Speaker 1: In early two thousand eight, Dieter Tejada was a high
Speaker 1: school senior dating a girl named Avery as Sabato until
Speaker 1: a heated argument led to their breakup. At a party
Speaker 1: on March eighth, two thousand eight, Dieter received a call
Speaker 1: from Avery's number, but a guy named Nick Schwartz was
Speaker 1: on the other end, slurring and making threats in a
Speaker 1: fake New York accent. Dismissing the tough guy persona and
Speaker 1: the threats, Deeter put him on speaker to share what
Speaker 1: he believed to be trivial and amusing with the other
Speaker 1: party goers. But Deeter soon realized his mistake when he
Speaker 1: arrived at Avery's house and was met by Nick and
Speaker 1: three friends, all with baseball bats. Instead of having a
Speaker 1: few laughs at Nick in front of the partygoers who
Speaker 1: had come along, Deeter was in very real danger. Unbeknownst
Speaker 1: to Deeter, Nick was on designer drugs that night and
Speaker 1: had a history of violence along with a troubling psychiatric diagnosis.
Speaker 1: Nick hit Deeter in the chest, and eventually Deeter was
Speaker 1: able to wrestle away the bat and hit Nick as
Speaker 1: well before calling the fight over. At that point, Nick
Speaker 1: go to the crowd that had slowly amassed it's a
Speaker 1: further violence while Deeter left the scene. According to the law,
Speaker 1: since Nick was the instigator, Deeter had the right to
Speaker 1: match force with him, and a bat is arguably a
Speaker 1: deadly weapon. However, Peter did not get even close to
Speaker 1: the force that he was legally allowed to use. Yet
Speaker 1: Nick's family's access to power appears to have mattered much
Speaker 1: more than the law. With the corrupt prosecutor and calling
Speaker 1: the shots, this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Today's episode. Well, it's an important episode. It's a different
Speaker 1: type of episode than maybe you're you know, expecting. We
Speaker 1: were usually discuss cases with its sanely long sentences and
Speaker 1: the death sentences and terrible, terrible crimes. But what we
Speaker 1: have here is a really well, relatively short sentence when
Speaker 1: you look at it in a big picture via one
Speaker 1: of the more common ways of which waful convictions happen,
Speaker 1: and that's by a guilty plate for an alleged crime
Speaker 1: that doesn't even warrant a long prison sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't even a crime in the first place. But
Speaker 1: this also makes this sort of wrongful conviction a lot
Speaker 1: closer to home than some of our listeners might initially realize.
Speaker 1: And the man we're gonna be interviewing today is one
Speaker 1: of the four guys who lived through this nightmare. But
Speaker 1: he's become a really close friend and somebody I admire
Speaker 1: a lot of them, proud to work with. And without
Speaker 1: further ado, I'll now introduce my friend, dear Tejta Deater.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Hey Jason, happy to be here. Man.
Speaker 1: So I think it's interesting because you were like a
Speaker 1: relatively normal kid with a seemingly pretty normal, if you
Speaker 1: could call anything normal family background. Is that fair to say? Yeah,
Speaker 1: my parents were both teachers. I grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: I was like an average dorky kid, had good grades,
Speaker 1: class clown. What happened to me? I never saw happening
Speaker 1: to somebody, for anyone. Let's listen to this. If you're
Speaker 1: a parent, if you happen to be middle class and
Speaker 1: you think that the justice system that it only affects
Speaker 1: other people, you're gonna want to stay tuned because your
Speaker 1: kids are not safe. Yeah, whether you're a teenager yourself,
Speaker 1: or you have teenagers, or or you just somebody who's
Speaker 1: concerned about fairness and justice. This story it's important because
Speaker 1: of how things spiraled from what started off as a
Speaker 1: dispute amongst young men. And have you ever had any
Speaker 1: issues with police or any other type of thing like
Speaker 1: this before. No, I was very small most of my life.
Speaker 1: I had never gotten in fights before. You were not
Speaker 1: the instigator, neither were your friends. But rather than me
Speaker 1: talk about it in the abstract, let's let's go back
Speaker 1: to the incident that was at the core of this
Speaker 1: whining road of what turned out to be official misconduct,
Speaker 1: and ultimately I'm just saying like madness in the system
Speaker 1: that was supposed to be there to protect and serve
Speaker 1: you and everybody in Norwalk. It was my senior year
Speaker 1: of high school and we were at a party one
Speaker 1: of my friend's houses. It was a bunch of us
Speaker 1: from Norwalk, just bunch of friends there. We were drinking.
Speaker 1: So there were crimes done that night. Let's be clear.
Speaker 1: I just wasn't convicted of any of them. I drank
Speaker 1: and drove that night, but I was convicted of something
Speaker 1: that I didn't do anyway. So what happened is I'm
Speaker 1: at the party, I get a call from the girl
Speaker 1: that I've been seeing things hadn't ended well, and I
Speaker 1: picked up the phone and this guy on the other
Speaker 1: line it just immediately starts threatening me. He has like
Speaker 1: a New York accent, which one like I was. Let
Speaker 1: me be clear, I was less mature back then. So
Speaker 1: when he started threatening me, I laughed at it because
Speaker 1: he was from a town next over to me. The
Speaker 1: point is that it was a town where these kids
Speaker 1: are not known for being tough. But this kid starts
Speaker 1: threatening me and try in it on speaker phone. So
Speaker 1: million witnesses right away, which is crazy how many witnesses
Speaker 1: there were involved. So if you think that like having
Speaker 1: a bunch of witnesses proving that you're innocent matters, and
Speaker 1: that will that that that necessarily will save you. Not necessarily. Anyways,
Speaker 1: he threatened me, said he was like gonna kill me,
Speaker 1: said he was gonna come over there, and I was
Speaker 1: just like, nah, it's okay. I'll come over to the
Speaker 1: girl's house where he was at. He said that he
Speaker 1: would have bats when I got there. I just again
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, you're from Westport, Like, you're not
Speaker 1: going to do that. You're not a killer. So again,
Speaker 1: judged a book by the cover or I didn't even
Speaker 1: know him. Also, for the kids out there, don't be stupid.
