- This case happened back in 1970
in Peoria, Illinois,
right in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement.
- An African American man holds up
a drive-in movie theater...
And then kills a responding officer.
- He was executed.
Shot in the head.
That's a heinous crime.
- The cops apprehend Cleve Heidelberg,
a young father trying to get his life on track
after run-ins with the law.
- An all-white jury found Cleve guilty of murder
and he was sentenced to life in prison.
But for 47 years, he's sworn that he's innocent.
- For nearly a half century,
the community of Peoria has been divided
between those who believe Cleve committed this murder...
- I believe it with my heart that he's guilty.
- And Cleve's supporters, who believe the wrong man
is behind bars.
- He has to walk out of that jail.
- Now, at the age of 73,
after having lost all of his appeals,
Cleve is getting another shot in court.
- And his attorney claims to have newly
discovered evidence that proves his innocence.
- This hearing could really decide whether
he'll die in prison
or get a chance to live as a free man.
- It's a serious case. It's a murder case.
There's a police officer involved.
There's high stakes. This is a critical moment
for Cleve.
Five years in prison for a crime I didn't commit.
- 18 years as a criminal prosecutor.
As a team, we will examine cases of convicted killers
who claim they are innocent.
- Are they victims? Or are they criminals?
We will follow the facts wherever they lead us.
I've been behind bars where countless men
have shared the same story:
I didn't do it.
But just because a person claims to be innocent
doesn't necessarily mean that it's true.
What I want to do with these cases
is simply this: dig down as deep as we can
to uncover the truth.
Did this person commit the crime,
or were they arrested for something
that they didn't do?
Coming here to Peoria, Illinois
and jumping into Cleve's case,
this brother has been in prison for 47 years.
I just can't even imagine it.
And if he's found to be innocent,
then he will be the longest serving
wrongfully convicted man in U.S. history.
So this is a really interesting case.
- From the very moment that he was arrested,
he has always maintained his innocence.
But this isn't a cut and dried case.
- So what you got? - May 26, 1970.
There's a drive-in movie theater,
which, I don't even know if you're familiar with these,
- Oh, yeah. - Back in the old days...
- They still existed when I was a young kid.
- Okay, okay. - Yeah.
- About 1:00 a.m., an African American male
came to the projection area.
And he says, "I'm robbing you guys."
And then kills the responding police officer,
Sergeant Raymond Espinoza.
He then leads cops on a high-speed chase.
So he's coming this way,
and then he crashes the getaway car and then disappears.
There's all of these police officers looking, searching.
- A cop had been shot. - Right.
- And Espinoza is down. - Right.
30 minutes later, they see a man in the area.
It's Cleve Heidelberg and they converge on him.
You have four police officers who identified him
as the person they saw in the car.
And guess what?
Cleve is the owner of the getaway car.
- Wow.
At first glance, I can see
how people would think he's guilty.
Cleve's car was found at the crime scene
and he was identified by four police officers
involved in the chase.
- What Cleve says is something very different.
He had loaned his car out that night.
- Mm-hmm. - And that he was hanging
at a club and a friend
came up to him and said,
"Your car was crashed and it was abandoned.
And here's where it is. You need to go find it."
- Right. - So his friend drops him off
in the area, and then Cleve is walking around,
trying to get to his car when he says
that all of the sudden, he sees all this police activity.
He starts to get nervous and he starts running
and then the takedown.
- Okay, so was he running because
he, in fact, killed a cop?
Or was he running because this was 47 years ago
in Peoria, Illinois, and he's black
and there are a bunch of cops around the neighborhood?
- Well, That's the question.
Now, after 47 years in prison,
Cleve is going back to court for an evidentiary hearing.
This time with a new attorney
who says that he has found new evidence
that proves the police got the wrong man.
- There's overwhelming evidence that he's innocent,
there's no evidence to charge him.
We're gonna get Cleve Heidelberg out of prison.
- But the state and the Espinoza family
want him to stay in prison.
