Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I was brought up like cops are the good guys.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
Speaker 1: do know that everything was stacked against me. Everything like
Speaker 1: everything this isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent.
Speaker 1: I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this.
Speaker 2: How is this possible?
Speaker 3: I grew up trusting the systems. I've grew up believing
Speaker 3: that every human being should do the right thing. And
Speaker 3: that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with
Speaker 3: corerough people, I wasn't going to break anyone to get
Speaker 3: me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the
Speaker 3: fact that I break my way out of my wife's death.
Speaker 3: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty.
Speaker 1: I'm guilty until I prove my innocence.
Speaker 3: And that's absolutely what happened to me.
Speaker 1: Our system. Since I've been out ten years, it has
Speaker 1: come a little ways, but it's still broken.
Speaker 3: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
Speaker 2: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 2: Jason Flamm That's me. And today we have a very
Speaker 2: special and unique episode of the show. Today we have
Speaker 2: Tim Tyler with us. Tim, Welcome to Wronful Conviction. Oh,
Speaker 2: thank you and Tim. One of the reasons why I
Speaker 2: say it's unique is because Tim was actually convicted of
Speaker 2: a crime that he was guilty of, which was an
Speaker 2: LSD crime, non violent and sentenced to double life in prison.
Speaker 2: No guns, no weapons, no violence, no no nothing. Actually,
Speaker 2: and when I tell you, when you learn the story,
Speaker 2: your head is going to explode. So stay tuned, uned,
Speaker 2: get comfortable, because this is this is really madness. So Tim,
Speaker 2: let's turn this to you. This case. I mean, you
Speaker 2: were in prison for twenty six years, so this case
Speaker 2: happened a long time.
Speaker 1: Ago, Yes, in nineteen ninety two, August.
Speaker 2: Third, nineteen ninety two, and you were on the road
Speaker 2: with the Grateful Dead, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was a deadhead going to you know, like I
Speaker 1: loved the Grateful Dead and the band, the families. It
Speaker 1: was like a big family that went around and it
Speaker 1: was a sense of freedom, it felt like. And I
Speaker 1: was following them around and I was arrested. I mailed
Speaker 1: some melisty to Florida and I was arrested and I
Speaker 1: ended up doing like like you know, his twenty six
Speaker 1: years in twenty seven days, right, And I'm lucky because
Speaker 1: President Obama ended up giving me a clemency. So without that,
Speaker 1: or without well support, I would still be in there,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't just be like another number, or I
Speaker 1: couldn't get a message out.
Speaker 2: And your case has so many horrible aspects to it,
Speaker 2: and for me, it's very personal because listeners of the
Speaker 2: show know that I'm the founding board member of the
Speaker 2: Innocence Project, but I actually joined the Board of Families
Speaker 2: Against Mandatory Minimums before I even knew about the Innocence Project.
Speaker 2: So I've been with FAMS since almost since the beginning
Speaker 2: of the organization. It's a wonderful organization, FAMM dot org.
Speaker 2: It was founded by Julie Stewart. She was sort of
Speaker 2: my mentor as I got started on this. You know,
Speaker 2: lifetime in criminal justice reform, and you are a person
Speaker 2: that we've spent a lot of time talking about. You
Speaker 2: are a rallying cry, I think for people in this movement.
Speaker 2: You're someone who all of us respect so much, and
Speaker 2: you're someone who we're really proud to have played a
Speaker 2: part in helping to win your freedom. But the lens
Speaker 2: that the government went to to convict you of this
Speaker 2: crime and sends you to life in prison, which again life,
Speaker 2: And I've heard your sister talk about this on videos.
Speaker 2: Is a video free Tim Tyler on the Internet. People
Speaker 2: want to watch. It's so horrible because, as we say it,
Speaker 2: fam Let, the punishment fit the crime, right, but your
Speaker 2: punishment didn't match anything to do with the crime. Yours
Speaker 2: was a non violent crime. How did this happen? Right?
Speaker 2: How could this have gone so wrong? And we know
Speaker 2: also that they ended up implicating your father, which is
Speaker 2: so disgusting that it actually just and I think people
Speaker 2: need to know that part of the story. I'm sure
Speaker 2: it's tough to talk about it, but anyway, can you
Speaker 2: take us back to this. So you're on the road
Speaker 2: with the grateful Dead, you get approached by it turned
Speaker 2: out to be a government and foremant right.
Speaker 1: Actually, I had friends in Florida and Saint Pete, Florida
Speaker 1: that I sold you know, I wanted to do LSD
Speaker 1: and I sold some to my friends. Wanted to do it,
Speaker 1: so I sold it to my friends. Well one of
Speaker 1: them was arrested for I believe a sheet or announce
Speaker 1: a weed, I'm not sure which. And he told me
Speaker 1: he was arrested. He's like, I was arrested last night,
Speaker 1: and he said he posted a bond and you know,
Speaker 1: and I told him, well, your first defense in Florida
Speaker 1: probably give you a probation. But he was recording me
Speaker 1: at that time. And then he recorded me like twenty
Speaker 1: six audio tapes after that, and like, I sold him
Speaker 1: like a thousand hits of LSD, you know, And then
Speaker 1: I sold them three more times another thousand, and all
Speaker 1: of those were recorded where they could have arrested me.
Speaker 1: And then I said, well, I was actually in Florida
Speaker 1: when I did these sales in person to them, and
Speaker 1: they could have arrested me, but they didn't arrest me.
Speaker 1: I told them, I said, I'm leaving Saturday to go
Speaker 1: on tour, you know, because there was no shows at
Speaker 1: this particular time, and they could arrested me before I left,
Speaker 1: but they didn't. They let me go. So I went
Speaker 1: on to the shows, and actually I went to California
Speaker 1: first and I bought like twelve five hundred hits of LSD.
Speaker 1: Now it was like the price for that what I
Speaker 1: paid was like four thousand dollars, So you're talking about
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars of LSD total conspiracy. And I went
Speaker 1: and I sent they wired me money, like eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: dollars of their money, and I sent it all in
Speaker 1: an envelope. But I had sent envelopes that never that
Speaker 1: never arrived, and I took the loss myself before before this.
Speaker 1: So this particular envelope, I sent nine thousand hits in
Speaker 1: this envelope, and I put several different envelopes in it,
Speaker 1: and one was for a friend of mine, one was
Speaker 1: for somebody that somebody else that just was with a
Speaker 1: blank person. One was for two thousand hits, which was
Speaker 1: for my father. But my father was he didn't look
Speaker 1: at it like he was doing anything. It was like
Speaker 1: an envelope, you know. He never did all the steed,
Speaker 1: so he was just getting some for a friend of his.
Speaker 1: So but he knew it was coming, you know. But
Speaker 1: I sent it all in one big envelope with more
Speaker 1: with envelopes inside it, and I sent it to this
Speaker 1: guy's business. Well when it was delivered, the dea or
Speaker 1: whoever the officers delivered it. And at this guy's business,
Speaker 1: and he knew me, says I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: my father knew him since he was a kid, and
Speaker 1: he basically cooperated right on the spot. So he called
Speaker 1: my father and said, hey, come down here. So my
Speaker 1: father did, and he basically threw the envelope in my
Speaker 1: father's car, and then he convinced my father to walk
Speaker 1: around with him at their business, trying to get him
Speaker 1: to incriminate. I think that's the word himself. So my
Speaker 1: father said something, Yeah, I'm just getting that. It's just
Speaker 1: an envelope. I'm bringing to a friend. That's all my
Speaker 1: father really said, and that's all he was really doing.
Speaker 1: So they arrested him as soon as he said that.
Speaker 1: They came and arrest him.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: They were there hidden and they arrested my father and
Speaker 1: I had a good friend of mine, they arrested him.
Speaker 1: There was only five hundred hits was for him. He
Speaker 1: ended up doing five years himself. This guy and my
Speaker 1: father ended up being sentenced to ten years for this charge.
Speaker 1: And he had about a year and have to go home.
Speaker 1: And he died in prison of a heart attack at
Speaker 1: the age of fifty three and April seventeen, two thousand
Speaker 1: and one. So when I sent all this stuff. Then
Speaker 1: I had warrants for sending that.
Speaker 2: You know, now it's a federal crime because you sent
Speaker 2: it through the mail.
