Speaker 1: This episode includes discussion of sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: If you will place your left hand on the Bible
Speaker 1: and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me
Speaker 1: and I do solemnly swear. The jury then titled action
Speaker 1: find the defendant guilty of the prime It makes no sense,
Speaker 1: it doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must aquit.
Speaker 1: We all took the same of of office. We're all
Speaker 1: bound by that common commitment to support and defend the Constitution,
Speaker 1: to bear true faith and allegiance to the same that
Speaker 1: you faithfully discharge the duties of our office. Do you
Speaker 1: solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about
Speaker 1: to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and
Speaker 1: nothing but the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: this is Sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. The reason
Speaker 1: why we have free publication vacation is because we want
Speaker 1: to create productive citizens. We want to teach children how
Speaker 1: to contribute to the communities. We also want to teach
Speaker 1: them about how to manage conflicts. We are trying to
Speaker 1: keep our society going. So the way that a system
Speaker 1: provides education to its children is symbolic of what it
Speaker 1: expects from its children. If you are a six year
Speaker 1: old and this has happened, who is handcuffed at your
Speaker 1: school for throwing a temper tantrum by a police officer
Speaker 1: and booked that school, district, that community, Our society has
Speaker 1: made a very clear statement about what we expect from her.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't expect to hear that happening to a preschool
Speaker 1: or because who would do that to a preschooler? Who
Speaker 1: would do that to a child? We valued children, We
Speaker 1: recognize what our time and energy invested in them will mean.
Speaker 1: But that isn't nearly always the case with black children. Hi. Everyone,
Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about the ways prejudice and
Speaker 1: even racism can factor into the American justice system. This,
Speaker 1: of course, is a huge topic, but we've had the
Speaker 1: pleasure of working with the Georgia Innocence Project to hear
Speaker 1: about their cases and the ways that they see racism
Speaker 1: and prejudice play into the legal system and society as
Speaker 1: a whole. People are working every day to fight these
Speaker 1: biases and to create a more perfect system. But like
Speaker 1: all of the topics we cover on this show, we
Speaker 1: aren't there yet. And I hope the stories and the
Speaker 1: expert as you hear from today will help shed at
Speaker 1: least some light on this particularly troublesome aspect of the
Speaker 1: justice system. We spoke with an axonoree here in Georgia,
Speaker 1: Calvin Johnson. Calvin shared his story with us, his story
Speaker 1: of being held in prison for sixteen years for a
Speaker 1: crime that he did not commit. My name is Calvin C. Johnson, Jr.
Speaker 1: And I'm the sixty first person to be asserated in
Speaker 1: the United States of America. That there is first person
Speaker 1: to be asonerated in the state of Georgia the DNA technology.
Speaker 1: I was charged with the charge of rape in Clayton
Speaker 1: County and Puton County, Georgia. Back in these counties sit
Speaker 1: side by side, and these rapes took place with a
Speaker 1: close prosinity of each other. Similar try action. They were
Speaker 1: positive the same guy committed bo pries. We asked Calvin
Speaker 1: how he got involved in this case in the first place.
Speaker 1: Why did police think he was a suspect. My dad said,
Speaker 1: I opened up the can of worms and I put
Speaker 1: myself in that position. What happened to me was not right.
Speaker 1: It was wrong, but I wasn't a perfect individual, and
Speaker 1: I had some runners with the law and I had
Speaker 1: committed burglary, and that's how I got on the radar.
Speaker 1: There's nobody thought but my own I made a mistake
Speaker 1: as a young man and leave me. I learned from it.
Speaker 1: On the day that they arrested me. I remember it
Speaker 1: was a beautiful day. It was in the spring, and
Speaker 1: I was coming home. I had been to work that day,
Speaker 1: stopped by the gym, and I was living with my
Speaker 1: parents at the time, so walking up the street and
Speaker 1: my mom rode by and I jumped in the car
Speaker 1: and she gave me a ride that went home, and
Speaker 1: no sooner than I got inside the house, there was
Speaker 1: a knock on the door. I got a little strange.
Speaker 1: Even when I got on my mom's card, something felt
Speaker 1: strange that they's just some didn't feel right. As soon
Speaker 1: as I got in the door, it was a knock.
Speaker 1: Doom doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. I got rushed by
Speaker 1: police officers, throwing on the floor and cuff and it
Speaker 1: took me off and threw me into a cold, dark,
Speaker 1: damp self by myself. I had no idea what I've
Speaker 1: been charged until the next morning, and then they told me.
Speaker 1: They said, you're being charged with charged great, and I
Speaker 1: was basically shocked and surprise because I'm like, hey, I
Speaker 1: didn't ripe anybody. I figure. I said, well, they're gonna
Speaker 1: realize that made a mistake. They're gonna let me go,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go home just a matter of time.
Speaker 1: At that stage in my life, I basically believe that justice.
Speaker 1: I brought up in the middle class family and middle
Speaker 1: class household. My father used to be uh he was
Speaker 1: a first black state senator in Ohio, is also a lawyer.