- If Mr. Heidelberg should be free,
I do worry about who his next victim will be,
based on his past violence.
- Once you've been convicted, it's almost impossible
for you to get your case back in front of a judge.
If it doesn't happen for him now,
chances are, it never will.
- So after all these years,
the Heidelberg family still hopes
that Cleve will come home,
including his son Stephen,
who grew up estranged from his father,
but still believes that he's innocent.
Let me take you back for a little bit.
- Okay. - Can you tell us about
your childhood? - Grew up in Springfield,
real nice area of town.
Never worried about anything.
But then when I got a little older--
maybe 11 or 12 years old--
my stepfather and my mother sat me down
at the kitchen table and that's when they
finally broke it down to me.
I met my grandmother for the first time,
she came down, picked me up in an old Buick,
and took me to Joliet State Penitentiary.
To go meet him for the first time.
- How did you feel when you first learned
that this man here was your dad?
- The fact that he's behind bars
didn't really impress me all that much.
And I remember meeting him in this room
where all the tables were cement
and all the stools were cement.
Oh, God, it was just--
that was an experience I'll never forget.
Then I joined the military and left the area,
and kind of disappeared off the scene
for about 20 years.
- And was there a reason why you kind of
went radio silent with him?
- Bitter.
Our relationship was just me visiting him behind bars.
I mean, what kind of relationship is that?
I mean-- - Mm-hmm. So what brought you
back into contact?
- I just came out from out of hiding, I guess you can say.
And about three years ago, I decided to just pop up
to Peoria and visit and then I got more involved.
- So you'll be there for the hearing?
- Yeah, I'll be there.
I can't wait to get in a situation where
I can actually be at a bar and have a beer with him.
- Mm-hmm. - Sit and talk with him
and see what's on his mind. - Mm-hmm.
- And then I'll have to try to figure out
how to become his friend,
or become his son.
It'll be almost like meeting for the first time.
- Leading up to this hearing,
there's so much on the line
for Cleve and his son Stephen.
But it's also a critical time for the Espinoza family.
For a half-century,
they've mourned the loss of their father
and they believe that Cleve Heidelberg
is the one who killed him.
So we're gonna do everything we can to find out the truth.
Today, we're meeting with Marcella Teplitz,
who was a Peoria detective and now is actually
a private investigator working for the defense team.
This is where the drive-in was.
A black man came to the drive-in theater
with the intentions of robbing it.
He displayed a weapon...
And said he was robbing them.
The perpetrator tied up the projectionist
and then asked the lady who ran the concession area
to accompany him to where
the money would have been kept.
The projectionist, in the meantime,
had gotten untied. - Mm.
- And had called the county sheriff's police
to report an attempted robbery. - Okay.
Deputy Espinoza is responding to the call.
- Mm-hmm.
- The perpetrator, at that point,
could have jumped in the getaway car,
which was there and running,
but he made a decision not to do that.
He hid in the shrubs.
Deputy Espinoza pulled in,
just past where he was hiding.
And the perpetrator stood up,
and fired three rounds into the car
after the officer was past.
He shot him in the back of the head.
- Why? - I mean, at any point
he could have just given up.
What a violent, intentional, deadly act.
- That's right. A purposeful killing.
- This was not just an attempted robbery.
It's essentially an execution.
That takes a certain kind of callous person.
We know that Cleve Heidelberg had a criminal record,
but were they violent crimes?
I'm curious to talk to his attorney and ask him
what his defense strategy is in this case.
When you first looked at this case,
your first pass through it, tell me about that.
- First thing I do is I pull the appellate opinion
and I read it and I'm like, "Oh, where we going with this?
This guy is so guilty."
Somebody robbed the drive-in movie theater,
they crashed the car,
they caught the guy. - Mm-hmm.
- I mean, they make it sound like it's simultaneous.
The car crashes, we nab the driver.
- Mm. - Right?
- Mm-hmm. - And I think, "Oh,
well, you know, then how the hell is it not him?"
