Speaker 1: With the police banging on the door open up.
Speaker 2: The choice to be in that lineup was the last
Speaker 2: choice I made as a free man.
Speaker 3: A year later, I ended up writing the system.
Speaker 4: I'm going to be one of those people who everyone
Speaker 4: in the world is going to think as a monster
Speaker 4: or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life,
Speaker 4: and I'm just going to have to come to peace
Speaker 4: with that.
Speaker 3: Somebody was able to look at my picture in the
Speaker 3: database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
Speaker 3: I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
Speaker 3: might have to play in my hanging. They had been
Speaker 3: told that two prison officers would have to participate in
Speaker 3: my execution. Now I walked back inside that prison for
Speaker 3: the last time. Man, all help broke loose.
Speaker 2: But welcome to another episode of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Speaker 2: Today we have a very incredible person as our guest.
Speaker 2: Our featured exonnery today is Frankie Correo.
Speaker 4: Korea was sixteen. In nineteen ninety one, fifteen sheriff's deputies
Speaker 4: with guns drawn storm through the front door. Korea was
Speaker 4: convicted of murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Speaker 3: Frankie was released.
Speaker 4: From jail in downtown LA this afternoon after spending twenty
Speaker 4: years in prison. Rio was released after the court found
Speaker 4: evidence that Koreo was framed through coerced testimony for a
Speaker 4: fatal drive by shooting. The gang of corrupt LA Sheriff's
Speaker 4: deputies known as the Linwood Vikings co wer six witnesses
Speaker 4: into identifying him in a photo lineup.
Speaker 3: Frankie, welcome, Jason's good to be here.
Speaker 2: So, Frankie, your story begins when you were really just
Speaker 2: a child and the baby man. Let's go back to
Speaker 2: the beginning. You grew up in La, right, that's correct,
Speaker 2: Southern California, and you had a pretty happy upbringing, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I would say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everything was going along more or less.
Speaker 2: Okay, nothing's easy about being a sixteen year old boy,
Speaker 2: that's right.
Speaker 3: Then one day it all was turned upside down. That
Speaker 3: day was January twenty fourth, nineteen ninety one. I was
Speaker 3: just a little color there. I was a high school student.
Speaker 3: I was a child of a divorce family, four siblings.
Speaker 3: My father had raised us in stage of nine, so
Speaker 3: it's a very male dominated household. Dad and two boys.
Speaker 3: It was what I'd known for the past seven years.
Speaker 2: And you had a sort of a unique situation too it,
Speaker 2: which is that your mom had did one day just
Speaker 2: decided to check out.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't like it got separated and you spent
Speaker 2: half the time with her or she just left.
Speaker 3: That was it. Yeah, I mean, it's an unfortunate story,
Speaker 3: but that's what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you had been abandoned in a very real
Speaker 2: way and experienced something that's obviously going to affect any
Speaker 2: young man for the rest of his life. But that
Speaker 2: wasn't the worst of what was to come by far.
Speaker 2: And again, sixteen is really not a child, but you're
Speaker 2: closer to a child.
Speaker 1: Than an adult.
Speaker 3: Right even though it was my age, I was sixteen,
Speaker 3: Psychologically you're you're still a kid, you know, maybe operating
Speaker 3: at thirteen fourteen level, not to you know, minimize it,
Speaker 3: but I'm a boy, I'm a kid.
Speaker 2: We were in tenth grade, tenth grader, tenth grade, exactly
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. Tenth grade, you're you know, yeah, you're
Speaker 2: closer to middle school than you are to college.
Speaker 3: And they hadn't been shaved. So it's like a good,
Speaker 3: good reference is that you're at the point where like
Speaker 3: facial hair is sort of developing, but you're not there yet, Frankie, like,
Speaker 3: hold off right.
Speaker 2: And then one night, fifteen cops bust in your house.
Speaker 2: What a surreal situation. You were asleep.
Speaker 1: I was asleep, just a normal night.
Speaker 3: Actually it was early morning, so it was dark, but
Speaker 3: it was it was six in the morning when this happened.
Speaker 3: And my father and I went home and they couldn't
Speaker 3: get in. They were pounding away, and ultimately I opened
Speaker 3: the door, looked out the window and new was them.
Speaker 3: They were screaming who they were, and they stormed in,
Speaker 3: stormed in, ordered my father and I to the floor.
Speaker 3: And that's the beginning of the nightmare.
Speaker 2: Really, so they already had to the floor. Did they
Speaker 2: tell you what was going on?
Speaker 3: I wish it did?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: It was pretty strategic in all business, so they want to,
Speaker 3: like ram Seck, the home was their main objective, and
Speaker 3: you know, my father and I. My dad was trying
Speaker 3: to exert his position, this is my home, what are
Speaker 3: you doing here? And he was being ignored. So he's
Speaker 3: telling me, like, what's happening. I'm like I don't know,
Speaker 3: Like I have no idea why they're here. Soon after,
Speaker 3: on the ride to the sheriff station is when I
Speaker 3: learned that I had been accused and ultimately now being
Speaker 3: arrested for a murderer I hadn't committed.
Speaker 2: So you get to the sheriff's station and what happens next.
Speaker 3: Really, I was expecting my father to show up, but
Speaker 3: what happened was I was placed into an interrogation room.
Speaker 3: The people who showed up instead were these two sort
Speaker 3: of cowboy detectives ready to play the good call bad
Speaker 3: cop on me, and I played along. You know. They
Speaker 3: said what they were arrested me for, and if I
Speaker 3: would willing to talk, and I said, sure, I'll talk
Speaker 3: like I have nothing to hide.
Speaker 1: Right, And so you waved your marana, right I did.
Speaker 2: And that's such a crazy thing, Frankie, because I think
Speaker 2: it's hard for most people to understand why someone would
Speaker 2: wave their miranda when you.
Speaker 1: Have the right to a lawyer who would going to
Speaker 1: give that up?
Speaker 2: But the fact is, in your case, I think it's
Speaker 2: fairly typical, which is that if you're innocent, and this
Speaker 2: is an ironic thing, right, if you're innocent, a lot
Speaker 2: of people go in they think, well, why do I
Speaker 2: need a lawyer. I'm just going to answer some questions,
Speaker 2: and the justice system is going to work because I'm
Speaker 2: an innocent person who abides by the law, and then
Speaker 2: they'll see that they made a mistake and then they'll
Speaker 2: go catch the real guy.
