Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to Undisclosed Toward Justice, our weekly episode.
Speaker 1: I'm here as always with my colleague and Pill host
Speaker 1: Colin Miller. Hey, Colin, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: Doing great? How about yourself?
Speaker 1: I'm well, I'm well. I am very excited that we
Speaker 1: have a very special guest on this week, who I
Speaker 1: think is the Is it the first time? Maybe he's
Speaker 1: joining us, Colin, I believe so, okay, and it's a
Speaker 1: big get. It's a big get for us. We're welcoming
Speaker 1: on our show this week. Jason Flohm.
Speaker 3: Hi, Jason, Hi, Ravia, Hi Colin. How you doing. Oh,
Speaker 3: we already know, because you already asked you you're still
Speaker 3: doing good five seconds ago. You're doing good. You're probably
Speaker 3: still doing good.
Speaker 2: Might have changed the mood in a few seconds there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, no, Hey, we are so excited to
Speaker 1: have you on. We know you have a super busy schedule.
Speaker 1: Anybody who is familiar with criminal justice, media advocacy, innocence work,
Speaker 1: I mean, Jason, you are a very well known entity
Speaker 1: in this space, but your career mostly was in the
Speaker 1: music industry as an executive. I mean, you were the
Speaker 1: founder of Lava Records, but also the chairman of Atlantic Records,
Speaker 1: Version Records, Capital Music Group. Then you started Lava for
Speaker 1: Good and Lava for Good for folks who know I
Speaker 1: mean like the brand. Wrongful Conviction is your brand. You
Speaker 1: know you're wearing the T shirt, but that's as a
Speaker 1: powerful brand and you've been doing it for years and
Speaker 1: under the Lava for Good label, you have produced so
Speaker 1: many shows around justice and law and I am fascinated
Speaker 1: with your story and our listeners don't know it, but
Speaker 1: I want to know how you went from being, you know,
Speaker 1: a music producer executive to this work, which is not
Speaker 1: even close to being as glamorous as what you have done.
Speaker 3: You're lying, it's kind of the opposite. I guess. Oh,
Speaker 3: it's funny. Robber, you know many years ago it must
Speaker 3: have been. It was before COVID, so I don't know
Speaker 3: six years ago or so. I remember there was a
Speaker 3: week when I went down to death Row in Texas
Speaker 3: on a Monday to visit Rob Will. It was the
Speaker 3: first time I visited him. We featured him on the
Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction podcast and there's been a lot of media
Speaker 3: around his case. It's an outrageous case and he's an
Speaker 3: incredible person. So Anyway, I went down there and visited
Speaker 3: him on death Row, and then I flew to LA
Speaker 3: because it was Grammy Week, so I was out there
Speaker 3: for all the festivities and all the different fancy parties
Speaker 3: and whatnot they have there, and I ended up at
Speaker 3: the Grammys. I went with my son that year, and
Speaker 3: I taught my sign I would get seats that would
Speaker 3: be very good seats in the sort of tenth throw
Speaker 3: or whatever it was, right. But then what I showed
Speaker 3: him I shouldn't admit this on the ear, is that
Speaker 3: when during the commercial breaks, you could just get up
Speaker 3: and go to whatever seat you want because most of
Speaker 3: the people sitting in those seats are seats, right. So
Speaker 3: you go to someone who looks like they have a
Speaker 3: suit that they bought at a very inexpensive outlet, let's
Speaker 3: just say, and you go, excuse me, you're in my seat,
Speaker 3: and they invariably get up and leave, and next thing
Speaker 3: you know, we end up sitting in the front row
Speaker 3: next to pal McCartney. Where the hell it is? Right?
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 1: I'm going to file that information away just in case
Speaker 1: it comes in handy one day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they changed the thing now now they made tables,
Speaker 3: so the stars all sit at the tables with drinks
Speaker 3: and stuff, and it's a better setup for them. But
Speaker 3: back then you could do this and obvious seem to
Speaker 3: be the only one that was doing it. But I
Speaker 3: had this revelation at that moment. I was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: what a week because this was Sunday night, right, So
Speaker 3: I was like death row to the front row, like
Speaker 3: literally like one week. So yeah, and that's sort of
Speaker 3: a very sort of perfect example of the crazy dichotomy
Speaker 3: of my life. But I got into this, Robbie because
Speaker 3: when I was thirty two years old, I was getting
Speaker 3: in a taxi and there was a newstand and I
Speaker 3: wanted something to read because back then there was no
Speaker 3: like messing around on your phone and doing you know,
Speaker 3: wordal or Instagram or whatever we do, and so I
Speaker 3: wanted the Times. It was sold out and I picked
Speaker 3: up the post, which is not something I had ever
Speaker 3: done before or never or since or never will do again,
Speaker 3: but it was what was available, and I wanted something
Speaker 3: to read, and I was obviously meant to read it
Speaker 3: because it was a story that caught my eye about
Speaker 3: a kid named Stephen Lennon who was serving fifteen to
Speaker 3: life for a non violent first defense, cocaine possession charge,
Speaker 3: and a maxim security prison in New York State. The
Speaker 3: reason it was in the paper was because his mother
Speaker 3: surely had been trying to get clemency from Governor Mario
Speaker 3: Cuomo and had been turned down, even though the warden
Speaker 3: had written a letter of support the sentence of judge
Speaker 3: and even Geraldine Ferraro with those of you who are
Speaker 3: old enough to remember or remember it was the first
Speaker 3: woman to ever get a nomination to be vice president
Speaker 3: from one of the major political parties of the United States.
Speaker 3: So this was a headline and so I caught my
Speaker 3: attention because it had drugs in prison and at both
Speaker 3: things of which I was fascinated by. Still am but
Speaker 3: my drug days are forty years behind me. But but
Speaker 3: he was thirty two, I was thirty two. He had
Speaker 3: been in prison for eight years. I had been sober
Speaker 3: for almost eight years at that point in time, and
Speaker 3: I was like, this definitely could have been me. So
Speaker 3: I decided to see if I could do something about it.
Speaker 3: Knowing absolutely nothing about anything about drug laws or what
Speaker 3: any of this stuff, it just struck me as so outrageous.
Speaker 3: Fifteen of life, nonviolent first offense, cocaine possession charge. I'm like,
Speaker 3: so I got the only Crembel defense latter I knew
Speaker 3: at the time was a guy in Bob Kalina. He
Speaker 3: represented Stone Table Palace at Schedule, both of whom I
Speaker 3: had signed, both of whom were getting arrested like weekly
Speaker 3: in those days. So I was like, Bob, can you help?
Speaker 3: He goes, no, there's nothing you can do. I said,
Speaker 3: do me a favor, because by now I had called
Speaker 3: the kid's mother on the phone. Katie was the same
Speaker 3: age as I was. I had called Shirley on the
Speaker 3: phone and spoken to her. He agreed to take the
Speaker 3: case pro bono as a favorite to me. He said,
Speaker 3: I won't win, but I'll try, and I go great.
