Speaker 1: I'm Jason Flam. Through this podcast, I aim to highlight
Speaker 1: how frequently our criminal legal system shatters the lives of
Speaker 1: innocent people, whether junk science has introduced at trial, police
Speaker 1: or prosecutor, a misconduct or simply a misidentification. Each story
Speaker 1: is devastating on its own, but when we zoom out
Speaker 1: and take in the sheer breadth of the issue, we
Speaker 1: can see a pattern forming across our entire system. Who
Speaker 1: better to take us on that journey than the brilliant
Speaker 1: journalists and writers who regularly cover these stories. In March
Speaker 1: of a young woman was assaulted by a masked man
Speaker 1: while she walked back to her apartment in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Speaker 1: The man raped her, then forced her to give him
Speaker 1: the location of her car and her bank access code.
Speaker 1: He took her bank card and car keys. She never
Speaker 1: got to see his face. This horrifying attack sent shock
Speaker 1: waves through Tuscaloosa and through the University of Alabama, where
Speaker 1: she was a student. There was allowed public outcry for
Speaker 1: the attacker to be caught and punished. A few days
Speaker 1: after the attack, a man named Jeffrey Holman was arrested
Speaker 1: for burglary and writing bad checks while he awaited trial,
Speaker 1: he was asked to take part in a police line up.
Speaker 1: Only later with Jeffrey learn what that lineup was for
Speaker 1: and that a witness had picked him out as the
Speaker 1: masked man who attacked a young woman. Jeffrey admitted to
Speaker 1: writing bad checks and attempting to steal a stereo, but
Speaker 1: he denied having any part in the rape of the
Speaker 1: college student. With only the witness to rely on and
Speaker 1: no physical evidence, Jeffrey was convicted of the rape and
Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison. This is Wrongful Conviction. My
Speaker 1: name is Beth Shelburne and I am thrilled to be
Speaker 1: guest hosting this episode of Wrongful Conviction. I'm an investigative
Speaker 1: reporter and writer based in Birmingham, Alabama. I've spent many
Speaker 1: years focused on criminal justice and mass incarceration, and through
Speaker 1: my work, I've learned a lot about the prison system
Speaker 1: in the way people are often mistreated. There's a tendency
Speaker 1: among journalists to focus on the most dramatic stories, gruesome
Speaker 1: murders and wrongful convictions that result in decades behind bars,
Speaker 1: but it is far more common for low level offenses
Speaker 1: to land people in prison, often with a sentence that
Speaker 1: is disproportionate to the crime. I came across Jeffrey's case
Speaker 1: and was struck by how little had been written about it.
Speaker 1: It was only by searching through newspaper archives that I
Speaker 1: was able to find more information. It's a quieter story,
Speaker 1: but one that illuminates the way low level offenses can
Speaker 1: often ensnare people. Once they're in the criminal justice system,
Speaker 1: it's that much easier for them to end up wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 1: Jeffrey's story is a reminder of how even a simple
Speaker 1: bad choice can put anyone at risk of life imprisonment
Speaker 1: in this punishment oriented nation of ours. I recently had
Speaker 1: the pleasure of talking to Jeffrey about his story in
Speaker 1: his home near Tuscaloosa. My name is jeff Holman, and
Speaker 1: I was wrong and convicted and spent twelve years in prison,
Speaker 1: and I am son to celebrate my twenty four year out.
Speaker 1: That's a happy mile marker. Yes, indeed. So before we
Speaker 1: get into all the details about the crime that you
Speaker 1: were accused and convicted of wrongfully and everything that happened afterwards,
Speaker 1: I want to kind of go back to the beginning
Speaker 1: your childhood. I know that you're from this area. What
Speaker 1: was life like for you growing up in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. Well,
Speaker 1: I had a normal childhood and as in Tuscalusa, you're
Speaker 1: raised to be an Alabama fan. And I did like
Speaker 1: most young boys, played baseball, by fished, hunted, just did
Speaker 1: all the things that young boys do. And then of
Speaker 1: course in high school, I, you know, experimenta with marijuana,
Speaker 1: and so I feel like I could have done better
Speaker 1: in sports had I, you know, I stayed on straightened era.
