March 27, 2025 • 32 mins
On July 21, 1997 in Brooklyn, NY, Patrick Niles, a passenger in a vehicle, was shot in the head and killed. The driver of the car and surviving eyewitness, Carlos Bethune, initially reported that he did not recognize the shooter, but later identified the perpetrator as Jermaine Archer. Carlos’s questionable identification became the basis for the state’s case against Jermaine, and Jermaine was sentenced to 34 years in prison.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
On July twenty first, nineteen ninety seven, a young man
was fatally shot while being driven past a building in Brooklyn,
New York. The driver, Carlos Bethune, told police that he
hadn't seen the shooter, but later named a resident of
that building, Jermaine Archer, who ran for his life from Bethune,
the victim's family, and the police. In retaliation, Jermaine's brother
(00:26):
was shot but survived. Soon tensions cooled when the family
figured out who the actual shooter was, but the police
stayed stuck on Jermaine and Carlos Bethune went along for
the ride. This is Wrongful Conviction. You're listening to Wrongful Conviction.
(00:51):
You can listen to this and all the Lava for
Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing
to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back
to Wrong for Conviction. Today's episode, well, let's just say
(01:12):
it features a man named Jermaine Archer, who I consider
a friend and a personal hero. And I'm so glad
to welcome you to the show, Jermaine, because this is
the story people need to hear. So first of all,
I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Thanks for coming, thanks for inviting me to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
And I want to shout out my attorney, Peter Cross,
who's here with me, who's been with me through the fire.
When a bunch of other people walked away, attorneys included Peter,
didn't go nowhere.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Peter stood here, worked with me pro bono.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
He believed in me, he believed in my innocence, and
eventually he helped me.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Prove it well. I was about to introduce Peter, but
you did a much better job than I could have
possibly done. So thank you for that, and Peter, thanks
for coming on the show. My pleasure. Let's go back
in time, Jermaine. You grew up in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Brooklyn, New York, Massy Projects and then eventually Flatbush back it.
My childhood was great. I mean, we weren't rich by
any means. I'm the seventh of eleven or twelve, whoever
you want to believe. My father says eleven, my mother
says twelve. She said my father went and had another child.
We don't know about what. We were kind of separated
through the years. I grew up with five boys and
(02:17):
one girl living in my apartment, and I just always
felt protected, like I'm the seventh, the baby, and the
family on that side, and my mother went to work
at five in the morning. She didn't come home till
sometime nine o'clock at night. But we had everything we needed.
I might have didn't have the latest, most expensive sneakers
that I might have wanted, but it was nothing but love.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Growing up in.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Brooklyn and you were growing up in the nineties, which
was a crazy time, rife with street crime and police
violence and corruption and those go together sometimes unfortunately, and
of course the news media, any crime that happened, they
would amplify it as alt saying if it bleeds, it leads,
and then that would of course drive the pressure on
(02:59):
the police to make arrests and for ultimately people to
get convicted.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I would say because of the Giuliani Pataki tough on
crime era, I know personally fifteen people that were wrongly convicted.
It was five district attorneys across New York City that
were just prosecuting people. It didn't matter if they got
the right person for the crime. They were holding witnesses hostage,
they were holding witnesses in hotels, they were paying witnesses
(03:26):
and lying about it. They were using drug addicts to testify.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And when you lock up the wrong person, the right
person remains free. And everybody's endangerous.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And it wasn't about making the streets safer. It was
about incarcerating as many black and brown bodies as they
could from poor communities.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Who was going to really complain?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And when this crime took place, it was the time.
For people who can remember this far back, it was
the same summer as Abner Louima.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
First off, Abner Louima was violated by the same precinct
that investigating eventually charged me, in this case seven to
zero Precinct.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So for those who don't recall, Admir Luimo was scooped
up from the scene of a fight and was brought
back to the seventieth precinct where he was not only
brutally beaten by the police, but was also and brace yourself,
I'm sorry I have to even say this, but he
was sexually assaulted with a broomstick. Thankfully, those officers were
(04:24):
charged and convicted. But this was the precinct where just
a few weeks before, in late July, there was some
friction between two groups Jermaine's family and friends at twenty
Westminster Road, and the victim Patrick Niles. His people, specifically
his older brother Ronaldo, and a guy named Carlos Bethune.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Carlos Betun was Ronaldo's right hand man, that was his friend.
I only knew him as the short, chubby guy that's
always with Ronaldo. I didn't even know his name until
this case actually happened. I didn't know Ronaldo's name. We
called him Crocodile because he got a long face. Crocodile
is crocodile a Spanish, but cocodrillo, and that's his nickname.
We didn't give him that name. He was known for violence.
He was a street guy. I can't really say that
(05:04):
I've witnessed him do certain things that other people said
he did, but I know he was one not to
be played with.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Looking back, I understand that they was just troubled young
people like me, and that was involved in some things
we probably had no business being involved in.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And that sets the stage for July twentieth, nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
July twentieth, nineteen ninety seven, I was walking down the
street with a friend of mine. We wanted to go
to the store, and there was a girl sitting on
a bike and she was talking to a couple of
people from the neighborhood that we knew.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I asked her if I could borrow her bike. She
looked hesitant.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I was like, I'm gonna give you back your bike,
and my friend offered her some money to hold. It
was like a lot of money. So the guy she
was talking to, Ronaldo he felt, showed up and he
snatched the bike and said, YO, don't ever disrespect me again.
And I was like, we cool, Like where's this coming from.
He had just given me a ride the other day
to my sister's house, so we grew up together.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I found out later that his father died that night.
That's where the attitude was coming from. But I didn't know.
I was like, no problem, they ain't even worth it.
I went back in front of my building. I told
my brother Michael what happened, because they were the same age,
and he said, just stay in front of the building.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I'll talk to him in the morning. I don't know,
maybe he going through something.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
A little while later, as I'm walking to the store,
he pulled up in the car and pulled out a gun.
The people that I was with ran except one. He said, Yo,
I know you went and got a gun. Don't make
me leave you. One brother's less, all this craziness, and
then he leaves again. I go back and tell my
brother again, and my brother tells me stay upstairs for
the night. The next day, I'm in the house the
(06:34):
entire day with my children's mother. I don't want to
go outside. I want my brother to be able to
talk to him. I don't know what he's going to do.
I don't know if he's going to send anybody. He's notorious.
People knows who he is.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
So the kids who hung out in front of Jermaine's
building twenty Westminster Road, they were aware of the danger
from Ronaldo and his crew while doing what they normally did.
And the police, well, they were doing what they normally did.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Normally.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
We were on the corner shooting dice, smoking weed, drinking beer,
talking to girls. It was literally like that was the hangout.
But that night I stood in front of the building.
This is those days of tough on crime. The police came.
They did this almost every night. They would search us
literally two or three times a night.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So they came.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
They put us on a wall, even in front of
my building. They patted everybody down that was there, and
they drove off. When they drove off, I got up.
I went to the alley to piss. While I was
in the alley, I was talking to three girls in
the window and I'm joking with them like this is
kind of heavy because y'all hold this for me, wash
your hands. I'm having fun with these girls the things
we do in the neighborhood. And while we're all talking,
(07:34):
one of them stuck ahead back in the window. The
other two stood While we were talking. We heard three shots,
so they literally had eyes on me when the shots
were fired. After that, I'm trying to get my stuff
together because i don't know what's going on. I'm thinking
it's Ronaldo. He's back, he's shooting at us.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
But it wasn't Ronaldo. Out in front of the building,
Carlos Bethune had driven by and someone shot into the car,
killing Ronaldo's brother Patrick Niles.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I go up to my roof.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
My best friend comes up to the roof and I'm
like why, and he's like, what are you asking me for?
