Speaker 1: This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject
Speaker 1: to monitoring and recording.
Speaker 2: I ere and it hasn't been easy.
Speaker 3: One hundred years.
Speaker 4: That's man. I'm a kid.
Speaker 5: I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, you know
Speaker 5: that was Ah, that was real painful, man, No, because
Speaker 5: my life was discarded as if you know, like I
Speaker 5: was a piece of trash or something, you know, one
Speaker 5: hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted to
Speaker 5: do things.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't committing crimes. You know.
Speaker 5: I was a very good young man.
Speaker 6: That is what happens in so many cases. The cops
Speaker 6: have a hunch because they're so smart at the scene,
Speaker 6: they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch,
Speaker 6: they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off
Speaker 6: marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so
Speaker 6: many of these wrongful convictions.
Speaker 4: The opening.
Speaker 1: To sell door and I'll walk down stave and I
Speaker 1: actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt very strange
Speaker 1: to be, like I said, to be walking without no
Speaker 1: shackles on my feet. I thought it was a dream.
Speaker 1: But then again it wasn't a dream.
Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. Today's
Speaker 4: guest is Harold House and that's particularly exciting to me
Speaker 4: because not only does it mark the first time that
Speaker 4: we've had an actual movie star TV star who also
Speaker 4: was wrongfully convicted on the show, but Harold and I
Speaker 4: have become friends over the last several months, So I'm
Speaker 4: really excited to have you here. So Harold, welcome to
Speaker 4: Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: And like I always say, I'm happy you're here, but
Speaker 4: I'm sorry you're.
Speaker 3: Here before we start. Man, it's just a really say
Speaker 3: how much it means to have people like yourself that care,
Speaker 3: you know. So I'm really grateful for this opportunity in
Speaker 3: this platform to speak out about my situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is the first time that you're speaking
Speaker 4: out publicly about this.
Speaker 3: It should be my absolute first time ever speaking out
Speaker 3: about anything in regard to my case publicly.
Speaker 4: I mean, you were more likely to win a damn
Speaker 4: Oscar or a Emmy or something than you were to
Speaker 4: end up in prison at the time that this all
Speaker 4: came down, and talk about that, because your acting career
Speaker 4: was taking off before this happened, right, I mean, which
Speaker 4: is why it must have been such a shock to
Speaker 4: so many people, everyone that knows you, and not only that,
Speaker 4: but you're a highly educated guy, more so than myself
Speaker 4: by far, and you're a person of faith and everything else.
Speaker 4: That doesn't mean that you couldn't have done something wrong,
Speaker 4: but it makes it more. It should have been harder
Speaker 4: for a jury to believe. But anyway, we're going to
Speaker 4: get into that surreal. But talk about that for a minute.
Speaker 4: So your career was taken off. What were you doing
Speaker 4: professionally at the time?
Speaker 3: Was in a great place career wise? I felt like
Speaker 3: I had, you know, kind of got to the point
Speaker 3: where my career was taken off. You know how they
Speaker 3: say you become an overnight success, But this was the
Speaker 3: culmination of all the hard work. I was promoting my
Speaker 3: first lead debut film and Secrets. At the time, we
Speaker 3: had a multiple city tour. I had just shot the
Speaker 3: Golden Globe Ammy nominated show Atlanta, where I was guaranteed
Speaker 3: a season's two series regular. We had just wrapped a
Speaker 3: Tupac movie I had played doctor Dre and that, you know,
Speaker 3: a ton of offers were coming in for various projects,
Speaker 3: film projects, and it was a good time.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: It was a time where all the work was really
Speaker 3: starting to pay off.
Speaker 4: I mean, you were living a dream that millions of
Speaker 4: everyday Americans have and so many people try. So the facts,
Speaker 4: I mean of having that rug pulled out from under you,
Speaker 4: you had a long way to fall. And well, I'm
Speaker 4: not going to put words out. I'm gonna let you
Speaker 4: tell this.
Speaker 3: I was accused of rape at the time by my
Speaker 3: fifteen year old step daughter.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, what people think when they hear that word,
Speaker 4: people are thinking, wait, whoa what? But in this situation,
Speaker 4: you were set up.
Speaker 3: It felt like it set up to some except at
Speaker 3: the time me and my son mother was going through
Speaker 3: kind of a mild separation because of disciplinary issues I
Speaker 3: was having at the time with my stepdaughter. There was
Speaker 3: one incident prior to where I had to kind of
Speaker 3: like discipline her for like cussing at me and being
Speaker 3: you know, very you know, belligerent and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: And so she went to her father's house and even
Speaker 3: when the incident happened, I called him and said she
Speaker 3: was cussing, being extremely you know, belligerent, volatile and physical
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. And it was more a comment
Speaker 3: like who you're talking to while you've been disrespectful type thing,
Speaker 3: and that's kind of where all of it started to,
Speaker 3: where you know, he had at that time went to
Speaker 3: the police and said I was beating her and choking
Speaker 3: her and throwing her and all these you know, crazy accusations,
Speaker 3: all this co the physical conduct, me biting her on
Speaker 3: her neck. And it was actually police report where they
Speaker 3: took the young lady away from her father and she
Speaker 3: admitted that, you know, she had been talking back and
Speaker 3: that she had got in trouble and that she had
Speaker 3: caught her father to come and get her because she
Speaker 3: knew she was gonna be on punishment, and that the
Speaker 3: officer in the police report said, I took away from
Speaker 3: her father and told that Lion was against the law
Speaker 3: and I was here to help and only way I
Speaker 3: can do that if you be honest. And she said,
Speaker 3: like I said, I knew I was gonna be in trouble.
Speaker 3: And she's asked her has she had any other further
Speaker 3: issues with More at the time.
Speaker 4: So this is a report from the Gwennett County Police
Speaker 4: Department says at the conclusion of the interview, I asked
Speaker 4: the victim multiple times if there were any other problems
Speaker 4: she may be having with More, meaning you Harold house Moore.
Speaker 4: She never mentioned more touching her in an appropriate manner,
Speaker 4: or that he had been biting her on the neck,
Speaker 4: So that would directly contradict.
Speaker 3: The allegation from the father, who the reason why going
Speaker 3: to the setup he made all these false accusations against me.
Speaker 3: I guess the separators. I don't know what ultimate agenda was,
Speaker 3: but I guess for us to separate or be back
Speaker 3: with my son's mom are just envy. But all the charge,
Speaker 3: the accusations of this physicality, the sexual stuff, all started
Speaker 3: from her father.
Speaker 4: It's a very devastating accusation. And we know that once
Speaker 4: those meals are set in motion, it's sometimes hard to
Speaker 4: put him back on the car of the train because
Speaker 4: people get caught up in these lies and then they
Speaker 4: don't know when to stop and it becomes a very
Speaker 4: real problem.
Speaker 3: I think in my case, where it wasn't just a lie,
Speaker 3: it was the fact that as a child, you wouldn't
Speaker 3: want your father to appear as a liar. And maybe
Speaker 3: she feared because he had a criminal history. You know,
Speaker 3: he had been in prison multiple times. He was known
Speaker 3: for doing I legal stuff. So I don't know if
Speaker 3: she felt because at the point they told her like,
Speaker 3: lying is against the law. So now if you go
Speaker 3: back and tell the truth, your father's a liar. And
Speaker 3: at the same time, he was constantly her with financial stuff,
Speaker 3: you know, from purses to cars. I mean, I believe
Speaker 3: before it took us three and a half years to
Speaker 3: go to trial, I think she had four new vehicles
Speaker 3: before we want to trial. I mean cars that was
Speaker 3: newer than mine.
Speaker 4: And I was on television and your case is terrifying
Speaker 4: because it's something that could have happened to anybody. And
Speaker 4: that's why I think it's so important that you're here. Well,
Speaker 4: let's go back to that.