Speaker 1: I graduated from high school and I gotta job of
Speaker 1: the city, and during the next two or three years
Speaker 1: I held construction jobs. And I don't know at what
Speaker 1: point where I decided that writing bad Chicks and Forgery
Speaker 1: was a good idea, but that was probably my beginning
Speaker 1: of a bad choice career. I'll just explain a little
Speaker 1: bit of the facts of the case and then we
Speaker 1: can talk about it from your perspective. But it happened
Speaker 1: in March of n and this was a female student
Speaker 1: at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. She was returning
Speaker 1: from classes on campus to an off campus apartment and
Speaker 1: says that she was ambushed by a masked man who
Speaker 1: forced her into the apartment and then raped her. The
Speaker 1: victim told police that the attacker forced her to tell
Speaker 1: him her bank access code and where her car was located,
Speaker 1: and he says he took her car keys, he took
Speaker 1: the bank card and then left after the assault. And
Speaker 1: he never took off his mask, so the victim could
Speaker 1: not provide an accurate facial description of the perpetrator, which
Speaker 1: is really important in cases that are predicated on an eyewitness.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about the burglary that had landed
Speaker 1: you in jail to begin with, and the check forgery.
Speaker 1: You ultimately pleaded guilty in that case, right and in
Speaker 1: the following year April, before this rape case went to trial,
Speaker 1: So tell me what was going on with those cases. Well,
Speaker 1: with the burglary, I saw a bright stereo with lights
Speaker 1: and everything in a window, and at that time I'm thinking, gosh,
Speaker 1: that would that would be not so I was gonna
Speaker 1: steal the stereo. Well, when I went checked the window,
Speaker 1: the wind was logged then, but the door was open,
Speaker 1: so I went in. I was gonna get the stereo,
Speaker 1: and somebody came out of the bed. I didn't know
Speaker 1: anybody was home, so somebody came out of the room.
Speaker 1: Then I had to start having conversation. The next thing
Speaker 1: I know, I grabbed the person and I pushed her
Speaker 1: down and I run. You know, I was probably as
Speaker 1: scared as as she was, but I had no idea
Speaker 1: anybody was home. Did you end up getting the stereo? No? Soy.
Speaker 1: They still charged you with first degree burglary, but you
Speaker 1: technically didn't steal anything because somebody was home. Gotcha? Okay?
Speaker 1: And then what about the check forgeries? Well, I forged
Speaker 1: one check, and I closed a bank account and went
Speaker 1: on check righting spree, and uh, another bad choice. It's
Speaker 1: always interesting to me to talk to people about these
Speaker 1: kinds of crimes because a lot of times they're really
Speaker 1: on the line between felony and misdemeanor. You know, really,
Speaker 1: I think depends on the amount that was taken. Do
Speaker 1: you have any idea what the financial impact was of
Speaker 1: the forgery cases? It was like, I want to say
Speaker 1: a few hundred dollars, so this was not a million
Speaker 1: dollar high got you? So you ended up getting arrested?
Speaker 1: And then when did they come to you and say
Speaker 1: we want to put you in a lineup for this
Speaker 1: other case? My best recollection. I had been in jail
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks. Maybe it's hard to say
Speaker 1: that because it's been so long, but I didn't have
Speaker 1: any problem being in the lineup, so so I voluntarily
Speaker 1: went and I went to the lineup. Did you know
Speaker 1: at that point that they were investigating a rate? Had
Speaker 1: no idea? So what did you think when they told
Speaker 1: you that you'd been picked out? I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew I never raped anybody, So I
Speaker 1: got thinking, have I slept with somebody that I passed
Speaker 1: all forgot somebody got mad at me or something. But
Speaker 1: I knew I've never raped anybody, so I couldn't figure
Speaker 1: it out. And then they start giving me more pieces
Speaker 1: of the puzzle and they tell me where this crime happened,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even know. I didn't even know where
Speaker 1: those apartments were at. Police eventually located the victims abandoned car,
Speaker 1: and when they did, there was a student at the
Speaker 1: university who told police he saw a man get out
Speaker 1: of the car sometime earlier. And then on March one,
Speaker 1: shortly after the student was raped. Jeff, you were arrested
Speaker 1: by Tuscaloosa police on charges of check forgery and burglary.
