CenLAw
Kellye, the true crime enthusiast, and Kyler, her willing partner, delve into intriguing cases from Central & Northeastern Louisiana.
From small-town cases to nationally known crimes, they bring you stories that hit close to home, always with that Louisiana connection.
Tune in bi-weekly for your true crime fix and support their show for a shout-out in the next episode.
Stay safe out there!
CenLAw
Racial Injustice in Avoyelles: The Vincent Simmons Story
Change Petition for Vincent Here
What if you were imprisoned for 44 years for a crime you didn't commit? In this episode, we unravel the gut-wrenching story of Vincent Simmons, who was wrongfully convicted of two counts of attempted aggravated rape in 1977. We transport you to the racially charged atmosphere of Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, where Simmons' fate was sealed by a flawed legal system and blatant racial injustices. Through personal anecdotes and historical context, we paint a vivid picture of the era, reflecting on significant events such as Jimmy Carter's presidency and Elvis Presley's last concert tour.
Experience the systemic failures that led to Simmons' wrongful arrest, conviction, and subsequent 100-year prison sentence. We dissect the racially charged accusations, the highly questionable lineup, and the brutal police interrogation that coerced Simmons into a false confession. Hear about the inconsistencies and prejudices that marked his trial, including the coercion of the lone black juror and the last-minute amendment of charges, all set against the backdrop of a deeply flawed judicial system.
Join us as we highlight Simmons' resilience and the eventual overturning of his conviction in 2022. This episode is not just a recounting of a grave injustice but a call to action for justice and accountability within our legal system. Learn how you can support the ongoing fight for justice, including signing a petition on Change.org, and explore additional resources to further understand Vincent Simmons' harrowing journey. Together, we can push for change and ensure such egregious violations of human rights never happen again.
Source Material:
YouTuble Playlist Accompaniment (Includes 'Shadows of Doubt' documentary)
Simmons Civil Suit 2023
Simmons Appeal 1978 - affirmed
Simmons Civil Suit against the President & Others
Excellent Timeline of Events for the Entire Case
2017 Article by Louisiana Voice
Full Application for Post-Conviction Relief
Wrongful Conviction Podcast - Vicent Simmons Episode
48 Hour Episode
Amazon: LA vs. Vincent Simmons: Frameup In Avoyelles Novel
** I was incorrect! In the episode I thought Sharon wrote the novel, it was in fact Karen... link here to the Amazon page, no longer available..I know, devastating!
This has been an elfaudio production.
Thanks for listening & Take care out there!
All🎶created by: Uncle Sawyer
Imagine you're a 25-year-old who, after a rough start in life and admittedly getting on the wrong side of the law and having a little bit of juvenile trouble, you move away out of state to try to make life better for yourself. You move back to your roots, even against family and friends' warnings against it, only to find yourself arrested, id'd by three different witnesses, brutally interrogated by officers. That culminated in you being shot less than a week after you've returned being shot less than a week after you've returned. Now imagine, after all, that you're convicted of two counts of attempted aggravated rape and sentenced to 100 years in prison for a crime you never committed and, in all likelihood, never happened. Join us today for a truly harrowing story of racism, bias and an egregious injustice and misuse of our legal system that will blow your mind and undoubtedly play on your heartstrings. This is episode 32 of the Sin Law Podcast, the Vincent Simmons story. Welcome back, or, if it's your first time listening, welcome to this in-law podcast where true crime meets the legal system. I'm Kelly. I'll be your host for today and life is life. I told you, guys I was going to stop apologizing, so I'm not even going to go there. However, I will tell you that we made a flying trip to Florida and back for a funeral and we also had illness and everything else in our family. But we've got our stuff together now we're hoping. So, fingers crossed, let's hope for consistency. We'll go with that.
Speaker 1:Today's story is another listener suggestion from our man behind the curtain, same one who gave us many, many of our other episodes, and this one is actually taking us back, just like last episode on Miss Connie Smith, which I came to find out. My mother, weecy you've met her before. She's been on an episode with me. She actually knew Miss Connie. They were friends. They knew each other from the pageants that they did. Remember I told you she was a beauty queen. Yes, connie Smith and my mother actually did Cinderella pageants together in Louisiana before she passed away. And my mom called me after she started listening to the very beginning of it and it was funny because she wanted me to tell her who it was that told her to look into that story and I told her it was our man behind the curtain and she was like I must know him. So I thought that was pretty, pretty crazy and she also kind of, in a way, links up to this one just because of the setting and the time. She was still living in Louisiana, then so was my father and yeah. So I mean a lot of these stories hit home in ways that I didn't even realize.
