Crime After Crime (2011) Movie Script

- Hello, Miss Deborah.

- Hi!

Good to see you!

Hi Joshua!

- You knew we were coming, didn't you?

- My name is Deborah Peagler,

and I was convicted of

first degree murder,

sentenced to 25 years to life.

- We have bad news and we have good news.

Nadia Costa and I began

representing Deborah Peagler

shortly after California

became the first state in the

nation to adopt a law,

specifically designed to

help incarcerated survivors of

domestic violence win their freedom.

It's a huge problem, a

national problem, probably an

international problem and this

law is just the first step.

Debbie was connected to the

murder of the man that abused

her, but the evidence of that abuse was

never presented to the court.

And if she had been charged

appropriately she would have

served a maximum of six years in prison.

Instead by the time we

took her case, she had

already been in for 20

years and been denied

release by the parole board twice.

- This isn't a case where

Debbie Peagler didn't have

anything to do with the crime,

but when you look at all the

facts and circumstances

surrounding what occurred,

any reasonable court, any

reasonable parole board

and any reasonable person,

would conclude that she has

served enough time and she

should be released from prison.

♪ Jesus can work it out ♪

♪ If you let him ♪

♪ Jesus can work it out ♪

♪ That habit that I had I had ♪

♪ I just couldn't seem to break. ♪

♪ To break ♪

♪ I prayed and I prayed I prayed ♪

♪ Lord don't let it be too late. ♪

♪ Too late ♪

♪ Then I turned it over to Jesus ♪

♪ Jesus ♪

♪ And I stopped worryin' about it ♪

♪ About it ♪

♪ I stopped worryin' about it ♪

♪ About it ♪

♪ I stopped worryin' about it ♪

♪ About it ♪

♪ I gave it over to the

Lord and He worked it out ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

Debbie Peagler was fifteen when

she first met Oliver Wilson.

In fact, her mother

introduced her to Oliver.

And y'know at first he came across as

very charismatic and quite charming.

- My mother met Oliver at an

ABC market where she used to

do her grocery shopping.

I guess they interacted there.

And she began to really like him.

- He seemed to know that, the way to

my heart is through my children.

And that's how he won me

over, by being good to

Debbie at the very beginning,

and accepting my granddaughter

like she was his child.

- The day I came home from school,

and he was there playing with my daughter.

And I thought, "He's kinda cute!"

- My brother was one of the

most charismatic people ever

to walk this earth, but

Oliver was the type of

person, if you said "Tell me

something about yourself,"

'bout an hour and a half

later you would say to him,

"Hold that thought, I'll be

right back," because he would

still be talking about himself.

He used to model clothes

because he was tall and slender.

And I don't think he ever knew when

he was not on the walkway.

- As we spent time around

each other and talked to each

other, he was easy to talk

to, and I saw that he really

took to my daughter, that

was a big thing with me.

- He used to buy me a lot

of things, designer clothes,

toys, anything a little

kid could wish for, I had.

- His mother would cook big, big meals.

And I would go over and

help her prepare the meals

and interact with her and I began to

adopt his family as mine, because

mine was so dysfunctional.

If she was being abused or

battered, it was a secret.

Because at that point in time,

I was being abused, and it was a secret.

I was molested as a child,

by my father and my uncle.

What if that wasn't the

example of manhood that he had?

What if he didn't think that

was acceptable behavior?

- We'd go out to eat, or

he'd take me to the mall,

shopping, and just buy

me anything I wanted.

Money was like never an object,

never a problem with him.

It never dawned on me that

he is not making this money

from working at ABC Market,

but I was young and kinda naive

and didn't know anything about it.

Until.

Until one night.

He said I wanna take you

somewhere, somewhere special.

I was like "Okay."

I'm thinking it's gonna be

a really nice restaurant, or

another concert, because he's

taken me to a concert before.

- He was always tryin' to be like me.

I tried pimping.

And I found out that I

wasn't made out for pimping.

Because, pimping, you can pimp your momma,

you can pimp your sister,

you can pimp your daughter,

you can't have no

sympathy towards anybody.

- On the way there he was

telling me that he had came

into some financial problems

and he was about to lose his

car, and he was having some

money problems and he

needed me to help him.

And I was like, "Okay, sure, no problem."

And that was like the

end of that conversation.

Who knew, I'm thinking, "Okay, he's gonna

"take me to a job interview

and get me a normal job,"

and I can help him like that.

But no, he took me to that

place on Prairie and Century,

I'll never forget.

Because there was a donut

shop on that corner.

And he introduced me to the

two women, and then he left.

And then they told me where to

go, what room to take men to,

how long to be in there, what

to let the man do and what

not to let him do and how

much to charge him, and all

this stuff and I am like freaking out.

"What do you mean?

"I am not going to have sex with that man,

"I don't know that man."

And they said, "Baby, yes you are.

"Yes you are.

"You're gonna make your man some money."

And then he's getting

undressed and I'm like on the

bed cryin' like, "I cannot do this.

"I don't wanna do this,

I don't wanna do this,

"and I can't do this and no."

And the man's like

"Don't you know what is going to

"happen if you don't do this?"

"Nothing's gonna happen."

"No your pimp is going to beat you.

"He's gonna do this."

and he's describing all

this horrendous stuff.

And I'm like "No, Oliver

would never do that to me.

"No."

Little did I know, yes he would.

And yes he did, because I

didn't go through with it.

And when he came back

to get me he was like,

"How much money did you make?"

And I was like, "None."

"What do you mean none?"

I said, "I'm not gonna do that.

"I don't wanna do that.

"No, no."

"Okay," like nothing was wrong.

And we went to his mother's house.

Next thing I knew, he hauled off

and slapped the crap outta me.

I just balled up on a floor in a ball.

I'll never forget he was

just kicking me and

kicking me and kicking me.

And I was like, "Okay, okay,

I promise, I promise, I'll do

"it, I promise, I'll do

it next time, I promise, I

"promise, just don't, please

please don't hit me no more,

"please don't hit me no more.

"Please just stop hitting

me, stop hitting me."

- Oliver continued to

abuse and force Debbie

to prostitute herself throughout her

sophomore, junior and

senior years of high school.

- And it's amazing that

throughout all that I still

maintained my good grades,

I still was an honor roll

still was an honor roll

student, still loved school.

- She was acting different,

you know she wasn't laughing or

being the same Debbie that

we'd always known her to be.

Whenever he came around, or

she even heard his voice,

she just totally changed.

- Not only was his abuse

significant and severe, but

he constrained every other

aspect of her life, he

controlled who she saw,

who she spoke with,

she couldn't have friends.

- It had got to the point

where he had stopped hitting me

with his fists, he would make

me lay on the floor or the

couch or whatever, beat

me with a bullwhip.

And so I'd have whips all on my body.

He would never, never hit me on my face.

He didn't want to mess up the

face because I had to be his

perfect hostess for his

friends, but I could easily

where long sleeves or whatever

to cover up the bruises.

- Debbie tried to escape

Oliver on numerous occasions,

but he kept bringing her back

by force or by death threats.

And eventually Debbie ended up

having a daughter with Oliver.

And he eased up on the abuse

when he saw that she was

pregnant with his kid, and

there was sort of a honeymoon

period that followed, and

part of that was he purchased

life insurance, to tell

Debbie "If anything happens

"to me, you will still be

able to raise my daughter."

But that was short lived.

And Oliver began dealing drugs in

a big way and began using the

drugs and Oliver became more

abusive than ever before.

- I know how my child

felt, cause I lived in it.

So until you've experienced

it you don't know,

until you've walked in

my shoes, you don't know.

Until you've walked in

her shoes, you don't know.

Until you've gone through

the abuse and the humiliation

that they made us feel,

you don't know how we feel.

And my heart hurts for my

child because I love her.

And I didn't want her to go through

the things I went through with.

And I know how she felt.

- So after Oliver's drug abuse

really took off in a big way,

Debbie and Oliver got an eviction notice.

