Original subtitles

[Greg Kelley] I do believe that wrongs need to be made right.

[female reporter] The judge in Williamson County has just

ruled that he should be declared innocent.

[male reporter] Judge King said that his attorney

in his first trial was ineffective.

[Shawn Dick] You know, the judge did find bad faith

on the part of the Cedar Park Police Department.

I've never woken up in the morning and wondered:

did we get the wrong guy?

It won't be over until the Court of Criminal Appeals

issues its decision.

The Court of Criminal Appeals can ignore that

and go the other way.

Which means he has to go back into prison.

[Greg] I simply don't know where I'm going to be

in six months.

I don't even know if I'm going to be exonerated yet.

We believe that he's com-- he's committed a crime

and-and we intend to prove it.

[Keith] The search warrant affidavit is a 180.

This was a drive-by character assassination.

It seems like the higher I'm getting,

he's going to find something to smash me into the ground.

My worry, as I sit here right now,

is how could we be defeated?

How could this all be taken away from him?

[soft dramatic music]

I followed the case a little bit.

Um,

I kind of grew up dancing in the same,

like, area as Gaebri.

The only thing that I knew really about the case

was that, um,

Greg was accused of molesting a child,

potentially two.

And that's really all that I knew.

So the first time that I met Johnathan was

either like June or July of 2014.

Um, he was tagging along with one of his friends

to come meet my friend Emily.

Um.

Johnathan and I were sitting in the driveway

waiting for them to get back.

And he started kind of talking about

how he'd had a rough year,

um, and brought up,

"I don't know if you know what's going on

with my best friend, Greg."

And I had kind of heard of it and I was like,

"Yeah, I know a little bit."

And he just said that it was really rough

and he was doing bad in school

and something happened with football,

like he got kicked out of football or something,

and, um, that it looked like his best friend

was going to go to prison.

I met Johnathan when I was 15.

And he raped me two weeks before I turned 16.

And that was within maybe a month or two

of Greg being officially convicted.

♪ theme music ♪

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

[Greg] Today is January 9th.

Um, it's a Wednesday.

And it's another Wednesday of

finding out if relief granted is going to be here or not.

Who knows, you know?

Stuff happens when you least expect it sometimes.

All right, here we go.

[dramatic suspenseful music]

[Greg] Yeah, I was arrested, um, July of '13.

Can you believe it's been that long?

That is six years, that I'm coming up on six years?

And then I looked at these pictures of me in 2013 to now.

I was like a kid, you know.

I looked like a kid, of course.

I mean I-I didn't-- I didn't totally act like my age

but I was a kid.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

I did-- I had no idea what the other side of that door

looked like if I got convicted.

[dramatic music]

Yeah.

[Greg] Mm-hmm.

Twenty-four.

Twenty-four.

[male] Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members.

Uh, unlike 48 other states,

Texas requires that all post-conviction applications

for writ of habeas corpus be approved

or denied by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

There is one small group of cases that could be handled

more expeditiously.

These cases are ones in which the trial court

and the state and this-- the district attorney

agree that the defendant is deserving of relief.

State your name.

My name is Patricia Cummings and I represent the

Innocence Project of Texas.

And I'm here today to testify in support of 1273.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'm Gary Udashen.

I am the, uh, board president

of the Innocence Project of Texas.

And I'm here on behalf of the Innocence Project of Texas.

We are in favor of this bill.

[Keith] In April of 2017,

four months before the writ hearing,

Patricia Cummings and what would later become her lawyer,

Gary Udashen, appear before a Senate committee

along with Stacey Soule,

the State Prosecuting Attorney.

My name is Stacey Soule,

and I'm from the State Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

I'm the State Prosecuting Attorney and I'm here for you

as a resource witness today.

The State Prosecuting Attorney is appointed by the

Court of Criminal Appeals to represent the State

before that court.

We have, uh, worked with the State Prosecuting Attorney,

Ms. Soule, today to craft some of these ad--

this additional language to address some concerns

that have been raised.

The three of them, Gary Udashen,

Patricia Cummings,

and SPA Stacey Soule,

they were working together,

urging that they pass a bill

that would entitle local people who agree that,

s-say, someone's innocent w--

and save them from having to go through the CCA.