Speaker 1:So today we're going back a little bit further than the Connie Yvette Smith story. We're actually going back to the 1970s, late 1970s, where obviously, if you listen to the intro which I'm guessing you did um, there was still rampant and very obvious racism that created lines and polluted a lot of the legal system at the time. That is still making its way out and I'm hoping it's still making you know it's going to eventually completely make its way out of our justice system. But fingers crossed for that eventuality. Um, but today we're going to be actually in a Vols parish, that is more specifically Marksville, louisiana. Our scene set up here is close, like I said, 1977. We're talking about 74 to 75 percent almost percentage of the population is white, about 25 percent black. There was an other that had a total of 64 people, so it wasn't even a one percentage for the census information that I got, and there were about 40,400 people living in Oval's Parish at the time and Jimmy Carter became president in 1977. Or well, I guess he was, um, whatever that's called, inaugurated, I don't know. Anyway I didn't pay attention in politics. So another interesting tidbit was um apple, and they actually became an incorporated entity in 1977 as well, as as New Orleans elected their first black mayor, miss Ernest Dutch. I'm going to say this wrong Morial Morial anyway. First black mayor of New Orleans was elected in 1977. And Elvis made a live appearance in March of 1977 in Alexandria and my mother had tickets to go. Her mother and her had tickets to go to watch that concert in Alexandria, but my mother, thinking oh, I'll have time to see him another time, gave the ticket to her aunt and so my grandmother and my great aunt got to go watch Elvis in March of 77. And he actually passed away in August that same year. So my mom never did get to go see Elvis, unfortunately. So that kind of gets you in the mindset of where we're at. Jimmy Carter was the president, first black mayor, and Elvis died towards the end of that year. All you know interesting tidbits there.
Speaker 1:This story is, oh my god, it's just awful. When I started reading about this I was floored by the amount of just complete and utter disregard for any kind of human rights, any kind of justice, any kind of, you know, due process rights and just any fairness, any fairness at all. Sorry, if you guys heard my watch thing, there was none. This was a complete and utter drag through every single thing that could ever possibly be wrong with a quote unquote investigation, a quote unquote trial, a quote unquote years of post conviction relief attempts. I mean, it's just this guy. When they say somebody got railroad, this guy's picture comes up when you Google it. Road, this guy's picture comes up when you google it. I'm telling you it is. It is unfortunate that we have more than one story that rings with the same undertones as our story today, so let's get into it.
Speaker 1:May 23rd of 1977 would turn out to be a not nice day. Obviously, louisiana in May is not fun for anybody. I believe at around 9 o'clock that morning it was already 78 degrees, which anybody down here right now knows. That's actually pretty cool considering how our weather has been lately. However, that morning Mr Vincent Alfred Simmons was walking down the road on Waddell Street, I believe is what it was called, and at around 9.20, two officers from the Avoles State Police Department pulled up and arrested him on sight. Department pulled up and arrested him on sight. He was then placed in handcuffs, placed into a police car, driven back to the station, put into a room with at least I believe it was seven other men, one of which was white, all of the others were not handcuffed. And then they took a picture and, as quickly as they could, they got three eyewitnesses into a room adjacent to the lineup. All three of these witnesses were in the same room at the same time, were able to discuss which person they thought it was and eventually came to the conclusion and decision that Vincent Simmons was the man that they were accusing of a crime.
