Malcolm Scott spent greater than 20 years in jail for a homicide he didn’t commit. Turns out, he wasn’t the one individual in his household to be wrongfully convicted.
Scott and his older brother Corey Atchinson had been every convicted of separate murders within the Nineteen Nineties and spent a long time behind bars, earlier than every was exonerated in a disturbing case of justice gone flawed.
“The system doesn’t want to acknowledge that they made a mistake, but you made a mistake,” Tiffany Murphy, the previous director of the Oklahoma Innocence Project, advised “Dateline: Secrets Uncovered,” airing Wednesdays at 8/7c on Oxygen. “You made a horrible mistake and the fact that it happened twice in the same family — there are no words.”
Growing up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood on the north aspect of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Scott and his older brother had all the time been shut.
“We have a beautiful relationship,” Atchinson stated of the pair’s bond. “My momma will tell me, ‘You know he’s crazy about you,’ you know, ‘He do everything you do.’”
Atchinson served as mentor for his youthful brother, encouraging him to give attention to sports activities and keep off the streets, however the two brothers had been instantly pulled aside in 1990 after Atchinson stated he had been driving via an space of the town and heard a loud gunshot.
“I looked to where the shot came from and I seen the dude fall and as we got right there, I looked and seen his chest was still moving,” Atchinson recalled. “He was still breathing and I was like, ‘Man, somebody call an ambulance for him.’”
The sufferer was later recognized as 29-year-old James Lane, a small-time drug vendor, who had been shot within the chest and robbed. Without a lot to go on, the homicide case shortly went chilly till an eyewitness got here ahead six months later to say Atchinson had been the shooter. His shut good friend Ben King additionally advised police in an interrogation room that Atchinson had killed Lane.
Atchinson — who continued to keep up his innocence — was arrested and charged with homicide. The subsequent yr, he was convicted and sentenced to life in jail.
Scott was simply 13 years outdated, however what he didn’t know then was that his life would observe an eerily related path only a few years later.
On September 10, 1994, 19-year-old mom Karen Summers was struck down in a driveby capturing whereas hanging out with pals, a few of whom had been recognized gang members.
When a detective visited Michael Wilson, a well known member of a rival gang, he observed a maroon sedan in Wilson’s driveway matching the outline of the drive-by automobile and located a gun that will later be matched via ballistics to Summer’s demise.
Wilson was arrested for being in possession of the gun however he insisted he had been hiding it for De’Marchoe Carpenter — an in depth good friend of Scott’s who had been injured in one other drive-by capturing lower than a yr earlier.
Two different eyewitnesses additionally advised police that Carpenter and Scott — who authorities believed had ties to the rival gang — had been the shooters that night time.
Both males had been arrested despite the fact that Scott insisted he didn’t do it.
“I’m like, ‘Whoever, you know, is telling you this, they are obviously mistaken. I didn’t don’t have anything to with it,'” Scott told “Dateline” correspondent Craig Melvin.
Carpenter additionally denied any position within the capturing, however each had been later convicted and sentenced to life in jail plus a further 170 years after Wilson agreed to testify in trade for a lesser sentence.
“Everything just froze. It’s like time just suspended for a second,” Scott stated of listening to the decision.
When Atchinson heard of his brother’s conviction, he felt he had failed his brother “because he had followed in my footsteps” despite the fact that each males insisted they had been harmless.
“There’s no blame on my brother at all,” Scott advised “Dateline: Secrets Uncovered.” “I definitely can’t hold him responsible for something I didn’t even do myself.”
As the years handed behind bars, Carpenter and Scott had been intent on proving their innocence and spent years writing letters to anybody they might consider which may assist their case or recording movies with contraband cell telephones begging President Obama and others to intervene within the case.
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One of their pleas lastly reached personal investigator Eric Cullen in 2006.