Speaker 1: Exactly right.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, it's going to take stories like yours to help
Speaker 2: educate people so that they don't do that. You do
Speaker 2: not give up any information without getting a lawyer.
Speaker 3: But I will adjason that when you're in that code
Speaker 3: room and the power imbalance is obvious, you are in
Speaker 3: a detention facility. Basically, you're in the stronghold, you're in
Speaker 3: the sheriff's departments space, and you're there as a visitor.
Speaker 3: You're there obviously being charged with this crime, in my case,
Speaker 3: being wrongfully charged. And so to some degree, as a
Speaker 3: young boy, you want these are adults. Some look at
Speaker 3: these men and you want to cooperate. You want it
Speaker 3: like I'll talk to you. I have nothing to hide.
Speaker 3: It is sort of my position looking back now. Obviously
Speaker 3: I wish I wish there was a Civics class that
Speaker 3: would have said, you know what, no matter what, innocent, guilty, whatever,
Speaker 3: the situation is just wait for your parents or wait
Speaker 3: for a lawyer.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a tragic twist or irony that when you're
Speaker 2: innocent and you go into the situation, you're more likely
Speaker 2: to waive your Miranda rights and if you're guilty. Exactly
Speaker 2: in that interrogation room, how long were you interrogated for?
Speaker 1: Do you even know?
Speaker 3: You know? Surprisingly, I think back of that fived him
Speaker 3: minute interrogation and I sort of left that room thinking,
Speaker 3: you know, where was the lamp? You know, where were
Speaker 3: these guys punching on me? Like, you know, you watch
Speaker 3: enough TV to understand that this is supposed to unfold
Speaker 3: a little bit differently than it did in my case.
Speaker 3: At least, they were very quick to just say, there's
Speaker 3: a young boy who witnessed the crime, who was adamant
Speaker 3: that you were the guy who did it. So we
Speaker 3: got you. Let's talk about you just confessing to it.
Speaker 3: So it was really very brief, very precise on their end,
Speaker 3: and I think I'm go on have chuckle not to
Speaker 3: be silly here, but it was just like so unreal,
Speaker 3: like one, you're are you sure you're talking to me?
Speaker 3: I'm adamant that it wasn't me obviously, and their position
Speaker 3: was like, we're beyond if you did it or not.
Speaker 3: We just want you to just come clean, just confess
Speaker 3: that you did it. And I was like, I can't
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: It ended after ten minutes.
Speaker 3: That's it. Like they weren't trying to press me and
Speaker 3: starve me out anything. They were just like, okay, well
Speaker 3: we'll see you in court, like we're going to jail now,
Speaker 3: Like that was it.
Speaker 2: Hearing that and that's an unusual interrogation, and that it
Speaker 2: went on for such a short period of time, it
Speaker 2: sounds to me like at that point they actually did
Speaker 2: think they had the right guy, because they were like, Okay,
Speaker 2: well this guy's not gonna give it up, but we
Speaker 2: got the right guy, so it's okay, We're gon We're
Speaker 2: gonna get him no matter what. But as things unraveled,
Speaker 2: they took steps that were corrupt and illegal. How did
Speaker 2: they end up managing to convict you when you were
Speaker 2: so obviously not the guy?
Speaker 3: So you know, in Los Angeles at least, there's a
Speaker 3: very familiar story about misconduct with the LAPD SO Rampart
Speaker 3: Division scandal. It's more readily available knowledge. But my case
Speaker 3: didn't involve LAPED involved the LA's Sheriff's department, and there's
Speaker 3: a well known at least locally of the Linwood Vikings.
Speaker 3: So Lindwood is where this crime happened and where my
Speaker 3: arrest was ultimately investigated. And the Linwood Vikings had become
Speaker 3: a rogue police gang. So what I thought is a
Speaker 3: naive boy, that I was dealing with law enforcement who
Speaker 3: were abided by the constitution and their policies in the department.
Speaker 3: Some of the people on this investigation team were these
Speaker 3: bad cops sort of fast forward in here of information
Speaker 3: I knew, not at the time, but as the case developed.
Speaker 3: And so when this young boy who was used to
Speaker 3: identify me, who was shown a photo line of a
Speaker 3: photo six pack to ultimately say this is the guy
Speaker 3: who committed the crime, the case sounded pretty pretty cut
Speaker 3: and dry. There's a witness, there's a he show was
Speaker 3: showing a photographic lineup. He quickly identified the shooter. We
Speaker 3: got in the rest Slamm Dunk. And so there was
Speaker 3: a trial when I was tried as an adult and
Speaker 3: moved forward to a conviction. But at some point it
Speaker 3: was discovered that this young boy wasn't as innocent as
Speaker 3: you know. He was more than just a witness. It
Speaker 3: was revealed that he was an informant for one specific
Speaker 3: law enforcement officer, Deputy Ditch. And so Deputy Ditch, Ditch,
Speaker 3: Deputy of all.
Speaker 1: Things, Deputy Ditch.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean what a name, right, Craig Ditch is
Speaker 3: the guy's name. He's now retired. The guy had this
Speaker 3: boy under his wing as an informant, and he happened
Speaker 3: to be at this crime scene, and so it was
Speaker 3: very very easy to say, I'm your go to guy here.
Speaker 3: So the story later was discovered that this young boy
Speaker 3: was showing photographs after he'd been interviewed five times by
Speaker 3: other investigators with no results. They realized Ditch had a
Speaker 3: relationship with this boy. Ditch shows up cases over. The
Speaker 3: case was solved once Stitch arrived in less than eight hours,
Speaker 3: and the story that was revealed that the young boy
Speaker 3: was showing the photographs as what was in the report,
Speaker 3: and so he picks a random picture just to play along,
Speaker 3: and Ditch says, that's the wrong guy. He's in jail
Speaker 3: right now, try again. You know, I'm sure he's feeling
Speaker 3: like an idiot. Point. You know, you're trying to help,
Speaker 3: You're young, you're scared, so he picks another photograph, and
Speaker 3: the deputy says, this guy's dead. What about this guy here?
Speaker 3: We think he's trying to come up in the rankings
Speaker 3: or whatever, And so the boy just says, yeah, I
Speaker 3: guess that makes sense. I guess I guess that's the guy.
Speaker 3: And this is there.
Speaker 1: He was looking at six photographs. Yep, he was over
Speaker 1: too exactly. He picked. He picked very badly. He picked
Speaker 1: a guy who was in jail and a guy who
Speaker 1: was dead. Right. That's yeah, really hard to make a
Speaker 1: case against those guys. Right.