Speaker 1: Well, actually I sent it ups so it wasn't a
Speaker 1: federal offense. But I was traveling the country and they
Speaker 1: couldn't catch me, so I guess it was originally going
Speaker 1: to be a state crime. And my father was arrested
Speaker 1: and posted his bond as a state crime, but they
Speaker 1: wouldn't release him because they decided to let the federal
Speaker 1: take over my So eventually my father was able to
Speaker 1: get a bond, and when I was arrested, I had
Speaker 1: no bond, none, not a million, not ten million, whatever,
Speaker 1: zero bond. And I also knew that once I was
Speaker 1: arrested that I was I was going to go away
Speaker 1: for a long time. This time, see, I had two
Speaker 1: prior sales of LSD, and when I went to court,
Speaker 1: they offered me eighteen months in prison or three years
Speaker 1: for robation. So I took the three years for probation.
Speaker 1: I pled guilty, took three years probation, and then they
Speaker 1: took me to the other one and they actually wanted
Speaker 1: to give me three years in prison, and I told
Speaker 1: him I was never even in their town, which they
Speaker 1: can verify, and I'd like to have a speedy trial
Speaker 1: and go to trial. And then several months later I
Speaker 1: told him I would be willing to plead guilty if
Speaker 1: you ran at concurrent probation with the one in Penelos County.
Speaker 1: Even though I was not the person that would drove
Speaker 1: up there. They arrested. It was a friend of mine
Speaker 1: that drove up there, and they arrested him and he
Speaker 1: pled guilty in the whole nine yards. So after it
Speaker 1: was like a week before we were going to go
Speaker 1: to trial, they said, okay, you can plead guilty today.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, the judge was upset that I was
Speaker 1: going to plead guilty. It was a female judge, and
Speaker 1: she says, you could plead no contest and I will
Speaker 1: give you adjudication of guilt withheld and give you three
Speaker 1: years probation concurrent to your other three years probation. So
Speaker 1: I pled no contest, okay. So then within six months
Speaker 1: at that time, I ended up going to some shows again,
Speaker 1: and I was really only had a couple of guys,
Speaker 1: This guy UH named Jeff Rhodes that I sold to
Speaker 1: on this charge that ended up setting me up, and
Speaker 1: I had like one or two other guys that I
Speaker 1: sold to.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just my friends. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: this big, big thing. I wasn't this big person that
Speaker 1: they seem like to make me out to be.
Speaker 2: But and I want to just jump in here for
Speaker 2: a second, because you know, the the cynic out there
Speaker 2: would be listening and go, Wow, this guy who's selling
Speaker 2: LSD and it's against the law and this and that,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. We have people, all kinds of people
Speaker 2: who listen to the show, and they all have their
Speaker 2: own unique viewpoints on these two issues. But for those people,
Speaker 2: I would ask them to consider the fact that it
Speaker 2: was a total four thousand dollars involved, right, and we
Speaker 2: spent as a country to keep you locked up for
Speaker 2: twenty six years. We spent probably close to a million
Speaker 2: and a half taxpayer dollars, not to mention the lost
Speaker 2: income that we might have gotten from being out and
Speaker 2: getting a job and working, paying taxes, you know, not
Speaker 2: to mention your dad's ten years in prison. I mean,
Speaker 2: the implications of this across the board, it's you know,
Speaker 2: I guess when you edit all up, it's probably more
Speaker 2: than a couple million bucks that we spent to lock
Speaker 2: up a guy who probably needed to go to rehab,
Speaker 2: which was you. You know, I mean, I don't I
Speaker 2: can't go back and judge you from back then, but
Speaker 2: you know, it sounds like you had to you know,
Speaker 2: you had a drug issue, and at some point you
Speaker 2: probably would have had to get some help for that.
Speaker 2: But I think that's my personal feeling is that that's
Speaker 2: how we should approach drugs. You should approach them as
Speaker 2: a medical problem, not a criminal justice problem. And they
Speaker 2: do that in certain parts of the world, like Portugal,
Speaker 2: and they have no issues whatsoever right that all drugs
Speaker 2: are legal there. Nobody cares. There's no there's no increase
Speaker 2: in crime, there's no increase in overdoses, there's no Every
Speaker 2: social scienceist that has studied it has found that when
Speaker 2: they decriminalized it, which was in two thousand, all those
Speaker 2: things actually were affected positively. The crime rate went down,
Speaker 2: you know, drug use went down, overdoses went down, and
Speaker 2: it went down not only for small countries. They compared
Speaker 2: it to European countries and world countries like It's just
Speaker 2: that all the evidence shows that this is the only
Speaker 2: saying strategy is to treat drugs as a medical problem.
Speaker 2: If you get behind the wheel and your high as
Speaker 2: a kite and you hurt somebody, then I believed and
Speaker 2: you have to be punished in some way, right Or
Speaker 2: if you do anything to hurt somebody, and if you
Speaker 2: act in a way that's irresponsible to anyone other than yourself,
Speaker 2: then you know, we have to as a society look
Speaker 2: at that. But for someone who is not harming anybody else,
Speaker 2: not you know, selling it to little school children or
Speaker 2: doing anything. You know, don't get me started, But anyway,
Speaker 2: your experience is a is an extreme example of what's
Speaker 2: wrong with our sentencing laws and with our approach to
Speaker 2: drugs in general. And it is also an example of
Speaker 2: something that's such a strange dichotomy because here you were
Speaker 2: someone who is sort of a free spirit music lover.
Speaker 2: I'm a music lover. I never liked the Grateful Dead personally,
Speaker 2: I was a whole morning to the hard rock stuff,
Speaker 2: but whatever, and then you end up being put in
Speaker 2: going from this sort of hippie dippy lifestyle, flower power whatever,
Speaker 2: into literally some of the most harsh conditions that any
Speaker 2: human being can or ever would endure. And I want
Speaker 2: to talk about that, because it's important for people to
Speaker 2: understand what that's like and the concept of putting non
Speaker 2: violent offenders like yourself into maximum security prisons, which is
Speaker 2: so wrong on so many levels. But before we get
Speaker 2: to that, tim so there's another problem with your case
Speaker 2: that we find over and over again in wrongful conviction cases,
Speaker 2: which is the lack of adequate counsel. And your attorney
Speaker 2: actually sold you down the river in a very meaningful way.
Speaker 2: And can you talk about that because did you have
Speaker 2: a public defender?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a public defender, but he was also
Speaker 1: a private attorney that the government hired. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a strange situation because my father hired a very good
Speaker 1: attorney in Florida name Frank Osada. And as soon as
Speaker 1: we played guilty, you know I was gonna plead guilty. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I knew I was going to be in prison until
Speaker 1: at least twenty twelve, which because I happened to believe
Speaker 1: in some of the stuff that Jerry Garcia and Terrence
Speaker 1: McKenna had spoke about that date, So I knew I
Speaker 1: was going to be in prison until then at least. Anyways,
Speaker 1: but I listened to my father in some levels. In
Speaker 1: one level and his attorney and his attorney basically said
Speaker 1: we should plead guilty, and my father was looking at
Speaker 1: it through another another way too. I wanted I didn't
Speaker 1: want to go to trial because I actually believed LSD
Speaker 1: to be a sacrament, you know, which is something that
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a lot of argument to go on
Speaker 1: both ways on that. But they did take Ayahaska to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court in two thousand and six and recognize
Speaker 1: it as a sacrament to certain people, which is very similar.
Speaker 2: So I just so that's now considered a religious ceremony.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's considered religious ceremony. Ayahuasca. It's spelled a
Speaker 1: ya h u a sca, and it's went to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court and it's legal in this country as a sacrament.
Speaker 1: They use the same argument that the Native Americans use
Speaker 1: for payote, and they took it and the guy that
Speaker 1: owned Segum's Bottle company, Jeff Brawmnfman, I think I think
Speaker 1: his name is, he took it to the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: and he won. So it's regulated. But they're doing a
Speaker 1: good job. They said, they don't want the same thing
Speaker 1: that happened with LSD. They don't want it to happen
Speaker 1: with Ayahuascas, so it's very controlled. You have to really
Speaker 1: go through a ceremony and prepare yourself for it, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's very similar, probably more potent in the experience
Speaker 1: than LSD. And it's legal.