Speaker 1:Now, despite many, many alibi witnesses to the contrary, the police, although without interrogation, wrote up a quote-unquote confession and proceeded to take it into the room with Vincent and demand that he sign it. The more he refused, the more he claimed innocence, the worse it got for him. He was thrown down, he was kicked, he was slapped, he was punched, he was manhandled and then eventually, when he was trying to recover himself up off the floor, he was shot point blank in the chest, which I don't know if it's luckily or unluckily, but it did miss his heart by just a few spare inches. Later, the officers involved in that shooting would say that somehow, while handcuffed and with two of them in the room, that vincent had retained control of one of the weapons and said I'll die before y'all take me in, and they had to remove the gun from his possession. And then, I guess, even though they had possession of the gun at that point, they still felt it necessary to shoot him in the chest Not sure. However, he was then taken to the hospital and this was the beginning of a 44-year cycle of hell. The only way I can imagine this was for him. A 44-year cycle of hell is the only way I can imagine this was for him, because he was innocent. He knew it, his family and friends knew it and, by all rights and reasoning, the police, the DA, the quote-unquote witnesses and victims of the crime I hope you can hear my air quotes everyone knew he was innocent.
Speaker 1:But that's the thing about a lie Once you say it once and then you say it again. If there's racism that is fueling it, if there is bias and a cover-up and all of the things that had to be in play for this to last as long as it did almost half a century it was hard to undo that once you started. And once you say a lie and then you continue to say it and perpetuate the lie, it's hard to take it back. It's hard to undo that once you started and once you make it, once you say a lie and then you continue to say it and perpetuate the lie, it's hard to take it back, it's hard to undo that. It's hard to go back and say you know what? I lied, especially after 40, some odd years. So now that we've met Vincent and we've met his horrible introduction and this wasn't his first time in the legal system, don't get me wrong. Like I said in the intro, he had had been.
Speaker 1:He got the attention of officers and the law enforcement around Louisiana and in the Vols Parish as a juvenile and he had moved to Texas in his later adult life Because at this point in 1977, he was 25 years old and he had left and come back, even though his family said it wasn't a good idea. He needed to stay as far away from Louisiana as possible. He didn't listen. He missed home. So he came back and within a week of moving back, this is what happened Within a week, not only was he wrongfully arrested and accused.
Speaker 1:He was shot in the chest near death. Arrested and accused, he was shot in the chest, near death. Now, although that they said that they that he did try to take the weapon and then fight with them he was never charged any subsequent charges for that quote-unquote act. They say he he committed in the interrogation room, but neither was anyone else. No one was ever charged for shooting him in the chest. No suspensions, no firing, no dismissals or quiet transfers, nothing like that. It just kind of like it didn't happen, except he still almost died.
Speaker 1:So now that we know where Vincent started, let's kind of rewind here for a second and go back to the incident Alleged incident Because all this had to start somewhere. He didn't just get accused and thrown in there for nothing, right? Okay, so the story goes. Okay, so the story goes. Apparently, on May 9th of 1977, twin sisters, karen and Sharon Sanders, were going to their cousin's house, keith Laborde, and this is where it gets kind of weird. His age was reported in documents as him being 18, but he was actually 20 years old in May of 77. Don't know why. There was a discrepancy, probably to make it seem not as bad when the information came out later, however, the two twin girls were 14 and they were both white, as well as Keith Laborde. They were all white, and that was, you know, a big deal when it comes to what they accuse someone of doing here shortly Now. On May 9th, they were going over to his house to help clean because somebody was coming home from something I don't know. They helped clean as a kind of like a way to get cash for themselves. So their cousin came and picked them up and, according to all three, they ran into some black man quote, unquote at the gas station or the the corner store, who said, um, he needed a ride, and so they picked him up, apparently, and everything was going well until you know, a couple miles down the road he pulled out a gun, told him to pull over somewhere near a lake out there and had Keith, the 18 slash, 20 year old male, white male, get into the trunk with the sister Sharon, and then he proceeded to rape Karen in the back seat, as well as switching them out and then raping Sharon as well, and this was the story that was reported to police on May 22nd. So why the wait? Well, if you listen to Karen and Sharon, which you can.
Speaker 1:They have done many interviews. They have, I believe one of them wrote a book which I didn't bother reading. According to the sisters, they didn't say anything because they were terrified that the man who had done this atrocious act against them would come back and kill them and their family because that's what he said he would do. Right, he said he would come back and kill them all. He knew who they were and where they lived, and so on and so forth. So they didn't say anything for a while. But eventually something came to light within the family and when they, you know, had to come out with whatever information or or for whatever reason, they were discussing this. When the family became aware, they took them immediately to the police station, which was on May 22nd, and then on May 23rd, a black man was then arrested.