Speaker 3: So six months later we end up in a courtroom
Speaker 3: in Malone, New York, up by the Canadian border. Still
Speaker 3: had a mullet and purple Doc Martins, this is how
Speaker 3: long ago this was. And the judge is this old
Speaker 3: guy with white hair. This is not going to go
Speaker 3: all I'm saying to myself, and he looked like Ted
Speaker 3: Forsythe and the arguments go back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 3: I have no idea what I don't I just known
Speaker 3: Shirley Lennon's mom is squeezing my hand so tired, I'm
Speaker 3: cutting off circulation and she's kind off the circulation. And
Speaker 3: then the judge bangs that cavel down and says the
Speaker 3: motion is granted. And I was like, huh wow. And
Speaker 3: then Bob comes scurrying over in his three piece suit,
Speaker 3: and know, he's kind of overweight, and you know, so
Speaker 3: picture picture what your picture you're picturing him? And anyway,
Speaker 3: and so he comes sort of bustling over and I
Speaker 3: was like, Bob, what happened? And he goes, we won.
Speaker 3: I was like we what? And he goes, we won,
Speaker 3: and I was like, that's incredible, you know, and they
Speaker 3: sent the kid home and I was like, Okay, now
Speaker 3: I know what to do with the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: And that's how it happened. I've never stopped.
Speaker 1: Had you at that point had any interaction yourself with
Speaker 1: the criminal legal system.
Speaker 3: Almost, I mean, it's long enough ago statue limitations. You're
Speaker 3: a lawyer, Yeah, I think we're I had been.
Speaker 1: Where's the body buried?
Speaker 3: Then I'd had cops pointing guns at me when I
Speaker 3: was doing something I really shouldn't have been doing. And
Speaker 3: for some reason, probably the color of my skin, the
Speaker 3: zip code I lived in. They didn't search all four
Speaker 3: of us. They searched me into other guys and not
Speaker 3: the other guy who were on the street. And the
Speaker 3: last guy was the guy they should have searched, and
Speaker 3: had they, I would have ended up in jail for sure.
Speaker 3: And so you know, I came close and there was
Speaker 3: no excuse for it. I shouldn't have been putting myself
Speaker 3: in those type of positions, but I did. And look,
Speaker 3: let's face it too, like I got into, you know,
Speaker 3: substance abuse issues, and you know when you get into
Speaker 3: especially I was, I had some issues with Columbian marching powder,
Speaker 3: let's call it. And so you know, when you do that, though,
Speaker 3: invariably you can be you wrapped up in the system
Speaker 3: because when kids, and I was a kid, go and
Speaker 3: they all are doing it, and then they're like, somebody
Speaker 3: go get it, and we'll get a volume discount, right,
Speaker 3: and we'll I'll split it up. Now all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: they can get you.
Speaker 1: For distribution, right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so I was in the wrong place at the
Speaker 3: wrong time so many times. And that's why I say
Speaker 3: it could have been me.
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Speaker 2: You've discussed including just now your music world and the
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction World coinciding and coming together, and I wonder
Speaker 2: recently on the podcasts, I discussed how over the past
Speaker 2: decade or so, there's been a rash of cases in
Speaker 2: which prosecutors have presented lyrics, typically rap lyrics that were
Speaker 2: authored by defendants to prove this is a drug kingpin,
Speaker 2: they're committing these violent crimes, etc. And now a few states,
Speaker 2: most recently Maryland, have passed laws. Maryland's laws called the
Speaker 2: PACE Act Protecting Artists Creative Expression Act, banning the use
Speaker 2: of music lyrics against the defendant trial, and so I
Speaker 2: wonder you know, Jason, in your backgrounds in music and
Speaker 2: your innocence work, what is your thought about these prosecutors
Speaker 2: using lyrics authored by I defend into try on this
Speaker 2: trend of states now banning it.
Speaker 3: Well, it's really interesting timing for us to be having
Speaker 3: this conversation because last week Texas executed James Broadnax, who
Speaker 3: I believe everybody knew that was involved, was innocent of
Speaker 3: the crime he was convicted of. And I say that
Speaker 3: because he was convicted largely because of lyrics that he
Speaker 3: had written when he was a kid, and in his case,
Speaker 3: his cousin had confessed to the crime, and the physical
Speaker 3: evidence showed that his cousin wasn't lying right, he wasn't
Speaker 3: being heroic and taking a fall. He was a guy
Speaker 3: that did it and James didn't do it. But because
Speaker 3: he had written these lyrics, you know, eons ago, they
Speaker 3: went ahead and executed him with not a care in
Speaker 3: the world. So sometimes I think these people are so
Speaker 3: sick that they get an extra thrill out of executing
Speaker 3: people that they think or maybe or are innocent. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I mean, it's so sinister. I can't even
Speaker 3: figure it out. But to your question, I think it's
Speaker 3: high time that we, you know, got to a place
Speaker 3: of sanity where lyrics are disconnected from anything to do
Speaker 3: in the criminal legal system. They aren't evidence of anything
Speaker 3: except maybe creativity or the lack thereof, right. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's good lyrics, there's bad lyrics, there's vile that lyrics.
Speaker 3: There's every kind of lyrics under the sun. It doesn't
Speaker 3: mean a damn thing. That's like saying someone wrote a
Speaker 3: novel where there was a murder, and therefore they must
Speaker 3: be a murderer, because how else would that thought pop
Speaker 3: in their head. It's so ridiculous. Or movies, right, or anything.
Speaker 3: And so it's one of these things. In Robbie you
Speaker 3: know this well too, Like I mean, we take our
Speaker 3: victories where we can get them, and you know, we
Speaker 3: hope that Who is it Brian Stevens that said the
Speaker 3: arc of the world universe events towards justice? Or is
Speaker 3: that Martin Luther King? That's one other King? I think
Speaker 3: so those two have a lot in common. But so yeah,
Speaker 3: I think the Maryland thing was a big win. My
Speaker 3: friend Diana Lapolte was involved on that. She's a you know,
Speaker 3: phenomenal music business lawyer who else is very involved in
Speaker 3: civil rights work. So shout out to Dina.
Speaker 1: So Jason you you were involved in innocence work well
Speaker 1: before I think this country and most people understood the
Speaker 1: concept of innocence and how it operates. And I think
Speaker 1: that's like Cereal kind of brought that to the forefront
Speaker 1: in the last fifteen years or so. I mean, to
Speaker 1: this day, what I've discovered is outside of the US,
Speaker 1: you know, innocence still really is not understood as a concept,
Speaker 1: even my legal practitioners and advocates. I've spoken to folks
Speaker 1: from around the world who have said to me, can
Speaker 1: you come and train lawyers and advocates in other countries
Speaker 1: on how to do innocence work because we don't we
Speaker 1: don't have it here. But you've been doing this for
Speaker 1: a long time. However, after Cereal arrived on the scene,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, is that what got you
Speaker 1: into the podcast space.