Locally, the DA and the local judge could agree

and then that person would not only be free on bond

but would be exonerated.

And it would be over.

[Patricia] Nobody wants somebody to spend any

time in prison if they're innocent of that crime.

If we allow the existing law to go in-in-- um,

unchallenged, unchanged, essentially what we have

is we have situations where prosecutors and trial judges

make a decision that a person's conviction should be vacated,

yet because we have that extra layer of review

then although this person could get out of prison,

they would be placed on bond.

And so they're living in legal limbo.

And so we do support this bill.

We think it is good for the State.

And we think when just one person is affected like that

and we could do better, why not?

When they're representing the Innocence Project of Texas,

they're all for local DAs and judges

immediately exonerating people so they don't have to

go through the CCA.

Fast forward just a few months later and not so much.

By August, where you've got a DA and a judge

that want to do exactly that,

that are in agreement that we've got an innocent man

and let's save him some time,

behind the scenes,

unbeknownst to any of us,

Patricia Cummings and her then lawyer, Gary Udashen,

along with her other two lawyers,

are working together with the SPA to deny Greg

the very thing that they publicly said they

wanted to see enacted into the law.

Greg's former attorney, Patricia Cummings,

has filed an amicus brief to influence the court

against Greg, 95 pages pounding your former client

who you said was innocent

and playing yourself up as the victim.

And they worked and prepared a brief,

and now we know they worked together with the SPA

to produce these amicus briefs

before the Court of Criminal Appeals.

There are e-mails that reflect that Gary Udashen,

one of Patricia's attorneys,

reached out to the State Prosecuting Attorney

for assistance against the ineffective assistance claim

to help Patricia Cummings.

December 26th, uh, Gary Udashen writes

to the State Prosecuting Attorney:

"Stacey, I thought you might be interested in this brief."

And so that's December 26th, 2017.

They've arranged a meeting.

By January 2nd, Stacey, confirming that

"David Botsford and I will see you tomorrow at 2,"

later that afternoon Stacey says, "Yes. See you then."

So they're meeting about the Greg Kelley case together.

[laughs] I can't.

Uh, this one is dated Tuesday, August 22nd.

And it says, "Stacey"

and it has 12 lines that are blacked out.

Don't know what it says.

Love to find out.

So I don't know what they said behind closed doors

but it's not difficult for me to infer it-it's the same team.

They're all on the same team.

And, yes, it's-it's, uh, stark for a defense lawyer

to profess with this urgency and apparent passion

for their client and then privately get with the

State Prosecuting Attorney

and execute two affidavits to completely undermine

the person you're claiming you believe is innocent.

We're thrilled to have Patricia Cummings from the

Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.

And she is sort of an icon in the conviction integrity

world, which is why we wanted to have her

come and speak today.

Um, thank you very, Mark.

It's-it's a pleasure to be here.

I'm going to add just a little bit to my background

so you can understand why I'm asking the question:

why choose to go to the moon?

Um, I tried a case where I believed my young client,

who was 18 years old, was actually innocent of what

he was accused of committing.

I went in and tried the case.

It was the hardest case of my career,

and I lost.

And my client was ser-- uh, sentenced to serve 25 years

day for day in prison, and it was for,

like I said, something I believe he didn't do.

[Keith] I've never seen this at the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Patricia Cummings' attorneys,

they're elevating their own self-interests

above somebody who has been found to be innocent.

And-and their actions could jeopardize,

even conceivably defeat,

his innocence claim.

What's happened is we've had this national conversation

about how horrifying it is to recognize

that our criminal justice system,

probably the best in the world,

actually convicts innocent people.

And it's horrific not only because of the defendant

who gets wrongfully convicted and is innocent

and sitting in prison,

but it's also horrific because we recognize

that when we get it wrong on that level,

what that means for society

is that the real perpetrator is still often out in society

committing other crimes.

[female reporter] A man considered an alternate

suspect in the high-profile Greg Kelley sexual assault

case, Johnathan McCarty:

he's accused of drugging a woman and sexually assaulting

her at a frat party in San Marcos in 2015.