Speaker 3: So my story real quick in the nutshell was that,
Speaker 3: you know, we had like an incident, the early incident
Speaker 3: I told you about it, cussing and talking back. That
Speaker 3: was in February. So between February and all the way
Speaker 3: to November, we barely had any inn action. When I
Speaker 3: would come home and see my child, like we would
Speaker 3: speak like hey, we was always cordially respectful, but there
Speaker 3: was kind of like something like hitting tensions. So on Thanksgiving,
Speaker 3: her mom was like, hey, you should come here for Thanksgiving,
Speaker 3: you know, not be alone for Thanksgiving. In California, I
Speaker 3: was like, no, I'm cool. I'm gonna just stay. She's like, look,
Speaker 3: come and spend time with your son. You know she's
Speaker 3: doing good. Her attitude change, her demeanors change. You know,
Speaker 3: she's helping out with our sons, she's doing better at school,
Speaker 3: blah blah blah blah. So I'm like, all right, boom,
Speaker 3: I get on the plane. Fly in. That day, on
Speaker 3: the night that she made the accusation was the night
Speaker 3: that I took her and her sisters to the movies.
Speaker 3: So after returning from the movies, they remained downstairs, the
Speaker 3: two girls next door that were twins that went to
Speaker 3: the movies with her sister while my stepdaughter went with
Speaker 3: her boyfriend. So after returning to the house, I left
Speaker 3: them all downstairs talking, having girl talk or what have you,
Speaker 3: and I went upstairs and I actually dozed off in
Speaker 3: my son's room. I played golf that day, so I
Speaker 3: ended up waking up around about two o'clock in the
Speaker 3: morning because I still had my golf clothes on from earlier.
Speaker 3: So at that time I went to go use the
Speaker 3: bathroom that my son shared with his sisters. Two in
Speaker 3: the morning, my stepdaughter was on the phone and even
Speaker 3: at that point. Then I said, hey, it's kind of late,
Speaker 3: and just left it at that. So I goes downstairs
Speaker 3: to get ready to get in shower in the master bedroom.
Speaker 3: Come back upstairs. I'm getting some of my clothes that
Speaker 3: was in my son's room because, like I said, me
Speaker 3: and my mom had separated, and so I was like
Speaker 3: sleep upstairs with my son in his room. The way
Speaker 3: it set up, it's just like this was her room
Speaker 3: bath from her sister. You can touch all everybody's rooms
Speaker 3: right here. You can touch everything. And when I came
Speaker 3: back upstairs, I her her still on the phone. So
Speaker 3: I yelled in the hall with like, hey, it's getting late.
Speaker 3: You need to get off the phone. And even in court,
Speaker 3: she said he was calling my name. I just ignored him.
Speaker 3: So I walk in the room calling her name. She's
Speaker 3: not answering. So I tapped the bottom of the lake
Speaker 3: and she's fully covered under the cover, like fully covered.
Speaker 4: She had the blankets on it, right, So you touch
Speaker 4: her on the top of the blanket like hey, like
Speaker 4: kind of hey, like you went through to make somebody up.
Speaker 4: So you literally touched a blanket that was covering her.
Speaker 3: It was and it was like near the shen or
Speaker 3: the ankle. It wasn't. She said, I like rubbed on
Speaker 3: the inside of her thigh. That was in a police report,
Speaker 3: and then the court she says something totally different. So
Speaker 3: all of it was constantly contradicting each other. So I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know, calling her name, and she doesn't me spine,
Speaker 3: so tap her. Look, I said, hey, you know, I
Speaker 3: say her name. Take a step toward her head of
Speaker 3: the bed where she was at. She turns and she's
Speaker 3: on the phone, and the phone says love like two hours, fifteen,
Speaker 3: twenty minutes. So I'm like, hey, man, it's getting late.
Speaker 3: You need to get off the phone. She say, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: walk out the room. And then too, when I walked
Speaker 3: out the room, I text you, and I had to
Speaker 3: text to prove she responded, I said your night. I
Speaker 3: was getting late. You need to get off the phone,
Speaker 3: and she responded okay. Next then you know, the neighbor
Speaker 3: come knocking on the door. She screams her name. She
Speaker 3: just runs out the house. She never looks at me,
Speaker 3: never says nothing. So I goes and tell her mom, like, hey,
Speaker 3: you need to go check on her. She just, you know,
Speaker 3: ran out the house. She's on the phone with her boyfriend.
Speaker 3: I think he dumped her or she might be pregnant.
Speaker 3: I told her mor I was like, she had been
Speaker 3: kind of being busy, and you know, we knew that
Speaker 3: she was, you know, maybe sneaking around doing little sneaky stuff.
Speaker 3: So my initial thought process was like, she pregnant. And
Speaker 3: so when I want to got her mom, her mom
Speaker 3: goes next door. I'm lay in the bed with my son.
Speaker 3: So like fifteen minutes go by and I look outside.
Speaker 3: I see like a whole lot of police cars. So
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, what done happened? So I get dressed,
Speaker 3: get my son dressed, I go next door. I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna door. The police come like who are you? I say,
Speaker 3: my name's house. I'm coming to check on my family.
Speaker 3: They just came over here. I'm trying to see what's
Speaker 3: going on, you know, everything okay at this timet, I
Speaker 3: don't know who was it? The girl's next door. Has
Speaker 3: something happen, something happened anywhere? They was like, oh, we
Speaker 3: need to talk to you. So I was like, talk
Speaker 3: to me for what. I'm trying to find answers, just
Speaker 3: like y'all. They was like, well, can we talk to
Speaker 3: you next door, and I was like, don't what can
Speaker 3: you talk to me about? I don't know. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to figure out what's going on. And so they came
Speaker 3: to the house and they was like looking around, and
Speaker 3: he was like, what happened to night to her? And
Speaker 3: I was like, what happened when? What are you talking about?
Speaker 3: And I felt like, like, why are you questioning me
Speaker 3: about what happened about tonight? Whatever? And so eventually he
Speaker 3: ended up saying what she said, call the police house
Speaker 3: to try to rape me. So at that point I
Speaker 3: I snapped. I was like, yo, man, go get her,
Speaker 3: Go get her mom. I'm not about to do this shit.
Speaker 3: Go get all them. Blah blah blah blah. Then my
Speaker 3: son mom comes walking in with the police with her.
Speaker 3: I was like, what's going on with me? She was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know. I like, see, this
Speaker 3: is that shit. This is why I don't want to
Speaker 3: come here, Like I don't have time for the drama
Speaker 3: because when I separated, when we started separating February, I
Speaker 3: don't have time to be interacting. I got too much
Speaker 3: going on to be interacting with, you know, your daughter
Speaker 3: and your ex husband and drama. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So my whole reason for even going back to California
Speaker 3: when we separated was to avoid the drama. You see
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. So it's like, how do I get
Speaker 3: back in this shit when I'm trying to avoid drama?
Speaker 3: So anyway, long story short, my initial charge they said
Speaker 3: I tried to rape her because I tapped her on
Speaker 3: her leg, like where you can do a DNA test,
Speaker 3: Like where is any physical Then the thing that made
Speaker 3: me frustrated was because you see this girl, you don't
Speaker 3: see nothing physically done to her. You don't see nothing,
Speaker 3: no physical mark, Like what in your mind makes you
Speaker 3: think that I just try to rape her? You can
Speaker 3: look at her. And then another thing that and i'ma
Speaker 3: just wrap it up, was that she said I tried
Speaker 3: to rape her. I was in charge with rape, so
Speaker 3: it's like, how was I not charged to rape? So
Speaker 3: then in Georgia they have this thing where if you
Speaker 3: touch somebody with attempt to arouse yourself, I'm like, how
Speaker 3: did I get aroused from touching her leg? Where is
Speaker 3: in the where's the indication that you was aroused? And
Speaker 3: they was like, oh, did he say something to no,
Speaker 3: I didn't say nothing to you remotely close to anything
Speaker 3: sexual where but in Georgia. That's why I feel like
Speaker 3: it was a setup, because you didn't even charge me
Speaker 3: what she lied with. You put in charge me with
Speaker 3: something you can get me convicted on. There was never
Speaker 3: an investigation for rape. Anytime a minor makes any type
Speaker 3: of outcry some type of rape, even if she recann it, legally,
Speaker 3: you're supposed to report that to the child authorities, which
Speaker 3: never happened. You're supposed to do a DNA test, which
Speaker 3: never happens. So the thing would be for you guys
Speaker 3: to do the test, but they never did the test.
