Speaker 1: Norah Jackson is an extraordinary person who has been through
Speaker 1: an ordeal that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy,
Speaker 1: as you know for listening to her episode that originally
Speaker 1: aired in November of two thousand seventeen. Nora was wrongly
Speaker 1: convicted of the murder of her mother. Both of her
Speaker 1: parents were murdered and she was left an orphan with
Speaker 1: no brothers and sisters when she was wrongfully convicted and
Speaker 1: ended up serving eleven years in prison. Of course, the
Speaker 1: Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously overturned her conviction and set in
Speaker 1: there ruling that the prosecutors head lied and cheated and
Speaker 1: broken so many rules there were too many to count,
Speaker 1: too many examples of prosecutorial misconduct too good into in
Speaker 1: one recording. Norah. The good news is since the episode aired,
Speaker 1: she's moved from Tennessee to New York. She now lives
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, and she is a sophomore in college. The
Speaker 1: thirty two. Her freshman year, she achieved at three point
Speaker 1: six seven g p A. I know she's going to
Speaker 1: improve on it. This year. She started in an organization
Speaker 1: called Meet Your Mentor, and she is working with some
Speaker 1: other incredible dynamic women Um, Sarah Raphold, Stacy Ryan, and others,
Speaker 1: and Meet Your Mentor is an organization that is dedicated
Speaker 1: to helping AX Honorees formally incarcerated people get back on
Speaker 1: their feet and get a fresh start. Nora is a
Speaker 1: hero of mine and I'm super proud of everything she's doing.
Speaker 1: I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was
Speaker 1: naive enough to believe that I would be able to
Speaker 1: just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that
Speaker 1: they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: going to prison because I was a good person. I
Speaker 1: hadn't do anything wrong. In the back of your mind,
Speaker 1: you say, well, when we go to a hearing, we
Speaker 1: go to court, the truth will come out the prosecution
Speaker 1: from day one, kneo I was innocent, and let forth
Speaker 1: testimony go uncorrected from the lower courts all the way
Speaker 1: up to United States Supreme Court. You have someone with
Speaker 1: a badge with ultimate and really, in that moment unchecked authority.
Speaker 1: Don't presume that people are guilty when you see him
Speaker 1: on TV, because it may just be a dirty d
Speaker 1: eight that is trying to rise upward. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: wrong for conviction. I am particularly honored actually today to
Speaker 1: have in the studio Nora Jackson. Nora Jackson was convicted
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine of killing her mother. Jackson was
Speaker 1: eighteen when her mother, Jennifer Jackson, was found murdered stabbed
Speaker 1: at least fifty times in the bedroom over East Memphis home.
Speaker 1: In two thousand nine, a jury convicted Jackson of second
Speaker 1: degree murder. Nora Jackson has maintained her in a sit
Speaker 1: In two thousand fourteen, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the
Speaker 1: conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct and ordered a new trial,
Speaker 1: claiming the lead prosecutor, now District Attorney Amy Wyree withheld
Speaker 1: a witness statement from the defense. Stephen Jones, is facing
Speaker 1: missconduct charges for not turning over a key witness statement.
Speaker 1: District Attorney Amy Wyrick also is facing misconduct charges connected
Speaker 1: to the case. In Jackson's attorneys accepted a plea deal
Speaker 1: of voluntary manslaughter from prosecutors, avoiding a potentially lengthy new trial.
Speaker 1: She could have fought for another ten years on principle,
Speaker 1: I don't know anybody who would give up their thirties
Speaker 1: for principle. Nora Jackson is officially a free woman today. Nora,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you, and we have with
Speaker 1: you Bryce ben Jet, your lawyer from the Innocens Project,
Speaker 1: and Bryce, welcome to you too. Glad to be here.
Speaker 1: This story just really shocked my conscience and you lived
Speaker 1: through it unfortunately. Yeah, there were times when I didn't
Speaker 1: know if I would make it to the other side,
Speaker 1: but here I am. No, or let's go back too.
Speaker 1: Was there really not that long ago? I mean two
Speaker 1: thousand and five you were you were still a teenager. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I turned eighteen in March of two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: so I was just at the age where you know,
Speaker 1: there was no issue with them charging me as an adult, right,
Speaker 1: Just another terrible circumstance of your case. And it started
Speaker 1: with one of the worst things that anyone can experience,
Speaker 1: which is the murder of your mother. And you had
Speaker 1: already been through so much because your father was murdered
Speaker 1: sixteen months earlier, correct, in January of two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: But they weren't together, No, no, no, no, they weren't.
Speaker 1: They weren't together. My parents had spiled up when I
Speaker 1: was like eighteen months old, and they shared custody for
Speaker 1: about eight years and then there was an eight year
Speaker 1: period where I didn't see my father, and that's another
Speaker 1: interesting story. Actually walked into a convenient store about a
Speaker 1: year before he was killed and found him. So I've
Speaker 1: lived with my mom on my entire life. So the
Speaker 1: death of my father, it did really rock me, especially
Speaker 1: since there was like that newfound relationship there with him.
Speaker 1: But my mom was my rock. The death of my
Speaker 1: mother's mother, my grandmother, was the first one that happened
Speaker 1: in the summer of two thousand and three than the
Speaker 1: death of my father in two thousand and four. And
Speaker 1: then my best friend was actually killed in a car
Speaker 1: wreck on the way to my house in January of
Speaker 1: two thousand and five. So that was a really really
Speaker 1: rough year for me, a really rough time, and my
Speaker 1: mom was the one that was actually able to get
Speaker 1: me through all that I had pulled back from a
Speaker 1: lot of my friends. Anybody that has a single parent
Speaker 1: will know that that relationship is kind of sacred. It's
Speaker 1: totally different than if you're raised in a two parent
Speaker 1: household and you were an only child as well. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I can imagine that would create even a stronger bond
Speaker 1: because there's there's no one else there's no buffer, right,
Speaker 1: it's just you and your mom. And your mom Jennifer
Speaker 1: Jackson was a successful banker as well, right investment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was actually a broker. She worked in the stock market.
Speaker 1: She was a bondsman, and she was very successful. And
Speaker 1: she had actually just wanted a word about three months
Speaker 1: before she was killed, and it was a really big deal.
Speaker 1: They gave her like a gold bat for like a
Speaker 1: heavy hitter because of all the money that she had
Speaker 1: brought in. And I was her date for that. Actually.
Speaker 1: So you have all of these successful bondsman's there with
Speaker 1: their trophy wives and or their girlfriends, and you know,
Speaker 1: my mom is like kind of like the star of
Speaker 1: the evening and here she comes with her eighteen year
Speaker 1: old daughters. So it was it was really really fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like an awesome event, and she sounds like
Speaker 1: an awesome woman. Um, it's worth noting that the murder
Speaker 1: of your father went unsolved and still unsolved. Correct, It's
Speaker 1: only worth noting and as it relates to this particular
Speaker 1: case about your mom, because of the fact that there
Speaker 1: could be some correlation. But let's go back to the
Speaker 1: terrible night when this happened. So at that time. I
Speaker 1: came home and retrospectively, I can look back and see
Speaker 1: that there were signs that something bad had gone on
Speaker 1: in my house that night. I walked into the kitchen
Speaker 1: and I saw some broken glass on the floor, so
Speaker 1: I looked up at the window. My mom had actually
Speaker 1: broken into that same door once before when she had
Speaker 1: lost her keys. There's a way to enter into our
Speaker 1: garage from the backyard. We had a gate that went
Speaker 1: into our backyard. Then you could go down the hallway
Speaker 1: which led to our garage, and you could enter into
Speaker 1: the kitchen through a side door in the garage. There
Speaker 1: was no key to that door because there was a
Speaker 1: latch actually in the middle pane. It would slide up
Speaker 1: and slide over, and that's how you would enter into
Speaker 1: the house, was through that latch. I remember having friends
Speaker 1: over like all the time, and they kept like trying
Speaker 1: to open the door because we had a fridge outside,
Speaker 1: and like everybody was like, what is going on with
Speaker 1: this door? And there's this like tiny little piece of
Speaker 1: metal that would hinder you from going outside. So that's
Speaker 1: what makes me feel like anybody that was involved in
Speaker 1: anything that took place that night and killing my mom,
Speaker 1: they had intimate knowledge of our house, but at the time,
Speaker 1: it still didn't alarm me. What alarmed me was when
Speaker 1: I got ready to go to my room, which was
Speaker 1: across from my mom room, and the light was on
Speaker 1: in the bedroom. The door was halfway open, so that's
Speaker 1: what caused me to go into the bedroom and UM,
Speaker 1: I saw my mom and UM, I'm sorry, take your time,
Speaker 1: and UM, you know, I'm not really even sure of
Speaker 1: what I remember. First is what I've heard along the way,
Speaker 1: especially like from trial and transcripts and things like that.
