Speaker 1: America has two point two million people in prison. If
Speaker 1: just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.
Speaker 2: If the system want to take you out of society,
Speaker 2: they will do it no matter what laws they have
Speaker 2: to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but
Speaker 2: they're breaking the lord.
Speaker 1: Having to hear those people say that I was guilty
Speaker 1: of a crime that I did not commit, and then
Speaker 1: hear my family break down behind me and not be
Speaker 1: able to do anything about it. I can't describe the
Speaker 1: crushing weight that was.
Speaker 3: I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.
Speaker 2: A lot of times we look and we see something
Speaker 2: happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said.
Speaker 2: That could never happen to me, but.
Speaker 4: They can. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm. Today's guest
Speaker 5: is the one and only Rodney Roberts.
Speaker 6: Rodney Roberts was held for seventeen years for the crime
Speaker 6: of raping a seventeen year old girl he had never met.
Speaker 6: Rodney was advised by his public.
Speaker 4: Defender to plead guilty.
Speaker 6: He was told that the seventeen year old girl who
Speaker 6: was right outside the courtroom had identified him, and if
Speaker 6: he did not plead guilty, he was going to spend
Speaker 6: the rest of his life in jail.
Speaker 7: Rodney Roberts story a guilty plead, born a fear, a
Speaker 7: maxed out sentence of seven years, and on the day
Speaker 7: of release, not a ride home, but a surprise transfer
Speaker 7: to civil commitment. It's a kind of imprisonment reserve for
Speaker 7: just one type of offender. It has no set sentence,
Speaker 7: no guarantee of release because the state deems them too
Speaker 7: dangerous to release, and the state says it's a treatment program,
Speaker 7: but the residents call it prison. He would be held
Speaker 7: there as an encouragible violent sex offender for a full decade,
Speaker 7: although it would later be proven that he had been
Speaker 7: innocent from the start.
Speaker 6: Rodney was finally released after seventeen years because he got
Speaker 6: a lawyer who had DNA evidence.
Speaker 4: Rodney, Welcome to the show. I'm glad you're here, Thank you.
Speaker 4: I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 5: So Rodney, this whole crazy saga of your life started
Speaker 5: when you were seventeen, really right, yes, And up until
Speaker 5: then your life had been what she's full, good, troubled,
Speaker 5: what was your background.
Speaker 3: Actually up in today. My life was very well. I
Speaker 3: had both parents, mother and father, and the household work.
Speaker 3: My mother she was hands on. She has a master's
Speaker 3: degree in education. She believed in education in US learning.
Speaker 3: I have six sisters and four brothers, so we had
Speaker 3: a house.
Speaker 4: That's a whole football team.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I was never alone. I was always
Speaker 3: well supervised. I had no trouble as a juvenile, no
Speaker 3: juvenile cross ration or no trouble in that level.
Speaker 4: I was a very good student. You know.
Speaker 3: We went to private school from first to eighth grade.
Speaker 3: So my life then was very positive, very If I
Speaker 3: was poor, I didn't have no I wasn't even aware
Speaker 3: of it because I was so well cared for by
Speaker 3: my parents and my older brothers and sisters, and my
Speaker 3: aunts and my uncles.
Speaker 4: And the people in the community.
Speaker 3: You know back then at that time, you know, you
Speaker 3: had like five six mothers in the neighborhood. You were
Speaker 3: watched by so many others that you could be disciplined
Speaker 3: by the lady down the street and she'd bring you
Speaker 3: to your mother and you and then get disciplined right
Speaker 3: in front of her and by your mother. So it
Speaker 3: was a different time than us, and the love in
Speaker 3: the community and the household.
Speaker 4: Was very strong, and which neighborhood was this well.
Speaker 3: Originally we grew up in the Project area on Montgomery Street,
Speaker 3: which again was different at that time. And then we
Speaker 3: moved to a one family house up in Wealsburg area
Speaker 3: that's in North New Jersey, right across the street from
Speaker 3: Walsburg Park, so I can run off my front porch right.
Speaker 4: Upto a park up in Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 5: And it sounds really very sort of beautiful in a
Speaker 5: certain way, very community oriented, nice, Like you said, a
Speaker 5: huge family, had a huge extended family. And this is
Speaker 5: why when I tell people, if you don't think this
Speaker 5: can happen to you, this can happen to you, because
Speaker 5: you didn't just paint a likely scenario for someone who's
Speaker 5: going to end up really getting wrongly convicted twice and
Speaker 5: serving over two decades in prison for crimes you didn't commit.
Speaker 5: So let's get into that part of the story. Because
Speaker 5: when you were a kid, you were kind of hanging
Speaker 5: out with older guys, right, and then you kind of
Speaker 5: got blindsided because you weren't really aware of what these
Speaker 5: guys were up to.
Speaker 3: I mean, the blind side particularly came from the fact
Speaker 3: that I grew up in so much of a people
Speaker 3: call out a sheltered household sheltered life, that a lot
Speaker 3: of things go on the streets I really wasn't exposed to,
Speaker 3: so me growing up, I would have to come in
Speaker 3: the house early and things that natures. I thought I
Speaker 3: was missing out on a lot of things. So I
Speaker 3: would find a little ways to sneak out the house,
Speaker 3: not really knowing what I would get myself into. And
Speaker 3: because of that, I wasn't aware of what was out there.
Speaker 3: I was more easy to be manipulated in that environment.
Speaker 3: I'm smart, but I was stupid at the same time.
Speaker 4: Well, I wouldn't say stupid, naive. That's a good word, naive.
Speaker 3: It was a much better world. I like that word
Speaker 3: better than stupid too. So like the older guys in
Speaker 3: the community who so much like see young guys, they
Speaker 3: see potentially in but they seen a potential in a
Speaker 3: different way. They seen a potential in like a more
Speaker 3: negative way. How could I sharpen this guy to help
Speaker 3: me commit my crimes and help me get over And
Speaker 3: I became under that radar, and when they approached me,
Speaker 3: that they approached me like, hey man, we like the
Speaker 3: where you're blend right in.
Speaker 4: We just want you to do this.
Speaker 3: Just look be a scout, be a lookout, just do
Speaker 3: this and do minimum things things that I thought was
Speaker 3: really cool. You know, hey, I'm in now, you know
Speaker 3: I'm part of the streets now, thinking that I was
Speaker 3: going to earn the street creed all the time I
Speaker 3: was being played because of my naiveness, of my naivete,
Speaker 3: I wasn't able to see what was really going on
Speaker 3: with me.
Speaker 5: But when you're a kid with that kind of flattery,
Speaker 5: when an older person shows your respect and treats you
Speaker 5: as they're equal, that can be very intoxicating and can
Speaker 5: lead you down the road that you don't really know
Speaker 5: you're going because you're blinded, right because you're thinking that
Speaker 5: you're in with the cool squad or whatever.
Speaker 3: So what happened, Well, what happened was, first I hid
Speaker 3: this from my family. I wanted to add that part.
Speaker 3: They didn't know what was going on. So I separated
Speaker 3: myself from my protection. And that was a key point
Speaker 3: in that point where this particular day they we were
Speaker 3: out and they were saying, well, what was going on
Speaker 3: out here on the avenue, which just Hakwon's Avenue, and
Speaker 3: it was a busy street, very crime oriented, and I
Speaker 3: came back and said, well, this person's doing this, and
Speaker 3: this person's doing that, and that person is stopping picking
Speaker 3: up this, and so in that course, they took action
Speaker 3: from there and they went into and committed the crimes
Speaker 3: that they committed in detail, which was robbery's, chicknapped, and
Speaker 3: sexual related offenses. And me, because I played my role,
Speaker 3: I was charged as a conspirator, not that I committed
Speaker 3: any offenses, but because I acted in the capacity I
Speaker 3: acted at.