- That was my way out.

And I convinced him, for him to go

to his mother's house and

for me to go to my mother's

house, until we could get

back on our feet and, be okay.

And then I was, at that point I'm like,

"I am so outta here, I

am so not going back."

Because the violence was, it

was horrendous at that time.

- Debbie had finally left

Oliver and moved her and the

children into her mother's home.

- Oliver shows up with a

couple of friends, they're all

heavily armed with shotguns and pistols.

- We were all in the house and

you hear the adults screaming

for all the kids to "Get

down, get in the closets, lay

"on the floor, don't get up

until we come and get you."

You know and finding out,

y'know, that it was him and

two of his friends outside

of our house with guns

y'know, threatening to kill

whoever was in the house.

- And the only reason that

didn't happen is cause

someone called the Sheriff's.

- The police did arrest Oliver

and he spent the night

in jail, but right after

that he was released

and out on the streets.

So she knew that the police

were not going to help

her, were not going to

protect her family, and that

Oliver was furious because

the police had been called.

- Most people of color do

not trust law enforcement.

Having her perpetrator

arrested, having the perpetrator

released the next day, this

was common for many women.

- It seemed as though the

police looked at it like,

"It's another black woman

getting her ass whupped, by

"her boyfriend, so be it."

It was almost like it was a

waste of their time,

I guess you could say.

- Even though I left him,

and I was gone, there was no

escaping him, there was

no getting away from him.

- I called the law with

him and he has a gun,

and they still let him out!

So what was she to think, how was she to

live, but fear for her life?

- Debbie's mother suggested to

Debbie she let Ramone Sibley

and Little Timmy Lively

make Oliver leave her alone.

- Sibley and Lively were Crips

gang members that controlled

the area where Debbie's mom

lived, it was their turf.

And when Oliver showed up with a group of

armed guys, threatening

to kill everyone in their

neighborhood, that was the last straw.

That wasn't gonna happen on their watch.

- And my mother was like

"Why don't you just let, let

"Ramone, Timmy and Ramone,

you guys can take care of him.

"Why don't you just take care

of him, why don't you make

"him leave her alone,

I know you guys could."

- Remain seated at all times.

- The extreme I used to see him go to,

grabbing her, choking her, socking her.

He used to beat on her like she was a guy.

You know?

So two or three times I had to beat on

him like he was a guy.

You know, and just to, one,

to try to protect her, and

two, just to show dude that,

this is what you're doing to her.

He thought he was above

ghetto law, street law.

That these things you don't do.

And I guess, you know, he thought since

the Constitution say you

can do what you want in the

United States he figured

he could do whatever the

fuck he wanted and there

was no consequences.

- But I didn't want nobody

to kill him, but I wanted

somebody to beat the hell out of him.

And I thought maybe if he got

his behind whipped he'd go on

about his business and

leave my child alone.

- And I was like, "You guys

can make him leave me alone?

"Can you make him leave me alone?"

And it was like "Yeah, let us handle it,

"we'll take care of it.

"We'll take care of it."

"Okay."

- So this is the Sheriff's Office Report.

Oliver Wilson was listed

as John Doe number 191.

There was dried blood around

and coming from the victim's

nose, mouth, and right ear.

They were from the point of view of where

the camera's shooting from

now, and they scaled this

fence and they came down,

and they crawled down here,

and they attacked Oliver.

And the moment that happened, Debbie left.

And Sibley and Lively

continued to strangle Oliver.

There was some discrepancies

from their statements to

the police of who did what.

I don't know, obviously,

and no one will know

exactly what happened, but what we do know

at that time that Debbie was not here.

She had left, although

she did bring Oliver

here and we know that and

she has expressed remorse

about that, and has paid

her dues for that act.

- And even though I hated

him and I was mad at him,

I still didn't want him dead.

I just wanted him to leave me alone.

And that's all I keep

saying, 20 years later.

If only he woulda just left me alone.

- After Oliver Wilson was

killed, Debbie did receive

about $17,000 in life insurance proceeds,

most of which went to

Oliver's mother and to pay

for a very elaborate funeral for Oliver.

And the Los Angeles County

District Attorney's office

took this evidence of life

insurance as proof that this

was a conspiracy and

that Debbie had Oliver

killed for financial gain.

So Debbie was swept up into

this prosecution and she was

prosecuted by a group known

as Operation Hard Core, which

was this hard core gang task

force because there were

Crips gang members involved.

This group had a hundred

percent conviction rate

Debbie was charged with

first-degree murder by the

District Attorney's Office,

and they sought the death

penalty against her.

- They basically came

to Debbie and said that

"Unless you plead guilty, we will pursue

"and get the death penalty against you."

And they said the same to Ramone Sibley.

But for Lively, he was

a minor at the time.

- Lively was sort of offered

a deal, that if he testified

against Debbie and against

Ramone, he would be given a

short sentence, if the case

ever went to trial, which of

course it didn't go to trial,

and Lively in fact went in

and out very quickly and

went on to kill other people.

But Debbie and Ramone

Sibley took a plea deal

to save their lives ended

up going to prison for life.

- And now I sit in prison,

wondering was there a better way?

Was there a different way?

Like today I know there is,

there's shelters, and people

out there available now.

Where were those people back then?

- In 1983 when Debbie Peagler

went to prison, the battered

women's movement was still in its infancy.

There were just starting to

be battered women's shelters.

It was the very beginning of

having restraining orders.

- Over time with committed

activists, they started

bringing victims out of

the shadows to share their

stories, and police became

educated, and the general

public became educated about this issue.

- After being

sentenced and going to prison.

Five years pass, 10 years

passed, people started

talking about the

Battered Women's Syndrome.

They even started a

domestic violence program at

the prison and group therapy.

- They're always talking about the victim

that died in our case

but we're a victim too.

- He used to beat me in

front of his friends.

Beat me until I was black

and blue, and this was

the only way I could

ever get away from him.

- And it took me being

in prison almost, 15,

17 years before I even realized

that I was a battered woman.

And it's so funny that somebody

else had to tell me I was.

- When Debbie Peagler was

sent to prison, the number of

incarcerated women nationwide

was less than 20,000

In the years since, that

number has just plain

skyrocketed, so that today

there has been a more than

sixfold increase in the

number of women in prison,

in less than 30 years.

Many of these women,

especially those who are

serving life sentences like

Debbie, are incarcerated for

a crime that is directly

related to that abuse.

- We need to put ourselves in the position

of that individual, under

those circumstances,

faced with the choices they had.

- After decades of advocacy,

battered women in prison and

their supporters on the

outside were finally

successful in getting this

habeas law passed in California.

It's the first law in

the nation that allows

domestic violence survivors

to present their evidence,

have their stories be heard,

and finally have a real

chance at winning their freedom.

- I think it's astounding

that California is

the only state that is

actually allowing cases

to be reopened, because

there are thousands

and thousands of Debbies

across the United States.

- Even in California, the state

is not providing these women

with attorneys, and so the

Habeas Project formed to

connect women with attorneys who

could take on these cases for free.

That's how we found Nadia

and Joshua for Debbie

and they have been amazing.

- Y'know, we're

volunteer attorneys

in Debbie's case, and

besides that, I'm a Dad.

I'm an Orthodox Jew.

And I'm an attorney.

That's my order of preference.

Although, in reality I'm probably an

attorney first and everything else second.

- I'm a mom, of a little

boy named Cole, and I was

pregnant with him when I

would go to prison to see

Debbie or to see other

witnesses like Ramone.

But being a mom is the

best thing I'll ever do.

Before I was a lawyer I

was a social worker for

children's protective

services and basically worked

with families dealing with

the kind of violence that

Debbie and her girls suffered.

I'm also a runner.

I'm not fast but I like to go far.

Usually with distances

longer than a marathon, what

they call ultra-runs or ultra-marathons.

- Y'know, I've never run

a marathon, I don't really

believe in running unless

there's like a group of

people chasing me.