Speaker 1: But I do remember walking in and seeing her neckd
Speaker 1: body on the floor and my first reaction was to
Speaker 1: just pick her up, and she was so heavy, and
Speaker 1: I'm looking and I don't even know if I registered
Speaker 1: at the time. I must have. I mean, somebody gets shot,
Speaker 1: you know, there's like a pool of blood. I don't
Speaker 1: even remember there being a pool of blood. I remember
Speaker 1: they're being blood everywhere, like on the sheets and even
Speaker 1: on the walls, and I'm just like screaming, and then
Speaker 1: I know I'm I wanted help, So I run across
Speaker 1: the street and I go get a neighbor. And at
Speaker 1: that point, I'm thinking about the broken glass and I'm like,
Speaker 1: somebody broke into my house, and so he comes with me,
Speaker 1: and I guess I run in the house in front
Speaker 1: of him. That's what he said at trial, which they
Speaker 1: inadvertently made a huge deal about. I didn't give a
Speaker 1: funk who was in there. I knew a man was
Speaker 1: behind me with a gun, and I knew my mom
Speaker 1: was in there on the floor. That was like my life,
Speaker 1: that was my cheerleader, that was my coach, and I
Speaker 1: needed to get to her. And so I went back
Speaker 1: in there, and Um, the neighbor across the street, I
Speaker 1: think his girlfriend actually pulled me away from her and
Speaker 1: told me to call it nine with one. So I
Speaker 1: called nine one one, and I'm just I'm screaming. And
Speaker 1: at one point they asked me if she had been shot,
Speaker 1: and I said no. Um, but I just remember standing
Speaker 1: out on that curb. You know, I watched plenty of
Speaker 1: TV and I know that. You know, the evens he
Speaker 1: goes inside and they bring the body out on the
Speaker 1: gurney if it's going to go to the hospital, And
Speaker 1: the gurney came out and nobody was on it, and
Speaker 1: that's just when I lost it. They actually put me.
Speaker 1: It's so ironic because it was like foreshadowing what was
Speaker 1: going to happen. I was so uncontrollable trying to run
Speaker 1: in the house. They put me in the back of
Speaker 1: a cop car. One point, I don't even know what
Speaker 1: to say. It's one thing that I say. I have
Speaker 1: represent a number of people who have been convicted of
Speaker 1: of a murder of a family member, and just to
Speaker 1: have that trauma of of what you're talking about, and
Speaker 1: then to be sort of re traumatized by being convicted
Speaker 1: for it is is just unimaginable. And I think that police,
Speaker 1: when they're faced with a situation where they don't know
Speaker 1: who did it, rather than looking at the evidence, they
Speaker 1: start looking at suspects, and they do these suspect driven
Speaker 1: investigations where they look at the person and try to
Speaker 1: make a case against the person, rather than looking at
Speaker 1: the evidence and trying to follow where the evidence leads.
Speaker 1: And the interesting and disgusting thing is that the day
Speaker 1: of my mom's funeral, they had two detectives waiting on me.
Speaker 1: My mom was killed on June five. June six, I
Speaker 1: stayed with a family friend. June seven, my aunts came
Speaker 1: into town and they tried to take me. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: go with him. So June eighth, they came and got
Speaker 1: me and they were like, you're coming with us. We
Speaker 1: stayed downtown in a hotel room and they left me there.
Speaker 1: They went somewhere and they left me there, and so
Speaker 1: one of the people that attended our church came to
Speaker 1: pick me up and she was like, why are you
Speaker 1: by yourself? I was sitting on the curb. She was like,
Speaker 1: you need help, Like, I'm gonna take you to see somebody.
Speaker 1: So she takes me to a child psychologist and he's
Speaker 1: talking to me and he was like, this girl is
Speaker 1: in shock. She needs to be surrounded by people that
Speaker 1: can pay attention to her and give her what she
Speaker 1: needs and love, and they need to give her some
Speaker 1: type of security. So my aunt's solution to that was
Speaker 1: to take me to Lake Side, which is a behavioral
Speaker 1: health center. So we go to Lakeside. I don't think
Speaker 1: at the time I was really aware of the fact
Speaker 1: that I was eighteen, so they couldn't put me in there.
Speaker 1: So what they did was they told me we will
Speaker 1: involuntarily commit you and it'll be a seventy two hour
Speaker 1: mandatory minimum and you will miss your mom's funeral, so
Speaker 1: they knew that I signed whatever they put in front
Speaker 1: of me to go inside. So when I went inside,
Speaker 1: I was there for two days, and then they were
Speaker 1: supposed to pick me up for my mom's funeral. My
Speaker 1: best friend that was killed. Her mom actually came up
Speaker 1: there and brought me closed the night before. So I
Speaker 1: just remember, like I'm sitting up there waiting on my
Speaker 1: aunts to pick me up to what I know is
Speaker 1: my mom's funeral. It's kind of morbid, like in my
Speaker 1: dead best friend's clothes, and they're not there. So at
Speaker 1: this point I began to like shred a whole box
Speaker 1: of Kleenex, and then I began to freak out. We
Speaker 1: didn't have access to phone, so my nurse starts to
Speaker 1: call them. Nobody's answering, so then I really start to
Speaker 1: freak out. So they give me a sedative, and when
Speaker 1: my aunts get there, they're like, get in the car.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not a big deal. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: miss it. The show is not going to start without us,
Speaker 1: like they referred to it as a show, and I
Speaker 1: do remember of that. And so we're sitting at the
Speaker 1: funeral and we leave. I don't even go to anything
Speaker 1: that they have after the funeral, I'm I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: I heard that they had a reception. I didn't go.
Speaker 1: They took me straight back to Lake Side. I walk
Speaker 1: into the doors of Lake Side and I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: My nurse's name was Chris, and I just really, really
Speaker 1: really was clinging to her at that time because she
Speaker 1: reminded me of my grandma, and she was like, baby,
Speaker 1: She was like, I have to take you into the office.
Speaker 1: You have some people here that want to talk to you.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I'm thinking, Like, maybe it's
Speaker 1: like old friends, maybe it's a visit, maybe somebody's here
Speaker 1: to see me. And I walk in and it's two
Speaker 1: detectives with a camera and they hand over a piece
Speaker 1: of paper and so at this point lake Side has
Speaker 1: become very overprotective of me. They're reading the paper and
Speaker 1: they were like, are you kidding me? Like you picked
Speaker 1: this day of all days, and it's the Affidavid with
Speaker 1: the warrant. It was very apparent that the attacker or
Speaker 1: the killer was injured at the scene of the crime,
Speaker 1: so they needed to photograph my body and its entirety
Speaker 1: and get some or DNA, which I had already provided
Speaker 1: the first day, and so they took my clothes off,
Speaker 1: and I mean, if you look at these pictures, you
Speaker 1: can tell whatever since that I had left at that
Speaker 1: time left me. I just it was like out of body.
