Original subtitles

- I'm Craig Melvin,

and this is "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."

- Something is wrong here.

The system doesn't want to acknowledge that

they made a mistake. But you made a mistake!

- The detective was like,

"You gonna tell us you did this."

And I'm like, "Man, I ain't did nothin'."

- You hear the judge say "guilty."

- Everything just froze.

- Two brothers convicted of murder

fight back against the justice system.

- Twice is a pattern.

A pattern of how to gain a conviction.

- I knew they were innocent, and the question was

"Do we have enough?"

- You've got several witnesses saying

their testimony was coerced. Can they all be lying?

- If I have to die in this situation,

let it be said that I would die trying to prove it,

that I was innocent, man.

Never that I gave up. Never.

**

- Hello, and welcome to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."

The story you are about to hear is an intensely personal one,

centered around three men who say they are victims

of wrongful convictions.

The journey to prove their innocence

spanned three decades as they withstood

one denied appeal after another.

Giving up was never an option,

but would their fight lead to justice?

Here's "The Long Road to Freedom."

Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Look at a list of top places to live,

and you'll often find it.

"A city of promise of a new kind of energy,"

as its motto says. But look a bit closer.

Just over the railroad tracks

that separate the north from the south side,

and you'll find the city divided.

Segregated.

And if you walk deeper into north Tulsa,

past the boarded-up houses and the broken basketball hoops,

you'll hear a story that's all too familiar.

- The truth is, man, I've had to deal with the pain,

I've had to deal with the anger, the frustration, sadness, uh,

the misery, you know.

- Like the families of George Floyd,

Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown,

and hundreds of other young

African-Americans whose names are being chanted

in protests nationwide,

Malcolm Scott wants his story told.

- Because if we don't know that it exists,

how can we do anything about it?

- His story starts like so many other black lives

that have struggled to matter.

Raised in poverty under the watchful,

suspicious eye of the police,

and destined to a life of run-ins with the law.

But at its heart,

it's a story about two brothers, Malcolm and Cory,

and a bond that could not be broken,

not even in the face of unimaginable odds.

What was it like growing up in-in north Tulsa?

- Oh, you feel like you were always home, you know?

Familiar faces always surround you.

- Large family too, as I understand it.

- Twelve brothers and sisters.

- Twelve. - Yeah.

So, yeah, it was crowded. [laughs]

I was really big into sports.

Like, I love, you know, me getting ahold

to a football in my hand and running was like,

you know, life.

- Malcolm caught the football bug from Cory,

who was his older half brother and best friend.

- We have a beautiful relationship.

My mama tell me, you know, "he's crazy about you.

You know. He'd do everything you do."

- As a young teenager, Malcolm dealt with a father

who struggled with alcohol addiction

and sometimes abused him. Cory was his safe haven.

- I had to protect him.

- Did he kind of start to play the role of dad?

- I could better relate to him.

I didn't fear him.

And I felt kinda safe with him.

- Feeling safe was rare in north Tulsa.

This was where the poorest of the poor lived,

a place with very few social services,

but lots of crack cocaine and gang violence.

The night of August 3rd, 1990, was typical.

On the corner of Atlanta and 4th,

a gun was fired.

Cory says he happened to be driving through.

- I looked toward the shot came from,

and I seen the dude fall, and as we got right there,

and I looked and seen his chest was still moving,

he was still breathing, and I was like,

"Man, somebody call an ambulance for him."

- When police arrived,

they found 29-year-old James Lane,

a small-time drug dealer, dead on the sidewalk.

He'd been shot once in the chest and robbed.

Police stopped Cory at the scene.

Some of his friends were known gang members,

and police thought Cory was, too.

But he had no criminal record.

- And they pulled it us at the car,

and they searched my car down, they searched us down,

and, uh, let us go.

- Investigators were not able to develop any leads,

and the case went cold.

But six months after Lane's death,

a 16-year-old named Doane Thomas told police he saw the shooter.

It was Cory.

