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CNN This Morning

A Look At Conviction Review Units That Help Exonerate Wrongfully Convicted People. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired August 25, 2023 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:30:01]

SHAMEL CAPERS, WRONGLY CONVICTED: I totally understand her pain. I really do. I totally understand. But now look at it, look at what -- look what me going to jail cause for my family. Look at the scars that my family have faced now.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It was Capers mother's persistence that would eventually lead prosecutors to take a second look.

TIDLEEK CAPERS, SHAMEL CAPERS MOTHER: I've just started reaching out to programs, different lawyers, a lot of phone calls, a lot of texts.

HARLOW (voice-over): Attorney Winston Paes is a partner at the international law firm Debevoise and Plimpton, the firm took on Capers case pro bono.

(on camera): Why did you say yes?

WINSTON PAES, ATTORNEY: I said yes because, one, as a former prosecutor, I can evaluate evidence. I thought the evidence on which he was convicted was weak.

HARLOW (on camera): The prosecution's case?

PAES: The prosecution's case.

HARLOW (voice-over): Case would convince a new unit within the Queens district attorney's office called the Conviction Integrity Unit or CIU to reexamine Capers case.

MELINDA KATZ, DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF QUEENS COUNTY: We have four attorneys in our Conviction Integrity Unit whose sole responsibility it is to reinvestigate old convictions.

HARLOW (voice-over): Since 2007, CIUs have been slowly emerging across the country.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We created the Queens' first Conviction Integrity Unit.

HARLOW (voice-over): Nearly all voluntarily established by elected prosecutors. (on camera): The average American doesn't even know these units exist across the country. Why do they matter?

KATZ: Because you have to have confidence that a criminal justice system is willing to admit when mistakes are made.

HARLOW (on camera): Why did you take up Shamel's case?

KATZ: Shamel Capers case came to us through the defense attorney who said that the eyewitness to Shamel Capers being involved in this shooting have recanted their testimony. Now we don't take recantation of testimony easily, we corroborate it, we investigate it.

HARLOW (voice-over): That I witnessed pointed to proof he lied. He told investigators about recorded phone calls he made to his own mother from jail. On these calls, the prosecution's key witness confessed that he never saw Capers shoot at the bus. These phone calls, the proof happened before Capers even stood trial. Capers in his attorney would not discuss the key witness and CNN could not reach that person for comment.

(on camera): Do you believe police suppress the evidence or phone calls, recorded phone calls sat in an evidence locker and no one listened? Or no one knew about them until your team went and found them? Do you know?

KATZ: I don't. I don't know exactly. I know that we turned over all the evidence that we had at the time.

HARLOW (voice-over): After the discovery of that evidence, Capers conviction was vacated eight years after he was imprisoned.

(on camera): Do you think you'd still be in jail if it were not for the Conviction Integrity Unit?

S. CAPERS: Yes, I will still be fighting.

HARLOW (voice-over): D'Aja Robinson's mother opposed vacating Capers conviction, calling it a "travesty of justice." She still believes Capers was one of the shooters that killed her daughter. She declined an on camera interview but told CNN in a statement that she felt excluded from the CIU investigation and said, "we are the victims here, not Shamel Capers."

(on camera): What about victims' families who say this is not justice for them?

KATZ: I can't speak for someone's suffering. It is an awful thing to lose a daughter. I do believe that the person who shot D'Aja Robinson is doing time for that crime now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lea (ph), come. Let me show you something.

HARLOW (voice-over): On November 17, 2022, Shamel Capers was free.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Daddy. HARLOW (voice-over): Out of prison and to his nine-year -old daughter school to pick her up for the first time.

S. CAPERS: I love you. I will not leave you again.

HARLOW (voice-over): She was only five months old when her father was incarcerated.

S. CAPERS: She was so surprised, she started crying.

HARLOW (voice-over): Tears of relief now after so many tears of heartbreak. A mother who didn't give up and the legal system willing to take a second look.

S. CAPERS: How you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You look very familiar.

S. CAPERS: Yes, I just recently got in (INAUDIBLE).

This is like the stock (ph). One day I can promise them every day that I bring freedom, fresh air. I'm going to make them proud.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

HARLOW: And update for you, Shamel Capers has been free now for nine months. He is writing a book about what he went through. He's also taking construction classes. I want to know if that same Conviction Integrity Unit that re examined his case has worked to vacate over 100 others. The DA says 86 of those vacated convictions are connected to a small group of detectives who were later found guilty of perjury and falsification of documents, none of them directly related to Capers case.