Speaker 1: My mother worked at the college. You know, I thought, hey,
Speaker 1: you know that everything was gonna be just fine. But
Speaker 1: it didn't happen like that. They put me in a
Speaker 1: liveline up person picked out somebody else side and after
Speaker 1: David to that effect. So I'm thinking, wow, okay, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm going home now. I mean, I got all the sight. No,
Speaker 1: it didn't let me go. So then they had another
Speaker 1: person that came in. It was after they had several people,
Speaker 1: and this last person supposedly picked me out. It seemed
Speaker 1: some kind of strange in my opinion. They went ahead
Speaker 1: and took me to trial in Clay County. And first
Speaker 1: of all, we had a preliminary hearing. That's when they
Speaker 1: asked questions. My lawyer asked questions, like, you know, how
Speaker 1: was Mr Johnson identified the lady who was the victim?
Speaker 1: She said that well, it was identified from photographs. He
Speaker 1: asked with what kind of photographs were the color for
Speaker 1: the black and white and she said that they were color.
Speaker 1: So later on the police officer came in asked him, said, well,
Speaker 1: did you show the victim of serious of photographs for
Speaker 1: identification purposes? And he said yes. He said, do you
Speaker 1: have those with you today? He can't, we see him,
Speaker 1: and he pulled out a series of black and white photo.
Speaker 1: I'm like wow, I'm sitting there shaking my head and saying, okay,
Speaker 1: I know they're gonna let me go now, they're gonna
Speaker 1: realize they made a mistake. But it didn't. It didn't happen.
Speaker 1: I was wearing a full bear back then. She didn't
Speaker 1: say anything, but mustache had a mustache here since I
Speaker 1: was a teenager. What's going on here? This is back
Speaker 1: in nineteen three. In three they want to use the
Speaker 1: DNA technology. So the blood sapple came back old positively.
Speaker 1: I believe that's that's the most common blood type there
Speaker 1: is you might be a positive and guess what, they say,
Speaker 1: you're guilty because you're all positive. But the hair samples
Speaker 1: came back and they did not match me. They matched
Speaker 1: somebody of African American ancestry, but they did not match
Speaker 1: Calvin C. Johnson you. So I'm like, hey, I'm all
Speaker 1: over again, Like whoa, I'm going home now that I
Speaker 1: get all exp but they still don't let me go.
Speaker 1: They indicte me, now that's coming time to go through
Speaker 1: the jury selection. Maybe three blacks that they could selected
Speaker 1: and give a take a little but of course all
Speaker 1: of them were struck. So I ended up with all
Speaker 1: white jury and the victim was white, and I'm a
Speaker 1: black man. What are my odds? What are the chances?
Speaker 1: And I tell people all the time if it had
Speaker 1: been an all Chinese jury and it would have been
Speaker 1: a Chinese, are all Mexican jury and the Mexican victory,
Speaker 1: what are the odds? The odds are totally statis. Striking
Speaker 1: jurors because of the color of their skin or any
Speaker 1: protected attributes like gender or race is a huge problem
Speaker 1: and a big example of the ways that biased and
Speaker 1: prejudice can creep into the criminal justice system. Everyone is
Speaker 1: entitled to a trial in front of a jury of
Speaker 1: their peers, and it must be a fair and impartial jury.
Speaker 1: The concept of peers means that you need to account
Speaker 1: for diversity. There are now methods in place, a type
Speaker 1: of check called the bats and challenge that can prevent
Speaker 1: a biased right like the one Calvin had, and we'll
Speaker 1: go more into that later in the episode. They didn't
Speaker 1: listen to anything, goes emotional things. You go to the court,
Speaker 1: get in there. I have all this evidence, told my
Speaker 1: innocence alibi testimony because I was at home with my parents.
Speaker 1: My employer comes and he shows my employee idea and
Speaker 1: testify that I had a full beer. Fact at the
Speaker 1: fact that the fact that brought out, But it didn't
Speaker 1: make any difference because that one dramatic moment. But they say,
Speaker 1: as the person that committed the crime in this courtroom today,
Speaker 1: and they're so, can you point that person out? Of
Speaker 1: course they turned around, that a tear coming down to
Speaker 1: their cheek and they point that Recolt me and said
Speaker 1: he's the one, and the jury found me guilty. I
Speaker 1: was sitting to light life in the Georgia penitentiary there
Speaker 1: a year later, I did go back to the the court
Speaker 1: again for the foot County case, because remember I said
Speaker 1: there were two cases, and in Booton County it was
Speaker 1: exact similar case. I gotta understanding and brought up my
Speaker 1: character and everything, and they brought up the fact that
Speaker 1: I already was convicted and so the odds were totally
Speaker 1: against me now, but there was so much evidence point
Speaker 1: towards my innocence. This jury here, which you had to
Speaker 1: make up of seven blacks and by whites, came back
Speaker 1: with a not guilty verdict. But even though they came
Speaker 1: back were not guilty verdict, I'm still in prison for
Speaker 1: Clayton County for this case. I spoke with Molly Palmer,
Speaker 1: a lawyer and board member for the Georgia Innocence Project.