Speaker 3: I wasn't an early adopter of Cereal. Strangely enough, Oh okay,
Speaker 3: I was well aware of it, and I'd read about it,
Speaker 3: but I didn't. I don't. I think I was late
Speaker 3: to the game and listening and probably fifty or one
Speaker 3: hundred million people listened to it before I did. It's
Speaker 3: incredible what that was literally a cultural touchstone. It almost
Speaker 3: sort of not a revolutionary, but almost created the genre.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, yeah, I think what year was that,
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen? Yeah, right, So then I had had a
Speaker 3: couple of different people ask me about doing a podcast,
Speaker 3: but you know, I hadn't really picked up on the
Speaker 3: queue yet. And then in twenty sixteen, I was in
Speaker 3: a meeting with a friend of mine, was being introduced
Speaker 3: to this guy and he, you know, he heard me
Speaker 3: proselytizing about the Innocence work and everything like I do,
Speaker 3: and he said, you know, you should really do a podcast.
Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, you're not the first guy
Speaker 3: that said that, and he goes, yeah, but I'm in
Speaker 3: the podcast business. I was like, oh, okay, let's get
Speaker 3: to work. So that's how it started. It literally was
Speaker 3: as random as that, and so it's been it's been
Speaker 3: an incre credible thing. I mean, the Wrongful Conviction podcast
Speaker 3: is now five hundred and seventy something episodes in I
Speaker 3: don't know, sixty million or so downloads, and it's reached
Speaker 3: into the halls of power. I mean, I'm very proud
Speaker 3: of the impact that's had on individual cases that we
Speaker 3: know about. And obviously it never just takes a podcast.
Speaker 3: It takes a village, right, It takes attorneys and other
Speaker 3: media and all sorts of stuff to undo one of
Speaker 3: these disasters. But it has had a significant enough impact
Speaker 3: that in many cases we've had either the person who's
Speaker 3: wrong for the convicted who then was freed, or their
Speaker 3: legal team cite us as having been an important part
Speaker 3: of the effort to free them. And that means the
Speaker 3: world to me. I've gotten calls from the courthouse steps.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I get facetimes from people right when they walk
Speaker 3: out on their attorney's phones or their their you know,
Speaker 3: their sister's phone or whoever. And one of them just
Speaker 3: called me, actually, Freddie Brinkley. But the amazing thing to
Speaker 3: me is that it's reached into the halls of power.
Speaker 3: You know, I remember, I think you'll get a kick.
Speaker 3: And we know that there have been bills written at
Speaker 3: least three states, because we know about the three where
Speaker 3: the legislators that wrote those bills that were signed to
Speaker 3: the law have cited one of our podcasts as the
Speaker 3: reason why they were inspired to write these bills that
Speaker 3: made the system a little fairer and better, amazingly Indiana
Speaker 3: and Washington State. But I'll tell you one funny aside
Speaker 3: is that I was on the phone with the chief
Speaker 3: council and a governor's office in a southern state some
Speaker 3: time ago. And this is years ago, and she was new,
Speaker 3: so I didn't know her. But I was advocating for
Speaker 3: a clemency for a couple of people whose cases we
Speaker 3: had featured on our show. And I had the attorney
Speaker 3: for one of these men on the phone with us,
Speaker 3: and we're laying out our whole reasons why they should
Speaker 3: get the governor's attention, and she goes, you know, this
Speaker 3: reminds me of this podcast I started listening to recently,
Speaker 3: you know, because it's pretty good. You know, they do this,
Speaker 3: they tell these stories kind of like you guys are
Speaker 3: telling me now, Like they lay out the whole case
Speaker 3: and they talked to the wrong and she's like, I
Speaker 3: can't remember what it's called. And I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 3: her name was Leslie. I like Leslie Leslie. She's like, no, no,
Speaker 3: you got to hear me out, Like I'll call up
Speaker 3: with the name of it in a minute. It's pretty good.
Speaker 3: You should check it out. And I'm like, well, I
Speaker 3: don't know how to tell you this, but that's me.
Speaker 3: She's like, amazing, Yeah, that's you. I was like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: this is a moment I'll remember for a long time.
Speaker 3: So and we ended up getting a relief for these guys,
Speaker 3: which was great. But yeah, So that's that's the Wrongful
Speaker 3: Conviction podcast in a nutshell. And of course I love
Speaker 3: the fact that with as many people listening to it
Speaker 3: as do, it is a statistical, extreme probability that someone
Speaker 3: is sitting in a jury room right now in America, yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe even elsewhere in the world and being fed a
Speaker 3: bunch of bullshit by prosecutors, quote unquote experts, police people
Speaker 3: who know better. Yeah, and they're not going to fall
Speaker 3: for it. Yeah, because I.
Speaker 1: Have long said that that, you know, the subversive mission
Speaker 1: of Undisclosed is to tate every jury in America for
Speaker 1: the better. So I totally get that. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: your work has you know, not just not just made
Speaker 1: differences in the halls of power, like you know, with
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform with legislation, but you've gotten clemency's pardons, exonerations,
Speaker 1: and also so much recognition. I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 1: just recognition in the industry itself, which is not easy
Speaker 1: to get. I mean, after starting Wrongful Conviction, then you
Speaker 1: founded Lava for Good, and Lava for Good produces many
Speaker 1: more shows outside of Wrongful Conviction, including ones that people
Speaker 1: I know our listeners are familiar with, like Ear Witness
Speaker 1: and Bone Valley. I mean, like this just incredibly popular
Speaker 1: shows as well, not just impactful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm so glad you mentioned that Bone Valley.
Speaker 3: We're getting ready to release season five, which is called
Speaker 3: Bone Valley Devil's Quarry, and it is already getting a
Speaker 3: significant amount of fanfars but admitted to right back a
Speaker 3: film festival. It's in partnership with Rolling Stone Magazine, which
Speaker 3: is very exciting because Rolling Stone has been a big
Speaker 3: part of my story for so many years. I think
Speaker 3: they've done some of the most important reporting on these
Speaker 3: type of issues for generations now and so, and I
Speaker 3: feel like they're still relevant, which is incredible. So, like
Speaker 3: I said, they did a story about Rob Will years ago.
