WEBVTT - #466 Lauren Bright Pacheco with Joe Giarratano 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.560 Tens of thousands of people incarcerated in the US have 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:13.440 been wrongfully convicted and are being held in captivity for crimes, 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:17.759 even as they adamantly maintain their innocence. What's it like 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.520 to be one of those imprisoned people, and what's it 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.799 like to be their ally, the one outside committed to 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.480 fighting for their freedom. I'm Lauren Bride Pacheco, and this 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:40.120 is wrongful conviction. On February fourth, nineteen seventy nine, the 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:42.560 bodies of a mother and her teenage daughter were found 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:45.440 in an apartment in Norfolk, Virginia, known as a party 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.199 house due to a steady flow of visitors. Twenty one 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.519 year old Joe Giarretano lived there in the month before 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.480 and the night of the murders. Waking up upon the 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.560 scene with no recollection of the events due to excessive 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.000 drug and alcohol use, Jerretano assumed that he was the 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.919 one who'd committed the murders. Over time, he provided five 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:10.320 different confessions to the police, each of which were inconsistent 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.440 with the facts of the crime. Although no physical evidence 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:17.240 indicated he'd committed the crimes, He was ultimately convicted and 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:21.039 sentenced to death for the murders. Which placed him in 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:25.120 the path of our second guest. Joe Ingle, is a 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.479 former death row minister, which is where he devoted his 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.119 adult life. While the death penalty is an issue for many, 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:36.559 for Joe Ingele, it is primarily about the people caught 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:41.039 in the killing machinery. His work against mass incarceration and 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:44.560 the death penalty, while with the Southern Coalition on Jails 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.000 and Prisons, which he helped create, led him to visit 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.600 every Southern death row. That experience created deep bonds with 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.200 the men and women imprisoned there, and Ingle's effort to 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.360 save their lives led him to meetings and churches, synagogues, 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:02.960 bishop on archbishop offices, as well as governor's offices, legislators 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:06.480 and courtrooms. It also led him into the homes of 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.359 the families of the condemned and victims. Realizing many of 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.440 the condemned lacked legal representation, he joined in the efforts 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:18.079 to create the Southern Center for Human Rights to represent them. 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:22.200 Joe Garretano and Joe Ingele, Welcome to wrongful connect you 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:27.639 nice you have. Now in terms of simplicity, how shall 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:29.800 we deal with the fact that you're both named Joe? 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:32.680 May we do Reverend Joe and Joe. 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.920 Well, I will never use the Reverend except when it's handy, 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.200 so it seems to be handy for you, so we'll 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:38.600 use it. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:44.600 I appreciate it, sir. All right, Joe, I would love 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.160 to start with you. You know, I usually begin these 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.880 episodes asking people to tell me a little bit about 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:55.320 their childhoods, but having researched yours, I feel compelled to 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.400 start with an article pull just for context. Born to 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.480 a Bronx family involved with drug rings and organized crime, 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:08.360 Gerretano started shooting demrol when he was eleven, under the 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.960 watchful eye of his junkie mother. 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.080 That's a lot, it is. I mean at the time, 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:18.960 you know, I was a kid and just following my 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.919 mother's leave. But she was a junkie herself. My mother 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.000 was a paranoid, schizophrenic and a criminal genius. 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:26.760 Wow. 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.600 And I've read that she actually ran one of the 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:33.720 largest drug smuggling operations on the East Coast. 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.280 She did. She worked with Carlos later Revus out of 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:39.440 Columbia with the Medaine drug cartel. 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:45.600 Wow. Was your father involved in your upbringing? Was he 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:46.600 part of your household? 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:49.800 No, my father left when I was a child. I 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:54.000 don't really have any memories of him. And then sometime 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:58.320 in the nineties, People magazine did an article about me. 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:01.760 I was supposed to get cover the Sammy Davis Junior 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:03.840 died that week, so they gave him the cover and 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.560 gave me the centerfold. So I've been at the centerfold. 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:14.120 No dat. My father apparently saw he was imprisoned in 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.200 Florida and reached out to me and contacted me. 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.320 How old were you then when you reconnected with him. 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:26.640 After the murders, so probably sometime the early nineties. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.080 We mentioned that you were exposed to drug use at 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:33.280 a very very young age. How did that change the 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:37.000 way you saw yourself and the world in general? 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.279 Back then? The only thing I knew to do from 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.480 the way I was brought up with the followers. Whatever 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:46.560 my mother told me to do, that's what I did. 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.919 And everybody that I knew was a criminal. They were 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:57.400 either made ment for the mafia or street hoods, and 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.599 then the Columbians got involved. Thing I knew was criminal activity. 