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Speaker 1: I think we have the best legal system.

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Speaker 2: It's just the people that implement they get lost along

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Speaker 2: the way and forget what their job really is.

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Speaker 3: He just kept on trying to remind me that who

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Speaker 3: was in authority, who was in control, and how easy

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Speaker 3: it was for my body to be found in any

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Speaker 3: alley of New York City.

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Speaker 4: It's a tough prison when you have the guards going

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Speaker 4: against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison.

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Speaker 1: They do that.

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Speaker 3: They'll give a guy a life sentence and go home

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Speaker 3: in eat spaghetti like it was nothing. And anybody that said, well,

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Speaker 3: why would you confess to something that you didn't do?

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Speaker 3: My question to them will be why wouldn't you confess

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Speaker 3: when somebody's threatening to kill your life? The judge, he said,

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Speaker 3: how you feel?

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Speaker 1: I said, I'm okay. He said, well, the days you're

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Speaker 1: lucky day you're going home.

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Speaker 5: This is wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with

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Speaker 5: Jason Flamm. Today we have the New Orleans edition with

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Speaker 5: two people who really exemplify and personify what's wrong and

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Speaker 5: right about New Orleans criminal justice system. And the star

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Speaker 5: of the show today is Robert Jones.

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Speaker 6: In April nineteen ninety two, a series of violent crimes

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Speaker 6: were committed in New Orleans. One of the crimes was

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Speaker 6: the killing of the British tourist Julie Stott, after which

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Speaker 6: police received a tip and arrested Robert Jones.

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Speaker 1: All, a man who served twenty three years in prison

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Speaker 1: for crimes he said he didn't commit.

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Speaker 7: Is free tonight.

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Speaker 8: The friends and family of Robert Jones broke the Core

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Speaker 8: room silence with tears and applause as they judge granted

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Speaker 8: the dismissal of rape and manslaughter chargers that had been

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Speaker 8: thrown out, but then prosecutors vowed to reprosecute. Barry Scheck

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Speaker 8: came down from New York to help Innocence Project attorneys

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Speaker 8: fight the case, which was originally reversed in twenty fifteen

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Speaker 8: when newly discovered evidence pointed to jones innocence.

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Speaker 1: It's just extraordinary, you know.

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Speaker 9: Sometimes they say it takes the village, it takes an

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Speaker 9: army to free one man who's wrongly convicted.

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Speaker 8: This exoneration was almost twenty five years in the making,

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Speaker 8: and it came on Robert Jones' forty fourth birthday.

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Speaker 5: Robert, welcome to the show. Thank you, and our other

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Speaker 5: distinguished guest today is the fearless leader of IPNO, otherwise

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Speaker 5: known as the Innocence Project of New Orleans. And her

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Speaker 5: name is Emily Ma. And Emily is, as you will

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Speaker 5: soon find out, a force of nature. So Emily, welcome

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Speaker 5: to ronfolk.

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Speaker 10: Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 5: So, Robert, take us back to your childhood growing up

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Speaker 5: in Louisiana.

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Speaker 1: All right.

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Speaker 2: I was the elder of five other siblings my mother,

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Speaker 2: my mother had six children. I mean, we grew up

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Speaker 2: poor in the poor neighborhood. I lost my father when

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Speaker 2: I was at the age of seven.

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Speaker 1: He was killed.

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Speaker 2: He was a professional boxer. We had it sort of hard.

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Speaker 2: We had it.

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Speaker 1: It was.

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Speaker 2: It was hard. It was like I said, we grew

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Speaker 2: up poor. After our father was killed. It changed a

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Speaker 2: lot of things for our family to domin. Next to

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Speaker 2: our family, my mother she had to fortunately, she had

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Speaker 2: to stop going to school, so she wasn't able to

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Speaker 2: maintain a decent job to the extent to take care

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Speaker 2: of all of us, right, so she had to take

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Speaker 2: on our jobs. So it was it was rough, man,

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Speaker 2: it was rough growing up. But she made it work.

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Speaker 2: And one of the things is that I learned from

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Speaker 2: my mother is that even though she took odd jobs

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Speaker 2: or mothers used to they used to call her like

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Speaker 2: the candle lady. You know what she used to do

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Speaker 2: is she used to sell out our apartment in the

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Speaker 2: housing projects. She used to sell like different candies, apples

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Speaker 2: and different things that she made from scratch. And eventually

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Speaker 2: that kind of like substituted, you know, her income in

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Speaker 2: the sense of actually providing for us. You know, so

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Speaker 2: my mother is the biggest you know, my biggest heroes

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Speaker 2: because she made something out of nothing to take care

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Speaker 2: of us. And you know, in the process of me

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Speaker 2: growing up, you see a lot of things in the neighborhood.

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Speaker 2: And eventually I dropped out of school in the eighth grade,

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Speaker 2: and you know I did regular things, you know, hung out,

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Speaker 2: hung out, even though I mean my mother in approve

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Speaker 2: of it, but I guess not having that for the

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Speaker 2: figure there, it's only so much that a woman can

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Speaker 2: actually do to a young man growing up when she

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Speaker 2: reached those particular stages that I had reached on that time,

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Speaker 2: you know, I was in my maybe early teens.

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Speaker 5: And so you grew up where we are right now

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Speaker 5: in New Orleans and the aticenter of the criminal injustice system,

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Speaker 5: right so you're going along making the best of the situation.

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Speaker 5: How old were you when this crazy scenario happened that

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Speaker 5: you didn't even know about, right and what was going

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Speaker 5: on in your life at that point in time.

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Speaker 2: Well, at that point, I just turned nineteen years old,

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Speaker 2: already had two children, and I had big dreams and

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Speaker 2: aspiration to one of you know, I was always fascinated

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Speaker 2: about business. I kind of like went to on the

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Speaker 2: mentorship with an older guy who I know you He

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Speaker 2: was a form of drug dealer and I guess you

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Speaker 2: were just classify as being retired. So he started dealing

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Speaker 2: in real estate and I start, you know, from there,

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Speaker 2: my focus kind of like went there. You know, I

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Speaker 2: kind of like wanted to get back in school, but

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Speaker 2: saw like was embarrassed because you know, the age difference

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Speaker 2: was going back to school. So I started seeking out

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Speaker 2: help in those particular areas to try to get in

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Speaker 2: programmed so I can get back in school, so I

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Speaker 2: can educate myself. Because I know, if I say, okay,

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Speaker 2: you know, for me to learn or to understand and

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Speaker 2: the business world understand real estate, I mean I have

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Speaker 2: to get academically in client. So I know I had

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Speaker 2: to go back to school. So that's what my mind said,

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Speaker 2: because I wanted a better life for my children. I

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Speaker 2: wanted to create a better world for my kids because

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Speaker 2: I know how we grew up. Not new for them

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Speaker 2: of my mother, but I knew that she struggled, and

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Speaker 2: I wanted to change and break that particular cycle. So

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Speaker 2: that's where my ambition was at. And all of a sudden,

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Speaker 2: you know, and at the age of nineteen, this happened.

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Speaker 2: It is kind of like it really just strolled things

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Speaker 2: totally off, I mean, really devastated my entire family.

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Speaker 5: Emily, Let's let's talk about this because this is an

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Speaker 5: interesting case because it's not just one case. Right. What

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Speaker 5: happened was in nineteen ninety two, there was a series

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Speaker 5: of attacks in and around the French Quarter that Robert

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Speaker 5: ended up being implicated in and that we now know

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Speaker 5: were committed by an individual who shares his last name

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Speaker 5: but nothing else, no relation. This was a very violent

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Speaker 5: time in a Maria and certainly in New Orleans. And

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Speaker 5: this was a particularly violent series of crimes that happened

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Speaker 5: in an area where the authorities don't like to have crime.

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Speaker 5: Very bad for tourism when you have, you know, serious

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Speaker 5: rapes and murders and things happening in the French Quarter.

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Speaker 5: So can you take us back and explain what this

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Speaker 5: crime spree was all about.

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Speaker 10: Sure, there was a series of crimes that, at least

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Speaker 10: as we know, began April the sixth of nineteen ninety two.

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Speaker 10: A man was committing robberies in his car. He was armed.

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Speaker 10: He would pull up, get out the car, rob people,

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Speaker 10: and in some of the cases he did more than that,

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Speaker 10: or tried to do more than that. In the first instance,

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Speaker 10: he took one of the female victims and raped her.

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Speaker 10: In the desire project, he asked his victims to lie

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Speaker 10: on the ground. And a week later he robbed several

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Speaker 10: more people in the French Quarter, right around the corner

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Speaker 10: from where he had abducted the first party of people

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Speaker 10: a week previous. And in the second night of his

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Speaker 10: crime spree, he robbed two people. He walked around the

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Speaker 10: corner or pulled around the corner of his car in

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Speaker 10: the French Quarter, and he tried to rob a pair

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Speaker 10: of English tourists who just arrived in town, and he

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Speaker 10: shot the woman her name is Julie Stott, dead in

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Speaker 10: that attempted armed robbery. A few hours later he used

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Speaker 10: his car and went off in about a mile up

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Speaker 10: the road, robbed some people who were coming out of

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Speaker 10: a Poe Boy store close to the French Quarter. And

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Speaker 10: the killing of the English tourist Judie Stott was a

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Speaker 10: very big deal. It was a big deal here in

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Speaker 10: the newspapers. It was a big deal at home in England.