Speaker 1:Now, in the very first interview report made by the twins and by their cousin Keith, their story was very vague and very racist. And even in the interviews that they do later, in many, many later years, they admit to this. They say you know, because they use the N-word as they do. And they also say I believe it was Karen who said quote all blacks look alike unquote, and this just tells you the level of ignorance we're dealing with here. But also, they're 14 year old girls and you talking about racial tension and racial profiling and all of those things. Did you guys know? I just found this out today. Actually, we all know what Karens are. Right, I know Karens, as you know, the entitled stuck up. I need to speak with your manager. You know that kind of Karen, but apparently a Karen is also what a woman who is falsely a white woman, who has falsely accused a black man of rape, is called.
Speaker 1:I did not know that this was actually in the legal proceedings that I was reading. Anyway, so because of and I want to say it has more to do with this case than anything, because Miss Karen was the kind of the reading or she seemed like the very much more the dominant of the two twins, because she's very, very much the center, and I say that, but I think Sharon wrote the book, so I'm not sure. Either way, what I do know is that they made these accusations but in the first reports that they gave they didn't know a name. They were very vague on the description. They couldn't and they never did. In the first report they never mentioned any weapons no guns, no ropes, no duct tapes, no knives, nothing. And neither did Keith, the cousin, who was thrown in the trunk and made to stay in there until you know. This alleged black man got finished with what he was doing with the two girls and then took off. So that was the first report.
Speaker 1:When they arrested vincent and brought him in, all three of them were on the opposite side of the glass looking in and they were all three at the same time allowed to look and make a decision. And, like I said, that lineup from the get-go was shit. There was a white man. A white man in this lineup, yeah, and guess what else? The only person in handcuffs was you guessed it Vincent Simmons. Everybody else had their hands free. Vincent was the only one who had handcuffs on. Later they would say that that picture was taken after they did the lineup and he didn't have handcuffs on when they were showing him in the lineup when they picked him out of the group, which is all. It's hard to believe anything they say because they're all a bunch of fucking liars. So the point is, at that time they had no idea what his name was. They had no mention of any weapons.
Speaker 1:Now here very shortly, and I mean very shortly. It was less than 60 days from the time he was arrested to the time he went to trial. It was, oh okay, so May 23rd he was arrested, he was indicted by the grand jury on june 10th and then his trial started on july 19th, and that meant it was basically 60 days after the allegation was made on May 22nd that he went to trial. His trial lasted two days, but it was a jury of 11 white men and one black woman who later said that she fell prey to extreme, extreme coercion and basically like telling her that we'll, we'll kill you if you, if you, screw this up. You know he's guilty. Well, we all know he's guilty.
Speaker 1:Now a couple more things that were shitty to begin with. Um, he was initially charged with two counts of aggravated rape and two counts of attempted murder, and this was because later the stories were adjusted to where Simmons which is now how he allegedly introduced himself when they met at the 7-11 quote-unquote had a gun and a knife. So he used the gun to control them and get Keith into the trunk with Sharon, and then the knife to keep them at bay while he was doing bad, bad things. However, once they found or once they got the car that was because it was Keith Laborde, the cousin, that was his car there was no physical evidence in the car that suggested a rape. There was no evidence of any sexual assault on the victims. Both the girls were medically evaluated and, as would become apparent later, much, much later, one of them still had their hymen intact, which is usually indicative of virginity. So not always, but in most cases. So there was no sign of rape, there was no evidence of rape, there was no physical evidence in the vehicle, there was no evidence that there was even a sexual assault that occurred at all, but they still indicted him.
Speaker 1:However, right before the trial they amended the indictment to, instead of aggravated rape, it was two charges of attempted aggravated rape. Because now they knew, because of the medical records, they knew that one of the girls had never been penetrated at all. So, and even in one of her statements she made, I think, at trial, even on the stand, she said she wasn't sure if he had ever actually got it inside of her or not. So they had to amend that to be able to say it was an attempt. So there was a lot of a lot of stuff going on at the time too, with the amount of time that someone could serve for aggravated rape or attempted aggravated rape, and there was a lot of stuff, um, with the Supreme Court and the amount of jail time being allowed and what was considered inhumane or unfair by the constitutional rights that we have for cruel and unusual punishment, and so a lot of stuff was changing with that too. So they were trying to do whatever they could to make it stick, I guess, and so they amended it without any further grand jury, without any further anything. They basically just said, oh, here, we're going to change this to this, and that's what they went to trial with.