Speaker 2: And by the way, it's sort of odd that there
Speaker 2: was a guy in the six pack who was dead.
Speaker 2: Give me a break, I mean, you would think they
Speaker 2: would take that guy out just I mean to let
Speaker 2: me jump in here and say, well, you know, Frankie,
Speaker 2: what's up. You're coming off as this high school student,
Speaker 2: nice guy. What's your photograph doing in the sheriff's apartment? Like,
Speaker 2: tell us about that. I'm sure that was your next question, right,
Speaker 2: I'm getting to that what happened.
Speaker 3: In this environment is so nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one
Speaker 3: is what we're referencing here. That specific sheriff's department's policy
Speaker 3: was that if there was any anyone that you thought
Speaker 3: was a potential bad kid or bad guy or bad anything,
Speaker 3: let's do some racial profiling at this point, right, gather intel.
Speaker 3: And so the photograph was obtained in the summer between
Speaker 3: my sixth grade and seventh grade vacation block. There, me
Speaker 3: and some of my buddies just riding our BMX spikes
Speaker 3: through a local park, no big deal, summertime, and this deputy,
Speaker 3: Deputy Luna, I remember the guy's name, sort of just
Speaker 3: rolls up next to us. He's done of the official
Speaker 3: lights on pull over. He stops, We stopped, start talking
Speaker 3: about who has a girlfriend, and where do you live?
Speaker 3: And what's up with you? Whatever? Right, just pretty cool
Speaker 3: talking to a cop, No big deal. Then the guy says,
Speaker 3: do you mind if I take your photograph to the group?
Speaker 3: I don't remember us looking around saying what do you think? Guys?
Speaker 3: We just like, I guess like you're a cop, right,
Speaker 3: Like what do we say?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: And so this is the time when you had polaroad camera.
Speaker 3: So the guy got out of his car, went into
Speaker 3: the trunk and pulled out the little manual polaroid camera,
Speaker 3: and one by one he just came to write where
Speaker 3: we were on our bike standing and just snapped the photograph.
Speaker 3: And so that photograph that was taken in a park
Speaker 3: with trees in the background and whatever else was in
Speaker 3: the background, I was smiling them picture. That photograph ended
Speaker 3: up in the sixth pack. So talk about like a
Speaker 3: chain of events here that fucks your life up, right,
Speaker 3: Oh my.
Speaker 2: God, I mean, that's really the most I've heard all
Speaker 2: types of different stories, and you're right, that is a
Speaker 2: question that people often ask, why was this picture?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: What we know is that if you live in a
Speaker 2: poor neighborhood spetiicularly a poor minority neighborhood, the cops do
Speaker 2: sweeps and they'll pick up everybody, right, And so your
Speaker 2: picture could be in there because you had a joint,
Speaker 2: or any other thing could be in there because you
Speaker 2: were trespassing, right, I have air quotes under that one
Speaker 2: or whatever. And so it's really true that a lot
Speaker 2: of people have records for the most minor misdemeanors. In
Speaker 2: your case, you had no record whatsoever. Actually, it was
Speaker 2: probably I mean, thinking back to when I was in
Speaker 2: sixth or seventh grade, if a cop would have asked
Speaker 2: to take my picture, I would have felt good, right,
Speaker 2: but like, wow, this guy.
Speaker 1: Wants to take my picture. I'm pretty cool kid.
Speaker 2: So your picture was in the lineup because this cop had,
Speaker 2: in a sneaky way, racially profiled you as a thirteen
Speaker 2: year old boy riding his bike in the park, which
Speaker 2: is exactly as far as I can tell, what thirteen
Speaker 2: year old boys are supposed to be doing. You were
Speaker 2: identified in this insane process, right, which is literally like
Speaker 2: it would be funny.
Speaker 1: Except the results are so tragic.
Speaker 2: So he eventually managed to come up with the answer
Speaker 2: that the cop wanted, which he could have saved himself
Speaker 2: the trouble by just saying initially to the kid, hey,
Speaker 2: this is the guy we want identify him. That would
Speaker 2: have been simple, exactly. I would have saved five minutes.
Speaker 2: So you're identified, you go to trial.
Speaker 3: Well, I try as an adult. I'm going to keep
Speaker 3: parking this spit.
Speaker 1: I'm a kid.
Speaker 3: So there's a process here in California that determines if
Speaker 3: you're worthy of juvenile court or you have to go
Speaker 3: with the big boys. Right, And so this was a
Speaker 3: murderer and they felt that it deserved it a higher punishment,
Speaker 3: and so ultimately went to trial, had an assigned attorney
Speaker 3: that the county. It wasn't a public defenders like a
Speaker 3: panel attorney. I have to say this part here. And
Speaker 3: when I walked into the court and I was chained
Speaker 3: to you know, the chain gang there, everyone's there being arraigned,
Speaker 3: all adults and then was looking like what did you do,
Speaker 3: like steal some candy and blah blah blah, and you know,
Speaker 3: they're just ragging on me, these adults who had obviously
Speaker 3: been there before. And so I'm the last guy to
Speaker 3: be arraigned, and so everyone's freaking out like, oh shit,
Speaker 3: we weren't expecting that charge for this kid, right And
Speaker 3: prior to that, I will say that, and it's and
Speaker 3: it kind of goes to just me being so naive
Speaker 3: here is that I heard someone call my name and
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm so little. I'm like raising my hand
Speaker 3: like I'm over here. And I looked over and I
Speaker 3: saw this good looking white man with this amazing suit on,
Speaker 3: just like canned suit, walking towards me with the file
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh my god, David, you have
Speaker 3: signed me the best fucker in the room, man, Like
Speaker 3: this is all going to be worked out, Like this
Speaker 3: is it? I got the very sheck of the world. Sadly,
Speaker 3: it's just an example of like where my mentality was,
Speaker 3: even my perception of this new world. This courtroom was
Speaker 3: like sadly, like the white guy come into your rescue
Speaker 3: had like such an impact from living in a society
Speaker 3: where the majority of people around you are people who
Speaker 3: look like you and who you know than the teacher
Speaker 3: or whatever, and so I thought it was a sort
Speaker 3: of funny and looking back at that moment, getting me
Speaker 3: so excited about everything's gonna be okay now right obviously.