Speaker 3: I helped to get their attention on that case, but
Speaker 3: it was really well done. Maybe did a story about
Speaker 3: me once upon Time, which is really well done. Too,
Speaker 3: but I was very, very humbled by that exposure. It
Speaker 3: was so wonderful. So Devil's Quarry is based on the
Speaker 3: article that was written by Paul Solataroff many years ago
Speaker 3: about a case in Carmel, New York where this little
Speaker 3: girl named Josette Wright was brutally assaulted and strangled and
Speaker 3: murdered ultimately and left in the woods. And I think
Speaker 3: she was a who's tannerb that it's horrible, horrible crime.
Speaker 3: And two guys ended up promptly convicted in that case,
Speaker 3: Anthony DiPippo and Andrew Kreevac. Andrew serve twenty four years,
Speaker 3: Anthony served twenty they'd both been exonerated. I think that
Speaker 3: everybody knew from the get go that they were innocent,
Speaker 3: but it didn't matter. It was a high profile case.
Speaker 3: They needed arrests, and somehow or other, the authorities ignored
Speaker 3: it's probably too kind of a word, you know, the
Speaker 3: person who would have been the obvious suspect. And so
Speaker 3: this is a deep dive into that case that is
Speaker 3: done by Paul, the original writer, who is so brilliant,
Speaker 3: and I think it's going to really shake people up
Speaker 3: because it's a different side of things right, because I
Speaker 3: talk and I know Robbie, you and I have talked
Speaker 3: about this before. You know, when when the system conspires
Speaker 3: to put innocent people in prisons Andrew and Anthony in
Speaker 3: this case, but in any of the cases, odd non whoever,
Speaker 3: but almost by definition, they're allowing the guilty person or
Speaker 3: people to remain free. And so you know, in cases,
Speaker 3: the more extreme and more horrible and more violent the
Speaker 3: case is, the more dangerous that is to everyone else.
Speaker 3: And we've been covering cases like this for so many years.
Speaker 3: Michael Morton. It goes back to him right in Texas
Speaker 3: where the cops ignored the obvious suspect who then went
Speaker 3: on and beat another woman to death in her home, Samemo,
Speaker 3: you know the two towns away, you know, in the
Speaker 3: ensuing weeks, and how would it feel to be her
Speaker 3: family when you find out that they could have, should
Speaker 3: have and maybe even did know who the actual guy was,
Speaker 3: but ignored him because the grieving husband who found his
Speaker 3: wife beaten the death happened to be the easier target,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well when is the Devil's corey air?
Speaker 3: Oh Devil's quarry is jeez? I just posted it on
Speaker 3: my Instagram, which, by the way, is at it's Jason Flamm.
Speaker 3: I'm so bad. So there was another Jason Flam who
Speaker 3: got to Instagram before I did. I've gotten to know him,
Speaker 3: by the way. He's a school teacher and tell her.
Speaker 3: I think June tenth is the Devil's Quarry and I'm
Speaker 3: so excited for everybody to hear it. I think it's
Speaker 3: really beautifully done and it's also it's powerful, it's traveling,
Speaker 3: and it should get everybody up in arms because it's
Speaker 3: it's really a just a super poignant example of how
Speaker 3: our system goes wrong, is wrong, does wrong, and we
Speaker 3: all suffer.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I'm excited to listen to that and that'll
Speaker 1: be a great summer listen along with undisclosed new new
Speaker 1: season which is also around the corner.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the new season of Bone Valley coming, and
Speaker 2: of course Bone Valley hoisted initially by Gilbert King, all
Speaker 2: started with the Leo Scofield case and then, as listeners know,
Speaker 2: Leo had a cellmate, Kevin Herrick, who also has a
Speaker 2: strong innocence claim and Jason Sheer point about ignoring the
Speaker 2: actual perpetrator an actual license plate in the file that
Speaker 2: linked to a sex Offendron done some pro bonal work
Speaker 2: helping out in that case. And so I wonder, Jason,
Speaker 2: going back all the way to the start of season
Speaker 2: one in this Bone Valley podcast, how did this case
Speaker 2: of Leos Scofield come tory attention and how did this
Speaker 2: whole Bone Valley franchise start.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you raised that for a number of reasons, Colin.
Speaker 3: One is because isn't it profound when you think about
Speaker 3: the fact that two innocent guys were cellmates, different climes,
Speaker 3: both of them served you know, Leo served thirty six years.
Speaker 3: I think Kevin's been in for that now, Like, that's
Speaker 3: not a coincidence, It's a fucking epidemic, right, and there
Speaker 3: are innocent people all over this country sitting in prison
Speaker 3: cells right now while we're having this conversation. I think
Speaker 3: the numbers around two hundred thousand. Some people think it's
Speaker 3: as few as one hundred thousand. That's still a big
Speaker 3: freaking number, right when you consider that. So that's one reason.
Speaker 3: The other is Bone Valley season one. Well, first of all,
Speaker 3: how it started was Gilbert King, who is you know,
Speaker 3: somebody I admire I have long admired. He won the
Speaker 3: Pool Serprize for his book Devil and the Grove that
Speaker 3: led to the posthumous exoneration of four black teenage boys
Speaker 3: who were executed by the State of Florida in the
Speaker 3: most grotesque proceedings imaginable. So Gilbert approached me when he
Speaker 3: had found this case of Leo Schofield and asked me
Speaker 3: if i'd be willing to do a podcast, and I
Speaker 3: was like, with you, boss, hell yeah. I didn't even
Speaker 3: have to ask too many details. And so that's how
Speaker 3: it started. And what I love about Bone Valley is
Speaker 3: one of those podcasts because I'm like a podcast snob,
Speaker 3: right if it, Like we say in the music industry,
Speaker 3: you get to the chorus and don't bore us. So
Speaker 3: in Bone Valley the first sixty seconds and you're like,
Speaker 3: oh boy, this is gonna be nutty.
Speaker 4: You've been around the system for a long time. Could
Speaker 4: you ever imagine the day where you'd sit at a
Speaker 4: table with a microphone and vouch for a man who
Speaker 4: says he's not guilty.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 5: In fact, I've stated many times I'm probably way over
Speaker 5: my skis right now.
Speaker 3: Technically I'm not supposed to be doing this.
Speaker 4: But it's like If I don't do it, who the
Speaker 4: fuck's gonna do it.
Speaker 5: This is Judge Scott Cupp. He isn't supposed to make
Speaker 5: any public comments on pending cases at all. Florida's Code
Speaker 5: of Judicial Conduct prohibits it. And yet that's exactly what
Speaker 5: he's doing to me, a writer. This It could cost
Speaker 5: him not only a seat on the twentieth Circuit Court,
Speaker 5: he could even be disbarred.
Speaker 6: I can't.
Speaker 3: I just can't let it go.