Speaker 1:Now, even though they had no evidence, no physical evidence, they had multiple alibi witnesses for Vincent Simmons that said he was at a bar at the night in question and in spite of the fact that the twins and Keith, the cousin, his story, all their stories change vastly over the periods of time. And then they also lined up so perfectly and by that I mean both of the girls when they described how the actual assault happened. They were exact to the point, down to the detail of how their bodies were positioned and what position they were in and how he did it. And then that changed again after they realized that the medical examination proved something different. So I mean, like it was so inconsistent and so just there's no way, okay. And it went from all Blacks look alike. We don't know a name. So now they knew his name was Simmons and now they knew at first he didn't have any weapons. And now he did have a weapon and it just it.
Speaker 1:None of it followed, none of it made any sense. It all sounded like a bunch of made up bullshit, which is exactly what it turns out to be. Now, why would they make it up? You ask why? Why would they do this? Why would they go through all of this trouble? Why would they do all of this? To spin this big yarn against an innocent person, just to get them in trouble. What are they getting out of it? What are they? What's going on? What are they hiding? Well, I'm here to tell you no-transcript, who later she did admit to it in a 48 hours interview which I also have linked and will be in. I have a YouTube playlist specifically for this episode that you can go and easily find any of those, but I'll have it linked in the show notes as well. They had consensual sex. But she says no, we did, but that was a different time, that wasn't the same night, that was a different occasion. The reason we found all of this out was because of many years later, and we'll get to that here shortly but they were having consensual sex and the assumption is is to keep the family from finding out or from becoming um, knowing the situation, what was going on and anybody getting in trouble or looking bad on the family.
Speaker 1:They made up this story about the black man raping Karen and Sharon and basically held it over Keith, held it over the girls' heads and said you know, we need to put this black man in prison. He deserves it. So at the trial, all three testified on the stand and the defense attorney fails miserably to even pretend to be competent and to present a defense in any shape, form or fashion. I mean some of the trial transcripts and there's YouTube videos that touch on this. He basically would ask a question that would kind of start to bring into question the reliability of the witnesses. I think it was one of the girls. They make mention of something, of them not being in school, or why were they in school and they had marijuana on them in their bra or something, and they stop Like he. The defense attorney says, ah, can we have a recess judge for five minutes or whatever. And then they come back and act like that question never happened, that that answer never came out of her mouth and it just it. It was obvious that they were just trying to get it to where it needed to be, to get the guilty and be done, because they were already convinced and he wasn't even trying. And at the end of this whole charade and shenanigans, on July 28th he was officially sentenced. He was found guilty on the 20th of July and then on the 28th he was officially sentenced to 50 years for each count to be served hard labor which totaled to 100 years because each sentence was to be served consecutively.
Speaker 1:Now, vincent, he made multiple appeals, repeated efforts trying to get post-conviction relief. He was trying to get an appeal to say he needed a new trial. This was horse crap. By finally, 16 years later, after requesting all of the documents to be able to file an appropriate appeal to get the file from the prosecution, they finally, in 1997, question mark I think it was 97. They finally got him a copy of the file from the DA's office 1997. Or no, I'm sorry, 93. 93 was when he got a copy of the file from the DA's office, 1997. Or no, I'm sorry, 93. 93 was when he got a copy of the prosecution file. And as he's reading through this, he sees evidence of these medical records that were never presented at trial, that were never requested by the defense. He sees the differences in the first police report to what they testified to at trial, which didn't match at all, not even close.