Police arrested Cory and charged him

with first-degree murder.

- I was taken to the homicide division,

and a detective was like,

"You gonna tell us you did this."

And I'm like, "Uh, man, I ain't did nothing."

- At trial, Doane Thomas became the prosecution's star witness,

and prosecutors had more evidence.

They played an interrogation video

of Cory's friend, Ben King, who was with him that night,

in which he, too, told detectives that

Cory was the killer.

Cory took the stand in his own defense

and testified he tried to help the victim, not kill him.

- I could remember the D.A.

He said, "You know, if they don't believe you,

you going to the penitentiary for the rest of your life."

And I just-- And I said,

"Yeah, but the truth gonna come out."

- The jury did not believe him, and found Cory guilty.

On June 25th, 1991, he was sentenced to life

and shipped off to a maximum security prison.

Just like that, he was out of Malcolm's life.

- Cory left when I was no more than 13,

and, uh, that was hard.

- To fill the void, Malcolm started to

hang out more with De'Marchoe Carpenter,

a lanky basketball player and neighborhood jokester.

- I was gonna be a comedian.

You know, I used to think I was so funny.

You know, I always tell jokes and get the girls

and make 'em laugh.

- But in north Tulsa, fun could easily turn tragic

in a split second.

Malcolm and De'Marchoe were at a party spot

late one night in December 1993,

when a drive-by shooter hit the place.

Malcolm was grazed,

but De'Marchoe was badly injured.

He was rushed to the hospital, Malcolm by his side.

- I said, "Just hang in there. Keep your eyes open."

And, no, he was holding my hand and I remember him squeeze.

"Hold-Hold on, hang in there."

- Losing his brother to prison,

then seeing his friend almost die hardened Malcolm.

He inched a bit closer to the streets.

In fact, police caught him with a handgun,

something he says probably would not have happened

if Cory had been around.

- He's always been the one that said,

"Man, no, you don't-you don't need to be involved

with none of that.

You need to be in school,

'cause you gonna get that football."

- Malcolm had always wanted to

follow in his brother's footsteps,

and he was about to.

Gang warfare explodes in Tulsa, and young Malcolm finds himself

caught up in it.

- These witnesses said that

they saw Malcolm and De'Marchoe there,

and they saw the shooting, they identified them.

- Fingers are pointed at Malcolm and his friend.

- Everything just froze.

It's like time just suspended for a second.

- I've seen faces and people was crying,

but I didn't hear nothin'.

**

Here's an inescapable fact of growing up

in a violence-ridden, low-income community

like north Tulsa then, and now:

if you are a 17-year-old black teenager

like Malcolm was in 1994, you're on the police's radar,

whether you're in a gang or not.

- I frequently heard complaints from kids about

being arrested for no reason, being hassled, being stopped,

being labeled gang members when they may have

worn certain color.

- Ziva Branstetter was an investigative crime reporter

for the Tulsa World Newspaper for 22 years.

- I think the vast majority were good cops doing their job,

trying to keep up, going from call to call,

but there were other reports of, um, you know,

indiscriminate arrests.

- Branstetter says that what she saw in Tulsa

reflected the stark reality all across the country.

- Tulsa was roughly 10%, um, African-American,

but the arrest rate among African-Americans is about 43%.

- If you were a kid back then, it was easier to grow up

in south Tulsa than north Tulsa. - Absolutely.

I raised two kids, oh, in south Tulsa,

and, um, I didn't have to worry about my boys

being pulled over for no reason.

I didn't worry about, you know, the safety of-of my sons.

- How bad was the gang problem in Tulsa then?

- The gang problem was bad. People were afraid.

There were reports regularly about Crips and Bloods warring,

you know, the Tulsa police department

was trying to deal with a very high violent crime rate,

lot of guns in the street.

- September 10th, 1994

was just that kind of day in north Tulsa.

Another drive-by shooting, another senseless death.

This time, it was 19-year-old Karen Summers,

the mother of a baby boy, who was gunned down

at 2:30 in the morning

as she was hanging with friends at a party.