Speaker 1: While you were in jail. You mentioned you were placed
Speaker 1: in that lineup, and that male student who told police
Speaker 1: he saw someone emerge from the victims car was the
Speaker 1: one that selected you from the lineup. We talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about, you know what that felt like when
Speaker 1: they told you were chosen out of the lineup. What
Speaker 1: was the next step then? Did they just send you
Speaker 1: back to your cell and you're thinking, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what are they putting on me? I had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this exactly, And of course I I had
Speaker 1: no idea what you know, what they were actually, what
Speaker 1: all was involved or what you know. But it just
Speaker 1: kept uh blowing my mind just to think that I
Speaker 1: was being accused of something that I hadn't done. That's
Speaker 1: why I went and I admitted to the stuff I
Speaker 1: did because I did it, and then they're gonna throw
Speaker 1: something on me that I didn't know and I just
Speaker 1: never been in that situation before. Was it hard for
Speaker 1: you to admit to the things that you did do?
Speaker 1: What caused you to be so transparent with them? I
Speaker 1: didn't because I I just that's the way I am.
Speaker 1: You know, if I did something, I'm going to own
Speaker 1: up to it. Whatever the repercussions and pay the price.
Speaker 1: But I end up paying a lot bigger price. I
Speaker 1: didn't go to trial until fifteen months later, I said,
Speaker 1: in jail. Fifteen months waiting and waiting to go to trial. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that time pre trial, when you're held in jail.
Speaker 1: It seems like other people I've talked to that have
Speaker 1: had a similar experience. You're in this weird limbo where
Speaker 1: you don't know what's going to happen with your case.
Speaker 1: You don't know if your lawyer is gonna work out,
Speaker 1: you don't know if you're going to get charged with
Speaker 1: something else. I mean, it really does sound like hell.
Speaker 1: And what was the Tuscaloosa County jail like back in?
Speaker 1: It wasn't the High at Hilton, but it was. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was overcrowded. You you might have three or four
Speaker 1: people on a sale where I was designed for two.
Speaker 1: You might have put a mattress on the floor. It was.
Speaker 1: It had a lot to be desired. I know that
Speaker 1: there there was some choreography with you pleading guilty to
Speaker 1: the burglary but then deciding to take the rape case
Speaker 1: to trial because you you didn't do it. The media
Speaker 1: reported that case went to trial in the summer of
Speaker 1: so had you already pleaded guilty to the burglary? Okay,
Speaker 1: and you had already been sentenced, and that I did
Speaker 1: what they call an open ended guilty plea. So I
Speaker 1: played guilty opening and open end means I might get less,
Speaker 1: I might get more, but I end up getting twenty
Speaker 1: five years for the burglary. So let's talk about the trial.
Speaker 1: I have here the student witness that we mentioned, the
Speaker 1: man that saw the alleged perpetrator get out of the
Speaker 1: victim's car, testified against you. I also read in some
Speaker 1: media reports that there were some security photos at the
Speaker 1: bank a t M where the attacker withdrew money, but
Speaker 1: they were of such poor quality that they couldn't really
Speaker 1: exonerate you or implicate you exactly. So that wasn't helpful.
Speaker 1: Who was your attorney at trial? And was this someone
Speaker 1: you retained or were they appointed? Her name was and
Speaker 1: went A Miller, and she was appointed. You know, I
Speaker 1: know appointing lawyers aren't paid a whole lot, so I
Speaker 1: and I don't know her a caseload. I just know
Speaker 1: that she seemed ill prepared when we got to trial.
Speaker 1: I really felt like then that uh I had made
Speaker 1: a mistake on well that was that was all I
Speaker 1: can forward at the time, So I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of choice. But I don't think she
Speaker 1: gave it the best that she had. I'll say it
Speaker 1: like that. I just remember her statement, Uh it's sentencing
Speaker 1: when they when they handed down sent her exact words were,
Speaker 1: don't worry, it's just life. And and I'm thinking, you're
Speaker 1: going home to your girlfriend tonight and I'm going to prison,
Speaker 1: and don't worry. It's just it's just life. And then
Speaker 1: I get to prison and I get a letter from her,
Speaker 1: and she tells me, in essence, she she had researched
Speaker 1: and uh, she filed what they called Ander's brief, and
Speaker 1: that she couldn't find anything wrong in the transcript. Of course,
Speaker 1: she wouldn't be filing an appeal on ineffective assistance of
Speaker 1: counsel because that would basically be calling her own work
Speaker 1: into question. And what was the general attitude in the
Speaker 1: courtroom from your recollection, this was a pretty high profile case,
Speaker 1: a college student being raped in an apartment. The general
Speaker 1: attitude was that we need to find this man guilty
Speaker 1: because this is a this is a university student, And
Speaker 1: it was already the way the the tenses of the verbs,
Speaker 1: you know, the way they talked. It was like I
Speaker 1: was before I was even the jury made their decision.