Speaker 1: If you do something stupid, things can spiral very quickly
Speaker 1: and you could end up going to prison. It's not fun.
Speaker 1: So I went over to that house, me, two girls,
Speaker 1: hopped in the car, and to my friends. Long story short,
Speaker 1: the reason I went there is because I did not
Speaker 1: believe him. I did not believe anything was gonna happen
Speaker 1: other than me making fun of him, and I was wrong.
Speaker 1: As I understand it. You arrive with your little crew
Speaker 1: and the kids who were there at the house, one
Speaker 1: of whom who seems to have been the main instigator
Speaker 1: we find out later had a history of acting out
Speaker 1: in violent and anti social ways. I definitely did not
Speaker 1: know the facts of of his mental health history is
Speaker 1: violent tendencies. I didn't know that then, and I also
Speaker 1: did not know that until only a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago when I first found out the fact of what
Speaker 1: he had been diagnosed with when I looked it up online.
Speaker 1: Essentially what it said was that we don't like to
Speaker 1: call people psychopaths when they're kids, so we instead say
Speaker 1: that they have this type of anti social disorder. You
Speaker 1: don't get diagnosed with this unless you have violent tendencies.
Speaker 1: One thing that I didn't know at that time too.
Speaker 1: I could tell that he was like maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit drunk, maybe high. But the problem was again is that,
Speaker 1: like it's what I didn't know about. The different is
Speaker 1: between the two towns too. Nor were blue collar, middle class,
Speaker 1: you know, basically thirty white black Hispanic was the breakdown
Speaker 1: in my high school. The town that he was from
Speaker 1: is all white, pretty much a couple of Asians maybe
Speaker 1: like one black person, and they're very wealthy. And the
Speaker 1: difference is that I smoked weed and drank. That's all
Speaker 1: we had really, Nor look at that time, things have changed,
Speaker 1: that's all we had. Where he's from, they had been
Speaker 1: having one of these parties where they were all taking
Speaker 1: a bunch of different drugs. So I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: this kid was on the drugs that he was on
Speaker 1: at this time, Nor was that evidence ever introduced during
Speaker 1: my case. It was only afterwards, in the newly discovered
Speaker 1: evidence that I got many years later. That would have
Speaker 1: been useful information for you to know at the time,
Speaker 1: but of course that was withheld, and we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: But so these kids come out of the house with
Speaker 1: baseball bats. Right, that is right, four guys come out
Speaker 1: with bats. One of them was like a younger kid,
Speaker 1: so not a big deal. But i'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: I was about a hundred and fifteen pounds. The tallest kid,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know who was who. Unfortunately, the tallest
Speaker 1: kid was the one that had called me, and yeah,
Speaker 1: like he was a lot bigger than me, and he
Speaker 1: wouldn't have necessarily needed the bat to kill me, but
Speaker 1: he had the bat, and I was unarmed. At that point,
Speaker 1: two of my friends hopped out of the car and meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we're we're all Spanish, like my other friends are much
Speaker 1: more Spanish looking. So I also thought this town that
Speaker 1: probably a little bit racist, and they're gonna be scared
Speaker 1: of us because we're I don't know, ethnic and stuff.
Speaker 1: But I was wrong. He wasn't scared at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: he shouldn't be scared once he has the bats. He
Speaker 1: went right up to me and uh basically started things
Speaker 1: off by putting the bat right up against my head.
Speaker 1: And in that moment I realized that like my plan
Speaker 1: going over there and just having a couple of laughs,
Speaker 1: that that plan had gone out the window, and things
Speaker 1: things escalated, so quick fast forward is I get charged
Speaker 1: with the salt from the first degrade. So normally the
Speaker 1: defense in my case is simple was it asall? Or
Speaker 1: was it self defense? So self defense one is that
Speaker 1: you can't be the initial aggressor, So the first question
Speaker 1: is who started it. If you're the initial aggressor, you
Speaker 1: can't do self defense. If the other person's initial aggressor,
Speaker 1: then there's only one more factor really to consider what
Speaker 1: kind of force did they use? Now there's two types
Speaker 1: of force. One is common, it's usual, it's not like
Speaker 1: intended to kill or maim or that's usually like fists,
Speaker 1: unless your boxer, maybe you might get the deadly forced.
Speaker 1: But the second thing is deadly force. So deadly force
Speaker 1: any time that you're you're intending to really hurt somebody,
Speaker 1: so you could use a knife or a bat. A
Speaker 1: bat could be used to kill somebody, right, especially like
Speaker 1: a bat put up against somebody's head. So technically, from
Speaker 1: the moment that he put the bat up against my
Speaker 1: head while I was unarmed, I could have acted in
Speaker 1: self defense. And the level of self defense that I
Speaker 1: could use is the same as the level of force
Speaker 1: that I'm threatened with. The point is that you you
Speaker 1: tell me audience, knowing this about self fense. Was this
Speaker 1: self defense or was I guilty of list? Well, tell
Speaker 1: us what happened, because this is the crux of the
Speaker 1: story right here, and it's I mean, it's a traumatic experience,
Speaker 1: even if nothing had come from it other than the
Speaker 1: altercation itself. Yeah, so he puts the bat up against
Speaker 1: my head. I'm scared. I'll be honest, I had never
Speaker 1: been that scared, and the kid was clearly a little
Speaker 1: bit off. I realized at that point he sort of
Speaker 1: stumbling around, and realistically he probably would have killed me
Speaker 1: if you hadn't been so screwed up. But he goes
Speaker 1: from the bat up against my head to try and
Speaker 1: push it away. You know, I wanted to try and talk.
Speaker 1: He was not having that. Basically looked at me. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that he had been diagnosed with a mental disorder.
Speaker 1: I don't know he was scary looking what he looked
Speaker 1: at me like that before. So he takes the bat
Speaker 1: after that and just hits me in the stomach. I'm
Speaker 1: not stair out of me. I mean, as as much
Speaker 1: as my case sucked, it could have been worse. I
Speaker 1: could have been dead, and I might have been dead
Speaker 1: if I hadn't had my friends there, if they hadn't
Speaker 1: decided to come along because they had heard about the
Speaker 1: bad thing. I guess they took it more seriously the night.