- Frankly, this kind of case,

while it did involve a tragic loss of life

of a young mother who was an innocent victim,

it was not hi-highly unusual in Tulsa.

- The murder had all the signs of a gang crime,

and lots of Crips were at the party.

So a day later,

Tulsa homicide investigator Mike Huff

paid a visit to Michael Wilson,

a well-known member of the Bloods.

Huff noticed a maroon sedan parked in Wilson's driveway.

It matched the description of the drive-by car.

- Mike Huff says, "Hey, I wanna talk to you

about this shooting; what do you know?"

And Michael is trying to hide a gun.

Huff sees the gun and takes the gun.

Ballistics tests showed that that was the gun that,

you know, was used to kill Karen Summers.

- It seemed damning,

but Wilson told detectives he was hiding the gun

for Malcolm's friend De'Marchoe

and had given De'Marchoe the bullets.

Wilson was arrested for holding the gun,

but his story lined up with what police were hearing

from two eyewitnesses.

Malcolm and De'Marchoe killed Karen Summers.

- These witnesses said that they saw

Malcolm and De'Marchoe there.

They saw the shooting. They identified them.

- Suddenly Malcolm was in almost the same situation

his brother had been in three years before,

and telling a Tulsa homicide detective

exactly the same thing, "I'm innocent."

- I'm like, whoever, you know, is telling you this,

t-they're obviously mistaken.

I didn't have nothing to do with it.

- But despite the fact that no physical evidence

pointed to Malcolm and De'Marchoe,

prosecutors believed they were the shooters.

So they cut a deal with Michael Wilson.

They allowed him to plead guilty to a lesser charge

in exchange for testifying against Malcolm and De'Marchoe.

At trial, the prosecution presented the two eyewitnesses

and what Wilson had told them.

Then De'Marchoe said

the prosecutor approached him about a deal.

"Say that Malcolm did it, and we'll cut you a break."

- I thought that he was insane even asking me that.

- You didn't even consider it. - No, definitely not.

Why would I do that?

Why would I throw him under the bus?

- De'Marchoe turned down the deal.

But just nine hours later, he stood horrified

as the jury delivered its verdict.

The two friends were both found guilty

of 1st degree murder.

- I couldn't hear nothing.

I seen faces and people were crying,

but I didn't hear nothing.

- A judge sentenced Malcolm and De'Marchoe

to life in prison plus 170 years.

- Everything just froze.

It's like...

time just suspended for a second.

- Malcolm thought of his older brother Corey.

Now they were both serving life

for murders they said they did not commit,

but they were determined to stay strong

and to help each other.

- We basically had made a pact with each other.

We said, man, whoever gets out of here first,

better come get the other one.

- The odds Malcolm and Corey could keep that promise

were next to impossible.

The road to freedom, if it ever came, would be long,

filled with unexpected twists and revelations.

- I just kind of imagine what it must--

you know, to be dropped in a hole 30 feet deep

and good luck getting out.

- A private investigator

tracks down one of the eyewitnesses

who ID'd Malcolm and De'Marchoe as the killers.

- He couldn't even look me in the eye.

He said, "man, I've been carrying around a burden.

Those boys didn't do that."

**

Corey Atchison had been in prison

for 28 years when I sat down with him.

He said he spent almost every day of it

trying to prove his innocence.

But he had exhausted his appeals

and been denied parole five times.

Was there a point over the last 20-plus years

where you thought, "I'm gonna die here"?

- Times when you get denied in court,

you feel low.

You just wanna say, give up sometimes.

- What was your lowest point?

- It would probably have been in situations

when I wanted to be out there with my daughter

and help her, and I couldn't.

- Corey's daughter Courtney was born a couple of months

after her father started his life sentence.

- They sent me paperwork trying to forfeit my custody,

saying I was unfit because I was in prison.

And, uh, it felt like, uh, I was failing her.

You know, it felt like it wasn't even my fault.

