The Innocence Files (2020) s01e02 Episode Script

[marching footsteps]
When I got locked up,
I didn't care if I lived or died.
'Cause I was just so angry
about the way they had did me.
You have to do what they tell you to do.
When they tell you to hit the floor,
you got to hit the floor.
If they tell you to take a shower,
you take a shower.
If they tell you to get in that bed
and go to sleep, you go to sleep.
I was in prison, in Parchman,
on death row
for killing a three-year-old girl.
When they locked me up
I got a 6 by 9 cell,
got a bed on the wall,
a toilet.
They can let you have a TV in the room,
and that's about it.
I went the whole time in solitary,
in a one-man cell.
In both cases, these two guys,
Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks,
their convictions
really boil down to this:
the evidence was the bite mark.
That's all they had.
[Levon Brooks] He said,
"Your teeth mark matches."
I said, "How can they match?
I ain't bit nobody."
[Kennedy Brewer] I didn't do that.
They lied on me from the beginning.
I didn't commit no crime like that.
I didn't commit no crime at all.
[Vanessa Potkin] So, just imagine being
somebody who is living in poverty,
doesn't have resources,
and you're going up against
the power of the state of Mississippi.
All the resources that the state has,
experts.
And then told that you're going to be
executed by the state.
[theme music playing]
These are what's used
in experimental bites
on live people as well as deceased.
This person is deceased,
so in biting this individual,
we use these vice grips,
and we can put pressure down,
squeezing the tissue together.
The next step is to use the same apparatus
on a live individual.
The teeth that I'm using
are the plastic models
that we made of Ted Bundy's teeth.
So, whenever I bite anybody from now on,
I've been using Bundy's teeth
to do it with,
so he is contributing to
the science of forensic odontology.
It's kind of ironic.
That's what put him in the electric chair,
and now he's going around biting people.
Okay, here we go. I got it.
Okay, I'm going to Tell me to stop.
[man grunts]
Enough.
[woman breathes deeply]
Forensic odontology
really began in the '70s.
The bulk of our work is done on
identification of unknown remains,
so the bodies can be
given to the loved ones.
[woman] Dentists from across the country
were involved
in helping to identify the victims,
by matching a victim's
unique tooth patterns
with the person's dental X-rays
and records.
[Souviron] This one
actually shows teeth marks in it.
This is good right there.
You can actually see the incisal edges,
the bite edges, right there.
- Yeah.
- They marked pretty good.
The bite marks, on the other hand,
can help the crime scene investigators
solve cases
with the comparison of the teeth
to the wound on an individual.
The first really big case
that put bite marks on the map nationally
uh, was the Bundy case.
[reporter] Described by his detractors
as a cunning and savage killer
linked to at least 21 sex slayings
in several states,
Bundy had had his day in court and on TV.
Could you please state your name
for the record?
My name is Richard Souviron.
The physical evidence in the Bundy case
was a bite mark. That was it.
The individual that had
inflicted that bite had crooked teeth.
Right lateral incisor is slightly higher.
There's not a point,
but it just angles up.
They made the marks.
The bite was so good,
the jury can literally take the teeth
and they can physically determine
in their own mind,
"Yes, this fits," or, "No, it doesn't."
It's on TV, it's sensational.
Police departments hear about it,
prosecutors are thinking about it,
and when they see anything,
"Well, that's going to be the evidence
that's going to make our case."
Theodore Robert Bundy be adjudicated
guilty of murder in the first degree,
and that you be sentenced to death.
After that, you look at the graph
of how bite marks come into courts,
and it literally goes from, like,
almost zero to, like, 50 the next year,
and that explosion
continues through the '80s
and into the '90s.
[man] Two men who worked
the Ted Bundy case,
Dr. Lowell Levine
and Dr. Richard Souviron,
they were
men for me to look up to, to respect.
[Freeman] At that time,
Mike West was really big in the field,
and he was doing a lot
of very prominent cases.
