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You are listening to KPBS were news matters. This is KPBS midday edition and I Maureen Cavanaugh. The US legal system is routinely praised as the finest compared to the justice system of other nations. But now a San Diego attorney is appealing to the United nations to resolve a grave injustice has taken place and one death penalty case in the US. Justin Brooks is the director of the California innocence Project at the California Western school of Law. This case has taken him back to his earlier days in the Midwest and his representation of Marilyn Mulero convicted of murder in Illinois. Brooks has stuck with malaria's case for 20 years appealed it up to the US Supreme Court. Now in a longshot attempt for his client he's held with the United Nations saying that the detention of Marilyn Mulero violates international laws. Justin welcome to the program. Good morning how are you? Justin first of all what kind of petition have you filed with the United Nations? Filed a petition with the working group on arbitrary detentions and what I am seeking for them is a finding that the state of Illinois and the United States has violated international human rights. By sentencing my client to death without a trial. Is this the first time this has been done for an inmate in the US prison? I do not know. I was involved in a case several years ago where we filed a similar petition but it was an American who was locked up in Nicaragua. And we filed a petition on his behalf and they made a finding that Nicaragua had violated international human rights. Americans don't really think about our country being subjected to those kinds of standards and the United Nations coming in and saying hey your justice system by an Nate -- violates international human rights. But we are really out of step with the rest of the world in terms of the death penalty and in this particular case I've not seen a case like it anywhere in the United States where someone was actually sentenced to death based on a plea bargain and never got a trial. Give us some background and who is Marilyn Mulero and why is she serving life in Illinois? So 20 years ago I was teaching law school in Michigan and I actually read in the paper about a young woman who is 21 years old sitting on death row in Illinois. In the article said that she had been sentenced to death on a plea bargain. And I didn't think that could possibly be true. What else was on the table? It's called a plea bargain. And so I went out and met with her and she told me that's exactly what had happened her lawyer had told her to plea and more shockingly she told me that she was innocent. So I went back to the law students that I was teaching and I was teaching a first-year criminal law class and said there is a woman on death row who never had a trial who said her lawyer pled her out and who wants to help me with this case? And that was actually where the birth of the California innocence Project occurred. It occurred in Michigan working on that case. Because that's when I decided that's what I wanted to do with my life. Was work on cases with law students and get innocent people out of prison. Unfortunately in the 20 years I've been working on her case, I've been able to walk 20 people out of prison on other cases but I've never been able to get her plea withdrawn. And the facts of the case are she was with two of her friends in Chicago and they were upset because a friend of theirs had been killed by Latin Kings. And they saw some Latin Kings at a stoplight when they were driving in the three girls went to a park to party with these guys. But one girl in the group had another idea and was she was going to kill them. And she has confessed multiple times that she killed both of these guys, one in a bathroom where she went along with him and the other one when she walked out. But after 14 hour interrogation my client confessed to shooting one of the guys. And there is only one eyewitness in the case and from the first day I was working on the case I went with my students to the park where the shooting happened and I knew the eyewitness was lying because it was absolutely impossible to see the crime scene from her apartment where she said she saw it. And it wasn't until later that I found out that she was the girlfriend of one of the victims. So she fabricated this testimony. No one ever found out the facts of the case because it never went to trial. Her lawyer just pled her out. And it was a terrible story where she got assigned a really good public defender and her friends thought you don't want a public defender but you want a private lawyer and hired a guy with no experience in handling capital cases and he pled her straight up to double homicide and she got the death penalty. As you explain the story just and I think most people who are listening safe this is a very questionable case and should be reviewed. And I'm wondering therefore why have your new furnace appeals on Maryland's behalf in turn down? It's been shocking to me. People asked me about the case in terms of facts and Wyatt believes she's innocent and I know it is difficult without having gone through the investigation yourself and set in the prison cell with Marilyn and sat with actual shooter to be confident of her innocence. But when I got involved in the case to start with it wasn't so much that was driving me as innocence but I was shocked that a 21-year-old could be sentenced to death on a plea bargain and it seemed to me that that was a fundamental violation of due process. And then added to it is the fact that we had the strong factual innocence case which makes it even more shocking. Why have the courts why have they not reopened or allowed you to reopen this case with the strong legal argument that you have not necessarily that she is innocent but this whole procedure did not occur correctly? When the case went to sentencing the lawyer did such a terrible job in the sentencing part that the Illinois Supreme Court reversed her sentence and it was sent back for resentencing. I participate in the resentencing and got her a life sentence which was the best thing I could do. Was life or death. And since then I have been appealing to get the guilty plea withdrawn. Now why the courts rejected this? It's really troubling the analysis that I have received multiple times including the Seventh Circuit and it goes something like this, while it was her decision to plea so she did made the decision. And what I always say is it's sort of like you go to a doctor and the doctor tells you that you need immediately to have open heart surgery and you take that advice and you have the surgery and you didn't need it. It seems to me still that there is malpractice that the doctor was negligent. In this case it's the same thing the lawyer did not do any investigation, didn't give her any information that was useful, and told her to plea out the case. So I'm asking for and all I've been asking for for 20 years is a trial. A