And then I start to read and I'm like,
"Oh, well, that's interesting."
There was a 30-minute gap between the car crash
and when Cleve Heidelberg gets nabbed.
There's no way you're gonna convince me
that the driver of the car, is gonna mosey back
to the car crash a half-hour later,
walking down the street.
There's no way. - The prosecution's case
at the trial, it was the police officers' identifications
and that was essentially the case.
- Yeah, you know what's interesting?
That morning, they take all the physical evidence,
and they fly it to the FBI.
And there's no ballistics, there's no fingerprints.
There's nothing like that tying Cleve Heidelberg to the crime.
It was a pile on. They just got all these officers
in the high speed chase to say,
"Yeah, it was Cleve Heidelberg,
I saw Cleve Heidelberg."
In my heart, none of these guys
saw Cleve Heidelberg.
- Why make it up?
- They all lost one of their own
and I think they all just assumed
Cleve Heidelberg did it.
They had their guy, it's a police shooting.
Let's close the book on this.
It's this guy's car. Who gives a sh--?
Done.
- Tell us exactly what it is
that you're arguing in the hearing.
- The claim of actual innocence. - Okay.
- There's no doubt in my mind Cleve Heidelberg is innocent.
There's zero doubt.
Another guy confessed to the crime.
James Clark.
He came forward. He confessed.
But nothing happened.
- Another guy confessed
to the crime.
James Clark. He came forward.
He confessed. But nothing happened.
- Shocking. - It's shocking, and when
you look at his profile and personality,
I think it all fits with the motive
and the kind of person that could have
committed such a horrific crime.
James Clark had no hesitation
in killing that police officer.
- I think it's insane that James comes forward,
admits that he in fact committed this robbery and murder
and Cleve's still in prison for it this entire time.
It's been 47 years.
- James actually wrote a detail affidavit
a year and five months after the murder,
taking the blame for killing Espinoza.
I wanted to go through this affidavit with you
'cause I think it's fascinating.
- Okay. Let's do it.
- James goes off in Cleve's car.
He went to the Belleview Drive-In alone.
Then he says, "I took the gun and leveled it
"at the woman and informed her it was a stickup.
"We were interrupted by a police car.
"I killed him because he would have killed me.
"It was kill or be killed.
"Heidelberg has been mistakenly identified for me,
Heidelberg is an innocent man."
- That says a lot. I mean I don't think an innocent person
would take on such a burden of being a cop killer
in Peoria, Illinois, 47 years ago.
- Yeah, but there are cases where people come forward
and confess to crimes-- especially high profile crimes--
because for whatever reason, they want the attention.
So James Clark passed away a few years ago.
However, his brother, Matt Clark, has come forward.
- Has he done an affidavit himself?
- What he did was actually a video deposition
with Cleve's attorney and the state prosecutors.
And he says James confessed to him and told him
he was the killer.
It's a strong part of Cleve's case at this point.
- People feared James. He was prone to violence.
- Did your brother James ever talk to you
about that shooting at the Belleview drive-in?
- Yes, he did.
Early, the morning after the shooting,
he grabbed me by my shoulders and he said,
"I got that motherf---er for Mark."
I think that he was looking for payback.
- So Mark was actually the brother
of Matt and James Clark.
And Mark was killed in an infamous Black Panther raid
in Chicago, just a few months before
Sgt. Espinoza's murder.
- Good afternoon, the 20-year-old chairman
of the Illinois Black Panther Party,
Fred Hampton, was shot and killed in a predawn shootout
with state's attorney police.
Another party member, 22-year-old Mark Clark,
of Peoria, also died in the shootout,
which left four Panthers and two police officers wounded.
- So Matt said that James murdered Espinoza
out of revenge.
He did it for Mark.
- The defense is going to argue at this hearing
that this is new evidence.
But is it credible?
We're going to meet with people
who have intimate knowledge
of this Black Panther raid in Chicago
and see if Matt Clark's statement rings true to them.
- This location here is known as a historical space.