I don't know, and so I'm thinking it's going to
be a problem. Because they notorious. They got guns. They gangsters.
Why would this guy do this in front of Like,
I'm upset at the time, I don't know what's going
on now.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
The police came to investigate, and luckily a neighbor kid
named Kester Jones saw the whole thing and was interviewed. However,
that doesn't seem to have been memorialized.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Kester thinks he was interviewed. I don't know if it
was in fact by the police. He had been playing
basketball at the park down the street. His apartment was
all the way at the end of the block, and
so as he was walking home, he happened to be
there when this happened. He saw the guys outside Germaine's
apartment building, and he didn't want to walk by there
because you know, he didn't want to get haressed. So
(08:49):
he was trying to get over to the other side
of the street, and that's how he was right there
behind it when he saw exactly what happened.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
He said he saw a car stop near the first building,
which was ten, then he saw another cost by twenty,
which was my building, and then he saw someone run
into the street and shoot at the car from behind
it As he was driving down the block. It went
through the back passenger window. It struck a victim behind
his right ear and went from right to left. According
(09:15):
to the medical examiner, So Carlos Bethune went to the
precinct that night and he said, I don't know what happened.
I was driving down the block. I heard three shots.
I took off. My friend got shot in the head.
That must have been true. Three days later he went
back to the precinct and said, I lied to y'all.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Jermaine did it? Bang did it? They called me Bang,
Bang did it? Now?
Speaker 3 (09:36):
The story he gave couldn't have been true because one,
he's the driver of the car, So the only way
you could see somebody shoot your friend in the back
of the head is if you're driving looking backwards. But
he said Bang came and jumped in front of the car,
The car stopped, ran to the side, and shot the
passenger in the head. The medical examine a proof that
couldn't have happened that way because there was no stippling,
(09:56):
There was no gunpowder residue on the person's head. The
crime scene invests to get it said it couldn't happen
that way because the bullet didn't come through the passenger window.
It came through the back window, so none of the
stuff he said lined up, But he said I did it.
We found out later Ronaldo convinced Carlos to implicate me
so that they could track me down.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
So Ronaldo believed Jermaine had done it, even though the
folks at twenty Westminster knew otherwise. And now, as the result,
Jermaine was in real danger.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
So I'm not trying to get shot for something I
didn't do, and I'm not trying to get arrested for
something I didn't do. So I ended up leaving. I
went through New Jersey, I came back up state, and
I went to Pennsylvania, and eventually I just dropped off
my children's mother and my children, and then I just
was like living on the road. I was just I
had a car. I was just driving back and forth
from state to state. I wasn't staying in any place
(10:44):
too long because I figured, over time the police realized
I didn't do it, and I'll be able to figure
out what comes next.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So while Jermaine was out of town, Rinaldo tried something
else to try to smoke him out.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
About three weeks after that, I'm not sure the exact date,
but it was August nineteen ninety seven. My brother was
at his house in Queen's and Ronaldo pulled up. We're
still unsure how he found that way he lived or
Ronaldo pulled up on him. He was with his daughter
and they just shot him up.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
And Carlos Bethune was allegedly the driver. Now, miraculously Jermaine's
brother lived, and now this attempted murder with a surviving
witness was looming over them. Meanwhile, about seven months rolled
by before the police caught up with Jermaine and Allentown, Pennsylvania,
where he was arrested and sent back to New York.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
When they arrested me, they say, you're gonna tell us
who did it, or we're gonna lock you up. And
I was like, I didn't see the crime. I'm being honest,
like I said, I was in the alley, so that
was part of the problem.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I didn't see the crime. Well who did it?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
And I said, you can't put this on me. I
remember telling office to that and he said, I'm gonna
tell you what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I'm gonna lock you up.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
You're gonna go in the lineup and you're gonna get
picked out and then you'll take your chances at trial,
or you could just tell me who did it right now.
And I remember saying something slick like, did jacket don't fit?
Everyone knew me I was a petty drug dealer at
the time, the jacket don't fit, And as if we
had both seen the same movie, he spit right back,
I know a good tale. So when Carlos implicated me
(12:27):
and the police arrested me, he came to the lineup
and said, I'm not really sure, and then he made
a phone call, and somebody on the phone call, according
to the detective, was trying to convince him not to
identify me. My belief was that they wanted to get
me back in New York and then let me walk
out of the precint where they knew I would be unarmed.
Thedn't gonna be down That's what I'm thinking, Like, you're
coming out the precinct, you definitely can't defend yourself, and
(12:48):
they're gonna be down there.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
But they didn't realize I had a probation violation.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Which sent him to Rikers Island while the police arrested
his child's mother's brother.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
They got him for some drugs and they said, we
don't even want you. You just got to save what
we need you to save for bang And he said
that he didn't see who shot, but that I went
to his house and he had a bunch of guns
in his house, and I put a bunch of guns
in a book bag and came downstairs and started handing
him out, which was a cold bloody line.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
And so he was indicted, but Carlos Bethune had still
not identified him.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
When they didn't identify me in a lineup, I was thinking,
either they're gonna try to work this out or they're
going to try the exact street revenge. Rinaldo ended up
tracking down my brother said I thought he shot my
brother my bag, so I knew by then they knew
I didn't do it. So I wasn't really concerned we're
going to trial because I didn't think they was going
to testify against me. And I found out later that
(13:40):
the district attorney and the police Prussian Carlos. It would
reach a certain point where he was also hiding from Ronaldo.
That's in those transcripts too. He was hiding from Ronaldo
because he said According to him, he thought Ronaldo wanted
to kill him.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
It appears Carlos was willing to cooperate, which conflicted with
Ronaldo's plan to avoid his own charges see King Michael's
forgiven for the attempted murder by not helping the prosecutors
close his brother's murder case with Jermaine, who it appears
they knew was the wrong person, and Jermaine's attorney, Jesse Young,
was trying to expose whether or not Carlos had accepted
(14:13):
a deal.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
There was back and forth whether they let Carlos off
the hook in my brother's shooting. He brought his paperwork
to the court and the judge went through his file
and they said they couldn't find anything. We knew there
was a deal made. We just wasn't sure where the
deal was made. We thought it was in Queen's but
it wasn't. It was actually in King's County.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Jermaine's attorney tried to admit Michael Archer as a witness
as to why Carlos might have had a reason to testify.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
They wouldn't let my brother testify because he was not
a witness to the crime that I was being charged with.
What happened on July twenty first, nineteen ninety seven, in
front of twenty Westminster Road. If you have nothing to
say about that, we're not going to let you come
in and testify. So they took me to trial. Carlos
said what he said.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Carlos testified about the confrontations and the lead up to
the shooting, and then his alleged EXPERI parents that night,
stopping his car near twenty Westminster Road to let a
disabled person across the street. Well, such an upstanding guy, right,
and then Jermaine allegedly emerged from the minivan, firing into
the vehicle. Carlos was cross examined with how that differed
(15:15):
from his original statement and how he'd said that he
hadn't seen the shooter.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I had no concerns whatsoever, Like, there's no way they're
going to convict me on it because I didn't do it,
and also because he don't flip the story a couple
of times, and because there's people that saw it that's
willing to come and testify. For my children's mother, her sister,
and my best friend all came and said it wasn't Bang.