- Corey felt that sense of failure and helplessness again

when he heard about Malcolm.

What did you think when you heard that your--

your brother was convicted?

- My first thought was, like, this is my fault,

because he followed in my footsteps.

It felt like this is my child

being taken away.

- Did you know that your brother told us

that he feels partly responsible

for you going to prison?

- I mean, there's no blame on my brother at all.

And I definitely can't hold him responsible

for something that I didn't even do myself.

- When Malcolm entered prison,

he thought he'd get out as soon as he filed his first appeal.

Then his second.

And third.

- Denied. Denied. Denied.

- So Malcolm and his friend De'Marchoe

started writing letters.

- Who'd you write to?

- Anybody in the legal field that you could think of.

- What would you say in these letters?

- I'm an innocent man.

You know, I just need somebody

to look at this case, and they will see.

- They wrote thousands of letters

day after day for 11 years.

Finally, in 2006

private investigator Eric Cullen,

the son of a Tulsa homicide detective,

took on the case.

- I kind of describe Malcolm and De'Marchoe's letters

as kinda scratches on a wall.

I just kind of imagine what it must be--

you know, to be dropped in a hole 30 feet deep

a-and good luck getting out.

There's no such thing as a criminal justice system.

It's just a system. It's not always fair.

And it's not always right.

- Cullen tracked down the first eyewitness

who identified Malcolm and De'Marchoe

as the killers.

- And he couldn't even look me in the eye.

He said, "Man, I got-I got--

"I've been carrying around a burden.

"Man, t-those boys didn't do that."

- The man told Cullen he'd shot at the drive-by car

as it sped away

and claimed that detectives

threatened to put him behind bars

for firing his weapon

if he didn't testify against Malcolm and De'Marchoe.

- He says that they told him

he could be charged with felony murder

for firing that gun,

and that it might've been him that killed Karen Summers,

who knows?

- Now that he was making progress,

Cullen needed help.

So he turned to someone who's been a champion

against wrongful convictions for years:

Tiffany Murphy then the director

of the Oklahoma Innocence Project.

It wasn't the first time

a Tulsa case had landed on Murphy's desk.

- I was seeing a lot of cases

where there were no facts that supported

what I was seeing on these convictions.

When you're seeing that lack over time

involving the same departments, sheriff's office,

police department, prosecutor's office,

that's what really bothered me.

- Cullen and the Innocence team

tracked down the second eyewitness

who'd testified he'd seen Malcolm and De'Marchoe.

But police records showed he had been shot in the buttocks

and his back was turned.

- Common sense tells you,

if you got shut in the butt, you were running away,

you're not gonna be able to see anything.

- The eyewitness recanted.

And he claimed detectives had coerced

his testimony, too.

- This is a kid who got pressured

into saying something he did not see.

I was just watching him,

and I could tell, this was a man

who was remembering something that was extremely traumatic.

And as a Black woman, I get that.

I understand that, you know.

The fear of the police is a real thing.

- Now only one of the prosecution's

key witnesses remained, Michael Wilson.

- Michael is it. Whatever he had to say

had to kind of tie everything together.

- And the team knew exactly where to find Michael Wilson,

on death row.

- My name is Michael Lee Wilson.

- I was incredibly nervous,

because I knew what was on the line

for Malcolm and De'Marchoe.

- Michael Wilson's jaw-dropping admission.

- I wasn't trying to shoot Karen Summers.

She was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

- And what he has to say about the police.

- He asked me,

"did De'Marchoe Carpenter give you a gun?"

I said, "yes."

That's what I had to say, and that's what--

[scoffs] They let me out.

It kinda blew me away

that I got caught with the gun, and they just let me go.

**

Welcome back to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."

I'm Craig Melvin.

Malcolm Scott and De'Marchoe Carpenter

were both serving life sentences

for a murder they insisted they did not commit.

Nearly two decades later,

with help from a private investigator,

the race was now on to prove their innocence,

and time was critical,

because the key witness's days were numbered.