- Well, 2337 West Monroe was a house where Black Panther
leaders and members lived in 1969.
That included Fred Hampton, as well as a young leader
from Peoria, by the name of Mark Clark.
And the plan was from the FBI
and the state's attorney and the police,
to come here 4:30 in the morning.
They busted in front and back.
Machine gun was blasting the walls.
Mark Clark, they shot him through the heart.
- Wow. Wow, wow, wow.
- And they then carried Fred Hampton out and you see
a famous picture:
two smiling cops.
- What shall I tell my children
who are black,
of what it means
to be captive in this dark skin?
- You were in Chicago when Fred Hampton
and Mark Clark were killed.
- They planned to execute them.
I can't say I was surprised.
But I was pained by the fact that it happened.
- So what was the response in the black community?
- People were just in shock.
- Did you hear about people who in fact went and retaliated
against the police?
- The Panthers made a political
determination not to do that.
Now, would a brother who had his brother murdered
in cold blood by the police, would he retaliate?
Well, I can only speculate about that.
- Mark Clark's brother James Clark
said that he killed this white police officer
to avenge the death of his brother.
Does that ring credible to you?
- Credible, he may have done it.
Does not make it right.
But it's understandable that you have that kind of anger
when your brother's been killed.
Let us not forget, the period after slavery
was more violent than slavery.
We grew up watching these grotesque pictures of horror
and terror.
So you could understand retaliation.
You cannot justify it.
- Understanding the historical context
of James Clark's confession makes it compelling.
But there are two sides to this story.
With the hearing quickly approaching,
I wanna talk to the lead detective in the case
and find out why he didn't seem to give
any credibility to this confession.
- You knew Sergeant Raymond Espinoza.
- I knew him very well.
He was a Navy veteran.
He had a wife and two children.
- How'd you feel when got the news
that he had been killed?
- I was devastated. - Yeah.
- When you heard that James Clark came forward
and said, I'm the one who actually killed
Sgt. Espinoza, did you believe it?
- No.
- Why do you think James Clark would then confess
to killing a police officer?
That's a big risk to take.
- Huge risk to take.
- Well, the thing is you can confess to doing it,
and I let Heidelberg out,
and then I try you, you're gonna say,
"I was coerced to say that."
Then you're gonna have a new story.
That's bull in my eyes.
I got policemen
that identified Heidelberg,
and actually, five days later--
four, five, and I got message
that Cleve Heidelberg wanted to talk to me.
He says, "I want to confess. I killed Ray Espinoza."
- Oh.
- And actually, they never used the confession
in court because somebody made up their mind
that he had already lawyered up.
- I'm extremely surprised that at one point
he did confess to this. - It's in my report
and it's true.
I mean, you don't make stuff like that up.
- Officer Manias was
the investigating officer
in this case and according to him,
Cleve Heidelberg confessed to this murder.
You know, Loni, if he did confess,
why wasn't it used in court?
- That's a good question.
We don't have any documentation telling us
why the prosecution didn't put on this confession
so we're really just left to speculate.
Manias believed it was because Cleve had
had an attorney assigned to him.
Or it could have been because Manias himself
had some issues of credibility as a witness.
There were some issues with Manias' work on this case
that raised some problems for the prosecution
that the defense was able to attack in the trial.
- What has Cleve said about this confession?
- Cleve says he's never confessed.
I mean, Cleve for 47 years has said,
"I have always said I am innocent."
- To go from a confession to an all-out fight
for your freedom for 47 years,
to me it just doesn't add up. - I agree.
I think regardless of whether or not
we believe Manias' story,
we still need to look at the prosecution's case
before this hearing.
Because they didn't have any forensic evidence
They based it all on these eyewitness testimonies.
We need to examine the testimonies
of these police officers and see if they're credible.
This is where the Belleview Drive-In was.
This is the crash site.
So we start with Cleve's car
coming from the drive-in. - Coming from the drive-in.
- There were four police cars involved in the pursuit.