Speaker 4: That age, I was also charged.
Speaker 3: I went to trial with these individuals and was found
Speaker 3: guilty with these individuals and had to serve five years
Speaker 3: alongside these individuals as a conspirator, and my record reflected
Speaker 3: the same as their, even though I did not participate.
Speaker 3: But as a conspirator, I was charged the same way,
Speaker 3: and in that five years because of my age, I
Speaker 3: was sent to like a youth facility, which is board
Speaker 3: in town at that time, and once I got a
Speaker 3: certain size and they transferred me to a larger facility
Speaker 3: which was always stay prison, who in turn released me.
Speaker 3: Once they released me in the early nineties ninety three,
Speaker 3: I was home. At that point in my life, I
Speaker 3: had decided that my whole life was changed. I was
Speaker 3: never going back. I had got a good job. I
Speaker 3: was looking at Quellsmen's Wear up in Woolbrook Mall. I
Speaker 3: was an excellent salesman for them, paying me pretty good money.
Speaker 3: Got a nice apartment up in Mountclear, New Jersey. Got
Speaker 3: custody of my son, who I felt was the change
Speaker 3: in my life as well, who had left before I
Speaker 3: was inconcentrated. His mother was pregnant, so I wasn't even
Speaker 3: there to witness his birth. So that was a big
Speaker 3: part of me coming home as a change man to
Speaker 3: take responsibility of my son. Got me a nice car
Speaker 3: and everything, and I was.
Speaker 4: Doing pretty well.
Speaker 3: And as a result of doing that, I was picked
Speaker 3: up and identified as someone who committed another offense, saying
Speaker 3: I was a warrant was out for my arrest, saying
Speaker 3: that you've been identified as a person who committed a
Speaker 3: sexual related offense and a kidnapped, and against my adamant denial, like, listen,
Speaker 3: it's not me. I didn't do this. I didn't even
Speaker 3: do that before, but now they had me custody. Once
Speaker 3: they arrested me and put me in custody. The threat
Speaker 3: we can hold you and keep you here for the
Speaker 3: rest of your life was real to me. They had
Speaker 3: showed me that they had the power to do that already.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, you were in a very precarious situation. I mean,
Speaker 5: seven years had gone by, your life was, as you said,
Speaker 5: your life was on track. Things are looking good, and
Speaker 5: then this crazy thing happens. And then a lot of
Speaker 5: a lot of weird stuff goes on, I mean, a
Speaker 5: lot of lying, a lot of cheating the system because
Speaker 5: they really wanted to convict you. In your case, it
Speaker 5: doesn't seem like they were really that interested in finding
Speaker 5: out who raped this woman. They were interested in pending
Speaker 5: it on you, right, just because they had you and
Speaker 5: we've seen that part of this scenario happened before. That's
Speaker 5: not the craziest thing about your story. It's crazy because
Speaker 5: it happened to you, but it's not uncommon, unfortunately. But
Speaker 5: things get really crazy as we go along. Well, we'll
Speaker 5: take us through this, right.
Speaker 4: Well, once I.
Speaker 3: Was in custody, it was really my public defender, as
Speaker 3: they say in jail house turner and my public pretender
Speaker 3: who came and said to me in this theatrical way,
Speaker 3: that he had convinced me that the state had this
Speaker 3: over women evidence, that the witness was outside by the way,
Speaker 3: this is my third turned public defender within a four
Speaker 3: month period, and that the witness seeing my photo and
Speaker 3: start crying uncontrollably, and they had pinpointed me in that
Speaker 3: if I was going to go to trial and be
Speaker 3: in jail for the rest of my life. Now at
Speaker 3: that point, I felt so overwhelmed backtracking, which just happened
Speaker 3: to me earlier at seventeen. They said that, well, look
Speaker 3: and we'll offer you a plea agreement. We're gonna give
Speaker 3: you a seven year term and you're gonna do two
Speaker 3: years and you'll come home. If you just plead guilty,
Speaker 3: you were gonna dismiss the sexual lady defense and you
Speaker 3: were downgrade the kidnapped to a second degree and put
Speaker 3: on record no one got hurt. And so in my
Speaker 3: mind I thought I would saved my life because I
Speaker 3: had just left my son out there and I didn't
Speaker 3: know what was going on. I was separated from my family.
Speaker 3: So I took the plea agreement and I answered the
Speaker 3: plead to a crime I didn't commit, and doing that,
Speaker 3: I felt like I portrayed myself in a way that
Speaker 3: it took me years to get over. And the process
Speaker 3: of that, I was sent down to state prison to
Speaker 3: do the seven year term because I went to parole,
Speaker 3: and parole actually was saying that, oh, listen, you're here
Speaker 3: not just for the kidnap, but we're here for what
Speaker 3: the police reports are saying, for the sexual offense. And
Speaker 3: I was like, no, I didn't do any of that.
Speaker 3: I actually I didn't do any of it. At this point,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm I didn't do any I just played
Speaker 3: guilty thinking trying to save my life. Well, that sent
Speaker 3: them in a spiral like I was in denial, and
Speaker 3: then I showed no remorse, which you know, I could
Speaker 3: show remorse for something I did not do, and that's
Speaker 3: what I was trying to explain to them. But as
Speaker 3: a result of that, I was denied parole maybe three times,
Speaker 3: and then I.
Speaker 4: Was maxed out.
Speaker 3: And in being maxed out at me, I served a
Speaker 3: full seven year terms as opposed to two year term.
Speaker 3: But before you are released from prison, you were sent
Speaker 3: to these parole classes. So I went to the parole
Speaker 3: classes and the pre release classes, which I was did
Speaker 3: stellar and because I'm thinking I'm going home. And so
Speaker 3: on the day of my release, I was brought out
Speaker 3: to the front like every other prisoner who was schedul
Speaker 3: to be released that day lined up, but instead when
Speaker 3: they called everyone name, they didn't call minds. So they
Speaker 3: had released all of them and left me standing there
Speaker 3: in the day of the day, I had maxed out,
Speaker 3: means that I had no more time left to do.
Speaker 4: But so you're there.
Speaker 5: You have your possessions, whatever your possessions were that you
Speaker 5: had in prison with you, you had them with you. Right,
Speaker 5: You're ready to go home, start your life again, see
Speaker 5: your son, re establish your relationships with your family, the
Speaker 5: whole thing.
Speaker 4: They were actually in the parking lot waiting to take
Speaker 4: me home and go get something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had all ranged, and I mean I had,
Speaker 3: you know, grown until more after seven years from this
Speaker 3: experience in a degree where I felt like, now my
Speaker 3: life is really going to be take control of my
Speaker 3: life and really do it right. But as opposed to
Speaker 3: being released, I was held and transferred to what New
Speaker 3: Jersey call to a special treatment on this because I
Speaker 3: refused to pleat acknowledgeablete guilty or admit my role in
Speaker 3: the sexual related offense. New Jersey had passed a law
Speaker 3: called the Sexually Found Predat Act, which said that if
Speaker 3: they felt like a person was still dangerous, that they
Speaker 3: could not be released. So they civilly committed me under
Speaker 3: that pretense. So I was taking to a facility civil
Speaker 3: commitment facility which is like a civil commitment like traditional However,
Speaker 3: this was like a new hybrid facility that New Jersey
Speaker 3: had came up with where they combined the Apartment Correction
Speaker 3: and Apartment Human Service to their Department in Service there
Speaker 3: would provide treatment to those that were committed. And I
Speaker 3: was held there for ten years.