Speaker 3: Because at the time she would sleep with her eighteen
Speaker 3: year old boyfriend, which is statutory.
Speaker 4: Rape because she was fourteen, she was fifteen.
Speaker 3: Her boyfriend was eighteen at the time, who you see
Speaker 3: in this picture. So even if she would have said
Speaker 3: this and took it back, Whosa said, she's not lying
Speaker 3: out of fear, and even during trial that's what I
Speaker 3: was saying. There was discipline and structure set up at
Speaker 3: my house, and you can see from this photo these
Speaker 3: were the things that were allowed at her father house.
Speaker 3: You know where she's acknowledging doing drugs, she's drinking, she's
Speaker 3: posting stuff about you know all, you know, various things
Speaker 3: that indicate the freedoms that she would have in her
Speaker 3: father's house as opposed to mine. I believe it was
Speaker 3: just rewarded behavior for continuing to support the allegations in
Speaker 3: the lives that he made up.
Speaker 4: And you can hear these papers shuffling around, but just
Speaker 4: can't see it. But the pictures that he's sharing, you know,
Speaker 4: are pictures of a young girl who is sort of
Speaker 4: almost looks like she's living the life of a hip
Speaker 4: hop star for Instagram or something like that, you know.
Speaker 4: So okay, so she was the painting a picture. She
Speaker 4: was able to live a life that she wanted to live,
Speaker 4: a you know, sort of unstructured, flamboyant life, so to speak, at.
Speaker 3: The expense of staying with her father versus a household
Speaker 3: of structure. And I think a lot of time, when
Speaker 3: you deal with the addition of the step father or
Speaker 3: step mother, but primarily the step father, there's this disconnect
Speaker 3: between him and the children. And in our case, that
Speaker 3: wasn't it. Like even when I was working here from
Speaker 3: NYC twenty two, my stepdaughters came up here with their mom.
Speaker 3: We went on multiple family trips. I was almost blindsided
Speaker 3: because I love this child as my own, and that
Speaker 3: was the hardest part for me to accept to care
Speaker 3: about somebody and you know, look at her as my own,
Speaker 3: especially like in my position. I had heard so many
Speaker 3: times where you know, people recommend you don't even date
Speaker 3: a woman with children, And for me, I'm not the
Speaker 3: type of person to allow people to dictate what I
Speaker 3: want to do with my life. I met their mom.
Speaker 3: We had great chemistry. I loved her. You know, I
Speaker 3: still love her. We still have a great relationship to
Speaker 3: this day as you see we talk. You know today
Speaker 3: she just called while we were sitting on the area,
Speaker 3: So we have a great relationship. My son mom was
Speaker 3: actually my co defendant, her sister, who's her best friend.
Speaker 3: She also testified and said on the record in my transcript,
Speaker 3: my sister's telling a lie. No one believes her. Her
Speaker 3: stories kept changing, and it's in the transcripts. I understood
Speaker 3: very little about the law prior to They never read
Speaker 3: my Miranda rights. I was falseter arrested at my house
Speaker 3: without probable calls the night that she lied. You know,
Speaker 3: and they say, oh, we wanted to take it down
Speaker 3: and speak to the investigators. And I was like, well
Speaker 3: i'll drive. Oh no, we'll drive you and you put
Speaker 3: me in handcuffs. I said, I said, Monday arrest. I
Speaker 3: ain't talked to my attorney, and they said, oh, no, no,
Speaker 3: you're not an arrest. But she had already arrested me,
Speaker 3: So that is an arrest without probable calls. So then
Speaker 3: you violated my Fourth Amendment because you arrest me in
Speaker 3: my house without probable cause or warrant. And then I
Speaker 3: went down to the police station and it was crazy
Speaker 3: because my manager told me, he's like, house, don't say nothing.
Speaker 3: I was like, his name Anthony. I was like Antheony.
Speaker 3: I didn't do nothing. Why would I, you know, I
Speaker 3: said people, And I was like, black people shouldn't be
Speaker 3: afraid of the law. You know, I'm paying taxes, a
Speaker 3: shitload of taxes at this time. So I felt like, look,
Speaker 3: these people are hired for public safety reassurance. And I
Speaker 3: was confident, like and even speaking to the detective. And
Speaker 3: so that night my manager said, your house, don't speak
Speaker 3: to nobody, don't ever say nothing. And you hear it
Speaker 3: all the time. I'll ever talk to the police. But
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm not afraid of police. I'm not afraid
Speaker 3: of the circumstance, ar the situation. So I spoke and
Speaker 3: I got arrested that night. Damn. So I'll say that
Speaker 3: right now in your podet. I don't care how innocent
Speaker 3: you are. And even after speaking to lawyers, more innocent
Speaker 3: people go to prison because of speaking. Whatever you can
Speaker 3: they will use against your court. You can say I
Speaker 3: love God and they gonna say you obsessed with God
Speaker 3: and God made you do some crazy stuff. Prosecutor job
Speaker 3: is to prosecute.
Speaker 4: Yep, God made you go push that old lady. Also
Speaker 4: cliff in a wheelchair and throwing crutches down after you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. So yeah, and that's something I
Speaker 4: talk about in the podcast a lot is that if
Speaker 4: you do get picked up under these type of circumstances,
Speaker 4: don't say nothing. They say your name, and I want
Speaker 4: a lawyer.
Speaker 3: I want a lawyer.
Speaker 4: So you end up going to trial.
Speaker 3: Here you go see one of my documents and I'll
Speaker 3: even let you just read the first sentence. And that's
Speaker 3: the email that my trial attorney sent to my family
Speaker 3: immediately following my trial. And if you could just read
Speaker 3: the first sentence out loud from the email.
Speaker 4: Okay, so this is privilege and confidentially from your attorney. Know,
Speaker 4: leave his name out of it unless you tell me differently.
Speaker 4: And the email says, this was the most horribly biased
Speaker 4: corrupt trial you can ever imagine.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can just stop there. Yeah, that in itself,
Speaker 3: I think speaks volume for the tone of my conviction.
Speaker 4: It sounds like it was. It was a pretty big mess.
Speaker 4: I mean, but what was your experience of that situation.
Speaker 4: I mean, here you are, three and a half years
Speaker 4: have gone by, presumably you've gone on with your career,
Speaker 4: hoping to put this in the rearview mirror, and then
Speaker 4: the day comes and you go to trial, and then
Speaker 4: what's the paint that picture?
Speaker 3: Well, up until, like I said, at the time, I
Speaker 3: was promoting my movie and I had like a lot
Speaker 3: of friends and you know, relationships with you know, so
Speaker 3: many people, and everybody was like, well, house, why do
Speaker 3: you say something. I honestly felt like the truth would prevail,
Speaker 3: And so I was never like even family and friends
Speaker 3: that were close to me, and it was like everybody,
Speaker 3: even my father in my rick, was like how you're
Speaker 3: really calm, are you know? Everybody's was wondering was I
Speaker 3: taking it too light? And I was like, no, you
Speaker 3: can't make me. And this was always Jason has always
Speaker 3: been my mentality. You can't make me guilty of something
Speaker 3: I didn't do. And so on my mind going to trials,
Speaker 3: think there's no way twelve logical people, with all the
Speaker 3: evidence and documentation will find me guilty. But then now
Speaker 3: if you take away all of the evidence, all of
Speaker 3: the character evidence, all of the character witnesses, you take
Speaker 3: away everything, clean the table off. Now it's an emotional case.