[camera shutter clicking, whirring]
[West]
Every rapist that I helped convict
was put in a prison cell
and has never raped anyone else.
Every child abuser and killer
that I have helped convict
and put in prison
has not killed another child
or abused anybody.
[camera shutter clicking, whirring]
I find that if we imprison them
and put them in a cell,
they're not able to kill, rape and murder.
I was never a bad person
or nothing like that.
I ain't never had a traffic ticket before.
I always worked
and I always listen to
what my momma tells me.
My family really had no money
to pay no lawyer or whatever,
nothing like that, you know?
I look at it like
I'm pretty much out of luck.
One day I found out about
the Innocence Project or even about DNA
I had seen it on the news.
[man on TV] There are going to be
hundreds of cases where,
as a result of the way
the DNA evidence went in,
they have to be reconsidered now.
I wrote to the Innocence Project and I was
hoping they would look into my case.
[reporter 1] Since 1987,
DNA evidence has helped put
hundreds of violent criminals behind bars.
But for other accused
and convicted criminals,
genetic evidence has meant freedom.
People serving prison time
for crimes they did not commit
have turned to the Innocence Project.
There may well be thousands of people,
if the evidence is available
and DNA testing can be performed,
who'll be able to prove their innocence.
Up until the late 1980s,
DNA was only used for disease diagnostics,
and so the scientists thought, wow,
they want to transfer
this technology to criminal justice.
Barry was teaching at Cardozo
at that point.
I was teaching trial advocacy
at Fordham Law School.
[Barry Scheck] We realized that,
as former public defenders
who had seen there were
so many things wrong with this system,
we knew from the beginning
that DNA was going to be,
uh, really, a magic bullet
that would show us
that all these old cases
had resulted in wrongful convictions.
And so, in 1992,
we started the Innocence Project.
[Peter] By 2000, we were getting
at least a couple of thousand letters
from incarcerated men and women a year.
And that's when we get a letter
from Kenny Brewer,
simply saying, "I really need your help."
Here you had a case where they claimed
that the little girl had been raped,
and they were able to collect semen,
which was evidence of sexual penetration.
And, of course, they didn't use DNA
in Mississippi in those days.
So now the hope was that the rape kit
that was created during autopsy
could provide biology
that could be tested with DNA
to determine that Kennedy
was not the source of the semen.
DNA testing can confirm guilt
just as it can prove innocence.
They said Kenny did it,
but I never believed Kenny would do that.
Kenny was quiet,
and easy.
And those'd be telling things,
and he loved to laugh.
He wasn't much of a talker.
My family been here for a long time.
They work hard
picking cotton and everything.
Potato patches, pea patches,
corn patches. [chuckles]
It was rough but we made it.
[singing inside church]
When I married, I was 15 years old.
I had ten boys and five girls.
I took them to church.
Teach them to do the right things,
how to treat everybody,
love one another,
and be kind to one another.
Good morning.
It's a pleasure for us to be here.
Yes, it is.
You know, a lot of time in our lives,
we are locked up
and don't know we are locked up.
A lot of time, we are locked down
and don't know we are locked down.
But God is saying whoever,
whosoever will, let him come.
- Yeah!
- And I am the way out.
Yeah!
We can always find a way out
of whatever we are going through
by the will of God.
Yeah!
Amen.
Mother Annie gets to church every Sunday.
She will always say,
"They got my child on death row
for something he didn't do.
Now, God gon' release him.
I know God gon' get him out."
That was her faith.
[singing gospel music]
[applause]
Christine Jackson's DNA testing results
came back the end of 2001,
and Kennedy was excluded
as being the source of the semen.
And the report said Kennedy Brewer
had not contributed to the DNA.
Peter Neufeld called me and said,
"Ms. Annie, he didn't do it."
I shouted, "Thank you, Jesus!
Thank you, Jesus! Just thank you!"