The first patrol car, they're heading
towards that drive-in.
They see Cleve's car coming towards them.
Along this road, there's two different patrol cars
facing the street that the suspect car
is coming down and they've got their lights on.
And they see Cleve's car go by.
And he's going so fast at that point
that the officers lose sight of him.
Another officer, Hibser, gets involved
but all of a sudden, Cleve's car
comes speeding around the corner and crashes.
- When the car came round the intersection right here,
he was going a high rate of speed,
- Okay - And all of a sudden,
the car came to an abrupt stop.
But I was coming down the street here,
and I slammed on my brakes and I almost slid
into the back end of the car.
- Paul Hibser is the only police officer still alive
who took the stand in the trial,
pointed at Cleve Heidelberg and said, "He's the person
that I saw get out of the getaway vehicle."
- I had, like, almost like tunnel vision on that car.
And the driver. And I know what I saw.
- Yeah, yeah. - And it was Cleve Heidelberg.
- So back up to where your car was and where you were.
If this was the front of his car, like, I am--
- Probably about right on through here.
- Okay, tell me what he's doing. - When he was getting out
of his car, he swung around the open door.
- So he went around this way? - Well he wasn't standing up
when he went around, he was down,
you know, real low. - Okay.
Then he's crouched down like this?
- Yeah, I could still see the top of his head.
- Okay. - That's how I know he was
still back there.
I remember he had on a blueish-type jacket
and a blue shirt and dark pants, okay,
when he got out of that car.
Had the same clothes on when he crossed Blaine Street.
And we caught him back behind the houses up there.
- Okay. So tell me, how long is it from the point
where you see the door open, you first see his body
come out of the car. - Uh-huh.
- And go around behind the door,
top of the head.
How long does that take?
- A second or two. - A second or two.
- It only takes a second. Is that fast?
- I would think that's very fast, right?
- Yeah. I saw him get out of that car
and I got a good look at his face.
But it was, you know, one of those quick faces.
- But how could you be so sure?
You saw him for that split second,
in the dark. - I don't think I said
split seconds.
You're trying to condense it down,
That maybe I didn't see what I saw.
- I'm just-- - I just want to be able
to visualize exactly what you're describing.
- Visualize this like I say.
To me, everything slowed down.
And we're eyeball-to-eyeball when he got out of that car
He's moving in slow motion
and you're moving in slow motion.
My concentration was so hard on him,
the car, what he had in his hands
and I'm really concentrating on seeing what I saw.
Hours later if you'd said,
could you pick him out of a lineup,
just seeing that part of it, you know?
- Yeah. - I'd have been--
I would have said, "I think it's him,
but I'm not 100% sure it's him."
- You either saw him or you didn't see him.
You either can positively identify him
or you can't. - Yeah.
- The bottom line is this:
This case came down to eyewitness testimony
and after hearing Hibser's version of events,
I have a lot of questions.
I mean, is it possible the police identified
the wrong black man,
Cleve Heidelberg and not James Clark?
So we're gonna bring in an eyewitness expert
to get his professional opinion.
- People think that the norm is remembering things accurately.
It's not. It's difficult to remember things
and that's why eyewitness memory is so problematic.
- When it comes to wrongful convictions,
on what level would you put false eyewitness testimony?
- The Innocence Project puts it very high.
In the number of cases that they have DNA exonerations,
75% in some part had a faulty eyewitness identification.
- Just during my career as a prosecutor,
I saw eyewitness identification go from, like,
that's the best evidence that you could put forward
to wow, we're starting to find out that mistakes
are being made. - That's right.
So I've read all the information that you guys
sent me on this case, and I have a little test
if you guys are willing to, uh-- - Oh, boy.
- Yes. Perfect. - Great.
- Here we are at Harmon Highway.
This is where police officers saw the car drive by
at a high rate of speed.
We've got the same time of night, we're gonna
try and get the car about the same speed.