Speaker 1: She's familiar with Calvin's case and can speak to the
Speaker 1: ways she sees biased and racism play out from a
Speaker 1: legal perspective throughout the justice system, and in Calvin's case
Speaker 1: in particular. My name is Molly Palmer. I am an
Speaker 1: attorney in Atlanta, and I serve on the board of
Speaker 1: directors for the Georgia Innocence Project. I asked Molly what
Speaker 1: inspired her to start working on wrongful conviction cases. I
Speaker 1: was really shocked at the fact that wrongful convictions happen
Speaker 1: and the prevalence with which they happen. I was a young,
Speaker 1: impressionable law student, and you go to law school thinking
Speaker 1: you're gonna be part of what they call a justice system.
Speaker 1: I ended up going into what's essentially, at the time
Speaker 1: a small, cramped basement office with a bare bones staff
Speaker 1: and hardly any resources, and we were tasked with identifying
Speaker 1: and communicating with potentially wrongfully impress and men and women
Speaker 1: in this the criminal justice system here in Georgia and
Speaker 1: in Alabama. At the time, we covered both states. I
Speaker 1: think it was pretty harrowing to realize how many potentially
Speaker 1: wrongfully imprisoned men and women are behind bars. The estimates
Speaker 1: are are somewhere between three percent and five of all
Speaker 1: people who are incarcerated are wrongfully imprisoned. I think the
Speaker 1: system operates from a history of structural racism. But we
Speaker 1: see these racial disparities in the system, but they're all
Speaker 1: a product of this legacy of racial injustice that essentially
Speaker 1: started with slavery and this idea of a racial hierarchy.
Speaker 1: There was a belief that black people essentially were inferior
Speaker 1: and they've benefited from slavery. Even after the formal abolition
Speaker 1: of slavery, this thought persisted into convict leasing and this
Speaker 1: idea of African Americans being presumed, they being presumed to
Speaker 1: be criminals. And so what we see now in our
Speaker 1: current legal system is that the idea of the burden
Speaker 1: of proof or the presumption of innocence applies totally differently
Speaker 1: based on race. We see that people of color, in
Speaker 1: particular African American men, are presumed guilty. They're presumed to
Speaker 1: be criminals from the time their children. We see disproportionate stops, frisks, arrests,
Speaker 1: We see in sentencing that these men are sentenced too
Speaker 1: far longer in prison than are their white counterparts convicted
Speaker 1: of the same crimes. And I think the way that
Speaker 1: we over incarcerate disproportionately affects communities of color as well.
Speaker 1: There's a huge collateral effect to communities, and that can
Speaker 1: be discounted either and when it comes down to exonerations.
Speaker 1: Roughly cent of the US population is black, Roughly forty
Speaker 1: of the prison population is black, and almost sixty percent
Speaker 1: of all d nasarrees are black. I think that Calvin
Speaker 1: Johnson's case is a great example, and what we saw
Speaker 1: in his case is something that we see far too often. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it's a case of eye witness misidentification, something that we
Speaker 1: see I think in about sevent of DNA honorations, but
Speaker 1: of those involved cross racial identification, and Calvin's case is
Speaker 1: a prime example of this. We looked at eyewitness testimony
Speaker 1: and the problems with cross racial identification in the last episode,
Speaker 1: and Molly is right, it is one of the most
Speaker 1: common attributes in wrongful conviction cases everywhere. Calvin was considered
Speaker 1: the suspects, the prime suspect, and I think what we
Speaker 1: saw in his case was devaluation of human life. It
Speaker 1: was a rush to judgment, and we see that with
Speaker 1: individuals of color on a level that we don't see
Speaker 1: with white people in America. There's a quickness with which
Speaker 1: he was identified and the finger was pointed at him,
Speaker 1: and he was going to go down for these primes.
Speaker 1: Despite a patchwork of partial identification shans similar to Calvin's
Speaker 1: case in Louisiana, thirty of their axonorees had trials of
Speaker 1: less than one day, so we see an incredible swiftness
Speaker 1: in convicting young men of color. The brevity of that
Speaker 1: kind of procedure shows just how careless we are. And
Speaker 1: I think what it shows is that a lot of
Speaker 1: these men, when you really think about it, it's not
Speaker 1: as simple as they're targeted because they're black. They're they're
Speaker 1: targeted because we don't care who the actual perpetrator is
Speaker 1: because he's black. We as a society have not moved
Speaker 1: away from this idea that inherently, if you're African American,
Speaker 1: you're dangerous, and so a suspect standing before a jury
Speaker 1: or a judge who's African American almost satisfies it is
Speaker 1: inherent bias and allows us to render a verdict. I
Speaker 1: asked Calvin about the impacts of his conviction on him
Speaker 1: and on his community. It was it was hard because
Speaker 1: it broke my family's heart. Broke my mother's heart. A
Speaker 1: couple of months after that happened, she just she had
Speaker 1: a stroke. It was too much strain on her because
Speaker 1: she couldn't believe it. Part of my family, my naturally
Speaker 1: file appeals and so forth. And there I am sitting
Speaker 1: down to one of the hardest working camps in the
Speaker 1: state of Georgia. I call it institutionalize labor. You call
Speaker 1: it what you want, but it's all of this is
Speaker 1: a formal institutionalize labor. It was a dangerous place to speak.