Bang was in an alley when it shots fired my
children's mother was on the street, so she's seen it.
(15:41):
They all testified that it wasn't me.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And they even named the person who they'd all seen shoot,
Patrick Niles. However, being Jermaine's friends and family appears to
have hurt their credibility. But what about the other guy,
Kester Jones.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Kester wanted to testify, He was in court To this day,
I have no idea why he didn't testify. Kester even
recently he brought it up. He said he went to
court ready to testify, and someone came and told him,
we don't need you.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
But they needed everything they had because Carlos Pethune and
the prosecutor strategy appear to have been enough for the jury.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
It's off the record, but one of the jurors reached
out to my brother after the trial, not sure how
she found them, and said it couldn't get over the
nickname Bang.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Yeah, not helpful.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Wasn't helpful.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
But my mother named me after Bang Bang Morales. It
was a boxer in the seventies, so she nicknamed me
after him. But the prosecutor, if you go through the transcripts,
she doesn't call me archer, she doesn't call me Jermaine
and Bang did this, and Bang did that, and she
was emphasizing it. Most people cursed the lawyer out when
they get convicted, and I remember just telling him, thank
you man, you tried. And I remember my mother telling
(16:47):
me that she was hysterical and crying and everything. But
to judge Michael Duval actually saw her in the hallway
and said, your son should have took a bench trial. Basically,
if I had took a bench trial, I would have
beat the case of trial.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Following the verdict, Jermaine's attorney filed the motion to vacate
and set aside the verdict, questioning whether the preclusion of
Michael Archer had denied jermaine affair trial. Additionally, Jermaine's brothers
had secretly recorded alleged confessions from the actual shooter. They
had a hearing, but the recordings were difficult to hear. Meanwhile,
Ronaldo was trying to avoid his own trial.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
After I got convicted. He sent word through a family friend.
He said, let's do what we can to make it right.
If you don't press charges against me, I'll make this
guy recant the story against your brother. And then Rinaldo
convinced Carlos to recant his testimony, which was the second
time he changed the story. He turned around and said,
I'm not sure it was him. They saying it was
(17:42):
this guy I heard they look alike. I don't want
to send an acent man in prison. So then he
changed the story and then they overturned the conviction.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
At this point, Jermaine was released pending a new trial.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
And then I don't know if specifics of that deal,
I'm not going to give here say. I just know
that deal fell apart at three four months after that,
they changed the story again. It was like, you know what,
on second thought, it wasn't. I heard the judge tell Peggy,
and this is Assistant District Attorney Peggy Hoffman, you're over
trying this case. He's clearly not an angel, but it
(18:13):
doesn't look like he did this. The judge told her
that it was in an off the record, you know, sidebar,
but I heard her and she said, I'm just following
instructions from up top your eye. So basically Charles Hines
or whoever he delegated, they were saying, we're gonna fight
this case all the way through, and they put me
back in prison behind.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Them after I got convicted.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
You know, my children's mother, she had to move on.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I don't have the best relationship with my three biological
children because they didn't bring them up to visit me.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
She had to move on.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
She got into another relationship, had another child, and.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
She had to focus on that. So I suffered from that.
I watched my mother grow old in prison.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
My health suffered, my mother's health suffer because she knew
I didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Not to say it would have been okay if she
knew I did it, but it hurt on more.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
That her baby was in prison for something he didn't do,
and she couldn't do anything to help me out, to
get me out.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
So this case just destroyed so many people's lives, not
just mine.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I realized my time was the same, whether I was
in prison or not, be doesn't matter when I hit
that grave, that tombstone, that dash, all of this time count.
These twenty two years are gonna go by, and I'm
gonna have a twenty two year gap in my resume.
I'm gonna be twenty two years older, so I can't
do the construction work and all the stuff that I
may have been inclined to do. I'm gonna be competing
with people that never been in prison in the job
(19:43):
market and don't have felonies, and a lot younger and
probably better looking at me. So I knew I had
to do the best I could. While I was in there.
I got my parer legal certification, and I earned a
master's degree. I was asleep bachelor's and associates. I joined
Carnegie Hall and learned how to play the piano. I
taught classes on ag V and AIDS, aggression replacement training,
on alternatives to violence, on parenting, on healthy relationships. I
(20:07):
would have taken classes on marbles if they offered it.
It didn't matter. Whatever was there that was therapeutic, educational, academic.
I was a part of it, which made my parole
packet over four hundred pages. But I felt like, I'm
going to get all of these tools in my tool
belt and when I go home, I'll figure out what
I can apply.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
But I didn't turn down anything.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, I mean not to mention reading, writing, and speaking Spanish,
French and German, and creating a Chinese Mandarin language course,
the only one ever to be taught inside of New
York State Prison. And I think the one thing we must.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Talk about is voices from within.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Voices from within, That's what we got to talk about.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, absolutely, I was going there next. So it was
me and ten other guys and some of us wrongly convicted,
some of us not. It doesn't matter. Some of us
were out there doing some things. We weren't living the
best life. How can we pay our debt to society?
How can we make a better community, How can we
come together and just be assets even from the inside.
It started out as advocacy lobbying. We were bringing senators
(21:07):
and legislators and judges and community activists into the prison,
hosting town halls, and eventually we specialized in preventing youth
gun violence because we realized who better to deter them
from that behavior than people that was either a victim
of it that were perpetrators of it. So we created workshops,
We created a curriculum choices, choose a healthier options and
(21:28):
confront in every situation. And we were doing exercises play
back theater where a young person to come in and
explain how they had got in trouble and then they
get to pick people to re enact that and they
would see it play out in front of their eyes
and then they could see where they could have made
a different decision instead of us just saying that was wrong,
Maybe you should have did this.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
And there were other exercises that we did.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
We were able to get people that's incarcerated to have
more time with their non incarcerated youth in their life.
I believe that was one of the most impactful programs
that I was a part of. I'm glad to have
created it, and I feel like we also created a
fraternity through that program all of us are still close
to this day. I think Voices from Within has the
power to really change young people's trajectory because it's not
(22:13):
those typical listen I did thirty years.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Let me tell you what it is. It's caring. They
don't care how much you know.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
They want to know how much you care, and we
actually showed them that we care about you.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Jermaine kept himself very busy in prison, including with a
program that was very important to other former guests on
Wrongful Conviction podcast. It was actually recently featured Get This
in the OSCAR nominated film Sing Sing, And of course
I'm talking about a theater program called Rehabilitation through the
Arts or RTA.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I have to say one, I'm the executive director now,
but two, rehabilitation due to OZ gave me a childhood
that I never had really as a teenager, I felt
like I was grown when I got to rehabilitation, to
to Oars, I was able to do goofy things.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Again. I was too cool to do that in high school.
I was like, I'm not doing that, I'm not doing foolishness.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
But we rolled around the floor, we danced, We created
safe spaces in there and the arts heals. So many
people went through rehabilitation and either ended up going to
college or they ended up creating their own programs, and
I have to put that front and center. We created
voices from within. I was already a member of rehabilitation
through the arts. We took some of the exercises to
incorporate it, tweaked it to fit out purposes, But a
(23:23):
lot of that came from rehabilitation to the arts. Because
people on RTA knew my name. I wasn't a cell number,
I wasn't a department identification number.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I was Jermane Like. It actually restored humanity as so
many of us.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
In addition is staying busy with programs. Jermaine also continued
to fight his case. He was denied on his direct appeal,
and then in two thousand and three he found out
about a recording that Ronaldo had made of conversations with
Carlos Bethune, which may have been missed by his attorney
during his motion to vacate the verdict.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Somehow, my mother ran into a private investigator, Kevin Hinkson.