Speaker 1: But after he hits me, he turned around and was
Speaker 1: laughing to his friends or whatever, and one of my
Speaker 1: buddies ran over and punched him in the head, knocked
Speaker 1: him down. He starts trying to get up, so I
Speaker 1: run over punched him, grabbed the bat from him. After
Speaker 1: he hits me, he like swings it at me, like
Speaker 1: loosely on the ground. But that one did not hurt,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that much. But it did piss me off.
Speaker 1: I go down and wrestle with him for the bat again.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty strong now, I was not strong then. He
Speaker 1: was double my size, and if he hadn't been I
Speaker 1: on drugs, I don't think I would have won in
Speaker 1: that time. He was, and so I wrestled the bat
Speaker 1: away from him. He rolled over. I hit him in
Speaker 1: the legs twice and then hit him in the back once.
Speaker 1: One thing I learned that night was that I had
Speaker 1: never hit somebody with the bat before, and I don't
Speaker 1: have it in me to hit somebody with a bat
Speaker 1: full four. So I didn't hurt him. Maybe if I
Speaker 1: had heard him more, things would have gone differently, but
Speaker 1: I didn't hurt him that badly. And what's interesting is
Speaker 1: one of the stories that evolved afterwards was that I
Speaker 1: hit him in the head with a bat and heard
Speaker 1: him really bad. I never did the head of the
Speaker 1: bat at all. And it's ironic because what actually did
Speaker 1: happen is he did put his hands over his head
Speaker 1: and I remember I like like he held down, and
Speaker 1: it was like, I'm not gonna hit you in the head,
Speaker 1: you hidiot. And then I was right before I hit
Speaker 1: him in the legs. Long story short, after, I hit
Speaker 1: him with the bat a couple of times, which, again
Speaker 1: I know it sounds pretty bad hitting somebody with a bat,
Speaker 1: not assault, not under the circumstances when that bat was
Speaker 1: wheeled against you. And trust me, he was fine. He
Speaker 1: got back up, he was spry at that point. Gets
Speaker 1: backed up, and now he went to go pick up
Speaker 1: the bat, and he started trying to get in a
Speaker 1: second fight with me, and I was just like, nah,
Speaker 1: put the bat down, though, like why do you get
Speaker 1: on in the bat again? Basically we're all sprawled out
Speaker 1: on on the lawn at that point. Long story, short
Speaker 1: after he got back up and threatened me. I just
Speaker 1: kept on turned down the fight. The girl comes out.
Speaker 1: At that point things get panamoniing. But that was the
Speaker 1: end of my involvement. But what did end up happening
Speaker 1: is he did end up getting into something with a
Speaker 1: couple other kids. So three other kids show up a
Speaker 1: little while after after we had that first scuffle. They
Speaker 1: came from the party that I was at. I didn't
Speaker 1: call them. I didn't I didn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with them showing up there, except that everybody at the
Speaker 1: party I've been at, like heard it on speaker phone.
Speaker 1: But he gets into a fight with them. And in
Speaker 1: the second fight, again he basically starts at chess bumps
Speaker 1: one of the kids. He gets punched in the face
Speaker 1: again drops and this time he got kicked while I
Speaker 1: was on the ground. But I wasn't involved in any
Speaker 1: of that. And shortly after that, I mean, he did
Speaker 1: get up and we just left went back to Norwalk
Speaker 1: and that was that. I remember thinking that and I, okay,
Speaker 1: I was my first fight. You know, I've heard about
Speaker 1: other people get any fight. That's my first fight. I
Speaker 1: thought I was gonna be a crazy night that you know,
Speaker 1: talked about for a week and whatever, but it ended
Speaker 1: up being at the start of like the most defining
Speaker 1: thing to happen in my life. This episode is underwritten
Speaker 1: by global law firm Greenberg Traaric. Through its pro Boto program,
Speaker 1: Greenberg Traaric leverages it's more than lawyers across forty two
Speaker 1: offices to serve the greater good of our communities and
Speaker 1: provide equal access to justice for all. In the field
Speaker 1: of criminal justice, greenbrig Trowary attorneys have been soonrated and
Speaker 1: Freedom and in Philadelphia represent numerous individuals previously sentenced to
Speaker 1: life for crimes committed as juveniles and resentencing hearings, and
Speaker 1: received the American part Associations Exceptional Service Award for Death
Speaker 1: Penalty Representation for their work on five death penalty cases.
Speaker 1: GT is reimagining what big law can be because a
Speaker 1: more just world only happens by design. Do you think
Speaker 1: that your kid all he has to do is going
Speaker 1: and tell the truth, Well, let me tell you this
Speaker 1: is facts. Anything you say can and will it will
Speaker 1: be used against you. It will not be used in
Speaker 1: your favor, So don't believe that it's a good idea
Speaker 1: to just bring your kids and your kids that honest kid,
Speaker 1: and you can just have the say what happened, and
Speaker 1: that's going to be helpful for WoT going into this,
Speaker 1: I thought that the system worked a certain way. Our
Speaker 1: parents did too. We thought assault for self defense, so
Speaker 1: we thought that mattered. But guess what, all that stuff
Speaker 1: went out the window, regular facts evidence that was not
Speaker 1: part of the case. Basically, they decided from beginning whore
Speaker 1: they were going to go after and what the facts
Speaker 1: were gonna be that that I was guilty of assault,
Speaker 1: and the first degree mainly happened a little bit later,
Speaker 1: and they had a trouble with it because to have
Speaker 1: a first degree charge you need to actually show evidence
Speaker 1: of injury, and they were not willing to turn over
Speaker 1: the medical work because I think the way that the
Speaker 1: case actually first got to the police was Nick may
Speaker 1: have been hurt, but he also was clearly on drugs
Speaker 1: that night, pretty heavy drugs. When he got there. They
Speaker 1: needed to give him his anti psychotics, basically called him down.