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Speaker 10: When I say at home, obviously I'm from England, because

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Speaker 10: New Orleans relied so much on tourism. Because it is

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Speaker 10: horrifying to think that you could be on vacation, just

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Speaker 10: walking along the street and get shot dead by a

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Speaker 10: man wielding a gun. Because frankly, she was a young, pretty,

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Speaker 10: college educated white girl from England, the case got a

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Speaker 10: lot of attention, and there was a big reward that

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Speaker 10: was issued for anybody with information that would help to

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Speaker 10: find the person who had killed her.

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Speaker 5: Right, ten thousand dollars crime stoppers, right, And that's right.

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Speaker 5: And let's not forget this is twenty five plus years ago,

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Speaker 5: so ten thousand dollars.

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Speaker 10: Was double that right now in today's money. And you know,

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Speaker 10: is anybody, any police officer in this town anywhere, will

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Speaker 10: tell you when there is reward money offered, you get

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Speaker 10: a whole lot of crap called in, right, And what

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Speaker 10: happened in this case was a tip got called in

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Speaker 10: named Robert Jones and his friends as having been bragging

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Speaker 10: about killing the lady in a bar or something like that,

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Speaker 10: or talking about it in a bar, and the police,

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Speaker 10: as they often do, started with that name, which is

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Speaker 10: a method the police used. They will pull that name

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Speaker 10: and see if there's anything to it. The police had

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Speaker 10: realized that the same person had committed all these crimes

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Speaker 10: because it was the same car that was used, and

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Speaker 10: they were all done in the same area, the same

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Speaker 10: mo victims had to lie on the ground. He asked

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Speaker 10: for very specific things, a similar description of the perpetrator.

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Speaker 10: And so when they get the name Robert Jones, he's

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Speaker 10: a suspect in all the crimes, really, and they show

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Speaker 10: his photo to the rape victim in the first crime

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Speaker 10: and she picked him out.

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Speaker 7: As a result, he was.

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Speaker 10: Arrested for the murder, which was the big crime that

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Speaker 10: was being investigated. It was the big, high profile.

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Speaker 5: Crime because if he did want he did them all.

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Speaker 10: That's right, the same person did all them. So Robert

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Speaker 10: was booked with a series of crimes, including the murder, arrested,

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Speaker 10: put in jail. His arrest was all over the newspapers.

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Speaker 10: It was all over the British newspapers, It was all

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Speaker 10: over the television. It was a big deal. They got

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Speaker 10: the person who killed the English tourist and done the

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Speaker 10: other crimes as well. The problem is that after he

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Speaker 10: was arrested and put in jail, the crime spree in

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Speaker 10: the car with his own gunman continued.

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Speaker 5: And it was a distinctive car.

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Speaker 10: It was very distinctive car. It's a big burgundy Oldsmobile

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Speaker 10: I think, and it had like a landau roof right.

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Speaker 7: And so when the police realized.

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Speaker 10: That the crime spree had continued even though they'd arrested

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Speaker 10: Robert Jones, that tipped them off that they might have

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Speaker 10: not got the person responsible. And so the homicide and

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Speaker 10: robbery detectives kept investigating the case. And what they found

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Speaker 10: was the man who owned the car. They found the

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Speaker 10: car in the Desire project, and he had jewelry or

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Speaker 10: things taken from the victims in each one of the robberies,

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Speaker 10: including the last one in the spree, and including the

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Speaker 10: first one that ended in a rape.

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Speaker 5: So this one came with instructions.

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Speaker 10: He had the gun that was used to kill the

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Speaker 10: English tourists. He had the bullets that matched the ones

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Speaker 10: that were found in her head. He had the glasses

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Speaker 10: in his car that the person had described the rapist wearing.

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Speaker 10: He had jewelry or things taken from each of the victims.

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Speaker 10: He lived less than a block from where the rape

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Speaker 10: victim had been taken to be raped. In the case,

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Speaker 10: he matched the description exactly of the perpetrator that each

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Speaker 10: of the victims had given.

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Speaker 5: And isn't it true that he had said to at

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Speaker 5: least one of the victims that he was taking her

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Speaker 5: to the neighborhood where he lived.

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Speaker 10: Yeah, he told the rape victim, I going to take

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Speaker 10: you to my neck of the woods, before parking his

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Speaker 10: car next to his apartment, basically and taking her to

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Speaker 10: an abandoned building in that building within the Desire Project.

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Speaker 5: And Robert, you didn't live anywhere near there, no, right.

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Speaker 5: So Robert also had a distinctive physical feature, which is

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Speaker 5: gold teeth. Right, And none of the victims described somebody

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Speaker 5: with gold teeth, which would be a harder thing than

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Speaker 5: most to screw up.

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Speaker 10: If it was Robert Jones, you would not miss it.

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Speaker 10: Because Robert has he no longer has them. But Robert's teeth.

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Speaker 10: They were completely gold at the front. He can't speak

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Speaker 10: without exposing his teeth. Some people maybe can, I don't

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Speaker 10: know Ventriloquist, but Robert cannot do that. And it is

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Speaker 10: very very obvious if it is Robert Jones that the

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Speaker 10: person has gold teeth. There is no way that he

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Speaker 10: could have committed five crimes and said many things, including

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Speaker 10: the woman who has taken off an aducted rape, who

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Speaker 10: spent a while with her attacker. It would not be

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Speaker 10: possible for him to have interacted with any of these people,

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Speaker 10: and no one had noticed the gold teeth.

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Speaker 5: So what we have now is a situation where somewhere

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Speaker 5: inside police headquarters they're going, uh oh, I need Sherlock Holmes.

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Speaker 5: In this particular case, everything points in one direction away

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Speaker 5: from the guy that they had arrested. But they had

259
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Speaker 5: made a big deal out of this arrest and had

260
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Speaker 5: gotten a lot of attention, accolades, media pats on the back.

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Speaker 5: None of that sounds like something that they would want

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Speaker 5: to have undone or exposed. They'll probably look a little silly.

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Speaker 5: So they've got the real guy, but they still got

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Speaker 5: the wrong guy.

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Speaker 10: So I think what happens at that point right now

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Speaker 10: is anyone's guest. But I think it's pretty clear what happened,

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Speaker 10: and I think it's a perfectly normal human reaction, right,

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Speaker 10: And I think we need to be very careful about

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Speaker 10: what happened with the police when they found Lester Jones.

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Speaker 10: The first reaction when you're a police officer detective and

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Speaker 10: you've got your suspects, and you've booked your suspects and

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Speaker 10: you've charged your suspect, all of us, all of us

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Speaker 10: human beings, have brain means that exist to confirm our

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Speaker 10: existing beliefs or suspicions. Right, So if you think you've

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Speaker 10: got the person, and you find somebody who's got everything

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Speaker 10: and the car, and it's clearly involved in this crime

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Speaker 10: spree in some kind of way, your first reaction is,

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Speaker 10: how are they connected? Right? They must be because obviously

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Speaker 10: I've got my person. And so that was their reaction. Now,

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Speaker 10: the police's first reaction is that they must be connected.

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Speaker 10: They must be connected. They must be connected, because we've

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Speaker 10: got our person. And so they interrogate Lester Jones for

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Speaker 10: a very long time while in the process of executing

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Speaker 10: search warrants on his department and his car. Are various

285
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Speaker 10: places that could have property connected to the crime spree.

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Speaker 5: Did you know Lester Jones? No, so you had no

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Speaker 5: connection to him. What's happened right?

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Speaker 10: Lester Jones says he first told police he didn't know

289
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Speaker 10: Robert Jones. He was then in the custody of at

290
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Speaker 10: least one officer who's pretty notorious for his interrogation tactics,

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Speaker 10: and after many hours of interrogation questioning, Lester Jones says

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Speaker 10: he does know. But Jones you can't name him, actually

293
00:15:01,920 --> 00:15:05,720
Speaker 10: calls him something else and it says that he lent

294
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Speaker 10: him his car in exchange for jewelry or something, and

295
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Speaker 10: there was a gun in the car, and one day

296
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Speaker 10: he lent it to Robert Jones, and then it came

297
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Speaker 10: back and the gun.

298
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Speaker 7: Was still in the dash, some very funny story.

299
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Speaker 10: As this is going on, then they're getting more and

300
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Speaker 10: more property from less Jones, and then they find the gun,

301
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Speaker 10: and they find more stuff from the stalk holder side,

302
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Speaker 10: and it comes pretty clear that Lester Jones is not

303
00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:29,720
Speaker 10: just somebody who lent his car out for someone else

304
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Speaker 10: to commit crimes in that he didn't keep anything from

305
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Speaker 10: By the way, when they executed all the search warrants

306
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Speaker 10: on Robert's house and places he used to visit, places

307
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Speaker 10: you know, where people stayed, that he knew. They found

308
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Speaker 10: absolutely nothing connecting him to any of these crimes, which.

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Speaker 5: Would be a little bit of.

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Speaker 10: A relp exactly exactly, and the police have said that,

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Speaker 10: you know, they knew there may be something wrong when

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Speaker 10: there was nothing connecting him. Usually if you've been on

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Speaker 10: a robbery spree, you're going to find something connecting each

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Speaker 10: of those crimes.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, my guess is that by the time they were

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Speaker 5: finished interrogating Lester, Jones would have probably said that he

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Speaker 5: knew Abraham Lincoln too.