The victim was 15 years old at the time

McCarty was 18.

Johnathan McCarty drugged and raped me.

The morning after Johnathan raped me,

I woke up on the floor

in a house in the middle of nowhere.

And under the circumstances that it happened,

I felt like no one would believe me.

And if they did, I'd be in trouble

because I was doing things I shouldn't have been doing.

I kind of just pushed it away and tried to forget about it.

And it wasn't until I was sitting in my room

like years later

and had like five different people text me

within 10 minutes.

And they all texted me a news story

saying that there was a new suspect

identified in the Greg Kelley case

and it was Johnathan McCarty.

I called a family friend who's a lawyer,

and told him what happened to me.

Well, the next day I got home and there was a Texas Ranger

at my house, it was Cody Mitchell.

And before I talked to Cody, I called up the lawyer again

and said, "Did you say something?

Because there's a Texas Ranger at my house.

And like why are they here?"

And he said, "No, I didn't say anything.

But if he's there,

it probably means that your name came up

in the investigation in some way.

And enough things pointed to you that they felt like

you were of value to talk to."

And Cody confirmed that essentially,

that my name had come up enough times that he

figured he had to talk to me to figure out why.

Um, and that's when I told Cody everything that happened

and, uh, he took it to Shawn and we moved forward from there.

[Shawn] Today, uh, we had a court setting in

Johnathan McCarty's case, uh,

and it was our final court setting.

I was interested in holding Johnathan McCarty accountable

for, um, the, uh, the abuse,

um, that he inflicted upon an-an individual in our county.

So the original charge was sexual assault of a child.

There were allegations of him drugging and-and molesting

or raping women without-without their consent

or without the ability to consent.

Uh, we had reached an agreement in principle

last week and set the case for this morning.

[dramatic somber music]

♪♪♪

Johnathan did this to a girl.

He...

he drugged and raped her.

And then another teenage boy getting accused of

sexual assault of a minor,

he's living in the same house,

rooms are next to each other,

look exactly the same.

You think that's a coincidence?

I'm sitting here like:

does that even put up any red flags?

You know?

Like what's the-- what's the chances of that?

Where you have a crime th-that's occurred

a-and you put the innocent person in prison

necessarily means the other guy gets a skate

and he's still out there.

[Shawn] These charges have nothing to do with the

Greg Kelley case.

They came about because Johnathan McCarty was being

looked at in the-- in the Greg Kelley case.

You know, I know there were some allegations in some other

counties but to my knowledge they're not prosecuting those

cases in those other counties.

But, you know, after consulting with the victim

a number of times and, uh, you know,

deciding what's best for her,

what's best for the County, uh,

but still holding Johnathan McCarty accountable,

uh, we did agree to a plea involving an ul--

unlawful restraint and a delivery of a

controlled substance to a minor.

I don't expect Johnathan to be in prison forever.

And to be honest,

it doesn't make a difference to me.

But what I care about and what I value is that he isn't able

to do it to someone else.

Whatever happens, whether he goes to prison for life

or for four years or doesn't go at all,

I want to make sure everyone knows who he is

and what he did.

And I want to make sure he can't do it to anyone else

ever again.

And we moved forward with that.

In Cause Number 190249K through 68 to the second--

um, to the secondary felony charge of

delivery of a controlled substance to a minor.

Do you plead guilty or not guilty?

And in Cause Number 190250K through 68 to the

third degree felony charge of unlawful restraint

with the intent to expose a serious bodily injury,

do you plead guilty or not guilty?

Are you pleading guilty in each of these cases

because you are guilty and for no other reason?

Uh, Mr. McCarty, because your case is unique in the fact

that your name is probably never going to be

removed from Google, um, I feel like the public notice

requirement is-is met.

So it's my intent and-and our understanding of this

plea agreement that we are not requiring you

and not, um-- the-the current law,

it-it's our understanding that you are not going to be

required to register as a sex offender.

Do you understand that?

[Shawn] He was being sentenced to four years in prison.

And, uh, he also won't be allowed to expunge

or erase the arrest for sexual assault.

So he will be serving two of those years flat.

He will become eligible for parole,

but he still has a four-year sentence to finish serving out.

