#554 Lauren Bright Pacheco with Pablo Velez

Joy is essential and it's also elusive, but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101, it's a new podcast hosted by me, Hota Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid uplifting and moving on air chats. Open your free iHeartRadio app search, Joy 101 and listen now. Joy 101 with Hota Kotby is presented by CVS. And superstars even exist the way they used to. 2016 was sort of that last era of monoculture where we still consume things in community. Everybody wanted to be Beyonce at that point. I don't think we'll ever see another beyond. What does it mean to be black and eat in America? You will never make me feel bad for being a black girl, for being a black American girl ever. From music to food to the conversations shaping black culture right now, therapy for black girls is bringing it all to the mic. Listen to therapy for black girls on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This season on my podcast, here's the thing I talk to composer Mark Shaman. It's about the hang. It's the pleasure of hanging out with the people that you're with. You know, Robin I was always a great hang and director Morgan Neville. Film school teaches you all the wrong things about making documentary. What do you want to say? Documentary is all about your ear. What do you hear? I don't feel like my job is listening really, really hard. Listen to hears the thing on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. At 2 a.m. on July 15th, 2004, a Houston pool hall emptied into its parking lot along with a young man named Jason Wolley. And 19 year old Adrian Pion was waiting outside to settle a score. But Pion and two friends only brought fists to a gunfight. Jason Wolley began to fire. As did two others who emerged near a gold Cadillac. Pion was wounded while 17 year old Emerson Boyarkas was fatally shot. Wolley and the other two assailants sped away in the Cadillac while witnesses jotted down the plate number which led to the name on the registration. 23 year old Pablo Valenz, a trucker who's hobby of fixing up and reselling cars, ultimately earned him 30 to life. This is wrongful conviction. The Fox Foundation is proud to support this episode of wrongful conviction and the work of after innocence. A nonprofit that helps hundreds of people nationwide rebuild their lives after wrongful incarceration. Each year, innocent people are released after spending years behind bars for crimes they didn't commit. Nearly all of them leave prison with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, with no help or compensation from the state as they face the steep challenges of rebuilding their lives after wrongful imprisonment. After innocence is changing that. After innocence helps exonneries get and make good use of essential services like health care, dental care, mental health support, legal aid, financial counseling and more. Since 2016, they've brought that help to more than 800 exonneries across 46 states working tirelessly to ensure that no one released after wrongful incarceration is left behind. Learn more at after-innocence.org and join after innocence to support exonneries as they rebuild their lives. I'm Lauren Bright-Pacheco. Welcome back to wrongful conviction where we have a story out of Houston, Texas in which our guests only crime was selling a car to an actual criminal. But before we get into all that, joining us are his pro bono attorneys from Latham and Watkins, Herman Yu and Alexandra Van Dyne. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you for featuring this story. And calling in from the Texas Department of Corrections, Pablo Vales, thanks for joining us. Okay. So, Pablo grew up in an area of Houston, called Houston Heights. I mean, I grew up like most kids, mom, dad, two older sisters. We all were pretty close in age, so we all went to the same schools. Just doing the normal kid thing, going outside, playing, having a lot of friends. On the weekends, I would go work with my dad. My dad had two bars. So, as a kid, if I wanted video games or toys or anything, I'd have to go to my dad's bar on the weekends and clean up and fill the coolers up with beer and just all that stuff. And perhaps this work ethic led to an interest in trucking that was spurred on by one of his neighbors. Jackie, my neighbor Jackie, he was an older white man, and coolers of family, and him and his wife, doors. They lived three houses down from us, and across the street there was an empty lot. And as a kid, I would see him. He'd come in as a 18-witter, a flatbed, and he'd always park it across the street, and that empty lot. And we'd be over there in that lot playing, jumping on the flatbed, and what now he didn't mind, was I got older. I was like, on truck trucks one day. And he explained to me, "Get your CDL book, study it, read it two, three times that you have to." I did that, and I ended up getting my CDL, and just being able to be free, man, be away, be on that road, peaceful, especially outweighed in the mountains, driving. I loved it, man. It's fun. But before his career, he fell in love