INTRODUCTION: In 2002, 16-year-old Brian Banks was on a roll. The all-American high school football star had verbally accepted a four-year scholarship at the University of California, and was viewed by many as on the way to the National Football League.
That roll turned 'South' - another way of saying it all fell apart - on July 8, 2002, when, as described by the National Registry of Exonerations: "Shortly after 11:00 a.m., the 6-foot-4-inch, 225-pound Banks requested a pass to leave the classroom to use the telephone. On his way down the hall, he saw 15-year-old Wanetta Gibson, whom he had known from middle school, leaving the bathroom.
Wanetta Gibson's mother was far from finished. While Brian was locked up, he learned that Wanetta, his accuser, and her mother, had filed a lawsuit against the Long Beach city school system, claiming that the school had fostered an "unsafe environment: that allowed Wanetta to get raped" - suing the school for millions of dollars in damages. Brian writes that after months had passed since he had received any news from anyone, he excitedly opened up an envelope immediately hoping that it was from the long-lost appellate lawyer he hadn't heard from for ages. "It wasn't," he informs readers."It was a letter from the Long Beach Civil Court office informing me that attorneys for (Wanetta Gibson) and the Long Beach City School District were coming to San Luis Obispo in a couple of weeks to depose me as part of the lawsuit. Wanetta and her mother had filed against the school. According to the publication 'History Vs. Hollywood,' "The district settled the lawsuit and paid Wanetta $1.5 million. Wanetta and her mother, Wanda Rhodes, reportedly spent the money on at least three cars (an Altima with "great rims," a Suburban and a Dodge), in addition to big-screen TVs and various other items.
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THE TIDE BEGINS TO CHANGE: REVELATIONS FROM A POLICE FILE:
About a week after receiving the lawyer's letter requiring him to be deposed in the prison, Brian received his police file in the mail, containing police reports, transcripts, evaluations, and above all DNA results which he says he had never been allowed to see going all the way back to his arrest in 2002. To his astonishment he learned that there was, in fact, male DNA present—but that DNA wasn’t his. It wasn’t a match. It belonged to somebody else. The wheels started spinning in his mind. "Was she raped by someone else," he writes. "Did she have sex with somebody else and then try to cover it up by blaming me? Was she being abused by somebody or something? Wait. Why does it even matter? It wasn’t mine. The DNA wasn’t mine! How is that not 100 percent proof that I didn’t rape her? How did that not come out in court? Why didn’t my attorney tell me, or tell my mom, or tell the judge or anybody? Why? My heart was pounding. Didn’t the district attorney have that report, too? Why would he have moved forward with the case knowing that (Wanetta) had somebody else’s DNA on her underwear on the same day I supposedly raped her in that stairwell? The evidence, the only physical evidence they had, pointed to the fact that they had the wrong guy. I was fuming. Who was liable for this? The DA should be. She had this information the entire time and did nothing with it. The judge, too, for overlooking the facts. And my attorney: she should face consequences for she misrepresented me. I stuffed the paperwork under my mattress again and did my best to calm down. It took me the rest of that day and night to recenter myself. The next time I was alone for a long stretch of time, I read the rest of the files and discovered that pretty much everyone, every step of the way, came at my case with a presumption of guilt based on (Wanetta's) initial story and, most important, how her story seemed to be corroborated by the sexual assault nurse’s report. The assumption of guilt played directly into the fitness hearing evaluation claims ever showed. The files also contained some transcripts of video interviews of Tiana in which her story changed again, getting a little more violent and a lot less believable every time she told it. All somebody had to do was go to the school and take a look at the hallway full of open classroom doors to realize there was no way I was “forcing her” and “dragging her” from that elevator without somebody noticing. If one person had done that, just one person, I thought, I might not be sitting in this cage right now. But I kept coming back to the DNA. The DNA evidence was rock solid. No room for error. No room for interpretation. No room for “maybes” or “yeah, but, what-ifs”? No “he said, she said” at all. Facts. Concrete facts. It should have been case closed." Stunned by these disclosures, Brian got the addresses of all of the Innocence Projects in California. Before long he began to realise that even though these disclosures would be helpful on an appeal, he needed a proverbial 'smoking gun.' Wanetta would have to retract her statement and admit that all of her allegations were untrue. "In other words, they needed Wanetta Gibson to admit that she made the whole thing up. I knew that wasn’t going to happen."