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Speaker 10: Yeah, I think he probably would have done that, but

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Speaker 10: he certainly knew Robert. And then ultimately he made some

320
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Speaker 10: cockamami story about how they all did the murder together,

321
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Speaker 10: Robert and his friends, because they'd also book Robert's friends

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Speaker 10: in connection with this crime spree. And it's a totally

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Speaker 10: preposterous statement. But what happens is there's some really good

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Speaker 10: police work in this case. And I think that, you know,

325
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Speaker 10: very often these cases involved very sloppy police work, and

326
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Speaker 10: there were certainly some of that on one end, but

327
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Speaker 10: there were some good detectives. And I think whether it

328
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Speaker 10: should be a lot of credit given is a couple

329
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Speaker 10: of the detectives, one homicide detective and one robbery detective

330
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Speaker 10: who even though they had this confession from Ester Jones

331
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Speaker 10: allegedly saying me and Robert did all this stuff together,

332
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Speaker 10: and even though there was a couple of eyewitness ideas

333
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Speaker 10: of Robert, they were and still are the kind of

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Speaker 10: quality police that understand that that in itself is not

335
00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:51,520
Speaker 10: damning right, that it can be, but it is not conclusive,

336
00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:54,280
Speaker 10: and that that's the kind of evidence. It's very manipulable.

337
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Speaker 10: And so they kept investigating, and they kept investigating, and

338
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Speaker 10: they investigated whether these statements that he'd given in the

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Speaker 10: custody of this officer who somewhat notorious, whether there was

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Speaker 10: any truth to them. And they said, and they have

341
00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:10,480
Speaker 10: now testified many times under oath, both of them sadly

342
00:17:10,560 --> 00:17:12,880
Speaker 10: not at any of Robert's initial proceedings. But later on

343
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Speaker 10: when they were called and asked these questions, they couldn't

344
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Speaker 10: confirm any connection between Lester and Robert. There was no

345
00:17:18,840 --> 00:17:22,879
Speaker 10: evidence connecting Lester Jones and Robert Jones. Lester Jones had

346
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Speaker 10: been in prison and only got out eighteen months before

347
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Speaker 10: this for an armed robbery that happened in the French

348
00:17:29,119 --> 00:17:32,840
Speaker 10: Quadron in nineteen seventy nine, so maybe he got a

349
00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:36,960
Speaker 10: little under two years previously. So there was a long

350
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Speaker 10: period where they were together. They didn't live in the

351
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Speaker 10: same neighborhood. There was just no connection between them. And

352
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Speaker 10: so the.

353
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Speaker 7: Police who had figured that out, they figured that, well,

354
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Speaker 7: we've got.

355
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Speaker 10: This statement, but it's kind of bs. We're going to

356
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:50,280
Speaker 10: keep investigating and see whether our initial suspect really was

357
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Speaker 10: good for this. Have testified now under oath many times

358
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Speaker 10: that they went to the prosecutors and they said, we've

359
00:17:56,920 --> 00:17:59,560
Speaker 10: got nothing on Robert Jones. It was one person on

360
00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:02,639
Speaker 10: that crime, and it was Lester James. It wasn't Robert,

361
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Speaker 10: and there is no connection between these two, and.

362
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Speaker 5: The victims knew it was one person.

363
00:18:07,840 --> 00:18:09,960
Speaker 10: All with one exception, which I'll come to in a minute,

364
00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:12,439
Speaker 10: all describe one person. And so what happens is you

365
00:18:12,480 --> 00:18:16,280
Speaker 10: have the police saying Detective James Stewart, who again deserves

366
00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:18,159
Speaker 10: a lot of credit here, went to the prosecutors and

367
00:18:18,200 --> 00:18:19,960
Speaker 10: he has testified as the only time in his law

368
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:23,000
Speaker 10: enforcement career, his thirty year career in law enforcement, that

369
00:18:23,080 --> 00:18:25,040
Speaker 10: he went to the prosecutors and said I arrested the

370
00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:27,040
Speaker 10: wrong guy initially, and he will tell you it was

371
00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:28,399
Speaker 10: a bit of a black eye, that it was a

372
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Speaker 10: high profile case. We thought we had our guy and

373
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Speaker 10: it turned out.

374
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Speaker 7: It wasn't him that somehow got lost.

375
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Speaker 10: Well, I mean, I say that very loosely. I think it.

376
00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:40,400
Speaker 10: I think it was never never taken seriously or never

377
00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:43,720
Speaker 10: turned over. And what happened is Robert remained charged on

378
00:18:43,800 --> 00:18:46,320
Speaker 10: several of the crimes. Lester got charged with some of

379
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:48,720
Speaker 10: the crimes, and they tried to just kind of have

380
00:18:48,840 --> 00:18:50,919
Speaker 10: it both ways, the prosecutors, this is not the police

381
00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:51,440
Speaker 10: at this point.

382
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:03,800
Speaker 5: What's going on in your head and your you know,

383
00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:06,720
Speaker 5: your psyche at this time, because you're locked up now

384
00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:09,879
Speaker 5: right awaiting the outcome of this, I assume you couldn't

385
00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:12,920
Speaker 5: post bail, right, No, how much did you know about

386
00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:15,760
Speaker 5: what Emily's describing that was going on in the situation.

387
00:19:15,880 --> 00:19:18,119
Speaker 5: It was all swirling around you. But I don't know

388
00:19:18,119 --> 00:19:20,240
Speaker 5: what they were telling you, or what or what you

389
00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:22,680
Speaker 5: thought your outlook was, or whether you thought you would

390
00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:24,720
Speaker 5: be able to get justice.

391
00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:26,320
Speaker 1: At first, I thought it was a print.

392
00:19:27,280 --> 00:19:29,760
Speaker 2: Actually I really thought it was a print, because I mean,

393
00:19:29,840 --> 00:19:31,919
Speaker 2: when you knew for a fact that you didn't do

394
00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:34,359
Speaker 2: anything and somebody saying that you did it is like

395
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:35,440
Speaker 2: the officer.

396
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:36,840
Speaker 1: Has got to be some type of joke.

397
00:19:37,280 --> 00:19:39,760
Speaker 2: And I know when we got to the station and

398
00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:43,199
Speaker 2: they went the question is, I'm like telling you, now,

399
00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:45,520
Speaker 2: what are you talking about? I don't know nothing that

400
00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:49,080
Speaker 2: you're talking about. You know, It's really it was crazy

401
00:19:49,600 --> 00:19:51,880
Speaker 2: even at some point after I got charged. I mean,

402
00:19:51,920 --> 00:19:54,520
Speaker 2: I didn't know nothing what was going on. Only thing

403
00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:57,920
Speaker 2: that I was able to get information about the situation

404
00:19:58,080 --> 00:19:59,880
Speaker 2: is from the news because it was on the news

405
00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:03,840
Speaker 2: every day. Didn't at a certain pert that had became

406
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:06,520
Speaker 2: so frust grated just to watch it. So at one point,

407
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:08,280
Speaker 2: I mean I just didn't watch it, don't want to

408
00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:09,000
Speaker 2: hear about.

409
00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:09,200
Speaker 1: It or nothing.

410
00:20:09,280 --> 00:20:12,240
Speaker 2: I mean I was just kind of like frus grated

411
00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:15,040
Speaker 2: in the back of my mind. I just I realized,

412
00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:18,200
Speaker 2: I say, okay, maybe they might drop the case.

413
00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:21,040
Speaker 1: Oh. I just couldn't see myself getting found guilty.

414
00:20:21,359 --> 00:20:24,040
Speaker 5: So you were in jail, right, and the TV would

415
00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:26,399
Speaker 5: come on and you'd see yourself on the TV. Right,

416
00:20:26,840 --> 00:20:27,920
Speaker 5: How strange is that?

417
00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:28,680
Speaker 1: That was crazy?

418
00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:32,520
Speaker 5: And then I imagine that doesn't engender anything other than

419
00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:37,840
Speaker 5: hostility from the guards or other inmates, because you're now

420
00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:41,240
Speaker 5: kind of a notorious guy, right right, and you're also

421
00:20:41,359 --> 00:20:43,920
Speaker 5: like an infamous guy. But I mean, what a weird thing.

422
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:46,640
Speaker 5: Like here you are just a regular guy nineteen years old,

423
00:20:46,720 --> 00:20:49,040
Speaker 5: a couple kids, trying to figure out your life, right,

424
00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:51,560
Speaker 5: and the next thing you know, you're in prison or

425
00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:55,720
Speaker 5: jail which could be worse in prison, right, and you're

426
00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:59,359
Speaker 5: watching TV and there you are this like notorious, like

427
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:04,800
Speaker 5: multiple rapist, murderer, a guy like you're sitting there going

428
00:21:05,119 --> 00:21:08,080
Speaker 5: wait a minute, you even having this strange nightmare.

429
00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:08,680
Speaker 1: Or right right?

430
00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:12,240
Speaker 2: And yeah, that's exactly what it was. As you say,

431
00:21:12,359 --> 00:21:14,240
Speaker 2: you know, jail can be you know because during that

432
00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:18,320
Speaker 2: particular time in the nineteen nineties, New Orleans Parish Old

433
00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:22,440
Speaker 2: Paris jail, which most violent criminals is, really was tough.

434
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:24,320
Speaker 2: I mean I grew up in a tough naggs, so

435
00:21:24,359 --> 00:21:25,840
Speaker 2: I know how to defend myself, and I had to

436
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:28,560
Speaker 2: defend myself a lot in the sense of, you know,

437
00:21:28,640 --> 00:21:31,160
Speaker 2: you hear people talking, you know, like oh, yeah, they're

438
00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:33,600
Speaker 2: gonna send him, They're gonna send him to the prison.