Speaker 4: It's not real. I mean ten years on top. It's
Speaker 4: like it.
Speaker 5: I think most people are listening and going, wait, wait,
Speaker 5: but that doesn't make sense. You can't serve your sentence
Speaker 5: and then serve another sentence that you didn't even have,
Speaker 5: which is longer by fifty percent than your original sentence
Speaker 5: was in the first place. And you know it's so crazy, right,
Speaker 5: you plead innocent, they send you to prison, and you
Speaker 5: play guilty to send you home.
Speaker 4: Right, It's so backwards.
Speaker 5: It's like Alice in Wonderland, but in your case, that's
Speaker 5: literally what happened. They wanted you to acknowledge your guilt.
Speaker 5: I mean, they pulled the rug out from under you
Speaker 5: so many different times, in so many different ways. By now, right,
Speaker 5: they had lied to you about the witness who actually
Speaker 5: had not identified you and never did identify you, right,
Speaker 5: and they told you that she did. You know, when
Speaker 5: you talk about three public defenders in four months, I mean,
Speaker 5: it's not hard for anyone to imagine how little your
Speaker 5: public defender must have known about your case when they
Speaker 5: keep switching them out like this. I mean, there's just
Speaker 5: not that much time to get to understand what's going on.
Speaker 5: And to be fair, these people are, even the best
Speaker 5: ones of them, are juggling a lot of cases because
Speaker 5: that's just the way the system works. He or she
Speaker 5: might have been working one hundred cases at that.
Speaker 3: Time, and that came out that down the line to
Speaker 3: try and admit it that when he had like forty
Speaker 3: cases clients in a bullpen, which is a holding area
Speaker 3: for prisoners, he had an old woman case a little
Speaker 3: and like forty were there, and by the time he
Speaker 3: got the.
Speaker 4: He was in a cilly lawn mode.
Speaker 3: But in the process of being civilly committed that that
Speaker 3: whole experience within itself was a crazy experience because it
Speaker 3: is a experience that you could be civilly committed without
Speaker 3: a conviction. Now you're not convicted. Everything is done through
Speaker 3: medical terms. What I'm saying, you have a psychiatrist and
Speaker 3: a psychologist who come in and say I read the
Speaker 3: record and we think his person is guilty, and you know,
Speaker 3: and then that becomes you're guilty, and that becomes the
Speaker 3: reason they hold you.
Speaker 4: There's no justice there whatsoever. There's no trial.
Speaker 3: There's no way they give you a hearing that the
Speaker 3: attorney general totally dictates, so there's no way to challenge
Speaker 3: the whole process of it. Because the psychiatrists work for
Speaker 3: the state. They come in and write whatever the attorney
Speaker 3: general wants them to say. In my particular case, that
Speaker 3: was one beneficial point feature that I always like to
Speaker 3: add was the state centers psychiatrists and.
Speaker 4: To interview me.
Speaker 3: And as a result of his interview, he changed his mind,
Speaker 3: became my witness and testified that I should have been released.
Speaker 3: As a result, they diminished He was later released, but
Speaker 3: he jumped ship. But in that process where they still
Speaker 3: saw me an attorney. Another public defender named John Dewar,
Speaker 3: who I aw utmost respectful in their office. And I
Speaker 3: explained to him, I said, listen. This was in two
Speaker 3: thousand and four. I said, listen, I played guilty to
Speaker 3: a crime I commit. I listen, I shouldn't be here.
Speaker 3: And I explained to him what happened. I said, listen,
Speaker 3: I played guilty because I was far my life as
Speaker 3: been addressing my life in jail. I wanted to be
Speaker 3: home with my family. He said, listen, I'm gonna take
Speaker 3: a chance with you. So what he did was him
Speaker 3: and his investigator they went and found the victim, and
Speaker 3: they went interview her, and they showed her my photo
Speaker 3: and she asked, well, did you know this guy. I
Speaker 3: never seen this guy there in my life. They were like,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, this guy's locked up for a crime
Speaker 3: against you. She didn't even know anyone was locked up,
Speaker 3: particularly me. She said, I didn't never identify him. That
Speaker 3: sent my case into a spiral. As a result of that,
Speaker 3: she gave a sworn statement. We thought that that was
Speaker 3: gonna be enough to have me release from civil.
Speaker 5: It would seem like that would be a novel. I'm
Speaker 5: sure again everyone listening is going, okay, well that's it
Speaker 5: go home. You're done now, But that's not the way
Speaker 5: it works. But I want to make one more point
Speaker 5: before we get into the next part of the story,
Speaker 5: which is that ninety five percent of state felony convictions
Speaker 5: are a result of guilty. Please right, because almost anyone
Speaker 5: faced with your situation, especially someone who'd already had experience
Speaker 5: of how heavy the criminal justice system can come down
Speaker 5: on you, given a choice between what they were telling
Speaker 5: you was going to be two years or twenty eight
Speaker 5: months or whatever it was, or the rest of your life.
Speaker 5: I mean, try to walk a mile of those shoes, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's a horrible statistic.
Speaker 5: It's a horrible statistic. And like I said, it may
Speaker 5: not seem like it affects you, but someday it could.
Speaker 5: I mean, it could affect you or someone you love.
Speaker 5: Anyone who's listening right now, you know your chance with
Speaker 5: the public defender who I mean, the ODJIT two stacked.
Speaker 3: They formed would be a trifecta judge to prosecutor and
Speaker 3: public defender. In my mind, a collaboration to hurse me
Speaker 3: into this plea agreement to make it as if that
Speaker 3: was my only result to save my life.
Speaker 5: But here's what's so crazy about your case, Rannie, is that,
Speaker 5: first of all, start with you were innocent. Second of all,
Speaker 5: the idea that your own attorney says, we're going to
Speaker 5: get two years, but you end up getting seven years,
Speaker 5: but then they turned that into seventeen years. How can
Speaker 5: that be that your own people let you down to
Speaker 5: that extent. The system too, but your own people. And
Speaker 5: then the other thing, Like I said that, I really
Speaker 5: want to highlight because we haven't covered this on the
Speaker 5: show yet, but it's a reality, and it's a crazy
Speaker 5: reality that most people don't focus on. It's this idea
Speaker 5: of civil commitment and that sounds civil commitment, sounds like
Speaker 5: a relatively benign term.
Speaker 4: But it was hell in there, and I heard you
Speaker 4: talk about it. It was horrible in it.
Speaker 3: I mean it was horrible in the fact that I
Speaker 3: was exposed to an element that I had never had
Speaker 3: been exposed to before a mindset.
Speaker 4: The danger is real.
Speaker 3: There's a need to protect the most warlomable members of
Speaker 3: our society.
Speaker 4: That's real.
Speaker 3: However, the process of selection is flawed. Now when I
Speaker 3: say the flaw, if they see that you don't fit
Speaker 3: that criteria, you don't have what they call a present danger.
Speaker 3: You don't have the mental incapacity or the repetiti or
Speaker 3: compulsive personality, you should not be there now in that environment,
Speaker 3: you hear things that stories is so hard.
Speaker 4: What that makes you like?