Speaker 1: Nobody at this camp had less than twenty years and
Speaker 1: we should work all around schwamp waters. And this is
Speaker 1: in South Georgia. You can't even eat your food. That's
Speaker 1: cover your food before you can put it in your mouth.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing moccasons. I'm saying rattle snakes. There was a
Speaker 1: violent society that I was forced into. I had to
Speaker 1: make an adjustment. I had to be tough, the hard
Speaker 1: in my heart that it changed my attitude and I
Speaker 1: wasn't probably the nicest person in the world that during
Speaker 1: those years, because they had a lot of frustration inside
Speaker 1: of me. I mean, there was nobody who I could
Speaker 1: really talk to about my emotions. So years go by,
Speaker 1: years go by. I remember, you know, they wanted me
Speaker 1: to get into this program called this sexual offender program.
Speaker 1: Being involved in the sexual offender program might be okay
Speaker 1: for somebody who's the sexual but in order to complete
Speaker 1: this program, they want you to sign and the mission
Speaker 1: of guilt. Now, I just came to a conclusion that
Speaker 1: Rabb died. I just rebber die in prison and then
Speaker 1: just to walk out, I would not have a life
Speaker 1: at all. My name is Ebony Howard and a senior
Speaker 1: supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. I work
Speaker 1: in Alabama focusing on issues related to criminal justice reform,
Speaker 1: specifically juvenile justice. Our work tends to focus on the
Speaker 1: impact of the justice systems on black and brown people
Speaker 1: and other people of color. Ebony Howard is also the
Speaker 1: voice you heard at the beginning of the episode. She
Speaker 1: and the organization she worked for, the Southern Poverty Law Center,
Speaker 1: raise awareness about prejudice and hate crimes across the country.
Speaker 1: Ebony's work has a strong emphasis in juvenile law, so
Speaker 1: I wanted to speak with her about the ways the
Speaker 1: legal system is set up to interact with some children
Speaker 1: more than others. The justice system as it operates is
Speaker 1: a continuation of a system of slavery using black bodies
Speaker 1: towards capitalism. Even after you have the Civil War, you
Speaker 1: still have a backlash to it. And then you continue
Speaker 1: on and black people go from being enslaved to sharecroppers,
Speaker 1: and then you have the Civil rights movement, and so
Speaker 1: they are definitely gains there. But if you see enslavement
Speaker 1: is still happening in some form or the other, because
Speaker 1: even once civil rights are established and black people can
Speaker 1: vote and women can vote miraculously, you have a prison
Speaker 1: system that is overwhelmingly filled with black people and also
Speaker 1: brown people, and you see that black and brown people
Speaker 1: are getting sentence at different rates. How is it possible
Speaker 1: that black people and white people can engage in the
Speaker 1: same conduct, but yet black people get longer sentences. It
Speaker 1: is because that same value system that says that black
Speaker 1: people are other black people are inferior, carries through because
Speaker 1: it is woven throughout our history. It is woven into
Speaker 1: the American fabric. People say, well, black people engage in
Speaker 1: more crime than white people, Latin X people engage in
Speaker 1: more crime. The answer is that black and Latin X
Speaker 1: people are targeted far more than white people. We see
Speaker 1: that over and over again. We see that with stop
Speaker 1: and frisk, we see that with the charging practices of
Speaker 1: district attorneys. The reality is that you can't say that
Speaker 1: black people are more violent because the data bears out
Speaker 1: that people are being charged for the same acts but
Speaker 1: getting different In US, it is and the same thing
Speaker 1: with our education systems. Why is it that when you
Speaker 1: look at the presence of police officers, and mostly white
Speaker 1: schools are integrated schools. You see that the officer just
Speaker 1: kind of stays tucked in the back and you don't
Speaker 1: really see him or her. But in mostly black schools,
Speaker 1: the officers are there to police students themselves, not protect them,
Speaker 1: but to police them. That is because when the establishment
Speaker 1: looks at black children, when the establishment looks at black adolescence,
Speaker 1: they don't see children, they don't see teenagers, they see criminals.
Speaker 1: And so we train throughout this education system for incarceration.
Speaker 1: I asked to have any to explain this idea called
Speaker 1: the school to prison pipeline and what it means to
Speaker 1: be exposed to the justice system at a young age.
Speaker 1: I have met children in high school who were arrested
Speaker 1: and maced and booked for getting into a fiet school.