Speaker 3: So now you have this young child in the midst
Speaker 3: of you know, the Bill Cosby situation, and why all
Speaker 3: this situation where you have these public figures taking advantage
Speaker 3: of women, and this is like the almost the pinnacle,
Speaker 3: and you know, you know, emotionally, societally, we were feeling
Speaker 3: a lot of compassion and simpathy towards any woman who
Speaker 3: made this type of outcry, regardless of it was true
Speaker 3: or not. It was just the tone of our nation
Speaker 3: almost at that time. And so you go into a
Speaker 3: courtnor where you take away every single thing, every piece
Speaker 3: of paper, evidence, witness that can prove your innocence and
Speaker 3: now you have an emotional.
Speaker 4: Case, and why was this stuff not allowed into evidence?
Speaker 3: The judge and the prosecutor suppressed And I have the
Speaker 3: suppressions letter here where they intentionally put it on record
Speaker 3: to remove anything remotely that would do anything that would
Speaker 3: almost dampen her character or show to me motive if
Speaker 3: you take out the fact that she's allowed to drink, smoke,
Speaker 3: be around her boyfriend, her boyfriend spend a night even
Speaker 3: in the record on court the father committed perjury because
Speaker 3: they asked them, do you allow your daughter to spend
Speaker 3: a night and have company? So, like I'm saying, when
Speaker 3: there's evidence to prove your innocence, and it's not allowed intentionally,
Speaker 3: and you see that one of the motions to suppress it,
Speaker 3: and it's another it's to motions.
Speaker 4: I'm sitting here looking at this document from the Superior
Speaker 4: Court of Gwinnett where they in fact did exactly what
Speaker 4: you said. But this allowed any testimony says, including but
Speaker 4: not limited the references of alcohol and drug use by
Speaker 4: her skipping school, allegations of domestic violence between her and
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 3: Is that her dad, ye who had a history of
Speaker 3: abuse against her mom and they even had used HERKI
Speaker 3: studio interrogation video in mine. Mysteriously, the this didn't work,
Speaker 3: so the jury never seen my.
Speaker 4: Side of that night of your interrogation.
Speaker 3: Vient never seen it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it looks like it was almost a faded complete
Speaker 4: I hate to say it. You went through this trial,
Speaker 4: you knew that they had disallowed a lot of the
Speaker 4: evidence that would have almost certainly led to your aquitto.
Speaker 4: You still thought you were going to be acquitted, even
Speaker 4: though you hadn't been allowed to present evidence that was
Speaker 4: so favorable to your defense.
Speaker 3: Because there were still things she said on stand that
Speaker 3: contradicted the truth. And then I actually took the stand
Speaker 3: and everything I said was genuine, It was the truth.
Speaker 3: I recorrected a lot of things that she said, but
Speaker 3: they didn't know the truth. So it still became an
Speaker 3: emotional thing.
Speaker 4: So you were you were done. It was at that point.
Speaker 4: Really all you're doing is saying I didn't do it,
Speaker 4: that's it, and the jury is sitting there going, well, oh,
Speaker 4: I mean you know.
Speaker 3: And another thing that happened was the prosecutor, in his
Speaker 3: old mistakements, say look he has all this, he has
Speaker 3: all he's a great man. He has a non profit.
Speaker 3: He's doing this stuff for HBCU. He has this amazing career.
Speaker 3: Everyone thinks he's perfect. And he kept like attacking my character.
Speaker 3: At one point, he was even referencing my character on
Speaker 3: Single Ladies, like what did he do for a living?
Speaker 3: What kind of job did Terrence have on Single Ladies?
Speaker 3: I'm like, what do Single Ladies have to do with
Speaker 3: this case?
Speaker 4: So he's attacking your fictitious character.
Speaker 3: He attacked anything fictationous that he can attack, he attacked.
Speaker 3: He's like, what does Terrence Frank do for a living?
Speaker 3: I was like, man, do you think Robert Donnie Junior
Speaker 3: leaves Iron Man and think he can fly? It's a profession.
Speaker 3: Nobody leaves set and think they're that person. I couldn't
Speaker 3: say nothing, you know, anything rebuttally close to anything other
Speaker 3: than what they want you to say. And they tell
Speaker 3: you they asked you a question. Is like that sets
Speaker 3: you up to fail. I mean that's the only thing
Speaker 3: they had. That's the only thing they referenced to, like
Speaker 3: what I do on Single Ladies and some other character
Speaker 3: what did he do for a living? Like the two
Speaker 3: characters that were like somewhat urban two or three. It's like, oh,
Speaker 3: he did music videos and print jab. He just was
Speaker 3: just trying to present it to the jury like I
Speaker 3: thought I was above the law because I was successful,
Speaker 3: or because I was you know, an entertainer or an actor.
Speaker 3: And his closing statements, because you know, it goes to
Speaker 3: prosecutor defense, then prosecutor. When he said he wants y'all
Speaker 3: to believe that he's such a disciplinarian that you know,
Speaker 3: the father just so lenient that she can go over
Speaker 3: there and just do whatever, and she wants that she
Speaker 3: can't do to his house, that she would make up accusations. Well,
Speaker 3: he has all this going on, he said, but the
Speaker 3: one thing that simply fails logic, where's the proof saying
Speaker 3: that if what proof do you have that she can
Speaker 3: do all these things at her father house versus your house?
Speaker 4: Right, So what he was referencing was the evidence that
Speaker 4: he knew wouldn't be allowed in and he was actually
Speaker 4: turning that into a negative. I mean the record, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's pretty And.
Speaker 3: When he said that, I was like, and I still
Speaker 3: had hope, because again, when you're innocent, it just never
Speaker 3: resonated me going to prison. I had done everything at
Speaker 3: that point in my life to not go to prison.
Speaker 3: I had did everything I can degrees, educations, speaking out organizations,
Speaker 3: having my own nonprofit where you know, even a young
Speaker 3: lady who had survived cancer and all that stuff at Montgomery, Alabama,
Speaker 3: who I took to the prom She came down to testify.
Speaker 3: Like I had a courtroom for the people and witnesses.
Speaker 3: All of their testimony was limited to how long do
Speaker 3: you know him, do you trust them? Tell the truth?
Speaker 3: And does he have good community standings? That was it.
Speaker 3: That was all they were allowed to say. They weren't
Speaker 3: able to say nothing. Far as my character interaction with
Speaker 3: the kids, I never I'm talking about when not saying,
Speaker 3: absolutely never resonated. I guess I was naive. I was
Speaker 3: in time promoting my movie. My kids were sitting in
Speaker 3: a rental car.
Speaker 4: Wait wait wait, the kids are sitting in rental car.
Speaker 4: Where outside the courthouse?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: My son mom was in the car with them. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: so they were sitting in the rental car and my
Speaker 3: son mom was right next to her. They were like
Speaker 3: playing on their iPads, you know, watching them play in
Speaker 3: the car waiting for me. They got the verdict, so
Speaker 3: I'm thinking I'm about to walk in, not guilty, Go celebrate.
Speaker 3: It's been three and a half years. I think I'm
Speaker 3: just walking and walk back out. I had just brought
Speaker 3: like lately in their season passes. My kids were sitting
Speaker 3: in the car with swim trunks on, and I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: I'll be right back. Let me go in here and
Speaker 3: get this handled, this situation. I never came back out
Speaker 3: for two years.
Speaker 4: So you went to prison and was it a medium
Speaker 4: maximum security prison?
Speaker 3: Medium security prison?
Speaker 4: And it was it as bad as it sounds as.
Speaker 3: It was bad. I went to a private prison and
Speaker 3: down in the South, when you go to certain prison,
Speaker 3: they say you caught sweet because it's not as volatile,
Speaker 3: it's not as violent, but there was just as much violence.