Speaker 3: I used to cry in some of the groups because
Speaker 3: I didn't fit in any mold. I had no diagnosis
Speaker 3: because I wasn't able to be put in the group.
Speaker 3: So I was separated from the population and put in isolation.
Speaker 3: I spent most of my time, maybe nine years in isolation,
Speaker 3: away from population. But the big part of that case
Speaker 3: was for years we asked to state for the particular
Speaker 3: the kits what they said that they had to show
Speaker 3: the d evidence. So they said they lost it.
Speaker 4: And let's go back to that.
Speaker 5: And before we even do, I want to make that
Speaker 5: point too, because I think you and I are on
Speaker 5: the same page, because I often say that I'm not
Speaker 5: soft on crime, I'm tough on injustice right and I
Speaker 5: think too anybody who you know who hurts another human being,
Speaker 5: we have to have a society of laws. We have
Speaker 5: to protect the general population. I do believe that Brian
Speaker 5: Stevenson says, which is that everybody's better than the worst
Speaker 5: thing they've ever done. But that being said, we have
Speaker 5: to hold people accountable, we have to be safe as
Speaker 5: a society, but we also have to be fair. And
Speaker 5: everyone's entitled to a fair shake and to a fair
Speaker 5: trial and to fair treatment by the system. And you
Speaker 5: are the poster the poster child, for lack of a
Speaker 5: better word, of everything that's wrong and everything that can
Speaker 5: go wrong.
Speaker 4: And I want to get back to the rape kits.
Speaker 5: Because, as you said, as your lawyers were trying to
Speaker 5: get the rape kits, they were saying, and that we've
Speaker 5: seen this.
Speaker 4: Before, that they lost them.
Speaker 5: They didn't lose them, but they said they lost them
Speaker 5: either they were too lazy to look for them, whether
Speaker 5: they didn't look very hard or whatever it was, whether
Speaker 5: they were hiding them, who knows, But one way another,
Speaker 5: that's one of the things that kept you on as
Speaker 5: long as it did, because if they found those rape kits,
Speaker 5: you would have been freed because it would have proven
Speaker 5: that you could not have been the source of the
Speaker 5: semen that was found inside this woman. But talk a
Speaker 5: little bit about this isolation, right, What was that like?
Speaker 5: The isolation? I mean, does that mean you were in
Speaker 5: like solitary confinement type of sound?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was in.
Speaker 3: It had a special unit called a B unit, where
Speaker 3: these particular individuals either they were treatment refused, either they
Speaker 3: refused to even participate in any programming, or like myself,
Speaker 3: had no diagnosis. And one other feature was they felt
Speaker 3: that I had too much influence on the population in regards.
Speaker 4: To my legal skill, my ability to advocate.
Speaker 3: When I was standing up and say this is injustice,
Speaker 3: this is not right, I had no idea how many
Speaker 3: people was behind me saying yeah, well he said so.
Speaker 3: I was always looked at as someone's citing rise or
Speaker 3: creating gatherings because all I was doing was standing up
Speaker 3: for what I thought was my rights. So as a result,
Speaker 3: the administration decided to isolate me and put me in
Speaker 3: isolation so I could not I was only able to
Speaker 3: go to visits with the rest of populais. I wasn't
Speaker 3: able to go grooves programs events. I couldn't participate in
Speaker 3: anything because of my stance and because I would not
Speaker 3: admit guilt. At this point, I stood firmly that I'm innocent,
Speaker 3: and that also set me apart from the population because
Speaker 3: the only way you could get therapy and treatment you
Speaker 3: have to admit guilt and in this isolation you'll put
Speaker 3: on this unit, and this unit is I mean, one
Speaker 3: of the most miserable places you could be because there's.
Speaker 4: A unit of hopelessness.
Speaker 3: You feel like you forgot about left there. You feel
Speaker 3: like everything at this point in your life is over,
Speaker 3: that no one believes you, and that the fight is
Speaker 3: so uphill it's like ice skating uphill.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 3: And in that moment, you know, I grew to a
Speaker 3: point where was though, I said to myself, because they
Speaker 3: would constantly say, fortunately had CIO. They had correction alice there,
Speaker 3: and they have correction officer there, who who's you know.
Speaker 3: He was very underst so he would say lock in,
Speaker 3: you know, you gotta lock in yourself, which no one
Speaker 3: wants to go lock be locking themself.
Speaker 4: But he was cordial about it.
Speaker 3: And he did his job, but he wasn't really arrogant
Speaker 3: about or aggressive. He would say lock in, guys, so
Speaker 3: everybody would feel more easy about doing it. But this
Speaker 3: particular day he wasn't there and they had this also
Speaker 3: on and he was just being extra unnecessary that day
Speaker 3: all that day, and so.
Speaker 4: When time came for us a locking, he said lock in.
Speaker 3: And the way he said it resonated in me so deeply.
Speaker 3: He said, lock in. I said to myself, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not locking it. No, I'm not I'm innocent. I'm
Speaker 3: not going in her room. I'm not supposed to be
Speaker 3: here today. So he says, if you don't lock in,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to call the boys. It's gonna be trouble.
Speaker 3: I said, it's gonna be some trouble today. The day
Speaker 3: is that day. We're gonna have some trouble up here.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be some trouble. So he called the boy.
Speaker 3: So I'm up there, back and forth.
Speaker 4: Am ready.
Speaker 3: I'm positioning myself years going down today. I'm tired of this.
Speaker 3: I'm not locking in no more time. I'm innocent. So
Speaker 3: they ran up the stairs and I'm ready for them.
Speaker 3: They come running like eight nine up. They really get me.
Speaker 3: So when they got to the top of the stairs,
Speaker 3: I rushed them. I grabbed them, and like for three seconds,
Speaker 3: I was the mad three seconds, I was that guy.
Speaker 3: After that three seconds, I felt my feet come off
Speaker 3: the ground, I felt my.
Speaker 4: Arm being pulled back around me.
Speaker 3: But then they felt they threw me, grabbed me and
Speaker 3: threw me in myself.
Speaker 4: For you what I was in my cell, I was
Speaker 4: standing in myself.
Speaker 3: I flushed myself off and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: at least I stood up for three seconds. And I
Speaker 3: lived in that three second moment for years. But as
Speaker 3: a result of standing up and feeling that in that
Speaker 3: three seconds, they looked at me different in the population.
Speaker 3: They said, well, why was someone put theyself through that?
Speaker 3: Why was someone stand up against eight nine different people
Speaker 3: just to say they innocent? And that made him take
Speaker 3: a step back and say, let's look at this guy again.
Speaker 3: And as a result, they became more leaning against me.
Speaker 3: Allowed me to more access to the law library, allowed
Speaker 3: me to move around a little.
Speaker 4: Bit more quietly.
Speaker 3: They would say, listen, we like you, we like how
Speaker 3: you move, but don't make us choose between you and
Speaker 3: our job. Because I'm gonna choose my job, and if
Speaker 3: I gotta knock your head, I'm knocking your head. So
Speaker 3: I had to learn how to maneuver within in that philosophy,
Speaker 3: and that gave me the room I needed to litigate harder,
Speaker 3: fight harder for my freedom.
Speaker 4: And that three seconds.
Speaker 3: I live in this very moment because and that three seconds,
Speaker 3: I was the champion.
Speaker 4: I needed to be it liberated me. It was only
Speaker 4: three seconds.