But this case is starting to feel like

a marathon, and it's all uphill.

But you know, Debbie keeps us going.

You know, in Judaism we have

this prayer, matir ha asurim,

to free those who are bound.

It's one of our core

principals that if someone is

wrongfully imprisoned, we

have an obligation to fight

to free them, to liberate them.

- When I met Nadia, and we

began discussing the violence

I'd been subjected to, and I

remember telling her some of

the details of the beatings,

and I remember thinking,

"She's looking at me

like I'm a human being,

"like she understands.

"She isn't, looking at me in judgment."

And then on one of her visits,

Nadia brought another

attorney with her, Joshua.

And she introduced us.

I looked at him and I

was thinking to myself,

"Okay, he's Jewish.

This shall be interesting."

Being that I'm a Christian.

But then we sat down and started talking.

At first I was apprehensive,

not because of anything else

besides the fact that he was a male.

And to talk about the things

that Oliver did to me,

in front of a man was difficult.

But then I watched him

and he made eye contact

with me, and his eyes

told me that, "It's okay."

- Whenever I talk to Debbie,

or I'm getting into Debbie's

mind about why she reacted

the way she did to Oliver,

and the way that she would

become around him, it's so

familiar, it's so personal to me.

And that's obviously

because of my mother's

experience and my experience.

When I was about nine, she met

a refugee who was on the run.

My Mom fell for him,

and I remember they got

into an argument and they were arguing,

and I was upstairs in my little room.

And I could just feel

the anger and intensity

in the room increasing

below me until suddenly,

there were bottles being smashed

and he was just beating

the hell out of my Mom.

And I remember being this kid

and wanting so desperately

to go down and help my

Mom, and at the same

time being so afraid that

I was gonna be killed.

And then feeling guilty that my fear

for my own safety was

trumping helping my mother.

And just feeling the shame

and of course total panic and

fear that my mother was gonna be killed.

I feel in a certain sense, in

those moments that she and my

mother kind of metaphorically connect.

Debbie's experience is in some way is an

extension of what could

have or would have happened,

had my mother and I not escaped.

- Like Joshua I also have

experience with abuse.

Unlike Joshua, I have not

wanted to speak about this

publicly and I still don't

want to share details with it

because of, it being a very

private experience for me.

However, it's been

important for me to summon

the courage to discuss what

I can as part of this film

in order to let people know

that abuse doesn't just

happen in South Central

LA to young black women.

It happens everywhere.

It happened to me as a child

and also as a young adult,

all the time while I was

living in affluent communities,

and it was never stopped.

It's one of the reasons that

I became involved in Debbie's

case and why we work

for her freedom today.

- They don't have to do it.

They're not getting a dime.

And they don't know me.

I was a stranger.

And they're spending so much of their

time and money and efforts

to get me out of here.

- Okay, so this is Debbie free.

Where she wants to be,

where we want her to be.

And when she gets out of prison

she wants to hear the sound

of the Pacific Ocean and

that's where we want her to be.

Sadly, she's still here.

She's in prison.

You go to the parole board and you say,

"Hey, I may have done some bad things,

"but I've been a great

prisoner since I've been on the

"inside, I'm rehabilitated,

I'm ready to rejoin society."

Parole board typically

says, "No you're not."

And the D.A.'s Office, the

prosecutors who put you in

in the first place,

usually chime in and says

"No, they're not, send 'em back."

But even if the parole board

finds you suitable, it then

goes to the governor, and the

governor nine times outta ten

says "No, send her back to prison."

The other route which is

also remote is to go back to

court, the court that sent

Debbie to prison in the first

place and say we want to

file a habeas petition,

a petition for writ of

habeas corpus which says,

something about the way Debbie

was put in prison in the

first place wasn't right

and she should be released.

So we would file this habeas

petition to the court.

Nine time out of ten the

court just sends it back and

says, "Nope, you're not getting out."

The D.A. usually chimes in and

says "Nope, send 'em back."

So, it's a pretty bleak process

to be able to, to get out.

It's pretty impossible

Now, fortunately for Debbie,

and for untold number of

women like her, there's

a new law that says,

"Hey, if you can provide evidence of

"abuse, of battering, and you

can show that that evidence

"of battering is related to

the reason you were put in

"prison in the first place,

you should be able to present

"that to the court, and the

court, for the first time,

"should take you seriously."

The other thing that the new

law says is, if you present

that evidence to the parole

board, the parole board has

to consider that evidence,

side by side with what

they're supposed to be

looking at, which is

has Debbie been a model inmate?

And I'm hopeful that through

what we've been able to

document, that we should

be able to show that she is

suitable for release and

that's certainly going to

be bolstered by the

footage that you obtained.

- So, here we go, a six person

film crew, four cameras,

eight lights, all of this has been

approved to come into the prison.

There's a reason why you

don't hear about stories

like Debbie's, the

Department of Corrections

in this state and in many

states does not allow the

media to film the stories

of specific inmates.

Fortunately, Joshua and

Nadia have decided that it's

in Debbie's legal interest for

her story to be documented,

and so I've been brought in

as her legal videographer.

But that's not what's happening today.

Today, we're making a separate documentary

about inmates who rehabilitate themselves

through various programs at

the prison, so there's a arts

and crafts program, there's a

firefighter training program,

we've even filmed the first

ever behind bars bat-mitzvah.

If it happens that Debbie

Peagler is involved in some

of the activities we film, so be it.

♪ Some say he is the great

one the prophets spoke of ♪

♪ Some even say that he's the

man who was the son of God ♪

♪ He the stranger, stranger,

stranger from Galilee ♪

♪ Hey the man from Galilee ♪

- As she's there, since she's

been there, she's taking a

negative situation and made

it into a positive situation.

- She works in an electronics

manufacturing company, she's

one of the highest paid

employees in the prison system.

- I'm in charge of everything

that they build here,

including the PC boards,

those kits, all the harnesses,

transformers, everything that

they build in here, it's my

job to identify those parts,

make sure they're accurate,

they're correct, and that

it ships out on its date.

- I met Deborah in prison,

I was a heroin addict, in my

addiction, really in

it, that's all I knew.

And she used to talk to me

and talk to me and talk to me.

She seen something in me, she told me I

would overcome that addiction.

- Dear heavenly father we just

come together on this morning

thanking you first of all, waking us up.

Clothing our right mind, Lord.

Father God, we thank you that we have the

activities of our limbs,

Father God, that we can use

our hands and our feet.

And we just continue to give

you the honor, the glory!

And the praise!

- Today, I'm a drug and alcohol

counselor, and I'm about to

get my bachelor's degree,

and I owe that to Deborah.

- She's been a church leader

for 15 years, she's taken

sign language and actually

interprets for the deaf

inmates at the church services.

- Receiving her Associate's

Degree, Deborah Peagler.

- I'm very proud of myself,

my tenacity, my resilience.

I try to be everyday an example, a mentor.

I am a tutor of a few of

the ladies that are getting

ready to take their GEDs,

and have taken their GEDs.

So it's one of the things I really enjoy

is helping someone else learn.

- She has a lot of wisdom, not

from God only, but I told her

"I wanna to go to school,

I can't read and write."

And she's very intelligent,

she is a very smart

person, Deborah Peagler is.

- I was able to help her

learn to read and write.

Eventually even acquire her GED.

- She told me to go to school,

and they'll take care of me.

She told me that God

has a plan for my life.

- One more time, "Anointing."

- Another thing Debbie has going

for her at least in theory,

for the parole board, are the

sentiments of Oliver Wilson's family.

- I don't believe I'm

supposed to identify with her,

somewhere in me, I'm not

supposed to accept what has

been done and I'm caught in the catch-22

because maybe I shouldn't

even be able to identify with

it, maybe I shouldn't be able

to understand it, but I do.

And that's a terrible thing

I think, for me to say.

If it were not my brother, if it was

some man that didn't have a

face, that didn't really have

a name, but I knew that he was

doing these terrible things,

then I would say, put me at

the head of the fan club.