Speaker 3: There was just as much drug. Man, there's more drug
Speaker 3: per quantity in prison than it is on the street.
Speaker 3: Like there was no drug that you couldn't get access to,
Speaker 3: whether it's weed, meth, cocaine, heroin, spice. So you know
Speaker 3: that's the frustrating part. As somebody who pays taxes and
Speaker 3: who cares, I'm looking at the process, like, wait, you
Speaker 3: sending all these people to prison and you're basically babysitting
Speaker 3: grown me in because you're getting food, you getting shelter,
Speaker 3: they get you closed soap, you know, certain necessities, but
Speaker 3: at the same time, there is nothing rehabilitative about the process.
Speaker 3: They make you take some generic classes that if you
Speaker 3: want to take, you can take. But I'm looking like,
Speaker 3: how are you trying to help these individuals? And so
Speaker 3: now it makes sense that probation. You hear meet meals
Speaker 3: talk about probation, because if there's no rehabilitation, then there's
Speaker 3: going to be a need for probation because they gonna
Speaker 3: lock your ass back up. If you're trying to prepare
Speaker 3: somebody properly, you don't worry about it. It's like your kids.
Speaker 3: You don't say, you know what, I'm gonna give my
Speaker 3: kids a full yet probationary period for them to go
Speaker 3: to school to college. Oh, you prepared them up until
Speaker 3: eighteen to go out and be productive. And that's not
Speaker 3: what the penal system likes. So you get the private
Speaker 3: system where you get thirty six to thirty eight thousand
Speaker 3: per inmate, twenty eight hundred inmates.
Speaker 4: We don't have to get a calculator. Calculator, but whatever
Speaker 4: it is, it's a big number.
Speaker 3: Thirty eight thousand times twenty eight hundred.
Speaker 4: What do we got I want you to Okay, you're
Speaker 4: gonna let me do the honors. Here there's another first
Speaker 4: unwrongful conviction. Yeah, you never use a calculator. Thirty eight
Speaker 4: thousand times twenty eight hundred equals So that's one hundred
Speaker 4: and six million, four hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a crazy amount of money.
Speaker 3: I mean, but anyway, it's a third amount of money,
Speaker 3: so you don't utilitate.
Speaker 4: Listen, The very idea that there's a profit modeve in
Speaker 4: locking people up is insane, right, you know there's that
Speaker 4: There's that horrible movie Kids for Cash, which documented these
Speaker 4: cases in two thousand and five, I think it was
Speaker 4: or seven, where these judges in Pennsylvania were two judges
Speaker 4: were locking kids up for talking back to the teacher,
Speaker 4: for jaywalking, for posting one girl made a MySpace page
Speaker 4: which she said was a joke, just making fun of
Speaker 4: her teacher, not threatening three months in jail. They were
Speaker 4: being paid by the private prisons to send kids to jail,
Speaker 4: little thirteen year old fourteen year olds, to like a
Speaker 4: real prison too. This was no I mean, they were
Speaker 4: locking kids up to. I mean, the one kid that
Speaker 4: haunts me. His name was Charlie. He a lot of
Speaker 4: them do. But you know, he was since the six
Speaker 4: months for possession of stolen property. He had a scooter
Speaker 4: that his parents had given him for a present that
Speaker 4: they didn't know was stolen, and some other kid had
Speaker 4: you know, they had bought it in a flea market,
Speaker 4: whatever the hell they did, right, he had no idea.
Speaker 4: They had no idea, and they locked him up for
Speaker 4: six months. And then they keep extending it when you're
Speaker 4: in there, because then the kid ends up smoking the
Speaker 4: joint in there because he, like you said.
Speaker 3: That's what they do. And if you don't get in
Speaker 3: trouble in prison, they call him manipulating the system.
Speaker 4: Now, and this poor kid was in for most of
Speaker 4: his childhood. They managed to extend it and extend to
Speaker 4: keep penalizing him for different things. And I think he
Speaker 4: was only out for a year before his eighteenth birthday.
Speaker 4: I locked up him he was thirteen, and you know,
Speaker 4: it's just it's so tragic. It's just so damn tragic.
Speaker 4: But and he did touch on something else I want
Speaker 4: to talk about, which is incredible too, because I've been
Speaker 4: working for over two decades. I've been on the board
Speaker 4: of the Drug Policy Alliance, which is working to you know,
Speaker 4: in the drug war, right, I call it the war
Speaker 4: against the war on drugs, right, and bring some sanity
Speaker 4: back to that all those crazy policies that we have
Speaker 4: in this country. And I've gotten to know Tony Papa
Speaker 4: very well works there now. And Tony was sentenced to
Speaker 4: fifteen the life for first defense cocaine charge, non violent.
Speaker 4: He was eventually granted clemency by the governor after twelve years.
Speaker 4: He painted his way out of prison and then he
Speaker 4: did a self portrait that ended up in the Whitney.
Speaker 4: The guy's incredible anyway, so Tony Papa and he says
Speaker 4: he now does communications work for the Drug Policy Lines.
Speaker 4: And as he says, if you can't control the flow
Speaker 4: of drugs in a maximum security prison, how can you
Speaker 4: possibly hope to control it in the streets. And it
Speaker 4: makes perfect sense. But anyway, we don't want to make.
Speaker 3: Speaking about the war on drugs. I believe it was
Speaker 3: nineteen sevent and I don't call me, but it was
Speaker 3: somewhere in that time frame that I read you know
Speaker 3: what the maximum amount you can get in the United
Speaker 3: States before the initial war on drugs was set for
Speaker 3: any amount of drugs.
Speaker 4: No, tell me, I don't even know a year. Wow.
Speaker 3: And then eighty two, I believe Reagan initiated the war
Speaker 3: on drugs, and.
Speaker 4: Eighty five all major Nixon started it. When Nick Nixon started, Yeah,
Speaker 4: every president has taken a table.
Speaker 3: But eighty five is when the influx started bombarding inner
Speaker 3: cities by Detroit, the Chicago's crack epidemic took over.
Speaker 4: No, and Nixon's you know, his one of his chief
Speaker 4: aides hauled them and I forgot whether he was the
Speaker 4: chief of staff or whatever. He has admitted later years
Speaker 4: that Nixon didn't want to war on drugs. He wanted
Speaker 4: to war on black people and hippies, but he couldn't
Speaker 4: call it that. And at the time there was only
Speaker 4: two percent of American public identified drugs as a problem exactly.
Speaker 4: So he had to create a false crisis, which is
Speaker 4: what he did, and he declared this war on drugs.
Speaker 4: And even then, the police departments didn't want to arrest
Speaker 4: people from drugs, so they created this new incentive where
Speaker 4: they would give the police departments all extraitaries even if
Speaker 4: they met quota quota of drug arrests because they didn't
Speaker 4: want to do it. You know, that's what's crazy. Back then,
Speaker 4: I think. You know, you're looking at a situation where
Speaker 4: police officers were going into the to the law, like
Speaker 4: I think a vast majority of them do, saying I
Speaker 4: want to protect people. I want to I grew up
Speaker 4: thinking maybe I want to be a police officer. You
Speaker 4: know what I mean. You see the uniform, you respect it. Right.
Speaker 4: It's somehow or other got so twisted where and it's
Speaker 4: the government's fall by providing reverse incentives for persecuting regular people.
Speaker 4: Now you have these home invasion rays where they're kicking
Speaker 4: in the door and you know, and people are getting
Speaker 4: shot and wounded because they're looking for some drugs and
Speaker 4: sometimes they go to the wrong house. I mean, it
Speaker 4: was that horrible case down south. It might even be
Speaker 4: in Georgia where they threw in the flash bang grenade
Speaker 4: and it landed in the baby's crib and the baby's
Speaker 4: now had thirty five operations and everything. I mean, it's madness, right,
Speaker 4: It's just looking for drugs which are going to be
Speaker 4: legal eventually. I mean, now, you know weed is on
Speaker 4: the way, but we still have people serving crazy amounts
Speaker 4: of time in prison.