[Peter] We just assumed
after the DNA results came in
that not only would
the conviction be vacated,
but then the charges would be dismissed
and Kennedy would go back to his family.
But not so fast in Noxubee, Mississippi.
[man] I did not think that
that warranted dismissing the case.
Just because it's not his semen
in the vaginal wall,
that means he didn't rape her,
it doesn't mean he didn't kill her.
[announcer] This is WCBI News at Five.
New DNA evidence,
details coming up on WCBI News.
Even though DNA evidence
did not place Brewer
at that place of the death,
I think Forrest Allgood thought,
in his mind,
that Brewer might have not been
altogether truthful.
He felt that Brewer knew more
than he was letting on.
[Forrest] The fact that the child
was locked inside that house,
I don't know how that child
got out of that house
without the assistance
of somebody inside the house.
Now, let me pose you a question:
you really think she'd be the first child
that was ever sold for a crack rock?
Or the first child
that was ever sold for
even 50 bucks
with which to purchase a crack rock?
There's all kinds of ways
I mean, I can come up with all kinds
of motives and all kinds of reasons,
but if he did that
if he aided and assisted another
in asportating that child from that house,
then he's still guilty of capital murder.
[Vanessa] There's really
no reasonable answer
for why Forrest Allgood didn't
just dismiss the case at that point,
because we long had the DNA
that proved Kennedy innocent.
But years passed,
and Forrest Allgood won't let go.
He's threatening to take this case
back to trial.
And then we learn in late 2004
that Forrest Allgood
is going to definitely re-try this case.
So Vanessa and I stepped in,
and we became the attorneys of record
for Kenny Brewer.
We realized that the key evidence
against Kenny was the bite marks.
And so we decided to investigate
what happened here.
The first time we came down here
must have been in 2005,
- right?
- Right.
I made a playlist for us. The first song,
we had Dylan's "Oxford Town."
Captured the sentiment.
Oxford town around the bend ♪
Come to the door, he couldn't get in ♪
All because of the color of his skin ♪
What do you think about that
My friend? ♪
It has been said that the past
is the present in Mississippi
and well alive,
and you drive down these streets
and you just feel the history of slavery,
racial terror,
to the criminal justice system
we have today.
And going there was so significant.
It was extremely significant.
Oxford Town in the afternoon ♪
Everybody singin' a sorrowful tune ♪
Two men died
'Neath the Mississippi moon ♪
Somebody better investigate soon ♪
We would make a right here
to where Christine Jackson lived.
And you can go
right through the woods here
where Christine's body was recovered.
[Vanessa] Where was the house again?
[Peter] The house is over there.
Looks the same way it looked in 2005.
[Vanessa] Mm-hmm.
[Peter] There is no substitute
for visiting the scene.
- [Vanessa] Yeah.
- [Peter] Right?
In this case, we not only sort of
figured out the path that he took,
but we figured out
how easy it was for a stranger
to get in through the window.
We went to the house
where Christine Jackson was abducted.
We took pictures of our investigator,
Mike,
simply reaching in and reaching down
to show that any adult male
could have easily lifted Christine Jackson
through the window
and off into the darkness.
It was that easy.
[Vanessa] And, in order to debunk
the bite mark testimony,
we felt it was really important
to be able to explain to the jury
what could have caused these marks.
We found an aquatic forensic entomologist
to really understand
what was the animal activity
in the creek.
He believed that crawfish
could have caused the marks
on Christine Jackson's body.
He had a few traps,
and he put them down a few feet in.
After two days, he came back again,
and they were there.
There were about two dozen crawfish.
He placed the crawfish in the tank
with a stillborn pig.
And the results were that,
ultimately, the crawfish fed on the pig,
and left marks that were
very similar to the marks
that were seen on
Christine Jackson's body.
[Peter] The next order of business was,
whoever did this,
we didn't think that
it was simply an isolated act.
And so we began
looking at news clippings
from all over the South
to see if there were other
similar crimes committed
within this time frame.
