I went home I explained to them what I've done during my incarceration and uh they told me I'd receive a response in a couple of days the parole was denied the reason
• 80:30 - 81:00 given was that since he was a violent offender discretionary release would be contrary to the best interests of the community it's more than I thought he would be in prison I thought he'd be out by 7even years and maybe even earlier because uh of the U they had an early release program for a while but they didn't by then as uh was sung by uh that famous star
• 81:00 - 81:30 Cas I can't control them it was just what the prosecutor had promised the victim's fathers 7 years before when they agreed on The Plea but by then Joseph weingrad wanted Charlie G pero out of prison and wrote a letter to the parole board I wrote that it seemed to me that Mr Gimpo was probably only guilty of assault and so
• 81:30 - 82:00 the time that he spent in prison was enough he shouldn't be spending 21 years for something that I don't believe he did Charlie gano's next parole hearing will take place in October 2004 there is also a new motion pending to vacate his sentence if both were denied then according to the structure of his sentence he could spend another 6
• 82:00 - 82:30 years in prison now that isn't the way the justice system is supposed to work in this country it's not supposed to work that [Music] way [Music]
• 82:30 - 83:00 next time on Frontline World in India a story of prostitutes from two cities and their plan to take back their lives and halt the spread of AIDS and in Shanghai the clubs here are packed like some scene out of New York in the 80s a cultural revolution challenges the Communist Party goodbye wave and wave but you can't turn back the clock these stories and more on the next Frontline
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