He turned over all the files in the case. I
didn't read realized that there was a recorded transcript between
Ronaldo and Carlos Bethune. When I took my time and
started going to the little library and reading it, I
realized Carlos admitted that they gave him three thousand dollars
to move. That's what he said on the tape. So
(24:15):
now I'm trying to figure out how can I prove this.
I don't know a lot about law, but I know
that they denied giving him anything. There has to be
something illegal or unconstitutional about that. So I filed the
freedom of information request. They didn't answer it. They didn't
answer it. Eventually I peeled it and then they answered
it with a certification that says they never gave him anything.
There's no records to prove it. They don't have anything
(24:35):
in the King's County District Attorney office that says they
ever had an agreement with him. So, okay, I know
what happened, I can't prove it.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
And without the proof, he moved forward with post conviction motions,
citing ineffective assistance of trial council, saying that his attorney
should have called Kester, Jones and other alibi witnesses, and
again they were denied. Meanwhile, Ken Thompson was elected Brooklyn
District Attorney and before and died too young in twenty sixteen,
he formed a conviction review unit and at this point
(25:06):
Peter took on Jermaine's case.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
So, fortunately for us, before Ken Thompson passed away, we
had gone pretty far down the road with the reinvestigation
of the case by the conviction review Unit. The assistant
district attorney was a really nice person, very ethical, right.
We signed a cooperation agreement where we agreed that we
would turn over to them whatever evidence we had, and
(25:29):
they agreed they would turn over all the evidence that
they had, and in that agreement they also said they
would give us witness statements at some point. But I
signed the agreement. My client signed the agreement. We never
got a sign copy of the agreement back from them,
but they were operating under the agreement.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
And Peter asked her, is there anything that shows whatever
you may have given benefits to any of the witnesses.
We left it broad on purpose. She turned over three
sheets of paper that shows, according to that summer, he
was thirteen hundred dollars or something like that.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
That was the start. I said, Peter, get that, and
I got it, and I got it.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I said, get anything else she got, so she went
back to look for more. They transferred off the case
as soon as they found out she gave us that documentation.
She was no longer working the case.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
She was gone.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
The good thing is we discovered that the only alleged
eyewitness had a cooperation agreement. He got housing and other
compensation from them his testimony, and they never disclosed that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
In addition to this Brady violation, both the ADA and
Carlos Bethune denied the deal existed a trial, and at
this point the Conviction Review Unit went unresponsive. Meanwhile, Jermaine
paroled out in twenty twenty from prison.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
I married a beautiful woman and helped raise her children,
and their father was murdered, so I got to raise
two children from prison. I walked out of prison on
November thirty of twenty twenty. My wife, my children, my mother,
my brothers, like everyone was waiting on me.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
There was a film crew waiting on me. I couldn't
believe I was out.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I wanted to jump in the car goal I wanted
to pinch myself make sure I wasn't sleeping. They asked
me what I wanted to do first. I said McDonald's
and they told me order whatever I want. And I
went up to the register and no one paid me
any mind. Of course, I'm not going to make a scene.
I was in prison twenty minutes ago. So I'll wait patiently,
and eventually one of the clerks. So one of the
cashiers told me, you got to order on the kiosks.
So I go to this little black looking thing. I've
(27:19):
been in prison twenty two years. I don't know how
to turn it on. I don't know about touchscreen or
any of that stuff. At the time, my family got
a good kick out of that. That was my introduction
to technology and how far I had been behind. I
didn't even know how to order food at McDonald's on
the Kiosk, and then they took me home, had a
nice little reception and family and friends and supporters, and
(27:39):
I got a job at the Legal Aid Society of
Westchester five weeks later, and Peter and I were discussing, like,
when do we file the motion, because we wanted to
wait till I came home. I wanted to be in
the courtroom. I didn't want them to deal with a
paper motion like all the other ones that had got denied.
I wanted them to have to deal with a human being.
We waited until September of twenty twenty one to file
(28:02):
the motion.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
During these proceedings, they tried to compel the DA to
share whatever evidence they had that had dried up when
the Conviction Review Unit went unresponsive. After all, they had
this twenty fourteen cooperation agreement.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
When we tried to get them to turn over the
witness statements, they said, oh, this is an unsigned agreement.
The court to my chagrin, and said, yeah, there's no
evidence there was in fact disagreement, and obviously there was
because we were cooperating under the agreement both sides.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Because they never provided us with a signed copy of
the agreement. Like the gamesmanship, I lost my cool a
couple of times, and they Peter calmed me down because
it was at a point where y'are.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Playing games with my life.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
And the judge ordered them to turn over whatever else
there was in relation to this cooperation agreement. They turned
over eight more pages, so now we have eleven sheets
of paper that put the whole thing together. We ended
up getting granted a hearing, but official hearings started twenty
twenty three, blasted about six different court dates, and they
had given us mission to pursue actual innocence. Under actual innocence,
(29:03):
you can bring up things outside of the record.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
When I got on.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
A stand, the district attorney brought up things that I
was accused of fifth grade.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Like it was just chaos.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
We weren't talking about the murder I was in prison for.
We were talking about things that I was never accused of,
never convicted, I've never charged with, and it was wearing
me out. I ended up in the hospital that night.
I ended up back on my medication, and after a
good long, lengthy discussion of our attorney, I went back
in the courtroom told the judge were withdrawing that we're
(29:32):
just going to deal with the Brady violation, which is
the fact that you paid someone and you lied about it.
They didn't want to talk about Brady violation. They had
four hundred pages and when the judge said you have
to talk about the Brady violation, she said no further questions, John,
because they couldn't talk about that. They were just going
to try to smear me in front of the court.
We know when it started. It started the day before trial.
(29:53):
And when my lawyer, Jesse Young, intimated that she may
have made a deal with him, she said, I just
want to point out for the record, no one from
my own if this has promised him anything. You had
just promised him at the date before, and we got
the paperwork to prove it. And as the hearing went
on it became obvious there was a deal made, you're
lying about it. You're still lying about it. And the
(30:13):
judged overturned the conviction based on the Brady violation.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And importantly a material violation that this would have caused
a different verdict at trial. So the conviction was overturned.
And we wish you all the luck in the world
in civil litigation as well as at your new job
working for rehabilitation through the arts, this time though from
outside the walls. And for anyone who wants to get
(30:37):
involved or donate, we're going to link to the places
you can go in the episode description and with that
we're going to go to closing arguments. First of all,
I thank each of you from the bottom of my heart,
and now I'm just going to kick back in my chair,
close my eyes, and leave my headphones on and listen
to anything else you guys feel has been left unset.