Speaker 2: Right. What a strange psychotomy, right, I mean? And what
Speaker 2: a weird society we are when you look at the
Speaker 2: fact that alcohol causes you know, tens of thousands of
Speaker 2: deaths every year, if not one hundreds of thousands. I
Speaker 2: don't even know the numbers, but it's a lot, and
Speaker 2: it causes violence, and it causes people to misbehave in
Speaker 2: all sorts of ways, all of which are negative for
Speaker 2: society and their own families and their health and everything else.
Speaker 2: And yet it's totally legal, right, And yet we have
Speaker 2: other drugs like marijuana which are still which is you know,
Speaker 2: obviously we're making a lot of progress, and this is
Speaker 2: something I've been working on for a long time and
Speaker 2: advocating for, but you know, there's still people serving life
Speaker 2: in prison in America for marijuana like that. What in
Speaker 2: the fuck is going on with that? I mean? People,
Speaker 2: I say that to people and they're like, huh, No,
Speaker 2: that doesn't make any sense. Yet we have more than
Speaker 2: sixty percent of Americans now live in a community where
Speaker 2: at least some form of medical or recreational marijuana is legal,
Speaker 2: and yet we have people who are serving life in
Speaker 2: prison and getting arrested every day. Tens of thousand of
Speaker 2: people every week, every month get arrested for marijuana. It's
Speaker 2: nuts and goes back to what you were talking about before. So,
Speaker 2: so you came from a place of believing that what
Speaker 2: you were doing really wasn't wrong because of the fact
Speaker 2: that you looked at this and granted, you know, okay,
Speaker 2: you know, people will have I'm sure very different opinions
Speaker 2: on that, but I can understand where you're coming from.
Speaker 2: But I want to fast forward a little bit to
Speaker 2: the trial itself, because didn't your attorney give you literally
Speaker 2: the worst advice that any attorney has ever given anybody,
Speaker 2: which was the please guilty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Actually he gave me worst advice than that. He
Speaker 1: wanted me to cooperate, go against my father and they
Speaker 1: would give me ten years, you know. So that was
Speaker 1: his first conversation I ever had with him, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I called my father as soon as I was done
Speaker 1: with that conversation. My father was had a bond and
Speaker 1: he was home and I went and called him. I says, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what this attorney just told me. You know,
Speaker 1: they offered me ten years to go against you. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, of course, I'm just telling you. Of course
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do nothing like that. And yeah,
Speaker 1: he gave me bad advice. And I was his last
Speaker 1: case that he was taken on as for the government.
Speaker 1: He started private practice after my case.
Speaker 2: So he's pretty conflicted.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a sad story that the laws of
Speaker 1: this country are made to hand somebody a life sentence
Speaker 1: for this small amount. Well maybe it's a large amount.
Speaker 1: It just all depends on the way you look at it.
Speaker 2: Well, if you look at it in terms of monetary value,
Speaker 2: it's a small amount. If you look at it in
Speaker 2: terms of the sheer numbers, it's a large amount. But
Speaker 2: you know, it's an amount that most people will never
Speaker 2: ever see or come close to in their lifetimes. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, you know, again I'm of the
Speaker 2: opinion that drugs should be regulated, they should be taxed
Speaker 2: just like alcohol, and they shouldn't be sold to minors,
Speaker 2: and we should have safe spaces for people who are
Speaker 2: heroinauts to to, you know, to do what they need
Speaker 2: to do and not be in the streets. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's been shown that these type of safe injection facilities
Speaker 2: reduce the spread of AIDS and hepatitis drastically, clean needle exchanges.
Speaker 2: Things like that, I don't do drugs. I wish, you know,
Speaker 2: I could wave a magic wand and help every drug
Speaker 2: addict off of drugs that you know that they could.
Speaker 2: I believe we should have rehab facilities available to every
Speaker 2: American who needs it and wants it like a hospital is,
Speaker 2: and we would be a much better society if that
Speaker 2: were the case. But instead we lock people like you
Speaker 2: up for crazy amounts of time. But in your case,
Speaker 2: your attorney told you that you could plead guilty. First
Speaker 2: of all, the idea that he wanted you to testify
Speaker 2: against your father is something I really have to just
Speaker 2: process for a little while. I guess he had to
Speaker 2: offer you that option if it was an option that
Speaker 2: was available to you. You know, he probably had a
Speaker 2: legal duty to tell you about it. He didn't have
Speaker 2: to advise you to do it. But I'm sure he
Speaker 2: did have some sort of a responsibility to tell you
Speaker 2: that that was on the table. You did the only
Speaker 2: right thing that you could do, of course, and that's
Speaker 2: the only honorable thing. And then but then he still
Speaker 2: told you that if you pleaded guilty, you would get
Speaker 2: what not.
Speaker 1: Life twenty one to twenty seven years. I thought, so,
Speaker 1: which is a long time, you know, when you're just
Speaker 1: getting arrested and you're coming in. But I also I
Speaker 1: just had to adapt to my environment and think about, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be in prison for a long time,
Speaker 1: so regardless, and I really thought about December twenty one,
Speaker 1: twenty twelve. I had on the back of my mind.
Speaker 1: I believed something was going to happen, and maybe I
Speaker 1: would that date would change, you know, like Jerry mentioned,
Speaker 1: or Terrence McKenna, an author, he mentioned, like a global
Speaker 1: shift of consciousness on that date. So I figured, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be in until then anyway. So it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if they say twenty years, two life sentences,
Speaker 1: thirty years. It just didn't matter to me at the time.
Speaker 1: I just accepted my fate, you know. Like I had
Speaker 1: a couple of friends also, and I called them up
Speaker 1: and I said, you're never going to hear from me again.
Speaker 1: I'm if anybody ever comes to you ask you any
Speaker 1: questions or anything, just tell them you'll cooperate against me.
Speaker 1: That's what I told some of the people because I
Speaker 1: know I was basically the taking it. I was going
Speaker 1: to jail, you know, I was doing that as a
Speaker 1: long time.
Speaker 2: So you were trying to send a lifeline out to
Speaker 2: some of your friends that might have gotten in trouble.
Speaker 2: That's actually I've never heard that story before. That's a
Speaker 2: very uh, it's extreme. I mean, thoughtful is not the
Speaker 2: right word, is not a strong enough word for it,
Speaker 2: but it's a it's a very grace graceful thing that
Speaker 2: you did, and I tip my hat to you for that.
Speaker 2: So your attorney told you if you pleaded guilty, this
Speaker 2: is what you would get. You were operating under this
Speaker 2: mistaken assumption that this prophecy was real and that you
Speaker 2: would that some magical thing was going to happen on
Speaker 2: that particular date in twenty twelve. Obviously that's not how
Speaker 2: it worked out. So when you when you were sentenced,
Speaker 2: I mean that moment, I guess it.
Speaker 1: Didn't really hit me when I was sentenced when he
Speaker 1: actually said, you know, I send you to life and
Speaker 1: then another life. It didn't really hit me. My sister
Speaker 1: was in the courtroom though, and the officers involved were
Speaker 1: in the courtroom, and as I was walking out of
Speaker 1: the courtroom, you know, I was it was. It didn't
Speaker 1: hit me until I looked at my sister and the
Speaker 1: two guys they were officers. They stood up and high
Speaker 1: fived each other in the middle of the courtroom, and
Speaker 1: my sister saw that, and I'm looking at my sister
Speaker 1: and I basically start I broke down right then. I
Speaker 1: was like, man, this is sad. I'm sad for my sister.
Speaker 1: It's sad to see my sister here right now like that.
Speaker 1: And I walked in, you know, with the marshals, into
Speaker 1: the elevator, and I had some tears going because I've
Speaker 1: seen my sister. It was more to do with her
Speaker 1: than it was for myself.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a crazy thing, but we've heard that
Speaker 2: before on the show, with people at this moment of
Speaker 2: utter despair still thinking more about the people they love
Speaker 2: than about their own predicament, which is sort of a
Speaker 2: really an interesting phenomenon psychological and emotional phenomena that happens.