I got sent to prison for 25 years,

day for day, for something I absolutely did not do.

And I would have to, at 44, get out

and register for the rest of my life.

That is a reality.

That's a living nightmare for the rest of my life.

And this guy actually admits that he did something

and he's going for four years without registering?

How does that even work?

To me it was more valuable that we got something

and that Johnathan was put away,

for however long or however short,

with the arrest of sexual assault of a minor tied to that.

And that is what happened.

If you look up his name, you know who he is.

Everyone's going to know who he is.

So to me,

that's enough.

[Shawn] I was careful not to, um, to tie our hands.

If we learn of new information in the future, uh,

then we certainly can still prosecute Johnathan McCarty.

Uh, but at this point I'm just not seeing anything.

And here we are, almost two years later into the

Greg Kelley investigation.

And the ball hasn't been advanced any further

in terms of filing a case against Johnathan or, you know,

Greg or the third suspect.

And so at this time, I'm not seeing any reason, uh,

to move forward with any other charges against

Johnathan McCarty unless something changes.

Towards the end of the-the process,

before I got to acceptance and at peace with everything

and processed everything, I was mad.

And then I processed everything,

now that all this information's coming up of everything

that was done wrong,

and that what I believe now is that what happened to me

could have been completely prevented,

I'm mad again.

My abuser was essentially told:

"We're not going to look at you.

We're not going to go to your house.

We're not going to ask you your name.

You're fine."

And it--

that just pisses me off.

[low dramatic music]

♪♪♪

[traffic passing]

[Greg] Gaebri and I have been in New York for--

I've been here a total of two and a half weeks.

Gaebri got accepted into the Broadway Dance Center,

uh, on a pro-semester for dance.

But we sat down and we talked about it and we ultimately

made a decision that I would come up here with her.

We've got a little 400-square- foot studio apartment.

And, uh, so far we're loving it.

Uh, it's kind of small but I've been in smaller before.

So...

[upbeat music]

If you just do-- if you search me right now,

it says that I'm an inmate on the Wynne Unit of

Hunstville, Texas and I'm bench-warranted

to the Williamson County Jail.

It doesn't even say that I'm free.

So...

I'm not free right now.

I'm-I'm still locked up.

And I feel that every day,

that I'm not exonerated.

I feel that every day, that I have to--

at 9:00 a.m. on a Wednesday I have to, you know,

get in front of a list to see if I'm on it so I can,

you know, hopefully go play football again

because that's not even certain either.

This does not feel like freedom at all.

[dramatic music]

After going through three years in prison and [sighs],

you know, having to go through the heartaches of that place,

um...

I think I now would tell myself,

my 19-year-old self,

not to stay so quiet,

to be a little bit more brave,

to be a little bit more courageous to say yes and no,

to make sure that I have an attorney that cares for me

that's looking out for my best interest.

Because I didn't know the law.

I didn't-- I didn't study.

I didn't even know my-my rights.

I was trusting people with my life that,

you know, I had no idea that was working against me.

So...

yeah.

[dramatic music]

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

These are the people that are going to be determining

my fate pretty much.

Keith was like, "This is the longest I have ever

had a case in the CCA."

He says this is not normal.

Yeah.

They've had my case for--

since December 20th of '17.

Yeah, it's November 6th of '19 right now.

[low dramatic music]

I don't think they're going to lose sleep for sending

somebody back to prison.

I know that there's parties that are against me

that don't want me to get exonerated.

And the thing I worry about the most is:

are these people persuading the CCA to make bad decisions?

Well, 10:00.

You ready?

[exhales sharply]

Relief granted.

[crying]

Finally.

[crying]

Thank God.

[crying]

I've got to text Gaebri.

[shakey breathing]

Whoo, man!

Hey, Keith?

Oh, man, dude.

I'm so-- I'm so pumped, dude.

Uh, dude-- I've-I've been freakin' stressin' all week.

Oh, man.

Oh, my gosh.

This is so unreal.

Dude, I'm in-- the past-- the past six years of my life

is just flashing before my eyes right now.

I just can't--

man, this is--

this is so awesome.

I l-- I literally feel-- I mean, I feel free.