Speaker 5: The first time I met Judge Scott Cupp was in
Speaker 5: twenty eighteen, when I was invited to speak at a
Speaker 5: conference about my book, Devil in the Grove. It's a
Speaker 5: story of four young black men in central Florida who
Speaker 5: were wrongly accused of raping a white woman in nineteen
Speaker 5: forty nine. A young Thurgood Marshall represented them at trial,
Speaker 5: decades before he became the first black justice on the
Speaker 5: US Supreme Court. I spent five years investigating this story,
Speaker 5: and when Devil in the Grove won the Pulitzer Prize
Speaker 5: in twenty thirteen, it brought renewed attention, outrage, and even
Speaker 5: political action to the case. In late twenty twenty one,
Speaker 5: I was in the courtroom when the state of Florida
Speaker 5: formally dismissed all charges against the young men known as
Speaker 5: the Groveland Four, their families patiently waited for full exonerations,
Speaker 5: and after seventy two years, they finally had justice.
Speaker 7: If you know something that's right, stand up for it
Speaker 7: the persistent and stand back footed on God's promises. Let
Speaker 7: him work his plate. I don't care if it takes
Speaker 7: seventy two years, it might take eighties.
Speaker 2: He did it for me, and he a do.
Speaker 7: It for you.
Speaker 3: It's like a freaking onion and you keep peeling it
Speaker 3: and it keeps getting worse and more rotten and more rotten.
Speaker 3: You're like, oh no, they're no further down this can go.
Speaker 3: And then it goes. It goes down.
Speaker 1: It's worse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it gets worse, and the good news is that
Speaker 3: it's had the impact that we hope for almost there's
Speaker 3: still work to be done, even though on our show
Speaker 3: the actual killer confesses in details that only he could
Speaker 3: know and there's physical evidence to back it up up,
Speaker 3: like his physical evidence was all over the scene where
Speaker 3: poor Michelle was was butchered, and so yeah, that's uh,
Speaker 3: that's Bone Valley. And if you haven't heard it yet,
Speaker 3: it's time. Listen to that, listen to it strong recommend. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, we we've talked about Bone Valley many many times
Speaker 1: with the show Believe. Yeah, yeah, I know it's yeah.
Speaker 3: I think the fifth season is really gonna and everybody
Speaker 3: take your phone now, unless you're on your phone or
Speaker 3: if you're driving. But other than that, you can I
Speaker 3: think you can preview Bone Valley season five Devil's Quarry
Speaker 3: now and you can probably pre order it or whatever
Speaker 3: hell you got to do with a dance subscribe, subscribe,
Speaker 3: I can't even speak today.
Speaker 1: Like and subscribe. Yeah. Another one of your shows that
Speaker 1: I think would be really relevant to our audience is
Speaker 1: the Junk Science Show, which all stupid. I mean, like
Speaker 1: we are obsessed with junk science around here, and I
Speaker 1: mean like it's like four hundred episodes deep, and it
Speaker 1: attacks like all kinds of junk science. It's been used
Speaker 1: over you know, like the last hundred years to convict
Speaker 1: people and so much of that. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know how involved you are like in this different shows.
Speaker 1: Are you involved, like let's say with this particular show,
Speaker 1: like are you like taking a look at like who's
Speaker 1: going to be coming on what are the issues are
Speaker 1: we presented are on top of all of that. That's
Speaker 1: a lot to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have a team, of course, and we all
Speaker 3: pitch in however in whatever ways are needed. Junk Science
Speaker 3: is a show I'm really proud of and I'm glad
Speaker 3: you raised it because it's so important and what we
Speaker 3: did on junk Science is and it was four hundred
Speaker 3: episodes in don't worry, there's not four hundred episodes. You
Speaker 3: have to listen to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's true right now.
Speaker 3: But there are a fair number of episodes and each
Speaker 3: one very I think masterfully delves into a different junk science.
Speaker 3: So we covered, you know, arson bitemark evidence, blood spatter,
Speaker 3: We covered bootprint analysis, tool mark analo sis. We covered
Speaker 3: shaking baby syndrome, one of the ones I am most
Speaker 3: you know, passionate about.
Speaker 1: And Colin as well. Yeah, Colin does a lot of
Speaker 1: work on shaking baby syndrome.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, fuck of shaking baby syndrome diagnosis, because that
Speaker 3: is just it's so insidious, because what it does to families,
Speaker 3: grieving families, Yeah, and just makes everything worse, like so
Speaker 3: many other aspects of our criminal legal system. But what
Speaker 3: I would say to the listeners of viewers now, is
Speaker 3: just that there's never been a documented case of a
Speaker 3: baby being shaken to death or to you know, extreme duress.
Speaker 3: There's never been a video, there's never been somebody witness it.
Speaker 3: And that's because it's never happened. I might say that,
Speaker 3: I mean, has anyone ever shaken a baby? Sure, but
Speaker 3: you know it's not a natural thing. As a lay person,
Speaker 3: I'm not a scientist. I don't have to be. I'm
Speaker 3: a logical person, and I think everyone can probably relate
Speaker 3: to this, I hope. So I think about it in
Speaker 3: the terms of when we as humans get really really
Speaker 3: at a person or a thing, our natural instinct is
Speaker 3: to hit it, kick it, or throw it, probably in
Speaker 3: that order. Right. What we don't normally do is shake
Speaker 3: things out of anger. Not impossible has been done, does happen,
Speaker 3: but in general that's what we do now. Furthermore, when
Speaker 3: you think about shaking a baby, who is call it
Speaker 3: you know, fifteen pounds or something, ten pounds, sometimes bigger,
Speaker 3: forty pounds. I mean, there's a four year old. We
Speaker 3: have a case in California. How much the four year
Speaker 3: old it was not a little bit, but so how
Speaker 3: strong would you have to be to hold a baby
Speaker 3: at arm's length who's presumably agitated and squiggling and moving around,
Speaker 3: and now you're gonna have to hold them. So do
Speaker 3: this like at home, Like put your arms out and
Speaker 3: try to imagine you have a weight that heavy, that's
Speaker 3: not it's you know, it's something again that's in motion,
Speaker 3: which makes you even more dynamic. Right, and now you've
Speaker 3: got to shake it so hard that you rattle its
Speaker 3: brain meanwhile, not damaging its ribs, right, which you think
Speaker 3: about that, how tight would you have to squeeze that individual,
Speaker 3: that that child toddler in order not to drop it
Speaker 3: when you're shaking it? Right, And kids that age their
Speaker 3: ribs are very you know, they're not hard to you know,
Speaker 3: like ours. So in these cases, case after case that
Speaker 3: we see, as you guys know, the neck isn't broken either. Sorry,
Speaker 3: it's gross to talk about it, but it is what
Speaker 3: it is. But so what I think I think neurology
Speaker 3: and science have advanced to the point, Well, first of all,
Speaker 3: now we've identified at least eighty two other causes, other
Speaker 3: things that could cause what they call the triad of
Speaker 3: symptoms bleeding in the brain and stuff like that the hemorrhaging,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera, but they somehow or other, The
Speaker 3: default in the criminal legal sit is always just a
Speaker 3: kid must have been shaken, when now we know the
Speaker 3: same symptoms could come from justice. What looks like an
Speaker 3: innocent fall or a roll out of a bed, even
Speaker 3: a low bed, right, just like how you know adults,
Speaker 3: you know, some people fall on the street, right and
Speaker 3: they just dust himself off and get up. They trip
Speaker 3: over something whatever it is, and other people fall, hit
Speaker 3: their head and die.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is of course the Robert Roberson case
Speaker 2: in Texas. So the man on death row who is
Speaker 2: convicted on what everyone pretty much believes now, including representators
Speaker 2: on both sides of the aisle, was junk signs of
Speaker 2: a shaking baby syndrome diagnosis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. I visited Robert on
Speaker 3: death row in Texas, and he is such a beautiful soul.