[08:35:08]

And also a note of deep gratitude to my colleagues Matt Renard (ph) and Will Simon (ph) for their tireless effort to bring you this story.

We are joined now by Marc Howard, a civil rights lawyer who has represented over 30 clients in wrongful convictions. He is a professor of government and law at Georgetown, where he is the founding director of the Prison and Justice Initiative. He's also the founder and president of the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice.

Marc, thank you for being here. For people watching this who think finally justice because of these units, you say not so fast.

MARC HOWARD, PROF. OF GOVERNMENT AND LAW, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Well, it's a beautiful story. I'm so happy for Shamel Capers. I've been involved in multiple exonerations and prison releases, and I'm just so overjoyed for him and his family. But the problem is that we have such an epidemic of wrongful convictions. Serious scholarly estimates say that roughly 5 percent of all convictions of the wrong person with over 2 million people in prison, that's 100,000 people.

So to have an isolated incident like that is a wonderful story. But we need to look at all the people whose cases we're never hearing about. And the problem with Conviction Integrity Units is that it's the very same office that actually contributed to the wrongful conviction that we're asking to review itself. So while I applaud the Queen's DA, Melinda Katz, and she's done a tremendous job in this case and in many others, the problem is that the CIU is all around the country, most of them are doing absolutely nothing. So they've set up an office, there are 97 of them.

But 46 haven't had a single exoneration, and most have had one or two, her office has had over 100, which is really remarkable. But what's troubling is that they give this false pretense that there's a serious review taking place, and for the people who just get ignored. And I'm involved in a case in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where we, for 16 months have been trying to get them to look at a case they wouldn't even respond and acknowledge receipt of our case. And the evidence is sitting there ready to be tested. It's been there for 24 years, we can't get a response.

So, it's troubling that many DA offices are starting to create something that's giving the illusion of serious self-review. But there's no autonomy, there's no independence, and often there's very little fairness.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Because in some ways, this is a conflict of interest.

HOWARD: Exactly.

BLACKWELL: Because when you expose that this case was mishandled, then you're exposing the lack of care, the mismanagement of the case within the office.

HOWARD: Exactly. Because the vast majority of proven exonerations by DNA had prosecutorial misconduct. So you're asking the very same office, often the very same people, it might have been their own cases or their colleagues. And so what's the incentive there?

HARLOW: So --

HOWARD: Typically, it's to a post testing, post review, post new evidence, post release.

HARLOW: So that's why this debate is a good one. And I'm glad we're having it.

HOWARD: Yes.

HARLOW: I'm going to push back on you a little bit.

HOWARD: Sure.

HARLOW: I just want to note in Shamel's case, it was a different DA and a different team of prosecutors. HOWARD: That's true.

HARLOW: So the new da comes in and says, we have to take a look.

HOWARD: Yes.

HARLOW: But are you letting, Marc, the perfect scenario where we get equal justice under law? Are you letting the perfect be the enemy of the good?

HOWARD: No, I want there to be more Conviction Integrity Units, but I want them to have independence, autonomy, fair review. So, it could be by appointing people who are former defense attorneys, appointing people from the Innocence Project and other organizations like mine that work --

HARLOW: People like you.

HOWARD: Exactly. I would have more faith if I knew that there were people who understand the real nature of wrongful convictions, who actually have had a stake in exonerations to look at the misconduct in that very office. Instead, they just sort of put a wall around, say, trust us. I'm not going to trust the very same people who put countless, we're talking now, you know, over 100,000 people in prison for crimes they didn't commit, that is deeply troubling, if you care about truth and justice it. And I don't think they're getting at it.

BLACKWELL: Is anybody getting it right?

HOWARD: Well, I think Philadelphia actually they've had many congregations.

HARLOW: Larry Crasner (ph).

HOWARD: And Larry Crasner's office, I think in Queens, I really applaud this work that they've done. They actually hired a former attorney from the Innocence Project who's leading up the Conviction Integrity Unit. So in my view, it's actually not a coincidence that that office is having more exonerations. Most of them, it's just one of their line prosecutors who suddenly in charge of actually policing essentially themselves. So in the smaller counties out there that we don't hear about, it's just injustice being compounded with this false pretense of review.