with cars. My dad's friends used to come over, and they had motorcycles, and my dad had a smoke in the bandit trans-zam. I started working at 16. I had a mind-icking officer, the owner there, Jimmy King. I'll never forget. I went there. I had to go hiring. He said, "Well, do you know how to work on brakes?" And I said, "Sometimes, and everybody busted out laughing, right?" He said, "Sometimes, you know what? Man, just show up tomorrow." And he gave me the job, man, they showed me how to weld, they showed me how to fix brakes, they showed me how to work on vehicles. And I took flights from there, man, fell in love with cars, sports cars. That was by the car, fixed it up, man, and sell it, buy another one, fixed it up, and sell all things. And another neighbor of his, who is believed to be one of the assailants in this case, Ron Strandberg, purchased a car from Pablo. It was a 98 kind of leg reveal, Ron, but I actually sold cars, and he lived down the street, on the same street as me, maybe about seven houses down from me. And so when I came up on a good deal on this Jaguar, I was like, "Man, I'm gonna sell this cat leg," and Ron had actually seen it, and he was like, "I'll buy it." And I was like, "Look, check this out. I'll make it even easier for me, man. Just finish paying it off. You don't gotta pay me nothing. Just finish paying it off to this little car light right here." And he was like, "Cool. And I never had time to change the title because I was never home." Every week, Sunday through Friday, Pablo was on the road with his truck, so unfortunately the title of the car remained in his name through the incidents of July 12 through the 15th, 2004. And apparently alleged gang affiliates of Ron Strandberg, including a guy named Richard Shorty, Cisneros, got into a fight with 19-year-old Adrian Pion at a local club in Billiards Hall with a distractingly ridiculous name, the perfect rack. Now, everybody from the neighborhood in the Heights and surrounding neighborhoods, everybody goes to the perfect rack. I wasn't a current person. I'd rather go change the old one, my dear, you know what I mean? But his two kids then locked up before gang related to what they said and got into it with Richard Cisneros, known as Shorty. And they beat him up on a Monday. He wanted to get that guy to them. According to Adrian Pion's girlfriend Claudia Beltrone and her friend Nancy Elmanza on Wednesday, July 14th, they were hanging out at the club on the lookout for Shorty or his known associates, Ron Strandberg, and another guy named Jason Woolly. And while this confrontation was brewing in Houston, this is a Wednesday, so Pablo was on the road. Pablo has been training another guy, the sky algae, they have been driving through Oklahoma and Mississippi over a couple of days. Their generator has gone out and weather for Texas. We had a generator on the truck that ran the AC system. So on our way to Odessa, we noticed we had a gas leak on the generator. So I called my dispatcher, he ended up calling another truck driver named Ray. And we met up in weather for Texas. We swapped loads. He continued the load back to Odessa and I took his trainer back to Houston. We left weather for around 830 Pion that night in Joe back to Houston. But it had not been for that gas leak. I mean, I would never even went back to Houston, I'd have been on the road until Friday. So Pablo was sort of getting the trainee situated. He's getting home at 1 30 in the morning, getting a shower, getting some cereal, seeing his brothers. And then heads off to his ex-girlfriends house in sort of just the cab of the truck, which I imagine looked very interesting, sort of driving the other street. And then in parallel, this other conflict is going on. At this point, Claudia and Nancy had spotted Jason Woully and alerted Adrian Pion. So at around the usual 2 a.m. closing time. club goers were spilling out into the parking lot, including Claudia, Nancy, and Jason. Meanwhile, Adrian and his friends, a Stabon Rodriguez, and 17-year-old Emerson Boyorkes pulled into the lot. - And Emerson Boyorkes is in the car. He's told you're 17. Like, don't get involved in this, stay in the car. They get out waiting for them is Jason Wolley in a red shirt. He pulls a nine-millimeter gun from his wasteland shoots at the ground, and then someone pulls up in this gold Cadillac to build the famous gold Cadillac. Other shooters come into this sort of ambush-style attack, Adrian runs, Rodriguez runs. - The police found three different calibers of shell casings at the scene, and Wolley was responsible for one of them. And witnesses only described one other shooter who had emerged near the gold Cadillac, standing about five foot four, light hair, firing a long gun, wearing a blue shirt. - The descriptions of the blue-shirted shooter, right, was a gentleman who is shorter, stockier, heavier. That's not a Pablo. Pablo is, especially at the time, pretty in shape. Tall guy. He's like, six-something. It just doesn't fit. - But it might fit a guy, nicknamed Shorty. Either way, back to the shooting. Adrian Pion was hit in the abdomen. He