Speaker 1: Years later, I encountered that same kid at like age
Speaker 1: seventeen in an adult jail. I see the pipeline. I
Speaker 1: see how it moves, and I see how the way
Speaker 1: that this system is run, the way that the values
Speaker 1: that it's based on directly impact black people. I wish
Speaker 1: people knew what it means for people to be involved
Speaker 1: in the justice system. So the collateral consequences of being arrested,
Speaker 1: even if your case doesn't go anywhere, if it's dismissed,
Speaker 1: if it's a fluke, if you are arrested and fingerprinted,
Speaker 1: the state has your identity, they have access to you.
Speaker 1: Every time a criminal act occurs and they're looking for
Speaker 1: whoever did it, you are in the pool of people
Speaker 1: that they will go to first. Apparently we have decided
Speaker 1: that the way we want our justice system to work
Speaker 1: is that we don't just lock people up. We have
Speaker 1: to punish them. So the punishment isn't just being locked up.
Speaker 1: The punishment is whatever comes with being locked up. So
Speaker 1: you'll hear people say often listen, they get what they get.
Speaker 1: That is the consequences of breaking the law. You see,
Speaker 1: let me be clear about what the actual consequences are
Speaker 1: in an out of them a prison. Right now, Somebody
Speaker 1: is being raped. Somebody is sick because they have diabetes
Speaker 1: or some kind of chronic illness, and they are not
Speaker 1: getting the care that they need. They are dying. There
Speaker 1: is a seventeen year old in a jail seeing foul,
Speaker 1: horrible things that will forever change his or hers brain.
Speaker 1: When you talk about they get what they deserve. The
Speaker 1: punishment is having your liberty taken away from you, the
Speaker 1: unseen punishment that people don't allow themselves to imagine. It's
Speaker 1: just absolute torture. If people were to allow themselves to
Speaker 1: imagine it, like to play it out in their head
Speaker 1: like a movie, they wouldn't be able to live with it.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that if more people did, they
Speaker 1: would understand how something drastically has to change with the
Speaker 1: way that we run this justice system. In Alabama. There
Speaker 1: are a couple of ways that kids can be tried
Speaker 1: as adults. One of them is called transfer. It is
Speaker 1: when a child under the age of seventeen can be
Speaker 1: charged with anything, and if the prosecutor makes a motion,
Speaker 1: then the juvenile court judge can consider that motion and
Speaker 1: then transfer that child to the adult court. In making
Speaker 1: the decision about whether or not a child should be
Speaker 1: transferred to the adult court, the judge has to consider
Speaker 1: a set of factors, but one thing that's listed there
Speaker 1: is the child's demeanor. So when you talk about something
Speaker 1: like demeanor, you've opened the door for all kinds biases
Speaker 1: to live out their lives. So he's there because he's
Speaker 1: accused of doing something wrong. Perhaps he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: make eye contact because he's scared, and the way that
Speaker 1: his fear manifests itself is to look down, and the
Speaker 1: way that his fear manifests itself is not to speak up.
Speaker 1: And he's wearing the clothes that he's wearing because that's
Speaker 1: what everybody in his neighborhood wears. He comes from a
Speaker 1: cultural context that the judges and policymakers who are in
Speaker 1: positions of power don't understand and fear, and so he's
Speaker 1: in this situation where you're expecting a fourteen year old
Speaker 1: to translate for you who he is when you're the
Speaker 1: adult in the room, like you are the one charged
Speaker 1: with ensuring that you don't do harm to this person,
Speaker 1: little pete, who are supposed to be thinking about how
Speaker 1: to best serve not just kids, but people who are
Speaker 1: involved in the justice system, people who are involved in
Speaker 1: social services systems. Those people who are running those systems
Speaker 1: cannot get out of the ingrained racist biases to see
Speaker 1: people for people. I wanted to hear more about the
Speaker 1: effects of the justice system on youth and what happens
Speaker 1: when young people are put in the system. Early on,
Speaker 1: I spoke with Ashley Wilcot, a juvenile court judge into
Speaker 1: Cab County, Georgia, about the ways she sees racism in
Speaker 1: her work with youth. I'm a child welfare law specialist.
Speaker 1: I've practiced juvenile courts for many, many years. I now
Speaker 1: serve as a judge into Cab County Juvenile Court. I
Speaker 1: do a lot of consulting and speaking nationwide a lot
Speaker 1: about the education behind our child welfare system. A lot
Speaker 1: don't understand it, aren't familiar with it, and so my
Speaker 1: goal is really often to educate about it. So I
Speaker 1: just want to share a few statistics to set the stage.
Speaker 1: So as you all probably have heard or no, the
Speaker 1: United States has the world's highest incarceration rate in the world. Right,
Speaker 1: nobody is probably surprised to hear that there's clear racial
Speaker 1: impact as a result of that. Approximately of Americans incarcerated
Speaker 1: are non white. Average American I think it's one in
Speaker 1: twenty chance of ending up incarcerated. That's the average American.