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I could not cope with reality at that point,
Speaker 1: and I had no choice but to go with it
Speaker 1: because at this point I had nobody left. So I'm
Speaker 1: taking off my clothes and they're photographing me, and I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to lay down and die at that point,
Speaker 1: I just I didn't. I didn't want to have the
Speaker 1: wherewithal to continue. I'm just trying to process. Well, you
Speaker 1: just told me, um, you were still, as you said,
Speaker 1: a child. I mean, the idea that they would strip
Speaker 1: you at that point, I mean, you're never even stripped
Speaker 1: of everything except your dignity, and then they took that
Speaker 1: away too. How how that's even possible? Is um hard
Speaker 1: for me to process. You've no have been through everything
Speaker 1: that a human being can possibly adore. You're not even
Speaker 1: twenty years old yet, right, You're all alone in the world,
Speaker 1: and how the fuck did you find the strength to persevere? Oh? Well,
Speaker 1: my mom told me when my best friend a and
Speaker 1: ide that grief is like Sarah, you know, that's the
Speaker 1: name that she wanted to name me. And she was like,
Speaker 1: you go through sadness, and then you go through anger,
Speaker 1: and then you go through resentment, and then you go
Speaker 1: through acceptance, and then you go through healing. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to go through those things. So the anger is
Speaker 1: what drove me. When I was first arrested, I remember
Speaker 1: being in the jail, sitting on my bunk and watching
Speaker 1: like everybody else in the pod of the jail, watched
Speaker 1: the television where they were talking about eighteen year old
Speaker 1: girl arrested for killing her mother who was stabbed over
Speaker 1: fifty seven times. Prosecutors have not announced that they will
Speaker 1: be seeking the death penalty. She has been charged with
Speaker 1: first degree murder, which carries us and stuff life without parole,
Speaker 1: life with parole, and even the death. But you know,
Speaker 1: and it just was like going on and on, and
Speaker 1: I remember sitting there thinking like, I wonder if they
Speaker 1: will try to give me the death penalty. The constitution,
Speaker 1: they guarantee the right to a speedy and fair trial.
Speaker 1: That's what it says in black and white. But the
Speaker 1: reality of the situation is you will sit there for
Speaker 1: as long as they deemed necessary. Amy Wyrick was determined
Speaker 1: to be my prosecutor. She was a death penalty lawyer,
Speaker 1: and she was on what they used to refer to
Speaker 1: as the death squad, which means that she was qualified
Speaker 1: to trial death penalty cases. Amy went on on maternity leave.
Speaker 1: Do you think that she handed the case over to
Speaker 1: somebody else. No. I sat there and waited for her
Speaker 1: to go on maternity leave, to have her child and
Speaker 1: come back. Amy was determined to try that case. I
Speaker 1: wasn't there, but it's pretty clear that she saw you
Speaker 1: as a real stepping stone to where she wanted to
Speaker 1: get to in her career. Correct. This was the biggest
Speaker 1: and longest running case, with the most evidence in the
Speaker 1: most exhibits and shelby counting history at the time. It
Speaker 1: was very clear to her that this could be like
Speaker 1: a career making case, especially if she got a conviction.
Speaker 1: So she played like a win at all costs came
Speaker 1: and you know, one of the things that Amy Wyrick
Speaker 1: likes to hold onto and like she steadfast on, is
Speaker 1: that we had forty witnesses. Okay, you did, but let's
Speaker 1: look at what those forty witnesses presented. You had tb I,
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Bear of Investigation, that testifies that the DNA
Speaker 1: that they analyzed belonged to somebody else. You have Kirby McDonald,
Speaker 1: Sophie Cooley, Perry Brassfield, Andrew Hammock, Joey McGough. You have
Speaker 1: all of these children, because they're still children at the time,
Speaker 1: testifying that I smoked pot and that I drank at
Speaker 1: a party. But they were doing the same thing and
Speaker 1: they're not on trial for killing anybody. That does not
Speaker 1: make you a murderer. They made a big deal out
Speaker 1: of the idea that you were this crazy druggie, right
Speaker 1: when in fact you were a typical eighteen year old.
Speaker 1: You're having, you know, some beer as you're smoking some pot.
Speaker 1: That's what eighteen year olds do. You were no drug addict.
Speaker 1: I'm a diabolical killer, and then I'm a pothead. I'm
Speaker 1: someone that can totally get rid of any trace evidence
Speaker 1: that made blood disappear off of clothes that they pulled
Speaker 1: out the back of my car, Clothes that they had
Speaker 1: that I had on that night that was able to
Speaker 1: overtake a woman that was five eleven. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like without she was on five three. She was an
Speaker 1: avid runner, she worked out at the time. I was
Speaker 1: a chubby, little pothead. Like, there's no my mom would
Speaker 1: have kicked my ass any day of the week, you know,
Speaker 1: And they said this, I mean, she fought for her life.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at the pictures like she
Speaker 1: she went down swinging, there's no way that anybody walked
Speaker 1: away from their unscathed. And you know it's crazy, is that.
Speaker 1: I know I remember like in situations where like I
Speaker 1: was in danger and I know my mom. There's no
Speaker 1: way my mom left this world willingly. You know, she
Speaker 1: she took something from those people, whoever it was. So
Speaker 1: that is what they use for the warrant for my body.
Speaker 1: They you know, there would have been evidence of some
Speaker 1: type of attacks, some type of fight. Of course there
Speaker 1: would have been, and we know that your nails were
Speaker 1: perfectly manicured, and there's just no way. And we know
Speaker 1: this from dreams of evidence of cases throughout the years
Speaker 1: that when somebody stabs somebody else numerous times, you always
Speaker 1: leave blood because the thing gets slippery and you get
Speaker 1: you know, and you cut yourself. So, Nora, there's a
Speaker 1: very unique aspect to your prosecution, persecution, etcetera. Which I've
Speaker 1: never heard before, which is the fact that the prosecution
Speaker 1: made a big deal out of the fact that you
Speaker 1: were wearing long sleeves. What difference did it make that
Speaker 1: you were wearing or not wearing long sleeves, right, So
Speaker 1: I think the theory that they adopted was that I
Speaker 1: had on long sleeves because they said I was trying
Speaker 1: to have the cut on my hand. I kind of
Speaker 1: touched on the fact that I was a little bit
Speaker 1: different with this single mother. But I was also different
Speaker 1: because my father was Lebanese. I'm I racial, So that
Speaker 1: was a really difficult thing for me, and it was
Speaker 1: made even more difficult at a young age by my
Speaker 1: mom's sisters because they constantly pointed it out. Growing up,
Speaker 1: I always wanted to look like my mom because she
Speaker 1: was like, she was so beautiful, and I just like
Speaker 1: idolized her. I could never do that figure wise, Like
Speaker 1: I said, you know, she was tall and very fit,
Speaker 1: and I was shut and I was always kind of chubby.
Speaker 1: But I would damn my hair, Like if you look
Speaker 1: back at the pictures, all throughout my high school and
Speaker 1: junior high, I died my hair blonde, because I felt
Speaker 1: like if I died my hair blond, I would look
Speaker 1: like more like my mom. I have really, really really
Speaker 1: hairy arms, and that is my heritage, that is from
Speaker 1: being Lebanese. So at that point in my life, I
Speaker 1: thought different was bad, so I didn't want to be different,
Speaker 1: So I tried to hide those differences, and it became
Speaker 1: just kind of a thing. I mean, I was called natured,
Speaker 1: but I think subconsciously it started off as being more
Speaker 1: of like trying to mask the difference in me versus
Speaker 1: other people. But let's also just examine the fact of
Speaker 1: how ridiculous it is that you were wearing law sleeves
Speaker 1: to hide the cuts on your hands. You would have
Speaker 1: needed a mittens, right, That's what you needed, right. And
Speaker 1: so all of this comes down to seeing every fact
Speaker 1: through the prism of Norah's guilt. And once these investigators
Speaker 1: decide who they think did it, they make everything fall
Speaker 1: in line. And when they do that, they miss the
Speaker 1: obvious evidence that shows that there was somebody else there.
Speaker 1: There's somebody else's blood on the bed. Instead they're looking
Speaker 1: at shirt sleeves, and that person is still free. All
Speaker 1: of this goes back to the idea that they had
Speaker 1: no evidence against you. There never was any evidence against you,
Speaker 1: and the exculpatory evidence, I want to touch on that
Speaker 1: for a second. To Stephen Jones, the assistant prosecutor in
Speaker 1: the case, this motherfucker took evidence that he clearly knew
Speaker 1: would have blown the case against you, right, which means
Speaker 1: in English that he knew you were in sent But
Speaker 1: this was an inconvenient truth. He somehow or other managed
Speaker 1: to forget that there was a note which would have
Speaker 1: totally blown to think to Smith means and then magically,
Speaker 1: five days after the trial he remembers it, which leads
Speaker 1: me to think that he started thinking after the trial
Speaker 1: was over, well, I probably did something really wrong here.