I'd fight for you.

I'd do what I could do to get you out.

- Debbie has been up for parole.

That hearing is very biased

in favor of the prosecution.

- I went before parole board,

and here I sat, as Oliver's sister.

And in my mind, the closest one to him,

by way of age and growing up together.

I poured my heart out to these people.

And after pouring my heart

out, they still said no,

and refused to let Debbie go.

- It seems to me they should

have taken the family's

opinion into consideration.

Enough is enough.

She's served a life.

She doesn't have to suffer

anymore, as far as I'm concerned.

- She has been denied

three separate times.

- I've met parole board

battered women's investigators,

and why they can't find

out the things that we

find out so easily is a mystery to me.

They have all the powers to go

do that and yet they seem to

not see some of the obvious things.

It feels like they're

trying to find reasons to

deny it rather than

trying to find reasons to

support information that

may be readily available.

- So until the parole board

acknowledges that she was a

battered woman, she was abused,

she's never gonna get out.

- She winds up leaving

that parole hearing just in

disbelief, and not knowing where to turn.

- If life happens to deliver

a situation to you that you

cannot handle, do not

attempt to resolve it.

Kindly put it in the something

for God to do box, amen.

- Initially, it was always,

you know "I hope my Mom is

"doing okay, and I wish she

could come home and be with me."

And then, you know, as I

got older, it was like well,

"Thank you Jesus that I have

her to talk to on the phone."

At least she's there for me

in some other way, y'know.

- Despite being behind

bars, Debbie has really done

everything in her power to be

a good mother to both of her

daughters, her oldest daughter

Tikisha, who's currently

serving in the Air Force

in the Iraq War, and her

younger daughter Natasha,

whose father was Oliver Wilson.

- My relationship with my

Mom is very, very, very good.

I think that due to the circumstances,

it's the best that it can be.

- Lord prepare.

♪ Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary ♪

- Pure and holy.

♪ Pure and holy ♪

- Tried and true.

♪ Tried and true ♪

- With thanksgiving.

♪ With thanksgiving ♪

- I'll be a living.

♪ I'll be a living. ♪

- Sanctuary.

♪ Sanctuary for you ♪

- It's hard, because I try to have such

a strong relationship with her.

But you can't.

If I had to compare my

Mom's and my Dad's loss,

to figure out which one

is harder, it's my Mom.

Because it's a everyday

pain you're dealing with.

It's a everyday thing.

It's constant.

It's not something that, "He died.

"Let's grieve, and move on."

It's a grieving process that never ends.

♪ Seek me, and ye shall find ♪

♪ They gonna give you a hard time ♪

♪ Been waiting my whole life ♪

♪ For someone to make it right ♪

- Debbie's case has been

almost a full time job

in addition to our regular legal practice.

This is a private law office,

this is not what we normally do.

We do land use and

real-estate, development law,

you know, if you come to

me I can get you zoned

to be an airport if that's what you want.

But I don't represent inmates,

people charged with crimes,

criminals, this is a whole

new experience for us.

- Joshua and I were almost paralyzed

at the beginning of this case.

How do you go about

finding hospital records,

police records, witnesses

from 25 years ago?

But then I realized that Debbie

is in fact the key to this

case, because as soon as

you meet Debbie you want to

help her and you want to

be involved in getting

her out of prison, and

that's how we got Bobby.

- It's Bobby

Buechler, Debbie Peagler's

investigator, and we spoke a few days ago.

I'm in LA.

We're all really different people

Nadia she's this long distance runner,

Joshua's this Orthodox Jew,

and I'm the old man of

the group I would say.

I've been an investigator

for approximately 25 years.

Also I've worked as a

journalist for New York Times,

Vanity Fair, CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes,

but primarily I'm a private investigator.

- Before we hired Bobby

we had a couple of other

investigators on the case who

were unable to find anything.

We got Bobby, within 24

hours, documents started

flowing in, and from those

documents we began to get a

sense of the real deficiencies

in the D.A.'s case.

- You know, we had heard from

Debbie for a long time that

Tikisha may have been molested by Oliver.

But we were shocked when we

learned that there was actual

evidence of this in the police

report that had been ignored.

For so long this killing had

been framed as simply about

life insurance proceeds and to learn

that the police knew also that he may have

molested her was obviously

very disturbing to us.

- We knew that we had to talk to Tikisha

about the alleged abuse, so

when was rotated back to the

United States between tours

of duty, we went to see her.

- I sat with Tikisha and

asked her the very difficult

question of whether she recalled

Oliver ever molesting her.

And she just looked off into the distance

and tears welled up in her

eyes, and then she shared

with me very vivid

recollections of what Oliver

had done in terms of abuse

to her as a young child.

- The hearing transcript from

Deborah's preliminary hearing

in 1983 shows that the prosecution

had only had one witness.

- The judge characterized

this witness' testimony

as "pretty poor" and

"extremely ambiguous."

- What was fishy about

this guy who called in

Oliver Wilson's murder to the police was

that he was initially only

identified as "Deadman,"

which is a pretty weird name.

We subsequently found out

this was a nickname because

used to drive dead bodies

for the county coroner.

- He was a drug customer of Oliver's,

he was a friend of Oliver's.

- But he waited many months to contact the

police to tell them

what he claimed he knew

about the murder of Oliver Wilson.

So when Bobby tracked him

down he was in and out of

the hospital with a

life threatening illness

and we thought, y'know,

what better time to confront

him and say, "What's the truth?"

- I have cancer now.

I don't know how much time I have left.

So I just want the truth to be known.

Debbie deserves to be free,

she deserves the truth to be known

I never volunteered that

she was being beat up.

Y'know, where he had whupping

her with that bullwhip.

Y'know, didn't let her answer the door,

wouldn't open the door for nobody.

Y'know, so it was rough for her, so.

And I know, if that was

rough for her in there,

for 20-some years, her whole

life is destroyed, man.

- The other thing that we

began to get from Tony was an

explanation as to why he

waited so long to contact the

police, and apparently, for

all the years that Debbie

and Oliver were together,

Tony had been deeply

and secretly in love with Debbie.

- Deborah was a beautiful, beautiful girl.

I really loved her.

I fell for her like Kennedy

fell for Marilyn Monroe.

- I didn't think he

even liked me like that.

Because I knew he had a wife,

he had a wife and children.

- Tony was trying to court

Debbie, he wanted to be with

her, but now that she was free of Oliver,

Debbie went back to Tikisha's father.

- I got jealous, and I told everything.

Ripped my heart apart, so

I'd rip her heart apart.

I called Sheriff's.

Homicide.

I told 'em every thing that I knew,

and I mighta added something to it.

I tell you, whatever I told them,

it worked because they

had her within two days.

- As bad as it was, what Tony

did, what was even worse was

for the D.A. to know that he was lying,

and to put him on the stand anyway.

- When he heard that

they were gonna prosecute

Debbie for the death

penalty, he tried to back

out but the D.A. wouldn't let him.

In fact, he was arrested,

and he was told that

unless he testified

against Debbie Peagler,

they would vigorously

prosecute him for an old

felony charge that had

basically been dormant.

- They kept pushing, wanted me

to say, that Deborah told me,

after Oliver was killed,

that she had pre-planned

for him to be killed, that it was a murder

for hire, and, no it wasn't.

The regret is mostly that

I didn't think about her

being beat up or held hostage, being a ho.

I didn't look at all that, for

what she was going through.

But I did it and I have to live with it.

- I believe a tremendous

injustice has occurred.

- David Guthman is a recently

retired prosecutor from the

L.A. D.A.'s Office, and while

he didn't have anything to do

with Debbie's prosecution, he

has significant experience in

prosecuting death penalty

cases in that office.

So we gathered our materials up showed

them to him and we asked him.

- Was Deborah's level of

culpability truly reflected

with a conviction of 1st degree murder?

Absolutely not.