and Rodriguez took off running. Wolley chased them, along with the blue-shirted shooter, but eventually ran back to the gold Cadillac, and sped off. At which point, Claudia Beltran and Nancy Almanza allegedly chased after them in their car. - And Claudia and her friend Nancy, I believe, grab a Bible and write down the license plate in eyeliner or something like that. And so they get the plate. But what everyone realizes during all of this, Hullabaloo as Adrian is shot, but escapes. Rodriguez escapes. Poor Emerson, B. Yorkes, has gotten out of the car, and he has been wounded fatally and dies. And that is all happening in a parking lot in Houston at the perfect rack. And Pablo is elsewhere at his ex-girlfriend's house, having what sounds like a very serious conversation about their relationship. But it's just two totally different events happening in two totally different places. - When I was in my girlfriend's house, Ron, we calling me the night of the murder, asking me to return to the car, to go in and I asked what happened. He said, "Man, I'll tell you later." And I'm like, "Look, I'm just now being in. I'm gonna go to sleep and up, and I'm not fixing to wait up all night for the cops to show up, because they're not fixing to come right away, just because of the car that's going." So he was like, "All right." So the next morning, he calls me back, and he's like, "Did you report to the car store?" And I said, "No, no, you, you can't do anything to worry about it." And I'm like, "Well, what happened?" He said, "Man, it wasn't nothing." And I was like, "Oh, whatever, you know what I'm saying?" I mean, if you tell me not to worry about it, if you're not worried about it, it was obviously, it's not nothing serious. That's what I thought. - But the license plate number led investigators to the gold Cadillac, which was still registered to Pablo Vales. Now Pablo had never been booked before. So police pulled his driver's license photo, in which Pablo was three years younger with a buzz cut, and they put it in a photo array for Claudia Beltran. - The initial identification of Pablo by Claudia Beltran was a photo identification, right? It was just his face, no physical appearance. So she did not have the benefit of his overall body shape type. And so she had no opportunity to recognize that Pablo looked nothing like the blue shirted shooter that she had seen in terms of the body shape type. And it turned out that the freezing of Claudia's alleged identification was very important. But that was not shared with the defense before trial and we'll get into that later. But for now, investigators had obtained a rest warrants for both Jason Wully and Pablo Vales. - I mean, swap was never where, there was police everywhere, guns drawn on me. And when they got me out the car, I'm like, "Man, what the hell is going on?" He's like, "We got a friend who's not going for you for murder." And I'm like, "For murder?" Like, "Well, who did I kill?" You know? And of course, they asked me all the questions and all that stuff. And I told him, "How much is my bond?" And he's like 30,000. And I'm like, "All right, well, I'm getting out. I'm gun top of the seat." And he's like, "Each charge." And I'm like, "Well, how many charges do I have?" And he said, "You know, I have a meter of stuff with a deadly weapon and a murder." And I'm like, "Okay, 60,000, I'm still bonding out. I'm doing talk to you." And he tried to give me not to bond out, right? And he was like, "Well, why do you want to bond out? If you didn't have nothing to do with this, you'll see the judge and the horn in. He'll see that you have nothing to do with this. You'll let you go." As if only guilty people value their freedom. Yeah, I'm here on out. I just went to work every day and not knowing what was really going to happen. My attorney, he kept telling me, "Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. They don't have nothing on you. You weren't there." And so I had to mind saying, "I didn't worry about it. I've continued life living my life working, having fun, going to the racetrack, taking my cars down there." After all, he had an alibi. He'd been with his trucking trainee, LG Holmes, until just shortly before the shooting, then at his mothers with his siblings, before heading over to his girlfriend, Annals, in the cab portion of his 18 wheeler. But as time wore on, pretrial, that relationship, fizzled. She was mad and had a lot of anger towards me because she wanted to settle down, get married, and I didn't want to. I didn't want to, because I had already got with somebody else, right? So we ended up splitting up. But before that, when I got arrested and all that, she had told me, "She's a man. You're with me tonight." So fast forward, we split up. Of course, I told her, like, "Hey, don't forget, when I go to court or my attorney needs to talk to you." And that's when she hit me with the, "Oh, I don't remember, it was that night." And I'm like, "What the fuck you mean? You don't remember. I'm not your house in a big red 18-liter. What you mean, you don't remember? You know what I mean? It's only time