Speaker 1: So you've got a group of rich kids high on
Speaker 1: drugs and something's wrong with their friend Nick, who's also
Speaker 1: on various drugs and got into a fight. They called
Speaker 1: Westport p D at one a m And requested an ambulance. Now,
Speaker 1: Nick was allegedly in a semi conscious state, and so
Speaker 1: one of the main goals of this group of drugs
Speaker 1: out rich kids at this point had to be to
Speaker 1: hide the fact that they were in fact all high
Speaker 1: on drugs, which certainly affected their interactions with the police. Now,
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what happened after you left the
Speaker 1: scene that idea, but what we do know is that
Speaker 1: Schwartz was well enough to try to continue to fight you,
Speaker 1: followed by the crowd that had gathered. But as you
Speaker 1: just mentioned, the first degree assault charge against you was,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's flimsy as it could be, not even
Speaker 1: counting that self defense aspect of this. But because they
Speaker 1: never turned over the medical records and still have it right,
Speaker 1: so it really calls it to question the validity of
Speaker 1: any claims of injury. I mean, you know, I've read
Speaker 1: about these alleged injuries in the news clippings because the
Speaker 1: prosecutors said it. But let me I'm sorry to separate
Speaker 1: what's true. He was alleged to have been in the
Speaker 1: I c U. For a week, followed by physical and
Speaker 1: cognitive rehabilitation. What we do know is that you did
Speaker 1: not could not have caused that level of injury to Schwartz,
Speaker 1: even though in self defense in theory, you were legally
Speaker 1: allowed to have done so with no legal issues. So
Speaker 1: this is a double whammy. This is like what But
Speaker 1: now back to the people who had something behinde we're
Speaker 1: talking again about the drug doubt rich kids. What happens
Speaker 1: between them and the police. The way that the detective
Speaker 1: work happened is its first talked to him and his friends.
Speaker 1: Friends lied really badly. They said that we were a
Speaker 1: bunch of Mexicans they met a library, told us like
Speaker 1: ludicrous story. So detective had them come back in and
Speaker 1: actually she had to make them change their story to
Speaker 1: another lie not as consistent as their first one, and
Speaker 1: the next one was all like a little bit scattered.
Speaker 1: The point is that she tried to fit the pieces
Speaker 1: in together after my interview. In fact, the detective did
Speaker 1: some of the most like leading interviews that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: You know, I went to law school. I've seen a
Speaker 1: bunch of cases and it's up there, and some of
Speaker 1: the interviews, including my own, were quote lost after they
Speaker 1: were recorded, because unfortunately my my interview wasn't that great
Speaker 1: for the prosecution. It sounded pretty credible. I didn't buckle
Speaker 1: under any of the questioning, uh stole the truth. And
Speaker 1: after the investigation we went to go hire my attorney
Speaker 1: and this was the best piece of advice he gave
Speaker 1: us from the beginning was this, We go in there,
Speaker 1: we getta ready to tell him my story, the facts, evidence,
Speaker 1: but he astutely surmised that none that mattered. The only
Speaker 1: thing that mattered was the prosecutor. Who do you know?
Speaker 1: That was the first thing that my parents and I
Speaker 1: were asked by my attorney, who do you know? Because
Speaker 1: that's how this guy operates, By this guy who was
Speaker 1: talking about the prosecutor and my kids, that's exactly the
Speaker 1: way this shouldn't work. And that's why anyone who cares
Speaker 1: about fairness and equity should care about fixing our system,
Speaker 1: because this is unfortunately not unique. As you said theater,
Speaker 1: this case is, you know, unique in certain ways, but
Speaker 1: it's so typical and so many others, including that particular aspect.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, like a lot of other people, you were
Speaker 1: faced with the Sophie's choice, right you didn't know anybody.
Speaker 1: The fact is your family didn't have any particular contacts
Speaker 1: high up in the hierarchy in the town, and so
Speaker 1: you were now really especially because of the fact that
Speaker 1: they were willing to operate outside of the law right
Speaker 1: and break and bend the rules, you know, in service
Speaker 1: of I don't know who what I guess the family
Speaker 1: that was on the other side of this equation. So
Speaker 1: theater that I got to turn the question around, So
Speaker 1: who did they know? The difference was my parents were teachers,
Speaker 1: They didn't know anyone. The closest we got was I
Speaker 1: had shadowed for the mayor of Norwald once not good enough.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the kid who I was accused
Speaker 1: of assaulting his parents were both attorneys. They won that battle,
Speaker 1: and the rest of the case just led from there.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor in my case was a who do you
Speaker 1: know type of prosecutor, which there's a number of them
Speaker 1: out there, and he was very ambitious. So the moment
Speaker 1: that he figured out who knew somebody more important, who
Speaker 1: knew somebody that could actually advance his career or get
Speaker 1: him ahead, or help him in some way, that's when
Speaker 1: when the case to this side. It wasn't personal. He
Speaker 1: didn't he didn't intentionally do something to hurt me. He
Speaker 1: doesn't care about that. He didn't want to get people
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted. He will wrongfully convict you if it helps him.
Speaker 1: He will also do justice if it helps him. That's
Speaker 1: how this guy operated. Three of my friends, we're just
Speaker 1: stepping stones on this man's journey to the top. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he actually made it there a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Finally came crashing down because the typical things that he did,
Speaker 1: the thing that I learned about him twelve years ago,
Speaker 1: he finally got caught doing it. But this time he
Speaker 1: got caught doing it by the FBI, and the governor
Speaker 1: got pretty upset and they wanted him out, so he
Speaker 1: actually resigned in disgrace. He had made it all the
Speaker 1: way up to the Chief State's Attorney's office, along the
Speaker 1: backs of who knows how many other people. He did
Speaker 1: this too. But I'll just tell you this that we
Speaker 1: were on the wrong end of that who do you
Speaker 1: know question back there, and that's where this thing goes
Speaker 1: so hardly wrong. Although it is nice to see that
Speaker 1: it's come full circle and that you know, at least
Speaker 1: justice delayed seems like it won't be justice denied here,
Speaker 1: although you're still dealing with this. So let's get to
Speaker 1: this sophie's choice that I'm talking about, right, So here
Speaker 1: you are, they're not disclosing the exculpatory evidence to you.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of the stuff going on behind the
Speaker 1: scenes that you had no way of counteracting or fighting
Speaker 1: back against, first of all, because you didn't know about
Speaker 1: it a lot of it, and the rest of it
Speaker 1: was you didn't know anybody you know who could pull
Speaker 1: the strings for you, so you were just the thing
Speaker 1: to be sort of processed for the advantage of other
Speaker 1: people who didn't have good intentions, and as a result,
Speaker 1: you end up with this sophie's choice. So tell us
Speaker 1: about that, because they you know, you're looking at a
Speaker 1: ten year sentence on this first degree assault charge, and
Speaker 1: then they come and they offer you a plea deal, right,
Speaker 1: And I can't imagine having to decide, am I going
Speaker 1: to take a plea for something I didn't do, which is,
Speaker 1: I would say, in your case, in too many cases,
Speaker 1: the logical and rational choice, or am I going to
Speaker 1: fight this and risk a ten year sentence, which would
Speaker 1: be at that point, you know a large percentage of
Speaker 1: the time you've even been on the planet. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I think that's another one of the key facts in
Speaker 1: my sort of I haven't seen many stories about Ralphais work.