Speaker 1: It was like I was already a sand guilty. That
Speaker 1: presumption of guilt that's there. So you didn't take the stand, right,
Speaker 1: she advised me because of my past, and you know,
Speaker 1: not that I didn't need to take the stand. They
Speaker 1: would tear me up art And then how much, if
Speaker 1: at all, do you feel like the state used your
Speaker 1: guilty plea in the burglary case to argue, you know,
Speaker 1: that you were guilty in this other case, even though
Speaker 1: the burglary of the house with the stereo had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this college student being raped. I mean,
Speaker 1: you see these kinds of suggestions made all the time
Speaker 1: in court. I feel like it was a dred by
Speaker 1: till they because it's like they looked at it like, well,
Speaker 1: if he did that, he could have done lias. And
Speaker 1: that's that's the way I felt the whole time. Do
Speaker 1: you remember kind of what it felt like to sit there?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one thing to be in court being
Speaker 1: tried for something that you potentially had a part in,
Speaker 1: or even that you admitted to committing, like the burglary,
Speaker 1: but this was something that you didn't even know the location.
Speaker 1: You weren't sure where the address was. You had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it. And to sit there and have
Speaker 1: to sit through days of testimony where they're accusing you
Speaker 1: in a violent rape, I can't imagine how excruciating that
Speaker 1: experience must have been. Um, did you have family and
Speaker 1: supporters there in court with you? My whole family was there,
Speaker 1: my father, my stepmother, my grandmother. It was I mean,
Speaker 1: they they stood, Michael Owner. And the hardest part for
Speaker 1: me was it when when we had to all go
Speaker 1: in the back room and everybody was crying, and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm knew my best to try to hold everybody together
Speaker 1: because my grandmother and my stepmother, everybody was just hysterical,
Speaker 1: you know, and I just I felt helpless, and you
Speaker 1: probably had to say goodbye to them at that point, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that's something you know, most people will never experience,
Speaker 1: but the people who do that is a really dark
Speaker 1: moment in the human existence, you know, going to prison,
Speaker 1: but going to prison for something that you did not do.
Speaker 1: You told me a little bit about the sentencing and
Speaker 1: what your attorney said that it's just life. Trying to
Speaker 1: get in her head, she was probably meaning it's not
Speaker 1: life without parole. There's some ambiguity in the way Alabama
Speaker 1: sentences people to life because we have indeterminate sentencing, so
Speaker 1: most sentences are eligible for parole and a life sentence
Speaker 1: typically in Alabama. Now you serve fifteen years and you're
Speaker 1: eligible for parole. I think back then it was ten.
Speaker 1: I was given a ten year set up on life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there were actually five different counts that you were
Speaker 1: convicted of in the rape case, right, correct? Yeah? Do
Speaker 1: you remember what they were? First degree? Right? First gree burglary,
Speaker 1: stealing a vehicle, stealing a bank card and using the
Speaker 1: bank card. So that's a lot of time when you
Speaker 1: got to kill me. Where you put in an area
Speaker 1: with folks that had a lot of time? Or is
Speaker 1: everybody just sort of thrown in together with all different
Speaker 1: sentence links every everybody's put together and uh and one,
Speaker 1: you know you're all wearing white, You're you're now property
Speaker 1: to state. You shower when they tell you to shower,
Speaker 1: you go to eight when they tell you to aid
Speaker 1: and when you first get there, they go through all
Speaker 1: your things you know, it's just that sort of thing
Speaker 1: you know that you've never experienced before. Because I've never
Speaker 1: been in prison, I don't know how it was gonna
Speaker 1: play out. I know what to expect. Jail is totally different.
Speaker 1: Like I said it was, it was a long toilve years.
Speaker 1: I mentioned that I've done a lot of reporting on
Speaker 1: the Alabama prison system. It's currently being sued by the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice because of the unconstitutional conditions. It's incredibly
Speaker 1: violent and understaffed, and there's a huge problem with contraband drugs.