Back to The Long Road to Freedom.

By 2013, Malcolm had been in prison

for 19 years,

his brother Corey for 22.

- You ready to go, Mama? - Ready to go?

- The days when their mom Ruthella came to visit

helped them hold on.

The brothers drew strength from her.

- Man, that lady been right there.

I never had to wonder if she still cared

or if she was still fighting for me,

still believing in me, still praying on me.

- And Malcolm was hopeful

his mom's prayers would be answered.

Two prosecution witnesses had told his investigative team

that their testimony was a lie.

That left Michael Wilson, the man who told police

he'd given De'Marchoe bullets

and hid the murder weapon for him.

If he recanted too,

Malcolm thought they had a chance.

But Michael Wilson refused to talk,

and he had a good reason.

He was on death row for the 1995 murder

of a convenience store manager.

Wilson, seen here in this surveillance video

while he committed the crime, was appealing,

hoping he'd get a lesser sentence

of life without parole.

- If Michael had-- had been executed

without talking to us, we don't have a case.

We don't have enough

with what we've got so far to win.

- I'm hoping that someone can help me--

- But De'Marchoe wasn't ready to give up.

- Shoutout to President Obama, Russell Simmons,

Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin, Ice Cube, Shaquille O'Neal--

- So you started making videos--

- Yeah. - From in prison.

- Yes.

- The last I'd checked, you-you weren't supposed

to have cell phones in prison.

- No, but I had to do what I had to do

to try to regain my freedom.

I felt like I had to take this risk.

- While Malcolm and De'Marchoe waited,

Wilson lost his final appeal on January 2nd, 2014.

He was set to die by lethal injection

a week later.

And then, the phone rang.

It was Wilson's lawyer.

- And so she said to us if you want to talk to him,

this is the window you got.

And it was literally I think

48 hours before his execution.

- My name is Michael Lee Wilson.

- When Murphy met with Wilson in a death row visiting room,

a video camera was rolling.

- I was incredibly nervous because I knew

what was on the line for Malcolm and De'Marchoe.

- Now what might be their last chance at freedom

came down to whether a condemned man

would decide to come clean.

Within minutes, he did.

- I wasn't trying to shoot Karen Summers.

I was just-- she was one of those type of things,

you know, and she was in the wrong place

at the wrong time.

- Wilson confessed to killing Karen Summers

and even said he thought it was all over

when police actually caught him with the gun he used.

- It kinda blew me away that I got caught with a gun

and they just let me go.

All I know is I had a murder weapon on me

and they let me go.

- Wilson said it seemed

the detective had already made up his mind

that Malcolm and De'Marchoe were the killers

and he just played along.

- All I had to do was answer the questions yes or no.

Did I give some bullets to Malcolm--

I mean, to De'Marchoe Carpenter?

I said yes.

- Did De'Marchoe give you a gun?

- No, he didn't give me a gun.

That's-- he asked me, "did De'Marchoe Carpenter

give you a gun?" I said yes.

That's what I had to say in that--

[scoffs] They let me out.

- And that's why he was free

to kill that convenience store manager,

a murder that never would have happened

had Wilson been in jail

and charged with Karen Summers' death.

- You have people who would be alive,

families not affected,

not destroyed by this horrible crime,

that doesn't happen if he's arrested for this.

- Malcolm got the call soon after Wilson's confession.

It was all there, captured on video.

- De'Marchoe Carpenter and Malcolm Scott are innocent.

They didn't do this crime.

- The words he'd ached to hear

for 20 long years.

[sniffling]

- I stood on my faith.

I stood on my faith.

- You never lost that faith.

- I refused to let it go.

- The team presented its evidence to a judge.

But police and prosecutors denied

they coerced any witnesses

and insisted that what Wilson had said on that video

was a lie.

- The police, from their standpoint

and the prosecutors, say this guy's gonna die,

so if he goes out and helps two of his, you know,

neighborhood friends, what has he got to lose?