We're gonna call the car, so like the officer,
you're gonna know it's coming and we're gonna see if you guys
can see who's in the car. - Let's do it, Doc.
- Yeah. - Let's do it.
We are ready for the car.
- Is that it? Is that it? Is that it?
- That was very fast. - Can I ask you a question?
- Sure. - Do you think you could
pick him out of a lineup?
- I think I could. - You think you could?
- You do? - Yeah, I think I could.
- Well, guess what?
We have a lineup for you guys.
- Oh, wow.
- Here we go.
All the people in here are actors, not criminals.
They've agreed to be in our lineup.
Write down on a scale of 0 to 100
how confident are you that you picked the person in the car.
- Okay.
Number three, 90% sure. - Wow!
- And Loni, who did you think? - Okay, I said number four,
but I said 30%.
- Do you wanna see who it is? - Let's see who it is.
- Yeah.
- Number three. - Mm-hmm, that's who I saw.
- Number three - Based on what?
- I just knew it was him after I saw him.
- Based on what you saw or what you see in his face here
in the lineup? - He is what I saw.
- I'm with you, Loni. I had no idea.
- I had no idea. - If I had to pick him out,
I would have been just guessing.
- Yeah. But what I do find interesting--
and it is so helpful to be able to do this--
is you could see in the car.
I think it was much clearer than we thought it would be.
- I'm also a black man looking at another black man
and can tell the difference between
one black man and another.
- So for you it is a same race identification
and for them, it's a cross race identification.
- Mm-hmm. - So it's harder to identify
people who are from a different race
and it's easier to identify people accurately
if they are the same race as you.
- And in this case, all the officers who testified
against Cleve were white.
At the end of the day, we are here
to see if there is reasonable doubt.
For me, its 50/50.
'Cause I got it right on. - Mm-hmm.
- And you weren't able to. - Right.
I mean, you got it like that. - Yeah.
- That test strengthened
the police officer testimony in my mind.
- Kinda leaves me straddling the fence.
- You know, we're coming
into Cleve's case
from the back end of it.
This has happened so long ago and here we are,
trying to tie in all the pieces today.
Same thing with Steve.
Steve never had an opportunity to know his father.
So today we're gonna go research who his father really was.
- "Policeman Slain at Drive-In Theater, Ex Con Held."
And there's your dad. - Yes.
- It tells that the officer was shot to death,
and then the next paragraph is "Held in county jail
"on three warrants is Cleve Heidelberg, 27,
whose criminal record here goes back 12 years."
Here it says he tells them all about
when he was last paroled, March 24th.
He'd been sentenced to four to six years.
In 1964, when you were a baby,
he was sentenced to one to two years on attempted burglary.
- Yes. - He was armed with
a .22 caliber revolver, he was 15.
- He was 15. He had a failed hold up attempt
in July of '58.
- But then robbed a second store.
- God, when he was 15 years old.
- Oh. - Sometime in between--
because I was born in '63--
and the summer of '64 my mom packed her stuff and left.
- She left. - Yes. She just told me,
"Oh, he's a smart man and, well, you know, a smart man
that committed all those crimes before he was even 21.
- Mm. - I didn't know all this.
- Reading all of this for the first time,
it's gotta be a lot to take in.
- I'm actually a little pissed off right now,
to be honest with you. - Really?
- Naturally, yeah. A little pissed off.
Nobody's told me any of this stuff here.
Robbed a store at age 15. - Yeah.
You look at the expression on Steve's face--
he's learning things today that he didn't know
about his father.
- A few months before the Espinoza murder,
Cleve had just got out of prison, for what?
- Mm-hmm. - An armed robbery.
- Mm-hmm. - I mean, you know,
police would see that and say, "Okay,
armed robbery, armed robbery."
It all fits together. - Yeah.
Although he had his run-ins with the law,
it doesn't mean that he's a murderer.
- Right, right.
- With the hearing quickly approaching, I still have
some questions about Cleve's guilt or innocence
in this case.
One of them being
Cleve's version of events.