Speaker 1: If my attorney value quarter is nothing else. She is very,
Speaker 1: very thorough. They knew that it would be found because
Speaker 1: she was thorough, Valerie, she knew head on going into
Speaker 1: this that these people were unethical. The prosecutor, Amy Wyrick,
Speaker 1: had been censured numerous times for behavior not dissimilar to
Speaker 1: what she did to you. She was promoted after the trial, right,
Speaker 1: She's she's moved up in the world and brought some
Speaker 1: of the detectives that were on the case up with her.
Speaker 1: This woman sat there and said that DNA analysis was
Speaker 1: not important. It is important in some cases, she said,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't important in mind. But if you go
Speaker 1: back to the very beginning, they use DNA as a
Speaker 1: way to gain access to my body. They used all
Speaker 1: of this stuff to get what they wanted, and when
Speaker 1: the results came back then it wasn't relevant anymore. That
Speaker 1: never really made sense to me. You have a warrant
Speaker 1: that was issued in two thousand and five for a
Speaker 1: person's body because you say an arrest cannot be made
Speaker 1: in the case that's in June of two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: An arrest cannot be made in this case without some
Speaker 1: type of DNA or physical evidence. September twenty ninth, two
Speaker 1: thousand and five, you arrest me. December of two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, the Tennessee Beer of Investigations releases their findings
Speaker 1: with the DNA analysis and it comes back as a
Speaker 1: profile that it excludes me and excludes my mother. Do
Speaker 1: you think that at any point they revisited the case,
Speaker 1: they revisited the theory, They said, maybe we got this wrong.
Speaker 1: We should let her go. Let's go back to the
Speaker 1: drawing board, let's start over. No, it's I can't. I mean,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to. I can't obviously put myself in
Speaker 1: your shoes. Nobody can. But the nightmare it's total. I mean,
Speaker 1: the people who are supposed to be protecting you and
Speaker 1: are supposed to be, you know, protecting society, are are
Speaker 1: going so rogue. I really really have to point this out.
Speaker 1: You have to have motive, means, and opportunity. That's the
Speaker 1: three requirements when you're trying somebody for a case. So
Speaker 1: their motive became money. There was no money. My father
Speaker 1: ran a business that relied on cash, and some will
Speaker 1: say that he ran an escort service. If anybody knows
Speaker 1: anything about when you're doing legal activity, you don't put
Speaker 1: that money in a bank account. It's not rain on books,
Speaker 1: it's rain off books. Whatever was there. We saw a
Speaker 1: person on video lifting cash out of a floor safe
Speaker 1: that I didn't even know existed. By the time the
Speaker 1: cops had released the keys to his house, it had
Speaker 1: been ransacked. My father had ten thousand dollars in a
Speaker 1: bank account, and my mom allowed me to make the
Speaker 1: choice of what to do with that, and we used
Speaker 1: that money and she ended up having to put like
Speaker 1: another thousand dollars with it to send his body back
Speaker 1: to Beiruts so he could be buried with my grandparents.
Speaker 1: So there was no money. There was this big idea
Speaker 1: that there was a fight over control of an estate
Speaker 1: that did not exist, the idea that he had an
Speaker 1: estate or he didn't even have a will, I mean,
Speaker 1: there was there was nothing. So the whole theory of
Speaker 1: the case was built around there was money that my
Speaker 1: mom had that I could not have. Well, okay, let's
Speaker 1: look at that too. I'm eighteen, so anything that existed
Speaker 1: that she had by right would have gone to me.
Speaker 1: Then they said that she wanted to send me away.
Speaker 1: I'm eighteen. She can't send me away unless I choosed
Speaker 1: to go. She could kick me out, but she can't
Speaker 1: send me away. So this whole theory that I was
Speaker 1: an out of control teenager that wanted some money that
Speaker 1: didn't exist. I mean, it was like and what was
Speaker 1: so frustrating to me, and I didn't know the time,
Speaker 1: is that all of this could have been easily disproven,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't. You didn't testify in your own case,
Speaker 1: and this became a very important factor. Your attorney was
Speaker 1: concerned that in your fragile state, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: you're now an orphan. You've been in jail for three
Speaker 1: and a half years. Your attorney made and what could
Speaker 1: be deemed a rational decision to not have you testify
Speaker 1: because on cross examination you could have broken down or
Speaker 1: who knows. I mean, it turned out to be the
Speaker 1: wrong decision, but you could sort of see where that
Speaker 1: came from, right right. It's always a tough call because
Speaker 1: you have this dynamic where the state has all the power.
Speaker 1: They are the ones who create this narrative, and they've
Speaker 1: got you on the stand. The judge is going to
Speaker 1: let them ask all kinds of horrible questions, and there
Speaker 1: is always a very delicate question about whether your client's
Speaker 1: going to testify. And certainly nobody should ever think about
Speaker 1: somebody not testifying, and that's an admission of guilt. Juries
Speaker 1: are instructed about it. And in this case, the state
Speaker 1: took that right that Nora has and reasonable decision. Every
Speaker 1: single person has the right to say to the state,
Speaker 1: I didn't do this crime, and there's no proof that
Speaker 1: I did this crime, and I don't have to subject
Speaker 1: myself to being attacked because of it. I mean, think
Speaker 1: nor is they're sitting accused of the murder of her
Speaker 1: own mother, traumatized for a second time, and is it
Speaker 1: a reasonable decision to not allow yourself to be traumastized
Speaker 1: for a third time where you're being accused of that murder.
Speaker 1: On the stand that that's a reasonable decision under the circumstances,
Speaker 1: So you have these rights. But here in the closing argument,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor takes that and really comments on that and
Speaker 1: invites the jury to and for guilt in ways that
Speaker 1: is unconstitutional. Well, the prosecutor chose to basically excoriate and
Speaker 1: more or less scream at you, demanding that you tell
Speaker 1: her what had happened, which is not only wildly inappropriate,
Speaker 1: but also patently illegal. Right, that's illegal behavior. You can't
Speaker 1: do it. But she did it anyway. She had this goal, right,
Speaker 1: she was gonna make it to where she had to
Speaker 1: go by stepping on your neck. And that's exactly what
Speaker 1: she did. And she was willing to not only bend
Speaker 1: the rules, but break the rules and break the law.
Speaker 1: And it's actually mind blowing in your case. I mean,
Speaker 1: before she was able to finish it. Valerie Quarter, my
Speaker 1: first attorney, she jumped up and you know at this point,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm still like I just turned twenty one, and
Speaker 1: I really didn't know a whole lot, but I knew
Speaker 1: what she did right then and there, Like I was
Speaker 1: about to jump out my seat and I was about
Speaker 1: to say but you know, and my lawyer like put
Speaker 1: my hand like this, and she jumped up and she
Speaker 1: was like, you're all like, you know, I object and
Speaker 1: all of that. The thing is is that her intention
Speaker 1: was met. It was very, very very calculating what she did.
Speaker 1: Jurors are your everyday people. The human condition is to
Speaker 1: be curious. These people walked out of the jury box
Speaker 1: with the last thing in their mind being just tell
Speaker 1: us where you were, Nora. That's all we're asking. She
Speaker 1: simplified it in a way like if you would have
Speaker 1: just told us where you were, none of this would
Speaker 1: be happening. So that's the last thing that these twelve
Speaker 1: people hard when they walked out of that box. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, as a as a lawyer, you know
Speaker 1: that you're not allowed to do that. You are not
Speaker 1: allowed to comment on a person testifying or not testifying
Speaker 1: in that manner. And if a defense lawyer had done that,
Speaker 1: they'd be in jail. It's their world. You're in it,
Speaker 1: and they make the rules and they move the lines
Speaker 1: when they want to do. And if you're a defense
Speaker 1: attorney and you do something wrong, they'll have no fury.