And people are just getting buried, ignored. My mailbox is full of letters from people in prison begging to get their cases looked at. I look at as many as I can. We've been able to find so much more of a complete picture of truth, and a few cases actually, Chief Justice, but honestly, working with Conviction Integrity Units, as they exist now has been really an exercise in despair.

BLACKWELL: Yes. I think it's important for people to know. And thank you for that story. It was important to hear Shamel's story.

Marc Howard, thank you.

HARLOW: Yes. Thank you.

HOWARD: Thanks for having me.

HARLOW: We appreciate it very much.

BLACKWELL: Vladimir Putin makes his first remark since the man who led an armed rebellion against him reportedly died in a plane crash. We'll take you live to Russia.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:43:09]

BLACKWELL: Russian President Vladimir Putin is memorializing Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin as a talented man who made serious mistakes. Its first public comments come just one day after the mercenary chiefs presumed death in a fiery plane crash near Moscow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA (through translator): I knew Prigozhin for a very long time since the early '90s. He was a man of difficult fate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Russian officials say flight data shows the plane reached 28,000 feet before it stopped transmitting. Prigozhin's apparent death comes exactly two months after he led that brief armed uprising against Russia's military leaders. CNN's Matthew Chance's live in St. Petersburg, they're near memorial for Prigozhin.

Matthew, Putin also said that percussion was a man of difficult fate. Tell us more about these remarks?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, he said he had a difficult fate and that's often a sort of euphemism in Russia for somebody who's had, you know, a hard life. He had a criminal past. Of course, Yevgeny Prigozhin was in jail for some years during the Soviet era. And so, it was it was a reference to that.

Putin also said that Prigozhin in his life, although he was a talented businessman, made some serious mistakes. And he didn't don't directly reference the leading of an armed uprising against the Kremlin two months ago, but clearly, that was a, in retrospect, huge mistake by Yevgeny Prigozhin. But you can see he's very fondly remembered here in St. Petersburg, in the sense that there's this makeshift memorial that sprung up here in his home city. It's right outside the Wagner headquarters, that from where all their operations were basically controlled here in St. Petersburg. It's not a huge thing.

But there are memorials like this popping up all over of the country in various cities from where Wagner drew its mercenary fighters. There's a photograph here. I've showed you before I showed you again, it's Yevgeny Prigozhin carrying a weapon. And it says, in this hell, in Russian, in this house, he was the best. So talking about him very much in the past tense even though we haven't had it officially confirmed yet that he is actually, you know, his body was actually in that wreckage.

[08:45:23]

You can see the flowers here, the arm patches from the Wagner group that people have put here. You're seeing all sorts of people come. And I think you spotted a few earlier. There's a sort of slow trickle of people, members of Wagner, family members of people who are in Wagner, and just generally people who, you know, kind of agree with some of the -- some of the controversial remarks that Prigozhin made about corruption in the Russian Armed Forces. He was very critical of that, particularly in the last several months.

This is interesting. Look, it's a hammer. Very heavy indeed, a sledge hammer. And it's exactly this kind of tool has become the symbol of Wagner, a symbol of the extreme violence the organization used, because it was with a hammer like this, that -- somebody they regarded as a traitor was executed horrifically on camera. And it really bolstered, you know, Wagner's image as this extreme, violent, hyper patriotic group that would do anything for the Motherland, as they call Russia.

You know, a lot of flowers as well, as I say, a lot of people around the country coming out and doing something similar. You can see this lady here is about to put some flowers down as well. And you're seeing this all over the country. The question is really, you know, will Yevgeny Prigozhin now be forgotten or will he become a martyr? And will it sort of fuel sort of dissent and criticism of the Russian Armed Forces? And we just don't know the answer to that yet, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Matthew Chance there in St. Petersburg with the reporting. Thank you so much, Matthew.

HARLOW: All right. Donald Trump marks his latest arrest with an X. We'll explain. Harry Enten here with This Morning's number ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:30]

HARLOW: Welcome back, former President Trump has made a surprising return to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter posting his mug shot after being arrested last night at the Fulton County Jail. Harry Enten has This Morning's number. What is it?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: All right, This Morning's number is 958 days because Trump uses X for the first time in 958 days. He had imposed on X or tweeted for those old fashioned of us since January 8 of 2021. So, why did he come back to X? Why is he finally posting on the site formerly known as Twitter? And that is because there are a lot more people on this platform than Truth Social.