Speaker 2: Not obviously not. I mean the odds, the odds were
Speaker 2: stacked against you. The government was willing to lie to
Speaker 2: get the conviction. They were willing to use an incentivized witness,
Speaker 2: and they convicted you, they did, and now you get
Speaker 2: sent to maximum security prison.
Speaker 3: At the time, they had a juvenile facility, so it
Speaker 3: was like the Youth Authority for young adults. So I
Speaker 3: went there and the sentence was thirty years to life,
Speaker 3: with an additional six life sentences attached to that. So
Speaker 3: I'll say that when I heard those words coming to
Speaker 3: the judge's mouth, I couldn't imagine or perceived like a
Speaker 3: week or a few months in my life to now
Speaker 3: to imagine thirty years to life plus life, I couldn't
Speaker 3: even comprehend that. For someone wants to be sort of
Speaker 3: funny and sort of mess with me, it meant like,
Speaker 3: do thirty years to life die and then you're back
Speaker 3: in prison, like even if you ever come back, right,
Speaker 3: And it was.
Speaker 1: Like, you mean, like if you get reincarnated.
Speaker 3: I suppose, right, like you're you're seting you up for
Speaker 3: your next life.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make any sense, right, and none of this
Speaker 2: makes any sense, But that in particular doesn't make any
Speaker 2: sense just in terms of the semantics of it. It's
Speaker 2: interesting too write because there was a witness who actually
Speaker 2: wanted to come forward and who had information that could
Speaker 2: have prevented you from being convicted in the first place.
Speaker 3: Is there was, so he wasn't just a witness. This
Speaker 3: guy that you're referring to was the actual killer. So
Speaker 3: as a bizarre twist in this case, the investigator had
Speaker 3: discovered who the murderer was, and your investigator there and
Speaker 3: this is it's a bizarre twist all this. And it's
Speaker 3: not to minimize the bad police work here, but now
Speaker 3: it's also bad defense work here. My defense attorney had
Speaker 3: an investigator who had went out and become the world's
Speaker 3: best investigator by tracking down who excumented the crime. Turns
Speaker 3: out he knew the murderer, and so there was just
Speaker 3: this conflict of interest of either get off the case
Speaker 3: or reveal that this is the guy who did it.
Speaker 3: He had this young man, the actual murderer, confessed to
Speaker 3: the crime. There's a six page confession that he took
Speaker 3: from this man, and what he tried to do. To
Speaker 3: his credit, he tried to convince this guy to come
Speaker 3: to the court and just say, look, Frankie didn't do it,
Speaker 3: it was me. And he arrived with an attorney. You
Speaker 3: would assume that the judge would say, well, wait a
Speaker 3: minute here, before Frankie goes down and he's sentenced, let's
Speaker 3: hear about this guy in the hallway. And lo and behold,
Speaker 3: the judge says, you're too late. You've been convicted by
Speaker 3: a jury. All this sort of like last information that's
Speaker 3: apparently in the hallway. Just deal with it in your appeal.
Speaker 2: So after the jury renders you guilty, and the guy
Speaker 2: standing outside the doors of the courtroom exactly who's actually
Speaker 2: holding the cards to your freedom?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it would have shed light if someone
Speaker 3: cared about truth, right, it would have been like, well,
Speaker 3: let's bring this guy in. And so it failed me
Speaker 3: even again at that point, that's such a crazy it's
Speaker 3: a bizarre man. You were like thirty feet from freedom
Speaker 3: sort of right, the doors would have opened and this
Speaker 3: guy would have been allowed to walk in and provided
Speaker 3: he actually came clean, true, because he might have changed
Speaker 3: his mind.
Speaker 1: People do that.
Speaker 2: But you had a real opportunity to avoid this most
Speaker 2: nightmarish fate that anybody can possibly imagine. But that's not
Speaker 2: what happened. And ultimately there were six witnesses who testified
Speaker 2: against you, and the crazy thing is they all recanted, right,
Speaker 2: eventually they all recanted.
Speaker 3: They initially use this one boy, the swift year old boy,
Speaker 3: to arrest me based on this photographic lineup, and so
Speaker 3: six months which is bizarre. Here everyone was under eighteen,
Speaker 3: so that everyone was very young. Six months maybe even
Speaker 3: seven months after the crime had occurred. For the first time,
Speaker 3: the other five boys had been shown the photographic lineup.
Speaker 3: And we all know about memory, and there's been studies
Speaker 3: and it's been proven that this is not a recording.
Speaker 1: Dick.
Speaker 3: You have on your phone. In your mind, memories record
Speaker 3: a little bit differently. It's like little snapshots, and as
Speaker 3: time goes on they fade and other information filters in
Speaker 3: and it gets very tainted. So it's hard to really recall,
Speaker 3: especially a dry by shooting the middle of the night.
Speaker 3: You hear gunfire, you're ducking, you're running, So to really
Speaker 3: capture that, it's like an immediate on the scene interview
Speaker 3: is like the best one. So we're talking about seven
Speaker 3: months later now where these boys are showing photographs for
Speaker 3: the first time ever. Wow, And sure enough, sure enough,
Speaker 3: one by one they say, yep, that's the guy. It's
Speaker 3: photograph number one. And it was obviously later determined that's
Speaker 3: this young boy. The fifteen year old boy. Made it
Speaker 3: a point to tell everyone else if they ever show
Speaker 3: you photographs, believe me, I know who did it. It
Speaker 3: was photograph number one. And so now we got six people.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's so absurd to think that seven months later,
Speaker 2: as you said, in the middle of the night, in
Speaker 2: the dark and a drive by shooting, all the factors
Speaker 2: are there for almost a guarantee of wrongful identification, a
Speaker 2: mess identification, and that's exactly what happened. So you spent
Speaker 2: much more than half your life behind bars. You're only
Speaker 2: really a cognizant human, right maybe for ten years to
Speaker 2: a round number, so more than twice that amount of time.
Speaker 2: You're now in a cage in a violent, scary, hostile environment.
Speaker 2: How did you manage to make it through that?
Speaker 3: You know? Well, you know, when I think back about
Speaker 3: how I survived twenty years incarceration, what I remembered most
Speaker 3: about something my dad said sort of in passing or
Speaker 3: just try to give me some advice up to dinner table,
Speaker 3: which was if there's adults around, go to them. He's
Speaker 3: sort of instilling these things about just society, they'll help you.