Speaker 1: When you first went into the system in eight and
Speaker 1: then you were eventually released in ninety nine, so you
Speaker 1: were there late eighties all through the nineties. What was
Speaker 1: the Alabama prison system like? Then? Walk me through, Like
Speaker 1: what a typical day would have been. A typical day,
Speaker 1: you get up in the eight breakfast at four five
Speaker 1: in the morning. By six or six thirty, you have
Speaker 1: your bed made, now, your area cleaned up, and you
Speaker 1: just wait to go to your job. Or when I
Speaker 1: first got to Draper, I actually went out on the farm.
Speaker 1: That's when they used to send guys out on the
Speaker 1: farm to work. What did you do? You basically walked
Speaker 1: three or four miles carrying a hoe or a heavy tool.
Speaker 1: And you don't actually do a whole lot of work.
Speaker 1: You do a lot of walking. Did this it's just
Speaker 1: something to get you out of the camp. And did
Speaker 1: you get paid for that work? No, you do not
Speaker 1: get paid. You you get three meals a day and
Speaker 1: and some of those are marginal. Wow. So that was
Speaker 1: like old school hard labor days. I would say similar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that time was before the Supreme Court had
Speaker 1: told Alabama that they couldn't put people on chain gangs
Speaker 1: along the sides of the road. You didn't have any
Speaker 1: experience with that, did you? The chain gang? I wasn't
Speaker 1: on the chain gangs, but I do remember some before
Speaker 1: they fashed law, they when the guys so what were
Speaker 1: they would change them to a change them to a
Speaker 1: post hitch im post. Right. That was a separate case.
Speaker 1: And that was like a disciplinary action, right that the
Speaker 1: officers would take um for if they felt like somebody
Speaker 1: was misbehaving or being noncompliant. Did you ever witness that
Speaker 1: while you were in oh I saw a lot of
Speaker 1: guys changed to a change to a post and in
Speaker 1: ninety degree weather, and it was just it was just
Speaker 1: so inhumane. What were the people like um that you
Speaker 1: connected with in prison? And you had never ever been
Speaker 1: to prison before, You've never been in trouble before. Did
Speaker 1: this change any of your thinking about the people that
Speaker 1: we send to prison or people in general? It made
Speaker 1: me choose people that had had liked values like mine,
Speaker 1: people who were straight up, who were honest. There was
Speaker 1: a group that used to come in called Cairo's. It
Speaker 1: was a group of UH men from different denominations. And
Speaker 1: what they do is they come in and they share
Speaker 1: the Word of God with you, and their objective is
Speaker 1: to build Christian community within the prison walls. And I
Speaker 1: still today I have relationships with some of these men,
Speaker 1: and I have actually been back inside the prisons and
Speaker 1: UH because once I walk inside and and I give
Speaker 1: a talk, I'm in my element. I you know, I
Speaker 1: can talk to these guys and they actually listened to
Speaker 1: me because they know that I I know, I know
Speaker 1: what they're going through every day when they when they
Speaker 1: leave this religious service or whatever. I know what they're
Speaker 1: going back to when they go back behind the gate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've walked that walk, and I just I feel like that,
Speaker 1: you know, when I do that, I feel like God's
Speaker 1: using me at that moment. And just in the reporting
Speaker 1: that I do here in Alabama, and I talked to
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the system, Cairos comes up
Speaker 1: all the time because it's meant so much too. UM
Speaker 1: people and the men's and women's prisons, they have these
Speaker 1: wonderful relationships with people on the outside that otherwise many
Speaker 1: of them don't have anybody, and so they're they're cairos
Speaker 1: friends are really they become their community and their family.
Speaker 1: I've seen CAIROS volunteers go testify at parole hearings on
Speaker 1: behalf of people and be their support system when they
Speaker 1: get out. So UM, they do really great work. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about the um post conviction UM that that
Speaker 1: ultimately got you out. So you became eligible for parole
Speaker 1: in and Alabama passed a law in ninety four where
Speaker 1: convicted sex offenders had to give a DNA sample to
Speaker 1: database statewide database. UM, that was part of state law.
Speaker 1: So you filed a rule thirty two requesting that the
Speaker 1: evidence from the rape case be compared to your DNA
Speaker 1: sample that you had to give under law. UM, how
Speaker 1: did you get the idea to do that? I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I don't have anything to lose. I need to pursue
Speaker 1: any possibility of finding out the truth that I can.