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THE SMOKING GUN: As a prime athlete Brian Banks would not give up - even though at this point the game seemed unwinnable. In mid-2006, after spending much of his prison time studying wrongful convictions, he drafted a notice of appeal containing three grounds: ineffective counsel; newly discovered evidence (which was, in fact, the DNA, which he argued was “new” because it was never entered into evidence during his 2002 proceedings); and perjury, based on Wanetta's inconsistent statements. Although, as a rule, prisoner's appeals are usually rejected. In 2007, Brian's appeal was accepted by the California Court of Appeal. But before the appeal could be held, an utterly stunning event occurred which had Brian's mind spinning again. "And that's when the world stood still," Brian writes. "You have 1 new friend request,” the message said. “From (Wanetta Gibson).” I slammed my laptop shut and slid it across the bed and went reeling back like I’d just seen the devil itself..."My mind abruptly diverted to another thought: the California Innocence Project, and their response to my request for representation. The only way to make a case for my exoneration was if the “the witness were to recant her statement.”..."I had to play this right. I couldn’t be sloppy. She knew. She knew what she did all this time and now she contacts me to “hang out”?...A friend of mine put me in touch with a private investigator, and I told him, “I want to meet this girl, and I need everything recorded just in case I’m being set up or she’s planning to try to say something else happened that didn’t really happen.” “Well,” he said, “why don’t you just do it here at my office? I’ve got some camera stuff that we could set up and we can go from there.” I told her I’d lost my life, and she told me about all the money she spent..." Did Brian rape you?” “You want me to say it now?” she said. “Well, yeah, you know, I just want to know.” “No, he didn’t rape me,” she said. Do not react. Stay cool. Stay cool. “Well, did he kidnap you?” “No,” she said. “He didn’t kidnap me.” “So what happened?” “Well, we were just being young and curious, and one thing led to another. And then all these adults got involved, and it just got worse, worse, and worse.” When she finally left, when we were sure she’d exited the building, then we celebrated. The PI and his wife started yelling and screaming inside his office. He was super pumped, this being one of his first investigative cases, and he knew it was a big one. He grabbed the pen camera he’d picked up in a spy store, rushed it over to his computer, injected it into the USB slot, and began the downloading process...."We made multiple copies of the footage on CDs and flash drives, and I took a couple of them with me. There was no one else I trusted with this footage. At home I grabbed my laptop and began searching for help. I had done the impossible. I captured absolute proof of my innocence. A recantation from the accuser herself. I knew that what had to be done next, only an attorney could do. So I began searching. A name on the list stood out to me: Cofounder and director of the California Innocence Project Justin Brooks."