Speaker 3: He's still got this sort of almost childlike demeanor you
Speaker 3: know about him. He's still got a light in his
Speaker 3: eyes that is just, you know, sort of it's incredible
Speaker 3: considering what he's been through, not just the loss of
Speaker 3: a child, but then being evicted it sentenced to death,
Speaker 3: and I'm so glad you brought him up because his case.
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right, it's a it's almost like the poster child,
Speaker 3: for lack of a better word, for this disastrous, you know,
Speaker 3: practice that we have in this country of just defaulting
Speaker 3: to the baby must have been shaken and that's why
Speaker 3: whatever happened to it happened. And you know what I mean, Look,
Speaker 3: we have a whole cottage industry called child abuse pediatricians. Like,
Speaker 3: wait minute, that's in your name, So your job is
Speaker 3: to diagnose child abuse and pretty much that's how it is. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so it's a scary time.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's super frustrating about this, and I've talked
Speaker 1: about this numerous times, is the fact that, like the
Speaker 1: general public seems to be caught up on the fact
Speaker 1: that a lot of this science that has junk science
Speaker 1: that has convicted people it's all bullshit. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, Obama had the task force that also gave
Speaker 1: its recommendations, and so like you have official government agencies
Speaker 1: where like we can't, but people are still behind bars
Speaker 1: and serving life sentences and sometimes death sentence is based
Speaker 1: on something like hair microscopy evidence and nothing else or
Speaker 1: like you said, the footwear comparison. The frustration is that
Speaker 1: the needle is not only not moving on cases that
Speaker 1: a bit adjudicated, I don't think it's really moving that
Speaker 1: much on cases that are being adjudicated today. Like this
Speaker 1: stuff still has to be litigate it over and over
Speaker 1: in every single case that the state wants to use
Speaker 1: any of the science, and then you've got to convince
Speaker 1: a judge to like, you know, exclude it.
Speaker 3: Robbie, I'm so glad you referenced that because the hair analysis,
Speaker 3: you know, there was a landmark by was National cinem
Speaker 3: of Science, the Innacist Project, the Justice Department maybe FBI
Speaker 3: came four agencies in mind, and they studied three hundred
Speaker 3: and ninety six cases during I think it was that
Speaker 3: I think that's the right number, actually a visital memory,
Speaker 3: but in which hair analysis was the main factor in
Speaker 3: the conviction of the person who was accused of the crime.
Speaker 3: And they found that I think in ninety six percent
Speaker 3: of them, the FBI analyst had either been mistaken or lied,
Speaker 3: and these lies or mistakes had, you know, horrific consequences.
Speaker 3: You know, when you have an FBI expert get up
Speaker 3: on the stand and say, well, it's obviously Collins hair.
Speaker 3: It's like a million, billion, trillion to one odds that
Speaker 3: it could have been anybody else. And some of these
Speaker 3: cases it turned out to be cat hair, you know,
Speaker 3: or you know, a dog hair, or not hair at all,
Speaker 3: or somebody else's hair. And like they're just up there
Speaker 3: making up these statistics that aren't based in any you know,
Speaker 3: and there's a whole science behind it. You listen to
Speaker 3: the episode of Junk Science and you'll learn more.
Speaker 1: Episode it's.
Speaker 2: And I'll be very pertinent to our upcoming season.
Speaker 3: This one.
Speaker 2: It is a faulty hair analysis from nineteen seventy two
Speaker 2: to nineteen ninety ninety.
Speaker 3: And by the way, the one thing I found most
Speaker 3: I think surprising in Junk Science the episode I found
Speaker 3: most surprising. You guys want to guess because he even
Speaker 3: shocked me.
Speaker 2: Okay, printing so unscientific and a judgment called by a
Speaker 2: finger printing examiner.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the fingerprint episode. What I thought was so
Speaker 3: stunning about that because up until I I have to admit,
Speaker 3: up until I heard our own episode, I kind of
Speaker 3: thought fingerprints were totally reliable. I thought that was one
Speaker 3: of the only ones that was right. But the incredible
Speaker 3: one of the incredible things in the Fingerprint episode is
Speaker 3: that they talk about the case of the guy who
Speaker 3: was accused of the Madrid train bombings. Right, So, in
Speaker 3: the nineties, it was a horrific series of attacks on
Speaker 3: I think eight different trains a particular day, like one
Speaker 3: hundred and ninety people killed. There were bombs left in
Speaker 3: these trains. Horrible, horrible thing. And so naturally is a
Speaker 3: worldwide man hunt, like the biggest man hunt you know,
Speaker 3: I mean you can imagine, right, And so they had
Speaker 3: a partial fingerprint I think left on something that was
Speaker 3: attributed to the one of the perpetrators in or maybe
Speaker 3: it was one perpetrator. I think one guy did all that,
Speaker 3: but who knows. And so the FBI got a hit
Speaker 3: and they announced that this guy he was a lawyer
Speaker 3: who lived in Oregon, but he had also recently converted
Speaker 3: to the Muslim religion. And so it was like, oh, perfect,
Speaker 3: he's already must be him because and so there was
Speaker 3: one problem. Colin knows the problem. The problem was he
Speaker 3: didn't have a passport and he had never been to
Speaker 3: Spain or left the country. I don't think I think
Speaker 3: he ever left the United States, or at least not
Speaker 3: in the last many, many many years. But the FBI
Speaker 3: was like, nope, we had our three top guys analyze this.
Speaker 3: It's definitely him. And finally the Spanish authorities were like,
Speaker 3: how about this, you guys fuck off while we go
Speaker 3: and try to find who actually did this, because obviously
Speaker 3: he ain't that guy. And so where my mind goes
Speaker 3: with this is imagine if that had been an American case. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he would have one hundred thousand percent been convicted and
Speaker 3: sentenced to death. Yeah, because it would have been a
Speaker 3: federal case. I imagine he would have been sentence to death.