Speaker 2: But then, you know, then comes another terrible aspect of
Speaker 2: your case, which is something that I know you talk
Speaker 2: about in your speeches, and I know you want to
Speaker 2: talk about today, and I want to talk about today,
Speaker 2: which is the fact that you were sent to some
Speaker 2: of the most dangerous prisons in America as a non
Speaker 2: violent hippie. Right, you still look like a hippie. You
Speaker 2: got you can't hear you can't see him on the radio,
Speaker 2: but he's got long hair in a braid, and you know,
Speaker 2: just sort of has the mannerisms of somebody who is
Speaker 2: just a gentle musical sort of a soul, which I
Speaker 2: recognized from my day job in the music business. So
Speaker 2: how did you deal with this? I mean, what was
Speaker 2: it like when you first went and how did you
Speaker 2: manage to survive? I mean, these are places where people
Speaker 2: are getting stabbed, people are getting beaten, people are getting killed, right,
Speaker 2: and here you are not not I mean you're not
Speaker 2: a small guy, but you're not a big bodybuilder type
Speaker 2: of guy, tough guy whatever. You did grow up in
Speaker 2: a violent you know, back with the background like.
Speaker 1: It started off. I guess it just depends on who
Speaker 1: you befriend when you first go into prison. You know,
Speaker 1: I went. There was a guy from actually from Hell's
Speaker 1: Kitchen in New York named Paulie Shartier. He passed away
Speaker 1: since then, but he took me as a roommate right off,
Speaker 1: you know, right off the bus basically, you know. And
Speaker 1: I came in there with long hair. So he's like, look,
Speaker 1: you gotta shut your you gotta cut your hair first.
Speaker 1: And he schooled me. But he did more than school me.
Speaker 1: He had without me realizing the amount of stuff that
Speaker 1: he did for me, he had like power within the
Speaker 1: prison system. Let's say, you know, if you're a serious
Speaker 1: violent person or whatever, and you've done some serious violent acts,
Speaker 1: then you gained some kind of power more more like
Speaker 1: people are afraid of you. I guess it boils down
Speaker 1: to and he took me in as a roommate and
Speaker 1: he schooled me. And he also had explained to other
Speaker 1: people where I came from. You know, I'm this deadhead.
Speaker 1: I'm you know. He's like, yeah, you're you know. He
Speaker 1: used to he used to be funny to him in
Speaker 1: a way as far as seeing me because I'm like
Speaker 1: this non He's like, you don't belong in here in
Speaker 1: this prison system. And he personally told people that other
Speaker 1: people that had power like to look out for me,
Speaker 1: you know, to like make sure that I don't get
Speaker 1: in anything I wasn't. I didn't do drugs in there.
Speaker 1: I didn't do I didn't borrow things from people and
Speaker 1: not return them. There's a lot of things they say
Speaker 1: when you get to prison, not to do gamble and.
Speaker 2: Tim why do you think that he took such an
Speaker 2: interest in your well being, because it sounds like he,
Speaker 2: at least for a period of time, may have saved
Speaker 2: your life.
Speaker 1: Well, he wasn't the first person. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: the first person, but he wasn't the last. An Italian
Speaker 1: guy that's very well known from New York also, and
Speaker 1: he's he's he took a liking to me too. And
Speaker 1: I started playing tennis with him and three days a week.
Speaker 2: And tennis at tennis in a maxim security prison.
Speaker 1: They did in Atlanta. It took a few years, but
Speaker 1: they had tennis in USP Atlanta when I when I
Speaker 1: arrived there, you know, they actually had tennis courts in there.
Speaker 1: No longer, they have no more tennis than any of
Speaker 1: the prisons, but they had there and handball. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I started doing was playing handball. And
Speaker 1: these guys, you know, had a lot of power on
Speaker 1: the street in the free world, so in prison they
Speaker 1: some of them retained some of that power where nobody
Speaker 1: would mess with them or maybe their friends. So they
Speaker 1: by me playing at daily doing exercise with some people
Speaker 1: that had it was that had a little power in
Speaker 1: the free world, let's say, or even in prison, some
Speaker 1: of the other people would think, well they better not
Speaker 1: you know, approached me in negative ways based on only
Speaker 1: because I befriended some people and not everybody is able
Speaker 1: to befriend you know, some people like that. It's just
Speaker 1: like they kind of like came to me. It's I
Speaker 1: don't really know how it all happened. It was more
Speaker 1: like they they saw somebody. They saw so many they
Speaker 1: didn't feel like that was a real that was like
Speaker 1: a I don't know, I like to say the word convict,
Speaker 1: but in some levels like a criminal. They didn't look
Speaker 1: at me as like a criminal, and they looked at
Speaker 1: me like and I had a life sentence, So there
Speaker 1: they had some compassion for me. I guess yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Sounds like it. It upset their own sense of right
Speaker 2: and wrong to an extent that they felt that they
Speaker 2: could use that influenced power you know, they had in
Speaker 2: that situation to be able to protect you. And that's
Speaker 2: a sort of a little miracle, right, It's sort of
Speaker 2: hope in a hopeless place, I suppose. But you were
Speaker 2: transferred to I mean, you were in a dozen different
Speaker 2: prisons over the time you were locked up, and so
Speaker 2: you know, you couldn't have had a dozen different protectors,
Speaker 2: right And even then, like for you, I know that
Speaker 2: from having read about you at various times, you were
Speaker 2: the winemaker or whatever in the prison, and that managed
Speaker 2: to help you because making a prison hoots or whatever
Speaker 2: to keep you in the good graces of some of
Speaker 2: the other guys who might have you know, been predators
Speaker 2: or tormentors of yours. And that that does lead to
Speaker 2: a good point that I want to make, which is
Speaker 2: that my friend Tony Poppa, who was in prison maxim
Speaker 2: security prison New York for twelve years for a non
Speaker 2: violent first defense, he talks a lot about how, you know,
Speaker 2: there was so much there was so much drugs in
Speaker 2: the prisons that he was in. There were so many
Speaker 2: drugs and as he says, if you can't control the
Speaker 2: flow of drugs in a maximum security prison, how can
Speaker 2: you expect to control it in a free society. And
Speaker 2: I think that really says a lot about the work
Speaker 2: that we do, because just think about that, right, there's
Speaker 2: I don't think there's I mean, for everything, everybody I've
Speaker 2: spoken to, and as you know, hundreds of people by
Speaker 2: now that I know who have served time in different
Speaker 2: prisons around and nobody says that it was hard to
Speaker 2: get access to drugs, which I find remarkable, but it's true.
Speaker 2: And yet we labor under this assumption that if we
Speaker 2: devote enough resources to trying to stop the flow of
Speaker 2: drugs or trying to you know, legislate our way out
Speaker 2: of it or incarcerate our way out of it, that
Speaker 2: somehow others going to reduce the amount of drugs and society.
Speaker 2: It's never worked, it never will work, it never can work.
Speaker 2: So and your your experience is just another example of that.
Speaker 2: But back to your experience. So, so you went from
Speaker 2: prison to prison, you were placed in solitary confinement at
Speaker 2: various times for either things that you did or did
Speaker 2: not do right. And how did I mean? You were
Speaker 2: deprived of basically all almost all the things that a
Speaker 2: human being needs to survive, aside from the fact that.
Speaker 2: I mean, were you you were vegetarian the whole time
Speaker 2: you were in there too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's an early impossible to do. But yes,
Speaker 1: I starved at times. Literally. That's something that I'd like
Speaker 1: to bring awareness to, Like there is some other vegetarians
Speaker 1: in there, vegans in there. There. There actually are a few,
Speaker 1: like a lot of Rastafarians or vegans, and they have
Speaker 1: very limited food choices in there. You know. Towards the
Speaker 1: last couple of years I was in there, they started
Speaker 1: letting people get like tofu and our bomzo beans and
Speaker 1: stuff like that that are vegan. That are the vegetarians.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, for the most of those years,
Speaker 1: they serve like soy, just soy, you know, throw some
Speaker 1: water and some soy and that would be food, you know.
Speaker 1: But for me, I was fortunate where I would I
Speaker 1: ate oatmeal and apples mostly every single day for lunch.