- In evaluating Debbie's case,

David Guthman went to speak

to the prosecutor at the

LA D.A.'s office who is in

charge of the parole unit that

has custody of Debbie's file.

He said "Come down and I'll

let you look at the file."

When I actually met with

the prosecutor, he said,

"I can't let you look at the file, but

"I can tell you what's in the file."

In the file there a

memo, which typically is

referred to as, an alibi memo.

- An alibi memo is actually the

prosecutor's own alibi as to

why they are not pursuing

death penalty where they had

attempted to get the death

penalty, and where they'd

gotten approval for the death penalty

from higher ups in the D.A.'s office.

So it was shocking to us to discover

that there was this alibi

memo saying that the D.A.

couldn't and shouldn't seek

the death penalty because the

D.A. did seek the death penalty.

They threatened Debbie with the death

penalty, and it was because

of the death penalty threat

that she took a plea to life in prison.

- I'm sitting there hopefully

with a poker face realizing

that that memo was dynamite.

And when I left that meeting

I immediately called Deborah's

attorneys and told them what

was contained in that memo.

- So according to David

Guthman, this memo says, way

back in 1983, the D.A.'s

office had concluded that

Oliver Wilson had molested

Debbie's daughter, which is

something we'd suspected

but have never been able to

prove, the D.A.'s office

concluded that Debbie's

motivation wasn't financial

gain, which was their whole

basis for prosecution back

then, and the memo concludes

that they had "veracity

concerns" with the witness or

witnesses required to prosecute Debbie.

So back in 1983, they didn't even have a

case against her, they had no evidence.

So going into this big

meeting with Steve Cooley

and his top brass today,

where we have all this

documentation that Debbie was battered,

I'm feeling really confident that this

is gonna move them to do the right thing.

- Getting the prosecutors to

agree that Debbie should be

released did not happen overnight.

It took more than three years to get them,

to see the light and it was

at time that we were able to

walk into that prison and

give Debbie that letter.

- Hello, Ms. Deborah.

- Hi!

Good to see you!

Hi Joshua!

- You knew we were coming, didn't you?

- Yeah.

- We have bad news and we have good news.

The bad news is that you have

apparently been incarcerated illegally.

The good news is, the D.A. has agreed that

your crime was voluntary

manslaughter, which means

your maximum sentence would

have been six years, under

the guideline, the penal

code section which was in

effect at the time.

We're gonna work with you

to explain what it means.

- My God.

- What the next

steps are, and help you.

- So this is from the

LA District Attorney's Office.

"You presented significant

issues which were unknown or

"unavailable at the time of trial.

"Once the matter has been returned to the

"jurisdiction of the Los

Angeles Superior Court, this

"office would be willing to

offer a plea to one count of

"voluntary manslaughter,

in violation of penal code

"section 1-92-A, with

credit for the years of

"imprisonment served thus far.

"Such disposition satisfies

our office policy of

"requiring a plea to the

charge which most accurately

"describes the defendant's

criminal conduct.

"In context, it also serves

the interests of justice."

- My God!

This is really happening.

It's like, you knew it could happen,

but it's really happening.

- I remember reading it,

y'know, tears coming in my

eyes, it was just this

overwhelming sense of

relief, that we are finally

helping Debbie unlock

that, unlock that gate.

- My goodness!

I still cannot, I am so

ecstatically happy, but I'm

so trying to contain it,

cause I so just wanna scream

and run around the building.

- When she told me that,

y'know I was like, y'know,

"Finally God, you answered my prayers"

Y'know, this is what I really,

really needed in my life.

And I know that's,

y'know, that's what she's

been praying for and

hoping for all these years.

So it was just a sigh of relief.

- It was just almost too

much to take in at one time,

because it was just so unbelievable

that my sister is finally coming home.

- I had absolute faith that

that letter meant the D.A.

would do the right thing, and that

we would see our client

released very shortly.

I had no doubt that it would happen.

- We filed our habeas

petition based on that deal,

and a few weeks after

filing our habeas petition,

we received a letter

from someone else in the

District Attorney's office

who we never met before,

saying "The deal is hereby withdrawn."

- God, this just, it's so

disheartening to have this letter,

and then someone else

come along, and says,

"That letter means nothing."

And someone that really doesn't have the

authority or the power to say that.

I don't get how that happened.

- Our case has seriously

called into question

the judgment of District

Attorney Steve Cooley.

He broke a written plea agreement with us

in order to instead align

himself with prosecutors

who have a well-established

record of misconduct.

- And while we don't know exactly what

happened in the LA

District Attorney's office,

we do have several indicators.

- One is, the D.A.'s office

asked us to have Debbie waive

all her claims against LA

County because they knew of all

the misconduct the D.A.'s

Office had been involved in.

We declined to do that.

- And there's a woman named

Lael Rubin who is the head of

the Appellate Division, and

she apparently became quite

upset when we supposedly went

quote "over her head" and

directly went to Steve Cooley

instead, because she thought

it should go through her department.

- Lael Rubin is best know for

her embarrassing witch hunt

of a trial called the McMartin Preschool

prosecution in which Rubin

relied on all kinds of false

evidence and false testimony,

and turned out to be one of

the largest failed

prosecutions in history.

- All right, look, just because we are

having some trouble

with some evidence that

doesn't make these

people suddenly innocent.

- Lael Rubin's participation

in that case led HBO to make a

made-for-TV movie called "Indictment."

The Lael Rubin character is played by

Mercedes Reuhl and she

is clearly the villain.

- There is a smoking gun out there.

I know it, we just gotta find it!

- Meanwhile, the letter that

we received from the D.A.'s

office purporting to withdraw

the plea agreement that we

had with the District

Attorney's office was sent by

a man named Curtis Hazel, the

number three guy in the LA

County District Attorney's

office, who is purported to be

an old fraternity buddy of

District Attorney Steve Cooley.

And his claim to fame

was that he slept with a

murder witness, who was a

stripper, and the D.A.'s

office kept Hazell's affair secret.

The fact that Cooley has

hand selected this group of

misfits is so dispiriting.

But we are going to fight it,

we don't care how powerful

they are in the D.A.'s office.

We are not going to let

them rip up our plea deal

and keep Debbie in prison forever.

- When we heard this news,

and we began researching the

issue, I never felt that

kind of pervasive sense of

hopelessness as I had before.

Not only are we right, and so

we can feel confident in the

fact that "You guys know you

did something wrong here,"

we have a case law that supports

our position and I feel,

it's not kind of this, often

times, y'know how lawyers are.

They don't have any kind

of legal position at all,

but they think if they argue effectively

enough they can get around that.

That's often what we do.

- That's often what we do.

- But here we actually have case law that

says this is not acceptable.

Obviously, y'know, we never

know what's gonna happen,

but what we will tell

you is that we're here,

and we can work through

the process with you,

and we have confidence in our

abilities, and the fact that

this is the just result

it'll ultimately come

to the fact that you will

walk out of this prison.

I walk through the front door

past our receptionist and she

stopped me and said, "I've

been holding this for you."

- The judge denied our habeas petition.

The judge never heard from D.A.'s office,

and the judge didn't even

really appear to understand the

new law that we filed it

under or even read our papers.

- When I found out that the

D.A. reneged on his offer and

that my sister would not be coming home,

to be honest with you

I got physically ill.

Because how can you get

someone's hopes up so high,

after serving 20-plus

years in jail, and then to

say, "Okay, well no, we changed our mind."

It was one of the biggest

let downs of my life.

- But then, that's like

the story of my life.

I go to board, I come back,

I go tell people I got denied

and they're like hysterical

and I have to comfort them.

I never really get a chance to

"Okay, wait hey, this should

be the other way around."

I am not a robot, I'm a

human being with feelings

and just because I don't

wear my problems on my sleeve

or tell everybody about everything I feel

and go through doesn't mean it's not real.

That I don't feel.

I don't hurt.

Leave me alone!

Just let me be disappointed.

And I'm gonna be all right

I'll bounce back, don't I always?