Speaker 1: If you're a prosecutor and you do something wrong, it
Speaker 1: was a mistake, it was an inverted mistake. They didn't
Speaker 1: mean to They're sorry. It won't happening in it. And
Speaker 1: nor let me point out that the Fair Punishment Project
Speaker 1: at Harvard, which is as blue chip of a panel
Speaker 1: as you can have, there are literally legal luminaries on
Speaker 1: that panel, and they just this year singled out Amy Wyrick,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor in your case, for numerous allegations of misconduct
Speaker 1: over the last several years. And yet there she is
Speaker 1: serving an eight year term victimizing other people the same
Speaker 1: way she did to you, and getting away with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. And she actually gave a statement when that
Speaker 1: came out. She gave a statement, and she dismissed that
Speaker 1: as easily as she dismissed the d n A m
Speaker 1: AT case. Nor when you were at trial, obviously you
Speaker 1: knew you were innocent, But now you've been incarcerated in
Speaker 1: a horrendous jail situation for three and a half years,
Speaker 1: which let's not forget at that point that's a big
Speaker 1: percentage of your life. Was there a point during the
Speaker 1: trial at which you said, WHOA, they may actually convict me, Like,
Speaker 1: did you just expect that finally justice would be done
Speaker 1: and that jury would rule in your favor going into trial.
Speaker 1: I looked forward to it and I was looking for
Speaker 1: my day in court, and I thought that justice would prevail,
Speaker 1: and I believed all that during trial. It was like,
Speaker 1: so when my mom was killed, it was a shock,
Speaker 1: it was a trauma, but it's like it had the
Speaker 1: advantage of like I didn't see it coming and I
Speaker 1: was totally blindsided. Going to trial, I was reliving all
Speaker 1: of that. I knew how horrible it was. I knew
Speaker 1: how horrendous it was. I knew what it looked like,
Speaker 1: I knew what she looked like, and I was faced
Speaker 1: with all that again. So I think, like there were
Speaker 1: points during the trial where I would literally like bite
Speaker 1: the inside of my cheek at one point in bled
Speaker 1: just because there were so many times I wanted to
Speaker 1: open up my mouth and say something, whether it was
Speaker 1: during testimony or at one point I wanted them to
Speaker 1: just take the fucking pictures down, Like I didn't want
Speaker 1: to see that. There my mom is neked and she
Speaker 1: has been murdered, and it's just like there's a thousand
Speaker 1: people in the courtroom, and I just I didn't want
Speaker 1: to see it, and I didn't want anyone else to
Speaker 1: see it. So I think subconsciously the first week, I
Speaker 1: just was so focused on like trying to get up
Speaker 1: and like make it through the next day. I'll never
Speaker 1: forget this Saturday, because we went to trial on a Saturday.
Speaker 1: It lasted like fourteen days, and that Saturday it was
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day. And the only way I knew that is
Speaker 1: because when they took me to the holding cell, no
Speaker 1: one else was obviously going to court. It was Saturday,
Speaker 1: so I was in the whole jail by myself, and
Speaker 1: so they kept me in this little tiny holding cell
Speaker 1: that normally they would have the men in during the week,
Speaker 1: and one of the jailers had put a heart shaped
Speaker 1: butterfinger in there for me to like acknowledge that it
Speaker 1: was Valentine's Day, and I remember like getting that piece
Speaker 1: of candy and realizing that it was Valentine's Day and
Speaker 1: that that was a day that people recognized and like
Speaker 1: that I wasn't even aware of what was going on,
Speaker 1: you know, and that the only thing that I could
Speaker 1: figure out was that today might be the day that
Speaker 1: I found out what was going to happen with the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. I think that not knowing was
Speaker 1: the worst. And then we get to the point where
Speaker 1: the prosecutor Wyrick violates your constitutional rights flagrantly by totally
Speaker 1: disregarding her responsibility to not highlight or make an issue
Speaker 1: out of the fact that you chose or your lawyer
Speaker 1: actually advised you, and you chose not to testify your
Speaker 1: own defense. And the jury goes out and then they
Speaker 1: come back in, and that moment you knew when they
Speaker 1: came back in, n you know, I almost feel like
Speaker 1: I knew when Amy did that as they walked back in.
Speaker 1: There was periods throughout that trial it was like a
Speaker 1: fourteen day trial where when things are being discussed and
Speaker 1: things were being said, the jury would look at me.
Speaker 1: I mean, who wouldn't you know you're talking about this
Speaker 1: person like they're not in the room, but the person
Speaker 1: is in the room and they're just sitting there. So
Speaker 1: periodically I would look even though my journeys kept telling
Speaker 1: me not to. I would look at the jury and
Speaker 1: there was this one guy with like reddish hair, and
Speaker 1: he constantly, along with the woman next to him, made
Speaker 1: eye contact with me throughout the trial. And when they
Speaker 1: walked in his nose because he had red hair and
Speaker 1: he was paler, I could tell that either he was
Speaker 1: angry or he had been crying. And I looked at
Speaker 1: him and he looked down. He wouldn't look at me,
Speaker 1: and I knew right then. So you're convicted and sentenced
Speaker 1: to twenty years and nine months in prison. You've already
Speaker 1: been now in jail for three and a half years.
Speaker 1: You go to prison, How did you deal with that?
Speaker 1: You know? Prison? I talked about Sarah with you, and
Speaker 1: prison was where I did like my anger, and then
Speaker 1: I did my resentment and then my acceptance, and it
Speaker 1: kind of armored me to go back out and fight again.
Speaker 1: I was really broken when I got to prison. I
Speaker 1: had totally lost faith in the justice system. That that's
Speaker 1: when I really realized that the world was not fair,
Speaker 1: that my mother's killer was walking around free, and that
Speaker 1: people that said that they loved her didn't care. Because
Speaker 1: to love my mother was to love me because I
Speaker 1: was my mother, like we were a package deal, and
Speaker 1: so I just I really couldn't believe when it happened,
Speaker 1: Like I was really in a daze. So I go
Speaker 1: to prison, and I'm very very very much to myself,
Speaker 1: and I get involved in a lot of different activities.
Speaker 1: So I go to this one seminar in the prison,
Speaker 1: and they had assigned you to tables by stickers. While
Speaker 1: I decided I didn't like the sticker that I had,
Speaker 1: and I didn't like the table I had, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to set at a different table. So I took
Speaker 1: it upon myself to switch my sticker with somebody else
Speaker 1: and moved myself. I'm not thinking anybody's paying attention. There's
Speaker 1: like a hundred inmates in there. So the lady that's
Speaker 1: the director of this program, she just keeps picking at me,
Speaker 1: like the whole time that I'm in there, saying something
Speaker 1: to me about changing my sticker, putting me by at
Speaker 1: my table, and there was like another thing that she
Speaker 1: did to me. So at the end of the seminar,
Speaker 1: she's asking questions to give away prizes, and she has
Speaker 1: something that was relevant to what one of the speakers said,
Speaker 1: and she called on me. I guess she thought I
Speaker 1: didn't know the answer, and I stood up and I
Speaker 1: gave her the answer, probably in like the nicest, nastiest
Speaker 1: way that you could. And at the end of the seminar,
Speaker 1: she was like, I'm gonna be her on Wednesday to
Speaker 1: talk to you, and I was just looking at her like,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to talk to you, Like I've
Speaker 1: had so many people, I just at that point I
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk to anyone. And her name was
Speaker 1: pat Colp and she is the reason that I still
Speaker 1: have my sanity. She runs an organization called Women Empowered
Speaker 1: to Become Self Sufficient shortened its webs, and what she
Speaker 1: does is she comes into the prison and she nurtures
Speaker 1: the people that have longer sentences. So many of the
Speaker 1: programs inside the prison are geared towards people that are
Speaker 1: fast tracked for release. You know, they want to reduce
Speaker 1: the rate of her cidivism theoretically, and they want to
Speaker 1: provide entry for people that are closer to getting out.
Speaker 1: So then you have someone like me with almost a
Speaker 1: twenty one year sentence and I'm just at the back
Speaker 1: of the bus because they're not worried about people like us.
Speaker 1: Or my friends that have life, because they'll get to us.
Speaker 1: When they get to us, we're gonna be there a while.
Speaker 1: But then you have an amazing situation like might happen
Speaker 1: where the Supreme Court overturns on my stuff and I
Speaker 1: have the possibility of being thrown back out into society.
Speaker 1: But I have no tools and no help because I've
Speaker 1: been put at the back of the bus because of
Speaker 1: my sentence. So Miss pat comes in, and she's so
Speaker 1: important because she offers computer classes, how to write a resume,
Speaker 1: thinking for a change, like things that people like me need,
Speaker 1: but the prison doesn't, like they don't have anything for that.