(30:57):
So Peter you go first, and then and the microphone
off to Jermaine and he'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
I think we said it all.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I have a final thought.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Anybody that's a resident of Kings County, anybody with connection
to the King's County District Attorney office, reach out prove
me wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I'm telling everybody I didn't do this crime.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Contact the District attorney and ask them where's the evidence
that I did this crime? Contact them and ask them
why are they still wasting tax payer money or something
that is obvious how to can do?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Reach out and.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Find out if you can find any evidence other than
the liar that I did this crime. Then hey, now
we're talking. But otherwise this is just political theater.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
This is just a.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Lot of waste of taxpayer money, people getting paid to
uphold something that can't be held up. It's ridiculous. Yes,
he's supposed to be a progressive prosecutor. Find out why
he has me in the scope and why he won't
do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(32:16):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
(32:38):
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good
On July twenty first, nineteen ninety seven, a young man
was fatally shot while being driven past a building in Brooklyn,
New York. The driver, Carlos Bethune, told police that he
hadn't seen the shooter, but later named a resident of
that building, Jermaine Archer, who ran for his life from Bethune,
the victim's family, and the police. In retaliation, Jermaine's brother
(00:26):
was shot but survived. Soon tensions cooled when the family
figured out who the actual shooter was, but the police
stayed stuck on Jermaine and Carlos Bethune went along for
the ride. This is Wrongful Conviction. You're listening to Wrongful Conviction.
(00:51):
You can listen to this and all the Lava for
Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing
to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back
to Wrong for Conviction. Today's episode, well, let's just say
(01:12):
it features a man named Jermaine Archer, who I consider
a friend and a personal hero. And I'm so glad
to welcome you to the show, Jermaine, because this is
the story people need to hear. So first of all,
I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Thanks for coming, thanks for inviting me to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
And I want to shout out my attorney, Peter Cross,
who's here with me, who's been with me through the fire.
When a bunch of other people walked away, attorneys included Peter,
didn't go nowhere.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Peter stood here, worked with me pro bono.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
He believed in me, he believed in my innocence, and
eventually he helped me.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Prove it well. I was about to introduce Peter, but
you did a much better job than I could have
possibly done. So thank you for that, and Peter, thanks
for coming on the show. My pleasure. Let's go back
in time, Jermaine. You grew up in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Brooklyn, New York, Massy Projects and then eventually Flatbush back it.
My childhood was great. I mean, we weren't rich by
any means. I'm the seventh of eleven or twelve, whoever
you want to believe. My father says eleven, my mother
says twelve. She said my father went and had another child.
We don't know about what. We were kind of separated
through the years. I grew up with five boys and
(02:17):
one girl living in my apartment, and I just always
felt protected, like I'm the seventh, the baby, and the
family on that side, and my mother went to work
at five in the morning. She didn't come home till
sometime nine o'clock at night. But we had everything we needed.
I might have didn't have the latest, most expensive sneakers
that I might have wanted, but it was nothing but love.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Growing up in.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Brooklyn and you were growing up in the nineties, which
was a crazy time, rife with street crime and police
violence and corruption and those go together sometimes unfortunately, and
of course the news media, any crime that happened, they
would amplify it as alt saying if it bleeds, it leads,
and then that would of course drive the pressure on
(02:59):
the police to make arrests and for ultimately people to
get convicted.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I would say because of the Giuliani Pataki tough on
crime era, I know personally fifteen people that were wrongly convicted.
It was five district attorneys across New York City that
were just prosecuting people. It didn't matter if they got
the right person for the crime. They were holding witnesses hostage,
they were holding witnesses in hotels, they were paying witnesses
(03:26):
and lying about it. They were using drug addicts to testify.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And when you lock up the wrong person, the right
person remains free. And everybody's endangerous.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And it wasn't about making the streets safer. It was
about incarcerating as many black and brown bodies as they
could from poor communities.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Who was going to really complain?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And when this crime took place, it was the time.
For people who can remember this far back, it was
the same summer as Abner Louima.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
First off, Abner Louima was violated by the same precinct
that investigating eventually charged me, in this case seven to
zero Precinct.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So for those who don't recall, Admir Luimo was scooped
up from the scene of a fight and was brought
back to the seventieth precinct where he was not only
brutally beaten by the police, but was also and brace yourself,
I'm sorry I have to even say this, but he
was sexually assaulted with a broomstick. Thankfully, those officers were
(04:24):
charged and convicted. But this was the precinct where just
a few weeks before, in late July, there was some
friction between two groups Jermaine's family and friends at twenty
Westminster Road, and the victim Patrick Niles. His people, specifically
his older brother Ronaldo, and a guy named Carlos Bethune.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Carlos Betun was Ronaldo's right hand man, that was his friend.
I only knew him as the short, chubby guy that's
always with Ronaldo. I didn't even know his name until
this case actually happened. I didn't know Ronaldo's name. We
called him Crocodile because he got a long face. Crocodile
is crocodile a Spanish, but cocodrillo, and that's his nickname.
We didn't give him that name. He was known for violence.
He was a street guy. I can't really say that
(05:04):
I've witnessed him do certain things that other people said
he did, but I know he was one not to
be played with.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Looking back, I understand that they was just troubled young
people like me, and that was involved in some things
we probably had no business being involved in.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And that sets the stage for July twentieth, nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
July twentieth, nineteen ninety seven, I was walking down the
street with a friend of mine. We wanted to go
to the store, and there was a girl sitting on
a bike and she was talking to a couple of
people from the neighborhood that we knew.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I asked her if I could borrow her bike. She
looked hesitant.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I was like, I'm gonna give you back your bike,
and my friend offered her some money to hold. It
was like a lot of money. So the guy she
was talking to, Ronaldo he felt, showed up and he
snatched the bike and said, YO, don't ever disrespect me again.
And I was like, we cool, Like where's this coming from.
He had just given me a ride the other day
to my sister's house, so we grew up together.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I found out later that his father died that night.
That's where the attitude was coming from. But I didn't know.
I was like, no problem, they ain't even worth it.
I went back in front of my building. I told
my brother Michael what happened, because they were the same age,
and he said, just stay in front of the building.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I'll talk to him in the morning. I don't know,
maybe he going through something.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
A little while later, as I'm walking to the store,
he pulled up in the car and pulled out a gun.
The people that I was with ran except one. He said, Yo,
I know you went and got a gun. Don't make
me leave you. One brother's less, all this craziness, and
then he leaves again. I go back and tell my
brother again, and my brother tells me stay upstairs for
the night. The next day, I'm in the house the
(06:34):
entire day with my children's mother. I don't want to
go outside. I want my brother to be able to
talk to him. I don't know what he's going to do.
I don't know if he's going to send anybody. He's notorious.
People knows who he is.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
So the kids who hung out in front of Jermaine's
building twenty Westminster Road, they were aware of the danger
from Ronaldo and his crew while doing what they normally did.
And the police, well, they were doing what they normally did.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Normally.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
We were on the corner shooting dice, smoking weed, drinking beer,
talking to girls. It was literally like that was the hangout.
But that night I stood in front of the building.
This is those days of tough on crime. The police came.
They did this almost every night. They would search us
literally two or three times a night.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So they came.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
They put us on a wall, even in front of
my building. They patted everybody down that was there, and
they drove off. When they drove off, I got up.
I went to the alley to piss. While I was
in the alley, I was talking to three girls in
the window and I'm joking with them like this is
kind of heavy because y'all hold this for me, wash
your hands. I'm having fun with these girls the things
we do in the neighborhood. And while we're all talking,
(07:34):
one of them stuck ahead back in the window. The
other two stood While we were talking. We heard three shots,
so they literally had eyes on me when the shots
were fired. After that, I'm trying to get my stuff
together because i don't know what's going on. I'm thinking
it's Ronaldo. He's back, he's shooting at us.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
But it wasn't Ronaldo. Out in front of the building,
Carlos Bethune had driven by and someone shot into the car,
killing Ronaldo's brother Patrick Niles.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I go up to my roof.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
My best friend comes up to the roof and I'm
like why, and he's like, what are you asking me for?
