obvious that my goal for that meeting and his goal were not the same. i m like, oh, man. a real human being i can talk to. i need help. nobody will help me. i didn t do this. and i was very resistant to doing that. i knew that these death row cases were immense cases. 5, 10, 15 volumes long. i m like no, it s one volume big. that s all it is. one volume? that s where the attorney of him kicked in. i was just stunned that a man could be brought to trial for his life and be convicted in the amount of space it took to record that event was in one volume. so i thought, whoa. something is not right. in addition to being a priest and a lawyer, neil was a registered nurse with 15 years experience in critical care. it s one of those like if you re a believer it s a god
his life. the electric chair flashed in front of my eyes. get a conviction at all costs. let the truth fall where it may. cleveland is like a big small town. we have like one of everything you need. literally has the houses like stacked on top of each other so close. and it seems like everybody knows somebody that knows somebody. so for this to happen in little italy it was a horrible crime in in the sense it is a tight knit community where things don t happen like that. at 1:30 on saturday, september 24th, 1988, a jogger
many people proclaim their innocence. in this case there are a number of things that stink. this man is remorseless. he needs to pay for it with his life. the electric chair flashed in front of my eyes. get a conviction at all costs. let the truth fall where it may. cleveland is like a big small town. we have like one of everything you need. literally has the houses like stacked on top of each other so close. and it seems like everybody knows somebody that knows somebody. so for this to happen in little italy it was a horrible crime in the sense it is a night nit community where things don t happen like that. at 1:30 on saturday september 24th, 1988, a jogger noticed something floating in doan creek, a narrow waterway that twists through rockefeller park in cleveland, ohio.
joe and his lawyers believed that at the very least the withheld evidence provided reasonable doubt the crime could have happened differently than the state presented at trial. in july 2004 joe s team went before judge o malley to obtain a new trial. we put up all our witnesses. the newly discovered people, the newly discovered evidence. by far the most powerful witness at the hearing was chris longenecker, stoney lewis s alleged rape victim, who had been found living in florida. neil convinced chris that his testimony could save joe s life. i wasn t able to do anything for tony because and so i figured, if i could help someone else, then i ll do that. chris, who is legally blind
klann could be running down a creek bed trying to plug two holes in his trachea so he can scream for his life. after visiting the crime scene, father neil had other suspicions about espinoza s testimony. joe supposedly grabs the knife and goes after anthony in the creek bed, stabbing him. and yet there were no tire tracks or anything on the side of the creek. and so i thought, whoa, something s not right here. neil believed espinoza had to be lying. but a witness who was lying did not necessarily mean joe was telling the truth. neil needed to know more about joe s background. joe s father died when he was 17 years old. joe is the only boy in the family. so his father s death was very traumatic for him. i had to become the breadwinner.