I ever went to your house in this 18-liter." And soon, Pablo's new romantic partner became pregnant. So one can imagine that this may have strengthened Annals resolve not to participate in his defense. And perhaps Pablo's trial attorney, Ken McLean, would have done more to solidify Pablo's alibi, but he was enduring a major health crisis. His defense counsel is being treated for cancer. He's dying of cancer. He's obviously not going to be doing an adequate job representing Pablo. He didn't do the basic investigation to publish phone records, right? And we weren't able to retrieve all of his phone records, given the passage of time when we were involved. But certainly, his defense counsel would have been able to retrieve the phone records we did, and more, that would have demonstrated his location, the infeasibility of him getting to the perfect wreck and Pablo's communications with Ann Yeo. - When I was sitting there and trying to out, and they bring in my ex-girlfriend, and I'm like, what the fuck? What is she doing here? And they're asking her questions, and they're like, well, he could, he was with you that night and it's a what night? And she's like, no, he wasn't with me that night. - His ex-girlfriend Annals, as we weren't even in contact in July, why would I have been talking to him all night, but the phone records show that, no, they were in fact in touch. They were talking at that time. So that would have, I think, lent credibility to Pablo's testimonies well in front of the jury. And then the phone record show, he's not really in touch with any of these people, right? Like, he's in touch with Strandberg once or twice related to this car, because Strandberg suddenly needs to unload this car, right? But when you look at the phone records that the police did pull, Ron and Jason there and touch there exchanging all these phone calls. - Willie Strandberg and his narrow exchange, 26 calls before the shooting and then 38 calls after the shooting. - Wow. - That's right. And so you can tell the jury, these guys are all talking to each other. Pablo Vales is really not talking to them other than with respect to this car that we have induced other evidence about, right? - So in addition to the damage of Nell did Pablo's credibility, as well as the lack of any further context that could have been derived from Jason Wolley's phone records, the judge limited the defense's ability to question witnesses about Ron Strandberg and Richard Cisneros, even though the DA stated in her opening statement that they were likely involved with Wolley. And then they had to contend with Claudia Beltrans alleged identification. But curiously, the prosecutor, Eileen Bogar, even said in her opening statement that she was not expecting an in-court identification from Claudia. When Claudia Beltrans sees Pablo Vales at his trial for the very first time, what does she say to the prosecutor? She says, that's not him. Despite that, the prosecutor goes on, she pushes forward. She forces Claudia to testify just about the photo array, not about her now realization that that is not Pablo sitting in the defense table. - When Claudia, when they asked her, she wasn't able to pick nobody out. I was like, okay, I'm good. And I'll be going home. - And then it's gonna be over with, right? - And then Detective Swanson gets up there and negates her testimony. - Yeah. He pretty much sold it to the jury, man. - Call the identification perfect, beautiful, positive. - He gives those little flourishes, right? Because those are the kinds of things that a jury's gonna hear and think to themselves. Oh, if he's going to be so descriptive, Surely he must have seen it witness this identification. In addition, Adrian Pion also testified, saying that he'd seen Pablo at the perfect rack around 10pm, which was not only impeached by Pablo's trucking trainee LG Holmes, but also that wasn't even part of the state's narrative. Importantly, however, Pion did not identify Pablo as one of the assailants. The defense also presented several witnesses that placed the gold catalac in Ron Strandberg's possession in the days and weeks before and after the shooting. But it appears that they weren't enough to overcome officer Swayne Sins' description of the identification that he allegedly witnessed. When they came back with the guilty verdict, I remember turning around and my mom, my daughter's mother and my cousin, some of my friends, my sisters, and everybody they were just the tears. My daughter was three weeks old when they come back to me, and they gave me 30 years. [Music] Joy is essential, and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it, or simply hope it into life, but now. There's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Houda Kotby. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Entertainment legends, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. And I'll offer some of my own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced and harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on air chats. Joy, after a break up, Joy is an empty nester. Joy, after a loss. Joy as a caretaker. This new podcast will speak to you. Listen to Joy 101 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Saigon, the story of my family, and of the country that shaped us. The United States will not stand by and allow any time, however great. Take over another country. From iHeart Podcasts, Saigon. Please allow me to introduce Joseph Shorman. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? I should stop talking so much. I like hearing you talk. One city, a divided country, in the war that tore America apart. For Vietnam. I've taken a hit from Japanese ground fire. Do you read me? They're pouring petrol all over him. He's holding matches. Come on, a landmine! For freedom! Saigon, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Rob Benedict. Staying here's madness. The world should hear about this. There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to Saigon. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You said to me, "Yo, you know, keep at it." Because you let me rap for you. It was magical for all of us. We made it, we made it. Yeah, I'm like, "We?" I know these guys, but who are you? I'm MC Jin, and this is laugh but not least. I'll be chatting with guests from all walks of life about the power of humor when it comes to facing difficult times. Like the co-founder of Rough Riders, Darren D. Dean. Talking about as a kid. Do you remember that we met even way before that? Did you walk up to the gate? That was me, D. That was you? That was me. The day we found out that you and the whole crew was at hit factor, I hit factor, the mission was to get me to go to the gate, start freestyle and see if I could get in the studio. I'm rapping and, suddenly, I hear a voice, "Hey, open the gate, let let him in!" The gate slowly went, "Come, come, come, come, come!" They all they're watching is, and they watch me walk in today and that is a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life. Listen to Laffba Knight Lease with MC Jinn on the iHard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I didn't know what to expect like now, but okay, I'm not going home. I'm not going to be able to erase my daughter, take care of my mom and my little brother. Now I have to worry about taking care of myself. It's like going to a parallel country man. It's like a whole other world in here, and I have to learn to adjust quick. There's rules and laws in here, among the inmates, in life and death situations in here. It's a negative evil place in here. I'm already at 20 years. That's what I heard in my daughter was three weeks old, and here she is 20, as a little kid growing up. She would always tell everybody, "I just want my dad to be in the critical." She came to me one day and I had been in it, and she said, "Dad, she said, "Can I take you home with me?" And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I can't go home." She was about seven years old. And I said, "Dad, can't." And she said, "You know, it's all 20 bucks, and I'll sink you up." And I said, "Yeah, so I can't." But I can't. But you know, man, she even said, "She said, "I'll poke hope in it so you can breathe." But I can't go home baby, you know, and you know, a little kid, innocent, not knowing, you know, the seriousness of the insulting man, you know. It's just all right. I've got a daughter and a son, and if I were in Pablo shoes, and I wasn't able to see my kids, I mean, it would just kill me. I mean, it would absolutely destroy me. Even now, she'll cry, man, when we have to leave it, she'll cry, man. And she would always tell me, "Dad, I've never seen you cry." I said, "Believe me, I said, you just because you don't see me cry, I mean I'm not crying." But I keep on pushing, man, I keep on pushing, knowing that, "Hey man, I'll be home one day." You know. Pablo began writing to various innocent organizations, which brought him an investigator named CJ Connolly, who looked into the case and paid a visit to Pablo's co-defendant, Jason Wolley. When he went to go visit Wolley, now mind you, Wolley didn't know CJ was coming to visit him or why he was even getting a visit. And from a CJ said, he said, "The moment that he told him I'm here because of Pablo's head, it's Wolley and me, and he told him, he had nothing to do with this. He's innocent. He had nothing to do with this." And CJ's words, he said, "I'm in that sport to fire on me, to continue researching and investigating." CJ ended up reaching out to a different attorney, man, and late in the walk-in, ended up helping men, a lot of love and respect for them guys that are late in the walk-in, man. What for each of you was the "aha moment" where you realized that you were looking at a wrongful conviction? For me, as to review the evidence and realize that the only reason Pablo was ever targeted by the Houston Police Department was because of a late change in the title of the Gold Catalog. It was a getaway vehicle. That's it. That is the only thing that ties any of this to Pablo. And the fact that a 23-year-old man didn't get the title to his car transferred right away, that seems eminently reasonable and