Cleve's friend testifies. - Mm-hmm.
- Says that Cleve tells him "Hey, something happened
"to my car, I loaned it out.
I need you to drop me off at Butternut Bakery."
- Butternut. - Butternut Bakery,
which is down here, a few blocks south
of where the car crashed.
And then Cleve is first seen walking in this area,
a few blocks north of the crash.
- So how does Cleve make his way from here,
all the way around, to here on foot?
- Without being seen. - Without being seen.
- You've got patrol cars here with their headlights.
They're looking down every one of these streets,
'cause this is where the guy disappeared on foot.
They last saw him in this area.
- That doesn't make sense.
- Not only does it not make sense,
I don't know how it's possible,
unless he's the killer.
- But then again, hypothetically speaking, I just shot at a cop.
I'm gonna ditch my car, go a few blocks away from it
and then think that it's okay to come and pick my car back up.
It doesn't make sense.
- Unless he was sitting here for 20 minutes and decided,
"You know what, I'm just gonna go in there
and pretend like I don't know what's going on."
- All these questions circulate when you look
at the case itself.
And it really makes you wonder who was really the shooter.
We're gonna go speak to Andy Hale
and present to him our findings good or bad,
because he needs to know both moving forward.
- No case is perfect, and we found things that
that were beneficial to the defense side
and we also found some things that I think bolstered
what the prosecution said. - I'm all ears.
- Great.
Paul Hibser, I pushed him on the shortness
of his observation. - Hours later if you'd
have said, could you pick him out of a lineup?
I would have said, "I think it's him, but I'm not
100% sure it's him." - Stunning.
Isn't that the whole point? - Yeah, he's an eyewitness.
- So you're gonna testify at trial that this was the guy,
you should be so sure that, yeah you can pick him
out of a lineup.
- Another thing that Brian and I talked about is,
you have Cleve dropped off down at the Butternut Bakery,
then when Cleve is spotted, he's on the other side
of crash site in the area where the officers last saw
the suspect running.
So that actually bolstered some of the prosecution case.
- So how precise is the drop-off point? I don't know.
You know, you brought up some good points that
the state can argue. - Right.
- But if you've got the scale,
I still think that we're significantly imbalanced
in Cleve Heidelberg's favor and at the end of the day,
I am 100% convinced that James Clark
committed this murder.
Cleve's already served 47 years.
He should be out. He should be free.
- Tomorrow is a big day,
Cleve's hearing.
If this judge thinks that there's enough evidence here
after 47 years in prison, Cleve could be going home.
Throughout this 47 years,
it's been nothing but a struggle
for him and his family.
And having been in prison myself,
I know exactly how that feels.
How you feeling about tomorrow?
- I--you know, I'm not going to put all my eggs in one basket.
I think that-- I'm feeling 70/30.
- 70 for-- - 70 for my Dad to get out.
- Yeah, yeah. - Okay, What happens
if it is the 30%?
- Then I'll go visit him, maybe a couple of weeks later
when his anger's gone down and say,
"Hey, don't worry about it, Dad.
We'll try again."
- If Cleve gets out tomorrow
and walks from the courthouse--
- Well, the first night, we'll probably just gonna
go out and have dinner.
I got some serious questions for him I want him to answer.
He was never in my life, so I mean, I--
so it's not getting back into my life,
it's getting in the first time.
- It'll be an experience for both of you, for sure.
- Yeah. I just want him to relax and enjoy his years.
But I think he's just gonna be so obsessed with filing suit,
making people pay.
That's gonna be his main focus.
He's gonna forget his sister, his nieces, and me.
- Would that be disappointing?
- It's expected. - It's expected.
- I expect it to happen.
I'm a piece of him and I'm the same way.
When I get obsessed with something, I'm obsessed.
- I remember when I paroled from prison,
my family was so happy to see me when I got home,
but because I had been gone so long, they didn't know
how to deal with me when I got home.
- Yeah. - I just think there are
certain things you--you know, may take into consideration.