439
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:35,080
Speaker 2: He gonna never get out of person. You know, you

440
00:21:35,119 --> 00:21:39,320
Speaker 2: can walk up on conversations like that. I'm like, it's like,

441
00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:44,600
Speaker 2: you can't tell nobody that because poor people, especially young blacks,

442
00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:47,160
Speaker 2: you know, it's like they must have did something, they're

443
00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:49,080
Speaker 2: doing some type of crime. And it was just the

444
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:53,320
Speaker 2: image that's perpetuated about that. It's like, Okay, this nigga

445
00:21:53,320 --> 00:21:55,800
Speaker 2: wrote and did all this, and I'm like, you can't

446
00:21:55,840 --> 00:21:58,359
Speaker 2: even explain that to nobody, right, you know, all that

447
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:00,600
Speaker 2: very few people that me understand and even in the

448
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:02,959
Speaker 2: back of their mind like, okay them people ain't got

449
00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:04,920
Speaker 2: them child with all that for nothing, you know, you

450
00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:05,680
Speaker 2: can't even expend.

451
00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:08,720
Speaker 1: So at that point, I mean, I really need to

452
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 1: talk to him about it.

453
00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:11,800
Speaker 2: I mean I just I kind of like stayed to myself,

454
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 2: and a lot of people was fearful because I was

455
00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:18,359
Speaker 2: kind of like a quiet person in the sense and

456
00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 2: they know I was a person that will defend myself.

457
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:23,359
Speaker 2: So when it is, you know, it's kind of like

458
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:25,600
Speaker 2: kept everything out of balanced. You know, it's like it

459
00:22:25,680 --> 00:22:28,200
Speaker 2: was a crazy time. You know, you got, like I said,

460
00:22:28,200 --> 00:22:30,679
Speaker 2: you walked up on a conversations that like, yeah, they

461
00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:33,720
Speaker 2: gonna send this bigga such and such, They're gonna execute me,

462
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:34,520
Speaker 2: and all kind of stuff.

463
00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:36,840
Speaker 1: I'm like, you don't even know nothing about me.

464
00:22:37,359 --> 00:22:40,440
Speaker 5: So Emily, back to you. Finally comes to a trial.

465
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:42,159
Speaker 10: Four years after he was arrested.

466
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:44,480
Speaker 5: He was tried four years waiting.

467
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:46,200
Speaker 10: For He sat in jail for four years.

468
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:49,200
Speaker 5: Wow, let's just think about that for a second. Four

469
00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:52,680
Speaker 5: years is just if we just think about anybody listening,

470
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 5: think about what the last four years of your life

471
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 5: looked like and all the things that you did, and

472
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:02,359
Speaker 5: you're just sitting there waiting try That's a crazy amount

473
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:05,760
Speaker 5: of time and it should be. It's totally unacceptable. Emily.

474
00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:09,399
Speaker 5: What happened to the constitutional right to a speedy trial?

475
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,440
Speaker 5: Where does that fit into all of this? Isn't that

476
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 5: one of the central tenets of the justice system in America.

477
00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:18,160
Speaker 10: There are a couple of factors at work that meant

478
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:22,720
Speaker 10: Robert sat in jail for four years. One of them is, Honestly,

479
00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 10: I don't think anybody from the prosecutor's office wanted to

480
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 10: try this case because it was clear that Lester Jones

481
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 10: had done this crime spree to anybody looking at the file,

482
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:35,520
Speaker 10: and Lester Jones was before Robert's trial, was convicted of

483
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:38,200
Speaker 10: the stotthomicide. He was convicted of the robberies that happened

484
00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:39,400
Speaker 10: right afterwards, so.

485
00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 5: He'd already been convicted of that.

486
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:42,679
Speaker 10: James was convicted of that and centers to life of

487
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:45,320
Speaker 10: that parole. And he was convicted of the robbery that

488
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:47,560
Speaker 10: happened a couple of hours later, and he was charged

489
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:50,040
Speaker 10: with the robbery that happened after Robert was in jail.

490
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:54,040
Speaker 10: And I think that any reasonable prosecutor looking at the

491
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 10: case thought he's going to use that as his defense,

492
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:00,240
Speaker 10: except as a complicating factor, which is that they charged

493
00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 10: Robert with the murder as well, even though it was

494
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:04,880
Speaker 10: one person crime. They charged him with the murder by

495
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 10: by presenting perjury to the grand jury information they knew

496
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 10: to be false. It horrendous, horrendous behavior by a prosecutor

497
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 10: in this case. So Roberts sort of hands were tied

498
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 10: on his defense, or were because his defense lawyer was

499
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,360
Speaker 10: also asleep at the wheel. His defense lawyer rarely showed up.

500
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 10: When he did, he did not do any investigation right away.

501
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 10: Robert had an alibi. It was at his son's birthday

502
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 10: party on the night this rape happened. Then he was

503
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:33,399
Speaker 10: charged with everybody there could have testified to that if

504
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 10: the defense had spoken to them within two, three, four,

505
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:39,920
Speaker 10: five weeks, six weeks, two months, even six months, right,

506
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:42,359
Speaker 10: But he didn't. He rarely showed up to court. He

507
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 10: didn't file any motions, any motions except a motion for

508
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 10: speed trial after he'd been asking for delays for two years.

509
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 10: It was Robert just is a very clear example of

510
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 10: somebody who gets completely lost in the system. Nobody really

511
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 10: wants to do anything about it. The judge isn't going

512
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 10: to push it, the prosecutor is not going to push it.

513
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 10: The defense is asleep at the wheel. Roberts defense overs

514
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 10: was criminally negligent in this case.

515
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:04,679
Speaker 5: I'm getting the chills when I hear you say that

516
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:10,360
Speaker 5: he rarely showed up to court, Like that sounds impossible, right.

517
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 10: No, it's not impossible at all. Robert gets brought in

518
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:15,360
Speaker 10: cross cubs. Defence is not there, he continued to next week.

519
00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 10: It's just for a status or something anyway, and so

520
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 10: it just rolls along like that for years. There's a

521
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 10: very basic motion in a criminal case called if there's

522
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 10: an identification, and it's called emotion to suppress the identification,

523
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 10: which would have been a very fruitful motion in this

524
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 10: case because there are a lot of problems with the

525
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 10: way the identification happened, and it was very clear by

526
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 10: the way the victim's testimony changed from what she told

527
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 10: police initially to match Robert Jones right by the time

528
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 10: of the trial, she was just describing the person she

529
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 10: saw in front of her. She wasn't describing the person

530
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 10: she remembers from the night of the crime. And if

531
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 10: you look at the police notes from the time, it's

532
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 10: very very clear that she's describing an entirely different person

533
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 10: by the time Robert James is on trial from the

534
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 10: initial description. Emotion to suppress the identification is a basic

535
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 10: Every single criminal defense lawyer with an identification case does

536
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 10: it unless there is a airing reason not to. That

537
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 10: would not be the case here. Robert initially was appointed

538
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 10: to public defender. That's what happened. If you don't have

539
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 10: a lawyer with you on the day that you go

540
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 10: to be arranged, they'll they'll appoint the public defender and

541
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:13,480
Speaker 10: then Robert. Ultimately, Robert's family scraped together to hire probably

542
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 10: the worst purchase they've ever made, hire a defense lawyer

543
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 10: for him, because everybody knew the public defender was overworked,

544
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 10: didn't necessarily have the resources to do what they needed

545
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 10: to do, at least that's the reputation right in the

546
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,639
Speaker 10: nineties here, and rightly so they were. They didn't have

547
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 10: any money and didn't have any resources, and so when

548
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 10: the public defenders appointed, they file all these boiler plate motions,

549
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 10: motion to suppress the identification, motion to suppress any evidence

550
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 10: was seized, all the kinds of things the criminals defensor

551
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 10: does for good reason. When the private lawyer comes in

552
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 10: the case, he withdraws all those motions and doesn't file

553
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 10: any of his own. So there was never any issue

554
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 10: as to whether an identification of Robert, which was an

555
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 10: incorrect identification it tends out, was coming in at trial.

556
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 10: He withdrew the work that had already been done and

557
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,880
Speaker 10: did nothing else for four years. He didn't even go

558
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 10: to the trial of Lester Jones for them murdered that

559
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 10: his client was charged with, or read the transcript of

560
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 10: that case to see what they were saying at Leicester

561
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 10: Jones's trial about who did this crime. He then pled

562
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 10: his client guilty to murder to manslaughter in the Stott

563
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 10: homicide after he'd got him wrongly convicted at a trial

564
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 10: of rape. He then recommended that Robert plead guilty to

565
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 10: four separate charges, including including the homicide that Lester Jones

566
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:25,440
Speaker 10: had already been convicted of in a crime that everybody

567
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 10: described as a one person crime, and a robbery that

568
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 10: Robert didn't even know he was pleading guilty too. And

569
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 10: I guarantee the defense lawyer didn't even know it was

570
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 10: a different incident either. He didn't even know he pled

571
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 10: guilty to that crime until twenty years later. We told

572
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 10: him the paperwork that shows it was a completely separate incident,

573
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 10: and they snuck it in there, and he told him

574
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 10: to plead, and he didn't know he was pleading guilty

575
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 10: to a separate robbery. This defense lawyer is now suspended,

576
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 10: I think, from the practice of law, but he is

577
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 10: not permanently disbarred, which is a crime in itself.

578
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 5: That is a crime in itself, and of all the

579
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 5: horrible twists and turns in this case. For some reason,

580
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 5: it's really bugging me. I've just been imagining you showing

581
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 5: up at court and looking to your right and to

582
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 5: your left and not seeing your lawyer and going what's

583
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 5: going on here? Like, what the fuck is going on here?

584
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 2: Outside of family members in you know, friends, That was

585
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:18,199
Speaker 2: supporting It's like me against the entire system in the

586
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 2: sense it's like I'm staying before a system and nobody

587
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,680
Speaker 2: has my interest. It's obviously I didn't do these crimes,

588
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 2: but the idea of having no type of representation for

589
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 2: my particular RSIs like it was crazy.