Speaker 3: And so I think, here I am in a room
Speaker 3: full of adults. I'm in an adult court, and I'm
Speaker 3: expecting everyone to do the right thing just because you're
Speaker 3: an adult. I'm a kid. You're supposed to be watching
Speaker 3: out for the system and yourself and everyone in the room.
Speaker 3: And so that went haywire. That that failed me. But
Speaker 3: I think that this very fuzzy idea of humanity was
Speaker 3: being born, and so I arrived in the place that
Speaker 3: was very sad. I mean, it's dangerous when you hear
Speaker 3: about it from the outside, but from the inside it's
Speaker 3: a very somber and just a sad place where people
Speaker 3: are being confined. And so I'm talking to you from
Speaker 3: the ground level here other people who don't want to
Speaker 3: be there, and they're also suffering on whatever level, and
Speaker 3: you join in on this pity party about life, you know.
Speaker 3: And so first couple of years of that, you know,
Speaker 3: you're trying to sort of find your place. It's a
Speaker 3: social dynamic there, and so you're moving in groups of
Speaker 3: your kind, and you know, you get a job and
Speaker 3: you kind of get active in what's happening there. But
Speaker 3: luckily for me, and I really thank my dad for
Speaker 3: saying that, it's instilling in this idea that whoever they are,
Speaker 3: but people are good people. And in my case, I
Speaker 3: had to be careful with who I told that I
Speaker 3: was innocent, because you know, that's back to the sort
Speaker 3: of ranking about like you're a murderer in prison has
Speaker 3: more status than if you're there for child molestation. And
Speaker 3: so even in my environment, I think innocent is probably
Speaker 3: below child molester. You don't belong here, like what the
Speaker 3: fuck man like you're you know, I mean a criminal
Speaker 3: like we're all you know, we're all tough here. So
Speaker 3: I learned that I made a mistake and told the
Speaker 3: wrong guy that I was innocent, and the look he
Speaker 3: gave me was like, oh shit, maybe I shouldn't be
Speaker 3: telling people that I'm not like you, right Obviously, like
Speaker 3: everyone else I read and I and I feel like
Speaker 3: I'm on a sound like a natural chameleon. So I
Speaker 3: just adapted to my environment. I've been always been very diplomatic,
Speaker 3: so I was always trying to be the peacekeeper, and
Speaker 3: so that helped the pain. And also, like the hope
Speaker 3: was that like somewhere, somehow someone was going to realize
Speaker 3: that this was a huge mistake. And so the system
Speaker 3: that failed me, the criminal justice system that failed me,
Speaker 3: and everyone who makes that sort of turn, you know,
Speaker 3: happen and work though it's it's supposed to work. I
Speaker 3: suppose I was expecting them to figure it out and
Speaker 3: help me. It's sort of like suspending reality and thinking,
Speaker 3: forget what just happened to you where you've been wrongly convicted,
Speaker 3: and try to hold onto the one piece that these
Speaker 3: people can do the right thing, and some expecting people
Speaker 3: to do the right thing.
Speaker 2: It's incredible that you would be expecting people to do
Speaker 2: the right thing when, with the exception of your father,
Speaker 2: everybody who was supposed to have protected you either abandoned
Speaker 2: you or turned on you in the most vicious way,
Speaker 2: and yet you maintained this outlook like, if I just
Speaker 2: be me and be honest and be optimistic, then eventually
Speaker 2: people are going to accept me for who I am,
Speaker 2: which is an innocent guide trapped in a sentence that
Speaker 2: doesn't belong to me. That's really there's a lot to
Speaker 2: be learned from that, right, because all of us go
Speaker 2: through little disappointments on a daily basements, right, or a
Speaker 2: weekly basis or whatever, and so many people react to those,
Speaker 2: and certainly being around you and the other exgneries, I
Speaker 2: always say, it puts gratitude in my attitude, you know,
Speaker 2: and I learned to be I think much more understanding
Speaker 2: of life's little twists and turns, because they all seem
Speaker 2: so trivial. When you deal with someone who's been through
Speaker 2: hell right and managed to maintain not just sanity, but
Speaker 2: a sense of grace and kindness and optimism, it's remarkable,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: I'm going to add to also, Jason, that there was
Speaker 3: something happening that I didn't realize this until many years later.
Speaker 3: But we're all conditioned in the way, and specifically, when
Speaker 3: we think of prison, we think of the ugliest human
Speaker 3: from his behavior, what he did, or the way he
Speaker 3: looks and the tattoos and ponytail. Whatever we have in
Speaker 3: our minds etched out as like what a prison who
Speaker 3: looks like. And so imagine a guy who's great looking
Speaker 3: as I am in a prison. You might think, oh, man,
Speaker 3: this guy's vulnerable to like sexual assaults, right, But the
Speaker 3: reality is that pull perversion out of it. You're in
Speaker 3: a place where you're almost like a porcelain figurine in
Speaker 3: a bar, and it's almost like people want to protect you,
Speaker 3: and they're curious about, like, what's this guy with no
Speaker 3: tattoos doing amongst us? Why is he so nice? Like,
Speaker 3: you know, we're all mean and talking shit to each other,
Speaker 3: and this guy's like talking about good morning and whatever. Right,
Speaker 3: And so I learned that my humanity hadn't been detached
Speaker 3: from me. There was no guilt that made me feel
Speaker 3: like I couldn't be human. So I was just who
Speaker 3: I thought I had to be, And as time went on,
Speaker 3: I'd use it as a shield because I knew that
Speaker 3: that was happening, that there was like these social conditioning
Speaker 3: that was working in my favor, even just a survival part,
Speaker 3: let alone the criminal justice be trying to get out.
Speaker 2: Now that you've been out for six years, and hearing
Speaker 2: you talk about it, you're very calm, and you paint
Speaker 2: a picture that is I think either you're in a
Speaker 2: little bit of denial, you know, like they say, denial
Speaker 2: is not.
Speaker 1: A river in Egypt.
Speaker 2: About how terrifying and how I know it was a
Speaker 2: brutal experience, no matter all the things you're saying, notwithstanding,
Speaker 2: but I do want to turn to the happy part
Speaker 2: of the story, right your exoneration and then what happened
Speaker 2: after you got out, because America loves to come back. Yeah, man,
Speaker 2: and your story is very uplifting. I mean, just the
Speaker 2: fact that you're here now has got to be inspiring
Speaker 2: to so many people. So how did you Was it
Speaker 2: the Northern California Innocent's Project that took your case?