[unintelligible muffled talking]

[Gaebri] [crying]

This is over.

[crying]

It's over.

[crying]

I ran so fast I'm out of breath.

[crying]

This nightmare is over.

I know, I'm so excited.

Thank God.

Thank God.

[crying]

Oh, my gosh.

Exonerated,

fully exonerated.

Or h-- what does it say at the top?

It doesn't matter what it says.

It says that relief has been granted.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

Keith said that he's doing a press conference.

He's going to call me back.

He says, "I'm-I'm trying to get ex-- get you compensated

as soon as possible."

He says, "We're-- you're going to get compensated,

man, really quick."

I just can't believe this is happening.

We totally thought-- - He s-- he said-- he said,

"I've got to do a press conference.

I'm going to talk and we're going to get a hearing date set

for your exoneration.

And everybody's going to be there."

It's over with.

[Gaebri] [squeals]

This is so exciting,

best day ever--

what is today?

November--

November 6th.

[Gaebri] November 6th.

[Bryan Mays] He served.

He's been out on bond now for a couple of years

while this whole appeals process has played out.

And today that came to an end.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

has just ruled in his favor,

overturning the guilty verdict against him

essentially saying Greg Kelley didn't do it.

[female reporter] The former Leander High School football

player convicted of sexually assaulting a child

will not go back to prison.

[female reporter] A major decision today from the

state's highest criminal court undoes the conviction of

Greg Kelley and clears his name once and for all.

When I read-- I had to read the phrase

"relief granted" two or three times

before I punched my cell phone.

First call of course was to Greg.

Um, and he, uh, reacted, you know,

emotionally, as you might guess.

I just needed to reassure him that everyone on the

Court of Criminal Appeals

voted in favor of granting him relief.

So, uh-- and he was overjoyed.

One of the things he said was,

uh, that the last six years of his life flashed before him.

So at least he can move on.

He's been in limbo, you know.

He's been checking in with a bondsman for the last

two and a half years.

He couldn't play ball, uh, you know.

I mean the guy--

[getting choked up]

uh, he suffered these last two years.

[dramatic music]

The next step is that we're going to set a date

for a hearing before Judge King,

uh, on a motion filed by the District Attorney,

Shawn Dick, uh, and have a hearing

in which he will be publicly and very specifically, uh,

exonerated with the sort of language that he deserves.

The Williamson County District Attorney ought to be

the person other DAs emulate.

So you look fairly at a case

and where you find that your office was wrong,

you correct it.

And that's what he did.

And I don't understand why other DAs cannot--

cannot do that.

But he did.

So, um, you know, today I think really this is,

uh, about two families.

Um, and so the first family I-I want to mention is, uh,

the family of the child that's gone through, um,

six years of trial and retrial and appellate proceedings.

And so obviously, um, my thoughts are with them today,

um, you know, just having to relive this.

And it obviously isn't ideal for any of us.

I also think today really is about Greg Kelley

and his family and, um,

you know, the relief that they must feel at this point.

Uh, as I said from the very beginning,

this case is not one that, uh--

it's not a conviction that we could stand by.

It's not a case that I could stand by.

[low dramatic music]

[Greg] I've never felt more free in my whole life.

And now that I'm free,

I can finally go and go do what I love,

which is play football,

and-and just be free and enjoy freedom

and the things that, you know, being free comes with.

I've got a lot to look forward to and I'm-I'm just--

I'm just happy.

[uplifting music]

♪♪♪

[female reporter] Now to our continuing coverage of the

Greg Kelley case, several people are calling on the

Cedar Park City Council to fire the police chief

and lead detective over that investigation.

Following Kelley's conviction in 2014,

Cedar Park Police Chief Sean Mannix e-mailed a letter

to his officers calling the Fight for GK movement

cult-like with no interest of seeking the truth.

Those words came back to haunt Mannix when Kelley's case

was retried and his conviction overturned.

[male speaker] You have our District Attorney,

a Texas Ranger and a county judge that, uh--

investigation that was totally inadequate.

As a 33-y-year resident of Cedar Park,

I never dreamed that an innocent young man could

be ruined by such an incompetent investigation.