- At most, Deborah should

have been in, at most, for six

years, which was the maximum

for manslaughter in 1983.

Having been in for 24, 25

years, most of her time,

she's been illegally incarcerated.

If anyone's breaking the law,

the biggest lawbreaker has

been the D.A., the court

system, the prison system.

It's really a crime after

crime, that she's been

subjected to the bigger crime

here, the bigger injustice in

this case is that to the

extent that she was culpable

for anything at all, she

served her time, decades ago,

and yet she's still in there,

and it's just not right.

- All of this, the hundreds

of thousands of dollars,

the three years of time,

this will all be for

naught if we give up now.

- Yup.

- That's it.

- Y'know?

I mean there is no other

option at this point.

- I mean, the one thing I wanna say is,

we lost at the trial court,

we get two more shots,

they get more and more remote.

We get one at the court of

appeals, original jurisdiction,

boom, we lose there, we get one more

at the Supreme Court, boom, we lose there.

We possibly have some federal claim,

but forget it, there's no chance.

So, we only have two shots.

Because we're fighters,

I think we have to fight,

I mean, assuming the D.A.

tells us to screw ourselves,

there's nothing that says we

can't go ahead and file some

suit against Los Angeles

Superior Court, seeking specific

performance to force them

to do their plea deal.

- The only way this is

gonna work, is if we,

literally think of this as,

at least in my own mind,

y'know, one step at a

time, one step at a time.

I have to break it down, I

just have to get distance,

away from this office and away

from this case for a moment,

'cause otherwise I'll just lose it.

♪ Being double-crossed ain't nothing new ♪

♪ Look around, child that's how they do ♪

It's funny how running

a marathon can really

teach you a lot of lessons, and help train

you for bigger things than a race.

Regardless of how painful,

regardless of how much you

want to stop, as long as

you keep moving, ultimately,

you're gonna get to that

finish line, it's a fact.

And so that's kind of our

strategy right now, is to

understand that this is a

huge endeavor that we're

undertaking right now and.

No.

- You asked me, one of

the last times you were

talking to me, about matir ha asurim,

this Hebrew prayer of

releasing the prisoners.

And then I went up to services

two weeks ago and hit that line.

It totally brought this wave

of emotion over me as I was

thinking about Deborah in that

moment and what that meant.

And in my mind I always had

it, like a cold rainy day at

Chowchilla with like Nadia

and I and you with a camera,

and in this vision that

popped into my head, my family

was there with me, and I

was saying to my daughter

"This is what I do, this is my job."

And she would get it, she would see this,

woman coming out, probably

crying and her family there.

She would understand, y'know, why I

spend the late nights doing

this, and, and for me what it

means to be an attorney, cause she knows

intellectually, y'know, she

knows that I'm an attorney

and that I help people.

She doesn't know that I

usually help people get their

land entitled to build

multi-family residential

units, but, y'know she would

be there to know that,

y'know that this what my

job is, and this is, and

hopefully it'd be a memory

that she'd take with her her

whole life to see this event.

So.

After I had that vision

I kinda thought well

maybe, this portends what's to come.

- Hello?

Okay, that was Peter

Hong from The LA Times.

They like the story.

- She was convicted of murder

more than 20 years ago,

but tonight attorneys

fighting for a battered

woman's freedom say there is

a lot we haven't heard about

her story of abuse and desperation.

- In hand, we have a civil

complaint that we're gonna

file, and it tells the whole

story, and CBS News has a

two-minute slot on your story,

footage from Yoav is on the news.

- Tonight her attorneys charge

that LA County prosecutors

went back on their word

by backing out of a plea

agreement, and they have the

correspondence to prove it.

It's right there in black and white.

The LA County District

Attorney's Office told

Deborah Peagler's attorneys

last summer, it's willing to

let her out of jail after 23 years.

The letter includes the name of

District Attorney Steve

Cooley, and it's signed

by then Chief Deputy D.A. Curt Livesay.

- So, we're back to the drawing board.

The parole board has denied us.

The court, Superior Court has denied us.

The D.A. hates us.

- The prosecutors office refused comment

citing pending litigation,

that litigation filed today

by Peagler's attorneys.

- We have asked parole board

to reconsider their last finding.

The D.A.'s Office, we're

suing them to force

them to stick to their deal.

And we're appealing the

Superior Court's denial, all

the way up to the Court of

Appeal, in the hope that

they're gonna direct the

court to do the right thing.

- Coming up here, we're going

to meet two Bay Area attorneys

who decided to help out a

domestic violence victim.

They thought it would just

be a couple of months.

Five years later, they're

still on the case.

- There's a reason that

your case is going to draw

attention to this remedy.

- 25 years for a crime,

unjustly put in prison

I want everybody who cares

about something like this to

remember what I'm about to say right here.

W-W-W Free Debbie dot org.

For us, as outsiders coming

in to help, coming in to help

bring awareness to the situation,

it inspires me to be dealing

with people who, against all

odds, are pushing forward,

against all odds are striving

to believe in miracles,

striving to believe in truth.

- Nice to meet you, thank

you so much for coming.

I'm so excited!

- We are too!

- None of us are free.

While one of us are chained,

none of us are free.

My case should matter to

people outside of California

because my case isn't about me anymore.

It's about so many other people.

I represent the larger part of

the women's prison population.

♪ You better listen my

sisters my brothers ♪

♪ Cause if you do, then you can hear ♪

♪ There are voices still

calling across the years ♪

♪ And they're crying across the ocean ♪

♪ And they're cryin across the land ♪

♪ And they will till we

all come to understand ♪

♪ Understand ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

♪ If one of us is chained ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

- Y'know, you have to

applaud Deborah for strength.

When you've been locked

up for that many years,

and then you're promised to be free.

And then you get your mind

set ready, you get your heart

ready, and you get excited

about the new world you're

about to travel and

then they renege on it.

And everything changes.

Not only could it break you, but it

could totally change your

viewpoint about justice,

what is the word?

It could change your viewpoint about God,

who is he, what is he doing?

It could break most human beings.

- Because I went through

all this, all this pain,

and all this stuff is not in vain.

It's gonna be great for someone else.

- Since California is the only

state that has this habeas

petition law on its books,

if other states look at

California and the attention

this case has in the media,

and the legal attention that

the case would get if it's

decided at that level, then

hopefully other states will

look at these cases, pass

legislation in their states,

and use California as a model.

- There's a new law in

California that will allow

some domestic abuse evidence

in court that would have not

been allowed before, correct?

- That's right, in.

- And so that's what you

wanna do is get this.

- In 1983 it wasn't relevant

whether you were battered, it

wasn't even legally admissible.

- This document is the 1983 memo

written by the District Attorney.

- So Bobby finally got his

hands on the D.A.'s alibi

memo from 1983 and we were amazed.

- Bobby won't say how he got it.

As he always likes to say,

part of being a private

investigator is being an investigator,

and part of it is being private.

But I will tell you that the memo is

shocking and the information

in that memo itself

could probably exonerate Debbie.

- It says that Deadman perjured

himself on the stand, he

lied, that's their word, he

perjured himself on the stand.

- This is certainly the

smoking gun that supports the

position that we've already alleged.

- There's an enormous

difference between saying

"There are veracity concerns

with the witness or witnesses"

and saying "Anthony Reedburg committed

"perjury at the preliminary hearing."

- These people, to give

her a life-top sentence,

did it, lied to her, for a win.

How fucked that is?

- And the memo goes on to

say that he's an informant.

It turns out Deadman has

been a paid informant for law

enforcement in Los Angeles

County for decades.

These were facts that the D.A.

was obligated to disclose in

1983, an obligation disclosure

that has continued everyday

for 25 years, and the D.A.'s

Office has kept it secret.

- Ms. Lopez an you

make a statement as to why

the Los Angeles District

Attorney's Office withdrew its

own offer made in writing

to free Deborah Peagler?

- No, I think that all of the evidence

has been presented on that.