Speaker 1: It was a plea deal, but I'll tell you this much.
Speaker 1: It's probably the number one way why. Because of cases
Speaker 1: are determined by a plea deal. People think that prosecutors
Speaker 1: if they come to you with like, oh, the prosecutors conviction, right,
Speaker 1: he's really good. No, he isn't. All he is is
Speaker 1: a good like car salesman who has everything in his hand. Essentially.
Speaker 1: I knew that I was innocent, but I also knew math,
Speaker 1: and so did the prosecutor, and he did good math.
Speaker 1: I was sure that if I went to trial, I
Speaker 1: would win out. I was a pent sure I wouldn't
Speaker 1: get it an assault one charge. I wasn't so sure
Speaker 1: about the assault three charge. But that was only because
Speaker 1: they had been switching up the facts so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: in retrospect, it's so clear, it's so clear, cases so easy.
Speaker 1: But you know, my parents and I, we were new
Speaker 1: to the system. We had never seen it before. So
Speaker 1: long story short, they dragged this case out. All this
Speaker 1: stuff keeps going on I had gotten into college. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, it was it was is terrifying, and I
Speaker 1: remember on Eventually, after a number of continuances, I went
Speaker 1: in one day. I didn't know I was going to
Speaker 1: go to prison that day, but I go in and
Speaker 1: finally the prosecutor comes back with the ultimate deal. It's
Speaker 1: a take it or leave it. They haggled. Originally it
Speaker 1: was going to be a year, and then he was like,
Speaker 1: make the quote victims, you need to make them happy.
Speaker 1: If you make them happy, maybe i'll give you a
Speaker 1: better deal. And my parents against mine. And this is
Speaker 1: an interesting part of the case too, is you think,
Speaker 1: because I know what people think, that people get once
Speaker 1: flee convicted only if they're broke. We weren't broke. My
Speaker 1: parents were middle class and if you have money, you
Speaker 1: won't get wrong full convicted. Yeah, we had money. They
Speaker 1: gave it all to these people for a deal, for
Speaker 1: a deal that one wasn't honored. So I was supposed
Speaker 1: to get a better deal because my parents gave money,
Speaker 1: but we didn't get a better deal. Didn't affect the
Speaker 1: case at all, um. But long story short, money was
Speaker 1: part of the deal and accepted nine months because I
Speaker 1: knew that the math said, that's the deal to take.
Speaker 1: It was the hardest decisions that I've ever made, but
Speaker 1: it was the right decision based on the facts. Back then,
Speaker 1: all of my code defendants, we all took the same
Speaker 1: deal based on the facts we had. Now the facts
Speaker 1: we had, we're not the full facts. That was the issue.
Speaker 1: But at that time, yeah, I took nine months, over
Speaker 1: over ten years. And trust me, I know everyone thinks
Speaker 1: they wouldn't do it. Yes you would, Yes you would,
Speaker 1: and you would hate it, and you would cry as
Speaker 1: your kid goes in and he will be hurt. He
Speaker 1: might not make it out. I'm well aware that I
Speaker 1: was lucky, and I've been lucky since then. All four
Speaker 1: of you were convicted, All four of you were miners.
Speaker 1: All of you served your full sentence as a prison
Speaker 1: and parole. Caesar Cordero, Um, your friend who I've gotten
Speaker 1: to know, was deported to El Salvador as a result
Speaker 1: of the conviction, which was a country he had no
Speaker 1: knowledge of. He was a baby when he was brought
Speaker 1: here from there, so even more dire consequences for him.
Speaker 1: So prison was it, As it turns out, the transformative
Speaker 1: experience for you in some ways that are positive. Not
Speaker 1: because of prison, not because you belong there, because you didn't,
Speaker 1: but it informs your life's work. So tell us about
Speaker 1: prison and how it affected you and made you want
Speaker 1: to become this sort of justice warrior that you've become. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the prison was a turning point, especially after sentencing. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought I was at the lowest point ever. I
Speaker 1: went into sentencing. I thought I was going to talk
Speaker 1: about everything that had happened that was so wrong. But
Speaker 1: instead I didn't, which was the hardest thing I had
Speaker 1: ever done. But I knew that I'd get hit with
Speaker 1: the harder sentence. Remember I didn't cry much while I
Speaker 1: was side, but I think twice because the first letter
Speaker 1: from my parents. But I cried after sensence, singing alone
Speaker 1: in a cell, and I thought my life was over.
Speaker 1: Judge said that my life was over. He was wrong.
Speaker 1: My life now that I'm living, uh, which the better
Speaker 1: life than I ever had. It started while I was inside.
Speaker 1: For me, it was one of the wake up call
Speaker 1: was that this is how the system works, this is
Speaker 1: what it is. What I saw was a bunch of
Speaker 1: people that didn't deserve to be in there, a prison
Speaker 1: system in a course, system that was nothing like what
Speaker 1: the general public or people like the average person, people
Speaker 1: like you and me, thought it was. And I knew
Speaker 1: that even the people that were running it, the lawyers,
Speaker 1: the judges. One of the big epiphanies I had was like,
Speaker 1: do they even know what it's like in here? And
Speaker 1: I knew that they didn't. So I knew that one
Speaker 1: of the big problems was that the people that are
Speaker 1: running the system, they're changing laws that are actually executing
Speaker 1: them that even they they don't really know. So how
Speaker 1: God's name would have system that doesn't include people that
Speaker 1: have been through it. If they're not included in the
Speaker 1: process of making the system better, how will it ever
Speaker 1: be solved. So prison was not a very long sentence
Speaker 1: for me, but it was a massive period of change.