Speaker 1: That was my lunch, you know. I would eat that
Speaker 1: in my room because you can buy oatmeal in the
Speaker 1: commissary and apples sometimes you can get them from the kitchen,
Speaker 1: you know, or you can have somebody to bring them
Speaker 1: to you, I guess. And I would just go out
Speaker 1: and play handball for a lot of years, for like
Speaker 1: the past twenty years, probably I would skip going to
Speaker 1: the real lunch because there's mostly nothing there that I
Speaker 1: would eat. But yeah, and then in a commissary, they
Speaker 1: have a comma saries where inmates can buy food, but
Speaker 1: there's nothing, definitely nothing organic in there. But there's very
Speaker 1: little that's even healthy, you know, Like they might sell
Speaker 1: bags of beans, but even those contain like canola oil
Speaker 1: and other stuff that I don't that I know that's
Speaker 1: unhealthy for you. So, like I said, it's very very
Speaker 1: difficult to eat the way I did. But I I've
Speaker 1: been a vegan for a long time, mostly for because
Speaker 1: I karma, Like I don't like to promote death, even
Speaker 1: of animals, you know, And so you know, that's just
Speaker 1: my choice, and it was a hard choice. But luckily
Speaker 1: I was given another chance. And when I come out
Speaker 1: to the free world here, I cannot believe they have
Speaker 1: vegan restaurants now. Everywhere they have It's amazing. They have
Speaker 1: vegan They have whole foods with vegan food, vegan salad bards,
Speaker 1: I mean, organic food everywhere. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, I eat all that stuff now. I
Speaker 2: eat the Beyond burgers. I eat that. They have these
Speaker 2: things called fruffalo wings. That's my addiction.
Speaker 1: Now is it a cauliflower?
Speaker 2: I think it's made out of cauliflower. It's got a
Speaker 2: bunch of differ stuff in it, but none of it's me.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna be opening
Speaker 2: a vegan restaurant eventually, and I'm very excited about that too.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not I'm I'm almost there, but I'm
Speaker 2: not quite there. I still slip once in a while
Speaker 2: with a little bit of fish or something. But I'm
Speaker 2: on the same page as you. I don't want to
Speaker 2: hurt animals or or anything like that. So you know,
Speaker 2: I'm getting there, you know. But I have a lot
Speaker 2: of respect for people like you. The been able to
Speaker 2: do it for so long, and the fact that you
Speaker 2: were able to do it under those conditions is insane.
Speaker 2: But I'm not perfect, but I'm I'm trying to minimize,
Speaker 2: you know, my impact on the on the animals and
Speaker 2: the oceans and the rest of it. So so I
Speaker 2: look up to you for that. But how did I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, going back to what I was saying before, Tim,
Speaker 2: you know, the deprivation to someone like you who was
Speaker 2: really yours addicted, more addicted to music than drugs, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, and you weren't able to have that experience
Speaker 2: in prison except on a very limited basis at certain times.
Speaker 2: You obviously are someone who is a you know, a
Speaker 2: kind and gentle and loving person, and here it is
Speaker 2: everything is the opposite. Right. You're not able to have
Speaker 2: appropriate forms of physical contact with with with and by
Speaker 2: that I mean whether hugs or you know, romantic relationships.
Speaker 2: You're not able to have any of the things that
Speaker 2: sustained you and sustain you now on the outside, How
Speaker 2: does a person like you go into an environment like
Speaker 2: that and with with actually no prospects of ever getting
Speaker 2: out and maintain sanity, hope, any of it? Like what
Speaker 2: what you know? You're in this like the darkest hole
Speaker 2: that even in solitary confinement, Like, how'd you do that? Well?
Speaker 1: The first time I went in hole in South they
Speaker 1: call it solitary confinement is known as the hole in prison.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're in prison, they state it's the hole.
Speaker 1: The first time I went in there, I was in
Speaker 1: there for thirty seven days. I didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 1: but there's there's different reasons why you would go to
Speaker 1: the hole. They call it special housing unit, it's called
Speaker 1: a shoe. There's different reasons why. I like, at this
Speaker 1: particular time, there was a guy that was in the
Speaker 1: same living quarters that I lived at, and he actually
Speaker 1: put a knife in not only our room, but like
Speaker 1: four other people's rooms because he didn't like my roommate
Speaker 1: and he didn't like you know, in the nineties, and
Speaker 1: so they locked you. If they find something in your
Speaker 1: room and nobody says it's theirs, my roommate would have
Speaker 1: said it was his if it was his, And if
Speaker 1: I have something that's wrong that I shouldn't have, I
Speaker 1: will say it's mine too. So it wasn't either one
Speaker 1: of ours. And so they took us to the hole.
Speaker 1: I was there for thirty seven days and then they
Speaker 1: let me out. And then another time I went for
Speaker 1: over two months because somebody else was trying to leave
Speaker 1: that prison. So he used my name to say that
Speaker 1: I was like extorting him for to make wine or something.
Speaker 1: You know. It was extorting. I don't. I would never
Speaker 1: extort anybody for anything, you know, And I'm thinking, wow,
Speaker 1: And they shipped the guy I was in the hole
Speaker 1: for two months and two days. And it's just a
Speaker 1: coincidence that it was around August ninth of nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: This was right when Jerry Garcia died. I was in
Speaker 1: a hole when he died. And they used to never
Speaker 1: play music, you know, and you could maybe hear one
Speaker 1: of their songs every so often on the music. But
Speaker 1: when he died, they started playing all day for the
Speaker 1: whole day. I was able to listen, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: listening to music on the radio, you know. And that
Speaker 1: started the Grateful Dead Hour, and they started to have
Speaker 1: one hour a week, you know, where I can listen
Speaker 1: to it. Where that helped me, really helped me. But
Speaker 1: at times when I could not listen to it, I
Speaker 1: actually used to use the telephone and call my sister
Speaker 1: and she would play me the song called the Days
Speaker 1: Between It's a Grateful Dead song over the phone, and
Speaker 1: I would it would help me. It was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it would help me, Like maybe someday, somehow somebody will
Speaker 1: help me and I can go back to a show
Speaker 1: where I can be able to listen to him on
Speaker 1: my own, whatever the case may be. So I was,
Speaker 1: like I said, I was in the hole for two
Speaker 1: months in two days over somebody saying that I was
Speaker 1: something to do it whine, But they shipped that guy.
Speaker 1: He wanted to get shipped, and they they did. They
Speaker 1: shipped him. They let me back out, and then I
Speaker 1: was there for seven years, and at the very end
Speaker 1: they tried to say I was. They didn't know for sure,
Speaker 1: but they were saying, just in case, they're going to
Speaker 1: put me in the hole because they thought I was
Speaker 1: friends with these guys that were trying to escape. I
Speaker 1: would never try to leave because it's there's no sense
Speaker 1: of trying to leave, because you're you can't stay away.
Speaker 1: It's like it's weird. I wouldn't never try to try
Speaker 1: to go anywhere. But I had a friend of mine
Speaker 1: that was actually trying to leave, and he had some
Speaker 1: friends and they all they were trying, and they locked
Speaker 1: them all up. And then a month later they came
Speaker 1: and said, well, we're locking you up just in case,
Speaker 1: and they locked me up. And I was in over
Speaker 1: five months.
Speaker 2: Over five months because your friends were trying to escape.
Speaker 1: Because I had one friend that was or whatever, they
Speaker 1: just thought that just in case, they're locking me up,
Speaker 1: just in case. So they locked you up. And back
Speaker 1: then they can ship you if they had a good
Speaker 1: enough reading. So they they just said, all right, you've
Speaker 1: been here long enough, or sending you somewhere else. So
Speaker 1: they sent me to USP Beaumont, which is another one
Speaker 1: of the most serious prisons in the country. Still is
Speaker 1: well now. It's really limited control in there, like there's
Speaker 1: fences everywhere inside there. You're never together with a whole
Speaker 1: prison at one time, so it's very it's still violent
Speaker 1: even with that. I have a friend of mine there
Speaker 1: that actually named Ronald Adcocks that was arrested in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty and he had a release date in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: seven and a guy came to him and heard that
Speaker 1: he was gay on the street and he got arrested
Speaker 1: at seventeen years old in nineteen eight. Seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: this guy came and slapped him and says, shay, if
Speaker 1: you're going to be my girl. Basically in prison, so
Speaker 1: he basically killed a guy. You know, I would have
Speaker 1: thought he could have used self defense. But there's people
Speaker 1: in prison that will go to court or trial against you.
Speaker 1: There's some people that will like if somebody gets hurt,
Speaker 1: there's somebody else in a whole other unit. That didn't
Speaker 1: see anything, but they will be willing to testify that
Speaker 1: they saw everything. And apparently he had enough people that
Speaker 1: went against him and they gave him a life sentence,
Speaker 1: and since then he ended up killing two more people.