590
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:37,960
Speaker 5: So now you end up getting convicted sends to the

591
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 5: most popular sentence in Louisiana, oh, the most common, most

592
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 5: popular among law enforcement. I would say, life without parole, right,

593
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 5: and you end up going to Angola. I mean, you're

594
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 5: such a positive person. People just light up when they

595
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 5: talk about you. And you know, we were talking last

596
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 5: night about how it took twelve thousand hours of legal

597
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 5: time of lawyers donating time to free you from this

598
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 5: grip that the criminal justice system had on you. And

599
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 5: from being in that room with a lot of people

600
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 5: who did the work, I can say that if somebody

601
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 5: would have said, well it would have taken one hundred

602
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 5: and twenty thousand hours, people would have said, well, ill

603
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 5: sign me up for that too. I mean, like everybody

604
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 5: feels like this was the best time that they spent

605
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 5: because of the way you are. But how how are

606
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 5: you like that? How is that possible? When someone has

607
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 5: been through this very profound experience of being abandoned even

608
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 5: by the people that are being paid to protect you,

609
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 5: not just the system, but also your own team, and

610
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 5: then being thrust into this Angola plantation. They call it

611
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 5: a jail, but it's a slave plantation. How'd you maintain

612
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 5: this attitude?

613
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 2: Well, we'll give me spriint is it used to bother

614
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 2: me to talk about it, but I have to now

615
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 2: because it's therapeutic. But nineteen ninety six I was found guilty.

616
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 2: But at the same time, within that same year, I

617
00:29:56,800 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 2: lost my brother. My brother was killed. And you know

618
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 2: brother he was he was maybe a year, well two

619
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 2: years younger than me, but we did everything together coming up.

620
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 2: And he wasn't like only a brother, He was like

621
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 2: a son of me, because like I said, I was

622
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 2: born like a big brother, father figure. And you know,

623
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 2: my brother he dropped out of school as well, and

624
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 2: he sold drugs. You know, he kind of rose to

625
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 2: the level of selling drugs. That kind of the thing

626
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 2: was for guys in that particular thighborhood. And he was

627
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 2: one of my my supporters in the sense of, you know,

628
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 2: being able to help my mother out even though you know,

629
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 2: She didn't condone it. She always disagreed with that type

630
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 2: of action. But he helped out, and he helped me out.

631
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 2: He was helping me out because he knew that I

632
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 2: was innocent. In prison, I couldn't afford the attorney.

633
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 1: So he sold drugs to.

634
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 2: Raise money to try to get me a better attorney,

635
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 2: and he lost his life because of that.

636
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: He lost his life.

637
00:30:56,320 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 2: So from that particular stage, from that part right there,

638
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 2: I decided that I wanted to make a change. That

639
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 2: was one of the most bivocult point in my life

640
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six, and I decided that I'm gonna

641
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 2: fight for justice. I'm gonna get out of prison and

642
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 2: anyway I see and justice umber standing and fight because

643
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, he the most currazy person

644
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 2: in my eyesight because he gave it likee to try

645
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 2: to save minds. So from that part, I re educated myself.

646
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 2: And when he got my GED, I rose in school,

647
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 2: got my GED and I sit and try to master

648
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 2: every aspect of life I could, because I wanted.

649
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: To be a beacon up hope to other people.

650
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:41,280
Speaker 2: So my method what I use is I kind of

651
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 2: like detached myself from any type of cir circumstance in

652
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 2: the sense of like being denied, like I always helped him.

653
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 2: I used to get denied all the time. When I

654
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 2: started doing my approceed litigation, you know, it was hurting

655
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 2: at first, and then it started hurting them less so

656
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 2: because I realized that they were all in denying the rich,

657
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 2: that it wasn't denied me. I had to detach myself

658
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 2: from it, and I realized that everything is take a process.

659
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:08,720
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying I don't never get frustrated or

660
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 2: get discouraged or hurt because I'm a human being. But

661
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 2: I don't allow nothing just to devastate me like that

662
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 2: no more, you know, and not just kind of keep

663
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 2: on going no matter what it is. I just have

664
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 2: to deal with it whatever face me. I don't care

665
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 2: what it is. I want to face it. I'm not

666
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 2: afraid of anything anything to anybody, any system.

667
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid of it. I'm just face me with it.

668
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid.

669
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 5: I can see that, and it is and I know

670
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 5: I'd heard that aspect of your story and it really

671
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 5: knocked me out. I mean, the idea that in the

672
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 5: process of the system trying to steal your life to

673
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 5: actually stole your brother's life because in a very real way,

674
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 5: he was in this case a sort of I mean,

675
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 5: you can't really say it any other way. It was

676
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 5: a heroic figure, and that he was out there doing

677
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 5: what he was doing, not because he wanted fancy jewelry

678
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 5: or whatever else, but so that he could pay for

679
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 5: a lawyer, which you should have had in the first place. So, Emily,

680
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 5: how did this seemingly impossible situation up against the odds

681
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 5: as much as you could be How did you unravel this?

682
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 10: We started looking at Robert's case in two thousand and

683
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 10: four before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and we were

684
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 10: looking because it was very clear to us that if

685
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 10: we could find the rape kit from the rape we

686
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 10: could probably exonerate him because it was pretty clear to

687
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 10: us that he was innocent, And so we looked for

688
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 10: it and it was lost. It had been thrown out

689
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 10: or destroyed or just gone. All the biological evidence that

690
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 10: could be tested had been thrown out before Hurricane Katrina.

691
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 10: And I say that because a lot of a lot

692
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 10: of evidence got lost in Katrina. And so there's either

693
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 10: are cases where you look now and if it was

694
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 10: a pre Katrina case, the evidence is likely gone, but

695
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 10: this was just the general negligence of New Orleans before

696
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 10: Hurricane Katrina flooded the evidence facilities. So we looked at

697
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 10: that and we wanted to help Robert. But then when

698
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 10: the evidence was gone, we came back post Katrina. We

699
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 10: also we talked to Lester Jones and he said, yeah,

700
00:33:57,680 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 10: I don't know this guy, and they maybe say it,

701
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 10: I owner who he is. When we were screening the

702
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 10: case to see if it would be a good case

703
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 10: to do DNA testing on, and when he said that

704
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:08,320
Speaker 10: to us, and we were just doing it for purposes

705
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 10: of checking out whether we really thought Robert was innocent

706
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 10: and DNA could help him, that made us really understand

707
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 10: that Robert was completely innocent and they screwed this up royally,

708
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 10: so we couldn't do it for DNA testing. And then

709
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 10: when we came back after Katrina, we didn't really have

710
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 10: the resources to do his case at that point because

711
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 10: it was a big and very very complicated case. It

712
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 10: was not just the rape case, but it's the homicide

713
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,840
Speaker 10: plea and the subsequent the subsequent cases, and though it

714
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 10: was going to be a very complicated, long struggle, we

715
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 10: kind of knew that, and we also thought Robert was

716
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 10: a pretty good lawyer. He may't be able to do

717
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:38,760
Speaker 10: it himself. Frankly, we knew he had some good information,

718
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 10: including the stuff from Lester Jones, and I'm like, well,

719
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 10: we I mean, like a good judge could give him

720
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:46,320
Speaker 10: relief with what he has. And we knew he was litigating,

721
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:47,840
Speaker 10: so we stayed in touch with him, but we weren't

722
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 10: working on his case at that point because of our

723
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,239
Speaker 10: resource issues. He got denied. You know, we're looking at

724
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 10: a case with a guy that we're convinced is innocent.

725
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 10: There's no physical evidence. They've lost the district attorneys far,

726
00:34:57,640 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 10: which many times in these cases is the source of

727
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 10: ex or information that can get a conviction thrown out

728
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 10: if the person is innocent. So they didn't have the

729
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 10: district's attorney's father'd lost the physical evidence. He'd exhausted his

730
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:11,840
Speaker 10: appeals he had. He was charged and convicted of ten

731
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 10: separate charges from three different crimes, four of which he

732
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 10: pled guilty to. He was sentenced to life with that barol.

733
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 10: He had eight sentences of twenty five years on top

734
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:23,839
Speaker 10: of that, plus a twenty year sentence, and he'd had

735
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 10: two place conviction applications which had been rejected now, which

736
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 10: means he is procedurally barred and time barred.

737
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 1: Right.

738
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,359
Speaker 10: So all that, I have a really great colleague who

739
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 10: was my coke haunts on this case for many years

740
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 10: and who looked at it at that point and he's like,

741
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 10: I think we can get this guy excelerated. And I

742
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 10: thought he was joking, actually, but he explained that he

743
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 10: thought we could get some more information and that where

744
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,759
Speaker 10: it would come from. And I said, well, let's do it.

745
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 10: And that was in two thousand and nine, and we

746
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 10: litigated for a long time. And you know, the default,

747
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 10: the default, especially for someone who's tried to get themselves

748
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:58,880
Speaker 10: out of prison before, is deny, deny, deny, deny. Right,

749
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 10: you're out of time two lately, fathers before it's the

750
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 10: same information, it's not the same information. We found a

751
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:05,760
Speaker 10: whole lot more information in the police files than Robert

752
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 10: had been able to get himself from prison, including the

753
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 10: details of Lester Jones's crime spree which had never been

754
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 10: turned over to Robert, including the initial descriptions of the

755
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 10: rape victim in the case, which clearly matched Leester Jones

756
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:19,359
Speaker 10: not Robert Jones, in key ways in which they were

757
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:21,719
Speaker 10: different in the ways in which they were different. Her

758
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 10: initial descriptions matched Lester Jones, not Robert Jones. We found

759
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 10: information in the Leicester Jones files at the District Attorney's

760
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 10: office showing that they had presented perjury basically to the

761
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 10: grand jury in Roberts case to try to get an

762
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 10: indictment in the Stot homicide. And then we talked to

763
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 10: the police officers who said, oh no, we figured out

764
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 10: that wasn't rober Jones. We told the prosecutors that, so

765
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:43,279
Speaker 10: you know, at that point we had a lot of

766
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,919
Speaker 10: information that most reasonable courts would look at and say,

767
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:48,240
Speaker 10: this man does not need to be convicted of this anymore.