[Vanessa] And of course,
when we started asking around
to local folks in the community,
"Were there ever any other crimes
that were similar to this?"
They said, "Yeah,
Courtney Smith.
And there's a man,
Levon Brooks,
who's in prison for that crime."
[woman] Thirty-two-year-old Levon Brooks,
charged with capital murder
in the 1990 death of
three-year-old Courtney Smith.
Courtney's body was found
in a Brooksville pond.
She had been beaten
and sexually assaulted
before she died.
[Peter] We looked at these two crimes,
and the two crimes happened
18 months apart,
a couple miles away
in the same community.
Both are abductions
of three-year-old girls,
both are abductions
in the middle of the night
from their beds.
Both of them are sexually assaulted,
and both of them
are deposited in bodies of water.
This is not rocket science.
[Vanessa] We know Levon
couldn't have done both crimes,
because he was in prison
by the time Christine was killed.
So, we reached out to Levon to see
You know, say, "Hey, we're looking
into your case as part of Kennedy's.
Do you want us to work on your case?"
It felt wonderful,
like relief for some news to come
that I was least expecting.
I wasn't expecting nothing like that.
I did nobody wrong.
I know I hadn't hurt nobody.
After all that time
I really had just got blended in.
I started doing my artwork.
Just about anything I could think of
that comes to my head.
I'd read my Bible
every night and every day.
You could tell how old that Bible is
'cause it's moldy.
I been had it so long;
I been had it all those years.
[Vanessa] When we reached out,
he really had accepted his fate
of having to serve out this life sentence.
He had no access to
any type of legal representation.
There was really no avenue
for him to get back into court
to overturn his conviction.
[Peter] We had hoped with Levon
that we would be able to do DNA testing,
but, unfortunately,
the way that rape kit was stored,
it was completely contaminated,
and we got no DNA results.
Levon was convicted
based on bite marks,
just as in Kennedy Brewer.
The one additional piece in Levon's case
was the eyewitness.
But the jury had never got to hear
the audio tapes of those interviews.
A man named Uncle Bunky,
who was an investigator
with the child abuse unit,
was brought in to question Ashley Smith,
Courtney's older sister.
He had a television show
on the local station
for about two decades,
where he would entertain kids
and draw pictures.
A kangaroo?
Kangaroo's silly, look at him.
He's like this, he's standing like that.
- What do you want for the front feet?
- [children laugh]
[Uncle Bunky] Now, he had an earring,
and he had something
that looked like money in his ear, too?
[Ashley Smith] A quarter.
[Uncle Bunky] A quarter.
And he had a purplish shirt
[Ashley] And then he took the quarter out
and then he put it up in my sister ear.
[Peter] Well, what stands out mostly is
you're talking about a five-year-old girl.
When she was initially asked about
what happened to her sister,
didn't mention that anybody
had abducted her.
[Uncle Bunky] Did he have any anything
on his face, like a mustache or whiskers?
[Ashley] He had a Halloween thing
on his face.
[Uncle Bunky] Okay.
Now, tell me something.
You said he had a Halloween thing
on his face?
- [Ashley] Uh-huh!
- Was it a stocking, or a Halloween thing?
[Ashley] Stocking.
[Vanessa] She's incorporating details
in her responses
that she did not originally think of,
but that originated from
Uncle Bunky's questions.
[Ashley] I remember
I Wait! I know something now.
[Uncle Bunky] What?
[Ashley] I went in there
and got the knife!
- [Uncle Bunky] Oh, you did?
- [Ashley] Uh-huh!
At some point, she even talks about
the man escaping in an airplane.
She talks about outlandish things
that we just know couldn't have happened
and she couldn't have seen.
[Ashley] And then they said,
"Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, I got your sister."
[Uncle Bunky, chuckling] Okay, now then
That ain't what they said! Okay
[Forrest] She was always consistent
in what she related
in terms of what occurred.
She was, I guess you'd say, the prime
witness against the defendant.