trial where we can find out the truth and bring the witnesses and. And it's really troubling white is happening in the country over the last two decades where the criminal justice system has become a system of please where everyone is push towards plea bargains and we now know sometimes innocent people will plea and it becomes a business deal where they are afraid of what might happen to them if they don't plea. And it's sort of like the justice system has become the giant casino and Maryland's case it's -- Maryland's case there was no deal and no benefit to her by playing the case. You filed the petition at the UN how is Marilyn Mulero's case a violation of international law? The idea, first volatile with proposition that international law has a lot of problems with the death penalty. But in this case it goes way beyond that that if we are going to give the death penalty in the case are United States Supreme Court said in the 1970s that we had to treat those cases differently from other cases. They have to have more care. And that's why we have a system of bifurcated trials where you are entitled to both a guilt in an instant phase of your trial and then also separate sentencing phase but the Supreme Court has consistently said that these cases require more due process. And in this case there was absolutely no due process. You had a lawyer handling the case who had never handled this kind of case before. Had admitted that he had never done any training on handling a capital case. He handled the case a load even though the American Bar Association recommends that you have at least two capital attorneys on every case. And then he admitted he never went to the crime scene. And now he has gone on he quit practicing law. And actually ran out of the courtroom after this case was decided and now has gone on to become a Catholic priest. This case is just bizarre. Justin there is a new campaign starting in California to get an anti-death penalty initiative on our ballot here next year. To think California voters are ready to take that step? I think the voters here -- hear stories like this and can really understand that it is possible in the United States of America for innocent people to end up on death row. And for innocent people to be executed. And we have proven that over the last couple of decades where we have now walked hundreds of people off death row between the various innocence projects working around the United States. That is no longer a question. I just don't see how anybody is comfortable with the ultimate punishment when we know these mistakes have been made time and time again. It's not just this one rare case. Its hundreds of cases. And then if you add in all the other arguments about cost and about the fact that the death penalty does not operate as a deterrent all the international arguments that puts is out of step with the rest of the world. And I like to think it holds us back from being a true human rights leader. Because other countries can pointed us say well our country doesn't have the death penalty. And I don't see any value we get from it. I only see negative things. Justin you have been involved in this case for 20 years. It started you on your course in the innocence Project work, you are still at it. Identified this petition as the UN as an opening as a longshot, what do things can happen? It's been a long time [ Laughter ]. I start working on this case was 29 years old. And now I'm 50. And when I start representing Maryland she was 23 years old and now she's almost 44. I go see her regularly and we both have watched each other become middle-aged. It's crazy. I can't let this case go. The coast it's such an injustice. It's a longshot because the United States does not respond well to findings that they violated international human rights. That I'm hoping with the finding from the UN to go back to Illinois one more time and go in appear in front of the governor as I have twice before and try and get her clemency. That's supposed to be the failsafe device. It's the same thing in California. I walked all the way from San Diego to Sacramento with two lawyers in my office to get help -- clemency for 12 Californians in similar innocence cases. Governor has the come -- power to do that to grant clemency. And of hoping that will hamper -- happen in Illinois and Jerry Brown in California is listening and taking a look at the California 12 cases that we have presented to him. When will you know if your petition has been accepted at the UN and are you going to have to make any kind of presentation to the UN committee? I know they accepted it because I personally went to the United Nations yesterday and filed it which was an easy by the way. They're not really set up like a quart ago I had to get on the line for the visitors doing the tour of the building and get my visitor pass and then slowly work my way into the building. But I wanted to make sure that it was filed. There won't be hearing but it will be reviewed by the members of the working group. There are six different members from different countries around the world. And than they will give a written finding. Of what they think about the case. Justin thank you for joining us. I've been speaking with Justin Brooks cofounder and director of the California innocence project work out and let us know what happens. Absolutely I will. Thank you so much.
In an unusual and last-ditch effort to exonerate a woman in a 1992 gang murder, a San Diego attorney has filed an appeal with the United Nations.
Justin Brooks, director of the California Innocence Project, said the continued imprisonment of gang member Marilyn Mulero is an international human rights violation.
Mulero has been in prison for 23 years for the murder of a Chicago gang member. Brooks has been working for two decades on her behalf because he believes she is innocent, and he created the California Innocence Project after advocating for her. The San Diego-based organization helps exonerate people wrongly convicted.
Brooks said Mulero entered into a plea bargain at the advice of an inexperienced attorney even though she’s innocent. He said if a patient decided to do open heart surgery at the advice of a doctor even though the patient didn’t need it, it would be considered malpractice. She was sentenced to death without a trial.
“A young woman is sitting on death row on a plea bargain,” Brooks told KPBS Midday Edition on Wednesday. “It’s called a plea bargain.”
Mulero's death sentence was overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court, which ruled there were errors made by the trial court. A second jury sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but Mulero is trying to get her original guilty plea withdrawn. Her appeals have been denied by federal and state courts, and now Brooks is appealing to the U.N.’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions.
“It’s just a terrible story,” Brooks said. “All I’m asking for is a trial. A trial where we find out the truth."