Speaker 1: There's different reasons why that would happen, but if somebody
Speaker 1: tried you in that manner, you know, he did what
Speaker 1: he did. And so he has three life sentences now
Speaker 1: and he he's about six or four. You know, he
Speaker 1: was a serious person and I ended up befriending him
Speaker 1: in around two thousand and six and since then been friends.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been We've been friends ever since then.
Speaker 1: I actually still talk to him. He's he's I mean,
Speaker 1: his story is interesting because he was arrested at seventeen
Speaker 1: years old. He's never been to seeing a beach in
Speaker 1: his life, and I'm like, there's anything I could do
Speaker 1: ever to help him out. You know, I will and
Speaker 1: I have been, you know, could do whatever I could
Speaker 1: do for him.
Speaker 2: And I want to talk about that too, Tim, because
Speaker 2: before we get to it, though, your nightmare came to
Speaker 2: a very dramatic end, and that's an important thing for
Speaker 2: us to talk about. I have been for as long
Speaker 2: as I've been in this movement an advocate for clemency
Speaker 2: in cases like yours, in mandatory sense, in cases in
Speaker 2: cases of actual innocence. Ironically, paradoxically, those are harder to
Speaker 2: get clemency on, typically because governor and presidents will often
Speaker 2: prefer to let the courts deal with those actual innocence claims.
Speaker 2: It's sort of understandable, but it's easier for them to
Speaker 2: look at a case like yours or so many other
Speaker 2: mandatory sense in cases I've been involved with where it's
Speaker 2: so obviously an affront to justice that someone is serving
Speaker 2: a sentence that is so wildly mismatched with the crime
Speaker 2: that they're convicted of, even if they are guilty. And
Speaker 2: certainly there's a lot of people serving mandatory senses for
Speaker 2: crimes they didn't do. But in cases where someone like
Speaker 2: you actually pleads guilty, or even Lenny Singleton, who I
Speaker 2: was so thrilled to walk out of prison and we
Speaker 2: become friends since in several months ago in Virginia, you
Speaker 2: know who is serving double life for stealing five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars and a handful of dashing grab robberies in which
Speaker 2: no weapon was used and no one was hurt. He's
Speaker 2: another one who pleaded guilty and just judge was in
Speaker 2: a bad mood that day, you know so. But in
Speaker 2: your case, the system it took too long. Justice delayed,
Speaker 2: but justice wasn't denied because ultimately there were a lot
Speaker 2: of people who came to your You know, I guess
Speaker 2: in a certain way, your prayers were answered, right because
Speaker 2: you had a literally an army of people, four hundred
Speaker 2: thousand of them signed petitions. I was one of them,
Speaker 2: asking the president, Yeah, sure, asking him one of four
Speaker 2: hundred thousand. It's good. It's a good army to be
Speaker 2: a part of. So there was an army of people, advocates, lawyers,
Speaker 2: families against mandatory minimums. Again, that's famm dot Org. I
Speaker 2: hope people will go and visit the website who were
Speaker 2: literally begging for your freedom, and those cries were heard
Speaker 2: and you were granted clemency. But I want to hear
Speaker 2: from your perspective what that moment was like and how
Speaker 2: did you find out? Were you expecting it? How did
Speaker 2: you Because this is the flip side, right, we know
Speaker 2: what the misery was of that moment in the courtroom
Speaker 2: where they were, you know, the high fiving and your sister,
Speaker 2: and now this was really the opposite, right, So can
Speaker 2: you explain that scenario.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were handing out clemencies every I don't think
Speaker 1: there was a set time.
Speaker 2: This is twenty sixteen, yes, President Obama.
Speaker 1: President Obama was granting clemencies, you know, so I think
Speaker 1: he started like forty five and then he and then
Speaker 1: it got to be like one hundred I think at
Speaker 1: one time, or one hundred and eleven I think. And
Speaker 1: the time that they gave that, I was granted it.
Speaker 1: So for me, I was every time they were to
Speaker 1: have a group of clemencies, you know, you want to
Speaker 1: be the first to see if your name's on or
Speaker 1: you know, because we didn't know how they would tell
Speaker 1: you if you was going to have one. So I
Speaker 1: would go and see my note, my name's not on
Speaker 1: that one. My name's not on it. So one day
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in my room. I think I just came
Speaker 1: in from recreation. I'm not sure, but it was that
Speaker 1: it was like at one forty in the afternoon, and
Speaker 1: normally when you're in prison, you can only move for
Speaker 1: ten minute moves, like it's like on the hour. I
Speaker 1: believe it is some places on the hour or some
Speaker 1: and a half hour. So if it's not on the
Speaker 1: right time, they're not going to open the door, and
Speaker 1: you're not gonna go anywhere. You're gonna have to wait
Speaker 1: until the next move, you know, and the next move
Speaker 1: is either at two or two thirty. So they come
Speaker 1: to my door, says you need to go out right
Speaker 1: now and go to R and D. He didn't tell
Speaker 1: me why or anything, so I s all right, I
Speaker 1: walked out there. He opened a door, which is not normal.
Speaker 1: So and then in the center of the prison there's
Speaker 1: a it's called a hut where there's a guard standing
Speaker 1: under there usually. So I walked and he doesn't ask
Speaker 1: me where I'm going or nothing, so apparently he's in
Speaker 1: on whatever this is too, so he didn't say nothing
Speaker 1: to me. It's okay. I walk go to R and
Speaker 1: D and they put me in this room and then
Speaker 1: you know, they locked the door here in this room
Speaker 1: in R and D. So I don't really.
Speaker 2: Know exactly what's R and D.
Speaker 1: R and D is receiving and oh receiving in disyard
Speaker 1: my bat. So they called me in there. So I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there for a few minutes, and then they called
Speaker 1: two other guys that worked at this place, and they
Speaker 1: have called unich or it's basically a factory in prison.
Speaker 1: That's another whole story that's interesting because it's more like
Speaker 1: the more people you lock up that are non violent offenders,
Speaker 1: they can work in these prisons. Like let's say you
Speaker 1: take a small time dealer and put them in prison. Well,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have an income, so for him to get by,
Speaker 1: he might go work for average sixty nine cents an
Speaker 1: hour in a factory they call Unicorn. Anyways, so these
Speaker 1: two guys were working in there and they came in
Speaker 1: the same room as me, so all three of us,
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, can I ask you guys a question?
Speaker 1: Are you guys did you happen to put in clemency petitions?
Speaker 1: And both of them said yes. I said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this might be a clemency. So they called one of
Speaker 1: them first and they called him into this room. He
Speaker 1: went to an office and he came back by us
Speaker 1: and gave a thumbs up like he just got a clemency.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, this cannot be happened, No way, I can't.
Speaker 1: I cannot believe this. And they called me next, and
Speaker 1: I went in there and it was. There was a
Speaker 1: female a w there assistant warden, and she says, I
Speaker 1: need to put you on his phone on a speakerphone.
Speaker 1: So she puts so she hits it, and then Professor
Speaker 1: Ogilvie at Catholic University gets on the phone. He says,
Speaker 1: mister Tyler. He says, we have some good news from
Speaker 1: you from the parton attorney. President Obama has granted you
Speaker 1: a clemency. And I was I couldn't believe. I couldn't.
Speaker 1: Almost just came back through me again right now. I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I started, uh, like I want to tear up. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to hold it together right now. I said,
Speaker 1: this is this is unreal.
Speaker 2: And did you believe it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I believe it because it's his voice
Speaker 1: and he's talking to me. But I couldn't. I couldn't
Speaker 1: really believe it. It was like a dream. And and
Speaker 1: the woman which she was looking at me like she
Speaker 1: wanted to hug me, you know, which is improper And
Speaker 1: I didn't cross that line, but it was like it
Speaker 1: was genuine a great feeling of energy that she was
Speaker 1: sharing towards me at that time. And I just I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, I'm trying to hold it together. Well,
Speaker 1: he gave me, and then he went into the details
Speaker 1: where I was given a two year date, which with
Speaker 1: the enrollment in our adap.
Speaker 2: To your date, does that mean a two year date,
Speaker 2: a two year release date, you know you had to
Speaker 2: serve another two years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he gave me. They gave me a clemency. It
Speaker 1: was August thirtieth, twenty sixteen, and he gave me a
Speaker 1: release date, so a two year date, which with the
Speaker 1: enrollment in our APP which is a residential drug and
Speaker 1: alcohol program. So I ended up going into that program.