[Ashley] I don't think any five-year-old
should hold such position
where
somebody's life is at stake.
No, that's not a job for a five-year-old.
[Peter] We would go down
to Parchman to visit,
and a lot of things were incredible.
First of all, going through the gate
Mm-hmm.
and realizing that
this was a plantation.
And we drove through these vast fields
where many of the prisonerswere out there
working in the fields.
I mean, it was just something
out of this bizarre kind of movie
from another world and another time,
but it was 2005.
[indistinct chatter]
[hollers]
- Got you ridin' that steed, man!
- It ain't nothin' but a game!
[guard shouts orders]
[R. H. Brown ] When you go to Parchman,
you're in prison.
You would have guys like Levon
picking cotton.
Parchman was not a good place to be.
It has its history.
One of these days, and it ♪
Won't be long ♪
One of these days, and it ♪
Won't be long, well ♪
Call for me, yeah ♪
And I'll be gone ♪
Gon' be gone, and it ♪
Won't be long ♪
[woman] When we went to Parchman,
down there to see Levon
I think we basically
can see him for about
two or three hours,
or something like that,
and we sit there and talk with him,
you know,
basically just have a little chat.
He'd, like, hug and just touching
and hugging all on us and stuff.
[sighs] And after that, they'd be like,
you know, it'd be time to go.
That would be the worst time.
I'd be going down the road,
I'd just hate to leave him.
[sighs]
You want some of this?
Want some lemonade?
That'll work.
Well, there's just so much stuff
Levon had missed behind those bars.
- He missed my graduation.
- Mm-hmm.
He's missed my daughter's graduation,
he missed his daughter growing up.
You know, she was a baby
when he got locked up.
All her years, you know.
Everyone that knew
that he didn't do nothing like this.
But he's still locked up.
Still a hard pill for me to swallow
right now.
I know, I know it.
Well I tell you, see, I-
I don't like too much, uh,
talking about him 'cause
he, uh, gets on me when I talk about him.
Mm-hmm.
[Vanessa] As we were working on
Kennedy and Levon's case,
we talked to Eichelberger.
You know,
he was the law enforcement officer
who led this investigation
on both crimes.
And we said to him, "Did you ever believe
that the crimes could have
been committed by the same person?"
And his response was,
"Absolutely not."
[Peter] He said, "We know who did
the first one, it's Levon Brooks,
and he was in jail,
so he couldn't have done the second."
[Vanessa] So, we thought what was missing
was any alternative of
who could have committed the crime.
Right? If not Levon, then who?
There were a number of early suspects.
Among those suspects was a man
named Justin Albert Johnson,
who was brought in and arrested,
and blood samples were collected.
He had already been convicted
of one home invasion sexual assault
at the time that Courtney was murdered,
and then, shortly thereafter,
he's arrested doing it once again,
breaking into somebody's home
and attempting another sexual assault.
Justin Johnson was picked up
as a suspect,
and, matter of fact,
he had a prior history
of trying to commit sexual assault crimes
on adult females.
He was very uncooperative at that time
but we still processed him.
[Detective Eichelberger] Mr. Johnson,
do you mind giving your consent
to giving a physical examination,
so that will help eliminate you
from being a possible suspect
in the matter?
[Justin Johnson] I know that
y'all might think I'm a suspect, but
I ain't ever been over
to that girl's house, and
Never before in my life.
- Never been to her house.
- [Det. Eichelberger] Okay.
Johnson was a suspect in both cases.
[Vanessa] They were so focused
on this purported bite mark comparison
on Levon
that they let him just go free.
The DA determines what is being used
and what is not used,
so that ain't my call.
[Vanessa] In the summer of 2007,
the court had set a date for us
to have a retrial in Kennedy's case.
[Peter] Now that we were
getting ready for trial,
we wanted to do our own testing,
and we sent all the evidence out
in the case
to Dr. Blake, who has a laboratory
in Northern California.