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:03.279 That's how we survived. 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.080 I've also read that you were sent to a reform 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:11.680 school in Florida as a child, which later was known 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:17.680 for its ridiculously troubling abuse of the children in its care. 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.239 Is that description in keeping with what you experienced there? 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.440 Yes, And in fact that's very relevant now because Governor 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:30.080 DeSantis down in Florida should be signing an authorizing compensation 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:34.719 for the survivors from nineteen forty to nineteen seventy five 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.720 who were at the Dosia School for Boys, and I 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:41.840 have been working all by affidavit for that. Wow. 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.039 How long were you there? What age? 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.760 Oh? I was young. I was there twice. The last 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:56.080 time was probably seventy five. I was raped there under 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.800 the watchful eyes of a cottage parent who stood there, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.520 laughed and did nothing, and then told me to clean 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:04.440 myself up and forget about it. If I knew what 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:05.200 was good for me. 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:14.679 Wow, Joe, I'm so sorry that you experienced what you experienced. 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.080 Oh, it was tough. I've been working on the Affidavid 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:23.320 now for almost two months. It's going back revisiting. That's hard. 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.080 So, given everything that you had on your plate, being 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.039 raised by somebody with mental illness and addiction illness on 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:36.479 top of surrounded by criminal activity, and then sexually and 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.760 physically abused at a school where you were supposed to 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.679 go to become a better person. 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.200 They're still finding bodies at that school. They're still digging 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.320 up bodies of people that were killed. 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:52.920 It's not surprising that you ended up dropping out of 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:54.000 school altogether. 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:56.560 No, I dropped out of school, and does you're really 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.800 set the course After that was released from Doser, the 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:03.839 only place they would allow me to go was back 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.839 to my mother, back into criminal activity. And then in 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:13.480 nineteen seventy eight, seventy late seventy eight, early seventy nine, 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.040 my mother wanted to expand her criminal activity into virgin 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.640 She had two friends. She said, you're going with them 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.000 to Virginia. You're going to work on the fishing boats 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:24.160 up there, and we're going to use the boats to 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:25.880 smuggle cocaine into virgin. 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.760 So I was going to ask you how you ended 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.040 up being a scallop fisherman in Norfolk, Virginia. But it 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.680 was just a front for your mother's drug smuggling operations exactly. 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.000 So actually enjoyed being on the boats. I loved the work, 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.760 but the main focus was smuggling cocaine into this state. 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:50.320 Wow, And that takes us pretty much up to the 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:55.520 time when this tragedy unfolded. You're twenty one years old. Honestly, 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:57.680 all of this makes much more sense to me now 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:02.920 that I know that cartels were in the landscape of 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.080 how this unfolded too. But just the facts of the 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:11.720 case were that on February fourth of nineteen seventy nine 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.640 in Norfolk, Virginia, a forty four year old named Barbara Ann, 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.360 also known as Tony Klein, and her fifteen year old 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:22.960 daughter Michelle were murdered, and that you had arrived at 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:25.240 the apartment at six o'clock, nobody was there. You come 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:30.360 back at eight. You're under the influence of drugs and alcohol. 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:35.480 I was wasted. I was injecting de lawds, which is 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:40.079 a major painkiller for cancer patients. I was probably using 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.600 five to six lawns a day as well as drinking. 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.560 So you wake up on the couch, wake up. 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:54.160 On the couch and didn't see anybody. Initially went to 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.240 the bathroom and that's when I saw Barbara before and 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:01.000 the bathroom face one of the bedrooms, and when I 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:07.920 turned I saw Michelle lane on. I panicked. My criminal 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.120 instincts kicked in and I said I need to get 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:10.800 back to my mother. 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.080 But it must have been like waking up into a 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:16.600 scene from a horror movie. 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.560 It was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. I still 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:21.480 see it through this day sometimes in my head. 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:27.560 In that moment of complete blackout, brain fog. You just 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:29.720 assumed you had something to do. 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.640 With it exactly. I was there. I don't remember anybody 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.800 else being there. Uh. 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.240 And I mean not to get into too much detail 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.160 or gore, but was there any physical sign that you 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.599 had been involved in two bloody murders? 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:45.960 No? 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:47.080 On you? 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:48.600 No? 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:48.640 No. 