Speaker 1: But I lived all the way up until that time
Speaker 1: without a release date. You know, I never I didn't
Speaker 1: have a release d I was doing life. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people coming into prison, they have release dates
Speaker 1: like they're gonna go home someday. They know on this
Speaker 1: date and this time, if they can not hurt somebody,
Speaker 1: they're gonna go home, or if they can, you know,
Speaker 1: stay out of mischief trouble, they'll go home. Well, I
Speaker 1: never had that understanding or comprehension before. So he gave
Speaker 1: me a two year date. I went back in my room.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it. Actually, I went back in and
Speaker 1: I tried to call my sister and she didn't answer
Speaker 1: the phone. So I called my mother and I caught
Speaker 1: my mom on the phone and I was like, Mom,
Speaker 1: you ain't gonna believe this, but I just got a clemency.
Speaker 1: And my mother was at first, She's like what. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, she I felt like all
Speaker 1: this nervous, negative energy, negative depression that she's had for
Speaker 1: all these years, I felt it like come on her,
Speaker 1: and she realized, Oh my god, I'm going to come home.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not going to die in prison. I'm
Speaker 1: going to make it home. And it was just this
Speaker 1: feeling that I can I can't even put it down
Speaker 1: the way it really was. So I ended that conversation
Speaker 1: with my mom and changed her whole life.
Speaker 2: And look at what she went through, right, losing you
Speaker 2: and your dad at the same time. As far I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just.
Speaker 1: For many years my mother had says, I didn't raise
Speaker 1: you to do all your life in prison. I didn't
Speaker 1: raise you for that. I believed there's something more for
Speaker 1: you to be doing here than serving all your life
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 2: Well she was right, as it turns out, and.
Speaker 1: So a few several hours later, I called my sister,
Speaker 1: and when I called her, I know she already had
Speaker 1: heard a new because at a certain time, whenever they
Speaker 1: give out clemency to people, it goes all over the
Speaker 1: internet of who's going to get it and all that.
Speaker 1: So I couldn't catch her until like eight pm that
Speaker 1: night on the East Coast time, which is five her time.
Speaker 1: And when she answered her phone, I said, Carrie, I
Speaker 1: got to clemency in this, But she didn't have that
Speaker 1: genuine feeling of knowing it that I just told it
Speaker 1: to her, so I knew, but she did have I
Speaker 1: think it was NBC at her house or Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: NBC was at her house actually recording when I called her,
Speaker 1: So I told her the story about my mom that
Speaker 1: I just revealed to you. And they actually played that
Speaker 1: thing over the internet or over the NBC, that news
Speaker 1: when I was telling a story about my mom. Because
Speaker 1: when I called my sisters, she already knew, so they
Speaker 1: recorded that all this. So that was interesting.
Speaker 2: And then and what was the reaction of the other
Speaker 2: guys in prison, because word must have spread. Were they angry?
Speaker 2: Were they bitter? Were they resentful? Well?
Speaker 1: Actually happy? When I went back into the unit, and
Speaker 1: I told a couple of guys and then they all
Speaker 1: saw it later on the everybody gets these downloads from
Speaker 1: the internet. We actually have internet in federal prison since
Speaker 1: not the Internet but email, you know, you go to
Speaker 1: core links dot com and you can email somebody that's
Speaker 1: in federal prison. And there's actually can do clemency foundation.
Speaker 1: I was mentioned in earlier where Amy and there's in
Speaker 1: her East Coast affiliate is this guy named Elik King,
Speaker 1: and he's in Atlanta, and he actually writes like over
Speaker 1: four hundred people that are in prison daily and he
Speaker 1: calls it lighting up our Blue there's a blue light
Speaker 1: you know when we when you have a message, Like
Speaker 1: you can walk by these computers in prison. There's like
Speaker 1: five of them in your unit where you live usually
Speaker 1: and if you go buy and you type in your number,
Speaker 1: it'll show it'll be a blue light if you have
Speaker 1: messages from the free world. So he would actually send
Speaker 1: messages and he still does to over four hundred people
Speaker 1: every single day, and I was one of them. And
Speaker 1: so he would actually send us who who got the clemencies,
Speaker 1: what they were charged for, their release dates, the whole
Speaker 1: nine yards. So I saw my name there that day.
Speaker 1: You know, that night, there's my name and everybody could
Speaker 1: see that. But when I walked into the unit, I
Speaker 1: couldn't help. I was like, oh my god, I just
Speaker 1: I got out of clemency just now, and everybody was
Speaker 1: so happy. Oh I'm so happy. Oh man. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like they hate. They weren't hating on anybody. Anybody that
Speaker 1: got They were so happy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: That's good to hear. And by the way, I'm glad
Speaker 2: you mentioned that because I do get asked by people
Speaker 2: and I encourage people to write to people who are
Speaker 2: on the inside. And this sounds like a good time
Speaker 2: to talk about that. Because what's the name of the foundation.
Speaker 2: It's can Do Foundation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can do Clemency, or it could be just
Speaker 1: can do Foundations at c A N Capital c A
Speaker 1: N d O.
Speaker 2: You know, can do Foundations. I want to put in
Speaker 2: a plug for them because if you go to their site,
Speaker 2: they can give you some instructions as to how to uh,
Speaker 2: how to reach out and and you know, make somebody's
Speaker 2: day a little brighter on the inside. Because I know
Speaker 2: from the people that I'm in communication with, it does
Speaker 2: make a big difference to know that someone you know
Speaker 2: there are people out there that care about you and
Speaker 2: and are fighting for you, and I'm hearing it, of
Speaker 2: course from you now in such a powerful way. So okay,
Speaker 2: so it's and for anyone listening, please go to can
Speaker 2: do clemency dot com. It's c A N d O clemency,
Speaker 2: which is c L E M E n c hy
Speaker 2: dot com. So it can do clemency dot com and
Speaker 2: get involved and you know, correspond with some month and
Speaker 2: you'll be amazed how much of a difference you can
Speaker 2: really make with a very simple act like sending an email.
Speaker 2: Whereas Tim is so eloquently explaining right now. So so
Speaker 2: that's that's quite a dramatic turn of events. I you know,
Speaker 2: I hope that we're going to see many, many more clemencies,
Speaker 2: gubernatorial and presidential. We're going to I'm looking forward to
Speaker 2: working with can Do on some of these because I've
Speaker 2: been blabbing about this issue for so long that people
Speaker 2: that know me are tired of hearing me talk about it.
Speaker 2: I think clemencies are an absolute responsibility of people in power.
Speaker 2: That's why they're given those those powers so that they
Speaker 2: can right wrongs. Because the justice system, whoever created the clemency. Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, Protocol was obviously very aware that the criminal
Speaker 2: justice system is not, cannot be, and never will be perfect,
Speaker 2: and they're mistakes that are made, and the person who
Speaker 2: is holding the h highest executive office in the state
Speaker 2: or the country has an opportunity and responsibility to correct
Speaker 2: those injustices. And that's why they have that power. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: it hasn't been used nearly as much as it should.
Speaker 2: President Obama certainly went farther than other presidents have in
Speaker 2: modern times, but not nearly far enough. In my view,
Speaker 2: I think there are just too many thousands and thousands
Speaker 2: of people in the federal system and of course hundreds
Speaker 2: of thousands of state systems that belong on the outside
Speaker 2: that deserve clemency, that can be productive members of society
Speaker 2: as you are now. And that's you know, with the
Speaker 2: limited time we have left, tim you know, I want
Speaker 2: to ask you about that because we were speaking earlier
Speaker 2: about some of the people you left behind, and if
Speaker 2: there were you know, you know, a couple two or three,
Speaker 2: you know, people that really stick in your heart that
Speaker 2: that you want to bring attention to their cases, this
Speaker 2: would be a good time to do it, because you
Speaker 2: never know who's listening. Someone might be listening. They can
Speaker 2: make a difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's one person off the top of my head
Speaker 1: that I could think of. His name is Frank Merrold,
Speaker 1: and he, you know, he was in like a reverse thing,
Speaker 1: like the government was going to sell him some cocaine,
Speaker 1: which is it was going to be quite a bit
Speaker 1: of it, but he and he had access to money
Speaker 1: at the time, and he paid for it. And they
Speaker 1: he has no zero priors, and they gave him a
Speaker 1: life sentence. This is twenty some odd years ago. He's
Speaker 1: been down twenty some odd years. I just left him
Speaker 1: in jessep Georgia.