768
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 10: But it still took us seven years, and we filed

769
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 10: in twenty ten, and we spent the first three and

770
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 10: a half years arguing over whether he was too late

771
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:57,840
Speaker 10: to bring all this information to the courts which he

772
00:36:57,880 --> 00:36:59,839
Speaker 10: couldn't have got previously been doing his best to get

773
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 10: well every could from prison, and so we did that

774
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 10: many times. In these cases, what you argue about for

775
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 10: a long time is whether the person even has the

776
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 10: right to be there in court presenting their new evidence.

777
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 10: So we did that for three and a half years

778
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 10: twenty ten to the middle of twenty thirteen, right and

779
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 10: then after that we presented the evidence in a hearing

780
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 10: late twenty thirteen in front of a judge here in

781
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 10: New Orleans, and it included testimony from both the two

782
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 10: main detectives who investigated the robbery spree and the homicide.

783
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 10: We had all of the police documentation in the record,

784
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:31,919
Speaker 10: We had witnesses, We had a lot of people talking

785
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 10: about the fact that there was no connection between Robert

786
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 10: James and Lester Jones. We had expert witnesses and so on.

787
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 10: And the judge, you know, she took a few months

788
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 10: to deny Robert, say no and there's nothing new under

789
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 10: the sun. And so then we took what's called a

790
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 10: writ to the appellate court here and said, it is

791
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 10: clear that all this information should have been heard by

792
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 10: the jury that convicted Robert Jones, even shouldn't have even

793
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 10: got as far as a trial when you've got all

794
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,240
Speaker 10: this information that it was clearly the wrong person, including

795
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:58,320
Speaker 10: the police telling you that you've got the wrong person.

796
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 10: And so we took that appeal and the appellate court

797
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 10: took it on and they threw out Robert's conviction in

798
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 10: late twenty fourteen, October twenty fourteen.

799
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,280
Speaker 5: So October twenty fourteen, you're both in court.

800
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 10: No no, So we argued it in September, which is

801
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 10: the Court of Appeal. So Robert is not present for

802
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 10: that because it's an appellate court, right, it's not the

803
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 10: district court. If you're in prison, you get brought in

804
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 10: for a something that involves taking evidence or testimony, so

805
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:21,719
Speaker 10: you get brought into the district court, which is like

806
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 10: the trial level court. After that, Roberts family was there

807
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 10: when we argued it in the Court of Appeal. Breathe

808
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,240
Speaker 10: was there, Kendra, I think came. But it's just lawyers

809
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:30,799
Speaker 10: in court arguing us. Now, there's no right to be

810
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 10: present if you're locked up for something like that. So

811
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:35,320
Speaker 10: we did that and then they rendered a decision pretty

812
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 10: soon after that, throwing out his conviction, which, of course

813
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 10: the state then appealed to the Supreme Court. So then

814
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 10: that was another seven months I think, pending in front

815
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:45,319
Speaker 10: of the Louisiana Supreme Court, which did not overturn the

816
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:48,040
Speaker 10: appellate court. Right, they declined to overturn the appellate court.

817
00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 10: So by June one, twenty fifteen, Roberts new trial was final.

818
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 10: That meant he really was getting a new trial, so

819
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 10: then he's pre trial again. In June of twenty fifteen,

820
00:38:57,200 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 10: on the rape case, we approached the district attorneys. We said,

821
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 10: this is a case you should absolutely dismiss. It's clear

822
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 10: At wasn't him. The whole thing is a mess. You

823
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 10: should absolutely dismiss it. And the district attorney's response to

824
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 10: that was, he's welcome to take a play if he

825
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 10: wants to do it, and he complete to anything, we

826
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 10: don't really mind. They were fine with him being out

827
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 10: of prison. They just had to have them convicted of

828
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 10: something in their minds. So then we moved to get

829
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 10: the judge to remove herself from the case, the judge

830
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:24,720
Speaker 10: who had denied him relief previously, because at that point

831
00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 10: they revealed a memo in their file they didn't even

832
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 10: reveal to us while we were challenging Robert's conviction that

833
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 10: proved exactly what Robert had been saying since two thousand

834
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 10: and six, which is that Leicester Jones was asked to

835
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 10: testify at Robert's trial by the prosecutor that he knew

836
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 10: Robert Jones, and Leicester Jones said to the prosecutor, no,

837
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:42,759
Speaker 10: I'm not going to do it. I don't know him.

838
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 10: Those statements that the police kicked out of me were

839
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 10: not true. So the only connection they ever had between

840
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 10: Lester and Robert with these statements by Lester Jones. Leicester

841
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 10: told Robert, and Robert filed that stuff in court in

842
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:58,360
Speaker 10: two thousand and six, and you know in an affidavit

843
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 10: and Lessons came and testified in in two six for

844
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 10: Robert when he was basically a pro sa litigant. I

845
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 10: didn't know Robert Jones. Police made me say I did.

846
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 10: I didn't know him, and I told the prosecutor that

847
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 10: before trial. At Robert's trial, at his rape trial, where

848
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:15,279
Speaker 10: the prosecutor spent the entire closing argument saying that they

849
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 10: were friends, they know each other, Lester used to lend

850
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 10: Robert his car. That was his closing argument, after the

851
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 10: man had said I don't know Robert Jones, and there

852
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:25,439
Speaker 10: was no evidence entered at trial that they knew each other,

853
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:28,160
Speaker 10: and Robert had said that there's there's a Brady violation.

854
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 10: Here is sculptory information that should have been turned over,

855
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 10: which is that Leicester Jones told the prosecutors he didn't

856
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 10: know me, and of course when he was pro say

857
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 10: in two thousand and six and seven, had ignored it,

858
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:40,400
Speaker 10: and when we brought his case back to court, we

859
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 10: had added that. We said, you know, in addition to

860
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 10: all the other stuff we found, here's the evidence that

861
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 10: Leicester Jones told the prosecutors. That's Brady. That is sculptory

862
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 10: information for Robert favorable. The jury should have heard that

863
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:53,239
Speaker 10: Ester didn't know Robert, right, because the crimes all happened

864
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:54,920
Speaker 10: in Leicester's car and he's got all the jury that's

865
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 10: an exculpatory fact. The prosecutor owed that to the defense,

866
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 10: and when we were on the case all through the courts,

867
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 10: the prosecutor's like, ah, this, you know, this, this sudden,

868
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 10: made up thing that Lester Jones said about not knowing

869
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 10: Robert is unbelievable. And the courts repeatedly rejected that part

870
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 10: of Robert's challenge. And in the DA's files a memo

871
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 10: confirming the conversation that Lester Jones had had with the

872
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:20,240
Speaker 10: prosecutor the day before Robert Jones's trial, telling the prosecutor

873
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:22,799
Speaker 10: he didn't know Robert Jones. And they turned that over

874
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 10: to us after we'd managed to win Robert's case, and

875
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 10: at that point we said, you cannot be trusted. This

876
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 10: DA's office cannot be trusted. And the judge who had

877
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 10: denied Robert relief was actually a DA for some of

878
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 10: the part of the time that Robert's case was being

879
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:37,839
Speaker 10: litigated in two thousand and six and two thousand and seven,

880
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 10: and we said at this point that memo was in

881
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 10: one of her files, one of her ada's didn't turn

882
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,319
Speaker 10: that over while arguing that Lester Jones was lying that

883
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:47,680
Speaker 10: he didn't know Robert in post conviction like no one,

884
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:49,800
Speaker 10: no one can be trusted. We need a new judge. Ultimately,

885
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:52,280
Speaker 10: we didn't ask the das to recuse themselves yet, although

886
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 10: we may have got there if they had continued what

887
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 10: they were doing in the pre trial case. So that's

888
00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 10: when we got a new judge on the case who said, yes,

889
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:01,479
Speaker 10: first of all, I'm going to give this man bail

890
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 10: because's pretty clear he's probably not going to get convicted again,

891
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 10: and that's a factor that you consider. And I'm going

892
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 10: to kick the old judge off the case because she

893
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 10: could be a witness in why it took so long

894
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 10: to disclose this memo, and so on and so forth right.

895
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 10: That's also when we fought the motion to barn and

896
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 10: reprosecuting him just because of the decades of misconduct at

897
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 10: this point, and so because because of Judge let him

898
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 10: out on bail, he didn't have to take a plead,

899
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 10: which a lot of it is that people do to

900
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 10: bring these wrongful conviction cases to an end just so

901
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 10: they can come home, especially if they have kids. You know,

902
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:31,720
Speaker 10: we have had several clients you've done that. But because

903
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 10: we've got already won on my a new trial, he

904
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 10: was out on bail, so he was able to stare

905
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 10: out of the DA and the dabling first, and he

906
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 10: dropped all the charges in January of this year, on.

907
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 11: His forty fourth birthday.

908
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 5: So they dropped the charges on your birthday. You'd been

909
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 5: out for how long at the time that the charges

910
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:01,240
Speaker 5: were dropped?

911
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:04,759
Speaker 1: A year over?

912
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 11: Yeah?

913
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:09,759
Speaker 5: Yeah, So what happened? Did Emily call you and say

914
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 5: this is it?