I don't know, and so I'm thinking it's going to
be a problem. Because they notorious. They got guns. They gangsters.
Why would this guy do this in front of Like,
I'm upset at the time, I don't know what's going
on now.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
The police came to investigate, and luckily a neighbor kid
named Kester Jones saw the whole thing and was interviewed. However,
that doesn't seem to have been memorialized.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Kester thinks he was interviewed. I don't know if it
was in fact by the police. He had been playing
basketball at the park down the street. His apartment was
all the way at the end of the block, and
so as he was walking home, he happened to be
there when this happened. He saw the guys outside Germaine's
apartment building, and he didn't want to walk by there
because you know, he didn't want to get haressed. So
(08:49):
he was trying to get over to the other side
of the street, and that's how he was right there
behind it when he saw exactly what happened.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
He said he saw a car stop near the first building,
which was ten, then he saw another cost by twenty,
which was my building, and then he saw someone run
into the street and shoot at the car from behind
it As he was driving down the block. It went
through the back passenger window. It struck a victim behind
his right ear and went from right to left. According
(09:15):
to the medical examiner, So Carlos Bethune went to the
precinct that night and he said, I don't know what happened.
I was driving down the block. I heard three shots.
I took off. My friend got shot in the head.
That must have been true. Three days later he went
back to the precinct and said, I lied to y'all.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Jermaine did it? Bang did it? They called me Bang,
Bang did it? Now?
Speaker 3 (09:36):
The story he gave couldn't have been true because one,
he's the driver of the car, So the only way
you could see somebody shoot your friend in the back
of the head is if you're driving looking backwards. But
he said Bang came and jumped in front of the car,
The car stopped, ran to the side, and shot the
passenger in the head. The medical examine a proof that
couldn't have happened that way because there was no stippling,
(09:56):
There was no gunpowder residue on the person's head. The
crime scene invests to get it said it couldn't happen
that way because the bullet didn't come through the passenger window.
It came through the back window, so none of the
stuff he said lined up, But he said I did it.
We found out later Ronaldo convinced Carlos to implicate me
so that they could track me down.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
So Ronaldo believed Jermaine had done it, even though the
folks at twenty Westminster knew otherwise. And now, as the result,
Jermaine was in real danger.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
So I'm not trying to get shot for something I
didn't do, and I'm not trying to get arrested for
something I didn't do. So I ended up leaving. I
went through New Jersey, I came back up state, and
I went to Pennsylvania, and eventually I just dropped off
my children's mother and my children, and then I just
was like living on the road. I was just I
had a car. I was just driving back and forth
from state to state. I wasn't staying in any place
(10:44):
too long because I figured, over time the police realized
I didn't do it, and I'll be able to figure
out what comes next.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So while Jermaine was out of town, Rinaldo tried something
else to try to smoke him out.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
About three weeks after that, I'm not sure the exact date,
but it was August nineteen ninety seven. My brother was
at his house in Queen's and Ronaldo pulled up. We're
still unsure how he found that way he lived or
Ronaldo pulled up on him. He was with his daughter
and they just shot him up.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
And Carlos Bethune was allegedly the driver. Now, miraculously Jermaine's
brother lived, and now this attempted murder with a surviving
witness was looming over them. Meanwhile, about seven months rolled
by before the police caught up with Jermaine and Allentown, Pennsylvania,
where he was arrested and sent back to New York.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
When they arrested me, they say, you're gonna tell us
who did it, or we're gonna lock you up. And
I was like, I didn't see the crime. I'm being honest,
like I said, I was in the alley, so that
was part of the problem.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I didn't see the crime. Well who did it?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
And I said, you can't put this on me. I
remember telling office to that and he said, I'm gonna
tell you what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I'm gonna lock you up.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
You're gonna go in the lineup and you're gonna get
picked out and then you'll take your chances at trial,
or you could just tell me who did it right now.
And I remember saying something slick like, did jacket don't fit?
Everyone knew me I was a petty drug dealer at
the time, the jacket don't fit, And as if we
had both seen the same movie, he spit right back,
I know a good tale. So when Carlos implicated me
(12:27):
and the police arrested me, he came to the lineup
and said, I'm not really sure, and then he made
a phone call, and somebody on the phone call, according
to the detective, was trying to convince him not to
identify me. My belief was that they wanted to get
me back in New York and then let me walk
out of the precint where they knew I would be unarmed.
Thedn't gonna be down That's what I'm thinking, Like, you're
coming out the precinct, you definitely can't defend yourself, and
(12:48):
they're gonna be down there.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
But they didn't realize I had a probation violation.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Which sent him to Rikers Island while the police arrested
his child's mother's brother.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
They got him for some drugs and they said, we
don't even want you. You just got to save what
we need you to save for bang And he said
that he didn't see who shot, but that I went
to his house and he had a bunch of guns
in his house, and I put a bunch of guns
in a book bag and came downstairs and started handing
him out, which was a cold bloody line.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
And so he was indicted, but Carlos Bethune had still
not identified him.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
When they didn't identify me in a lineup, I was thinking,
either they're gonna try to work this out or they're
going to try the exact street revenge. Rinaldo ended up
tracking down my brother said I thought he shot my
brother my bag, so I knew by then they knew
I didn't do it. So I wasn't really concerned we're
going to trial because I didn't think they was going
to testify against me. And I found out later that
(13:40):
the district attorney and the police Prussian Carlos. It would
reach a certain point where he was also hiding from Ronaldo.
That's in those transcripts too. He was hiding from Ronaldo
because he said According to him, he thought Ronaldo wanted
to kill him.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
It appears Carlos was willing to cooperate, which conflicted with
Ronaldo's plan to avoid his own charges see King Michael's
forgiven for the attempted murder by not helping the prosecutors
close his brother's murder case with Jermaine, who it appears
they knew was the wrong person, and Jermaine's attorney, Jesse Young,
was trying to expose whether or not Carlos had accepted
(14:13):
a deal.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
There was back and forth whether they let Carlos off
the hook in my brother's shooting. He brought his paperwork
to the court and the judge went through his file
and they said they couldn't find anything. We knew there
was a deal made. We just wasn't sure where the
deal was made. We thought it was in Queen's but
it wasn't. It was actually in King's County.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Jermaine's attorney tried to admit Michael Archer as a witness
as to why Carlos might have had a reason to testify.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
They wouldn't let my brother testify because he was not
a witness to the crime that I was being charged with.
What happened on July twenty first, nineteen ninety seven, in
front of twenty Westminster Road. If you have nothing to
say about that, we're not going to let you come
in and testify. So they took me to trial. Carlos
said what he said.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Carlos testified about the confrontations and the lead up to
the shooting, and then his alleged EXPERI parents that night,
stopping his car near twenty Westminster Road to let a
disabled person across the street. Well, such an upstanding guy, right,
and then Jermaine allegedly emerged from the minivan, firing into
the vehicle. Carlos was cross examined with how that differed
(15:15):
from his original statement and how he'd said that he
hadn't seen the shooter.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I had no concerns whatsoever, Like, there's no way they're
going to convict me on it because I didn't do it,
and also because he don't flip the story a couple
of times, and because there's people that saw it that's
willing to come and testify. For my children's mother, her sister,
and my best friend all came and said it wasn't Bang.
Bang was in an alley when it shots fired my
children's mother was on the street, so she's seen it.