The only way to bring back confidence in our

police department is to fire the Chief of Police

and Detective Dailey immediately.

This should have changed a long time ago.

If this was any of your sons or daughters,

you wouldn't want Dailey investigating

allegations against them.

You-you wouldn't want Mannix backing up their play.

You've got the information to make a decision.

You've been elected to make a decision.

Now either do it or take the consequences

of not making that decision.

Please do the right thing so that you can be

part of the solution and not part of the problem.

[Mayor] Also, resident Keith Hampton,

uh, wishes to speak on legal clarity regarding Greg Kelley.

Uh, Mr. Mayor, council members, um,

I'm Keith Hampton.

I'm Greg Kelley's attorney.

Um, the reason I'm really here is I read this statement

by the, uh, Chief of Police:

"As Justice Newell's concurring opinion indicates,

this relief was based on new evidence post-conviction

and not on the grounds of deprivation of due process

or ineffective assistance of counsel."

That's wrong and, uh, it's demonstrably wrong.

Um, what actually happened is that all nine judges agreed

that Greg Kelley is innocent.

They agreed that he proved by clear and convincing evidence

that no reasonable jury would ever convict him

based on all of the evidence, including the new evidence.

Five judges, at least five judges--

and five is a majority at that court;

nine judges, five is a win--

five judges said--

agreed and upheld Judge Donna King's findings,

upheld them, did not disturb them.

I want to read a couple of them.

Detective Dailey's decision to obtain an arrest warrant

commencing process of prosecution without further

investigation deprived applicant of due process.

His action was reckless and uninformed.

He's not credible, and what he did was made in bad faith.

[Mayor] All right, thank you.

Yes, sir.

Bad faith on the part of police

involves corrupt behavior--

concocting charges,

framing people,

con-concealing things,

fabricating evidence,

basically working not for the truth,

but to ensnare somebody to get them convicted.

And that's what they did.

[Mayor] Um, does someone want to--

[Rosa] Mr. Mayor--

I'm sorry.

I don't-- - You have to--

you have to fill out a-- register to talk.

[man] For real?

Can you-- can you please be decent?

Can you-- can you give me that, please?

- She can come up here. - Can you give me that, please?

[Mayor] You can go do it.

Can you please, Mom? Go.

[Mayor] We just-- it means-- we have to do that.

[woman] I'd be more than happy to wait.

[Mayor] We'll take the time to register.

[applause]

Cedar Park Police Department

should be held fully accountable for their behavior,

not just in their bad-faith pursuit of Greg Kelley

but also for

letting the guilty party go free

to commit additional crimes and ruin other people's lives.

I hope Greg can look to a bright future

and get on with his life.

I'm delighted that he's about to get married.

He's not the teenager that started.

He's a young man now.

He had some years taken from him that,

as an athlete, were very valuable.

And he can't get those back.

But he's free.

Uh, he-- he's won a unanimous declaration of his innocence.

He's proved it.

And we're--

the society is about to be able to give back

what it can in a form of compensation,

which is the most that we can do,

along with an apology.

[dramatic music]

[Clerk] All rise, please.

The 26th District Court of Williamson County, Texas is

now in session, the Honorable Donna King presiding.

[Judge King] Good morning, be seated.

I now call to be heard Cause Number 131367K26,

the State of Texas versus Gregory Raymond Kelley.

Mr. Kelley, would you please approach the bench?

Five and a half years ago,

at 18 years old, you stood in this courtroom

and pleaded not guilty to the charge of

super aggravated sexual assault of a child.

You maintained your innocence

and exercised your constitutional right

to a jury trial.

Believing in the process,

you trusted that the right outcome would result

and that justice would prevail.

Your case was polarizing

and drew the attention of many in our community.

Then came the jury's verdict.

[jury foreman] We the jury find the defendant

Gregory Kelley guilty of the offense of

super aggravated sexual assault.

[Judge King] And on that day in July of 2014,

when you were sentenced to 25 years in prison,

many participants and onlookers concluded

that justice was served.

We now know differently.

Mr. Kelley, when you received the jury's verdict at your trial

you stood,

I believe at that table right over there,

without the benefit or comfort of your family.