Speaker 3: We noticed just must that have administered drugs are just
Speaker 3: as harmful, of not more harmful than the none legalized drugs.
Speaker 3: But they give it to your quantity because they control
Speaker 3: the quantity. Because they control them output, they can control
Speaker 3: the money.
Speaker 4: It's all money, man, Yeah, it's all money. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's money. But I just posted on my Instagram, which
Speaker 4: by the way, is at It's Jason Flomp for those
Speaker 4: of you who don't follow me. But I posted on
Speaker 4: my Instagram today, you know, because of this Manifhord thing.
Speaker 4: I mean, he got sentenced to yeah, Syria, what his
Speaker 4: white privilege, Paul Manifor forty seven months for you know,
Speaker 4: so many crimes you can't even count them over such
Speaker 4: an extended period of time. And then my friend Bernard
Speaker 4: Noble was sence to thirteen years and four months for
Speaker 4: possession of two joints. Possession. What the hell? I mean,
Speaker 4: my head's exploding. But and he was a truck driver
Speaker 4: forty seven years old, seven kids, you know, hit two
Speaker 4: prior arrests for simple possession twenty something years earlier. He
Speaker 4: did clean all this time. Let's get to the to
Speaker 4: the reversal, because the or the ultimate emotion for neutron freedom. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so how did you actually managed to get yourself out
Speaker 4: of this miserable predicament? That's what I want to know.
Speaker 3: I had a motion for a new trial. I was cohersed,
Speaker 3: pretty much blackmail into taking what they call it alphrod plea.
Speaker 3: I have the documents if you see right here. I
Speaker 3: have on record multiple times where they try to offer
Speaker 3: me these please and I'm like, I'm not taking the
Speaker 3: plea for somebody to do. I'm not taking the plea.
Speaker 3: I probably had on record four different times where they say,
Speaker 3: if you don't take this plea, it's not coming back
Speaker 3: on the record. So how does this plea keep reappearing
Speaker 3: if someone declines a plea? Where do you see so
Speaker 3: many times on record where it resurfaces? And so at
Speaker 3: the beginning of my most of a new trial they
Speaker 3: asked me to take a plea. My trial lawyer got
Speaker 3: up there and talk about the discrepancies and the things
Speaker 3: that violated my due process. And so when the most
Speaker 3: for newtrial is granted, it's based off of something that
Speaker 3: violated your due process. Whether it's an effective sense of counsole,
Speaker 3: whether it's prosecutorial, whether it's judicial for some legal reason
Speaker 3: that violated your due process, which is your fourteenth Amendment,
Speaker 3: which is very important for people to understand. And you
Speaker 3: got to understand, you know. And I'm gonna say this
Speaker 3: and be real quick. Martin Luther King's death or his fight,
Speaker 3: the advocacy for civil rights is superseded just the right
Speaker 3: to vote. It's for people, individuals to understand. As a citizen,
Speaker 3: you are given these rights to be an American citizen
Speaker 3: to where you don't have to fight for your rights
Speaker 3: if you understand what your rights are. See, we're fighting
Speaker 3: for something that's allocate, that's for us. When you're born
Speaker 3: an American citizen, you're giving these rights. So it's kind
Speaker 3: of like you know, you're going home and fighting for
Speaker 3: your bed, and it's already your bed. That's your bid.
Speaker 3: You just have to know it's your bed. So you know,
Speaker 3: I say this, especially African Americans, know your rights, know
Speaker 3: your amendments. I didn't personally care about minds before prison.
Speaker 3: When I went back and I learned my first my
Speaker 3: fourth how important. The fourth was, the fifth against self incrimination,
Speaker 3: the sixth Amendment for a legal representation, the seventh, eighth
Speaker 3: against cruel and harsh punishment for a team due process.
Speaker 3: So this was my most for a new trial was
Speaker 3: open on the grounds that I didn't get a fair trial,
Speaker 3: and at some point doing that process, I was basically
Speaker 3: pressured either do this or sit in prison two more years.
Speaker 3: And at that point, of how he been there a
Speaker 3: year and a half. So what they offered me was
Speaker 3: my lawyer told me at the time that I would
Speaker 3: get time served this thing called first offenders, and I
Speaker 3: would get out and my record to be expunged. And
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't even want to take it, and
Speaker 3: I had to call like a removal of court and
Speaker 3: speed to my mom and my son's mom. They were
Speaker 3: like all crying, like please just get out your kids,
Speaker 3: miss you. I'm like, mom, I'm not taking a plea
Speaker 3: for somebody to do. And it was like it's an
Speaker 3: alpha plea which allows you to maintain your innocence, but
Speaker 3: it says you didn't want to go to court. I
Speaker 3: never mind, won't go on to trial. I know I
Speaker 3: have enough proof to prove my ennocnce. That was never
Speaker 3: a case for me. It was never an issue by
Speaker 3: me not going to trial.
Speaker 4: So you ultimately accepted the outf for play.
Speaker 3: Yes, and they told me how to be released. Then
Speaker 3: I wasn't released. Then I went back to prison for
Speaker 3: like eight more months.
Speaker 4: I've heard that story before too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they said. And then my lawyer was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: as soon as you get there, they're gonna process you
Speaker 3: out and I might take up to thirty days. Trial
Speaker 3: was November seventeenth. He said, you may be home before Thanksgiving,
Speaker 3: no later than Christmas. I didn't get out till July.
Speaker 3: So I said another eight months, and that was July
Speaker 3: of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: So you've been home now for nine months. Yep. It
Speaker 4: seems like you hit the ground running, though I mean
Speaker 4: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I thought I did too until I realized. Come in here,
Speaker 3: help me realize. I didn't like my probation. I still
Speaker 3: have a few years left for probation in Atlanta, and
Speaker 3: that's what I'm fighting for right now, my complete exoneration
Speaker 3: and expungement of my record. But I didn't.
Speaker 4: I remember.
Speaker 3: I woke up probably raised around about Christmas. I woke
Speaker 3: up just crying, man, just tears, because the psychological effect
Speaker 3: that this stuff has on you, it's just mind bog
Speaker 3: You wake up at one point and it blew my mind.
Speaker 3: At one point I thought about going back, and nobody
Speaker 3: in my family, this is my first time. Even at
Speaker 3: one point I thought about going back back to prison.
Speaker 3: That's the psychological effect that has on you. It's kind
Speaker 3: of like, I don't even know if you watch like
Speaker 3: Game of Thrones, like.
Speaker 4: A couple of seasons theon.
Speaker 3: Lovejoy where old Boy had broke them to a dog
Speaker 3: and even if you open they said, once you break
Speaker 3: a dog, you can open the cage and the dog
Speaker 3: won't leave out. And that's what prison do, and that's
Speaker 3: why they have these probationary priscause Psychologically, the impact that
Speaker 3: it has on you, it breaks you. And that's the
Speaker 3: whole purpose of it is to break you. And that's
Speaker 3: why I have my book Never Broken, because despite this tragic, unfortunate, mundane, crazy,
Speaker 3: malicious to me situation, I feel like there's people that's
Speaker 3: experienced worse than I have. I know that there are,
Speaker 3: and I feel like, you know, I have an obligation
Speaker 3: now with my situation and circumstances, to be a voice
Speaker 3: for a prison reform for the people that's maliciously prosecuted,
Speaker 3: falsely prosecuted, and they understand that, you know, just as
Speaker 3: many innocent people go to prison as guilty people get off.