Speaker 1: If you break it down into race, Latino was one
Speaker 1: in six rate of incarceration or chance of going to jail,
Speaker 1: African American was one in three, and then the white
Speaker 1: average was one in twenty three. Those numbers apply equally
Speaker 1: to youth who are tried as adults. The big news
Speaker 1: is juvenile incarceration rates have been declining, and from my
Speaker 1: perspective with criminal justice reform, that's a good thing. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, between two thousand and ten, the juvenile incarceration
Speaker 1: rate dropped by forty so that's significant. But if you
Speaker 1: compare that to school discipline policies and what you see
Speaker 1: happening in the schools, that's going the other direction. So
Speaker 1: for instance, since two thousand, the number of schools suspensions
Speaker 1: has increased by about ten percent, So you're seeing in
Speaker 1: schools that the discipline policies are increasing what happens to
Speaker 1: these kids and increases how these kids then touched the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system as a result of what's happened in
Speaker 1: school as of twenty fifteen, and this was five years ago,
Speaker 1: and it's still true today, and it's it's staggering to
Speaker 1: me that this is true in our society, but it is.
Speaker 1: Black students are three times more likely to be suspended
Speaker 1: or expelled than white students, especially when you take that
Speaker 1: into account with the fact that studies have shown kids
Speaker 1: who are suspended are more likely to either be held
Speaker 1: back a grade or to drop out of school. And
Speaker 1: when those things start happening, kids they need to have
Speaker 1: purpose and be busy, start getting into more trouble, even
Speaker 1: if it's you know, just school pranks or something they
Speaker 1: think isn't that bad. They get arrested, they go to
Speaker 1: juvenile detention. It starts that process of ending up in
Speaker 1: the pipeline to prison. You Know, the thing that I
Speaker 1: really see that bothers me is I'll just give an example,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of shoplifting. I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of shoplifting cases um in the last i don't know,
Speaker 1: year to two years. I really feel like when they
Speaker 1: get arrested, the way they've been treated at them all
Speaker 1: as a herb of kids is different if they're African
Speaker 1: American versus even if they are Asian or Caucasian. Right Like,
Speaker 1: there's this whole approach to me that feels very very
Speaker 1: different in terms of these are bad kids and we
Speaker 1: have to arrest them, versus it's bad behavior that kids
Speaker 1: are engaging in. The Thing that infuriates me the most,
Speaker 1: not the most, but pretty high up there is when
Speaker 1: you see these little kids who have been through all
Speaker 1: kinds of trauma act out in the school environment, and
Speaker 1: then you see them get tasered, or you see them
Speaker 1: actually getting arrested with the handcuffs, or you see them
Speaker 1: thrown to the ground and they're half my size. They've
Speaker 1: been through things you could never probably imagine, and as
Speaker 1: a result, we need to respond in a trauma informed
Speaker 1: way so that the response that they get can help
Speaker 1: them de escalate instead of escalating and ending up in
Speaker 1: the system. M m M. Here's Calvin Johnson explaining how
Speaker 1: he finally found a path towards exoneration. I got to
Speaker 1: the point where I felt like I was just about snap,
Speaker 1: like I was about almost lose my mind, like a
Speaker 1: rubber band being stretched. And then later I heard about
Speaker 1: DNA technology. I said, DNA what some guys have gotten
Speaker 1: out based on DNA technology. There was a guy he
Speaker 1: ushould come into the prison, his name Jim Honor. He
Speaker 1: was a prisoner legal counseling project, and I told him
Speaker 1: my situation. I said, you don't have to believe a
Speaker 1: word I said. He said, let me just skeeve my
Speaker 1: transcript and you read it. He said, man, this is
Speaker 1: the worst case of injustice that I witnessed in my
Speaker 1: entire time of the legal profession. They didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of preserve evidence at that time, and they were
Speaker 1: actually going to destroy the evidence, and somebody, for whatever
Speaker 1: reason changed in mind and he kept the evidence. So
Speaker 1: he found an extraordinary motion for a new trial based
Speaker 1: on newly discovered evidence, which means that DNA technology didn't exist,
Speaker 1: and now this is a new technology that could possibly
Speaker 1: prove that I'm innocent, and if that's possible, I should
Speaker 1: be given a new trial. And then it defunded the project.
Speaker 1: So I spent time writing letters and writing letters to
Speaker 1: different people in different organizations seeking help. A friend that
Speaker 1: I grew up with when I was a child wrote
Speaker 1: me about the inn this is project in New York
Speaker 1: City and they looked at it and they said, wow,
Speaker 1: this is unique. Here. We got one jury that gives
Speaker 1: one verdict, another jury that gives another verdict is like
Speaker 1: putting two rats indications on that experiment. Evidence was tested
Speaker 1: and they almost used all the evidence up and it
Speaker 1: came back where it was inclusive. Basically, they would telling
Speaker 1: me, is is that Mr Johnson, you got a choice again, Well,
Speaker 1: we just wait till technology gets better five teen years
Speaker 1: from now and reach us was left because there's such
Speaker 1: a small amount, it's probably gonna be used up, he said.