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THE END GAME: Before getting hold of Justin Brooks, Brian first had to calm down his mother, who had well-grounded fears that the authorities would revoke his parole because he had unlawfully communicated with the complainant. Leomia's views about the criminal justice system had clearly evolved since her son had been caught in its clutches. Experience tends to do that. Especially very bad experience..."I just don't know," she kept saying. She had seen too much go the other way. She had gone to court too many times thinking I was about to be freed, and instead seen me locked away for longer and longer periods of time. In spite of these representations, the decision was made to proceed - accompanied by a massive media campaign to get the public on side. As set out - with some fascinating details - by National Registry of Exoneration author Maurice Possley in his account of the 'end game':
"Banks served five years in prison and then was released on parole with an ankle monitor. He was required to register as a sex offender. Then, on February 28, 2011, Gibson sent a message to Banks on Facebook, asking him to become an online friend. Banks did not accept the offer, but instead messaged back asking if she would meet with him. Banks also contacted the California Innocence Project again. Gibson agreed to meet and during a video-taped interview admitted that there was no rape. She and Banks had kissed, hugged and fondled, but had not engaged in sex, she said. She was afraid of coming forward, she said, because of the thought her family might have to give back the $750,000 they received in the lawsuit. On August 15, 2011, the California Innocence Project filed a petition for a state writ of habeas corpus, seeking to vacate Banks’ conviction. The petition said that two years after Gibson said she was raped, she confessed to the classmate to whom she had passed the note that she had not been raped, but made up the accusation because she did not want her mother to know she was sexually active. The petition also said that Gibson stated that when she was preparing for her deposition in the civil lawsuit, she told her attorney that she had not been raped and that she and Banks were “just playing.” According to the petition, when Gibson expressed her concern, the lawyer said, “Don’t say nothing. Like don’t talk at all. Let them do what they gonna do.” On May 24, 2012, the conviction was set aside and the charges against Banks, 26, were dismissed at the request of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Brentford Ferreira. In 2013, the Long Beach Unified School District won a $2.6 million default judgment against Gibson." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMMENTARY: Actress Sherri Shepherd, who played Leomia in the movie 'Brian Banks', had this to say about Leomia in an interview with 'The Knocturnal.'..."I read it (the script) and immediately, Leomia just jumped out of the page because Leomia when you meet her, she says. "I didn’t do anything special, I just loved my son."..."That’s what she says all the time," Shepherd continues. "In the love that you had for your son was the bedrock of him being sane and him being able to keep moving forward when he was incarcerated and the things that she did to show her love for her son. She sold her car, mortgaged her home, she went to see him three and a half hours there and back, she wrote him a letter every day, she was available for every phone call, she basically stopped her life for her son and that fight and her faith just…(trailed off): I called my agent and said I gotta get this script, please give me an audition, I know they don’t want to see me because I make you laugh but please, please let me get in there and audition for this role." As a rule, 'Selfless Warriors' don't tend to see themselves as doing anything special. I, however, as publisher of this Blog, can beg to differ. In my books, Leomia was a giant of a human being who, unsparingly gave her son the tools he would need to survive an experience that could otherwise destroy not just his career, but his life, by giving him love, and by believing in him, at a time in the 'me too era' when far too many people were far too willing to presume guilt, and to convict on the mere allegation, throwing the need for evidence to the wind. Leomia also gave him the tool of religion as a framework for living his life. As Brian wrote: "My mom encouraged me to go to church while I was in Juvenile Hall, and I did. I went to the chapel on Sundays. I went to Bible study. I took a Bible back into my cell, and I read it. I started reading it all the time. My mom was real happy about that, and she sent me notes suggesting verses to read. “I try to read Psalms 91 every morning and every night,” she told me. So I read Psalms 91." Leomia Banks teaches us that there are many ways of being a 'Selfless Warrior.' Like being a warm, loving mother who would stop at nothing to vindicate her wrongly convicted son, even if it meant putting her own life on hold. ------------------------------------------------------------------ NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS ENTRY: (MAURICE POSSLEY); "On July 8, 2002, 16-year-old Brian Banks, a blossoming football star at Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, California, was attending summer school and anticipating his senior season on the football team. He had verbally accepted a four-year scholarship to play football at the University of Southern California. Shortly after 11:00 a.m., the 6-foot-4-inch, 225-pound Banks requested a pass to leave the classroom to use the telephone. On his way down the hall, he saw 15-year-old Wanetta Gibson, whom he had known from middle school, leaving the bathroom. They got into the elevator and went to a secluded area of the school near a stairwell that was known as a “make-out” spot. About a half hour later, Gibson returned to class, where her teacher criticized her for taking so long. Moments