Speaker 1: I committed to doing something about it. You get out
Speaker 1: of prison in October two thousand and nine, and you
Speaker 1: said in your law admissions letter quote, I doubt I
Speaker 1: will ever experience the same level of euphoria as I
Speaker 1: did on that day. And of course you went to
Speaker 1: law school and excelled. But I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the evidence of your rawful conviction that emerged too late
Speaker 1: to help you but which we now know. What were
Speaker 1: the key pieces of evidence that you were able to
Speaker 1: uncover that had you known about would have been well,
Speaker 1: what never wouldn't You never would have made the decision
Speaker 1: to take a pleaan and you would have gone to
Speaker 1: try and you would have won. I think that's almost
Speaker 1: a given, So talk about that. So I took a
Speaker 1: plea deal with because I had less than half the evidence.
Speaker 1: So my case originally was in two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: O nine conviction. The new evidence didn't come about until
Speaker 1: so after law school, I had to take the bar
Speaker 1: and I went back to Connecticut to take it, and
Speaker 1: you know, you take the exam and then there's this
Speaker 1: thing called the character and fitness process. So in the
Speaker 1: process of that, they asked me to go get all
Speaker 1: the evidence in my case. So the police report is
Speaker 1: one of the key pieces of evidence in any case.
Speaker 1: It's usually just very good for the prosecutor because it's
Speaker 1: written by the police detective, especially if the detective happens
Speaker 1: to a bad investigation. But in my case, that police report,
Speaker 1: I was missing more than half of it. Back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, two thousand nine, when I was
Speaker 1: trying to make my decision I had a twenty one
Speaker 1: page document. Many years later, many years after the case,
Speaker 1: I go back to get the police report from the
Speaker 1: Westport Police Department, and this time what I got was
Speaker 1: the document that was forty four pag this document that
Speaker 1: we had never seen before. In those twenty three pages,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of evidence. I know why we
Speaker 1: never got it before because it was all bad for
Speaker 1: the state's case. We got evidence of the not the
Speaker 1: full medical reports, still don't have them, doing a Freedom
Speaker 1: of Information Act right now to get it. But we
Speaker 1: got evidence that showed that one the kid was on
Speaker 1: a number of drugs, drugs that actually, especially for somebody
Speaker 1: with his mental disorder, can lead to quote violence. Additionally,
Speaker 1: a diagnosis of the conduct disorder, which is only given
Speaker 1: to young people very rarely, and it's only in the
Speaker 1: case when they exhibited violent tendencies. That coupled with some
Speaker 1: of the witness statements that either contradict completely the state's
Speaker 1: case or cast doubt on the credibility of their key witnesses.
Speaker 1: All of that evidence we never had before. One other
Speaker 1: key piece of evidence is actually interesting, so that at
Speaker 1: my sentence thing, there was a big show put on.
Speaker 1: They made a big deal, and as they should in
Speaker 1: an assault one case. An assault one case, you need
Speaker 1: to have an injury, so did in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: two thousand nine. But we were were led to believe
Speaker 1: the prosecutor said during my sentence saying, was that this kid, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he had been really hurt. He had a
Speaker 1: fractured skull, he was in the hospital, he had permanent injuries,
Speaker 1: he had cognitive and and speech problems, trouble walking. The
Speaker 1: problem was that wasn't true, and a pretty strong evidence
Speaker 1: that that he was actually totally okay. In fact, I
Speaker 1: didn't see this until many years later, but social media
Speaker 1: did exist in two thousand nine, and he was on it,
Speaker 1: and he has a post that I found that was
Speaker 1: from that exact time when he's allegedly in a hospital
Speaker 1: bed fighting for his life and and and never recovering.
Speaker 1: The photo was of him and his family in Africa
Speaker 1: on a mountain top and the line was summer of
Speaker 1: over nine, best time of my life. So it's unclear
Speaker 1: to me yet whether or not he was lying to
Speaker 1: the prosecutor fully, but it's pretty clear that the prosecutor
Speaker 1: was lying, or that what he said was lying. The
Speaker 1: kid was fine. And we took the plea deal based
Speaker 1: on the evidence BACTA, which included an alleged terrible injury
Speaker 1: and as time of your life is not recovering from
Speaker 1: a terrible injury Africa sounds nice. After uncovering that, I remember,
Speaker 1: I brought it to my co defendants right away and
Speaker 1: just was like, hey, guys, have you had you ever
Speaker 1: seen this? None of us had, and all of us
Speaker 1: to tea. Yeah, of course I never would have taken
Speaker 1: the plea deal had I seen this? Why would I? No?
Speaker 1: During the world's going to convict us with this. So
Speaker 1: in addition, you know, after that, I started doing like
Speaker 1: a little investigation myself and started interviewing witnesses again, and
Speaker 1: some people lied back that wasn't personal. People were just
Speaker 1: looking out for themselves or you know, in the case
Speaker 1: of the kid who assaulted made his friends, they literally said,
Speaker 1: why they lie, We're afraid of him getting in trouble.
Speaker 1: That's what they told the police detective after she made
Speaker 1: them redo their statement. But since then they've recanted that.
Speaker 1: In addition to the police report, which we always should
Speaker 1: have had, is basically the basis of wrong for conviction.
Speaker 1: And on top of all that, The most recent thing
Speaker 1: is what happened with the prosecutor now his corruption charge,
Speaker 1: which really his credibility is shot, and the argument in
Speaker 1: terms of what he did to us and what he
Speaker 1: did intentionally, it's not that hard to make now that
Speaker 1: he's shown to be somebody who's still doing this stuff.
Speaker 1: And of course the guy you're referring to is Richard Colangelo,
Speaker 1: who was the prosecutor in your case and who later
Speaker 1: served as Chief State's Attorney until March. So get this,
Speaker 1: while the FBI was investigating the state's second highest budget official,
Speaker 1: disubpoenaed all of his communication, and on the back of that,
Speaker 1: an independent investigation began into his relationship with Colangelo, who
Speaker 1: had hired this budget officials daughter. Yeah, okay, while lobbying
Speaker 1: to secure raises for himself and others. Again, it's just
Speaker 1: a pattern of who can benefit me, right, But in
Speaker 1: this case he was actually caught and forced to resign.