Speaker 1: She also does something called Winner Wonderland where it's like
Speaker 1: for a whole week, I felt like I wasn't in prison.
Speaker 1: I don't have any children. But what they do is
Speaker 1: they turn the whole gym into the prison. They allow
Speaker 1: people to go down there. If you don't have any children,
Speaker 1: you get thirty dollars you're able to go down there.
Speaker 1: And it's just something about being able to get like
Speaker 1: something from the free world, a nice, real gift to
Speaker 1: send to people that are on the outside, that are
Speaker 1: taking care of you, that are coming to see you.
Speaker 1: That are accepting your phone calls, that are sending you pictures.
Speaker 1: To be able to be in prison and to give
Speaker 1: something to somebody else, you know, when you're so locked
Speaker 1: away from the world is the most amazing thing. And
Speaker 1: then if you do have children on Saturday, your children
Speaker 1: come in and you give your children Christmas. So it's
Speaker 1: not in a visitation setting. It's not where you can't
Speaker 1: hold your child, you can't feed your child, you can't
Speaker 1: do any of that. These mothers get to have their
Speaker 1: children from eight to three, open gifts with them, do
Speaker 1: arts and crafts with them, hold them, if they need
Speaker 1: to change their diaper, they can. You know, all of
Speaker 1: the things that mothers want and need to do for
Speaker 1: their children, and she enables that opportunity. So to be
Speaker 1: a part of that was like the most amazing experience ever.
Speaker 1: There was so much joy and at the same time,
Speaker 1: like you open up the day and it's the most
Speaker 1: beautiful thing you've ever seen for these women in prison
Speaker 1: to be able to hold and have Christmas with their children.
Speaker 1: And then it's the most heart wrenching thing you've seen
Speaker 1: when these children have to walk out of the prison
Speaker 1: away from their mothers. It will destroy your soul nour
Speaker 1: then a miracle happens, literally a miracle, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: because we know how rare it is for wrongful convictions
Speaker 1: to be overturned, very rare in Tennessee, for the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court of Tennessee to overturn a wrongful conviction. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's a miracle, right. What was that day? Like it
Speaker 1: was I'm actually on the toilet, going to the bathroom
Speaker 1: watching TV and it just like so happens that my
Speaker 1: roommates TV is on the lower stand and she had
Speaker 1: it on mute. I think it was something good to
Speaker 1: eat for dinner that night, So everybody else has like
Speaker 1: gone to the chow ha and I eat what I
Speaker 1: think is my name flash across the bottom of the screen,
Speaker 1: Like you know how they have like the little title
Speaker 1: at the bottom of whatever the news story is about. Well,
Speaker 1: you get in trouble if you listen to your TV
Speaker 1: without headphones in it. So we always have the close
Speaker 1: caption on. So even if the mute is on, the
Speaker 1: close caption is running, so the close caption is always
Speaker 1: a little bit behind that. So I'm like, did I
Speaker 1: just see my name? So I'm waiting for the close
Speaker 1: caption to come on, and all I see is Nora
Speaker 1: Jackson and I don't know if I saw reverse or
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. So I was like, holy shit. So I
Speaker 1: jump up and I changed the channel because we have
Speaker 1: something called three dash two, which is like it just
Speaker 1: runs the news over and over and over again. So
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there and I'm like, you know what, Like
Speaker 1: I get impatient. I'm like, I'm gonna go to news
Speaker 1: channel five. I got a news Channel five. I wait
Speaker 1: about two or three minutes it's on there, so I'm
Speaker 1: screaming out. At the time, I lived around the corner
Speaker 1: on the upper level of D South, which is like, um,
Speaker 1: it's a pod that's away from the rest of the
Speaker 1: prison because they have a dog program there, so I
Speaker 1: think the officer was outside with the dog program, like
Speaker 1: and I'm like screaming. I'm like, somebody let me out
Speaker 1: of here. And I'm just so excited and I want
Speaker 1: to tell my friends and they're they're gone to eat,
Speaker 1: so I'm like waiting for them on the breezeway. I'm like,
Speaker 1: guess what, and they're like what. I'm like, what would
Speaker 1: be like the best thing that could ever happen to me?
Speaker 1: And they were like, you know, you walk away and
Speaker 1: you do this, and you do that, and I was like,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court just overturned my stuff, and we all
Speaker 1: just started crying because the victory for me was a
Speaker 1: victory for them, because it's hope. We haven't seen that
Speaker 1: done before. I'm just gonna say that I don't remember
Speaker 1: ever having a visual quite like you sitting on the
Speaker 1: toilet while watching your own name scrolled across the screen
Speaker 1: and then jumping around. I mean, you know, I know,
Speaker 1: it's like I almost wanted to change the narrative just
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I'm sitting on the toilet, but I
Speaker 1: mean that's what happened. There's something symbolic about that. It
Speaker 1: really is. I mean, the toilet is is perfect analogy
Speaker 1: for this a lot of what's gone on here so
Speaker 1: far as something else really dramatic about you having to
Speaker 1: wait to be able to tell your friends. So the
Speaker 1: Tennessee Supreme Court in a unanimous decision. I want to
Speaker 1: emphasize that unanimous decision reverses your conviction and in the
Speaker 1: strongest terms, condemns the conduct of the prosecutors, and anybody
Speaker 1: listening is probably going okay, well, that's uh, that's a wrap, right,
Speaker 1: Kase closed or is out. But that's not the end
Speaker 1: of the story. And what we learned in these cases
Speaker 1: is that having your conviction overturn doesn't mean that your indictment.
Speaker 1: You know, your indictment still stands right, and the prosecutor
Speaker 1: still has power to inflict harm on the person that's
Speaker 1: in the cross hairs. Here in many cases they'll drop
Speaker 1: the charges at that point because the conviction has been overturned,
Speaker 1: and in this case by the Supreme Court, I mean
Speaker 1: the highest court in Tennessee five zero, right, incredible. When
Speaker 1: you got that news, did you think you were going
Speaker 1: home that day? You know, if I was anyone else,
Speaker 1: I probably would have thought that that meant that I
Speaker 1: was going to be free. A lot of people, you
Speaker 1: know that we're not really really totally aware of the
Speaker 1: workings of the justice. Um we're like waiting for me
Speaker 1: to pack myself that night. But the way my life
Speaker 1: and my world works, I knew that there was still
Speaker 1: an uphilp at all. For there to be no real
Speaker 1: consequence of that is insane. It is It's nuts that
Speaker 1: this can go on, that a court can identify, yes,
Speaker 1: a flagrant violation of her rights, and and that ultimately
Speaker 1: is a condemnation of this conviction. It's it's as close
Speaker 1: as can be to a finding by this court that
Speaker 1: she really didn't do it. And for that then to
Speaker 1: go back to the county and for them to just
Speaker 1: go right back to work on the same railroad that
Speaker 1: they were doing before is unimaginable from this perspective, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately pretty routine. So in a claim like a Brady claim,
Speaker 1: you cannot say no more. All they can do is
Speaker 1: put you back in the same position that you were
Speaker 1: for the government cheated, which is one of the real
Speaker 1: problems with these Brady claims, because the government can cheat
Speaker 1: and cheat and cheat, and the worst possible consequence for
Speaker 1: them is that they just get to do it over
Speaker 1: as if they weren't caught cheating. So the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: returns your conviction and then you end up back in
Speaker 1: court because they can put you back in court, and
Speaker 1: that's another outrageous thing about all of this. But nonetheless
Speaker 1: they put you back in court, and now you are
Speaker 1: faced with a momentous decision, which is that the government
Speaker 1: gives you the option to go back to trial or
Speaker 1: to take what's called it Alfred play, and I know
Speaker 1: that had to be really the hardest decision of your life.