- Would Malcolm and De'Marchoe have a shot at freedom?

It was all up to the judge now.

- If I have to die in this situation,

let it be said that I died

trying to prove that I was an innocent man.

- And... - Twice is a pattern,

a pattern of conduct,

a pattern of how to gain a conviction.

- A fresh look at Corey's case,

including new evidence from three eyewitnesses.

- They all describe someone 5'7"-ish,

that was an a-ha moment,

'cause Corey Atchison's 6'2".

No one is going to misinterpret Corey Atchison

for being 5'7", okay?

**

- Tulsa County courthouse, May 9th, 2016,

a day almost 22 years in the making.

The last time Malcolm and De'Marchoe

faced a judge here,

they were sentenced to life in prison.

Now they hoped another judge would set them free.

- If I have to die in this situation,

let it be said that I died

trying to prove that I was an innocent man.

Never that I gave up. Never.

- The judge agreed with Malcolm and De'Marchoe

that police pressured witnesses

and that Wilson's video confession was credible.

- They didn't do this crime.

- Malcolm and De'Marchoe, she declared,

were actually innocent of the murder of Karen Summers.

[laughter]

- You remember that morning you got out?

- I remember the skies was beautiful.

I looked up, and it was right there, the sun.

It was finally beaming on me.

- The first thing Malcolm did as a free man, he says,

was to let go of his anger.

- I had to free my mind. I had to free my heart.

That felt good.

- 20 years later, what do you do now?

- Heh, oh, man, I don't-- I'm not sure yet.

[laughing] No, but I know

I'm gonna go get an education.

[laughter]

- Actually, before he did anything,

he called his brother Corey.

- He said, "bro, it's over with,"

and I cried, like, tears of joy.

I felt like I was getting released.

It's like a burden being off my shoulders.

Even if, uh, it don't ever happen for me,

you know, I'm happy that it happened for him.

- Remember, they had a pact.

First one out gets the other one out.

- When I talked to my attorneys off the top,

you know, what can we do about getting my brother out?

- They're like, "man, you haven't even enjoyed

being home yourself."

I won't be completely able to.

I need him home.

- Private investigator Eric Cullen

was now working on Corey's case,

and as he pored over police and court records,

he noticed that just like with Malcolm,

there were several allegations of coercing witnesses.

- Must investigators don't believe in coincidence.

And I did not believe that was a coincidence.

- Cullen teamed up with defense lawyer Joe Norwood,

and he discovered a 15 year old

testifying at a preliminary hearing

claimed police had threatened him with jail time

if he did not say Corey was the shooter.

- Partway through his testimony,

he goes, "you know what? I can't do this.

"What I just testified to isn't the truth.

"I was told to say it by these detectives.

I didn't see Corey do anything."

- Next, Norwood tracked down

the prosecution's star witness,

Doane Thomas,

and he told them he had lied too

when he identified Corey as the killer.

- Doane Thomas's claim is that the police

pressured him to say it,

and then the prosecutor Tim Harris

got him through the trial, getting him to say it.

- Then there was Corey's friend

who had been with him the night of the shooting,

Ben King, the one who said in that interrogation video

that Corey did it.

But King said he had told police twice before

that Corey did not do it.

- I kept telling 'em, he didn't do it,

he didn't do it. Corey didn't do it.

They didn't want to hear that.

They didn't want to hear the truth.

- And when police brought him in a third time

and pressured him again,

King said he'd had enough and just wanted to leave.

- They wouldn't let me go,

and I didn't have an attorney or nothing.

After being down there nine, ten hours, all day,

I thought, well, I've been telling the truth.

He didn't do it.

So I thought, well, I'll tell 'em a lie and go home.

- King said that when prosecutor Tim Harris

asked him to testify against Corey at trial, he refused.

- Tim Harris kept trying to get me to say he did it.

And I wouldn't do it, so then that's--

like, that's when they went in there

and brought that tape in there and played it.

And I told 'em that was a lie. It was a lie.