later, Gibson passed a note to a friend saying that she had been raped by Banks and that she was no longer a virgin. At the end of classes, she met her sister to go home and, prodded by her sister, said that Banks had raped her. They went back inside the school and reported what happened to school officials. That night, Banks was arrested at his parents’ home in Artesia, California. He turned 17 on July 24, 2002. On January 3, 2003, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office charged him with two counts of forcible rape and one count of sodomy with a special circumstance of kidnapping. Facing a potential prison term of 41 years to life, Banks pleaded no contest on July 8, 2003. He was sentenced to six years in prison. In 2006, Banks filed a petition for a state writ of habeas corpus, contending that there was no evidence that a rape had occurred—no biological evidence that could be tested for DNA was found. The petition argued that he had received inadequate legal assistance because his lawyer had not sought to present this evidence. The petition was denied as vague. He sought help from the California Innocence Project at California Western School of Law in San Diego, but was told there was no evidence of innocence. In the meantime, Gibson’s family filed a lawsuit against the Long Beach Unified School District alleging inadequate security. The suit was settled for $1.5 million, split evenly between the family and their attorney. Banks served five years in prison and then was released on parole with an ankle monitor. He was required to register as a sex offender. Then, on February 28, 2011, Gibson sent a message to Banks on Facebook, asking him to become an online friend. Banks did not accept the offer, but instead messaged back asking if she would meet with him. Banks also contacted the California Innocence Project again. Gibson agreed to meet and during a video-taped interview admitted that there was no rape. She and Banks had kissed, hugged and fondled, but had not engaged in sex, she said. She was afraid of coming forward, she said, because of the thought her family might have to give back the $750,000 they received in the lawsuit. On August 15, 2011, the California Innocence Project filed a petition for a state writ of habeas corpus, seeking to vacate Banks’ conviction. The petition said that two years after Gibson said she was raped, she confessed to the classmate to whom she had passed the note that she had not been raped, but made up the accusation because she did not want her mother to know she was sexually active. The petition also said that Gibson stated that when she was preparing for her deposition in the civil lawsuit, she told her attorney that she had not been raped and that she and Banks were “just playing.” According to the petition, when Gibson expressed her concern, the lawyer said, “Don’t say nothing. Like don’t talk at all. Let them do what they gonna do.” On May 24, 2012, the conviction was set aside and the charges against Banks, 26, were dismissed at the request of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Brentford Ferreira. In 2013, the Long Beach Unified School District won a $2.6 million default judgment against Gibson. In June 2015, the state of California awarded Banks $142,000 in compensation." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHRONOLOGY: (From National Registry of Exonerations entry)' July 8, 2002: Alleged rape/kidnapping; July 24, 2002: Turns 17: January 3, 2003: Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office charged him with two counts of forcible rape and one count of sodomy with a special circumstance of kidnapping. July 8, 2003: Facing a potential prison term of 41 years to life, Banks pleaded no contest. He was sentenced to six years in prison. 2006" Banks filed a petition for a state writ of habeas corpus, contending that there was no evidence that a rape had occurred—no biological evidence that could be tested for DNA was found. The petition argued that he had received inadequate legal assistance because his lawyer had not sought to present this evidence. The petition was denied as vague. February 28, 2011, Gibson sent a message to Banks on Facebook, asking him to become an online friend. Banks did not accept the offer, but instead messaged back asking if she would meet with him. Banks also contacted the California Innocence Project again. August 15, 2011: California Innocence Project filed a petition for a state writ of habeas corpus, seeking to vacate Banks’ conviction. The petition said that two years after Gibson said she was raped, she confessed to the classmate to whom she had passed the note that she had not been raped, but made up the accusation because she did not want her mother to know she was sexually active. The petition also said that Gibson stated that when she was preparing for her deposition in the civil lawsuit, she told her attorney that she had not been raped and that she and Banks were “just playing.” According to the petition, when Gibson expressed her concern, the lawyer said, “Don’t say nothing. Like don’t talk at all. Let them do what they gonna do.” May 24, 2012: Conviction was set aside and the charges against Banks, 26, were dismissed at the request of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Brentford Ferreira. 2013: Long Beach Unified School District won a $2.6 million default judgment against Gibson. June 2015: California awarded Banks $142,000 in compensation. -------------------------------- READING MATERIALS: The Knockturnal: History VS Hollywood: National Registry of Exonerations: Autobiography: "Brian Banks: What set me free?" The story that inspired the major motion picture 'Brian Banks.' A true story of wrongful conviction, a dream deferred and a man's redemption. (Amazon); Missoula: "Rape and the justice system in a small town" by Jon Krakauer, published by Random House: --------------------------------------------------------------- |
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