Speaker 1: It was okay. The Supreme Court overturned my conviction in
Speaker 1: in August of and I didn't even go back to
Speaker 1: the county jail. I had my first hearing in February
Speaker 1: of so there was like a long waiting period in
Speaker 1: between there. My first court appearance in February often was
Speaker 1: for a bond hearing. And the mentality of people that
Speaker 1: are incarcerated in anybody that knows, is it's easier to
Speaker 1: fight your case from the street if you're out there
Speaker 1: and you're in the free world and you're doing good
Speaker 1: things you can and also just mentally you're more prepared
Speaker 1: and you're not all broken down. There's a big advantage
Speaker 1: to that. So our thoughts were I would have a
Speaker 1: bond hearing and we would work really hard on getting
Speaker 1: me out in that way, because this case theoretically could
Speaker 1: drag on for a really long time. In a very
Speaker 1: calculating move, the Shelby County District Attorney's office recused themselves
Speaker 1: the day of my bond hearing, which therefore forfeited me
Speaker 1: the opportunity to have a bond and Jason, that's like
Speaker 1: really important because if that just goes to show that
Speaker 1: they they were so underhanded and all of the stuff
Speaker 1: that they did to me. I mean a bond hearing.
Speaker 1: People have bond hearings every day. People get bond set
Speaker 1: before they ever have a court appearance. A special prosecutor
Speaker 1: does not need to be familiar with the facts of
Speaker 1: the case in order for a defendant to have a bond.
Speaker 1: But this is the judge saying that it was all
Speaker 1: just a ploy because the ultimate goal for them was
Speaker 1: for me to take a plea. Of course, they had
Speaker 1: no case. There was so much public scrutiny. The Supreme
Speaker 1: Court had slapped them down very very heavily in that opinion,
Speaker 1: and they had lost all their witnesses. A lot of
Speaker 1: them didn't want to testify, and a lot of them
Speaker 1: were now in material. So they just kept pressuring, putting off,
Speaker 1: pressuring and putting off. And the day before I took
Speaker 1: my plea, we had actually subpoena thirty assistant district attorneys
Speaker 1: and they had filed injunctions to block him, and then
Speaker 1: they were getting ready to go through. Their ultimate goal
Speaker 1: was to keep Amy Wywrick off the stand. She had
Speaker 1: already been in the stand earlier in that year about
Speaker 1: hiding evidence in a totally different case, and if you
Speaker 1: put Amy on that stand, she was going to have
Speaker 1: to be held accountable. And I guess the solution to
Speaker 1: all that was to get me off their case and
Speaker 1: just to dispose of all of this was a plea.
Speaker 1: So my lawyers came to me the night before I
Speaker 1: took the plea with the offer. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of confusion. I kept asking, like, you know, how much
Speaker 1: is it? What is it? And they just kept reiterating,
Speaker 1: you will walk out of here tomorrow. You can go home,
Speaker 1: you can be free. And my lawyer the first thing
Speaker 1: I asked them, I started crying and I was like,
Speaker 1: do you know what this means? And she was like,
Speaker 1: what I said. For them to offer me this plea,
Speaker 1: I said, this means that they know I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: They went to my mom's two sisters that were against me,
Speaker 1: and they agreed to this. Police. If they really thought
Speaker 1: that I killed their sister, do you think that they
Speaker 1: would be willing to offer freedom? I said, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's more awful the fact that I've been here,
Speaker 1: the fact that these people know or have a doubt
Speaker 1: in their mind and still went through with all of
Speaker 1: this that I could be free. Like I was crying,
Speaker 1: and she was like, Nora, listen, you want five things.
Speaker 1: You want your mom back, It's not gonna happen. You
Speaker 1: want your aims to acknowledge the fact that you didn't
Speaker 1: do this, and you want them to love you. That's
Speaker 1: not gonna happen. You want people to think you didn't
Speaker 1: do it. The people that believe you and that they
Speaker 1: know you, they're going to be behind you. They've always
Speaker 1: been behind you. The people that have made up their
Speaker 1: mind that you did do this and that are opinionated.
Speaker 1: Nothing a trial, an overturnal like your conviction being overturned,
Speaker 1: an acquittal, that's not going to change their mind. She said,
Speaker 1: you want to get out and help people. You can
Speaker 1: do that. You want to get out and have a baby.
Speaker 1: You will be young enough to do that now. She said,
Speaker 1: hold on to the things that you can do and
Speaker 1: let go all the things that you can't and sign
Speaker 1: the paper. And you did. I think any reasonable person
Speaker 1: in your situation would have signed that paper because you
Speaker 1: had seen the worst of what American justice system can
Speaker 1: dish out At that point you knew that they were
Speaker 1: going to go to any lanes they had to to
Speaker 1: reconvict you and send you back to hell, basically for
Speaker 1: as long as they could write. I'm not in prison anymore.
Speaker 1: So I'm back logged down with a totally group of people.
Speaker 1: I'm restricted from all of my friends. You make friends
Speaker 1: in prison. We have Joe House lawyers in prison called
Speaker 1: law clerks, So all of the people that can understand
Speaker 1: and empathize and actually like talk about what the court
Speaker 1: proceedings and what's going on and fully understand them and
Speaker 1: give me advice. I'm not even allowed to communicate with
Speaker 1: these people. Were not allowed to write, We're not allowed
Speaker 1: to talk, We're not allowed to do anything. So I
Speaker 1: once again was back at square one, and I was
Speaker 1: all alone, and I was tired, and I was going
Speaker 1: to court, and I was just sitting there and watching
Speaker 1: them do the same thing to me that they had
Speaker 1: done all over again, and acting like the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: decision had never happened. And so when they offered me
Speaker 1: a piece of paper to sign, it was unreal. They
Speaker 1: told me I would walk out that day. You're sort
Speaker 1: of signing your life away, right, because once you signed
Speaker 1: that Alfred plea, you're not able to sue them, they're
Speaker 1: not liable for anything. On top of that, you're living
Speaker 1: as a convicted felon, even though the Tennessee Supreme Court
Speaker 1: has said in five to nothing that basically that's not true.
Speaker 1: So it's really a Sophie's choice kind of situation, right,
Speaker 1: and you took the logical choice, but you took it
Speaker 1: under false pretenses, thinking that you were going to be
Speaker 1: freed that day, and instead you're sent back to prison
Speaker 1: for fifteen months, which is I don't know, it's really
Speaker 1: just it's just hard, like it's it's hard for me
Speaker 1: to just wrap my head around. That was my lowest point.
Speaker 1: So when I get it there, T d o C
Speaker 1: is like, we did not tell your lawyers that you
Speaker 1: will go home. We told your lawyers that you would
Speaker 1: be eligible for parole. And when I was sitting there
Speaker 1: taking the plea that day, that's what Chris Craft, the judge,
Speaker 1: was saying, you'll go back and you'll be eligible for parole.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that my attorney has told
Speaker 1: me before I took the standards, look, don't listen to
Speaker 1: anything he says. Okay, he doesn't know you're getting out.
Speaker 1: We've arranged this with T. D O C. They just
Speaker 1: know you're taking the plea. They don't understand how much
Speaker 1: good time you have. So if he says something that
Speaker 1: makes you, like, you know, uncomfortable, ignore it. Don't listen
Speaker 1: to anything he's saying. So I get understand. And he's
Speaker 1: saying that I'm going to go back to prison at
Speaker 1: this point, like I'm not even acknowledging my lawyers in
Speaker 1: the core room, I'm looking at miss pat and she
Speaker 1: is willing me like a mother because I feel like
Speaker 1: she became my adoptive mother. I'm looking at her and
Speaker 1: my ex boyfriend's mother, Ainslie, and these two women are
Speaker 1: a force of nature, like their eye contact is trying
Speaker 1: to pull me off the stand. They are looking like,
Speaker 1: oh ship, like something has gone terrible wrong. They just knew,
Speaker 1: you know, because they weren't back there when my lawyers
Speaker 1: were telling me all this, and they're thinking that I'm
Speaker 1: signing this plea and I'm getting out that day. They've
Speaker 1: gone out and they bought me root beer, they bought
Speaker 1: me close, they bought me a toothbrush, and they're gonna
Speaker 1: be waiting on me when I get out. And they're
Speaker 1: sitting there listening to the judge saying I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: up for parole, and everybody we're all really confused. So
Speaker 1: I get off the stand and I go back to
Speaker 1: the back room with my attorneys, and they're like, but
Speaker 1: you're not even smiling, like this is so exciting, You're
Speaker 1: about to walk out of here, and I said, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm gonna believe it until it actually happens.