Speaker 1: I had friends who knew more about the law that
Speaker 1: I did, and I had a particular friend file some
Speaker 1: rule thirty two for me to go back to court
Speaker 1: on new evidence. He was actually eager to help me,
Speaker 1: and he wrote it up and he charged me a
Speaker 1: little twenty five dollars maybe to do do it, and
Speaker 1: it got the ball rolling. What was the process of
Speaker 1: working with this jailhouse attorney? How did you guys do
Speaker 1: this work together? Well, of course we talked about it,
Speaker 1: you know, and the privacy of our dorm. And then
Speaker 1: you go to law and go to the law library
Speaker 1: and talk about it some more. And it's just somebody
Speaker 1: that you're you're comfortable, you know, they're they're not in
Speaker 1: it to try to take all your money there and
Speaker 1: try to help you. And I know these law libraries
Speaker 1: are not like normal legal libraries in the free world,
Speaker 1: and you know, they still have typewriters, they do not
Speaker 1: have computers in the law libraries, and and often don't
Speaker 1: have the latest legal books for people. So it's a
Speaker 1: it's an ongoing issue in of prisons so where was
Speaker 1: the evidence stored from the actual incident that you were
Speaker 1: convicted in the rape? Well, it was supposed to be
Speaker 1: stored in Tuscaloosa somewhere where I don't know where the
Speaker 1: Tuslers County Jail or wherever they do it. But they
Speaker 1: had said they lost the rape kit, there was nothing
Speaker 1: to test, and then all these years later, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it appears so they actually had something to test,
Speaker 1: and they took I remember that took blood at the prison.
Speaker 1: And I remember a week or so later, I was
Speaker 1: called the warden's office and she was on the phone
Speaker 1: with somebody at the pro board, and I could hear
Speaker 1: her in the conversation it's like, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And she got off the phone and she said they
Speaker 1: got back all the results from the DNA test and
Speaker 1: they were all negative. And I can I can remember
Speaker 1: to this day actually feeling a week in the knees.
Speaker 1: I don't ever remember being weak in the knees before,
Speaker 1: but I was weak in the knees. And when she
Speaker 1: said that, but she said, but she also wanted to
Speaker 1: remind me that you do have the other year Senate.
Speaker 1: So I have from the media reports that it was
Speaker 1: that the d a's office located the rape kit that
Speaker 1: had been lost for twelve years. The DNA tests were
Speaker 1: carried out, they excluded Jeff as the source, excluded you
Speaker 1: in the rape case, and then Judge England said, I
Speaker 1: see no reason to spend one minute longer on this case.
Speaker 1: Do you remember hearing those words I do? What was
Speaker 1: that like in court? And it's completely understandable that you
Speaker 1: would be emotional because this is, um we're talking like
Speaker 1: the most dramatic things a human being can go through,
Speaker 1: is you know, being accused of something they didn't do,
Speaker 1: being convicted, serving over a decade, and then finally seeing
Speaker 1: the truth come out. It was pretty emotional, I to
Speaker 1: say the least, to know that my prayers have been
Speaker 1: answered that I was I was getting my life back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're twenty four years since then, and it's still
Speaker 1: affects you clearly, probably always will. Yeah, you get that
Speaker 1: moment in court and I believe you were released the
Speaker 1: following day. You still had that twenty five years sentence.
Speaker 1: So were you released on parole? What? What was the
Speaker 1: actual mechanism that got you out of I was given
Speaker 1: time served on that and released on parole. What was
Speaker 1: the release from prison like before you got out the
Speaker 1: community that you had been in. Um, what was the
Speaker 1: reaction from the folks that were doing time with you?
Speaker 1: They were ecstatic for me, they were so happy. I
Speaker 1: remember walking out the door looking back one time and uh,
Speaker 1: because I left some some good friends. And when I
Speaker 1: walked out the door, it was it was like a
Speaker 1: feeling I'd never felt before, you know, I had. I
Speaker 1: had never walked out the front door of a prison.
Speaker 1: It was always through the back gate. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what it felt like to walk out the front door.
Speaker 1: And I was nervous. And here I got I gotta
Speaker 1: give a bunch of TV people interviews. You know, you
Speaker 1: barely know what to say, and you know, I just
Speaker 1: said I. You know they want to are you better? No?