Speaker 3: I think my exoneration is sort of twofold here, But
Speaker 3: when it came to the legal components to it, I
Speaker 3: did what many other people do. They write letters and
Speaker 3: they bother their families and that they have a friend
Speaker 3: who they can nag about it. They do that like
Speaker 3: it's a constant scratching away at this right. And so
Speaker 3: for me, it was a fifteen year letter writing campaign
Speaker 3: that went nowhere. I mean it was Oprah and twenty
Speaker 3: twenty and forty eight hours and some roll back, you know,
Speaker 3: along with Barry shk who wasn't interested in at the
Speaker 3: time with a case who wasn't involved in DNA, which
Speaker 3: I understood. But as bizarre as it was, I was.
Speaker 3: I was a folesome prisoner working as a teacher's aid.
Speaker 3: So I was, you know, helping the teacher correct papers
Speaker 3: and do some algebra on the board, whatever, just pretty
Speaker 3: basic stuff, right. And Tony Carter, who was a teacher,
Speaker 3: she is about to retire, and there was like this
Speaker 3: internal policy where you can't get too close to the
Speaker 3: prisoners because they'll fire you and so on. And so
Speaker 3: I knew that, and now I want to get her
Speaker 3: in trouble. So she knew my plight, but I never
Speaker 3: never went as far as to say, hey, Tony, would
Speaker 3: he help? But now I figure she's done, you know,
Speaker 3: she's about to retire. Now is the time, right, So
Speaker 3: on the last moments she's walking away on that Friday,
Speaker 3: I say, Tony, Tony, and she looks back and she says, yeah,
Speaker 3: what's up. Did you forget to say something? And sure
Speaker 3: enough I did, right? I said, would you help me?
Speaker 3: She's like sure, Like, what can I do for you? Right?
Speaker 3: You know my story, if Nelicher retired, if you're in
Speaker 3: your travels in the world, if you come across a lawyer,
Speaker 3: a reporter, anyone you think might be interested in my story,
Speaker 3: would you just mind just sharing that with them? And
Speaker 3: I think anyone would have said yes, it's pretty simple. Right,
Speaker 3: you're about to leave, and so she she says, sure,
Speaker 3: I can do that, and I was. I was really
Speaker 3: relieved because a letter I can do that all day long,
Speaker 3: but face to face it's a different dynamic there. But
Speaker 3: I felt really happy that I was able to muster
Speaker 3: the guts to do that. And so turns out that
Speaker 3: six months after that conversation, she was invited to a
Speaker 3: book club in Sacramento. This guy named Bo Mosof who's
Speaker 3: now has passed, who was going to do some book
Speaker 3: signing and she had seen him before, and so she
Speaker 3: shows up and lo and behold, there's an attorney in
Speaker 3: the room, and luckily for me, she mentioned that she
Speaker 3: was a lawyer because I guess who was listening Tony,
Speaker 3: who says, oh shit, I guess this is I guess
Speaker 3: this is a calling, right, So she goes over and says,
Speaker 3: I heard you're a lawyer, and you know have this guy.
Speaker 3: You know, I used to be a former teacher in prison,
Speaker 3: and there's a story I want to share with you.
Speaker 3: And literally that's what's triggered it. This woman was Ellen Naggers,
Speaker 3: was a public defender working on death penalty cases in California,
Speaker 3: who then got in touch with Northern California Innocence Project
Speaker 3: Morrison Forrester, and this dream came together. It took them
Speaker 3: five years, and they could have taken them ten years.
Speaker 3: I didn't care. But finally someone was going beyond the
Speaker 3: record and saying, let's listen to this guy has to say.
Speaker 3: So they turned stones over that had been ignored. They
Speaker 3: tracked down these six boys, these now men, you know,
Speaker 3: they weren't kids anymore, and one by one it was
Speaker 3: almost like if they were being freed from their own miseries.
Speaker 3: They all, from what I hear, they were all so
Speaker 3: gracious to say like, you know what, thank you for
Speaker 3: finding me. I need to tell you the truth as
Speaker 3: if they were living with this pain as well. There
Speaker 3: was witnesses that were brought in to clarify the Paul.
Speaker 3: Things were described that happened couldn't have happened. And so
Speaker 3: the evidence that was used against me had gone away
Speaker 3: and there was a final hearing. Luckily for me, the
Speaker 3: Los Angeles disc Attorney's office conceded the case, so there
Speaker 3: was ultimately no fight. They agreed that this had gone
Speaker 3: wrong and I was free to go. And so the
Speaker 3: words I've been yearning to hear all my life, well
Speaker 3: it seemed to be my entire life, the judge said them,
Speaker 3: which is basically, get out of here.
Speaker 1: You apologize.
Speaker 3: The DA's apologized in the room, which felt really good.
Speaker 3: They came over and shook my hand. I think the
Speaker 3: judge he gave more of like a philosophical response to that,
Speaker 3: but it was less about him. It was more about
Speaker 3: the DA's office. And it turned out that the corporate
Speaker 3: the bad players here were just as bad cop. I'm
Speaker 3: a big fan of law enforcement, but in this situation,
Speaker 3: it was a bad cop who was tied up with
Speaker 3: this internal gang situation and shit went bad and I
Speaker 3: had to suffer.
Speaker 2: Yes, you certainly did. So you walked out of the courthouse.
Speaker 2: You walked in, Well, you were arrested and you can
Speaker 2: walk in. You were taken in as a sixteen year
Speaker 2: old boy. You walk out as a thirty seven year
Speaker 2: old man.
Speaker 1: What's that like? You walk out?
Speaker 2: I mean, what is freedom taste? And your dad had
Speaker 2: died in the drum, right, so now you're an orphan yep,
Speaker 2: and you walk out into what would you do?
Speaker 1: Did you go get something to eat?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: What'd you DoD? I mean?
Speaker 3: I wish I would have been released from the court room.