understandable to me. So the fact that's sort of what this is all writing on is pretty wild. The other two things that really stuck out to me were that his own council failed to get his phone records that really substantiated his alibi. And obviously the egregious Brady violations. Latham and Watkins discovered a previously undisclosed photo array containing both Shorty and Pablo's photos with a signature next to Shorty's photo, which makes sense in light of the initial description of the shooter in blue. And then they saw Officer King's previously undisclosed investigation notes, which detailed what Claudia Beltran actually had said about Pablo when she viewed the photo array. So what King wrote in his notebook was Claudia Beltran said he looks like him, but Guy and BlueShirt had lighter hair. So that was a clear, exculpatory description that made it very clear that Pablo was not the person that she had seen at the perfect rack. When that interview was inserted into the official HPD report, Claudia Beltran's testimony, all of a sudden just becomes he looks like him, which is obviously a very different thing. And of course that makes sense because then when Claudia Beltran sees Pablo, the less at his trial, she tells the prosecutor that is not the person I saw and then the prosecutor relies on the testimony of Officer King and Officer Sonson, which wasn't just a vanilla identification. He says it was a beautiful perfect. That's absolutely right. I mean, surely he must have been there. He must have witnessed this identification. And we went to the evidential hearing King. He testified. He don't even know why at Swanson even said that because he wasn't even in the room when she pointed at the picture. He was in another room talking to Adrian. Good Lord. She was in the other room. Not only was it exposed that Claudia had never identified Pablo, but also that Officer Swanson was not even in the room to witness an identification that he called, quote, perfect, beautiful, positive, end quote. And without that testimony, they had no identification. All they had was a Cadillac registered to Pablo Valenz. That was placed leaving the scene of the crime. But with someone else in it and And at this time, one of the victims, Adrian Pion, was willing to corroborate that. - From our perspective, he's recanting of his testimony was real. He was in that neighborhood, in that environment. We're fairly confident he knew the shooters and the shooters knew him. I think he testified in a way that kept him safe. And later on, many years later, I think, at that point, he felt safer in coming forward. - Yeah, I actually told him, "Hey, I know who did it, but not him, and I'm not gonna tell you all who did it, but it's not good." And my uncle Leo was a chief of police in the arson division at that time. He knew some of the other detectives and VA's in there. And when we went back to court in 2007, he makes home awful. They said, "Oh, man, they'll be home by December." But shit, December came and went, you know, and still here. (soft music) - Joy is essential, and it's also elusive. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hota Kotby. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, entertainment legends, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. Joy, after a loss, Joy as a caretaker. Listen to Joy 101 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you at your podcasts. - This is Saigon, the story of my family, and of the country that shaped us. - The United States will not stand by and allow any power, however great. - From iHeart Podcasts, Saigon. - Please allow me to introduce Joseph Schorman. - You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? - I should stop talking so much. - I like hearing you talk. - One city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart. - For Vietnam. - I've taken a hit from Japanese ground fire. Do you read the pouring petrol all over him? - I'm on a landmine. - For freedom! - Let's get out freedom from Vietnam! - Saigon, starring Kelly Ritrain and Rob Benedict. - Staying here's madness! - The world should hear about this. - There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything. - Listen to Saigon. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Why is everyone obsessed with romance right now? - Like everyone. - Your coworker who quote unquote doesn't read is reading romance. - Your mom, book talk, the entire internet. - I'm Sajana Basker. - I'm Tyler McCall. - And this is Radio 831, a romance podcast. The books, the tropes, the adaptations, the drama, the discourse. - And what all of it says about how we actually love, yarn, and obsess. - We're going to weathering heights. - Which, for the record, is not a romance novel. And yet it has hunted the romance genre for 200 years. - We're getting into dark romance, age gaps. - Certain Russian hockey players. - And sentient objects in love, which is a thing. - That's the kind of conversation we're having every episode. - Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - I worked in MetalFat for nine years. So all of us guys that worked