- He's been on hold since he was 26,
I wanna convince him to relax
and live his life.
- Today, the judge is going to decide Cleve's fate.
And he's gonna look at a number of things,
including Matt Clark's testimony,
which Cleve's attorneys are saying is new evidence.
- Matt said that James murdered Espinoza
out of revenge.
He did it for Mark.
- So it's essentially a two-step process.
One is the evidence that they're presenting
considered new under the law?
- You wanna remove his cuffs?
- And two, if that had been presented to the jury,
would that have changed their guilty verdict?
- Court is in session.
This is people versus Cleve Heidelberg.
- So what we want to talk about is
why Matt Clark would have mattered.
If you look at this story,
it has been consistent over time.
James Clark tells Matt Clark the night
of the shooting what happened.
James came forward and confessed in 1971,
and in 2016 Matt gives his evidence deposition.
And when you look at the underlying trial record,
they had nothing.
They had nothing against this man.
So now what do they do?
They've got to get the police officers to all get involved,
and boy do they get involved and pile on.
Let's talk about one more officer who implicated
Mr. Heidelberg, Officer Hibser.
I call it "The Phantom Crouch".
He's got the driver getting out and just kind of crouching
down next to the car.
Just sitting there, when there's all
these police cars on his tail.
From a common sense standpoint,
it's an absolutely ridiculous story.
- Sir, sir, sir.
Sir, sir, sir.
- This is the most egregious case I have ever seen.
Every single witness was not reliable.
It is outrageous!
I should scream to the mountaintops...
How outrageous...
That it is.
- Andy Hale is very emotional
and very dramatic.
But the questions is: will the judge find the evidence
that he was presenting to the court to be new under the law?
- I enjoy on behalf of the state the presumption of guilt.
It is their burden to overcome that presumption
and they offer Matthew Clark's testimony.
That statement by James Clark was considered and rejected
by the trial court.
Matthew Clark has nothing to offer, other than,
"This is what my brother told me."
There is no newly discovered evidence that justifies
the rejection of the judgment of his peers.
Mr. Heidelberg has had his chance--
more than most--
he did not meet his burdens.
His petition must be denied
and all the passion
and all of the
conspiracy-laden
arguments to the contrary,
the evidence does not measure up.
- For 47 years,
Cleve Heidelberg has been behind bars.
This hearing could decide whether he'll die in prison
or get a chance to live as a free man.
This murder shattered two families.
There's so much emotion and intensity in the courtroom.
And we really have no idea
which way the judge is going to rule.
- I can imagine what Cleve is going through right now.
In fact, I've been in his shoes.
The anxiety, the fear.
Wondering, after 47 years in prison,
is he gonna be going home?
We're gonna reset in ten minutes.
- 47 years, this man has been fighting for his innocence
and finally, he gets the words that he's been waiting for.
- It's huge. I mean, what the judge said here today
was "I heard evidence in this courtroom
"that is strong enough
"to make me question the conviction.
I am now wiping out that conviction."
- Yes. - The prosecution can still
decide if they want to retry the case.
But he has the right to walk out of prison, to go home,
for the first time in all of these years.
- Hey! - Yeah, baby!
- Hey, it's nice to see you. - Yeah, it's tremendous.
- I know.
I did not do what I was convicted of
and what I have been held in prison all these years for.
I am an innocent man.
And many times I have given up hope,
but I still kept fighting,
hoping and praying
for this date in time.
To me, it feels like I'm stepping
from a graveyard back into life.
Prison is, in fact,
a graveyard, in many respects.
I feel that I'm coming back into life.
- I strongly feel that justice was served in this case,
that Cleve Heidelberg's conviction should
have been overturned.
There wasn't enough evidence, nor facts,
to put this man behind bars for the rest of his life
for this crime.
There may in fact be a retrial.
But I think this trial setting would be a lot different
than what it was in the '70s.
And if Cleve is an innocent man,
the truth with come out.
If Cleve committed this crime,
the truth will come out.