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The Case of Leroy Harris
📻 Episode #49
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Mar 19, 2018
About This Episode
From the moment he was charged with rape and robbery in 1989, Leroy Harris has insisted on his innocence. In May 1983, a New Haven, CT nightclub owner was robbed at gunpoint by three young men late one night. The men stole his car, and later that evening robbed and sexually assaulted two women. Leroy…
The Case
From the moment he was charged with rape and robbery in 1989, Leroy Harris has insisted on his innocence. In May 1983, a New Haven, CT nightclub owner was robbed at gunpoint by three young men late one night. The men stole his car, and later that evening robbed and sexually assaulted two women. Leroy became one of the numerous suspects because he was misidentified. He was tried in April 1989, six years after the crimes were committed. Despite the fact that not a single eyewitness identified Leroy as being involved in the crimes prior to the trial, all four witnesses—the two assault victims, nightclub owner, and nightclub owner’s girlfriend—positively identified Leroy for the first time in court. He was convicted of three counts of robbery and one count of sexual assault in the first degree and sentenced to 80 years in prison. Even after his conviction, he fought the verdict through five appeals. Leroy finally got the Innocence Project of New York working on his case in 2012. The Innocence Project had the Connecticut forensic lab test new DNA evidence which excluded Leroy from the male DNA on the inside of one victim’s blouse. The sexual assault charge against Leroy was dismissed, but in order to be released, Leroy Harris agreed to enter “Alford” pleas to the remaining charges in exchange for his freedom. He spent almost 30 years in prison in Connecticut.
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom
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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:04:55“Speaker 2: because I know you have to get a lawyer. Speaker 3: I don't have no money. Speaker 4: But the logical thing mind is going to say, but Speaker 4: wait a minute, you must have seen a lawyer while Speaker 4: you were in jail. Everyone's entitled to a lawyer. It”
00:20:06“Speaker 4: a more or less a roadblock that these guys who Speaker 4: had just stolen this other car were able to sort Speaker 4: of box them in, and so they were sexually assaulted Speaker 4: and robbed. They knew they had three perpetrators, right, and Speaker 4: they had two of them. They had caught two of them,”
00:35:19“Speaker 4: to myself, well, if they dismissed all the charges, there's nothing. Speaker 4: And by now the Interests Project had proven with science, Speaker 4: everybody was there that you weren't the guy. So it's Speaker 4: so it's so crazy like that they could just pull Speaker 4: this kidnap out of thin air. I don't even understand that.”
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Also on the podcast: #447 Darien Harris · #539 Cal Harris