Speaker 1: I just I thank God that I'm free. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of people imagining what it would be like,
Speaker 1: feel like they would be so angry and hurt by
Speaker 1: this wrongdoing that had happened to them that it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine being positive or how you wouldn't succumb
Speaker 1: to being bitter. How did you come out with such
Speaker 1: a positive attitude. Well, in the beginning, I wasn't so positive,
Speaker 1: you know, and it took years and because I knew
Speaker 1: I was innocent, and finally, during the last year and
Speaker 1: a half, you know, I did some some soul searching
Speaker 1: and I had a relationship closer relationship with God. And
Speaker 1: and that's that's the only way that I could. I
Speaker 1: could forgive and not be hateful. I think once my
Speaker 1: heart change, my circumstances started changing. Was there anything when
Speaker 1: you got out that surprised you? I always loved hearing
Speaker 1: the stories about, you know, the first things bull did
Speaker 1: or they ate, or you know, something that had changed
Speaker 1: that they weren't really prepared for. You got out in
Speaker 1: ninety nine, what was the most different from seven when
Speaker 1: you went in? So many things had changed. I remember
Speaker 1: the very first thing something we left the prison. We
Speaker 1: stopped to get something to eat, and my dad gave
Speaker 1: me a twenty dollar bill to go go in Taco
Speaker 1: Bell and get some food. I'm looking at a twenty
Speaker 1: dollar bill and it looked like play. I thought that
Speaker 1: would play money. So the actual dollar bill had changed
Speaker 1: the twenty dollar bill, haad, And you had Taco Bell
Speaker 1: for your first five What did you eat? Do you remember?
Speaker 1: I do not remember all I remember is that I
Speaker 1: knew I had a state marinading at home. But after
Speaker 1: I've been out three days and I got my driver's license,
Speaker 1: so I go to the gas pump and the lady
Speaker 1: tells me you could have swiped it at the palmp.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what she meant, you can swipe
Speaker 1: it at the palm. That was That was beyond my comprehension.
Speaker 1: That was a new language that had developed while you
Speaker 1: were locked up. I love that your taco bell was
Speaker 1: like a snack to get you to the steak that
Speaker 1: was marinating. And how long were you on parole? I
Speaker 1: was on parole about three years. But the funny thing
Speaker 1: is when they first released me on parole, I was
Speaker 1: treated as a sex offender. I had to be home
Speaker 1: at eleven o'clock at night. I had to call and
Speaker 1: check in twice a week let him know I was home.
Speaker 1: So even though I made prole, I was still being
Speaker 1: treated as a sex offender. So it was like, even
Speaker 1: though that conviction was vacated, that word didn't make it
Speaker 1: to the parole board bureaucracy, and they still thought that
Speaker 1: you had that conviction on you. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they thought but they knew the conviction had been you know,
Speaker 1: every everybody knew that, but I was still treated like
Speaker 1: a sex offender. I had to get permission if I
Speaker 1: needed to cross the state line for anything. I had
Speaker 1: to have written permission, tag number where was going to
Speaker 1: every whole nine yards if I needed to cross the
Speaker 1: state line for any reason. Tell me about the work
Speaker 1: that you um ended up doing once you got out.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't want to have anything to
Speaker 1: do with prison or people in prison. They want to
Speaker 1: like turn over a new leaf and do something completely different,
Speaker 1: but you kind of did the opposite. You started a
Speaker 1: ministry to help people coming out of prison. And it's
Speaker 1: so funny you should ask that. Before I got out,
Speaker 1: that was I used to be fine to saying I
Speaker 1: don't ever want to see another prison. I don't ever
Speaker 1: want to see anything another prisoner. And we volunteered at
Speaker 1: a halfway house soon after I got out. We were
Speaker 1: we're ex convicts were starting their life over, and I
Speaker 1: felt God telling me, then, this is this is what
Speaker 1: I want you to do. So we started a process
Speaker 1: talking to people, speaking in churches to do whatever we
Speaker 1: could to open a halfway house, and we actually our
Speaker 1: daughter thought and thought the name of it, and it
Speaker 1: was house to hope. But to back up, when I
Speaker 1: got out of prison, I went to my sister's single
Speaker 1: Sunday school class and I actually Dady, my Sunday school
Speaker 1: teacher for six months and we got married. So that
Speaker 1: and then that's when we volunteered and started the ministry,
Speaker 1: which we had the ministry for twelve years. And again
Speaker 1: that's my lucky number twelve twelve years in prison, twelve
Speaker 1: years in the ministry helping men coming out of prison,
Speaker 1: and but it also took a toll on my my life,
Speaker 1: my marriage, and we end up closing the ministry in
Speaker 1: that's really tough work, and I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people can burn out on it because it's so hard.