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.120 There was one little speck of blood on my boot, 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:57.400 a little tiny speck of blood, and they sent it 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.680 off to lab to be analyzed. But at blood's convinced me. 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:03.880 At that point, I didn't know where the blood came from. 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.280 I couldn't remember. I must have done it. We found 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:11.960 out years later that the blood on shoe didn't company 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:15.600 the one of the victims, and I had been in 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.640 a fight at some point at one of the bars. 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:22.120 That's how the blood got off the sheet. 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:29.280 You panicked initially and fled to Florida, Yes, only to 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:34.280 then turn yourself in at a greyhound bus station at 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.480 three am to a uniformed police officer who was just 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:39.960 sitting minding his own business and we were sitting. 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.600 There eating breakfast. All I could see was dead body. 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:44.800 All I could see was Barbara and Michelle laying here. 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:47.560 And I just walked up to the cop and sat 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.679 down and said, hey, I think I killed two people 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:51.640 in Aufolk. 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:57.720 And you thought you did, but had no idea of 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.880 how it was done. So you end up waving your 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:01.520 miranda right. 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:05.520 Well, I waved my Miranda rights. I gave the Jacksonville 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:10.080 police officers what amounted to a full confession. They said, well, 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:11.920 how'd you do it? I said, I don't know, and 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.280 they started suggesting to me, did you do it like this? 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:16.720 Did you do it like that? And I just said yes. 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.679 Then the contacted the No off Of Police Department, and 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.320 two detectives from an off came to Florida, brought me 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:28.080 back to Virginia, and that's where the series of other 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:30.920 five confessions came in. They said, no, it couldn't have 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.680 happened like this. It had to have happened like this, 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:39.720 and I just followed their lead. And these were police 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:44.480 certain confessions. I didn't write these confessions they wrote, but 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.080 they started doing it before they had actually investigated the 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.040 crime scene. They hadn't been to the crime scene. 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.839 Yet I know that this was ten years before DNA 0:11:54.280 --> 0:12:00.800 evidence was of value, truly, but a proper investigation at 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.480 the time would have uncovered all of the things you 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.760 ended up uncovering a decade later exactly. 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.440 And what they did because they hadn't seen the crime scene, 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:17.960 they had to keep coming back and revising the confessions and. 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.840 The autopsy afterwards just to keep this clear. So you 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.640 end up giving five different versions of the confession, and 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:30.920 basically you're playing charades and they're feeding you what to say, 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.280 so by the time you come up with your fifth confession, 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.079 you're just parroting back what they have told you are 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:40.040 the crime scene exactly. 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.760 Then I get a quarter pointer to Turney had just 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.040 gone to trial, had a head a decent atturning because 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.480 it was physical evidence which we didn't find till later. 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:56.520 And none of that physical evidence bloody footprints, headhairs, pupa hairs, 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:01.280 and sperm, none of it matched me. And they hid 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:01.840 that promise. 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:08.800 So before we even get to that shamble of a 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:12.120 half day trial, on February sixth of nineteen seventy nine, 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:15.320 at the age of twenty one, you're indicted for rape 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.840 of the daughter statutory burglary, capital, murder of the daughter 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.719 and murder of the mother. You're twenty one. Who was 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.080 your support person at that time? Who did you reach 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:25.600 out to? 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.280 Didn't have any except my mother. I reached out to 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:34.200 my mother, and my mother's response was let him kill you. 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:40.120 She was worried that I would run my mouth about 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:44.920 her business. She hadn't been under the radar at that time. 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:50.440 Your mother's first response is your dispensable. She wants to 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:56.000 protect herself and her business structure. So exactly your life 0:13:56.120 --> 0:14:00.840 is insignificant as far as she's concerned. Exactly that is 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.120 a lot. Okay, So now we get to that shamble 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.679 of a trial. How long did that trial last and 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:10.080 was there a jury involved? 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.560 There was no jury. It was a half day trial, 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:19.080 including the launch break. They appointed an attorney who decided 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.480 to plead me not guilty by reason of insanity, even 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:27.240 though all the experts said he's not insane. So a 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:32.960 trial the facts never occurred. There was no discovery when 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.920 you plead not guilty, there were reasons insanity. The only 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.120 thing that gets tried is whether or not you're insane. 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.720 And the psychiatrist come in and said, this man has 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.120 no memory of the crime. His memory shot. He actually 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:48.160 said that when they did the blood work at twenty 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.280 one years old, I had the liver of a seventy 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.960 eight year old man. I shouldn't have been alive. 