So at this time I'd like to invite your mom

and Gaebri to stand by you

as we bring this season to a close

and start anew.

The Court of Criminal Appeals

has granted habeas corpus relief.

I can now say what you deserve to hear

publicly and on behalf of the citizens of Williamson County

and of the State of Texas:

Mr. Kelley, with the full weight of the law

and provision for justice,

as much as humanity can provide,

you have carried your burden under the law.

Proving your innocence,

you now have the right to proc-proclaim

to the citizens of Texas that you are innocent.

And with nine other judges in agreement,

I declare you innocent and that you are fully exonerated.

[applause and cheering]

And therefore, at this time,

the State's motion to dismiss the indictment is granted.

What was is no longer.

[gavel pounds]

[applause]

[Greg] This is the day we've been fighting for

for a long time now.

The heartache, worry and long suffering

have taken an indescribable toll on me,

my fiancée and our families.

Truth and nothing but the truth was the goal here.

Ultimately, truth would be the catalyst that would supply

justice for all parties that were wronged.

The Cedar Park Police Department deprived

not only me but the victim here.

To the victim and his family,

I am absolutely sorry you have to go through this.

Believe me, your opinion matters.

For six years, I not only had to fight to prove to the State

I didn't do this,

but I also had to fight to prove to you that I didn't do this.

The justice system failed me and you.

Today I receive justice while you remain failed.

If anything is going to drive me to seek accountability

of certain individuals, it's going to be because

all victims deserve justice the first time around.

I pray you have peace.

To my family,

my brothers,

my sister,

thank you so much for being by my side.

You're the best family that anybody could ever ask for.

The fear of me being torn away from them again is over.

And I can't wait to spend the rest of my life

creating wonderful memories with the people I hold

near and dear to my heart.

[uplifting music]

♪♪♪

Thank you, Jake Brydon.

You had no idea who I was days after my conviction.

You called my broken mother

and promised her you would do everything you could

to fight for me.

I often wondered if you were an angel

until I heard your mouth open to save my life.

[laughter]

You are the mouth of the South.

I'm forever grateful.

Thank you, Keith Hampton,

for believing in me when I was the most broken.

Thank you for taking this on when you had absolutely

no idea what you were getting yourself into.

If Marvel Comics ever wanted to create an Attorney Man,

[laughter]

I'd say slap some Spandex on Keith

because he's the man for the job.

[laughter]

To my soon-to-be bride,

I can only imagine the strength it took

to faithfully stick by me.

As teenagers, you never doubted me.

You carried the burden of being attached to me

while the world was calling me a monster.

As we fought to prove my innocence, you never stopped

unconditionally loving me.

You kept me alive.

[crying]

You gave me hope to come home

and I love you so much.

I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you.

[Jake] Well, with the power vested in me

by the great state of Texas,

God,

and the Court of Criminal Appeals,

[laughter]

I pronounce you man and wife.

Greg, you may kiss your bride.

[applause and cheers]

Keith, would you do me the honor

in announcing this couple for the very first time?

It's my pleasure

to give to you for the first time anywhere

Mr. and Mrs. Greg and Gaebri Kelley.

[applause and cheers]

Well, this was a case where if everything could go wrong

for somebody, it did:

bad investigation,

defense lawyer with blinders on,

all of the evidence that was not produced for that jury.

It's as if there were dark forces every step of the way.

In this case, I feel like we lost the truth long ago.

I-I think that at that time there were a lot of elements

that we could have checked off if a thorough investigation

was done in the very beginning.

And a lot of these questions that we still have to this day

could have been answered.

Now knowing what I know,

I completely believe that if there had even been

just this much more investigation,

if they had gone to the house,

if they had talked to Johnathan,

if just one person had caught one thing,

I would not be sitting here

and this would not have happened to me.

And it would not have happened to countless other girls.

You know, if really it was just a bad police investigation

but everyone else did their job along the way,

maybe this never happens at all.

But you still had prosecutors that allowed that to happen.

You still had prosecutors that chose to take

those cases to trial.

These cases are-are very tough.

You know, to-to try a case with two four-year-old victims

is-is difficult.