Speaker 1:Nevertheless, in 1997, he went before the parole board and this is documented in a documentary called the Farm, which is a documentary about the life of prisoners inside Angola and they actually covered this parole board hearing in 1997 and they denied release because they didn't even look, they didn't even give him the benefit of like taking a second glance at the information that he was providing to them, even though it was obvious, blatant and disgustingly apparent that this man was not given a fair shake. So this keeps going and he tries over the years. He files a supreme court appeal in 1978 and that was affirmed in april. And they are. He argued that the sentencing was unfair, being making it consecutive and that it was part of the law not yet in play, not yet a part of the actual um legislature, at the time that he was convicted. Nevertheless, he also said that the trial judge erred in what the jurors were allowed to find him guilty of, whether it was attempted, simple rape or whatever, and it didn't matter. Because all of those were denied, his conviction was affirmed and this continued for years.
Speaker 1:Now I talked about the documentary, the Farm. Well, they went back in 1999 and did because 1998 was when they did the original one in the Farm, which was which covered it was released in 98, but it covered the 97 parole board hearing. And then in 1999, they released another documentary focused solely on Vincent Simmons. It's called Shadows of Doubt. And then in 2009, they did another documentary called the Farm 10 Down, which was 10 years later after the original release of the farm. Um, and those are all available online. If you don't have any, the subscriptions for those you um, I think one of them is, I think the farm original farm is on youtube available at no cost. Uh, the shadows of doubt Tin Down, I believe are both. You'd have to rent them or buy them. So those were all released and then in 2020,.
Speaker 1:I believe it was about yeah, it had to have been 2020, that a New York City attorney who had just recently started his attorney journey, a man named Justin Bonas. He saw the farm and he was disturbed, to say the least, and his wife, I believe, or either his fiance, whoever his female partner, said you need to take that case, and that's exactly what he did. He got in contact with the producer of a podcast called Wrongful Conviction, and the producer Flum of that podcast actually funded a private investigator named Brian Andrews to start digging into this and seeing what he could find. And what he finds is a woman who loves to speak about this whole situation and think it, thinks it's terribly wrong what they've done to this man, but hasn't been able to do anything about it. And here's her chance. So she speaks with brian andrews on the record on video about her cousin, keith laborde. Yep, that cousin who was also the cousin of the 14-year-old that he was sleeping with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so this cousin Hillel's the private investigator. He, of course he didn't do it. Of course Simmons didn't do it. Keith even said Simmons didn't do it. He was drunk one night, about eight or nine years later, and told her everything told her that they made it up, that they pointed at him and decided it was going to be that one. They didn't have any reason or specific cause, but you know, they just weren't going to get found out and he'd never done anything and they just decided that saying that a black man raped them was better than telling them what had actually happened. But he said that he was having consensual sex with Karen. They put Sharon in the trunk so that actually did happen, but it was just Sharon. They put Sharon in the trunk so that he could have sex with Karen and then Sharon refused to have sex with him and then he even told this cousin that was now telling the private investigator that he had got scratches on his neck because she was a hell cat or she was a wild wild cat, something like that, and he just didn't even try anymore because Karen would just do it with him consensually.
Speaker 1:Now, later, when they try to confirm this information, like I said, karen admitted to it, but Keith Laborde refused to say it. He said that we mess around like kids do, but it was never anything like that and even then it had nothing to do with this instance and this case. That Simmons was guilty. Yeah, okay, keep telling yourself that, jan, in this case, that Simmons was guilty yeah, okay, keep telling yourself that, jan. And it took from 2020 all the way until 2022 for them to get even a new hearing to be put in front of a judge. And finally, in February of 2022, they did receive a new hearing and the judge at that time vacated his conviction. She said that he absolutely did not get a fair trial. He absolutely did not have. There were Brady violations, there were things that were done wrong and it was absolutely inappropriate to keep this and uphold this conviction. So now, even though he was technically given a new trial, which means that it reset and he should be released, the DA at that time in the courtroom said we are not going to have another trial, we're not going to refile charges, we're not going to retry it. So, technically, at that point, he was a free man.
Speaker 1:However, as sad as it was, they actually had to put him back into handcuffs, which is another just shit, shit, shit thing. But he was nonplussed, to say the least. He was so over the moon about this being over with that. He didn't even get upset about the fact that he had to go back to Angola because he had to go get his stuff. He had to go get it. He's been in there for 44 years and to transport any inmate or any person back to Angola they had to be put in cuffs. So he got in cuffs one more time. They transported him back to angola and on february 14th just a three days, three days before his 77th birthday he walked out of angola a free man.