“I kind of describe Malcolm and De’Marchoe’s letters as kind of scratches on a wall,” Cullen stated. “I just kind of imagined what it must be to, you know, be dropped in a hole 30 feet deep and good luck getting out.”
Cullen determined to dig into the case and tracked down one of many eyewitnesses who recanted his testimony, saying he solely positioned the blame on Scott and Carpenter as a result of detectives threatened to cost him with against the law if he didn’t testify.
Upon listening to the person’s story, Cullen determined to staff up with Murphy on the Oklahoma Innocence Project. Together they realized that the second eyewitness had been shot within the butt and hadn’t seen the capturing. He additionally recanted his testimony.
“This is a kid who got pressured into saying something he did not see. I was just watching him and I could tell this was a man who was remembering something that was extremely traumatic and as a Black woman, I get that, I understand that. You know, the fear of the police is a real thing,” Murphy stated.
But even with the 2 eyewitnesses altering their tales, there was nonetheless Wilson’s account. By then, Wilson was on demise row himself after being convicted of killing a comfort retailer supervisor. Just 48 hours earlier than his execution — in any case his appeals had been exhausted — Wilson agreed to speak with Murphy and had a stunning story.
He advised Murphy he had been the one to shoot Summers that night time.
“I wasn’t trying to shoot Karen Summers,” he stated, based on an interview tape, including it was “just one of those type of things she was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He thought he had been caught when detectives found the gun used within the capturing, however advised Murphy that investigators already appeared to be targeted on Carpenter and Scott.
“It kind of blew me away that I got caught with a gun and they just let me go,” he stated.
In an try to avoid wasting himself, Wilson stated he advised detectives what they wished to know, answering affirmatively when investigators requested whether or not Carpenter had been the one to provide him the gun.
“I said, ‘yes,’” he defined. “That’s what I had to say and they let me out.”
While police and prosecutors denied ever pressuring witnesses and insisted the precise males had been behind bars, a decide dominated in 2016 that police had and located Wilson’s video confession credible, finally exonerating each Scott and Carpenter.
Scott was lastly launched, however he couldn’t take pleasure in his newfound freedom till his brother was cleared as effectively.
Cullen started engaged on Atchinson’s case and observed the identical disturbing allegations of witness coercion.
The 15-year-old eyewitness within the case had damaged down throughout a preliminary listening to and insisted that he didn’t see something and stated police had threatened him with jail time, based on “Dateline: Secrets Uncovered.”
Atchinson’s good friend, Ben King, additionally stated he solely advised police that Atchinson had been the shooter after hours of interrogation.
“They wouldn’t let me go and I didn’t have an attorney or nothing,” King stated. “After being down there nine or 10 hours all day I thought well, I’ve been telling the truth that he didn’t do it, so I thought well, I’ll tell them a lie and go home,” he stated.
After the interrogation, nonetheless, King refused to testify in courtroom and prosecutors had been pressured to make use of his videotaped interrogation in courtroom as an alternative.
Finally, 28 years after Atchinson’s conviction, a decide dominated there had been a “fundamental miscarriage of justice” and located there had been “clear and convincing evidence” that Atchinson didn’t commit the crime.
Tulsa Police and the district lawyer’s workplace declined to talk with “Dateline: Secrets Uncovered” concerning the allegations of witness tampering however Tim Harris, the district lawyer who prosecuted Atchinson’s case, insisted he had by no means coerced anybody.
“I never coerced, I’ve never forced and I certainly never presented false testimony,” he stated.
After practically 30 years, each brothers had been now free males.
Scott, who now works as a private coach, is concentrated on making an attempt to alter the system in order that others don’t fall sufferer to wrongful conviction and has sued the City of Tulsa and particular person cops concerned in his case.
“I know the pain,” Scott stated of his mission to assist others. “I know the hurt.”
Atchinson additionally sued the state of Oklahoma for wrongful conviction and acquired a settlement in June 2021 of $175k, the utmost allowed underneath Oklahoma legislation.
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