Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Interview with Marvin Lamont Anderson, Peter Neufeld
Aired August 23, 2002 - 08:46 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Marvin Lamont Anderson is truly a free man today. He was released on parole from a Virginia prison in 1997 after serving 15 years behind bars for rape. Yesterday, though, the state of Virginia issued a full pardon a year after DNA testing proved he did not commit that crime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARVIN LAMONT ANDERSON, PARDONED PRISONER: I have been blessed...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Amen.
ANDERSON: ... in more ways than one can ever imagine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: Marvin Lamont Anderson joins us from Richmond, Virginia. Morning to you, sir. Good to see you, Marvin.
ANDERSON: Good morning. Thank you for allowing me to be here.
HEMMER: All right. Also with us in New York, attorney Peter Neufeld from the organization that helped Anderson, the Innocence Project. Good to see you too, Peter.
PETER NEUFELD, INNOCENCE PROJECT: Good morning.
HEMMER: Hey, Marvin, take me back 15, 20 years. Apparently, you were accused of a crime. You were picked out from a police lineup, I understand. Why did this woman finger you for that crime?
ANDERSON: I don't know. I can't explain why she fingered me. She, I guess, in her mind, she thought I was the perpetrator of -- that actually committed crime on her. That's something that she would have to answer.
HEMMER: What did you do in prison when you thought, you know what, I need to fight this. I need to find a way. What was your strategy?
ANDERSON: Basically just keep praying and have faith in God and in my family trying to find evidence that could actually prove my innocence.
HEMMER: But it was the DNA that came forward that helped ultimately, essentially free your life, incarcerate you from jail. Knowing that, though, what's your thought on technology right now when it comes to DNA and essentially giving you a new lease on life?
ANDERSON: It's wonderful. Today, DNA can not only set a person free as it did for me, but, you know, the state and some police departments use it to convict a person as well. The problem that we have not only in Virginia, but other states, is that a lot of the commonwealth fraternities do not want to allow DNA evidence to come back to help get a person free.
HEMMER: Without DNA, you're still behind bars, right?
ANDERSON: Exactly.
HEMMER: Peter Neufeld, I want to bring you in on this. How did you crack the case?
NEUFELD: Well, Marvin's case is kind of special because we looked for the evidence for five years, and we were told it was destroyed, and it had been destroyed, or at least most of it had been destroyed. But fortunately they took one last look back in the archives where the criminalist kept her notebooks, and they found that she had broken the rules in Virginia and instead of returning the evidence to the rape kit to be destroyed, she Scotch taped it into her lab notebook. Had she followed the rules, Marvin would still be convicted.
HEMMER: Isn't this an amazing thing, DNA, in the way it is being used across the country? We have this case of David Westerfield in San Diego earlier this week. Jeffrey Toobin, our legal analyst here on CNN, he said 15 years ago this case doesn't go to trial. That's how slim it was in terms of the evidence that was used to eventually get the conviction we saw.
NEUFELD: You know, Jeffrey's right about that, but the big problem is that most cases don't have DNA evidence. So you have to take a case like Marvin's and try and figure out how come Marvin got prosecuted as an innocent person. So we've asked the governor of Virginia now to create an innocence commission. There's a bill pending in Congress which will mandate that states create innocence commissions to investigate cases like Marvin's to find out what went wrong to prevent other innocent people from being wrongly convicted.
HEMMER: Let me ask you this, and Marvin, I want you to listen to this as well. What was it about his story that convinced you to take up his case?
NEUFELD: Well, the first thing that was so extraordinary about Marvin's case is that the only reason he was picked out for identification is because the perpetrator, who was a black man, said to the victim, who was a white woman, I got me a white girlfriend.
And the sheriff thought to himself, Who do I know in this community who is black and has a white girlfriend, and the only person he thought of was Marvin Anderson. That's how Marvin Anderson's picture, having never been arrested before, was shown to the victim and got identified. HEMMER: Hey, Marvin, how has your life changed? That might be a very shallow question. I imagine you could probably talk about it for hours, but can you sum it up for us?
ANDERSON: Yes. My incarceration helped open my eyes up to the world, to the way the world actually operates. Me -- coming home on parole and what happened to me Wednesday has given me a new outlook as far as what's important to me, what's important to my family, and just to try to live a normal life.
HEMMER: I had read, Marvin, where you said that over the years, you've learned to control your emotions because there have been so many highs and so many lows. Is that the case?
ANDERSON: Yes. Being incarcerated, you try not to let the outside world interfere with you on the inside because then you have no control of the outside. So I kind of adjusted and learned how to control my emotions as far as when I was visiting my family. Now, I can express my emotions by just saying I have been blessed in more ways than most people can imagine, and now I have the opportunity to try to help someone else who was in a situation that I was in.
HEMMER: Hey, listen, enjoy your weekend, huh?
ANDERSON: Thank you.
HEMMER: That must sound really nice to hear. I understand you brought a bit of a souvenir with you. Do you want to show it?
ANDERSON: Oh, yes. I am now a legal free man.
HEMMER: Look at that. Official from yesterday. Thank you, Marvin. Marvin Lamont Anderson with us live today, and Peter Neufeld. Thanks.
NEUFELD: Thanks.
HEMMER: Good to see you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