Speaker 1:And these fucking women, oh my lord, okay, they're in the courtroom as well and you know they do their interviews, their post-trial or post-hearing interviews, and you guys can watch them for themselves. They make me sick that they say that they picked this guy walking, or like they, because they met him at the 7-11 right, but they picked him up later, walking on a different street, like um, something, california, little california road or something was well known to be in the heart of like clan country in louisiana, in marksville. So like there's no way, unless he had a death wish that vincent simmons would have been walking down this road and he wouldn't have made it far enough for anybody to pick him up, much less as if Keith Laborde, who was a well-known racist, him and his entire family, which you know that name actually sounds really familiar. Why is that? Oh, that's right, because one of the officers that arrested Vincent Simmons you know what his name was. Oh, also, the same one that shot him in the chest was Robert Laborde. You guessed it. Another freaking cousin of Keith Laborde, the cousin of the guy who made up the story about a black man raping his 14-year-old cousin so that he could get away with sleeping with him, is a police officer. Same police officer who shot said black man in the chest, almost killing him, because he wouldn't sign a false confession and take credit for something he didn't do, and who also got up on the stand and lied and falsified information and records to be able to convict this black man, who looked the same as everybody, all the other black men. I'm sorry again for my watch. I should have turned that off earlier. Um, but how freaking circle, circular and just racism stew is that you got cousins on cousins on cousins, and then all of them doing the things that are not right, and then all of them none of them being punished for anything that they've ever done wrong, because no one else in this series of events has had any accountability for anything that they did to this man and, as it stands right now, he is still a free man. He is still alive and still enjoying his life to the fullest. He did get to eat birthday cake for the first time in 44 years, three days after he was released from Angola, and all of those things make my heart happy.
Speaker 1:He filed multiple civil actions against many different people, deceased people, against the estates of the people who did these things to him. He filed and this was actually something I meant to mention earlier in his gap of years between being convicted in 78 and 2020, actually something being done in 2007. He filed a civil, a civil suit, against the president of the United States, as well as the governor of Louisiana and state courts of Louisiana and separate and different officials. Those were all dismissed. The motion to dismiss submitted by the attorneys were all granted and they all claimed absolute immunity, which worked for a certain extent of it. Now I do know and I've got all of the links to all of the different civil actions and things. There was one filed in 2023 that was granted in part, dismissed in part and dismissed with prejudice in other parts, and just to kind of touch on that as well, because I did want to talk to you guys about something interesting that I found when I was looking through this stuff.
Speaker 1:The ability to actually come back and ask for civil damages after the fact is kind of protected, especially when it comes to our law enforcement attorneys, our district attorneys and things like that, and it's protection by the absolute immunity clause, which basically means that they can do whatever they want, they can prosecute whoever they want, and as long as it seems like they did it for a justifiable or at least a evidentially approvable reason other than they're black or because they're ugly or because they didn't like their sister's cousin uncle, as long as there was an actual reason for it that you can even like hint at, they have absolute immunity, which means you can't go after them civilly or criminally. So the word that I kept seeing pop up was res judicata, which basically is a uh. It in it translates to a matter judge, which means you can't come after someone for the same thing twice about like it's. It's similar to the double jeopardy clause in criminal cases. Res judicata basically means that if it, if the same issue has had a final judgment on the merits and the prior judgment was made on the same cause of action as the new one that's being brought forward and the parties are identical and the prior decision was made. You can't do it again.
Speaker 1:So there has to be those four things. It has to have the new cause of action and the old cause of action have to be the exact same and they have to have identical parties. So the person suing, whoever the civil action is against, those have to be exactly the same. They also have to have the prior decision was made and then a final judgment on the merits was done. So now this is where the terms with and without prejudice comes into play. I just said that in his civil action that he had some that were dismissed and some dismissed with prejudice. If it's dismissed with prejudice, that means you can't on that cause of action specifically, you can't come back and try again. Now, if it's dismissed without prejudice, that means something wasn't right, either linguistically or something. Some key point was left off, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have weight to it. That means it needs to be rewritten or rebrought in a different way to be able to go forward and to have it actually have a final judgment, which is where that the fourth thing comes in there. So a lot of the stuff, a lot of the civil suits that he filed and was trying to get any kind of recompense from, was a judicata. It came into play with those and I just found that really interesting because I kept seeing it pop up and pop up. Really interesting because I kept seeing it pop up and pop up.