915
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 6: Like?

916
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:12,279
Speaker 5: How did you find out?

917
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:13,839
Speaker 9: Remember that night?

918
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:14,319
Speaker 1: Yeah?

919
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:18,479
Speaker 5: He did describe that moment, how it happened. Who broke

920
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 5: the good news?

921
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 11: Richard?

922
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 10: Richard, let me have that privilege.

923
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 1: Emily brought the good news. She she called me, what

924
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 1: you say?

925
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 2: She said that She told me how the process was

926
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:35,080
Speaker 2: going to go, and you know, everything that we had

927
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 2: to go through the process, but they was going to

928
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:39,959
Speaker 2: drop the charge. They called her and I said, wow,

929
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 2: this is crazy.

930
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 10: To be clear, two days before they asked him if

931
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 10: you wanted to play against.

932
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 2: Right Actually yeah, they called she. I also received a

933
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 2: call in regards to another plea. We discussed that that

934
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 2: everything was off the tape. I'm gonna fight these people

935
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 2: head nil too and everything with all the five.

936
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 1: Of my spirit. I'm gonna fight them. I don't that

937
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: you don't even talk to me about.

938
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 5: How long was that phone call.

939
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 10: We were in the middle of a multi day hearing

940
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:07,319
Speaker 10: at the time, but it wasn't just like, you know,

941
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 10: all of a sudden out of the blue. So we

942
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 10: were at the end of a long day in court,

943
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:13,840
Speaker 10: preparing for the next day in court. We were going

944
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,759
Speaker 10: to have some fun witnesses, both Richard and I are

945
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 10: kind of looking forward to and they called that evening

946
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:22,239
Speaker 10: and you know, to be to be fair to the

947
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 10: Assistant district's attorney, he is the one we had been

948
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 10: talking to and he had recommended that resolution to his

949
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:30,920
Speaker 10: boss and I had ultimately got approval and he was

950
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:33,719
Speaker 10: very He's a professional guy. So he and I talked

951
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 10: for a minute, and he guaranteed me that it was

952
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 10: not something that was still up in the air. It

953
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 10: had been done, and that they were calling him the

954
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 10: victim to tell her that it would be happening, not

955
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 10: to ask a permission for it to happen, and so

956
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:46,920
Speaker 10: we just knew that had to get done before before.

957
00:44:47,080 --> 00:44:50,360
Speaker 10: So we had a day then of not being in court,

958
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:52,799
Speaker 10: and then we went back the next day.

959
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 5: So, Emily, is there anything you'd rather do for a living?

960
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:59,359
Speaker 5: How how satisfying was that day? How much joy did

961
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:00,319
Speaker 5: you get from that?

962
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 7: I mean, the Robert Jones day?

963
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:02,719
Speaker 5: Quite a lot.

964
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 10: Now, My problem is I can't think of anything else

965
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 10: I'd rather do for a living. And that's so, that

966
00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 10: is it's hard, but the anger, right, I am very,

967
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 10: very angry about what happened to Robert. And I'm more

968
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 10: angry than he is because I have not had to

969
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 10: deal with my anger in a prison where it would

970
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 10: only destroy me. So I still feel shame and horrified

971
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 10: by what they did to him and what good people

972
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:28,479
Speaker 10: allowed to happen on their watch, too, And I think

973
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:32,760
Speaker 10: that that is it's very that is a very anger

974
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 10: is and energy. Right, it's a very motivating force. But

975
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:41,279
Speaker 10: it's real, right, I feel when I see people who

976
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 10: were involved, it's I can't be nice to them. I

977
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 10: can't think you're okay because you let that happen.

978
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,919
Speaker 5: It's not okay. There's nothing okay about it. I don't

979
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 5: know how people go so far wrong that they lose

980
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:57,839
Speaker 5: their humanity and they you know, even though in this

981
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:00,040
Speaker 5: line of work, you and I see it over and

982
00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 5: over again, but it's still just doesn't add up to me.

983
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:05,839
Speaker 5: I don't. I don't get it. I don't. I can't

984
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 5: relate to it. I can't. I can't sugar color. And

985
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 5: it's weird because the exgonneries are much better at it

986
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 5: than we are.

987
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:13,160
Speaker 10: Great because we haven't had to deal with it.

988
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 5: They right, they find this grace which is beautiful and inspiring.

989
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 5: I guess you're right, though for us, I never thought

990
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:24,200
Speaker 5: of it that way. For us, this continual state of

991
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:28,839
Speaker 5: anger that we find ourselves in drives us forward, and

992
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:31,239
Speaker 5: so that works for us, and I guess that's just

993
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 5: the way it is.

994
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 10: I do want to say that the problem I think,

995
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 10: and the thing that maybe makes me most angry about

996
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,200
Speaker 10: Robert's case is I do see exactly how all that happen,

997
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:41,840
Speaker 10: and I do see people that I know and people

998
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 10: who have made other good decisions in their lives, and

999
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 10: I think that the normality, in some ways, like the

1000
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:51,759
Speaker 10: US abnormality, the extreme version of what happens to Robert

1001
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:57,399
Speaker 10: is horrifying, But actually it's so bloody normal, like all

1002
00:46:57,520 --> 00:46:59,799
Speaker 10: of those people and those players, and that system works

1003
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:01,840
Speaker 10: that every day. And I think maybe the reason I

1004
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:05,359
Speaker 10: find his case most upsetting is I can see how

1005
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 10: each of those decisions were made, and how or not made,

1006
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:10,840
Speaker 10: or how all of those things didn't get done that

1007
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:12,600
Speaker 10: needed to be done, and how no one had time

1008
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 10: to pay attention, and how somebody assumed this, and somebody

1009
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 10: assumed that, and somebody thought they weren't really breaking the rules,

1010
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 10: with the exception of the one thing that I think

1011
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 10: screwed everything up, which was knowingly presenting a lie to

1012
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:24,359
Speaker 10: the grand jury. Other than that, I see how that

1013
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,040
Speaker 10: train went, and I think I see it a lot.

1014
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 5: Yeah, I see it a lot too. I mean, this

1015
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:33,440
Speaker 5: is a particularly crazy case and a particularly backwards and

1016
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:36,279
Speaker 5: corrupt system in this state and city that we're in

1017
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 5: right now, New Orleans, Louisiana. But at the end of

1018
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 5: the day, Robert, you're here and that is ultimately the

1019
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 5: great part of this story. And you've now reconnected with

1020
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 5: your family. I know your beautiful daughter was out with

1021
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 5: us last night, and the evidence would show from having

1022
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 5: seen her last night that you did a pretty remarkable

1023
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 5: job of being a responsible even from being hundreds of

1024
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 5: miles away locked up, you never lost sight of those responsibilities,

1025
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 5: which is extremely admirable.

1026
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:10,200
Speaker 10: Two those three of his kids as well, and two

1027
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 10: of them live further away. But he's been an amazing

1028
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 10: father to his children.

1029
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 5: How are the kids, all of them doing their kid

1030
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 5: that's a miracle too.

1031
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:19,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, although all of them doing well.

1032
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 2: One of the main reasons, like I said, I just

1033
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 2: re educated myself and I started understanding the world that

1034
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 2: I lived in, in the world most people live in.

1035
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:31,880
Speaker 2: Is that statistically wise, they say that you know, generally

1036
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:34,400
Speaker 2: whit when your father, especially a young black father, when

1037
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 2: they go to prison, that generally their children follow yep.

1038
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 2: And me understanding that from being educated, I see that

1039
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 2: wasn't gonna happen to my kids. I wasn't gonna liow

1040
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 2: that happen to my kids. So you know that forced

1041
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:48,799
Speaker 2: me or compelled me in the sense this guy like

1042
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 2: made sure they was on the straight path too. So

1043
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:53,319
Speaker 2: that was one of the things outside of just having

1044
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 2: a responsibilities, having a love for your own children, but

1045
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:59,600
Speaker 2: to make sure to make sure that these don't follow

1046
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 2: that those statistics. And my thing is, you know, and

1047
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:06,799
Speaker 2: I tell people this all the time that and I

1048
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:09,719
Speaker 2: know it's well yourself, you'll get frustrated about it, and

1049
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:13,440
Speaker 2: y'all get angry, and you should be. And my angring

1050
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:17,040
Speaker 2: in frustrations about the situation. I think, like you said,

1051
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 2: we kind of like look at it different. I don't

1052
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 2: feel like justice l being served until the system is

1053
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:27,279
Speaker 2: fixed and to the point where you can't do it

1054
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:29,480
Speaker 2: to nobody else, you know what I'm saying, Well, you

1055
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 2: can't really and I'm not saying that the system actually

1056
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:35,440
Speaker 2: be perfect, but they got things here, especially here in

1057
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 2: New Orleans, that they got processes, you know that that

1058
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 2: can happen, that that system can actually be fixed because

1059
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 2: those decisions that they make and they're end up to

1060
00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 2: a practice of law, this silliness or foodness or this

1061
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 2: no care for human life scisions that they make really

1062
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:57,840
Speaker 2: affect people lives, you know, they think about all the

1063
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 2: years that hard knic and then you they have another administration,

1064
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 2: then you have canders. Ever, all these hundreds and hundreds

1065
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:10,360
Speaker 2: of people that you set in the prison, innocent or not.

1066
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:12,280
Speaker 2: But for the most part of those who are innocent,

1067
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 2: when you make decisions to do that, you're affecting their children, lives,

1068
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:21,000
Speaker 2: their mother lives, their sisters, their brothers, their family, their friends.