It was the police's words, not mine.

It was coerced.

- To Norwood, that parallels between

Malcolm's and Corey's cases were unmistakable.

- These teenagers were threatened

with being charged themselves

if they didn't say

what the detectives wanted them to say.

You know, once... [sighs]

twice is a pattern,

a pattern of conduct,

a pattern of how to gain a conviction.

- But in Corey's case,

it wasn't just allegations of coercion.

Norwood found three different eyewitnesses

who told police someone else was the shooter.

None of them testified at Corey's trial.

- They all describe

the exact same physical appearance of someone,

5'7"-ish, 150-ish.

That was an a-ha moment,

'cause Corey Atchison's 6'2".

He's a big dude.

No one is going to misinterpret Corey Atchison

for being 5'7", 150, okay?

- Given all this new evidence,

Malcolm thought his brother finally had a chance

- What's up, bro?

- Every time I talk to you, you know, like,

when we-when we were talking about you,

you coming home, I'm like,

I was just on the other side,

you know what I'm saying?

- This call will be terminated in two minutes.

- Right. That's what it is.

One little piece at a time, man.

And every little step we take here

is gonna get us to that final-- that big goal,

you know what I mean, to that big one

that we're reaching for. - Yeah.

- Will Corey and Malcolm finally reunite?

You know there are also other witnesses

who recanted.

- I don't know that. Okay?

I don't know who said what.

- The DA in Corey's case faces some questions.

But you could see how someone would say

you've got several witnesses all saying

their testimony was coerced.

Can they all be lying?

- If they're present at the scene,

and they're saying Mr. Atchison was not the shooter,

then tell me who is.

- When "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered" continues.

- Welcome back.

After more than two decades behind bars,

Malcolm Scott and De'Marchoe Carpenter

were declared innocent of committing murder,

their defense team having proved

a pattern of police coercion.

But Malcolm's brother Corey was still in prison

for 28 long years,

and it was all about to boil down

to a single moment

when a judge would declare his fate.

Now the conclusion of The Long Road to Freedom.

- Is this-- is it gonna happen this time?

Just thinking about everything.

- It's one day before a judge will decide

whether 47-year-old Corey Atchison

becomes a free man

or spends the rest of his life in prison.

But even if Corey gets out,

life will not be easy.

Take De'Marchoe.

What's it been like being on the outside?

- It's been a struggle.

You know, I'm still trying to figure out

who I am and what I want to do.

You know, I missed out on so much.

- Malcolm on the other hand has adjusted well.

He lives in Texas, where he works as a personal trainer,

and he's in love.

But Malcolm said his life would not be complete

until the judge said those same words to Corey

that she said to him.

- Once she finally makes that final decision,

you're a free man,

I feel like... [laughs]

That's when it's there, man.

- Hey. - That's Mom right here.

- [indistinct]

How are you? - Fine.

Been waiting for this day to come.

I've been waiting for a long time.

I've been praying for this.

- Family and friends assembled

at the Tulsa County courthouse.

No cameras were allowed inside the courtroom,

but I was there to hear the judge's words.

She declared there had been

a fundamental miscarriage of justice

and found there was clear and convincing evidence

that Corey Atchison did not commit this crime.

- I knew he didn't do it. I knew he didn't do it.

- His daughter Courtney, 28 years old,

a parent herself, was overjoyed.

When you heard the judge say,

"Corey Atchison, you're a free man"?

- Uh-huh. - What'd you think?

- There's no words to explain, like, I'm just so happy.

I'm just ready for him to come home

and be there for me and my baby.

- "Dateline" repeatedly asked the Tulsa Police Department

to respond to the allegations it threatened teenage witnesses

in both Malcolm's and Corey's cases.

We also asked the DA's and the mayor's office

for interviews. They all declined.

But we did speak to Tim Harris,

Tulsa's former district attorney

who prosecuted Corey

and who Doane Thomas said coerced him

into lying that Corey was the shooter.