So, Trump, of course, posted the mug shot post. This is the number of likes. Look how many likes there were on Truth Social, just about 45,000. I just checked this no more than 30 minutes ago on X, formerly known as Twitter, look how many there are, about 1 million, 1 million that is more than 20 times as many people who are liking the posts on Twitter than on Truth Social. So this gives you an understanding of what's going on there. But it's not just about people.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

ENTEN: We're covering this segment right now, aren't we?

HARLOW: Yes.

ENTEN: It is about the media. And if we look here, the social media sites, journalists use the most or the second most in their job, I can't believe we actually have a poll on this, but apparently we do.

HARLOW: From Pew.

ENTEN: From Pew, a legitimate research firm, X Twitter, look at this, 69 percent, 69 percent say they use it the most, the second most, that's more than Facebook. That's far more than LinkedIn at 19 percent. So this isn't just about getting the attention of people in the regular world. It's about getting the attention of the media as well. And as this segment demonstrates, he has very much done so.

BLACKWELL: There's obviously a lot of interest in this. What are people most interested in?

ENTEN: Yes. So, if we look at Google searches over the last 24 hours related to Donald Trump, perhaps not surprising mug shot is number one. I mean, that's -- we have the photo of it right there. We're going to know that mug shot for a very long period of time.

Arrest in prison, number two. Again, that makes sense. Maybe a little surprising, but not really the Tucker interview comes in at number three. And something that I'll leave to other people to discuss, the height and weight of Trump at number four. That's --

HARLOW: He lost 24 pounds.

ENTEN: Yes, he --

HARLOW: I'm serious. I read it.

ENTEN: He lost 24 pounds. There's some issues as to whether he's six two or six three.

HARLOW: Yes, I think people were searching that.

ENTEN: People were searching it. People are --

BLACKWELL: You don't believe that really?

HARLOW: I guess I believe it.

BLACKWELL: OK. ENTEN: I mean, people are always interested in that type of stuff that. People like the tabloid stuff. But again, I think the mug shot here being number one is something that really --

HARLOW: Yes.

ENTEN: -- gives you an indication of where the interest is. There was a lot of interest and that was why a lot of people don't want the mug shot to be taken. But it was, it was search number one.

BLACKWELL: All right. Harry Enten --

HARLOW: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: -- thank you.

Sometime within the next three hours or so, the last two of Donald Trump's 18 co-defendants must surrender at the Fulton County jail. Our crews are live in Fulton County with more on what comes next. CNN's coverage of this historic moment continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:57:58]

BLACKWELL: California has the highest rate of homelessness in the country and often living among the 1000s of unsheltered people are their beloved pets. And while many try their best to take good care of their animals, they often struggle to provide them with the much needed medical care. So this week, CNN Hero has made it his mission to offer judgment free veterinary care at no cost on the streets of California. Meet Dr. Kwane Stewart.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. KWANE STEWART, PROJECT STREET VET, FOUNDER: I've seen people give up their last meal for their pets and people who have $3 for their name. And after I'm done with the treatment, they will try and give me that $3.

This is your partner obviously.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ace (ph) is my best friend.

STEWART: They see me with my stethoscope in my bag.

Yes, you look good. This little dog was days away from dying.

And then they start sharing stories about their dog and the history.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It makes me feel good. And he loves me. I know he loves me.

STEWART: I can treat about 80 percent of the cases I see out of a really small bag.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you did vaccines too? Oh, that's really cool.

STEWART: It's antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, flea and tick, heartworm prevention. It's all there. It's at no cost them, it's free. I'm building a network of trusted volunteers, technicians, but hospitals and clinics we can go to we can call on.

Let me take a listen here.

It doesn't matter what your situation is or what your background or past is. I see a pet need and I see a person who cares for them dearly who just needs some help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What a story to see Dr. Stewart hit the streets to save animals and bring grace and dignity to those caring for them. Go to cnnheroes.com.

Thank you for spending your week with us. It has been quite a week of news. We appreciate it. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. And thank you for making the trip.

BLACKWELL: You know, next time you invited me, make sure there's something happening for us to do.

HARLOW: Right? There's no news.

BLACKWELL: Right. It's nothing to do when I come here.

HARLOW: Always a pleasure, my friend.

BLACKWELL: Likewise.

HARLOW: We're both on vacation next week.

BLACKWELL: Taking little bit of a break. We have earned it.

HARLOW: See you after Labor Day. CNN News Central is now.