#584 Jason Flom with Tysheem Crocker

**Connor Hall** (0:04)
Hey, it's Connor Hall, Senior Producer for Wrongful Conviction, back with another case update and more behind the scenes insights. This time, we're talking about Tysheem Crocker, and more broadly about post-conviction procedure in Pennsylvania. Now, Tysheem's story reminds me a bit of the guy who brought us his case, another previous guest and somebody I'm lucky to call a friend, Lorenzo Johnson. Both of these guys and their friends were just kids who were fleeing the late crack epidemic era in the Bronx for what they were hoping were safe for pastures in Pennsylvania only to find new threats to their lives and freedom. I'll link Lorenzo's story in the episode description where in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Lorenzo and the other new arrivals from the Bronx were well aware of how the local lawmen felt about them. And then there was certainly added racial motivation in his story when Lorenzo's co-defendent Corey happened to be dating the daughter of the investigator in their case.
Yeah, that's exactly how it sounds. And then in Tysheem's case, when shots rang out at an October 1997 dice game in York, Pennsylvania, the murder of Raymond Skip Clark seems to have become an opportunity to again take down as many kids from the Bronx as possible. When the likely shooter Danny Steele became the state's star witness, saying that he had planned the shooting at a motel with four or five others, including Tysheem Crocker and Melvin Bethune, who are alleged to have attended the motel meeting, pointed guns at a guy named Ken Dew Smith at the dice game, but their guns jammed. And then, after everyone scattered, a fictional character named Corleone and a few others chased and shot Raymond Skip Clark a few blocks away. And that testimony got Danny Steele two to five years instead of life, like Melvin and Tysheem got for their role in the alleged conspiracy and accomplice liability to that murder.
But in 2003, Tysheem discovered the deal made with Danny Steele, which would have impeached him. And then Danny Steele recanted in 2005, but that was deemed not credible. Only to be corroborated ten years later by Ken Dew Smith, who said that Tysheem and Melvin never pointed guns at him or anyone at the dice game. But there was still another witness who had held that position. Another five years down the road, Tysheem's team found the motel clerk who had checked them in, importantly, about an hour after the shooting. So, this conspiracy meeting narrative fell apart.
There was also a phone call from their room to Melvin's girlfriend, Tucker Redman, allegedly made before the shooting. It was allegedly overheard by another girl named Nikki Rhodes. The prosecution said in opening and closing statements that Melvin had relayed the alleged plot over the phone before the shooting. Neither of the girls were ever called to the stand, but the existence of this phone call was raised in court, it seems purposely, without a time-stamped call log which would have shown a time for after the shooting when they were checked in to this motel. Now since our coverage in 2023, the Pennsylvania Innocence Project has taken over Tysheem's case, and both women have sworn statements that the prosecution's assertions about the phone call were lies, as corroborated by the motel clerk in the time of the check-in. Additionally, the remaining witness who claimed to see Tysheem and Melvin guns has also now recanted, saying that he received a deal for himself and a girlfriend in unrelated charges for that testimony. Then another alleged witness, an ear witness, has also recanted, saying that he had caved to pressure from police and his family to say that he could identify Tysheem at the scene from the sound of his voice. And you might be thinking to yourself, well, who should have ever given a shit about that last one, as well as why the hell are Tysheem and Melvin still in prison? The case for their innocence had already been laid out in court over time. But in Pennsylvania post-conviction, timing is everything. When it comes to newly discovered evidence, for starters, in Pennsylvania, to be considered newly discovered evidence and open an avenue to a new trial, the evidence could not have been discoverable with due diligence at the time of trial. So, if something was in the public record or even in the universe at the time of trial, say a witness like Ken Dew Smith or a motel clerk's time sheet, but that evidence was just simply not investigated, discovered and or raised, well, that can't be considered newly discovered evidence, no matter how earth-shattering it is.
So okay, that's the defense attorney's fault, right? And in most states, one could claim ineffective assistance of trial counsel and open up an avenue for a new trial. But in Pennsylvania, if that isn't raised on direct appeal, well, then the defendant's only option is to then claim ineffective assistance of appellate counsel in their first post-conviction motion. And if they don't do that, the ineffective assistance avenue? That's closed. Again, no matter how earth-shattering the evidence, the issue cannot be raised on a successive post-conviction motion, even if said evidence was only discovered so many years after their first post-conviction motion. And then, to diminish the avenues further, up until 2018, any evidence that passed the other qualification for newly discovered evidence had to be filed within 60 days of discovery. Now, you have a whole year. But even with the increased window of 305 whole days, often evidence of innocence is more impactful in the context of other evidence that only comes to light so many years later, like Ken Dew Smith's testimony supporting Danny Steele's recantation. Without Ken Dew, it's pretty easy to just call your own witness Danny Steele a liar, especially after he changed his story from what he had sworn in court. But what if Ken Dew Smith, the motel clerk, and now two more witnesses from the scene, as well as Tucker Redman, Nikki Rhodes, and telephone call logs that would show that the prosecution at the very least didn't know what they were talking about when they said that these phone calls happened before the shooting. All of those things together, supporting the recantation of their star witness, what if that could finally be heard at one evidentiary hearing? Like in other states where you can file a post-conviction motion based on actual innocence and if granted, then the procedural time bars are lifted, and the court can finally hear the preponderance of evidence of a defendant's innocence.