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:59.240 Wow, I just so there's no one in that courtroom 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:04.440 supporting you. No, you must have felt so alone. 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.080 No, they had me drugged and fact to judge stopped 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:13.680 the trial at one point and instructed to sharef to 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.240 find out where I was getting the illegal drugs from. 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:19.280 I was literally drooling out the side of my mouth 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:21.920 and falling to sleep, and my attorney stood up and said, no, 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:25.160 he's under psychiatric care. They had him on high doses 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.640 of thors. 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.600 Oh gosh, which is just basically your body, mind, everything 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:33.400 is just frozen. 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.800 It's a horse tranquilizer, it's an animalizer. So I was 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.040 just sitting there and a drug and do stupor. 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.480 We're going to get into this, but very much, Reverend Joe, 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.960 after reading your book Too Close to the Flame, it's 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.920 very obvious that at that point Joe was already caught 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.720 up in the machinery of the legal system and on 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.600 his way to the belly of the killing machine beast 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:04.720 because you were in no shape really to probably even 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:09.120 absorb what had happened during the trial or your sentence. 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:15.320 But you're convicted and in nineteen seventy nine for thirty 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.720 years confinement for the rape of the daughter, life imprisonment 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.280 for the murder of the mother, and death for the 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:27.360 capital murder of the exactly, so you're sentenced to death. 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.320 I went straight from the core group now of you're 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.800 back to the jail. They took me straight the death house. 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:58.760 You had a date with execution five times over the years. 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.240 I mean, how do you what is that like psychologically 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.880 to feel like it's just there, could happen at any time. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:13.840 Well, for several years, nothing registered in my head because 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.359 they kept me on thwarsen for most of the years 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.119 I was in prison, I was walking around like a sam. 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:25.200 While you were incarcerated, Joe, you at some point woke 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.120 up from your drug stupor. 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:29.960 It took a court order to get me off the drugs. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.280 The prison was injecting me with the drugs whether I 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.639 wanted them or not. If I refused, and I often 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.440 did refuse, they would dress up and riote here, open 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.040 my cell door, come in, beat me down, chain to 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:46.920 the bed and hit me in the hill. 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:55.200 It's just the cruelty of it seems to be the point. 0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:02.639 At one point I just said enough kill, I'm ready 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:08.720 to go. And that's when Joe Angle and Redanes got involved. 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.919 Enter Reverend Joe. Reverend Joe, can you just tell me 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:18.760 a little bit about the path that took you to 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:23.960 where your path ended up crossing with Joe? In other words, 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.000 how did you choose to make Death Row your congregation. 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:30.320 I sort of backed into it. 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:35.800 Native of North Carolina and went to Sanders Presbyterian College 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:38.600 and then said I want to do more studying. So 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.879 I went to Union Theological Seminary in New York and 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:43.679 there was a program there where you could live and 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:48.920 work in East Harlem, which really attracted me. So here 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.880 I am a white boy moving up from North Carolina 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:56.520 to East Harlem, which was a class ghetto when I 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:00.119 arrived in nineteen seventy. So you had forty five five 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.639 percent African American, forty five percent Puerto Rican, ten percent 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:07.600 everything else. And as part of that, you worked in 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.359 the community, You took your classes at Union Seminary, and 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.560 the idea was your theology would emerge from your interaction 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.880 with people in the community and also your theological studies, 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:18.480 and it certainly. 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:18.720 Did for me. 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.240 My senior year of seminary, I visited men at the 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.280 Bronx House of Detention because my neighbors were dealing with 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.160 cops and das all the time, and I'd never even 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.280 been in a jail or a prison, and Attica happened 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.720 that fall in seventy one, and watching that all my 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.879 fuzzy black and white TV. Because the prisoners gave press 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.359 conferences every day they were in control of the prison, 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.560 I thought, if ten percent of what these guys are 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.800 saying is true, I would be upset too. So all 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.760 that motivated me to go visit prisoners at the Bronx 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.520 House of Detention, and that's where I had my revelation 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:58.240 about what the machinery we have created in this country 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:02.920 we call criminal justice system, which it is not. It's 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:06.080 a criminal legal system. There's no justice in it. Justice 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:10.160 is almost totally absent. It's criminal, it's legal, and it's 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.560 a system. And these guys were all, as I learned, 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.520 awaiting trial, average length of time eighteen months. 