- The allegations are patently false, untrue.

They're lies.

I says as an elected district attorney

in this community for 16 years,

I've never coerced, I've never forced,

and I certainly never presented false testimony,

not only in Mr. Thomas, but in any case in my career.

- What about Ben King?

- I can't remember what Mr. King said.

That was 28 years ago.

- But you know there are also other witnesses

who recanted.

- I don't know that. Okay?

I don't know who said what.

- But you could see how someone

who's looking at this case from the outside

w-who would say you've got several witnesses

all saying their testimony was coerced,

can they all be lying?

- I-I don't know what they said, okay?

But if they're present at the scene,

and they're saying Mr. Atchison was not the shooter,

then tell me who is.

All I know is I presented the evidence

that was presented to me at a jury trial,

and 12 citizens listened to all the evidence

and decided that Mr. Atchison was guilty of 1st degree murder.

- Although the judge said had the same 12 jurors

listened to all of the evidence,

they would have likely reached a different conclusion.

- You know, that's her opinion. I respect it.

I certainly disagree with it.

- The system doesn't want to acknowledge

that they made a mistake. But you made a mistake.

You made a horrible mistake,

and the fact that it happened twice

in the same family is-- t-there are no words.

- In 2020, the Oklahoma Innocence Project

worked on a staggering 145 potential

wrongful conviction cases in Tulsa.

- There is a problem here,

and it continues to be a problem.

- And of course, it is a national problem,

especially for African Americans.

A 2017 study of the National Exoneration Registry

showed that innocent Black people

were about seven times more likely

to be convicted of murder

than innocent White people.

And that police misconduct was 22% more likely

to play a role in their exoneration

than with White defendants.

- Now people are saying how can we fix it?

But very few people

on the state side want to sit down

and have an honest conversation

about how did we get here?

- In June 2020, just weeks after George Floyd's murder,

a Tulsa police major said that the police

are not systematically racist,

citing crime statistics he said showed

police are shooting African Americans, quote,

"24% less than they probably ought to be"

based on the crimes being committed.

Tulsa's first African American police chief and its mayor

criticized those remarks.

- What came out of his mouth

is in no way reflective

of what we're trying to accomplish

in the city of Tulsa

or in the Tulsa Police Department.

- Then this body cam video of Tulsa police

forcefully arresting a Black teenager

in North Tulsa for jaywalking went viral.

- Hey, why are you-- why are you putting your hands on me?

- Meanwhile, Malcolm and De'Marchoe

are suing the city of Tulsa

and the individual police officers

who they claim coerced testimonies

used to convict them.

The city and the officers have denied the claims

and are fighting to dismiss the lawsuit.

Malcolm says he's not looking for blame.

He wants to provoke change.

- My heart is strong

about every single one of those people

that's going through that fight and that struggle

to prove their innocence. I know the pain.

I know the hurt.

That's what this is about for me,

giving the next man a chance.

- Hey. [applause]

- Welcome to freedom.

- Hey.

- Corey's struggle to prove his innocence

is done.

- My other guy right here.

- Malcolm, their mom, family and friends

get ready to welcome Corey

as he takes his first steps as a free man

in 28 years.

I would imagine that you spent many a night

thinking about how this is gonna go.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had this dream.

I remember I woke up with tears in my eyes,

and one of my pod mates came in my cell,

and he said, "what's up?"

I said, "man, I'm going home."

- Here he come, here he come.

[cheering]

- A little over a year after his release,

Corey Atchison sued the State of Oklahoma

for wrongful conviction.

In June of 2021, the State settled the claim.

While denying liability,

officials paid Corey $175,000,

the maximum allowed under Oklahoma law.

That's roughly $6,250 for each of his 28 years behind bars.

From 2016 to 2020,

374 people wrongfully convicted of murder,

61% African Americans,

have reunited with their families.

Together they spent over 6,000 years in prison.

Years they will never get back.

That's all for this edition of "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."

I'm Craig Melvin. Thank you for watching.