Speaker 3: It took him for my whole life in that moment
Speaker 3: to liberate me to be the man I am today
Speaker 3: and grow and feel strong. Now I had the rest
Speaker 3: of my life. Three seconds turned into the rest of
Speaker 3: my life. Then that changed everything for me.
Speaker 5: You literally risk your life and here comes these guys
Speaker 5: with the shields and the helmets, and they might have
Speaker 5: killed you, and nobody would have prosecuted him.
Speaker 4: If they did exactly.
Speaker 5: They would have said he rushed us, it was dangerous,
Speaker 5: blah blah blah. So you became the man in that moment,
Speaker 5: which was really a spontaneous reaction, right because.
Speaker 4: For me, that moment right there reflected in my mom
Speaker 4: I had enough.
Speaker 5: Well, because the thing is, and I keep coming back
Speaker 5: to this, right on top of the wrongful conviction, on
Speaker 5: top of the rug being pulled out from under you,
Speaker 5: with the two years, you know what you had to
Speaker 5: pleat gill you something you didn't do, then the seven years,
Speaker 5: and then really the terrifying idea of you not being
Speaker 5: able to go home and everybody else going home, and
Speaker 5: then the idea that you're in there for ten years
Speaker 5: and it's an indefinite sentence. It's not even like if
Speaker 5: they sentenced you, well, we're going to put you in
Speaker 5: this confinement thing for ten years, at least you would
Speaker 5: know at the end of ten years you're going. But
Speaker 5: you had no idea they could have kept you there forever.
Speaker 3: And because I was saying I'm innocent, that totally took
Speaker 3: me out to run it. That made me did disqualify
Speaker 3: any opportunity for my release. If it wasn't for the
Speaker 3: fact that do you pelor court finally got tired reverse
Speaker 3: in my case three times and a third time they
Speaker 3: finally was so frustrated they re assigned me a new attorney,
Speaker 3: a new judge, and then mysteriously the evidence that we
Speaker 3: were looking for up here is that we were asking
Speaker 3: for maybe ten years and nine to half ten years.
Speaker 3: They say with los pops, I don't know what we mislabeled.
Speaker 4: Here we go, and it was mislabeled this exactly.
Speaker 5: But this is another thing that's it still strikes me
Speaker 5: as nutty that and that's not strong enough word. The
Speaker 5: idea that your conviction was overturned three times, right, and
Speaker 5: these are pro sae emotions that you were filing in
Speaker 5: a pro say motion for people who haven't heard that
Speaker 5: term before means emotion filed by an inmate on their
Speaker 5: own behalf, without the benefit of a lawyer. So how
Speaker 5: does it happen that you get these convictions? And it
Speaker 5: could again talk about more rugs being pulled out from
Speaker 5: under you? Right here you are like they're going dangling
Speaker 5: you like around like a marionette. Right so you're you
Speaker 5: get this overturned and then they don't free you anyway,
Speaker 5: and then they do it again, and then they don't
Speaker 5: free you anyway, and then finally it takes a judge
Speaker 5: to go, I'm tired of this shit, right I'm tired.
Speaker 4: He was tired.
Speaker 5: Imagine how tired you wants to be, see people, I'm
Speaker 5: tired for listening to the damn story.
Speaker 3: And you know a lot of people don't really take
Speaker 3: into account how something this match affects so especially I
Speaker 3: mean personally for me, how much all of this, even
Speaker 3: from seventeen all the way up to this point, what
Speaker 3: I had to deal with as a person, as a
Speaker 3: as a young man, and to deal with this environment
Speaker 3: and to deal with the pain and separation and on
Speaker 3: that was separate from my family and had the hostility
Speaker 3: and environment had to survive and and keep my head
Speaker 3: together and hold on to hope, because you know that
Speaker 3: was you know, it was times I had to do
Speaker 3: a lot of depression. It was are the times I
Speaker 3: had to fight off, you know, saying a feeling that
Speaker 3: this was never going to end. I was always going
Speaker 3: to be in this situation that I was never going
Speaker 3: to be able to prove to anyone that I'm worthy
Speaker 3: or value someone to value me. I mean, it was
Speaker 3: so hard, you know what I'm saying, and dealing with
Speaker 3: disappointment over and over again to I used to ask myself,
Speaker 3: am I addicted to disappointment? Because it started becoming to
Speaker 3: the point where I've started becoming desensitized, like I expected
Speaker 3: to be let down. It affected me in a way
Speaker 3: whereas though I know I felt that God has to
Speaker 3: be watching over me because the fact that you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not crazy at this point, because of the experience
Speaker 3: of having to fight off all these emotions of loneliness,
Speaker 3: the emotion of feeling powerless and just disenfranchised, and all
Speaker 3: these feelings you live with, I live with for years.
Speaker 5: Can you just give us some insight into what was
Speaker 5: the worst and the best experience you had during your
Speaker 5: seventeen years locked up in the miserable conditions that you
Speaker 5: were in.
Speaker 3: The worst experience was being placed in a position to
Speaker 3: have to plead guilty to a crime I didn't commit,
Speaker 3: along with being civilly committed in the facility where the
Speaker 3: stigma was horrible, and have to live under the stigma
Speaker 3: of that environment and survived, and that such hard stigma
Speaker 3: being looked at and as someone who has those characteristics
Speaker 3: even though I didn't.
Speaker 4: The happiest moment that I had that.
Speaker 3: Kind of nullified kind of took takes and put her
Speaker 3: all that in this perspective was in the courtroom when
Speaker 3: the judge finally judged Sherry hutchs Henderson, when she finally
Speaker 3: got the DNA evident she needed from the state lab
Speaker 3: and she said to me, mister Robertson, she's apologized. He
Speaker 3: apology was so heart felt of how she felt so
Speaker 3: bad that this happened to me. But when she said
Speaker 3: I'm reversing your conviction, my support so so it was
Speaker 3: like maybe thirteen people, my niece, my sister, a lady,
Speaker 3: my mother, my friends. They bust out and like jubilate, nah.
Speaker 3: It was so loud in the courtroom. You know, they
Speaker 3: was out there like they was having the Holy goes
Speaker 3: back there like church was going on.
Speaker 4: And a judge she.
Speaker 3: Loud them to have that moment because that was their
Speaker 3: moment of vindication as well as mine, because they believe me,
Speaker 3: they stood by all those years and they we knew it.
Speaker 4: And you know, I expected to turn around see them
Speaker 4: road on the floor.
Speaker 3: But in that moment, I cried, I felt vindicated. I
Speaker 3: felt now you know, I was happy. I felt like
Speaker 3: something in my life just turned around. And in that moment,
Speaker 3: you know, hearing them cheering and empowered me. And I think,
Speaker 3: I know changed my whole walk at that point because
Speaker 3: I went back and because I had to go back
Speaker 3: to the civil commitments to be released from there. But
Speaker 3: I had that George Jefferson walk. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: I'm walking on like George Jefferson now, you know.
Speaker 4: So I was.
Speaker 3: So that I made that experience right there. It was
Speaker 3: the happiest moment in my life. You know, I'm that
Speaker 3: courtroom experience. I just cannot ever erase that from my
Speaker 3: mind and heart. How wrong that made me feel doing
Speaker 3: a judge said that, and hear my family and everyone
Speaker 3: that loved me. Just so happy to hear it and
Speaker 3: know they was right because they went through a lot
Speaker 3: of turmoil and kind of visit and being discriminated against
Speaker 3: and coming inside and look down upon, like you supporting
Speaker 3: this guy and this kind of with this kind of person.