(15:41):
They all testified that it wasn't me.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And they even named the person who they'd all seen shoot,
Patrick Niles. However, being Jermaine's friends and family appears to
have hurt their credibility. But what about the other guy,
Kester Jones.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Kester wanted to testify, He was in court To this day,
I have no idea why he didn't testify. Kester even
recently he brought it up. He said he went to
court ready to testify, and someone came and told him,
we don't need you.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
But they needed everything they had because Carlos Pethune and
the prosecutor strategy appear to have been enough for the jury.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
It's off the record, but one of the jurors reached
out to my brother after the trial, not sure how
she found them, and said it couldn't get over the
nickname Bang.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Yeah, not helpful.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Wasn't helpful.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
But my mother named me after Bang Bang Morales. It
was a boxer in the seventies, so she nicknamed me
after him. But the prosecutor, if you go through the transcripts,
she doesn't call me archer, she doesn't call me Jermaine
and Bang did this, and Bang did that, and she
was emphasizing it. Most people cursed the lawyer out when
they get convicted, and I remember just telling him, thank
you man, you tried. And I remember my mother telling
(16:47):
me that she was hysterical and crying and everything. But
to judge Michael Duval actually saw her in the hallway
and said, your son should have took a bench trial. Basically,
if I had took a bench trial, I would have
beat the case of trial.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Following the verdict, Jermaine's attorney filed the motion to vacate
and set aside the verdict, questioning whether the preclusion of
Michael Archer had denied jermaine affair trial. Additionally, Jermaine's brothers
had secretly recorded alleged confessions from the actual shooter. They
had a hearing, but the recordings were difficult to hear. Meanwhile,
Ronaldo was trying to avoid his own trial.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
After I got convicted. He sent word through a family friend.
He said, let's do what we can to make it right.
If you don't press charges against me, I'll make this
guy recant the story against your brother. And then Rinaldo
convinced Carlos to recant his testimony, which was the second
time he changed the story. He turned around and said,
I'm not sure it was him. They saying it was
(17:42):
this guy I heard they look alike. I don't want
to send an acent man in prison. So then he
changed the story and then they overturned the conviction.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
At this point, Jermaine was released pending a new trial.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
And then I don't know if specifics of that deal,
I'm not going to give here say. I just know
that deal fell apart at three four months after that,
they changed the story again. It was like, you know what,
on second thought, it wasn't. I heard the judge tell Peggy,
and this is Assistant District Attorney Peggy Hoffman, you're over
trying this case. He's clearly not an angel, but it
(18:13):
doesn't look like he did this. The judge told her
that it was in an off the record, you know, sidebar,
but I heard her and she said, I'm just following
instructions from up top your eye. So basically Charles Hines
or whoever he delegated, they were saying, we're gonna fight
this case all the way through, and they put me
back in prison behind.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Them after I got convicted.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
You know, my children's mother, she had to move on.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I don't have the best relationship with my three biological
children because they didn't bring them up to visit me.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
She had to move on.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
She got into another relationship, had another child, and.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
She had to focus on that. So I suffered from that.
I watched my mother grow old in prison.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
My health suffered, my mother's health suffer because she knew
I didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Not to say it would have been okay if she
knew I did it, but it hurt on more.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
That her baby was in prison for something he didn't do,
and she couldn't do anything to help me out, to
get me out.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
So this case just destroyed so many people's lives, not
just mine.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I realized my time was the same, whether I was
in prison or not, be doesn't matter when I hit
that grave, that tombstone, that dash, all of this time count.
These twenty two years are gonna go by, and I'm
gonna have a twenty two year gap in my resume.
I'm gonna be twenty two years older, so I can't
do the construction work and all the stuff that I
may have been inclined to do. I'm gonna be competing
with people that never been in prison in the job
(19:43):
market and don't have felonies, and a lot younger and
probably better looking at me. So I knew I had
to do the best I could. While I was in there.
I got my parer legal certification, and I earned a
master's degree. I was asleep bachelor's and associates. I joined
Carnegie Hall and learned how to play the piano. I
taught classes on ag V and AIDS, aggression replacement training,
on alternatives to violence, on parenting, on healthy relationships. I
(20:07):
would have taken classes on marbles if they offered it.
It didn't matter. Whatever was there that was therapeutic, educational, academic.
I was a part of it, which made my parole
packet over four hundred pages. But I felt like, I'm
going to get all of these tools in my tool
belt and when I go home, I'll figure out what
I can apply.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
But I didn't turn down anything.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, I mean not to mention reading, writing, and speaking Spanish,
French and German, and creating a Chinese Mandarin language course,
the only one ever to be taught inside of New
York State Prison. And I think the one thing we must.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Talk about is voices from within.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Voices from within, That's what we got to talk about.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, absolutely, I was going there next. So it was
me and ten other guys and some of us wrongly convicted,
some of us not. It doesn't matter. Some of us
were out there doing some things. We weren't living the
best life. How can we pay our debt to society?
How can we make a better community, How can we
come together and just be assets even from the inside.
It started out as advocacy lobbying. We were bringing senators
(21:07):
and legislators and judges and community activists into the prison,
hosting town halls, and eventually we specialized in preventing youth
gun violence because we realized who better to deter them
from that behavior than people that was either a victim
of it that were perpetrators of it. So we created workshops,
We created a curriculum choices, choose a healthier options and
(21:28):
confront in every situation. And we were doing exercises play
back theater where a young person to come in and
explain how they had got in trouble and then they
get to pick people to re enact that and they
would see it play out in front of their eyes
and then they could see where they could have made
a different decision instead of us just saying that was wrong,
Maybe you should have did this.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
And there were other exercises that we did.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
We were able to get people that's incarcerated to have
more time with their non incarcerated youth in their life.
I believe that was one of the most impactful programs
that I was a part of. I'm glad to have
created it, and I feel like we also created a
fraternity through that program all of us are still close
to this day. I think Voices from Within has the
power to really change young people's trajectory because it's not
(22:13):
those typical listen I did thirty years.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Let me tell you what it is. It's caring. They
don't care how much you know.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
They want to know how much you care, and we
actually showed them that we care about you.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Jermaine kept himself very busy in prison, including with a
program that was very important to other former guests on
Wrongful Conviction podcast. It was actually recently featured Get This
in the OSCAR nominated film Sing Sing, And of course
I'm talking about a theater program called Rehabilitation through the
Arts or RTA.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I have to say one, I'm the executive director now,
but two, rehabilitation due to OZ gave me a childhood
that I never had really as a teenager, I felt
like I was grown when I got to rehabilitation, to
to Oars, I was able to do goofy things.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Again. I was too cool to do that in high school.
I was like, I'm not doing that, I'm not doing foolishness.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
But we rolled around the floor, we danced, We created
safe spaces in there and the arts heals. So many
people went through rehabilitation and either ended up going to
college or they ended up creating their own programs, and
I have to put that front and center. We created
voices from within. I was already a member of rehabilitation
through the arts. We took some of the exercises to
incorporate it, tweaked it to fit out purposes, But a
(23:23):
lot of that came from rehabilitation to the arts. Because
people on RTA knew my name. I wasn't a cell number,
I wasn't a department identification number.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I was Jermane Like. It actually restored humanity as so
many of us.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
In addition is staying busy with programs. Jermaine also continued
to fight his case. He was denied on his direct appeal,
and then in two thousand and three he found out
about a recording that Ronaldo had made of conversations with
Carlos Bethune, which may have been missed by his attorney
during his motion to vacate the verdict.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Somehow, my mother ran into a private investigator, Kevin Hinkson.