Um, but I think this case is proof that-that

they can be won.

The prosecutor, Geoffrey Puryear,

he green-lighted a second--

a second accusation that-that was fabricated.

It was created just to support his case.

Two, he moved the date.

Uh, he had to-- he-he had to have called that shot.

So in that sense, they framed him.

And then you add SpongeBob pajamas.

The kid tells you SpongeBob pajamas.

Geoffrey Puryear recognized that that piece of evidence

was exculpatory and that he had a constitutional duty to

disclose it to the defense.

And he did it at the last possible moment

and then disclosed it to the defense lawyer

who didn't know what to do with it.

And that's a real shame because wh-- of everything

we know about those pajamas now.

I remember Johnathan walking into my house

wearing SpongeBob SquarePants pajama pants.

And my sister remembers it too.

Geoffrey Puryear shouldn't have been promoted

after his actions in this case.

The day after Greg was exonerated,

Governor Abbott appointed Geoffrey Puryear as a judge.

So he will be taking the oath of office as a judge.

[dramatic music]

You know, the timing was obviously, um,

probably not ideal for everyone involved in that.

And I do know that some of the people involved in this case

were disappointed that, um, you know, others were being

held to account for their actions in this case

but the prosecutor seemed to be rewarded.

Uh, what we do here is very important.

It affects people's lives tremendously.

But, you know, we-we're right back to where we were,

where we have a child that said someone violated him

and we don't have any answers for the family.

I know they still firmly believe that Greg Kelley

is the person that did this.

They have obviously spoken to their own child

and it's their belief that he's never changed

who did this to him.

This happened in Cedar Park, Texas.

This isn't like some hypothetical of:

what if the wrong person does the wrong thing

and all these people miss it and something bad happens?

This is: this actually happened and it happened here.

We know when it happened

and we have a list of all the people that were hurt by it.

But Greg's not the only victim here

and I'm not the only victim here.

And those kids aren't the only victim here.

There are more people than I can count on my hands

that are victims here because the wrong person was put away.

Anyone could have been Greg or me.

It could happen anywhere.

And we're very fortunate to be in a place that we caught it,

because it took a lot of people fighting

all the time

to try and catch it

and figure out what happened.

Honestly, I believe that there are more innocent people

in prison due to false accusations

because there are no requirements

that the outcries or the accusations be reliable.

And if it's not properly investigated,

if the detectives are not asking that question did a crime occur,

if they're not trying to make their case, uh,

more reliable looking for corroborating evidence,

digging deeper to see if it happened,

then you'll have more Greg Kelleys.

[dramatic music]

♪♪♪

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[Greg] I was watching--

the other day I was watching a movie going to sleep.

And, uh, I was watching "The Truman Show".

And you know how in "The Truman Show" this-this-this guy,

every movement that he does it's been a reality show

for other people's entertainment, right.

And th-- and really Truman was never really actually free.

He never got to, you know-- he was restricted

within that dome that he was in.

And, um, I was like, man, that's--

it's a little bit of what I'm going through pretty much.

You know, I've never actually thought in my life

that every movement that I would be doing

would be a camera right there, you know.

And it started when I was 19 years old.

I've had a camera in my face, you know.

And every movement that I've done,

everything that I've done,

I've had to take caution on what I do, you know.

I wasn't ever fully free.

I felt like there was a weight over my head.

Somebody was watching me.

My life was under a microscope, you know.

I had to share things about my personal life

that should stay with me, you know.

My life was an open book to everybody.

And at that moment, I felt like

I didn't know what freedom was, you know.

I felt like I was just an experiment.

And just at the end of the-- end of the movie, you know,

the guy in the movie-- if you guys watch it, he said,

"Truman, say something." Right?

And I don't know what he--

I don't know if you know what he did,

but he turned around and he looked at the camera,

and he said his catchphrase.

He said, "In case I didn't see you,

good afternoon and good night."

Right?

And he walked off.

You know?

And, um, man, he could have cussed everybody smooth out,

right.

He could have cussed the whole world out.

And he didn't.

He smiled and turned and walked away

and went out into the world.

I was like, man,

I want that so much.

[dramatic music]

♪♪♪

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