Speaker 4: With this kind of charge, and they had to go.
Speaker 3: Through all that and do it and now to find
Speaker 3: and see that they were right and had that moment
Speaker 3: where they were like elate and such, that moment, like
Speaker 3: I said, gave me that George Jefferson consence.
Speaker 4: I was walking back, everybody looking at him like I
Speaker 4: was a new guy, Like look at this guy, who
Speaker 4: is this guy here? So, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 5: And obviously no one can understand that feeling that hasn't
Speaker 5: been through it, but you're painting a very vivid picture
Speaker 5: and making I'm sure everyone that's listening feel that the
Speaker 5: little piece of that joy that you had and that
Speaker 5: vindication and that feeling when you were enduring. And it's
Speaker 5: so crazy. I was just thinking about the timeline of
Speaker 5: your life, right, seventeen years, then five years in prison,
Speaker 5: then seven years out, then seventeen years. It's really a
Speaker 5: crazy roller coaster ride. That's impossible for anyone to understand
Speaker 5: who hasn't lived it. And it's sort of a miracle
Speaker 5: that you're here, and it's really inspiring just to hear
Speaker 5: you talk and see the way you are. So I want,
Speaker 5: I want to ask you when you were when you
Speaker 5: were locked up, was there any particular person that gave
Speaker 5: you hope, that gave you strength.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at that time I had a support system. Her
Speaker 3: name was Linda, Linda Roberts. At this point, she was
Speaker 3: very strong in my life. Then I have a strong
Speaker 3: support system analysis Hoppen Home with Her name is Tulita James,
Speaker 3: we call her. So there was an adjustment process. But
Speaker 3: the one person who kept me moving when I was seventeen,
Speaker 3: the judge asked me, and this is the Orange record,
Speaker 3: the judge said before he sentenced me, because I was
Speaker 3: schedul to be senting so higher a sentence. But he
Speaker 3: asked me, said, is there anything you want to say?
Speaker 4: Young man?
Speaker 3: So I turned to my mother, who was crying and
Speaker 3: who I was hurting so bad because I'm her youngest son,
Speaker 3: and she just knew that this was wrong.
Speaker 4: And I said to my mother.
Speaker 3: No matter what, I'm not gonna let this destroy me
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do the best I could. I'm sorry, and
Speaker 3: I'm gonna hold on. And I talked to my mother
Speaker 3: in the courtroom, and everyone was amazed to see me
Speaker 3: and my mother at this time having this back and
Speaker 3: forth discussion because she was saying, hold on, I'm just
Speaker 3: keep in prayer and in the courtroom, and that conversation
Speaker 3: has been my mantra for all these years to tell her,
Speaker 3: let my mother know that no matter what what she
Speaker 3: instilled in me as her son and my father, but
Speaker 3: my mother, what she put in me was nothing was
Speaker 3: never going to tear that down and moral complished that
Speaker 3: she instilled in me to find my way back to right,
Speaker 3: It's never going to be taken out. And that has
Speaker 3: been my rock, my mother. She's my she and she
Speaker 3: continues to be and she will always be that my
Speaker 3: moral confisence.
Speaker 4: She is my north star. She sounds like an extraordinary
Speaker 4: she's eighty five and she can't tell her she's not fifty.
Speaker 4: And I love her.
Speaker 3: She's my strength, and she knows what she is and
Speaker 3: I just cannot get enough of her. So I adore
Speaker 3: her and she knows it, you know.
Speaker 4: So it's so important.
Speaker 5: And you just heard from Rodney that that connection remains
Speaker 5: intact between families, so between loved ones and people who
Speaker 5: are incarcerated. And you know, in this country we have
Speaker 5: such a crazy system where inmates are charged. Incarcerated people
Speaker 5: are charged five to ten times as much for collect calls,
Speaker 5: which is insane. Now they're moving away from in person
Speaker 5: visits and certain states where they're changing it to where
Speaker 5: you're going to get an iPad and you get to
Speaker 5: talk to your family members on the iPad, and it's like,
Speaker 5: I mean, we're just we're going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 5: In a lot of ways. Criminal justice system is being
Speaker 5: reformed in good ways now, but in that way, it
Speaker 5: just doesn't make any sense. Because we just heard it
Speaker 5: directly from you. It's so important to maintain that to
Speaker 5: keep that hope alive and to keep that connection strong,
Speaker 5: not just for you, but for your children or your
Speaker 5: mother or whatever reletives are on the outside that I
Speaker 5: love you and care about you. So while you were
Speaker 5: locked up the second time, were you able to maintain
Speaker 5: a relationship with your son?
Speaker 4: And how is that now? Well, my son is an
Speaker 4: amazing young man.
Speaker 3: Even what he's been doing with me out his life,
Speaker 3: he's grown to be a very strong young man. He's
Speaker 3: maybe six five, maybe two ninety. You know, he's a
Speaker 3: big guy, you know what I'm saying, very mild man,
Speaker 3: a very religious, never been involved in the law.
Speaker 4: You know. It doesn't drink or hang out anything, works,
Speaker 4: goes to church.
Speaker 3: I love who he's become all my time his absence.
Speaker 3: One thing that we always had that kept us together
Speaker 3: was we had a passion for reading. I told him
Speaker 3: how to read, basically, and he would get on the
Speaker 3: phone and he would read to me.
Speaker 4: And actually, freaking we learned how to read together.
Speaker 3: Do comic books. I would buy comic books and I
Speaker 3: would buy him one. I'd buy me one and I
Speaker 3: would reading and he would read it, and we would
Speaker 3: talk about the comic books. And that's how we develop
Speaker 3: our relationship to reading. And to this day we still
Speaker 3: talk about comic books. Even we're both so amazed at
Speaker 3: the new Marvel movies. We run to see him together
Speaker 3: because we read about him all his life and me
Speaker 3: all my life.
Speaker 4: Really, and you have a lady in your life now, yes.
Speaker 3: I do, a beautiful young lady who has been patient
Speaker 3: with me even all my adjustment and Talada James Della James,
Speaker 3: who has dealt with ups and downs with myself and herself,
Speaker 3: and we struggled together, and I appreciate everything she's done
Speaker 3: for me and with me and to me. It helped
Speaker 3: me become a stronger man in my adjustment process.
Speaker 5: Friday is sharp dress. Guy was complimenting him before on
Speaker 5: his shoes. He's got a nice, beautiful Chris White shirt.
Speaker 5: And he told me, actually the credible laws to her right.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean I don't even pick my own clothes.
Speaker 3: I go in the store and I picked something up
Speaker 3: and she ignores it. So then what you know, she
Speaker 3: even because I came home I was like two ninety
Speaker 3: myself and wait, she helped me even in my healthier eating,
Speaker 3: you know, working out. I mean, there has been an
Speaker 3: adjustment process with her there in my life, and I
Speaker 3: only pray that I contributed something strong to her life
Speaker 3: through my strength friends to her that makes her know
Speaker 3: that there's always in resilience and you could come back
Speaker 3: from anything, you know, saying nothing this overwhelming in life
Speaker 3: that you can't start all over and be strong through.
Speaker 3: So I'm hoping that my experiences and hussying me what
Speaker 3: I've been through and still being strong enough man to
Speaker 3: make her want to love me.
Speaker 4: Has contributed to her life as well.