Speaker 1: So at the end of the day, your case is
Speaker 1: a laundry list of misconduct and misdeeds by people and
Speaker 1: official capacities who knew better and just didn't care. There
Speaker 1: are so many stories like this, and there's a whole
Speaker 1: hashtag hashtag guilty plea problem for people to look up
Speaker 1: hashtag guilty plea problem, and many of them have much
Speaker 1: longer sentences, even for much more serious crimes. But people
Speaker 1: take the plea because, you know, when they're represented by
Speaker 1: an attorney maybe they haven't even met, who might not
Speaker 1: even know their name, who's juggling a hundred or two
Speaker 1: hundred cases, having trouble paying their bills, maybe having their
Speaker 1: own personal problems. We see a time and again and
Speaker 1: you're sitting there and you know the government has endless resources,
Speaker 1: you know, to take you to trial and to basically
Speaker 1: make you look like you did the crime that you
Speaker 1: know you didn't do. The rational choice in too many
Speaker 1: of these cases is to take the plea, and there
Speaker 1: goes the guilty plea problem of which you are assembled. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you've transcended this horrible experience. You've come out come out
Speaker 1: swinging is a bad way to say it, based on
Speaker 1: the initial incident, But the fact is you are on
Speaker 1: the way to changing things, and I think a way
Speaker 1: that's so profound that you know it's going to put
Speaker 1: you in a rarefied air among the people that I
Speaker 1: really look up to in the world of criminal justice reform.
Speaker 1: You're you're well on your way. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: the work you're doing now. I mean, you're the founder
Speaker 1: of the National Justice Impact Bar Association, which is of
Speaker 1: course a bar association for formerly incarcerated lawyers, an idea
Speaker 1: whose time has certainly come, you know, surprising, I think
Speaker 1: to a lot of people, a surprising number formerly carcerated
Speaker 1: people who have you know, gone on to become lawyers
Speaker 1: and excel of course Marty tank Lip and so many others.
Speaker 1: You know, it's amazing, And there's a whole another category
Speaker 1: of people who just did brilliant legal work on their own,
Speaker 1: behalf on, behalf of others behind parts like I can't
Speaker 1: I can't not mention Sean Hopwood, right, who's one u
Speaker 1: S Supreme Court cases and taught himself the law in prison,
Speaker 1: and just you know, there's so much potential for these
Speaker 1: people to make a difference with their lived experiences, as
Speaker 1: you have so quickly tell us about the National Justice
Speaker 1: Impact Bar Association, and I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: other project that we're working on together, So just the
Speaker 1: back Bars, the first legal bar association for impacted people. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it's it's just following my path trying to like expand
Speaker 1: the deader plan to the masses. You know, inside, I
Speaker 1: decided that I needed to go to law school because
Speaker 1: I saw that the laws where the power was. During
Speaker 1: my journey, I realized that there were a lot of barriers,
Speaker 1: a lot of barriers that were specifically there because of
Speaker 1: my experience, which was crazy to be because you know,
Speaker 1: I played the game to go to law school. I
Speaker 1: got four point up. I got a one seventy five
Speaker 1: nive PERCENTIL on d L side. And when I applied
Speaker 1: to law school, I should have gotten in anotherywhere and
Speaker 1: now I would have luckily partially because if we've expanded
Speaker 1: things for people. But back then I was denied from
Speaker 1: a number of schools. Ended up going to Bannerboats. Very
Speaker 1: happy about that. It was it was great. But that
Speaker 1: barrier at the law school level, and the barrier that
Speaker 1: also exists afterwards, which the character and fitness process for
Speaker 1: licensing that barrier is inspired initially for me to set
Speaker 1: up this bar association because I've talked to other people
Speaker 1: Marty tank Cliffe, Taras Simmons, Sean Hopwood, Dwayne Betts, all
Speaker 1: these lawyers. When I was going to law school, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that it was possible. I was told it
Speaker 1: was impossible, and I didn't know that there were other
Speaker 1: people like but there are. That was one of the
Speaker 1: key things that Like, I get out of law school
Speaker 1: and i find out about all these other lawyers and
Speaker 1: I'm like, holy, and they they're they're superheroes. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're there, We're there, we're changing the system. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm blessed to be around in this time period. And
Speaker 1: and that's what the bar works for, is to advance
Speaker 1: us to get more people like Sean Hopplood. There are
Speaker 1: more Sean Hopploods out there. I just talked to another
Speaker 1: guy who's formerly car Swrated, been working with him for
Speaker 1: like two years now. He just got into Yale Law School,
Speaker 1: that's the best law school in the country, formerly in
Speaker 1: car Swart. Awesome, he's gonna he's gonna be a beast.
Speaker 1: It's awesome. It's an exonerie. I'll tell you this. I
Speaker 1: won't name him yet, but I know who the first
Speaker 1: justice in fact of the Supreme Court justice is gonna be.
Speaker 1: You can circle back with me in a couple of years,
Speaker 1: but you'll say, so, these people are the people that
Speaker 1: are going to change the system, and of course to
Speaker 1: Justice Impact Alliance. As you know, the very first time
Speaker 1: you told me about this, it just hit me like
Speaker 1: a ton of bricks and it's something that I think
Speaker 1: has the potential to help countless future deter tehatas and
Speaker 1: others who are in situations that they have seemingly no
Speaker 1: way out of. So what is the Justice Impact Alliance
Speaker 1: and what do you view as its potential and the
Speaker 1: impact it's going to make. So that's the second thing.