1069
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:24,440
Speaker 2: You change the dynamics of those people family, and you

1070
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 2: discard things. You know, you discard things when you take

1071
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 2: that man from out the household, that male figure from

1072
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:32,880
Speaker 2: out the household that people have a lot of respect

1073
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:35,239
Speaker 2: for and a lot of love. You have kids go

1074
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 2: off into different directions, the sisters, their brothers, their aunts.

1075
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 2: They changes things, you know, their mother, you know, And

1076
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:44,799
Speaker 2: my mother's a strong woman. She has grown because she

1077
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 2: dealt with a lot, She lost a lot. She dealt

1078
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:49,799
Speaker 2: with my father's dead, she deald with my brother dead,

1079
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 2: and she had to deal with the fact that I

1080
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:54,400
Speaker 2: was gonna for a crime that she knew how to commit,

1081
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 2: and she had to deal with that that way that

1082
00:50:57,640 --> 00:50:59,279
Speaker 2: weighs heavily own her.

1083
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.

1084
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 2: Those decisions affected a lot of that changed a lot

1085
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,319
Speaker 2: of lives, and that's the thing, that's one of the

1086
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 2: key things, and that's what I that's why I fight,

1087
00:51:08,160 --> 00:51:10,239
Speaker 2: That's why I fight the way I fight. You lend

1088
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:14,160
Speaker 2: the systems anything tools what's right, that's that's all, that's

1089
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 2: all I want, That's how I feel. That's how justice

1090
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 2: serves me in the sense of fixing that system so

1091
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:22,439
Speaker 2: they wouldn't be able to do it to nobody else.

1092
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:24,279
Speaker 5: I do want to have you talk a little bit

1093
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 5: about your art.

1094
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:28,759
Speaker 2: Or one of the things I do with I pain

1095
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:31,760
Speaker 2: issues in regards to like social justice issues.

1096
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:33,520
Speaker 1: I pain issues that deal with that.

1097
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 2: Now I feel like, oh, it's another way, another area

1098
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 2: that I feel like it can be effective. When I

1099
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 2: do a piece of art, I'm all like, hopefully that

1100
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 2: you can look at that particular expression and over a

1101
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:49,239
Speaker 2: period of time, or if you just look at it

1102
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:52,440
Speaker 2: every day, whatever, that it actually can change your perception

1103
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:56,120
Speaker 2: about this particular issue, that expression that I'm trying to

1104
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 2: conven to you. And if I know, if you can

1105
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 2: change the way you think about then ultimately continue the

1106
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 2: way you act about something.

1107
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 1: So that's what I kind of like do my art.

1108
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:08,440
Speaker 5: I've seen it and it's beautiful. Every painting has an

1109
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 5: element of your philosophy right of social justice and of

1110
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:18,319
Speaker 5: a strong viewpoint of right and wrong, and that it

1111
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 5: really hit me hard. I know you're doing five different

1112
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:24,879
Speaker 5: things every day in terms of work and building your

1113
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:27,879
Speaker 5: new life. But talk for a second, if you would,

1114
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 5: about the Freedom Foundation and what it is and how

1115
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:31,240
Speaker 5: people can get involved.

1116
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 2: The Freedom Foundation is a nonprofit organization that I co

1117
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:38,600
Speaker 2: founded with Daniel Rito and Jeron Morgan. Well, actually it's

1118
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 2: created to mentor the you and to give them directions

1119
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 2: so they wouldn't find themselves in the situation like we

1120
00:52:46,840 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 2: even though we didn't committ these particular crime, but we

1121
00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 2: still became part of the massive incarceration problem that's happened

1122
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:57,000
Speaker 2: in this country. So we kind of like mentor them

1123
00:52:57,040 --> 00:53:00,879
Speaker 2: by giving them our experiences and allowing them helping them

1124
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 2: acquire skill set, then it can prevent them from you know,

1125
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 2: going to commit crimes and hanging out with the wrong

1126
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:11,000
Speaker 2: crew of people and falling victim to the system.

1127
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:13,280
Speaker 5: You know, is there a Freedom Foundation website?

1128
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:15,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, freedom Foundation dot org.

1129
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:20,399
Speaker 5: Okay, so that's Freedom Foundation m Foundation dot org.

1130
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 1: And that's that's exactly what it means. It mean like free.

1131
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 5: Them, double meaning I like it so, Robert, we have

1132
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:29,000
Speaker 5: a tradition here at Wrong for conviction, which is that

1133
00:53:29,080 --> 00:53:31,880
Speaker 5: we turn the mic over to you, the star of

1134
00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 5: the show, the Axennery, for any closing thoughts that you

1135
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:35,640
Speaker 5: want to share.

1136
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:39,799
Speaker 2: The essence of this particular story, of my story, as

1137
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 2: I always tell a lot of people, is that you

1138
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 2: look at all of the obstacles or the odds that

1139
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 2: I had to overcome throughout my childhood through I mean,

1140
00:53:49,280 --> 00:53:52,520
Speaker 2: do now, and it should be able to inspire you

1141
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 2: to withstand and knowing that if you stand, I mean,

1142
00:53:56,520 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 2: if you can put whatever in your mind, you can

1143
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 2: stay determined and focus on whatever your aim is, whether

1144
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:06,120
Speaker 2: whatever it is, no matter what you go through, whatever

1145
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:09,400
Speaker 2: life throws at you, if you just keep on pushing forward,

1146
00:54:10,120 --> 00:54:13,239
Speaker 2: then I think that you can overcome anything. That's the

1147
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:15,680
Speaker 2: essence of what I want people to get for my

1148
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 2: story out of you know, like I said, I know

1149
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:21,160
Speaker 2: what happened to me is dramatic, and what happened to

1150
00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 2: a lot of design the reasons so dramatic, and I

1151
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 2: mean can it touched people?

1152
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 1: I mean it hurt me.

1153
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:28,560
Speaker 2: So I know hear a lot of people, but for

1154
00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:31,719
Speaker 2: the most part, I don't want people to feel sorry

1155
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:33,600
Speaker 2: for me, you know, and I know they do either

1156
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 2: have empathy, but I don't want you to feel sorry

1157
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 2: for me. I want you to just use my story

1158
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:41,759
Speaker 2: as an inspiration of you, whether.

1159
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 1: If you just just think about it.

1160
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:45,800
Speaker 2: A lot of high school dropouts, you know, of a

1161
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:48,560
Speaker 2: kid that thinking that he can't he can't overcome this,

1162
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 2: or I can't go to this particular profession because I

1163
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:52,960
Speaker 2: didn't have an education.

1164
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:55,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I know what it is, because I didn't.

1165
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:58,360
Speaker 2: I didn't have an education, and I had a focus,

1166
00:54:58,360 --> 00:54:59,880
Speaker 2: and I was determined to get an education.

1167
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:00,400
Speaker 1: I was.

1168
00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 2: I had a focus and determined to get out of prison.

1169
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:06,239
Speaker 2: And with the help of the instant projecting people with

1170
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 2: that particular hut yourself and other people that's on this

1171
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:10,239
Speaker 2: particular route.

1172
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:13,000
Speaker 1: I got out. I got out of prison. The eyes

1173
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:14,000
Speaker 1: will stacked against me.

1174
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:16,560
Speaker 2: So I just want people to use this particular story

1175
00:55:16,600 --> 00:55:19,359
Speaker 2: and let them know that anything they did facing in life,

1176
00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:20,239
Speaker 2: that you can do coming.

1177
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 1: But you gotta be you gotta be fearless in it.

1178
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:25,919
Speaker 2: You know, just kind of face it, head up, don't

1179
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 2: dug it this uncle straight at it.

1180
00:55:28,120 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 5: And you not only got out of prison. But you

1181
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 5: did it on your terms, and it took an incredible

1182
00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 5: amount of courage and perseverance. But you're here and I

1183
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:42,239
Speaker 5: appreciate you you being here, and I want to thank

1184
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:47,319
Speaker 5: both of my amazing guests today. Robert Jones twenty three

1185
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:50,560
Speaker 5: and a half years in prison for criming and commit

1186
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:55,239
Speaker 5: and coming out swinging strong and commit.

1187
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:55,880
Speaker 1: It still swing.

1188
00:55:57,880 --> 00:56:01,440
Speaker 5: And the one and only for some nature, Emily Ma,

1189
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:06,600
Speaker 5: the fearless leader of the Innocence Project New Orleans ipn O,

1190
00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 5: and please support their work I do. What is the

1191
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 5: website for the Innocence Project New.

1192
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:18,920
Speaker 10: Orleans www dot ip dashno dot org give.

1193
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 5: Till it hurts. Thanks you've been listening to a very

1194
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 5: special episode of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm from New Orleans.

1195
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:30,879
Speaker 5: Once again, thank you to my guest Robert Jones and Lyma.

1196
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:42,399
Speaker 9: Thank you Jason, don't forget to.

1197
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:45,399
Speaker 4: Give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts.

1198
00:56:45,480 --> 00:56:46,400
Speaker 1: It really helps.

1199
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 4: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and

1200
00:56:49,719 --> 00:56:52,439
Speaker 4: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very

1201
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:56,440
Speaker 4: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go

1202
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:59,320
Speaker 4: to Innocence project dot org to learn how to donate

1203
00:56:59,440 --> 00:57:02,319
Speaker 4: and get in. I'd like to thank our production team,

1204
00:57:02,440 --> 00:57:05,359
Speaker 4: Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show

1205
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:08,319
Speaker 4: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.

1206
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:11,440
Speaker 5: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction

1207
00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:15,840
Speaker 5: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with

1208
00:57:15,920 --> 00:57:19,040
Speaker 5: Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts

1209
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 5: and association with Signal Company Number one