And when we sent him
the evidence from the case,
we didn't just send him the rape kit,
we sent him reference samples
from the other suspects.
So, he went ahead and tested them.
And he called us up,
and shocked us both by saying,
"Guess what?
Not only is Brewer excluded,
but I've got a great match."
- [man] Justin Albert Johnson.
- Yeah.
Do you agree to talk to us on camera
about a little girl
named Christine Jackson?
[Johnson] Yeah.
Would you just tell us
what happened that night?
I went to the house,
while high on drugs,
crack cocaine and alcohol,
and I was listening to them voices
in my head.
I was out of control.
Went to the house.
Went to a window.
And what did you do after you walked up
to the window? What did you see?
I saw them laying, Kennedy Brewer,
laying aside the window
and both of them laying in the bed.
The bed beside the window.
What happened after that?
And that's when them demons in my head,
voices in my head, were telling me,
over and over again,
what to do, what to do, what to do.
What were they telling you?
To hurt the little girl.
How were you able to get her?
I reached through the window and got her.
And after you got her, where did y'all go?
I went across the field with her.
Was she awake?
She woke up when I was going on
across the field.
What did you do?
Then
I just unzipped my pants
and, um
I didn't mess with her long.
She was crying.
What-what happened after that?
I was fighting them voices.
They were telling me then
I got to get rid of her.
I got to do this.
I throwed her in that creek.
I didn't see her no more.
[Peter] We only had Johnson's confession
for Kennedy,
and we were very concerned
because we didn't have DNA for Levon,
so unless this man
made an affirmative confession,
Levon could still be
serving a life sentence.
[interrogator] Another case: remember Levon Brooks?
- That's the man who went to prison.
- [Johnson] Oh, yeah.
[interrogator] For taking that girl
out that house.
[Johnson] Yeah.
[interrogator] In other words,
you need to think back
and tell us every time
that this has happened.
[Johnson] I didn't do nothing
to that girl. I didn't do nothing.
[interrogator] Tell us about
any other time.
[Johnson] There were no more times.
[Johnson] See, what seems so odd to me,
Albert, is the two were so similar.
- [Johnson] Yeah, they was!
- [interrogator] Very similar.
Think of that weight that's gonna get
off your chest when you just sit here
and tell us the whole story.
[Johnson] Yeah.
It happened. It happened.
I went over to her house.
I went in that house.
I went in there and got her.
[R. H. Brown] Surprise to everyone,
Justin Albert Johnson
confesses to both murders.
I began to think, what's going to happen
with the forensic evidence
that was collected earlier?
Are we going to still hold
bite mark analysis as "solid science"?
[Peter] They asked Mr. Johnson,
"By the way,
did you bite either of those young girls?"
- Did you bite 'em?
- No.
He said, "It was the damnedest thing,
because I'm thinking to myself,
after I threw her in the water,
did somebody take her out and bite her?"
At that point, we knew for sure that
no one had ever bitten either girl.
It was all made up.
Do I believe Mr. Brooks
was innocent of biting that girl's arm?
No.
He bit that girl's arm.
Did I say he killed her? No.
Did I testify he raped her? No.
Do I believe, as a death investigator,
he played a significant part
in her death?
Yes. I have no doubt in that.
You're a blithering idiot
if you can't see the connection.
[man] Today,
controversy is swirling around
a favorite of prosecutors,
Dr. Michael West.
[man 2] Dozens of people are behind bars,
and some on death row,
based on his interpretation
of bite marks.
[man 3] People have been
coming up with hard evidence,
raising doubts about
some of his past opinions.
A dangerous, dangerous witness.
[West] I've held many titles in my life.
Coroner, Ranger, Captain.
But I think one of the titles
I wear best in pride
is "notorious."
If you do a Google search of me,
you would think I was evil incarnate.
It's all
the propaganda of the Innocence Project.
"The Innocence Project
says Dr. West is a son of a bitch.