He turned over all the files in the case. I
didn't read realized that there was a recorded transcript between
Ronaldo and Carlos Bethune. When I took my time and
started going to the little library and reading it, I
realized Carlos admitted that they gave him three thousand dollars
to move. That's what he said on the tape. So
(24:15):
now I'm trying to figure out how can I prove this.
I don't know a lot about law, but I know
that they denied giving him anything. There has to be
something illegal or unconstitutional about that. So I filed the
freedom of information request. They didn't answer it. They didn't
answer it. Eventually I peeled it and then they answered
it with a certification that says they never gave him anything.
There's no records to prove it. They don't have anything
(24:35):
in the King's County District Attorney office that says they
ever had an agreement with him. So, okay, I know
what happened, I can't prove it.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
And without the proof, he moved forward with post conviction motions,
citing ineffective assistance of trial council, saying that his attorney
should have called Kester, Jones and other alibi witnesses, and
again they were denied. Meanwhile, Ken Thompson was elected Brooklyn
District Attorney and before and died too young in twenty sixteen,
he formed a conviction review unit and at this point
(25:06):
Peter took on Jermaine's case.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
So, fortunately for us, before Ken Thompson passed away, we
had gone pretty far down the road with the reinvestigation
of the case by the conviction review Unit. The assistant
district attorney was a really nice person, very ethical, right.
We signed a cooperation agreement where we agreed that we
would turn over to them whatever evidence we had, and
(25:29):
they agreed they would turn over all the evidence that
they had, and in that agreement they also said they
would give us witness statements at some point. But I
signed the agreement. My client signed the agreement. We never
got a sign copy of the agreement back from them,
but they were operating under the agreement.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
And Peter asked her, is there anything that shows whatever
you may have given benefits to any of the witnesses.
We left it broad on purpose. She turned over three
sheets of paper that shows, according to that summer, he
was thirteen hundred dollars or something like that.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
That was the start. I said, Peter, get that, and
I got it, and I got it.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I said, get anything else she got, so she went
back to look for more. They transferred off the case
as soon as they found out she gave us that documentation.
She was no longer working the case.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
She was gone.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
The good thing is we discovered that the only alleged
eyewitness had a cooperation agreement. He got housing and other
compensation from them his testimony, and they never disclosed that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
In addition to this Brady violation, both the ADA and
Carlos Bethune denied the deal existed a trial, and at
this point the Conviction Review Unit went unresponsive. Meanwhile, Jermaine
paroled out in twenty twenty from prison.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
I married a beautiful woman and helped raise her children,
and their father was murdered, so I got to raise
two children from prison. I walked out of prison on
November thirty of twenty twenty. My wife, my children, my mother,
my brothers, like everyone was waiting on me.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
There was a film crew waiting on me. I couldn't
believe I was out.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I wanted to jump in the car goal I wanted
to pinch myself make sure I wasn't sleeping. They asked
me what I wanted to do first. I said McDonald's
and they told me order whatever I want. And I
went up to the register and no one paid me
any mind. Of course, I'm not going to make a scene.
I was in prison twenty minutes ago. So I'll wait patiently,
and eventually one of the clerks. So one of the
cashiers told me, you got to order on the kiosks.
So I go to this little black looking thing. I've
(27:19):
been in prison twenty two years. I don't know how
to turn it on. I don't know about touchscreen or
any of that stuff. At the time, my family got
a good kick out of that. That was my introduction
to technology and how far I had been behind. I
didn't even know how to order food at McDonald's on
the Kiosk, and then they took me home, had a
nice little reception and family and friends and supporters, and
(27:39):
I got a job at the Legal Aid Society of
Westchester five weeks later, and Peter and I were discussing, like,
when do we file the motion, because we wanted to
wait till I came home. I wanted to be in
the courtroom. I didn't want them to deal with a
paper motion like all the other ones that had got denied.
I wanted them to have to deal with a human being.
We waited until September of twenty twenty one to file
(28:02):
the motion.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
During these proceedings, they tried to compel the DA to
share whatever evidence they had that had dried up when
the Conviction Review Unit went unresponsive. After all, they had
this twenty fourteen cooperation agreement.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
When we tried to get them to turn over the
witness statements, they said, oh, this is an unsigned agreement.
The court to my chagrin, and said, yeah, there's no
evidence there was in fact disagreement, and obviously there was
because we were cooperating under the agreement both sides.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Because they never provided us with a signed copy of
the agreement. Like the gamesmanship, I lost my cool a
couple of times, and they Peter calmed me down because
it was at a point where y'are.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Playing games with my life.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
And the judge ordered them to turn over whatever else
there was in relation to this cooperation agreement. They turned
over eight more pages, so now we have eleven sheets
of paper that put the whole thing together. We ended
up getting granted a hearing, but official hearings started twenty
twenty three, blasted about six different court dates, and they
had given us mission to pursue actual innocence. Under actual innocence,
(29:03):
you can bring up things outside of the record.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
When I got on.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
A stand, the district attorney brought up things that I
was accused of fifth grade.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Like it was just chaos.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
We weren't talking about the murder I was in prison for.
We were talking about things that I was never accused of,
never convicted, I've never charged with, and it was wearing
me out. I ended up in the hospital that night.
I ended up back on my medication, and after a
good long, lengthy discussion of our attorney, I went back
in the courtroom told the judge were withdrawing that we're
(29:32):
just going to deal with the Brady violation, which is
the fact that you paid someone and you lied about it.
They didn't want to talk about Brady violation. They had
four hundred pages and when the judge said you have
to talk about the Brady violation, she said no further questions, John,
because they couldn't talk about that. They were just going
to try to smear me in front of the court.
We know when it started. It started the day before trial.
(29:53):
And when my lawyer, Jesse Young, intimated that she may
have made a deal with him, she said, I just
want to point out for the record, no one from
my own if this has promised him anything. You had
just promised him at the date before, and we got
the paperwork to prove it. And as the hearing went
on it became obvious there was a deal made, you're
lying about it. You're still lying about it. And the
(30:13):
judged overturned the conviction based on the Brady violation.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And importantly a material violation that this would have caused
a different verdict at trial. So the conviction was overturned.
And we wish you all the luck in the world
in civil litigation as well as at your new job
working for rehabilitation through the arts, this time though from
outside the walls. And for anyone who wants to get
(30:37):
involved or donate, we're going to link to the places
you can go in the episode description and with that
we're going to go to closing arguments. First of all,
I thank each of you from the bottom of my heart,
and now I'm just going to kick back in my chair,
close my eyes, and leave my headphones on and listen
to anything else you guys feel has been left unset.
(30:57):
So Peter you go first, and then and the microphone
off to Jermaine and he'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
I think we said it all.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I have a final thought.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Anybody that's a resident of Kings County, anybody with connection
to the King's County District Attorney office, reach out prove
me wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I'm telling everybody I didn't do this crime.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Contact the District attorney and ask them where's the evidence
that I did this crime? Contact them and ask them
why are they still wasting tax payer money or something
that is obvious how to can do?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Reach out and.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Find out if you can find any evidence other than
the liar that I did this crime. Then hey, now
we're talking. But otherwise this is just political theater.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
This is just a.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Lot of waste of taxpayer money, people getting paid to
uphold something that can't be held up. It's ridiculous. Yes,
he's supposed to be a progressive prosecutor. Find out why
he has me in the scope and why he won't
do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(32:16):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
(32:38):
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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