Speaker 1:Now, if you, like me, got sucked into this story from the get-go and you want to know more, there are many, many podcasts, there are many videos, there are books. There is a Louisiana versus Vincent Simmons frame-up in a Vols by Kat Shapoom. That is a novel that is available. You can buy it or I think I'm not sure if it has an e-version. I couldn't find it. I didn't actually look too hard for it, so I don't want to lie to you, if there may be. You've got the Wrongful Conviction podcast, which covered it all over, all of it. There's the 48 hours episode, please Don't Tell. And then you've got the different documentaries that were done the Farm Ten Down, and then the Shadow of Doubt. There was also a book, if you are even close to interested to listening to the bullshit remarks of one of the twins. It was called I Was Rape no Shadow of a Doubt or something like that. I honestly don't even know and I'm not promoting it. I'm just saying it's out there if you want to have that view.
Speaker 1:But all of the interviews and everything else like that from these women are online. There's a couple of the link in the playlist that I have on my YouTube channel. It's in law podcast. There is episode excuse me, law podcast. There is episode excuse me, episode 32 extras. And in that list I actually have video. I've saved the video of him walking out of Angola, a free man.
Speaker 1:I have a couple of the interview clips, excerpts of the twins talking about it the reaction from one of the twins at the courthouse when he was determined to have been given all of the wrong ends of all the sticks and granted an overturn and new trial and then subsequently released because the DA refused to retry them. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I believe that Justin Bonus actually is still his attorney, working through the civil stuff with him, if I'm not mistaken. But as far as I can find, as far as I can see, he's still trying to get some kind of I don't know, you can't even call it recompense, because that's 44 years of this man's life He'll never get back, all because of a couple of people who didn't want to tell the freaking truth, because of how it would make them look and because of racism and because of corrupt officers and because of shitty fucking attorneys and just all of all of the wrong. So there is a petition on changeorg. I'm going to link it at the very top of my episode show notes. It'll be at the very top of the blog post that I have on my website, as well as anything on YouTube, anything on TikTok Well, tiktok's harder but anything that I have that has to do with this case will have the change link or the petition to get that signed, to get it to be able to go in front of the DA and try to get this man some of the monetary justice he deserves, because this was wrong and we know it's wrong and yet it continues to happen.
Speaker 1:Because this is not the only story like this that I could tell and in some of the bonus episodes that I have or the mini episodes that I plan on doing here soon, will have to do with wrongful convictions, overturned convictions and innocent men finally being released and given their freedom back. That was unjustly and unduly taken from them to begin with. So I hope you're doing well out there If you ever hear this, vincent, I'm so glad that you finally got out of that hell hole and my name is already on the petition. And if there's anything else that we can do for you here at Sin Law Podcast, please let us know. And if there's anything that anyone should take from this episode don't be a shitty human. Don't do things if you can't own up to them and definitely don't blame other people for your dumb ass mistakes. There's nothing worse than doing something you know is wrong and then lying about it and hurting someone else in the process. We need to be better humans than that. That's all. Thank you so much for listening to the Sin Law Podcast.
Speaker 1:This episode was written, researched, edited and produced by your host Kelly.
Speaker 1:This episode was written, researched, edited and produced by your host Kelly. Any reference made in the episode can be found in the source material in the episode. Show notes and even more information, including photos, video links and other extras, can be found on our website at cinlawpodcastcom that's C-E-N-L-A-W podcastcom. Also on our podcast website, you can find any blog posts or past episode information on there, as well as sign up for email updates from us every time a new episode drops. You can also, and we invite you to, follow us on our social platforms on TikTok, youtube and Twitter. All of those are also linked in the show notes, as well as just a quick away on the website, on sinlawpodcastcom. You can always reach us by email at sinlawpodcast at gmailcom. If you would like to be a supporter of the show, just search for us on Patreon. The lowest tier starts at five, the highest is $15 per month, and this includes lots of early episodes, unedited episodes, bloopers, other stuff, just a lot of bonus content that is exclusive to Patreon members and, as always, take care out there.