He lies, he cheats, he puts people
in prison, he invents evidence! Oh, God!"
"Dr. West is from Mississippi.
He's a racist."
They don't give a damn about the truth.
They just want this guy
released from jail,
so they can tell the world
they saved another soul.
The only thing I've got
to defend myself is the truth.
And the truth will defend me.
Deo vindictus.
That was the motto of the Confederacy,
"God's our vindication."
[laughs]
[coughs] You should always be worried
when someone says God is on their side.
'Cause if they've got God on their side,
they're willing to do anything.
[Peter] Finally, the day comes,
it's February 15th in 2008.
At this point,
all the loose ends were tied up.
Johnson's arrest and confession
made it a done deal,
and it was agreed with
the special prosecutor and the judge
that we'd have a joint hearing at which
both Levon and Kenny would be present.
[R. H. Brown] Noxubee County Courthouse
was full.
You had to cram yourself in there.
The news media,
the family,
and the community.
I told them not to bring my mama
down to the courthouse
because I ain't know
how it was gonna come out at first.
- Motion of the State. Prepare your order.
- We have an order prepared.
[cameras click]
Mr. Brewer, the order's been signed
You, and the sureties on your bond,
are hereby discharged. You are free to go.
[woman shouts]
Thank you, Jesus!
Thank you, Jesus! All this time!
[applause]
[Annie weeps]
Fifteen-year nightmare
Through all of this
telling all them lies on Kenny.
They said nothin',
but just looked at us funny.
- Because we were black.
- Yes, that's right!
But the Lord overweigh! I know he is.
He's the leader. He overweighs!
[Kennedy] They put me on death row, but
I just kept my faith
that I'd get out one day.
I can't worry about the past.
All I can do is
think about the future now.
[cameras click]
I have reviewed all the documents.
Mr. Levon Brooks
you are free to go.
[cheers and applause]
Levon, congratulations.
How are you feeling?
I'm okay now. I'm okay.
God been by my side.
He knew my heart.
He knew what type of guy I was.
So, he stood by me,
no matter how hard it was doing time.
God stuck by me and brought me back out.
Now I get to be with my family.
Tell me, you feelin' good? You happy?
Yeah, this is my dad.
[woman] They want to hear your story.
I feel good. I feel good.
Yeah, thank the good Lord.
Forrest Allgood, when they got exonerated,
I think it hurt him more than anything,
'cause he didn't want to lose.
I think everybody's nightmare is that
an innocent person gets executed.
Well, in a very real sense,
the system failed in both these cases,
but then yet, and still,
in a very real sense,
the system worked.
Nobody died.
[Vanessa] Had a real investigation
been done
after Courtney was abducted and murdered,
Christine Jackson
would still be alive today.
Two men on the steps
of the Noxubee County Courthouse
are now free.
Brewer and Brooks are saying
that they forgive the error
that placed them in jail.
[Peter] Levon and Kennedy's cases
were landmark cases for us.
We didn't have any real experience
with bite marks until then.
We found that it wasn't just an outlier,
it wasn't just a bad apple,
it was the whole profession
of forensic odontology.
We then made bite marks a super priority,
and we decided to fast-track
any case we could find.
[phones ring]
This is a letter from Keith Harward.
"I was charged with capital murder,
rape, robbery and sodomy.
Bite mark evidence
pretty much was all there was."
[woman] The victim was, in fact, bitten.
Six dentists looked at this case and said,
"Keith Harward is the person
who did this," based on the bite marks.
[Peter] We realized that
in almost half of all of our cases,
forensic science was misapplied
and misused in the initial conviction.
[Barry] The problem is,
how do we go about
and systematically try to correct it?
We realized this is
going to be transformative.
This is going to expose problems
of all these wrongful convictions.
[man] Keith Harward's case,
I was reading it and I was just like,
"My God, this is all they had?
He sounds innocent."
Thirty years later,
is Keith Harward going to live
long enough to be exonerated?
[dramatic music playing]