Speaker 3: So you know, he was I guess you could say
Speaker 3: he was lucky if you could be lucky in such
Speaker 3: a circumstance. By the way, I'm on my way to
Speaker 3: the studio to go record with Michelle Murphy today. You know,
Speaker 3: we're launching Wrongful Conviction on YouTube in the next few weeks.
Speaker 3: It's been on YouTube, but it's been more of a
Speaker 3: static thing. Now it's going to be a fully you know,
Speaker 3: dynamic set and really visually I think compelling. And I'm
Speaker 3: so happy that Michelle is coming to be featured on
Speaker 3: the show because Michelle was still the only female DNA
Speaker 3: x hoonnery from the state of Oklahoma. She was wrongfully
Speaker 3: convicted of the murder of her fifteen week old son, Yeah, Travis.
Speaker 3: And it's a case that I think haunts me and
Speaker 3: so many And she did twenty years of a life
Speaker 3: without parole sentence starting when she was seventeen years old,
Speaker 3: and just went through a type of hell that I
Speaker 3: hope nobody ever experiences again. And she's just such a
Speaker 3: beautiful person, such a kind soul. How long was she
Speaker 3: incarcerated exactly twenty years. Ironically she walked out twenty years
Speaker 3: to the day. Just coincidental that she walked out twenty
Speaker 3: years to the day that she went in. But she
Speaker 3: had a natural life sentence, no possibly parrolee. That was
Speaker 3: an instance fute your case, and they were able to
Speaker 3: free her with DNA. And you know, I think her
Speaker 3: case is super compelling as well, because from day one,
Speaker 3: even the judge like, get this. I don't know if
Speaker 3: you guys know this aspect of it. But in a
Speaker 3: hearing the judge calls the attorneys into his chambers. There
Speaker 3: was one witness who claimed to have been It was
Speaker 3: a kid from the neighborhood. It was fourteen or fifteen
Speaker 3: who was known for committing horrific acts of violence against
Speaker 3: animals and others. Right, And he claimed that he was
Speaker 3: looking in her window at three in the morning or
Speaker 3: something that saw her do this kid was decapitated for prostakes,
Speaker 3: right and so, and she woke up with a big
Speaker 3: lump on her head and another swelling in her leg.
Speaker 3: And he had obviously attacked her, knocked her out, and
Speaker 3: then taken the kid and killed him in the kitchen.
Speaker 3: And the judge in the original hearing, one of the hearings,
Speaker 3: as I understand it, called the attorneys and the prosecutors
Speaker 3: everybody into his chambers and said, why doesn't that kid
Speaker 3: have an attorney? And one of the prosecutors said, well,
Speaker 3: because he's not a suspect, your honor, he's a witness.
Speaker 3: And the judge said, are you the only person here
Speaker 3: that doesn't know that he's the actual killer?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? Oh my god.
Speaker 3: But for reasons I'll never understand, the judge allowed the
Speaker 3: proceedings to proceed, and then that kid, you ready for this?
Speaker 3: He was never called to testify. Where had he been
Speaker 3: called to testify? On cross they would have found out
Speaker 3: that not only were there people who were going to
Speaker 3: say that he had decapitated animals, that also he had
Speaker 3: gone to school the next day and said I told
Speaker 3: you that bitch was in a pay And there was
Speaker 3: a school counselor who was prepared apparently to testify and
Speaker 3: say that he responded to rejection with violence and Michelle
Speaker 3: had rejected him his advances. So the reason he couldn't
Speaker 3: testify was because he self asphyxiated before the trial.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, so, okay, okay. I was wondering because if
Speaker 1: he had still been around, I'm sure he would have
Speaker 1: had a very lengthy rap sheet by now and probably
Speaker 1: gotten picked up for something like committing a lot more violence.
Speaker 1: And she was only she was only seventeenth at the
Speaker 1: time as well, she was a child as well. There
Speaker 1: was just so many layers in this story where you know,
Speaker 1: she was questioned without parental consent or presence and all
Speaker 1: these things legal. Yeah, yeah, igal so. But Michelle, I
Speaker 1: think has been on your show before, right, so you're
Speaker 1: having her on again or she is she going to
Speaker 1: be a co host or something now, No, she was.
Speaker 3: On the audio version of the podcast. She was episode
Speaker 3: like forty three or something many years ago, okay, you know,
Speaker 3: and we've been super close ever since. She calls me uncle,
Speaker 3: I call her niece. She stays with my wife and I.
Speaker 3: We love having her around. She's just a light and
Speaker 3: so we're just really happy to have her in our lives.
Speaker 3: But now we're doing an updated version with the video,
Speaker 3: with the full video resentation, and obviously many things have
Speaker 3: changed since I interviewed her nine years ago or whatever
Speaker 3: it was, and I think her story is more relevant
Speaker 3: now than ever.
Speaker 2: And Jason, in terms of both the audio version of
Speaker 2: your podcast and the new YouTube version, you've probably interviewed
Speaker 2: more exoneries than almost anyone, if not anyone, in the world.
Speaker 2: And I wonder what have you found surprising on this
Speaker 2: end of it versus coming in about the disposition, the demeanor,
Speaker 2: the feeling of these exonerateiaes after all these years of
Speaker 2: wrongful conviction.
Speaker 3: I wonder if there's a Guinness Book of Records category.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to submit myself, but if you want
Speaker 3: to submit me, you can. That's not why I did it.
Speaker 3: I think what's surprise to me, and I touched on
Speaker 3: this before, is that almost to a person these individuals
Speaker 3: are people who have been through hell, through no fault
Speaker 3: of their own, and come out carrying buckets of water
Speaker 3: for the people they left behind. Just like Leo wants
Speaker 3: to go and advocate for Kevin Herrick, right, that's his
Speaker 3: life's purpose. Lorenzo Johnson has been since he came home,
Speaker 3: and he's did twenty two years. Romphy convicted twice in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: battled every type of horrible disease since he came home,
Speaker 3: lost a child. I mean, he's been through hell and
Speaker 3: all he wants to do is help other guys that
Speaker 3: are still in for crimes that he knows they didn't commit.
Speaker 3: Tysian Crocker is one that we're working on together, one
Speaker 3: of them that work on together now. So it really
Speaker 3: always puts gratitude in my attitude just being around these
Speaker 3: incredible humans who have suffered in ways that I think
Speaker 3: none of us can possibly have understand, even someone like
Speaker 3: me who's around them and this all the time, there's
Speaker 3: no way to I mean, and I wonder about that sometimes,
Speaker 3: and I've developed the theory. Actually, I think that one
Speaker 3: of the reasons why the overwhelming majority of these people
Speaker 3: are so not just heroic but so humble and so
Speaker 3: gracious and so Nicky. Arris is a great example, right,
Speaker 3: there's a show about nick on Broadway now called The
Speaker 3: Fear of Thirteen with Adrian Brody. He's the only person
Speaker 3: other than Rihanna who's alive and has a show about
Speaker 3: them on Broadway right now, besides the one he's just
Speaker 3: he's that guy, right, he's just so. He practices neuroplasticity healing. Yes,
Speaker 3: so after do it twenty two years on death row.