Speaker 3: And with that, you know, I have six sisters to
Speaker 3: one path away, my younger sisters sharing. But there's oh
Speaker 3: and they they're like parole officers, you know. They I
Speaker 3: have to check in with them. And if I was
Speaker 3: checking with them, there's a so yeah. So I I
Speaker 3: have some strong, beautiful women in my life that really
Speaker 3: supervised me, so to speak, and take care of me
Speaker 3: and help me along the way. And I think this
Speaker 3: made me a much stronger man and much confident man
Speaker 3: as well. I came home this time, and I was
Speaker 3: blessed to come home this time, and I say to myself,
Speaker 3: I'm able to talk about these feelings, but feeling them
Speaker 3: at the moment was was like so sad for me.
Speaker 3: I used to have moments where I would be sad
Speaker 3: for like days.
Speaker 4: And I'd be like, pull myself. I we gonna come on,
Speaker 4: you gotta pull yourself out of this.
Speaker 3: I used to have to coach myself and give myself
Speaker 3: pep talk sober and come on, man, you got people
Speaker 3: was like you over there talking to yourself again. I'm like, listen,
Speaker 3: this is the best conversation I've had all day and
Speaker 3: you know, to pull myself out of stage of what
Speaker 3: I just felt like.
Speaker 4: It was so much overwhelming.
Speaker 3: And you know, can't begin to tell all the years
Speaker 3: because we're talking about since seventeen and then now and
Speaker 3: how much suffering it felt like. I mean, I feel
Speaker 3: that's why today I advocate because I can identify with suffering.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't like to see anything suffer, and
Speaker 3: that's from animals to people, to the plants to anything,
Speaker 3: because I know what it feels like to suffer. I
Speaker 3: know it feels like to be put in a position
Speaker 3: that you know, where you're just hurting inside emotionally and psychologically,
Speaker 3: that you just want some help from somewhere, you know.
Speaker 4: And that's why I stand today, because I just want
Speaker 4: to be.
Speaker 3: That for someone who may feel hopeless and feel like
Speaker 3: there's knowing.
Speaker 4: The Navy they.
Speaker 3: See me and they say, you know, this guy, you
Speaker 3: know is just someone out there that understands and cares
Speaker 3: because I felt there was knowing As a result. Now,
Speaker 3: I just started the Rodney Roberts Foundation.
Speaker 4: Oh tell me about that.
Speaker 3: What I offer is the one thing that most in
Speaker 3: the visuals who have been wrong for convicted, and not
Speaker 3: just wrong for convicted, but particularly the wrong for convicted,
Speaker 3: but individuals who've come home and feel as there's no
Speaker 3: one to connect with because in the wrong for convision
Speaker 3: community the one thing we don't have. No state has
Speaker 3: an agency that provides housing, work assistance, counseling.
Speaker 4: No state has that.
Speaker 3: So you would let come home and there's no way
Speaker 3: for you to turn because some states made me feel
Speaker 3: they don't want to make that answer. You have nowhere
Speaker 3: to go to, so you have no opportunities there. Myself,
Speaker 3: when I came home, I had to compete with my
Speaker 3: counterparts with gods on parole, probation for jobs and training
Speaker 3: and treatment. And I'm going in and saying, look, I'm innocent.
Speaker 3: I was just exonerated, and employees like, listen, hey man,
Speaker 3: that's a great story.
Speaker 4: And we did.
Speaker 3: But we're in the money making business and we would
Speaker 3: rather hire that God on parole because we could tax deductions.
Speaker 4: For hey.
Speaker 3: One playee told me that he's like, well, I can
Speaker 3: tax the duction behind Gods and parole.
Speaker 4: He was like, you a great guy.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry what happened to you, but I had to
Speaker 3: hire this guy plus you on seventeen years, so we
Speaker 3: don't know. So I was left in a void, and
Speaker 3: so I had to.
Speaker 4: Literally create a job for myself.
Speaker 3: I had to literally create an opportunity for myself by
Speaker 3: taking that frustration that being denied, have no place to
Speaker 3: fit in and taking the passion that I have to
Speaker 3: advocate against this injustice, prosecutory misconducting and ineffectious accounts of
Speaker 3: course play agreements. And I started talking about it on
Speaker 3: a basis where people started listening and saying, you know what,
Speaker 3: we like what he's saying because.
Speaker 4: He's relevant, it's right on time, and we think there
Speaker 4: needs to be heard.
Speaker 3: And I was brought into like an organization like the
Speaker 3: Innocent Project, who will give me assignments and say, Ronnie Gore,
Speaker 3: who you work with us and speak here. We can
Speaker 3: help you with a little conversation here. And that grew
Speaker 3: into me working closely with them, and me making the
Speaker 3: commercials with them, and me doing other work with them.
Speaker 3: And Jeffrey Desker had the Jeffrey Desker found brought me
Speaker 3: in and helped me school me in a way with
Speaker 3: you know, this is what you need to be saying,
Speaker 3: and this is how you should present and this is
Speaker 3: we're gonna give you this little space here. So the
Speaker 3: Rodney Robertson Foundation is a representation of all that experience.
Speaker 3: What I want to do is I want to give
Speaker 3: an opportunity for those who have been wrong, for the
Speaker 3: convicted to be able to reach out that's currently incarcerated
Speaker 3: to reach out, so in New Jersey because New Jersey
Speaker 3: is far behind and everything what comes from wrong for convicted,
Speaker 3: even currently saying legislation is being challenged now. But I
Speaker 3: want to be that help with with job placement, help
Speaker 3: fund housing, help with counseling, which is most important, which
Speaker 3: even myself after all these years, is an important feature,
Speaker 3: even for myself, to help with counseling, to help with
Speaker 3: reconnecting those with their families, because the one group that
Speaker 3: suffers the most and most is the family.
Speaker 4: They see the person locked up, but once.
Speaker 3: A family members locked up, the whole family's basically locked
Speaker 3: up and so a degree because they can't stop being
Speaker 3: connected with their love on so they suffer as well.
Speaker 3: And they the families have to also be educated on
Speaker 3: what's necessary to help this person reintegrate and what's to
Speaker 3: look for and what characteristics to look for when you
Speaker 3: see a person slipping leaves, the recidivism and when you
Speaker 3: see signs of depression or feeling and hopeless. So the
Speaker 3: Rodney Robins Foundation has multifacts in that level and also
Speaker 3: with the public speaking aspect as well.
Speaker 4: Right now, I have the Rottney Royis Foundation, I have
Speaker 4: what I'm doing.
Speaker 3: I have a go fund account that I'm trying to
Speaker 3: raise money now to create a platform to bring people
Speaker 3: in like get a staff.
Speaker 4: That's my goal is to have a staff.
Speaker 3: And a permanent location and office in New Jersey where
Speaker 3: and I'm growing from there and have my emails set
Speaker 3: up Rodney Roberts Foundation ninety six at gmail dot com
Speaker 3: and also the Rodney Roberts Foundation. What we're gonna do also,
Speaker 3: we're gonna collaborate with other organizations to fight against wrong
Speaker 3: who convictions, prosecutorium misconduct, ineffectual Accouncil.
Speaker 4: We're gonna try to grow in that degree.
Speaker 3: Right now, I don't want to put the bugget before
Speaker 3: the horse because I'm not elevated to that level. You
Speaker 3: have to be as prestigious as some of the organizations.
Speaker 4: That they're book cold on.
Speaker 3: Because I'm on my way, I'm headed in the right
Speaker 3: direction and with the passion and ideas and energy, and
Speaker 3: I'm headed there and I'm gonna build and have someone
Speaker 3: so when everyone New Jersey and worldwide can connect to also.