Speaker 1: It's such a heavy lift. People have so many needs
Speaker 1: coming out of prison that often are not in the
Speaker 1: kind of situation you were in with family support and
Speaker 1: some resources. A lot of people have nobody and nothing.
Speaker 1: What were some of the challenges that you ran into
Speaker 1: and doing that work helping folks coming out of the system, Well,
Speaker 1: you gotta help them get a job. Before you ge
Speaker 1: get a job. You gotta get I das you gotta
Speaker 1: or even how to dentist to volunteer to do all
Speaker 1: the guys teeth. He wanted to make them presentable for work.
Speaker 1: It's all about, you know, starting off about self esteem.
Speaker 1: But if you don't have anybody to help you, anybody
Speaker 1: to give you a place to stay or close, it's
Speaker 1: hard to hard to make it from on scratch. Since
Speaker 1: that's why so many guys go out there and go
Speaker 1: to the easy dollar. You know, they goes back to
Speaker 1: selling drugs and the whole bit vicious cycle starts again.
Speaker 1: We have such high expectations for people, but when they
Speaker 1: need help, you know, a lot of folks are not
Speaker 1: ready to step up. So I'm glad that you did
Speaker 1: that work, UM for as long as you did. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason FUM usually ends each episode with what
Speaker 1: they call closing arguments, So that's a chance for you
Speaker 1: to share, you know, any final thoughts, anything that I
Speaker 1: didn't ask you. I will say, Jeff Holman, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for sharing your story and for your incredible
Speaker 1: attitude after going through such a horrific ordeal, and for
Speaker 1: the help that you've given other people. I would just
Speaker 1: say to anybody listening or anybody who has loved ones
Speaker 1: or relatives going through this sort of thing. Just stay
Speaker 1: true to yourself, don't don't bow under to the system.
Speaker 1: I knew I was innocent, and I projected innocence the
Speaker 1: whole time. They wanted me to go through some school
Speaker 1: one time, admit guilt and get a certificate, go through
Speaker 1: and I said I wasn't gonna do it because I
Speaker 1: wasn't guilty. I'm not going through some kind of sex
Speaker 1: program to say I was guilty. And so you put
Speaker 1: on my record and I would not do it. And uh,
Speaker 1: I thank God today that I I just waited on God.
Speaker 1: The truth finally came out, and that's my family was
Speaker 1: so supportive of me and helped me through it. And
Speaker 1: I just I just thank God that I'm standing here today.
Speaker 1: You know, I haven't. You know, even though I wasn't
Speaker 1: compensated for those twelve years, I have my life back
Speaker 1: and that means more than anything. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host, Beth Shelburne. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam and Kevin
Speaker 1: Wardis the senior producer for this episode is Jackie Polly
Speaker 1: and our producers are Lila Robinson and Jeff Clyburne. Our
Speaker 1: editor is Rook Sandra Guidi. The music in this production
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction,
Speaker 1: as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
Speaker 1: you can find me on Twitter at b Shelburne. I
Speaker 1: also write a sub stack about criminal justice in Alabama.
Speaker 1: It's called Moth to Flame, and I'm busy working on
Speaker 1: an investigative podcast for LAVA about the wrongful conviction of
Speaker 1: to Forrest Johnson, who has been on Alabama's death row
Speaker 1: for twenty five years. Make sure to look for that
Speaker 1: in early two thousand twenty three. Wrongful Conviction is a
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
Speaker 1: Company Number one. Next week, on the guest hosted episodes
Speaker 1: of Wrongful Conviction, Amanda Knox will sit down with Heidi
Speaker 1: Goodwin to talk about hid these time incarcerated for a
Speaker 1: crime that never happened at all. During their conversation, Heidi
Speaker 1: and Amanda will discuss the junk science of shaking baby
Speaker 1: syndrome and the complications of relying on testimony from elementary
Speaker 1: school aged children. Amanda is family to me and she
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite journalists. She's become really extraordinary
Speaker 1: podcaster and a fighter for justice who I have a
Speaker 1: huge amount of respect for. This is a must listen
Speaker 1: episode and you can find it next Monday in the
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction podcast feed