Speaker 3: I was released from the Sheriff's Department's jail there the
Speaker 3: county jail, I La County jail. And it was about
Speaker 3: it was mid midweek. It was about maybe two in
Speaker 3: the afternoon, and they called me out of my cell
Speaker 3: and took me down to the street level when doors open,
Speaker 3: and there was like a TMZ moment, really, all these
Speaker 3: cameras bouncing on their shoulders trying to interview me, right,
Speaker 3: and all the mics come out before my family and
Speaker 3: lawyers could get to me. And how does it feel
Speaker 3: to be free? How does it feel to be free, right,
Speaker 3: and the big question, And I think I ignored that one
Speaker 3: because I sort of thought about that for a very
Speaker 3: long time when I was in prison. What's they going
Speaker 3: to feel like? And it sort of felt stupid, as safe,
Speaker 3: it felt as great or whatever. So but I remember
Speaker 3: thinking that it was such a bright day, the colors
Speaker 3: that just at my disposal now it seemed to be
Speaker 3: like a century overload, which is my immediate reaction was
Speaker 3: whoa the wind, the colors, the people, the attention, because
Speaker 3: you know, Jason, the reality was that at a very
Speaker 3: young age I had become like the man in the
Speaker 3: iron mask, where my voice was taken away. My existence
Speaker 3: before I had a chance to even blossom, was extinguished.
Speaker 3: There was no chance for this young life to become anything,
Speaker 3: and so I had to live with that. I lived
Speaker 3: with the fact that when I did try to make
Speaker 3: an attempt to speak up for myself, I was ignored
Speaker 3: and that was minimized. So that was a personal struggle
Speaker 3: that all kind of came together the day I was out,
Speaker 3: So from no attention to like, hey, we're all here
Speaker 3: for you, right, which was great. My attorneys were there,
Speaker 3: my family was there. Somehow I hadn't seen them very
Speaker 3: long time, and.
Speaker 1: So what happened? So then you're out? Yeah, where'd you go?
Speaker 3: And I was ushered into a car pretty quickly, and
Speaker 3: we went to Echo Park to a friend's home who
Speaker 3: they had a good whole food sort of spread awaiting
Speaker 3: for me. Right, So I went for a cafeteria food
Speaker 3: for twenty years or prison food, which is even worse,
Speaker 3: to this long table of organic almonds and dried apricots.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: So that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Almonds and apricots a whole ya, man, sounds a little biblical,
Speaker 2: you know, It's kind of funny, that's right.
Speaker 1: I was thinking of you.
Speaker 2: I was thinking, you're gonna say you got like a sandwiches,
Speaker 2: and you know, I was picturing more of a you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, if they had almonds and eight apricots, I
Speaker 2: would have actually been pissed out of it, like come on, really,
Speaker 2: like can I get a slice?
Speaker 1: Yeah, pizza? Something? I mean, come on, man.
Speaker 2: So then you went home, and then you know, now
Speaker 2: here it is. You rebuilt your life. You successfully filed
Speaker 2: a lawsuit, well, you had two lawsuits, right, and one
Speaker 2: was settled. The other one you won, right, so you're
Speaker 2: now unlike many of our x houneries. There's a bright
Speaker 2: spot there because you know I talk about often. But
Speaker 2: the fact is, you know, so many ex houneries and
Speaker 2: something we're working to fix, do not receive compensation. You
Speaker 2: were able to prove violations of your civil rights and
Speaker 2: other things that led to you being compensated in a
Speaker 2: meaningful way. That's going to now allow you to help
Speaker 2: fix the system. That that would be a great full circle,
Speaker 2: wouldn't it.
Speaker 3: You know, I can't wait, and I'm not minimizing the
Speaker 3: money here because it makes my life very enjoyable. I
Speaker 3: think the true joyous moments for me since I've been
Speaker 3: home is that before I even got out, And this
Speaker 3: is this is I hope it can be sort of
Speaker 3: passed along to those who are who were imprisoned rightly
Speaker 3: or wrongly. But this idea that you have to before
Speaker 3: you even get out. You can't sort of prepare yourself
Speaker 3: the week to date, that the week to the night before,
Speaker 3: like okay, tomorrow is my big release date. Let me
Speaker 3: kind of get my thoughts together. This has to happen
Speaker 3: long before the door opens. And so I feel that
Speaker 3: in sort of credit to myself and those who were
Speaker 3: around me that my transition phase happened long before the
Speaker 3: door opened, and so when the door opened, I felt
Speaker 3: very prepared to just attempt to just now really be free.
Speaker 3: Because a common theme was when you got there, some
Speaker 3: older guy kind of gave you some like advice. As
Speaker 3: an example, you have five years years to do, and
Speaker 3: the advice was, for the first four years, just kind
Speaker 3: of hang out, man, you know you're in prison, Just relax,
Speaker 3: just play some cards and shit, and if you know
Speaker 3: you want to play dominoes, go work out, right. But
Speaker 3: the last year, man, like the last year, like, you know,
Speaker 3: go to church, or if you're smoking, stop smoking, get
Speaker 3: it together, right, And I thought that was pretty good advice. Shit,
Speaker 3: why not, man? What else you got to lose? Right?
Speaker 3: And at some point I realized that that even though
Speaker 3: it was a lifer, that advice applied to me, and
Speaker 3: it was against suspending complete reality here, but it was like,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm making all these efforts to try
Speaker 3: to get my case hurt and try to get some
Speaker 3: attention here. Let me work on me too, Let me
Speaker 3: work on this idea that I need to prepare myself.
Speaker 3: And so fast forward, I went a month after I
Speaker 3: got out with some good friends Scott Wooden and who
Speaker 3: ended up living with in Mannon Beach and his wife
Speaker 3: Jeanie would. I enrolled at a great university in Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: Loyola Marymount University. So I went from and I'm sort
Speaker 3: of funny here, but I went from one prison to
Speaker 3: another because it had all the elements that I needed.
Speaker 3: And it felt like for a guy like me, I
Speaker 3: needed the structure that I had been accustomed to. And
Speaker 3: it's not the put down, but it was the university
Speaker 3: gave me the camaraderie, the friendship. There was no Bob Wire,
Speaker 3: but shit, I had deadlines, man. I had to show up,
Speaker 3: you know. And so it went from a very negative
Speaker 3: environment that I was into a very very loving and
Speaker 3: encouraging space, which was the school right along with just
Speaker 3: sort of being active and being activism. How could I
Speaker 3: not support the Innocence Project and ways the end of
Speaker 3: death penalty in California and other social issues around the state.
Speaker 2: And that's just gotten a whole lot worse with the
Speaker 2: speed up to death penalty referendum that passed in California,
Speaker 2: which is absolutely unimaginable and unconscionable that people would have
Speaker 2: been terrible because well, essentially they voted for guaranteeing that
Speaker 2: we're going to execute a lot of innocent people because
Speaker 2: the changes to the law are devastating to people who
Speaker 2: have claims of innocence. It's exactly what it sounds like.