Speaker 3: But it's not a justification. What we have to do
Speaker 3: is pay more attention to what you know, our judicial
Speaker 3: system and the people we elect. So I encourage people
Speaker 3: to be aware of who your judges are, who your
Speaker 3: all your state representatives are, who all your local representatives are,
Speaker 3: and that's where the power of voting and being aware
Speaker 3: of what's going on plays its part. We can get
Speaker 3: out here in Kumbaya and you know, Raley all we want,
Speaker 3: but we need to put people in office and positions
Speaker 3: that care about the people.
Speaker 4: You know, one of the things we can do in
Speaker 4: this show. If you're listening, whether you live in Georgia
Speaker 4: or Alaska, it doesn't really matter. Everybody at some point
Speaker 4: gets a jury duty notice and when you serve on
Speaker 4: a jury, which I encourage people to do, especially people
Speaker 4: that are listening to show, who are woke right because
Speaker 4: they're listening to this show. So you know, if you
Speaker 4: do get all for jury duty, it's super annoying, Like
Speaker 4: nobody wants to go. You know, you got to miss
Speaker 4: out on work and things and whatever. Everybody's busy, but
Speaker 4: go because go and go, then stay woke, because when
Speaker 4: you're there, recognize that there's stuff going on that you
Speaker 4: don't know and you can't see.
Speaker 3: We have to become more educated, just in general about
Speaker 3: the judicial process. The jury concept. The way it was
Speaker 3: founded was, you know, back I believe in the early
Speaker 3: thirteen hundred or something like that, fourteen hundred. It was early,
Speaker 3: and they were just sentencing gods just like guilty, guilty,
Speaker 3: And it got one guy said, wait a minute, you
Speaker 3: guys don't even know me, like, give me a chance
Speaker 3: to show you my innocent. Let my peers judge who
Speaker 3: I am. And so then that's how the jury situation
Speaker 3: came about. So it's important for you to understand that
Speaker 3: the whole purpose of the jury duty and the jury
Speaker 3: selection is for you to recognize this individual as you're
Speaker 3: a peer. Is it somebody you want in your community,
Speaker 3: It's somebody you trust. The whole purpose the judicial system
Speaker 3: is for public reassurance. To make us feel safe, is
Speaker 3: to know that our government is working adamantly to secure
Speaker 3: our safety, whether it's offshores, are on shores of you know,
Speaker 3: of American soil. So it's very important for people to understand,
Speaker 3: like you said, how I know it's boring. I know
Speaker 3: you don't want to be there. You can't just go
Speaker 3: in there and say, well, I don't want to be
Speaker 3: here there. I gotta go to work tomorrow because this
Speaker 3: is somebody's life.
Speaker 4: And then there's that you know, famous quote that it's
Speaker 4: better that one hundred guilty men should go free than
Speaker 4: that one incent should suffer. I'm pretty sure that was
Speaker 4: Benjamin Franklin or the legendary Supreme Court justice Learning Hand
Speaker 4: who said that our justice system is haunted by the
Speaker 4: ghost of the innocent man convicted. You know that quote
Speaker 4: gives me chills, and yet it happens all day, every
Speaker 4: day and twice on Sunday. And you know, there's that
Speaker 4: saying that everyone you meet is fighting a battle you
Speaker 4: know nothing about, so be kind, right, And I know
Speaker 4: so many of the different people that I interviewed on
Speaker 4: this show been through these horrendous situations. I mean, some
Speaker 4: of them in prison for thirty forty years for things
Speaker 4: they didn't do. And they all have different ways of
Speaker 4: explaining how they found this extra gear, this this strength,
Speaker 4: this grace I call it right where they're able to
Speaker 4: get up every day and project a positive influence onto
Speaker 4: the world. And you certainly seem like that guy as well.
Speaker 4: You know, and I know I've spoken to you about
Speaker 4: this before, so I wanted to ask you and then
Speaker 4: I'll have one more question after this, But are you bitter?
Speaker 3: No, sir.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting because so many people that I talked
Speaker 4: to civilians about this issue all the time. People have
Speaker 4: listened to the show. Other people they say, but I
Speaker 4: don't understand how how can anybody who's been through what.
Speaker 3: Because that's not the answer. Frustration, hate, anger is not
Speaker 3: the answer. I love to judge. I love my stepdaughter,
Speaker 3: I love her father. I love it prosecute. I even
Speaker 3: love the jury. If I had to do one thing,
Speaker 3: I would want to sit down like this and just
Speaker 3: ask them why. And I would want them to just
Speaker 3: hang out. Just spend one day with me, Spend an
Speaker 3: hour with me, watch me interact with my kids. Watch
Speaker 3: me go to a facility or a place and you know,
Speaker 3: car wash and see a young lady with her daughters.
Speaker 3: And watch how I tell my sons to go over
Speaker 3: there and vacuum that car, or go pump that lady's gas,
Speaker 3: or go grab that lady's groceries. Watch how I'm in
Speaker 3: a restaurant, I see lady with kids, I pay for
Speaker 3: her food. You know, it's so many things that I
Speaker 3: do that the people who know me immediately will go, Man,
Speaker 3: you're different.
Speaker 4: It's remarkable, and there's so much to be learned for
Speaker 4: people who are going through their day to day struggles
Speaker 4: and may find, you know, aggravations in daily life.
Speaker 3: But once everything is taken from you, especially abruptly, and
Speaker 3: then you're broken down to the bare minimum. That's why
Speaker 3: they say some homeless people are the happiest. They have
Speaker 3: no worries and so just nothing to cut you off.
Speaker 3: But to answer that question, we say, how to each
Speaker 3: and every want to rive at this same place because
Speaker 3: you've been stripped of everything that the pressures of society
Speaker 3: that man has. So now when you just have to
Speaker 3: bear you, you just have your connection with God or
Speaker 3: whatever you believe in. And so the strength and your
Speaker 3: relationship with a higher call and the higher being is
Speaker 3: indicated by how you conduct yourself and how you respond.
Speaker 3: I know that God has all my steps number and
Speaker 3: whatever they meant for evil, God meant for good. I
Speaker 3: wouldn't have been here two years ago. I wouldn't even
Speaker 3: thought about prison reform two years ago. I will probably
Speaker 3: be probably with my kids on some island or somewhere
Speaker 3: kicking it. But my point is this, I've always been aware,
Speaker 3: but this gave me another fight, you know what I
Speaker 3: because I'm huge on youth advocacy, and now was the
Speaker 3: hardest part about this allegation against a child. I have
Speaker 3: a history in proof and I'll show you documents even
Speaker 3: after we get off air, where I'm speaking to young women,
Speaker 3: young men empowering them. So that was the hardest part
Speaker 3: because my degree is an education from Alabama State University.
Speaker 3: So when you take away my core, which is the
Speaker 3: love for advocacy for youth and empowering young men and
Speaker 3: women in low economic environments, that's what hurt. And in
Speaker 3: fact that they took me from my kids, Like the
Speaker 3: hardest part was walking away and knowing that my kids
Speaker 3: were outside.
Speaker 4: You know, certainly meeting you when I did. You know,
Speaker 4: like I said, you still seem like that guy who
Speaker 4: would be more likely to be on stage accepting an
Speaker 4: award than then you were to end up in prison.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I guess for me. And in addition,
Speaker 3: I think one of the hardest and the craziest situation
Speaker 3: just being in there. Jay was the fact that like
Speaker 3: I would look up and I will see myself on television.
Speaker 3: You know, some of the other guys would kind of
Speaker 3: be looking like you know that that looks just.
Speaker 4: Like you know.
Speaker 3: And when they finally figured it out, it was crazy.
Speaker 4: That's totally surreal. So you're in prison looking at the
Speaker 4: TV seeing yourself, watching your previous life literally flashing in front.