Speaker 1: But there's one other option. He says, there's a guy
Speaker 1: in California named Dr Blake, one of the best ristic
Speaker 1: scientists in the country and maybe in the world, and said,
Speaker 1: we can't send it to him, but the choice of yours.
Speaker 1: I said, send it the thought to play, and it
Speaker 1: came in November of nineteen showing that it was impossible
Speaker 1: that I could have committed the crime based on DNA technology.
Speaker 1: Now all of a sudden, they want to do their
Speaker 1: own tests State of Georgia, so they want to send
Speaker 1: it to the GBI lab, but do their own tests.
Speaker 1: They do their own tests and guess what the results
Speaker 1: come back? The saying I mean from the very beginning,
Speaker 1: I told him that that with God's my witness, you know,
Speaker 1: one day the truth will come out. And in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine, jif the truth came out, I walked out
Speaker 1: of the President Freeman and beginning to do life. Started
Speaker 1: my life all over. Guess what I got out and
Speaker 1: had to pay bills. I asked Calvin if he believed
Speaker 1: that racism and bias impacted this case and helped cause
Speaker 1: his wrongful conviction. I do I do believe that race
Speaker 1: had a percent to do with with me being arrested.
Speaker 1: District attorney, he was very powerful in this position in
Speaker 1: Clayton County at the time, and it's like they could
Speaker 1: care less about me as an individual. It's sad to say,
Speaker 1: but I think because I was black, I would look
Speaker 1: down as being less less of a human being, and
Speaker 1: so they didn't care. But like a palm on a
Speaker 1: on a chess set being pushed around, and I said,
Speaker 1: how can people just take and devalue my life, play
Speaker 1: with my life like this? But he knew that in
Speaker 1: Clayton County he could get a conviction. Clayton County was
Speaker 1: predominantly white. The victim of white He knew there was
Speaker 1: no doubt no matter what evidence I had, what showed
Speaker 1: that that I didn't commit to cry, that he could
Speaker 1: get a conviction anyway. From there, it was just an
Speaker 1: uphill battle. Having a culturally diverse jury is so important
Speaker 1: because then you have different people male, female, different backgrounds.
Speaker 1: I think the trial are a lot fairer, I know,
Speaker 1: And the perfect example is the fact that here I am,
Speaker 1: I get found guilty in one kind of by all
Speaker 1: white Jerry, I get found not guilty in another county
Speaker 1: by jury makeup for seven blacks by whites, and that
Speaker 1: that's not proof. I don't know what else could be
Speaker 1: any more proof than that. Our government it's basically designed
Speaker 1: the system over the years to degrade and humanized black brace.
Speaker 1: That's sad because they've done it with films and movies
Speaker 1: that deale it with laws two strikes and three strikes
Speaker 1: you out. And now they got people incarcerated for marijuana
Speaker 1: with with a nickel bag. Now they got life sentences.
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, I stayed the institutionalized slavery, modern
Speaker 1: day slavery. They got privatization, private prisons. Now that's a
Speaker 1: big profit making open sensation. Guess what, you need people inside.
Speaker 1: So what happens You arrest people, You come up with
Speaker 1: laws to increased the amount of people being placed in prison,
Speaker 1: and it's a free labor force. The twenty But things
Speaker 1: have they really changed that much. It's still going on.
Speaker 1: I mean this has been progressed, been some progress, yes,
Speaker 1: but prejudice still exists. Racial injustice still as if you know,
Speaker 1: we all believe the same blood, we're all human beings
Speaker 1: and we just need to make it fair, and we
Speaker 1: need to make it a justice system, not just us.
Speaker 1: I asked Molly Palmer from the Georgia Innocence Project if
Speaker 1: there were ways her organization encourages people to take action
Speaker 1: against racial bias and all sorts of prejudice in the
Speaker 1: justice system. You know, we have to be vigilant in
Speaker 1: terms of knowing who are elected officials are. We have
Speaker 1: to elect those people that that have a demonstrated record
Speaker 1: of caring about these issues. And I think we have
Speaker 1: to continue as jurors, as citizens to realize how important
Speaker 1: our role is in the community and in the legal system.
Speaker 1: And if you get called for jury duty, I hope
Speaker 1: that people walk in there, no matter who is sitting
Speaker 1: at defense table, understanding the importance of reasonable doubt and
Speaker 1: what it means to prove somebody guilty beyond all reasonable doubt,
Speaker 1: and to take that job so seriously and examine yourself,
Speaker 1: examine those feelings when you see who's sitting there and
Speaker 1: your first question is do they look guilty? That's the
Speaker 1: instinct and if you say yes, why, I think we
Speaker 1: can start by being incredibly critical of ourselves and realize
Speaker 1: that nobody is perfect and all of us have experienced
Speaker 1: some type of racism directed toward us where we've felt
Speaker 1: it and didn't want to admit it. We're not in
Speaker 1: post racial America. It's and we see horrible, harrowing things
Speaker 1: every day that highlight the violence and the inherent suspected
Speaker 1: criminality that we see in terms of people of color,
Speaker 1: and we can't move past that until we critically examine ourselves.