Speaker 3: And I think one of the reasons why since a
Speaker 3: huge percentage of them come home in a state of
Speaker 3: grace that is so incredibly you know, just humbling and
Speaker 3: mystifying almost, is because there's a preselection, right, I think
Speaker 3: there's a un Fortunately, there's a significant number of people
Speaker 3: who are innocent in prison who give up.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: Tysian Crocker's case is one of those where his co
Speaker 3: defendant has given up. Yeah, he's just as innocent as Taisheen,
Speaker 3: but he gave up. He's like, I'm tired of fighting.
Speaker 3: You know, a tee for a phase case, which is,
Speaker 3: if you're gonna listen to one episode of wrongful conviction,
Speaker 3: listen to a tee for a phase case wild Yeah,
Speaker 3: t for Fey, wrongful, convicted of murder. His entire family
Speaker 3: was a Cornell freshman, had no mental problems, no reason
Speaker 3: to suspect him whatsoever, no physical evidence, his whole family
Speaker 3: beaten to death with a baseball bat, and they convict
Speaker 3: him and his friend. And his friend unfortunately, was so
Speaker 3: brutalized in prison that he's effectively non compassmentus, just as
Speaker 3: innocent as the teeth.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I didn't know that that happened to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll never know his story or if he comes
Speaker 3: home at all, I will, it will certainly, even though
Speaker 3: he's not able to advocate for himself. We're hoping that
Speaker 3: when we get a teeth out, or when we get Taishima,
Speaker 3: we'll be able to go back and get you know,
Speaker 3: their co defendants out as well. So yeah, I think
Speaker 3: the names we never hear about are the ones who
Speaker 3: in prison suffer so badly, whether they mentally just break down,
Speaker 3: which is understandable, or they succumb to drugs or violence
Speaker 3: or whatever it is. So the people that come out
Speaker 3: are people who while they were in found this other gear,
Speaker 3: this thing that's just so you know, this victor Frankel,
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it. This, You know, Eliot
Speaker 3: are totally like something where they just are able to
Speaker 3: transcend these horrific circumstances that they find themselves in through
Speaker 3: no faulted their own.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I agree, because I've seen that in all of
Speaker 1: our defendants is like this incredible grace And I mean
Speaker 1: most of them have been in there for decades, so
Speaker 1: they have learned to create lives there. And I remember
Speaker 1: when Cyria blew up a lot of folks and as
Speaker 1: they were trying to evaluate did the non do it
Speaker 1: or not do it? I remember seeing online people saying
Speaker 1: if I was wrongfully convicted, I would be so angry.
Speaker 1: He's not even angry. That means he actually did it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, none of them it's like that. Yeah, yeah, Look, Jason,
Speaker 1: your work is extraordinary and I and I think what
Speaker 1: makes it so is that you are so authentically connected
Speaker 1: to each one of these stories, Like you know the people,
Speaker 1: you know their lives, they are in your life, you
Speaker 1: go and visit them. I don't even know how I
Speaker 1: have the bandwidth emotionally to carry all of this, and
Speaker 1: I think that's what comes through in your work over
Speaker 1: and over again before we wrap up, I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you, I know, Bone Valley, new seasons coming out, anything,
Speaker 1: any other projects you want our listeners to keep an
Speaker 1: eye out for on the horizon.
Speaker 3: Rather than look at the horizon, I would just look
Speaker 3: in our feet. We have a show called The Race
Speaker 3: that I really love and it's different, right, It's actually
Speaker 3: fun because it's the first murder trial in American history.
Speaker 2: It's great, it's so great.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And the defense team was Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr,
Speaker 3: and they lied and cheated and did all of terrible
Speaker 3: things to get their guilty client, you know, fred and
Speaker 3: acquitted and so it's a it's a really fun thing
Speaker 3: listen to. It stars Allison Williams as the best friend
Speaker 3: of the murder victim. Tony Goldwin is Hamilton, Barry Scheck
Speaker 3: is Aaron Burr, and I play Judge John Lansing. So
Speaker 3: I get to say overruled a lot and bang my
Speaker 3: fist on the thing.
Speaker 1: And I believe it is produced by your daughter, right,
Speaker 1: Is that really it was?
Speaker 3: It was. That's awesome. So check out e Race. Great.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Jason, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: I know you've got to get to another meeting. We
Speaker 1: will tag folks let them know where you are on
Speaker 1: social media. We will share your YouTube channel and thank
Speaker 1: you again. It's wonderful having you on. You're a great
Speaker 1: friend of the show and thanks for all your work.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thanks Robby, Thanks Collin Bbye you guys.
Speaker 6: Hey Undisclosed listeners, It's Methel, executive producer of Undisclosed Toward Justice.
Speaker 6: Before I roll through their credits, I've got a few
Speaker 6: quick notes. By now, most of you probably know about
Speaker 6: our Facebook community group. If you haven't joined yet, please
Speaker 6: go to Facebook dot com slash groups slash toward Justice
Speaker 6: and answer threesome questions and you're in. But seriously answer
Speaker 6: the questions because a bunch of you are still pending
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Speaker 6: I promise. In addition to engaging with us through the
Speaker 6: Facebook group, you can also leave us a voice note
Speaker 6: at speakpipe dot com slash Undisclosed. We always check the messages,
Speaker 6: and so far I think we've answered all of them.
Speaker 6: We also have a Patreon page with three different tiers
Speaker 6: of perks, the closet one just being a dollar, which
Speaker 6: allows us to continue to do this work. Other tiers
Speaker 6: include bonus episodes, early access to merch, and even joining
Speaker 6: Robbia in a live true crime zoom discussion. Just go
Speaker 6: to patreon dot com slash Undisclosed Pod now onto the
Speaker 6: real credits. A huge shout out to Hannah McCarthy for
Speaker 6: audio production. Thank you to Patrick Cortes and Bramero Marquez
Speaker 6: for our theme music. For anyone new here, you can
Speaker 6: engage with us online by going to Instagram or Facebook
Speaker 6: at Undisclosed Podcast. We're also on TikTok, YouTube and X
Speaker 6: at Undisclosed Pod. Whether you're a new or returning listener,
Speaker 6: you can always check out our previous cases and bonus
Speaker 6: episodes by going to our website at Undisclosed pod dot com.
Speaker 6: If you would like to follow Colin and Robbia on
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Speaker 6: on Instagram and Colin at evidenceprof on Instagram, X and
Speaker 6: Blue Sky. Thank you all for your continued support and
Speaker 6: for supporting all of our sponsors. Until next time,