This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC studios and the New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick. I don't know one time we had a conversation, he said to me, he said,

yo man, do you got any feelings?

So I'm like, wow, what are you talking about do I got feelings?

That's Eric Smokes, talking with his friend David Warren.

And he said, because, you know, throughout this whole thing, I haven't seen you cried yet.

You know, we got convicted convicted we came from state and I still haven't seen you

cry and I told him no I did my share of crime but I couldn't cry in front of you.

Eric Smokes and David Warren both live in Brooklyn.

They're middle age now, but they've been close since they were in their teens.

Eric was a friend of my brothers. It seems like he was more older and mature and he was like guiding me.

Certain things I'll be doing like say if I'm doing something I ain't supposed to be throwing a rock across the screen.

Hey, what are you doing?

Stop that, come over here.

You know, that sort of thing.

He always looked out for me.

For much of the time that they've known each other,

Eric Smokes and David Warren were in prison.

In 1987, they were convicted of second-degree murder.

Four years ago, staff writer Jennifer Gonderman, reported for the radio hour on their

decades long effort to clear their names, and Jen is back now with an update.

Eric Smokes and David Warren were best friends growing up in one of Brooklyn's poorest neighborhoods, two black teenagers in East New York.

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