Speaker 1: It's all about access, empowerment and inclusion, and so the
Speaker 1: bar as it works to get impacted people involved in
Speaker 1: and through the field of law. The Justice Back Network
Speaker 1: is a new digital platform that came about again because
Speaker 1: of my experience. In my case, part of the reason
Speaker 1: I was wrongly convicted was my parents and I we
Speaker 1: weren't wlayers, We did not know, we weren't stupid, but
Speaker 1: we didn't know where to go to get the help
Speaker 1: or to get the self help resources that we could
Speaker 1: have used, or to connect with people that could have
Speaker 1: helped us in the situation. And that's a problem that's
Speaker 1: all too common. There are a number of resources out there,
Speaker 1: There are a lot of service providers out there, but
Speaker 1: up until this point, it's completely unnavigable, and that's what
Speaker 1: the Respect Network works to fix. Essentially, it's like any
Speaker 1: other digital platform that has revolutionized other industries. Uber has
Speaker 1: revolutionized how you get arived. Just back Network is going
Speaker 1: to revolutionize how people get justice. And it's not gonna
Speaker 1: do it any in any complicated way. It's literally very simple.
Speaker 1: If we connect people with service providers that's fit their
Speaker 1: specific need, we connect people with resources that fit their
Speaker 1: specific need. We have very cool program that brings in
Speaker 1: students and other allies and just connects the space to
Speaker 1: make this happen. But the key thing is, and it's
Speaker 1: the key thing with everything that I've done so far,
Speaker 1: is that we do it through the people. Just in
Speaker 1: back to people are included from the beginning. We're working
Speaker 1: with developers that have done other justice tech projects, but
Speaker 1: we're the first digital platform where we from the beginning,
Speaker 1: it's been over a year of development. From the beginning,
Speaker 1: we were working with Impact of People, doing user testing
Speaker 1: with Impact of People, and where we have our pilot
Speaker 1: right now in New York and Connecticut, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: be expanding nationally over time and that's really exciting. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, it's just such an amazing idea
Speaker 1: because of the fact that it's it's simplifying what is
Speaker 1: a byzantine and intimidating process for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: This information is not readily available for people who need
Speaker 1: it in their time of great crisis and to their
Speaker 1: family members. So please go to the link in our
Speaker 1: bio right now click on the Justice Impact Alliance dot
Speaker 1: org to find out more about this incredible work and
Speaker 1: and maybe to help somebody that that you know that
Speaker 1: needs to help. And Deeter, you know, amazing work, amazing story.
Speaker 1: Thank you again for being here on wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: sharing it. I've been looking forward to this for a while.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you for everything you do. Man, one
Speaker 1: of the one of the real ones out there. I'll
Speaker 1: just throw in that so um in my case, there's
Speaker 1: one other thing you could do. My co defendant, Caesar Cordero,
Speaker 1: he added the worst out of all of us. He
Speaker 1: was legally here, but because of the wrong fo conviction,
Speaker 1: he lost his status. He ended up getting deported, He
Speaker 1: got sent back to El Salvador. He left there as
Speaker 1: a baby, got sent back there only because of the
Speaker 1: wrong food conviction. Ultimately, my goal is to working to
Speaker 1: get him be able to come back over here. That's
Speaker 1: gonna be a long fight. But right below the justin
Speaker 1: back lines one is going to be the link to
Speaker 1: his go fund me because he needs support. We will
Speaker 1: link to go fund me for Caesar as well in
Speaker 1: the buyout um and hopefully people will join me and
Speaker 1: us in helping him. And now, of course we turned
Speaker 1: to the closing of our show, which is aptly titled
Speaker 1: Closing Arguments. This is the part where I kicked back
Speaker 1: in my chair with my headphones on, turned my microphone
Speaker 1: off and just leave yours on for any last words
Speaker 1: you want to share with our audience to the general public,
Speaker 1: to take anything from my story, to take this that
Speaker 1: would happened to me, It definitely can happen to you.
Speaker 1: It can happen to you if you have a your
Speaker 1: honor roll kid, your kid that you love a lot
Speaker 1: that you can't have ever imagine going to prison. You
Speaker 1: think that like you have the money, or that you
Speaker 1: have like some type of security you don't. You don't.
Speaker 1: Necessarily things can spile very quickly and depending on the
Speaker 1: character is involved, justice might not be done. They could
Speaker 1: go to prison. Another message I have is is this.
Speaker 1: It is to all the impact of people both in
Speaker 1: and out of prison. Anybody that's listening to this is
Speaker 1: uh one. If you want to be alerted, do it,
Speaker 1: talk to me, reach out, check out the link. That's
Speaker 1: what we're working to do. We're trying to work to
Speaker 1: get you in there. I didn't know that I could
Speaker 1: do it, but I did. I'm telling you right now
Speaker 1: you definitely can. So don't think about it, do it
Speaker 1: and hang in there. The one thing I found is
Speaker 1: that eventually, eventually you win eventually as long as you
Speaker 1: stay in to stay in the fight. And to everybody else,
Speaker 1: if you want to make a better system, I've seen
Speaker 1: it because I work with hundreds of students and hundreds
Speaker 1: of students. The future is bright. The future is super bright.
Speaker 1: And that's because there's a lot of people coming up
Speaker 1: that want to do the right thing. And here's the point.
Speaker 1: You can you can't get involved, work with us, work
Speaker 1: with impacted people. Right now, we're in the middle of movement,
Speaker 1: a movement for justice. The point is that there's impacted
Speaker 1: people and their students are the two main groups that
Speaker 1: have been involved. But quite frankly, Also, if you're a
Speaker 1: lawyer or somebody else that's working in the system, wake
Speaker 1: back up, Wake back up to the fact that, like
Speaker 1: you don't have to give up on things and be
Speaker 1: totally burnt out. Things are changing right now, and we
Speaker 1: look forward to anybody that wants to be part of
Speaker 1: this change and make it happen, and quite frankly, to
Speaker 1: anybody that doesn't want this change too bad, whether you
Speaker 1: like it or not. Luckily, I've gone to the point
Speaker 1: where some of the things that I've built, I don't
Speaker 1: build things that are like deeeder or dependent. The more
Speaker 1: association is not deeper dependent, justified bliance is in deeder dependent.
Speaker 1: These are These are machines that are gonna be working
Speaker 1: for and through my people, regardless of performing here, and
Speaker 1: they're gonna work to fix the system. They are systems
Speaker 1: that attached to the system to make the system better.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Claver, and Kevin Wardis,
Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph
Speaker 1: be Sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: tick talk and Instagram at its. Jason flam Rawle forul
Speaker 1: Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts and
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one h