The “Times Square Two” Fight to Clear Their Names

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As teens, in the nineteen-eighties, Eric Smokes and David Warren were arrested for the robbery and murder of a tourist near Times Square on New Years Eve; an acquaintance had accused them, receving a lighter sentence for an unrelated crime in exchange for coöperating with police. Warren refused a plea deal in which he would have had to accuse Smokes, and both received lengthy sentences. Over decades in prison, they maintained their innocence, but they faced an impossible dilemma: without parole, they might have spent the rest of their lives behind bars, and, in order to get parole, they would have to take responsibility and express remorse for a crime they insist that they didn’t commit. Now middle-aged men, and still best friends, Warren and Smokes continue to fight to vacate the charges against them. Jennifer Gonnerman looks at the impossible choices they faced in the justice system.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.6	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:13.7	I don't know one time we had a conversation, he said to me, he said, yo, man, do you got any feelings?
0:20.8	So I'm like, wow, what are you talking about?
0:22.7	Do I got feelings?
0:24.1	That's Eric Smokes, talking with his friend David Warren.
0:27.8	And he said, because, you know, throughout this whole thing, I haven't seen you cried yet.
0:32.8	You know, we got convicted, we came to state, and I still haven't seen you cry.
0:37.1	And I told him, no, I did my share of crying, but I couldn't cry in front of you.
0:42.2	Eric Smokes and David Warren both live in Brooklyn.
0:45.4	They're middle age now, but they've been close since they were in their teens.
0:51.5	Eric was a friend of my brothers.
0:53.6	It seemed like he was more older and mature, and he was like, God, 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, yo, what are you doing? Stop that. Come over here. You know, that sort of thing. He always looked out for me. For most of the time that they've known each other,
1:11.6	Eric and David were in prison.
1:13.6	In 1987, they were convicted of second-degree murder during a mugging,
1:17.1	and it's a crime that they maintain that they didn't commit.
1:21.4	Staff writer Jennifer Goneran has reported on their case for the New Yorker,
1:24.6	and she finds the evidence that they were innocent, compelling.
1:28.8	Here's Jennifer Gonerman.
1:31.2	Eric Smokes and David Warren were best friends, growing up in one of Brooklyn's poorest neighborhoods,
1:36.5	two black teenagers in East New York. If you look at photographs of them from the time,
1:41.4	Eric was the tall, husky one. David was smaller and shorter and
	...

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