Speaker 3: Of your eyes. Initially, when I first I saw myself,
Speaker 3: Atlanta was on and they watched it because it's Atlanta
Speaker 3: Bay Show and I'm in Georgia. You know, a lot
Speaker 3: of guys have been locked up for so long. They
Speaker 3: couldn't affiliate me with the character. And then most of
Speaker 3: them are so negative almost that they don't they wouldn't
Speaker 3: believe that someone they watched no television would be locked
Speaker 3: up with them. So that was the first thing. And
Speaker 3: then when I got to the facility, I was at
Speaker 3: down in coffee with this ring came on and one
Speaker 3: of the officers walked in was like, hey, gg, building
Speaker 3: wants you. So I look up and all the dudes
Speaker 3: in the wind they're like, yo, coach, because they call
Speaker 3: me coach. They actually called me coach in prison because
Speaker 3: I used to help a lot of guys with like
Speaker 3: basketball and boxing, and you know, with that illegal work
Speaker 3: because I started doing a lot of legal research and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. So they all started calling me coach,
Speaker 3: but they was like, yo, coach. And then after that
Speaker 3: I was so much love man, Like I never had
Speaker 3: any incidents where gangs or none of that stuff. Man,
Speaker 3: you know, the top dogs, I was always cool with,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So I don't know if
Speaker 3: it was gonna get around, but shout out to you know,
Speaker 3: everybody that's right now that's still in cars. You're ready
Speaker 3: to keep your head up, man, and your time in
Speaker 3: the sun is coming.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's be crazy, yee. I see myself and
Speaker 3: multiple television shows, my movies was airing, and a lot
Speaker 3: of them ironically was happy to be almost locked up
Speaker 3: with somebody that was successful. And it was crazy because
Speaker 3: I got so much love and support. So it was
Speaker 3: they were all rooting for me to get out. I
Speaker 3: never hit my story. You know, a lot of time
Speaker 3: when you go to prison, they tell you, man, you're
Speaker 3: going there on some sex storr they gonna do blah
Speaker 3: blah blahlah blah. But the guys all knew me as
Speaker 3: a man first, and everyone was frustrated. A lot of
Speaker 3: inmates was pissed, like, man, man, you got to get out,
Speaker 3: You got to tell your case, you got to tell
Speaker 3: your story. I was got so much support and encouragement
Speaker 3: from the guys in there because they met me and
Speaker 3: as a man, they can tell that, you know, I
Speaker 3: was innocent and so and I mean it was just crazy.
Speaker 4: Man, that's just an outer body, a trippy, crazy experience
Speaker 4: that I hope nobody else has to go through. But man,
Speaker 4: what a what a life.
Speaker 3: Thank you to all the supporter I got, because I
Speaker 3: know at one point distribution company had hesitation about my
Speaker 3: roles like in say, for instance, Tupac. But shout out
Speaker 3: to Benny Boom and Hutting for supporting me and rioting
Speaker 3: with me by keeping my parts. Shout out to the
Speaker 3: producers and Donald and all the guys with Atlanta for
Speaker 3: keeping my parts. Shout out to you know, Tresa Mega
Speaker 3: mind for continue to push our project secrets. Shout out
Speaker 3: to you know, Robbie Reid and you know Tracy and
Speaker 3: all the people that looked out from BT who initially
Speaker 3: you know, as soon as I got out, we're trying
Speaker 3: to put me in projects and working to put me
Speaker 3: in projects to regain you know, my stature in the game.
Speaker 3: So thank you all for the support and everyone else
Speaker 3: and got some real big projects on the way.
Speaker 4: This has been an extraordinary interview. I appreciate you coming
Speaker 4: in and sharing your story and everything that you're doing
Speaker 4: to try to make a difference. I know that this
Speaker 4: will ultimately work itself out. I hope it will, and
Speaker 4: then everything will get cleared up, and I know the
Speaker 4: best is yet to come for you. So you know,
Speaker 4: I wish you well. We have a traditional wrong for conviction,
Speaker 4: which is that at the end of the show, my
Speaker 4: favorite part, I think everybody's favorite part, the producers.
Speaker 3: Audience, is that it's gone to hear people.
Speaker 4: I get to actually, just like I said, thank you
Speaker 4: for being here, and then turn over for the last
Speaker 4: brief closing thoughts for anything you want to say about anything.
Speaker 3: Oh just love man. Like I said event yesterday earlier
Speaker 3: this week with Andrew, one of the owners at the
Speaker 3: Red Rooster, and they were doing something for Outreach, which
Speaker 3: is an urban program are for low income families. There
Speaker 3: are so many organizations, there's so many groups, there's so
Speaker 3: many entities or organizations that's trying to put it together.
Speaker 3: I just and close when I'm trying to say, we
Speaker 3: have to find a way to unify this. You know
Speaker 3: what I mean, because there's a lot of people doing
Speaker 3: things all across the nation, the world, and I think
Speaker 3: we just got to find a way to unify it.
Speaker 3: We need to get past racial bearers, stigmas and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. We need to try to stop pointing a finger.
Speaker 3: I said, I don't have no maliciousness toward anybody. I
Speaker 3: know there's a bigger purpose. I just want people to
Speaker 3: become aware. Don't just grow. Evolve and growth us is
Speaker 3: a part of the human condition. That's something that naturally
Speaker 3: we all do. We grow, it's aging. But evolved is
Speaker 3: when you as a person, you see stuff, you see
Speaker 3: the bigger picture, you know what I mean, Like a
Speaker 3: caterpillar and I feel like a lot of people just
Speaker 3: caterpillaring alone. But the purpose is to turn into that butterfly.
Speaker 3: I know it's a slow journey. It feels like the
Speaker 3: process of being a caterpillar, and it's you know, whether
Speaker 3: you're trying to get to this goal, this destiny, this journey,
Speaker 3: just know that that process is a part of your journey.
Speaker 3: But the evolution into the butterfly is when you grow
Speaker 3: as a person and you see that the most important
Speaker 3: thing that we have that God has given us is
Speaker 3: each other. Everything that was created other than the earth
Speaker 3: was made by man, whether it's the iPhone, whether it's
Speaker 3: the car, whether it's bloonney sandwich. So God, it gives
Speaker 3: us each other to live abundantly happy with one another,
Speaker 3: but we take it for granted, you know, be more
Speaker 3: collectively aware of one another and just try to love.
Speaker 3: When people say that shit and they be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I love each other sounds great, but that's what it's about, man,
Speaker 3: So I love you. I appreciate you having me. It
Speaker 3: feels good to kind of get this initially off my
Speaker 3: chest because I've been holding it out for over two
Speaker 3: and a half going on three years, if not actually
Speaker 3: longer than that, because it took three and a half
Speaker 3: years to go to trial. So like this is my
Speaker 3: first time speaking out publicly. I'm grateful that we had
Speaker 3: the opportunity to meet, you know, thank you Fie out
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles and they sign They're also doing phenomenal
Speaker 3: work at the Mayor's office and it's a lot of
Speaker 3: prison reform organizations. At the end of the day, what
Speaker 3: prison reform means is for us to have a society
Speaker 3: where our judicial system works fairly for all of us.
Speaker 3: The domino effect the prison reform helps us with health
Speaker 3: care by taking money out of these prisons and put
Speaker 3: them to the healthcare sector, by taking them out of
Speaker 3: these press and put them to the educational sector. And
Speaker 3: that's what's most important. So the reason why our prison
Speaker 3: reform is important because we have to be where our
Speaker 3: tax dollars and where our money's being allocated, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. So it's deeper than that. It's a
Speaker 3: domino effect, and the domino effect is love and it's
Speaker 3: educating each other. Understand this. You are your own individual.
Speaker 3: Don't let no entity or individuals stop you from doing
Speaker 3: what you love.
Speaker 4: It's a wrap. Thank you Harold House Moore, Harold House
Speaker 4: being here and sharing your story, and thank you everyone
Speaker 4: for listening to Wrongful Conviction. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 4: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 4: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 4: donor to the Enesis Project, and I really hope you'll
Speaker 4: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 4: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to innocensproject dot org
Speaker 4: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
Speaker 4: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
Speaker 4: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 4: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 4: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 4: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
Speaker 4: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one