there at the MetalFat pretty much see each other on regular basis or know each other. So when I went back to Houston on that ever intro here in '17, and I came back in '18, and Martin, I ran into one of the guys, their crystals. He was like, "Just shoot the shit." Like, "Hey man, anything in a while?" And what not? And I told him, "I just got back from bitch for a man "if I can use the things." And he's like, "You find your case." And I'm like, "Yeah, I said man, "you don't remember hearing about the murder "and the perfect rat." In 2004, he got all excited. He was like, "Yeah, man, I was there that night, man." And this man, I'm listening to him. And he's telling me everything that I'm afraid is the transcripts and witnesses reports and what not. And I was like, "There's no way he knows this stuff "I'm glad he was there, right?" And he straight up told me, he's like, "Man, run in short." And he said, "Shorty was chasing Adrian." He said, "Run was shooting at that other dude, "which was Amerson." And I told the attorney, "It's the same thing." And they came down here with a DA and some detectives but they didn't go nowhere either. - So now on top of everything else that was exposed at the Evident Cherry Hearing in 2017, they had a witness who was willing to name names. Meanwhile, they also discovered something else about how the investigation appears to have derailed. - My understanding of it was a confidential informant came forward to the police. He said it was Ron Shorty and Jason. And they were like, "Thank you very much for your service. "We are gonna do nothing with that information." - And it just doesn't make any sense. Why they didn't follow up the identification of two gang bangers who also had a connection several days prior to the perfect draft with the same cast of characters. I don't think we as a team at length ever understood why that was simply ignored as a possible lead. - Unless this is a familiar pattern we see consistently all over the country, where investigators will turn a blind eye to actual criminals if those people are regularly helping them close cases. So perhaps Shorty and Ron are snitches. - And if that's true, then I can understand why it went the way it went because if you think about it, I don't work for the police. I drive short-roading, right? But these guys, they're more than happy to them than I am. - It's absolutely nuts. Where does the case stand now, legally? - So legally, we have exhausted all of Pablo's habeas options and we have no other legal recourse. Just to summarize the record, the first steps we took were to proceed with a habeas petition in Texas State Court. And that was what led to the evidentiary hearing. In Harris County District Court, we appealed that all the way up to the Texas Criminal Court. We were denied there. We then filed a habeas petition in federal court. That petition was denied. We then sought to appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Procedurally, you have to actually get permission. We were denied that permission to appeal on the merits of the Fifth Circuit. So we never actually got a chance to do that. And then at this point, the only recourse that we had was to file a writ of surgery with the United States Supreme Court. And so at this point, we have no, unfortunately, other habeas options. If there were, we would still be fighting for him. - Is there anything that people can do to help? - Now obviously, Pablo still has the opportunity to seek parole to the extent that there would be opportunities for people to write and to support his parole application. I would certainly encourage folks to do that. - I am broke now and I'm not gonna break and I'm not gonna lift and break people on fighting. - So this season, we're really talking about accountability. We know why wrongful convictions happen, but how do you stop them from happening in the future? What does accountability mean to you and what would it look like in your case? - All of them should be held accountable. DA, detectives, the, of course, the guys that did this. My ex-girlfriend, they should all be held accountable. And like, I know that'll never happen, but like, if they only had a case of a quarter of what I've been through. - Speaking of, where are Shorty and Ron now? - I guess, they're still in Houston, I don't know. - There are a number of aspects to this, right? When we talk about accountability, there's accountability at the time, there's accountability after the fact. And look, police officers do so much to protect us, but Pablo's case highlights the fact that there are also instances where the police are not held accountable for providing testimony that is designed to take an open investigation off the books. There's accountability to the prosecutors who are all too willing to ramp through a prosecution and not give to the attention that they should give to their obligations as officers of the court to come forward with the truth, to come forward with ex-culpatory evidence and to protect the constitutional rights of those who sit in the defense seat. Kim Og was the hair's county district attorney