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:20.160 No one's convicted. 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.119 They're just there because they're poor and they're charged with 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.480 the crime, and when I walked in there for the 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:31.040 first time, I was a nause seminary student. I got 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:33.679 up to the sixth floor and guard saw my little 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.000 badge that the chaplain had given me, and he opened 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.879 the door to this enormous cage there with human beings 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.160 in it. And he walks along and I follow him. 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.000 He says, lawyers and clergy visiting this room, and he 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:49.160 gestured to the left. 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:49.400 There. 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.480 I'm a naive seminary student, so I said, why don't 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:53.040 you let me in. 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:53.840 Here with these guys. 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:59.040 That guard looked at me and shrugged, opened the door, 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:03.440 asked up to cross a threshold. Now, as i'd casually 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:07.600 glanced into the cell block, I'd assumed everybody's in a cell, 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.359 they're locked, and I'll just visit through the cell doors 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.800 of each cell. But when I walked across the threshold, 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:17.199 I realized all these cell doors are open, and he 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:21.439 slams that door behind me. I'll never forget this. My 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:23.560 first thought was, oh my god, he's locked me in 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:25.800 here with these animals, because that's what we're taught to 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.320 think by virtue of someone being in a prison or 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:32.240 a jail, they're less than us. So Once you reach 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:36.159 that point in your understanding of who you are versus 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:41.240 everybody else, you realized how lost you are. Because those 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.119 guys taught me a lot that year. I didn't do 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.000 much for them. I showed up. I gave him my 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:47.080 twenty hours a week. 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:48.280 We talked. 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.040 If I could afford it, I'd buy stamps for him. 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.240 I had no contacts to lawyers, but boy did they 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.639 ever educate me. So when I came back south and 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:00.960 to Nashville, Tennessee, I was involved the fellow named Will 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.679 Campbell and Tony Dunbar, and we started something called Southern 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.280 Prison Ministry, then the Southern Coalitional Jails and Prisons in 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:10.560 the spring of six, nineteen seventy four. 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.520 I want to talk about that moment of walking through 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:23.920 that threshold figuratively as well, because reading your book, I 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:29.879 so clearly understand the power of compassion and empathy to 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:37.119 alter one's mindset. Because you stopped seeing the individuals behind 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:42.240 those bars as less than you saw them actually as human. 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:46.960 And that is a mind shift that negates the US 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:48.240 versus them mentality. 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.000 Well, it does completely. And what it's all about is 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:55.800 judgment and Jesus. In the Gospel of John the eighth chapter, 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:58.040 there is this great little story of this woman who's 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:02.120 guilty of adult at the time, which means she gets stoned. 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:04.399 Of course, a man would not get the death penalty 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:07.200 at that time, but she's guilty, she's going to get stoned. 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:10.760 These people brought her to Jesus and they basically want 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:14.399 her to say, oh yeah, do away with her. And 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:17.720 he looks at him and looks at her and says, 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:20.359 let he is without sin, throw the first stone. Well, 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:24.320 they realize they're not without sin, so they walked away, 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:27.439 and Jesus looks at her and says, woman, has no 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:30.680 one condemned you? And she says no, Rabbi, no one. 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:33.120 He says, neither do I condemn you? Go and sin 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.480 no more. Now a lot of folks think that is 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:38.960 against the death penalty, it is against the deathenally, but 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:42.480 it's a greater statement than that. It's a whole judgment issue. 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:47.560 Who are we to judge, like for Joe Garontano and 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:51.720 say this guy, well, he's not fit to live, We're 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:52.480 going to kill him. 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:53.679 Who are we to do that? 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:58.199 And once you realize that this whole system we have built, 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:04.120 this adversary system, the so called retributive justice model, where 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:07.320 you have a defense lawyer and a prosecutor and the 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:09.760 truth comes out of this. The truth hardly ever comes 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:12.400 out of this because it's a stag. 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:16.800 Deck and a lucrative one for the ones who have 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:17.240 the game. 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:20.440 Exactly, And Steve Bright says, who's a great anti death 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:23.920 only lawyer? It's not the people who commit. The worst 0:24:24.000 --> 0:24:27.160 murderer go to death row, So people have the worst lawyers. 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:30.680 He's exactly right. And that's all based on poverty and race. 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:36.480 Now back to when your pads first cross. Tell me 0:24:36.600 --> 0:24:40.000 how you two met and what your initial thoughts were 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:42.199