Speaker 5: And that's really exciting that you're doing that. I think
Speaker 5: you're gonna make a big difference in a lot of
Speaker 5: people's lives.
Speaker 4: What can people do?
Speaker 5: Obviously, I hope people will support join me in supporting
Speaker 5: because I'm going to support you in the Roddy Roberts Foundation.
Speaker 4: But what else can people do? Well?
Speaker 3: I think, particularly if their loved one is gold, how
Speaker 3: close they are, if it's a family member that you're
Speaker 3: directly related to, it close with The first thing you
Speaker 3: need to reach out to their attorney, find out who
Speaker 3: the attorney is, who's representing them, and get their discoveries,
Speaker 3: get whatever paperwork with those documents they have. Get familiar
Speaker 3: with what the record says yourself and try to understand that,
Speaker 3: because the first thing you had to do is educate
Speaker 3: yourself because most time we rely on hearsay what this
Speaker 3: attorney says or this person says, and that.
Speaker 4: Could be misleading.
Speaker 3: If you are in a position to find out yourself,
Speaker 3: you could read through their paperwork, their discoveries and decipher
Speaker 3: what's being said, or do not help the family member
Speaker 3: understand exactly what's being.
Speaker 4: Charged and how to approach the situation.
Speaker 3: Secondly, just a visit, a card, a letter, at some point,
Speaker 3: take some time out to show that person that they're
Speaker 3: not forgotten and that strength.
Speaker 4: Is the person.
Speaker 3: You don't know how much it feels good to sit
Speaker 3: there and then hear when they do a mail call
Speaker 3: and you're waiting and you hear everybody else's name call
Speaker 3: and your name and not call over and over.
Speaker 4: Then one day you hear your name.
Speaker 3: Oh if I just you run to get this letter
Speaker 3: because now you know someone out there has reached back inside.
Speaker 3: So even that something simple as that is major or something.
Speaker 3: And understand that when a person is released and they
Speaker 3: come home, they're going through a sort of a culture
Speaker 3: shock or a reverse culture shock. They're going through a
Speaker 3: process where they released from one environment to another, and
Speaker 3: this change they have to unlearn what they just learned,
Speaker 3: you know, and to relearn what they already knew about
Speaker 3: how the interact and society. You're talking about people who
Speaker 3: are a person who just went through a prison experience
Speaker 3: and where they had to begin the controlled environment where
Speaker 3: they had to stand in line and eat and had
Speaker 3: eaten a certain period of time.
Speaker 4: And you know, these things are built into you.
Speaker 3: When you do the same repetitive thing over and over again,
Speaker 3: become institutionalized. Now you have to come home and to
Speaker 3: a new environment and the shock of that, which is
Speaker 3: you know, it's just culture shock because you really unlearn
Speaker 3: all this and then to readjust yourself back to being free.
Speaker 4: I understand that that process is not it's easy, even
Speaker 4: if the person makes it look easy. It's not easy.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 3: There's a pretend there because this affects anyone that's been
Speaker 3: locked up in a long period of time.
Speaker 4: So make sure to give them enough cushions so that
Speaker 4: they can have those moments.
Speaker 3: Well, but you may see like myself, you know, when
Speaker 3: I first came home, you know, because in the prison,
Speaker 3: you go to take a shower, you take a shower,
Speaker 3: you're underwear, and you watch it. When I went home,
Speaker 3: came home, I went to shout the money, and the
Speaker 3: lady like, what are you doing so? And I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to watch you like listen, you're not there,
Speaker 3: and so you know, so I so you look for
Speaker 3: a little sounds like that where they're sitting at the
Speaker 3: table and they take this poon and put it inside
Speaker 3: the cup, and.
Speaker 4: You're You're like, what are you doing? You know, it's
Speaker 4: a little jail house things that.
Speaker 3: People have to shed and little psychological things that people
Speaker 3: may do. Have a little more patience with the loved one.
Speaker 5: I want to I want to reinforce one point that
Speaker 5: you made which is so powerful and I'm glad you
Speaker 5: said it, which is that it's so important that people
Speaker 5: understand that just because your loved one or even you
Speaker 5: have a lawyer, doesn't mean that lawyer is doing a
Speaker 5: great job. Even the best intentions. Sometimes in the court system,
Speaker 5: which we know is not always the best attention, but
Speaker 5: mistakes are made. So even if you have a good
Speaker 5: defense lawyer, they might be going through something in their life.
Speaker 5: They might miss a detail. So if you have that
Speaker 5: opportunity to be able to read those papers and those transcripts,
Speaker 5: you might be able to find that piece of evidence
Speaker 5: or that legal principle that might help yourself or your
Speaker 5: loved one, and you can present that to your lawyer
Speaker 5: and they may have missed it. And so that's such
Speaker 5: a great point that you brought up. And now, Ronnie,
Speaker 5: we have a tradition on wrongful conviction, which is that
Speaker 5: I like to just sit here and listen and let
Speaker 5: you talk about anything you think you may have left out.
Speaker 5: You know, you got so much, so much knowledge. It's
Speaker 5: so much hard and so much to share. So I
Speaker 5: just want to give you a chance to just say
Speaker 5: anything at all that you want.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: I just, you know, even given that opportunity, I once
Speaker 3: read that it says that ammire a person who's been
Speaker 3: through hell and came out, but takes buckets of water
Speaker 3: back to those who are there. And even this moment,
Speaker 3: I still want to hold dear to my passion and
Speaker 3: try to reach out to others as well. And at
Speaker 3: this point, through the Rodney Roberts Foundation, I'm just trying
Speaker 3: to buy a bigger bucket because I went back, I
Speaker 3: took buckets there, and I found out that my buckets
Speaker 3: need to be a little bit bigger to provide more
Speaker 3: service to a larger group of people. And just that,
Speaker 3: just you know, I want to continue to stay close
Speaker 3: to the front line and stay close to you know,
Speaker 3: fighting alongside the champions such as yourself and others, and
Speaker 3: trying to expose something in this country that has becoming
Speaker 3: a phenomenon now is why it's wrong for convision and
Speaker 3: prostitutory in Wisconda and ineffects us accounsels and continue to
Speaker 3: be on a positive path and a productive path. And
Speaker 3: I can make myself and my mother and my loved
Speaker 3: ones proud to proud of me and proud to be
Speaker 3: associated with me. So that's it for me.
Speaker 5: Well, for anyone who's listening, you've now heard the extraordinary
Speaker 5: saga and the equally extraordinary spirit of Rodney Roberts. I
Speaker 5: hope you'll consider donating to the Rodney Roberts Foundation. For
Speaker 5: every dollar that anyone donates myself and Wrongful Conviction, we
Speaker 5: will match up to ten thousand dollars, so we'll get
Speaker 5: you off to a good start there, and we'll be
Speaker 5: very proud to continue to support you as you do
Speaker 5: this amazing life saving work. And I'm just really I'm
Speaker 5: just proud to know you and happy to call you
Speaker 5: a friend. And I appreciate you coming on and sharing
Speaker 5: your experienced strength and wisdom with our audience. And I
Speaker 5: want to thank you again, Rodney, and you've been listening
Speaker 5: to a very unique and tremendous episode of wrongful conviction.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 5: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 5: get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps.
Speaker 5: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
Speaker 5: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 5: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 5: to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
Speaker 5: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 5: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
Speaker 5: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 5: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 5: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm
Speaker 5: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
Speaker 5: with Signal Company Number one