- Tracey, we've got a

meeting to go to, excuse me.

- Excuse me.

- Ms. Rubin, do you

have any comment as to why

the District Attorney withdrew the

offer for Deborah Peagler?

Do you have any comment as to why.

- I said we have a meeting to go to.

Why don't you try making an appointment

at a time that we can speak with you?

Thank you.

- I would love to do that.

Will you agree to an appointment?

It's almost as if they

didn't want to talk to us.

- We need some ruling that

the District Attorney is not a

party to argue on the other

side of this, you know,

because they've withheld this information.

- They've got disqualifying

interests all over this thing.

- Right.

It took us a year and a half,

but we finally won at the court of appeal.

They sent Debbie's case

back down to lower court.

They ordered the court

to give her her day in

court, and the first thing

that we're doing is we're

moving to disqualify the

entire L.A. D.A.'s office,

because of all the misconduct

that they've been involved in,

going all the way back to 1983

and involving everyone all

the way up to the District

Attorney, Steve Cooley himself.

These motions are very rarely granted, in

US history maybe a handful of

times has a court thrown out

an entire D.A.'s office, in

this case a thousand attorneys.

But we believe that

the facts of misconduct

are so compelling that we've

got a pretty good shot of

knocking the D.A.'s office out.

- So you want tell her the.

- We should probably start

with the best news first.

- The big news!

- In a 12-page written

decision, Judge Ryan has

disqualified the entire

District Attorney's Office,

all one thousand attorneys.

- Yay!

- And held that they're recused for

disqualifying conflicts of interest.

- Yay!

- And held that all of the

senior D.A.s, including

Steve Cooley, Lael Rubin,

John Spillane, Curtis Hazell,

Curt Livesay, they're

all circling the wagons

to protect their professional reputations.

So that's, the big good

news is that D.A. is off.

- Yay.

- Ryan's a great

judge, the bad news is.

- Answered prayer.

- That the D.A. has an independent right

to appeal the decision, if they want.

- Which they probably will.

You think they will?

- A rational approach, for

the D.A.'s perspective,

from the D.A.'s perspective

is not to appeal because.

- But we're not dealing

with rational people.

- Well, that's true.

- How are you?

- I'm okay.

About five months ago

I started to feel ill,

like I had a cold or a flu.

And I went to the doctor,

that was in November.

I went back in December, still

treated for cold, flu-like

symptoms, nothing helped,

none of the medicine they gave me helped.

So I went back in January,

finally got a chest x-ray ordered.

Was diagnosed with pneumonia,

and treated with antibiotics.

Still cough persisted,

still didn't feel well.

See a doctor again,

beginning of February, got

transferred out to the hospital,

Madera Community Hospital,

series of tests ran,

and, within, I'd say a

two-week period of time, was

diagnosed with lung cancer.

- We don't know whether she

got it from smoking cigarettes

20 years ago, or whether

it's, as many of the inmates

believe, she was exposed to

hazardous materials in prison.

Whatever the case, we

probably never know, and it's

terminal, and we're in

a race against time.

- I always worry that

her last breath would be

inside those walls, instead of with us.

I feel like the least, there's

no way I would have peace,

I can get peace outta this,

if it happens that way.

- Everyone that we talk to are

praying for you, are supporting you.

We're getting phone calls

from people we've never met,

who are calling and saying

"what can we do," and.

- Wow.

- Your strength and perseverance

in this is remarkable.

- I didn't really have a choice.

- Yeah.

I am privileged to work on your case.

Y'know it's maybe the most

important thing I have ever done.

Every day I think about you

and this case and what to do.

And I speak to Nadia and

Joshua and Yoav and we are

constantly working and thinking.

All of a sudden this thing,

you know this medical health

thing, this cancer sort of

upped the ante enormously.

So now we are in like another

gear and in some way we are

praying for some way that, you

know, for that it works out.

- It's got to, I just

do not want to die here.

I don't want to die here.

- The medical care that inmates receive in

California prisons is reprehensible.

And in fact a federal judge has determined

that it is actually unconstitutional.

So at this point in time

we are driving down to get

Debbie's records but most

importantly to be with Debbie

as she endures her first

chemotherapy, which can be

horrifically painful even in

the best hospital setting.

- It's kind of overwhelming

sometimes cause here it is

y'know, we're attorney-client.

But we're really not

attorney-client, we're like family.

They make me feel like

they're my family, and

they don't make me feel like I'm a client.

And them being there

with me during my first

chemo meant the world to me.

I don't know how I'm

ever gonna repay them,

how I'm ever show them how

much I appreciate them.

It's been horrible.

It's the worst thing anybody

could possibly go through.

I still can't believe it.

Still.

But I'm just so weak.

I don't have any energy,

and it drives me crazy.

Cause y'know I'm used to being busy

and having a life, and it's

like now I don't have a life,

all I do is watch T.V. and sleep.

- Hey Natasha.

- Hi Joshua, how are you?

How you doin'?

- I want you to know that we're

not going to give up on your Mom.

I'm hopeful that, you know,

we'll try to put together

the biggest and best package

that we can on parole.

But also, as you know, she's

been denied three times before

and they never really seem

to give much of a reason.

So, it's kind of a shot in the dark.

- We appreciate the fight,

the effort, the love,

we appreciate it all.

I know you'll fight as hard as we will,

if not harder to get us on board to get us

to where we want to be

where she'll be home.

I think it'll be worth it,

even if it's a day or a hour,

I think it will be worth it.

Lord, this is hard.

We've been fighting 27 years.

- What we need to do is to

tell your story, and have faith

that in the end, you're gonna

find peace no matter what.

You're gonna find peace no

matter what because we're

telling a story that's

accurate, and we're telling a

story that deserves to be heard.

- I feel like I'm suitable

for parole because

I have a understanding of

my crime, I know what I did.

I know what I did was horrible,

I can't take it back, I wish I could.

I know the impact that my actions have

had on not only my family, but his family.

I've made amends with the

majority of his family.

I've reached out to them and

have received forgiveness

and understanding.

I think because of that.

And the fact that my victim's family

does not oppose my release.

- The evidence before you

shows that Ms. Peagler,

starting at the age of fifteen

and continuing for years,

was subjected to horrific abuse

at the hands of Oliver Wilson.

And note that, that this evidence comes,

not primarily from Debbie

Peagler, but from numerous

percipient witnesses who were present

and saw what she endured,

many of whom were Oliver

Wilson's friends and family.

- For the record my

name is Natasha Wilson.

I am the daughter of both the

inmate as well as the victim.

I'm pleading and begging

in the release of my Mom.

She's already given all that she can give.

She's done all that she can do to state

she's sorry, to right the wrong.

It's nothing else she can do or say.

It's hard sitting by the phone just

waiting for the answer, the solution.

This is the solution,

it comes to this day.

I haven't had a relationship

with my Mom that

I need to have because

of her being in prison.

I just want one night with no

limitations, one night where

I can do whatever, say

whatever, hug her, talk to

her, just the basic, simplest

stuff, eat dinner with her,

just, in my home, before she die.

Please don't let my Mom

die inside this prison, I'm

just beggin' and pleadin'

for just one day.

Please.

- Despite the negative

circumstances, and like

we say, we've fully considered those

circumstances, and after weighing all the

considerations provided in

Title Fifteen, the panel

finds you are suitable for

parole because the positive

aspects of your case outweigh

the other considerations.

Specifically, we find

you suitable for parole,

based on the fact that you

were were suffering from

intimate partner battering at the time.

We also have acknowledged your,

support in the community

and in the institution.

- Well, in a bizarre narrative

twist which is now typical of

this case, Debbie's fate

rests in the hands of all

people, of a man who before

he became governor, was best

known for portraying a

merciless, robotic, killing

machine from the future.

Governor Schwarzenegger has

received thousands of letters

in support of Debbie's

release and only one letter

in opposition from D.A. Steve Cooley,

and we don't know what he's gonna do.

