Maurice Chamas

His mom was institutionalized for mental illness when he was little.

His dad would deny him dinner if he misbehaved.

He struggled at school, hyperactive, couldn't concentrate.

As a first grader one time, he just stood up in the middle of class and started walking home.

By his teens, he was getting into all kinds of trouble.

You really can't go much further in David's life story without getting into his time in prison.

And I mean that in a literal sense.

He's been incarcerated for the overwhelming majority of his adult life.

By my count, he spent a total of three years in the free world since he turned 18.

He's now 68 years old.

We didn't get very far in our conversation before I could feel David's frustration.

He wanted to talk about all the problems Greg has identified in his death penalty case.

But I kept asking him about his prior crimes, the three sexual assault cases he did plead guilty to.

I wanted to see how David's versions of events lined up with what I'd read in court documents.

I figured it would help me suss out his reliability as a narrator.

But David didn't like that line of questioning.

He was eager to speedrun through all of his priors.

For example, here he is talking about a rape conviction where the victim was 19.

And here he is on another conviction, this one for indecency with a minor.

The victim was 12.