Speaker 1: So I go back to the jail. I give away
Speaker 1: all my stuff. I checked the computer. It says disposed,
Speaker 1: so then it's real to me. I'm getting out of here.
Speaker 1: My case is disposed of. So they say, nor you
Speaker 1: have a visit. I go up to the top of
Speaker 1: the steps. It's one of my friends, Jennifer, my mom's
Speaker 1: name that was actually for million car started with me
Speaker 1: her and her girlfriend and they're like, Nora. We asked
Speaker 1: them what time you were getting out, because we were
Speaker 1: just going to wait on you and surprise you, and
Speaker 1: they said, you have a fifteen year old for the
Speaker 1: penitentiary in the computer. And I just left my visit
Speaker 1: and I walked downstairs to the officer and I was like,
Speaker 1: I want you to check that computer again. She was like, nor,
Speaker 1: are we already checked it? And I said no, I
Speaker 1: want I want you to check it again, and she
Speaker 1: did and it said fifteen years because that's what I
Speaker 1: had signed for, so it said fifteen years hold t
Speaker 1: d o C, which is Department of Corrections. So that
Speaker 1: meant that I had to go back to t d
Speaker 1: o C and they needed to calculate my time. I
Speaker 1: went back to t d o C. In that was
Speaker 1: in May of When I got there, my expiration day,
Speaker 1: which is the day that I would get out, was
Speaker 1: sitting in July of I was past my parole eligibility day.
Speaker 1: So I get there and they're like, Nora, you're on
Speaker 1: the pearl docket. And I just looked at the counselor
Speaker 1: and I don't think anyone has ever said this before.
Speaker 1: And I looked at her and I said, fuck parole.
Speaker 1: And she was like what. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't trust you. I don't trust t d o C.
Speaker 1: And I don't trust the State of Tennessee. And I'm
Speaker 1: refusing to go out for a parole and she was like, no,
Speaker 1: you cannot refuse to go out for a pearl. I said,
Speaker 1: I am not gonna go up and say I'm sorry
Speaker 1: for a crime I didn't commit. Please let me out,
Speaker 1: and then I'm under state supervision for two years. I said.
Speaker 1: I don't have anybody waiting on me out there, I said,
Speaker 1: and I don't trust anybody out there, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to flatten my sentence. So let me explain. Flattened means
Speaker 1: that I would sit there and earn my good time
Speaker 1: and meet my date. So I could have gone up
Speaker 1: for parole. I might have gotten it, I might not have.
Speaker 1: But if I would have gone out on Pearl, then
Speaker 1: that means I would have been under the Tennessee state
Speaker 1: supervision for two more years, which means Amy wy Wreck
Speaker 1: would have been like over me for two more years.
Speaker 1: And I was isn't about to release what little control
Speaker 1: I had back to them at this point, to be
Speaker 1: quite honest, nothing personal. I didn't trust my lawyers, I
Speaker 1: didn't trust t DC, I didn't trust anyone. So I
Speaker 1: had to trust myself. So I sat there for fifteen
Speaker 1: more months so I could walk out of there and
Speaker 1: never look back. Yeah, and and think about this. She
Speaker 1: gets a decision from the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimous that
Speaker 1: puts her in the position of she's innocent, no more
Speaker 1: guilty than you or me of this crime, and she
Speaker 1: waits months and months and months to even get a
Speaker 1: hearing about whether she can get bond. There is no
Speaker 1: daylight but this one option that is put in front
Speaker 1: of her, and then the rugg is pulled right underneath her,
Speaker 1: and it's just all of this to prevent her from
Speaker 1: just bringing the light of the day to what happened. Here.
Speaker 1: We see this over and over again, where you've got
Speaker 1: innocent people who are stuck behind bars with no legal justification,
Speaker 1: and they're given this forced choice because the government holds
Speaker 1: all the cards. Nora, Then what was it like for
Speaker 1: you the day you got out, you finally got out?
Speaker 1: How do you feel it was unreal? Up until the
Speaker 1: moment that I walked out this sally port the gates,
Speaker 1: I didn't think I would really get out. They had
Speaker 1: played with They would release me at twelve o'clock midnight,
Speaker 1: then they would release me at four o'clock the next day.
Speaker 1: And then I ended up leaving in eight thirty and
Speaker 1: the warden actually came told me if I told anyone
Speaker 1: when I was leaving, they wouldn't release me at all,
Speaker 1: but I knew I was expirating, and I knew I
Speaker 1: would get out, and I signed the piece of paper,
Speaker 1: but I didn't believe it, just because of everything that
Speaker 1: had happened on my journey, that it would really really happen.
Speaker 1: And I got out and Annesley was there, and I
Speaker 1: was so lucky and so happy to have her. But
Speaker 1: I honestly think being out, I knew that my mom
Speaker 1: was gone, and I knew that someone had killed her.
Speaker 1: People talk all the time in prison about going home
Speaker 1: because they have this idea of home, and I don't
Speaker 1: really know what a home is for me right now,
Speaker 1: and so I think getting out has been such a
Speaker 1: blessing and I'm so grateful. And I used to always
Speaker 1: think that getting out was the hard part, getting released,
Speaker 1: getting free, but life after something like this is the
Speaker 1: hard part. I took that plea because I thought I
Speaker 1: would get out that day and that didn't happen. And
Speaker 1: so there are times that I think I wonder that
Speaker 1: if I made a really big mistake, because being a
Speaker 1: felon in today's world is really hard. A lot of
Speaker 1: people aren't like you. They don't understand that the justice
Speaker 1: system is flawed and unfair. Getting a job is hard.
Speaker 1: Finding a play to live as hard. But I'm still lucky.
Speaker 1: I find myself. When I talk to my friends in prison,
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't even want to tell them these things,
Speaker 1: because who am I a complain when they're still sitting
Speaker 1: in there? You know, but these are the things they
Speaker 1: don't tell you when you're in there. Um, I think,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just gonna say. Everyone who's listening out there,
Speaker 1: get involved. Donate to your local innocence project, go online,
Speaker 1: read about these issues right to someone in prison. Support
Speaker 1: organizations like Women Empowered to Become Self Sufficient that meant
Speaker 1: so much to Nora when she was in Check them
Speaker 1: out and vote. Nora can't, but you can, and so
Speaker 1: get out there and make a difference, because you know
Speaker 1: it's time. It's time for us to turn this whole
Speaker 1: tied around. We have a tradition here Nora at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: which is that to close the show, I like to
Speaker 1: just turn the microphone over to you for any closing
Speaker 1: thoughts that you want to share. I don't know, Um
Speaker 1: I would. I just I'm just I'm just one. I'm
Speaker 1: one of many. There are Michelle's and Shane's and Joscelyn's
Speaker 1: and Octavia's, and so many people like me that are
Speaker 1: sitting inside that haven't gotten the opportunity or the chances
Speaker 1: that I've gotten, that are just waiting on someone like
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project to accept their case. So I guess
Speaker 1: what I would say is I just hope that the
Speaker 1: people are listening, ros that like any little bit counts,
Speaker 1: and I just hope that people are able to look
Speaker 1: at this with an objectivity that maybe they didn't have.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you both for being on the show,
Speaker 1: Bryce for sharing your your wisdom of all these years,
Speaker 1: and Norah, of course you. I can't even put into
Speaker 1: words how much it means to have you here, and
Speaker 1: I know the best is yet to come for you.
Speaker 1: And we're all on your side, and we're we're fucking
Speaker 1: test too, so we're gonna we're all gonna have to
Speaker 1: practice Sarah together. And I also want to give special
Speaker 1: thanks to Emily Basilon, who first brought so much attention
Speaker 1: to your case. Extraordinary writer for The New York Times,
Speaker 1: a scholar at Yale Law School, she doesn't funk around,
Speaker 1: and another badass. A lot of badass women on your
Speaker 1: side now, which is great. So this has been a
Speaker 1: very special episode of Wrongful Conviction. Thanks to you, Nora,
Speaker 1: and what else can they say? Thanks for being here,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me, don't forget to give us
Speaker 1: a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps.
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor into the Innocence Project and
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 1: to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate
Speaker 1: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one