Speaker 2: So he was convicted of a hypothetical crime, right because.
Speaker 1: No drugs involved. I mean the government was actually selling
Speaker 1: reverse thing into him, trying to sell him cocaine, which
Speaker 1: was I think it was fifty kilos a lot.
Speaker 2: It was a lot, right, and it was intense his intention.
Speaker 2: He thought he was doing a real deal, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't even a real deal, right Obviously, then they.
Speaker 1: Fictitious drugs and well there's nothing produced. He had people
Speaker 1: that went to trial against him, but there's no evidence.
Speaker 1: There's no drugs anywhere. So and he's not. He's just
Speaker 1: somebody that I personally know. There's other ones inside prison
Speaker 1: that have similar stories. You know what they call it
Speaker 1: ghost drugs or stuff like that, where they didn't produce
Speaker 1: any drugs. There's no drugs actually involved. But that's the
Speaker 1: most Uh, that's probably the worst case I've I've ran
Speaker 1: across that I personally knew, you know, I've played the
Speaker 1: music with him in there a couple of times, and
Speaker 1: you know, that's somebody that I could bring awareness to.
Speaker 1: I had some other friends that were doing life for marijuana,
Speaker 1: like Billy Deco, but he ended up getting a clemency.
Speaker 1: Luckily I knew. I knew him for the hold for
Speaker 1: twenty five years probably in prison, and he got a
Speaker 1: clemency in two thouy I think fifteen before me, you know.
Speaker 1: But he was in there for marijuana, and he had life,
Speaker 1: and he was into like sprouting food like i'm, you know,
Speaker 1: into health like I was. He was into like sprouting
Speaker 1: beans and stuff. He even tried to do some of
Speaker 1: that in prison, which is nearly impot I actually did
Speaker 1: some prison like that, which is nearly impossible to do.
Speaker 2: Tim your story is a remarkable testament of the human spirit.
Speaker 2: The fact that you were able to, you know, to
Speaker 2: hang on as you did, and to you know, maintain
Speaker 2: hope and maintain your vegan and your just sort of
Speaker 2: gentle and kind spirit and throughout this over a quarter
Speaker 2: century nightmare. And so you know, I'm obviously thrilled that
Speaker 2: you're here. I hope people will hear your words and
Speaker 2: want to get involved if you do. The most direct
Speaker 2: way to do that is by going to FAMM dot org.
Speaker 2: That's Families Against Mandatory Minimum, So it's fa MM like
Speaker 2: Marymary dot org and learn and go ahead. So what's
Speaker 2: you say?
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say something about FAM because Julie Stewart,
Speaker 1: she had a brother. She started FAM twenty some odd
Speaker 1: years ago because she had a brother that was I
Speaker 1: think doing five years. It could have been more than
Speaker 1: that for marijuana and for.
Speaker 2: Growing it in his own home. Yep, right, it wasn't
Speaker 2: even a large quantity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And she and he had a mini mandatory.
Speaker 1: I think it's five years. And she heard of my
Speaker 1: case probably twenty twenty plus years ago also, and for
Speaker 1: all this time, whenever there's somewhere to talk about, she
Speaker 1: would talk about me. So you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm indebted to her, and in some respects I went
Speaker 1: to visit her, and you know, I have a lot
Speaker 1: of thankful to go to her, you know, specifically because
Speaker 1: she introduced me to Catholic University that ended up doing
Speaker 1: my clemency petition, and she has introduced me to many
Speaker 1: people throughout the years. You know, that brought a light
Speaker 1: to my case. And I'm actually very lucky to be
Speaker 1: free right now. And that's a big tribute to her,
Speaker 1: you know, a big much of that is attributed to her,
Speaker 1: because without her and many other people, of course, and
Speaker 1: all the people that sign a petition at change dot org.
Speaker 1: Without all those people and her, and never mind President Obama,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even be able to be here right now
Speaker 1: to speak to maybe help somebody else in the future.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: So Julia, I know you're listening, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: thank you from my bottom of my heart too for
Speaker 2: getting me involved in this fight and for mentoring me
Speaker 2: and so many other people, for really starting a movement
Speaker 2: that is gaining momentum every day and which we're not
Speaker 2: going to stop until you know, everyone who is in
Speaker 2: prison that shouldn't be is out and that's a huge,
Speaker 2: huge task. But there's a lot of really good people
Speaker 2: working on this now more than ever, and the momentum
Speaker 2: is there, so a change is definitely in the air. So, Tim,
Speaker 2: this is the part of the show that I like
Speaker 2: the best because as we get towards the end, I
Speaker 2: get the opportunity, since it's my show, to do what
Speaker 2: I want, and what I want to do at the
Speaker 2: end of each show is to stop talking and listen.
Speaker 2: And so before we before I turn the microphone over
Speaker 2: to you for final thoughts, I just want to thank
Speaker 2: you for coming in here, taking your time, doing all
Speaker 2: the advocacy work that you're doing, inspiring other people, including me,
Speaker 2: and sharing your story with us listeners. So, Tim, the
Speaker 2: mic is yours. Please feel free to talk about whatever's
Speaker 2: on your mind for the last few minutes that we have.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sitting here in New York City, which in
Speaker 1: the free world, which is every single day, like I
Speaker 1: wake up, and I still have this comprehension where I
Speaker 1: can't even believe that I am free, you know, And
Speaker 1: I'm thankful every single day that I am free, that
Speaker 1: I'm able to have something organic to eat or something
Speaker 1: vegan to eat, that's you know, the life has changed,
Speaker 1: technology has changed. I do also feel at times that
Speaker 1: I just came out of a like I was thrown
Speaker 1: in the future somehow. You know, as soon as I
Speaker 1: walked like past that gate, you know, I had to
Speaker 1: go through all these gates and give your name and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And as soon as I walked past
Speaker 1: that gate, I just broke down. I could not believe it.
Speaker 1: Like the sunshine, looking at the sun, it looked so
Speaker 1: different from walking when I walked through that gate, then
Speaker 1: it does inside them gates, the sun was like real again.
Speaker 1: And when I walked out of there, you know, we
Speaker 1: recorded walking out of there. And I have this friend
Speaker 1: of mine named Wes Brewer. Well, Wes Brewer decided to come.
Speaker 1: He's like a grateful dead fan or a fish fan
Speaker 1: or you know, similar fans jam band music fan, and
Speaker 1: he decided to come and take a bus with me.
Speaker 1: I was released from Jessup, Georgia, and I elected to
Speaker 1: take a bus ride all the way to Las Vegas
Speaker 1: because it gave me three days on of freedom before
Speaker 1: I had to go to the halfway house. And if
Speaker 1: you would have went on an airplane, then you would
Speaker 1: only have like eight hours of freedom. So I was like,
Speaker 1: I'll I'd rather see the country on a bus. And
Speaker 1: Wes decided to come, not only come, but to the
Speaker 1: video recorded me the whole way and interview me, you know,
Speaker 1: and asked me different, you know, coming right out of prison.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that he did do was
Speaker 1: he surprised me with a trip to the beach and
Speaker 1: recorded me. And as soon as I just touched the sand,
Speaker 1: I just broke down, like broke down, and he recorded
Speaker 1: all this and recorded me going into this water, and
Speaker 1: I mean I broke down, literally broke.
Speaker 2: Down and like baptized in freedom.
Speaker 1: It was unreal. I just it was just tears of joy, massive,
Speaker 1: massive tears of joy.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would like to thank everybody that has
Speaker 1: signed a petition for me or had supported me in
Speaker 1: any way anyway. And thinking my sister too, who has
Speaker 1: spent many years not giving up. I guess that's that'll
Speaker 1: probably do it.
Speaker 2: Well. Once again, thank you for coming everyone. Please go
Speaker 2: to FAMM dot org, go to kendoclemency dot com, and
Speaker 2: let's not stop until we get every Tim Tyler that
Speaker 2: there is out of prison.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jason, don't forget to.
Speaker 2: Give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Speaker 2: Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
Speaker 2: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how
Speaker 2: to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our
Speaker 2: production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in
Speaker 2: the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 2: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 2: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 2: Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 2: and association with Signal Company Number one