and she ran in part on a platform of reform and accountability, taking a look at prior convictions and seeing where injustice had been done. We met with Kim Og, a team of us, or three of us, we had breakfast with Kim Og. We presented our case to where we gave our packet Two of my partners came down from Washington. DC just to meet with her to impress upon her just how wrong the situation was. And we followed up and we pursued this with our office literally for years. And we never, from our perspective, we weren't out the time of day. We did not feel that her office took a serious look at Pablo's case. And so, you know, when you talk about accountability, there's accountability at so many levels. So there are some ways to build accountability into the system a little bit better. And you see this with in some other states, not Texas, but discovery reform, right? Like really expanding the amount of information that prosecutors are required to hand over to the defense. And of course, they're always required to hand over exculpatory information under Brady versus Maryland. But you do have to wonder, had Pablo's defense counsel who did have his own issues, but had he had much greater access to the information being collected. Could he have poke tools in this case? Could he have said, hey, isn't it a little odd that the at least department didn't do this video lineup or didn't pursue X, Y, or Z thing and could have hammered that a lot better? So there are some systemic legal changes that you can call your representative about. So we will list to information in the episode description. If anyone would like to reach out to the Texas Board of Partens and Paroles on Pablo's behalf. And with that, I'll leave the mic open to all of you to share what you'd like our audience to take away from this conversation. We have had probably at least a dozen lawyers over the years work on Pablo's case. This has been a case that the firm has committed substantial resources to. And we've done that because all of us to the person truly believe in Pablo's innocence. He is a stand up guy. He is somebody who would have been just a fantastic member of the community. And what has happened to him is just an absolute travesty. We continue as a firm to be frustrated with our inability to get Pablo the results that he deserves and the exoneration that he's entitled to. And look, we hope the listeners will recognize the injustice that's been done here. And we'll hopefully motivate them to do what they can in their own ways to help reform the criminal justice system and ensure that these kinds of injustices don't occur in the future. I mean, the American legal system for a lot of good reasons really does prioritize finality of convictions, finality of dispute resolution, finality. And that systemic preference really makes it hard to come back in and undo these convictions. And you have to think there is some middle ground between the system we have now. And some free for all where everybody is challenging their convictions frivolously, right? There has to be some middle ground where these really compelling facts can make a difference after a conviction, after a verdict has been rendered by a jury. And convicting somebody is not sort of to this broader point about justice. It's not justice if it's the wrong person because that means a real criminal is out there on the streets terrorizing people. It means the victim has not actually seen the person responsible for their pain punished. It just means someone has gone to prison and someone will not get to see their child grow up. And that's harmful to everybody. I tell people all the time, you know, it's almost like, you know, they say that they don't walk, right? Well, here we are. We're walking, walking, living, breathing, you know? When someone passes away, right? Throughout the years, people stop visiting that cemetery or that person. And eventually people forget. But in this situation, men, you know, by just putting the story out there, and not just with my story, right? With everyone's story that's gone through something like this, it's very not to be forgotten right because I mean, once you forget, I mean, it's over with, you know? Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all Lava For Good podcasts one week early and add free by subscribing to Lava For Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as executive producers Jason Flom, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis and Jeff Clyburn. The music in this production was supplied by three time Oscar-nominated composer, J. Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava For Good and at Wrongful Conviction. Thanks for following me on Instagram @LornBreakPitchecco. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava For Good Podcasts and Association with Signal Company #1. We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava For Good. Joy is essential and it's also elusive, but now. Joy 101. Everybody wants it to be Beyonce at that point. I don't think we'll ever see another Beyonce. 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