- If after all of the evidence

that we have been able to

produce, that proves the

abuse that she suffered, and

all of the evidence we have

been able to present that

proves the amount of

misconduct that occurred in

this case, combine that with

the fact that she now has

stage IV lung cancer, if we

are not able to take all of

that information and get for

her that one day of freedom,

then to me I think the

criminal justice system is

not only broken but

perhaps, beyond repair.

But on the other hand, if we are able to

secure her freedom and give

her, even just that one day,

with her family outside of

those prison gates, then

what it says to me, is that there is hope.

- A controversial and long running

case regains the spotlight today.

- She's only been given

days or months to live.

Deborah Peagler has served

27 years of a 25-to-life

sentence in prison for killing a man even

authorities acknowledge

brutalized her and her daughters.

♪ Am I gonna make the news tonight ♪

♪ Make an example of my life ♪

♪ Are you gonna leave me here to die ♪

♪ Or are you gonna save my life ♪

- Free Debbie now!

- The victim's family,

the Wilson family has no

objection to her comin'

home, they even went to every

parole hearing for the last

probably six or seven years

pleading with you all to let

her come home, so if they

have no objection to it, who

are you to keep her in there?

I mean she can do no harm, so

please Governor Schwarzenegger

please, allow my sister to come home and

spend her last days

with her family, please.

- The District Attorney

himself Steve Cooley said,

"Well that's right," and,

had agreed to a deal to

let her out, so for him

to renege on his deal

is the first thing that

really stinks here.

♪ Am I gonna make the news tonight ♪

♪ Make an example of my life ♪

♪ Are you gonna leave me here to die ♪

♪ Or are you gonna save my life ♪

- Can you count to five for me?

- One, two, three, four, six.

- Steve Cooley, can you

answer for me, why you changed

your stance on the case

of Deborah Peagler?

- You know that, that matter's

under civil litigation,

we're not gonna discuss that.

Tonight's my night for attorney

general, and, after all

it was a, assassination

killing for insurance purposes.

- I'm sorry to belabor the

point, but there's one piece

of evidence your office held on to for

25 years in the Deborah Peagler case.

Can you explain why that was

never turned over to her attorneys?

- Quite frankly, I don't know

what you're talking about.

And if that's your only issue

then this interview is probably over.

We did appropriately.

Thank you very much.

- And here's Natasha.

Hi!

- Hi.

- How was your flight?

- It was good.

- Okay, so we're gonna go down here.

- Carla and Nadia is calling me.

- We have a little bit of change of plans.

I have an email from Nadia that I wanted.

- Yeah, she's calling me

and my aunt's called me.

- And she did?

And did you speak to them?

- No, I haven't spoken to anyone yet.

- Okay, so this is a note, from Nadia.

It says, "The governor

is declining to review,

"she is getting out."

- My God.

- And then there's an

attachment letter which I'm

gonna get on this funky

phone and I'll read it to

you, but basically,

sometime in the next day,

two, three, she will be out.

Out, she will walk out

the door of the prison.

- Thank you so much.

- I'm so happy for you.

- Thank you so so so much.

Thank you so much.

- It's Saturday night,

after the Sabbath, and a

few days before Debbie is

supposed to be released.

And I just, I'm coming back

online after my sabbatical,

my 25 hour sabbatical, and I'm

just wanna check in and see

what I've missed over the last

twenty-five hours and see if

we can get a more precise read

on when Debbie's getting out.

Well, I just wanted to

check in with you, I've been

offline for about 24

hours, and wanted to see if

you heard anything from

Debbie or from the prison.

Who there with you?

Wow, that's fantastic news.

Okay, no problem.

Hi, how ya doin?

I'm fantastic!

Did they tell you what they

were doing or did they?

I can't believe that they

snuck you out like that.

I know, the only thing is,

the sooner the better, but

we certainly would have

liked to have been there,

but how did it go for ya?

You came to freedom in

a Denny's parking lot?

Man.

Y'know I, this is, well,

God works in mysterious ways.

I guess I just didn't.

That's amazing.

It makes it all worth it.

- Lookie here, we did it!

- We did it.

- We did it!

- Welcome home.

- Thank you so much.

A lot better yes.

Beautiful sunset, look at the clouds.

It's beautiful!

We went and walked on the beach.

What made the experience even more special

to me, was the fact that

Joshua brought his daughter.

She was born, right when

Joshua took my case.

I'll treasure that in my mind, forever.

I feel such amazement right now.

That's all I thought about was coming

to the ocean while I was in prison.

Woah, woah, woah!

Whoa, got me!

- Personally I would love for Debbie to

continue to sue Steve

Cooley and the D.A.'s office

for all their misdeeds and for the false

imprisonment and the

malicious prosecution.

But after all we have been

through Debbie feels like she

is done with legal battles

and she wants to devote the

rest of her days to being with family

and friends and helping others.

And Debbie believes that God

will take care of Steve Cooley.

- This was Los

Angeles District Attorney

Steve Cooley on election

night, declaring victory

in the race for state Attorney General.

- Although my highly paid

trusted advisors say it may

be a little too early,

I am declaring victory.

- Oops, he should

have listened to his advisors.

This morning Steve Cooley conceded the

Attorney General's race

to Democrat Kamela Harris.

- Harris will

become the first woman and the

first minority to serve as

California Attorney General.

Experts are saying it

is an important step to

restoring faith in the

criminal justice system.

- They imprisoned her body,

but they did not imprison her

mind, or her soul, Deborah Peagler.

- I take every opportunity

I can to share my story in

hopes that no one, no one,

would ever have to suffer and

go through the things I've been through.

Nothing is going to stop

me, not even this cancer.

And even after I pass,

this film will continue on.

Telling my story.

Telling the story of others.

The kindness of strangers,

people who did not even know

me, for the pursuit of justice.

I'll never stop.

- Everybody say Deborah!

- Deborah!

- I'm home. I have so

much to be thankful for.

Since my release from prison,

just amazing things have happened.

Things I can't call

anything else but miracles.

Number one, my health.

I have more good days than bad days.

What are you doin'?

Yeah?

What else?

The second thing is forgiveness.

I've experienced forgiveness

from Oliver's family,

I've had the opportunity to

be embraced by his mother.

And spending time with her,

such a spirit of peace was upon me.

His sister Zabrina.

And I can't even tell you how that feels.

Woah!

- I get to sit down and watch

Granny play with her grandkids.

What a joy!

I know, it's wonderful.

It's a wonderful feeling to have her here.

It really is.

Everything about it, and everything about

her is a dream come true.

♪ There are people still in darkness ♪

♪ And they can't see the

light see the light ♪

♪ If you don't stay its

wrong that says it's right ♪

♪ We've got to try to

feel for each other ♪

♪ Let our brothers know that we care ♪

♪ Got to get the message ♪

♪ Send it out loud and

clear, loud and clear ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

♪ If one of us is chained ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

♪ It's the simple truth ♪

♪ We all need to just hear and to sing ♪

♪ None of us are free if

one of us is chained ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

♪ No no no ♪

♪ Now I swear this salvation

isn't hard to find ♪

♪ None of us as can find

it on our own, on our own ♪

♪ We've got to join together ♪

♪ In spirit, heart and mind ♪

♪ So that every soul that's suffering ♪

♪ Will known they're not alone ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

♪ None of us are free if

one of us is chained ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

♪ None of us are free if

one of us is chained ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

♪ If you just look

around you, look around ♪

♪ You're gonna see what I see ♪

♪ There's a world that's getting

smaller each passing day ♪

♪ Passing day ♪

♪ Now it's time to start

making changes, changes ♪

♪ And it's time for us all to realize ♪

♪ That the truth is shining bright ♪

♪ Right before our eyes, before our eyes ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

♪ None of us are free if

one of us is chained ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

♪ None of us, none of us ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

♪ None of us are free if

one of us is chained ♪

♪ None of us are free ♪

Crime After Crime (2011) - full transcript