Speaker 1: I wanted to just touch again on how vitally important
Speaker 1: jury selection is in the criminal trial process. It's important
Speaker 1: to have an unbiased and even a diverse jury. Calvin's
Speaker 1: case is not the only one where racism and racial
Speaker 1: biased have played a role in jury selection. He's not
Speaker 1: even the only one. In Georgia, a man named Johnny
Speaker 1: Lee Gates from Columbus, Georgia, was recently released from jail
Speaker 1: after a trial all the way back from nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: where he sat judged by an all white jury. The
Speaker 1: prosecutor in his case systematically struck every single black juror
Speaker 1: from the pool. In nine six, the United States Supreme
Speaker 1: Court decided the case of bats And versus Kentucky. The
Speaker 1: bats In case held that jurors could not be struck
Speaker 1: simply because of their race. This ruling came after both
Speaker 1: Johnny Lee Gates and Calvin Johnson's trials, but it is
Speaker 1: something all new lawyers now learn about in law school.
Speaker 1: It's so important to have a diverse jury with all
Speaker 1: kinds of backgrounds and life experiences to weigh in on
Speaker 1: these important matters of life and liberty. Whenever I have
Speaker 1: a trial, I keep an eye out for any biases
Speaker 1: that could come into play on either side for jury selection,
Speaker 1: and all lawyers should use bats and challenge is to
Speaker 1: call into question strikes made by on the other side
Speaker 1: when necessary. To speak to the school to prison pipeline,
Speaker 1: I just want to say that the legal system is
Speaker 1: like fly paper. Once you're in it, it's very hard
Speaker 1: to get out of it, no matter how hard you try.
Speaker 1: Recentivism or people returning to the justice system over and
Speaker 1: over again is very common. Complicated and difficult probation and
Speaker 1: parole requirements make it hard to stay out of the system.
Speaker 1: All of these things have a huge impact on families
Speaker 1: and communities. We need a system that treats everyone fairly
Speaker 1: and doesn't over involve one group or another for any reason,
Speaker 1: including the color of their skin. I hope you take
Speaker 1: Molly's advice to heart and look at who your local
Speaker 1: elected officials are. They are the ones who can most
Speaker 1: directly change the way our system works. Next time on Sworn,
Speaker 1: you know you're manipulated by people. That's even my parents.
Speaker 1: You know, my parents never believed I was actually innocent
Speaker 1: of the crime. People ask me you forgive them. Of
Speaker 1: course I do. When you're manipulated by a power and
Speaker 1: a justice system that is supposed to be the last
Speaker 1: of the line, is supposed to be the true sense
Speaker 1: of justice, the true sense of what's going on, at
Speaker 1: least as closest we can get it. I can forgive
Speaker 1: anybody that has been manipulated. I can't forgive those that
Speaker 1: did the manipulated. Sworn is a production of Tenderfoot TV
Speaker 1: and I Heart Radio. Our lead producer is Christina Dana.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright for Tenderfoot TV,
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick and Alex Williams for I Heart Radio, and
Speaker 1: myself Philip Holloway. Additional production by Trevor Young, May Sin Lindsay,
Speaker 1: Mike Rooney, Jamie Albright and Halle Beatall original music and
Speaker 1: sound designed by Makeup and Vanity Set. Our theme song
Speaker 1: is Blood in the Water by Layup. Show art and
Speaker 1: design is by Trevor Eisler, editing by Christina Dana, mixing
Speaker 1: and mastering by Mike Rooney and Cooper Skinner. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to the team at I Heart Radio from u T
Speaker 1: a or In Rosenbaund and Grace Royer, Ryan Nord and
Speaker 1: Matthew Papa from the Nord Group, back Media and Marketing,
Speaker 1: and Station sixteen. I'd also like to extend a very
Speaker 1: personal and special thanks to all of our contributors and
Speaker 1: guests who have helped to make all of these episodes possible.
Speaker 1: You can find Sworn on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Sworn podcast and follow me your host, Philip Holloway on
Speaker 1: Twitter at phil Holloway e s Q. Our website is
Speaker 1: Sworn podcast dot m and you can check out other
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV podcasts at www dot tenderfoot dot tv. If
Speaker 1: you have questions or comments, you can email us at
Speaker 1: Sworn at tenderfoot dot tv or leave us a voicemail
Speaker 1: at four zero four for one zero zero four f one.
Speaker 1: As always, thanks for listening. I'm walking around I see
Speaker 1: an armadala I'm gonna jump out my books because I've
Speaker 1: never seen a armadala before in my life. It is risk.
Speaker 1: It's running across in front of me, looking like a
Speaker 1: giant rap with an army helmet on and something. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the heck is this