Speaker 2: It's to speed up to death penalty. Yep, none of
Speaker 2: it makes any sense. But voices like yours and all
Speaker 2: the cure that is the media is really driving interest
Speaker 2: in this issue, this issue of innocence, this issue of
Speaker 2: mass incarceration and other related criminal justice problems that are
Speaker 2: sadly uniquely American problems because other countries are so much
Speaker 2: more evolved than we are. You know, it's incredible, Frankie.
Speaker 2: We have five percent of the world's population at twenty
Speaker 2: five percent of the world's prison population. The point I'm
Speaker 2: making is that when we process people at this rate,
Speaker 2: where we just keep feeding this prison industrial complex, they're
Speaker 2: going to be mistakes, They're going to be more Frankie Correos,
Speaker 2: we have to reverse the entire way of thinking that
Speaker 2: we have and start to become a more progressive society
Speaker 2: in terms of the way we treat the people who
Speaker 2: are really the least among us, people who find themselves
Speaker 2: in the situation that you are in, not a wealthy
Speaker 2: person by any means, and then just being ground.
Speaker 1: Up by the system.
Speaker 2: I want to get to last words because I always
Speaker 2: like to give our guests the opportunity to air anything
Speaker 2: that you can think of that you want to share
Speaker 2: with our audience. You've been through so much, You've come
Speaker 2: through sounding, looking, feeling, acting like a person who knows stuff.
Speaker 2: You have such a calm demeanor and such a positive outlook.
Speaker 2: It's almost unnerving to be honest with you, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean for a minute there you were making prison
Speaker 2: sound like it was like, yeah, you know whatever this
Speaker 2: many years that man, I'm like, it's just.
Speaker 3: You know, thank you Jason for these final words here
Speaker 3: that I think that for many people listening, and people
Speaker 3: even in my life now think, you know, like this dude,
Speaker 3: you know this optimism stuff is he's taken to a
Speaker 3: different level here, right. And you know, I wish that
Speaker 3: I can sort of either write a book or explain
Speaker 3: how I made it through and how these things weren't
Speaker 3: able to penetrate my armor here. But I suffer I
Speaker 3: can't minimize that there are things and moments where I
Speaker 3: might hear a song that might trigger true sadness about
Speaker 3: what I'd experienced as a whole, about the things that
Speaker 3: were lost, about you know, all the what ifs. Right
Speaker 3: and very quickly I made it a point to remember
Speaker 3: what anger and what revenge and what hatred does to someone.
Speaker 3: Tell you even deeper here that when I was in prison,
Speaker 3: I think about those who had owned that, who had
Speaker 3: owned the anger and the revenge and the hatred, and
Speaker 3: I saw these men that were being blinded by it,
Speaker 3: and I don't want to be that. And here we
Speaker 3: are in a room full of statues, this beautiful art
Speaker 3: that predates all of us here, and I think about
Speaker 3: if that was who I'd become in prison, I would
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be here one and two. If I had
Speaker 3: traces of that and I was out on some level,
Speaker 3: I would still be on the inside. I would be
Speaker 3: physically free, but the rage that would be living within
Speaker 3: me would be like a prison all to itself. And
Speaker 3: so I mean, I'm happy that I can make those
Speaker 3: connections of my own existence for my own personal healing
Speaker 3: and as a move forward to my life. And speaking
Speaker 3: of that life, I'm happily married, I have three amazing children,
Speaker 3: I have theo Akiva and Frieda, my wife, FT is
Speaker 3: amazing and life is great. And I think it's a
Speaker 3: responsibility for not only myself my family to take on
Speaker 3: this responsibility of giving people the pleasure of experiencing the
Speaker 3: cognitive dissonance, which is you are around or you hear
Speaker 3: and you experience something. It suspends you from and it
Speaker 3: shocks you into like this is not what I expected
Speaker 3: from a guy who had been in prison for all
Speaker 3: these years. And it challenges you your own beliefs, your
Speaker 3: own things you've been carrying with you. This psychological moment
Speaker 3: says wow, like I need to change what I used
Speaker 3: to think about those who were on the inside. And
Speaker 3: so it's a responsibility for me and other exenreies, I
Speaker 3: feel that to awaken that side of all of us
Speaker 3: to say, let's not do that, Let's not do that
Speaker 3: to each other. And when someone says, and it's not
Speaker 3: a joke anymore that they are innocent, let's listen because
Speaker 3: we know many experiences and many stories that are tragic
Speaker 3: that we've been listening to this whole weekend of If
Speaker 3: only someone really listened and cared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and everybody out there has the power to make
Speaker 2: a difference. I always encourage our audience to get involved,
Speaker 2: and it's great to see that many of them are,
Speaker 2: I know, and hearing story. For me again, it puts
Speaker 2: gratitude in my attitude. It makes all those little wham
Speaker 2: wains that we all have in life just seem so
Speaker 2: much easier to deal with and so much to surface
Speaker 2: noise right when somebody like you can come and have
Speaker 2: this sort of aura. And it's amazing, Frankie. You know,
Speaker 2: the fact is, to any of us in the movement
Speaker 2: and to other people on the outside, it's a source
Speaker 2: of never ending wonder and awe that every single Xonery
Speaker 2: I've ever met has some version of that type of
Speaker 2: higher consciousness that you've managed to achieve. They have this
Speaker 2: state of almost like a state of grace that is
Speaker 2: it's just inspiring, that's all it is. And so I
Speaker 2: appreciate you taking the time to share your experience, strength
Speaker 2: and hope with us. And again, I'm just going to
Speaker 2: have to take a moment to process this, and then
Speaker 2: I'm going to go and get busy and get back
Speaker 2: to work on helping others.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: We've had a very.
Speaker 2: Unique experience because we've been recording the podcast in an
Speaker 2: idyllic environment. We're actually in a room and a home
Speaker 2: overlooking the Pacific Ocean on a cliff, surrounded by the
Speaker 2: most incredible African art. So I want to thank our hosts,
Speaker 2: Bill LaRock and Michelle Chicarelli The Rock for having us
Speaker 2: here and allowing us to record in their beautiful home.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps.
Speaker 2: And I'm a proud donor to the Ennosis Project, and
Speaker 2: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 2: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 2: to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
Speaker 2: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 2: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
Speaker 2: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 2: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 2: faceboo book at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 2: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
Speaker 2: association with Signal Company Number one