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Speaker 1: America has two point two million people in prison. If

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Speaker 1: just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people.

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Speaker 1: That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.

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Speaker 2: If the system want to take you out of society,

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Speaker 2: they will do it no matter what laws they have

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Speaker 2: to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but

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Speaker 2: they're breaking the lord.

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Speaker 1: Having to hear those people say that I was guilty

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Speaker 1: of a crime that I did not commit, and then

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Speaker 1: hear my family break down behind me and not be

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Speaker 1: able to do anything about it. I can't describe the

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Speaker 1: crushing weight that was.

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Speaker 3: I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.

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Speaker 2: A lot of times we look and we see something

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Speaker 2: happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said,

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Speaker 2: that could never happen to me, But.

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Speaker 3: They can. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful

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Speaker 3: Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today's episode is one of a

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Speaker 3: kind because I have two people here who are truly

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Speaker 3: one of a kind, both individually and together.

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Speaker 4: Their story begins in nineteen eighty four, when Jennifer was

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Speaker 4: a college student in North Carolina. A man broke into

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Speaker 4: her apartment.

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Speaker 5: Even as she was being raped. Jennifer summoned the strength

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Speaker 5: to study her attacker. She tried to memorize his face,

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Speaker 5: his eyes, his hair.

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Speaker 4: Jennifer eventually escaped, eventually made her way to the police,

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Speaker 4: where she used that image burned in her mind for

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Speaker 4: an artist to create this sketch. That guy, she says

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Speaker 4: she was one hundred percent sure about, was Ronald Cotton.

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Speaker 5: Ronald Cotton was twenty two years old and worked at

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Speaker 5: a seafood restaurant near Jennifer's home.

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Speaker 4: Ronald went to trial Jennifer again I d'd him in court.

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Speaker 4: It took a jury four hours to convict him, and

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Speaker 4: a judge sentenced him till life. Eleven years went by.

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Speaker 4: Cotton maintained his innocence.

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Speaker 5: Scientists were able to isolate a tiny fragment of sperm

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Speaker 5: that they could test. The results confirmed what he had

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Speaker 5: been saying all along. The DNA did not match. On

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Speaker 5: June thirtieth, nineteen ninety five, Ronald Cotton walked out of

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Speaker 5: the Alamance County Courthouse a freeman.

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Speaker 3: Without further ado. Ronald Cotton, Welcome to rafel conviction.

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Speaker 6: Thank you pleasure to be here today.

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Speaker 3: And with him is Jennifer Thompson. Welcome to raful conviction.

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Speaker 7: Thank you, Jason.

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Speaker 3: Let's go back to the beginning first of all, but

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Speaker 3: talking about North Carolina and Jennifer's that where you grew up.

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Speaker 7: Yes, yes, I grew up in Winston Sale, North Carolina.

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Speaker 7: But the crime happened in Burlington, North Carolina when I

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Speaker 7: was a college student.

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Speaker 3: And of course it's a client that Ronald was wrongfully

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Speaker 3: convicted of. But at the time it seemed like an

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Speaker 3: open and shutcase. And that's one of the things that

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Speaker 3: makes this story so important. Again, Let's go back to

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Speaker 3: that time. You were a twenty two year old girl

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Speaker 3: becoming a woman. You sort of had the world at

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Speaker 3: your feet, so to speak, right, and everything to look

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Speaker 3: forward to until one horrible night. Yes, and can you

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Speaker 3: tell us about that night and how this all started?

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Speaker 7: Sure? Sure, I had gone to bed on July twenty eighth,

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Speaker 7: nineteen eighty four alone. I had had a headache that evening,

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Speaker 7: so my boyfriend that I was dating at the time,

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Speaker 7: we were talking about getting married, took me home. I

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Speaker 7: went to sleep around nine o'clock and didn't really hear

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Speaker 7: anything that was going on in the community. There was

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Speaker 7: police kind of circling the neighborhood. They were looking for

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Speaker 7: someone who had attempted to break into a neighbor's house.

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Speaker 7: We know now that they couldn't find him because he

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Speaker 7: was hiding out in my apartment. So around three am

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Speaker 7: on July twenty ninth, I heard a noise in the bedroom,

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Speaker 7: like feet moving across the carpet. Of course, I lived alone,

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Speaker 7: and as I kind of woke up and that in

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Speaker 7: between place of being awake and asleep, I saw the

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Speaker 7: top of a person's head beside my mattress and I

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Speaker 7: quickly asked, who was that? Who's there? And a man

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Speaker 7: jumped up on my bed. I screamed. He covered my

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Speaker 7: mouth with a gloved hand and put a knife to

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Speaker 7: the left side of my throat and told me to

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Speaker 7: shut up. He was going to kill me.

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Speaker 3: It's literally a horror movie like this.

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Speaker 7: Oh yeah, it's a horror movie. There's several things going on, right,

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Speaker 7: I mean, you're trying to figure out what's happening. It's

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Speaker 7: that that place where you're you're wondering if this is

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Speaker 7: a dream or this is really happening, and then you

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Speaker 7: realize that you are in terrible danger. I knew, I

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Speaker 7: knew that he was going to rate me. That was

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Speaker 7: very clear. But what you don't know, no survivor ever knows,

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Speaker 7: is was he going to kill me? And I honestly

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Speaker 7: believe that I'd probably not live, that he would slip

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Speaker 7: my throat, that he would, you know, beat me. And

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Speaker 7: you start wondering in those moments, how quickly will I

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Speaker 7: be able to die? And while I feel it as

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Speaker 7: I'm dying, will it be painful? Will it you know?

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Speaker 7: Will it just be quick and over with? And you

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Speaker 7: start thinking about your parents, You start thinking about your future,

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Speaker 7: You start thinking about the things that you're going to miss,

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Speaker 7: and you you know, the things you wish you had said,

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Speaker 7: and that was what was happening, and that you know

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Speaker 7: that moment when when you realize that this could be

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Speaker 7: the last thing that ever touches your skin.

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Speaker 3: Be cliche about your whole life lashing before your eyes,

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Speaker 3: It's really true, isn't it.

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Speaker 7: It's really true. It's really true.

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Speaker 3: And I know you've spoken about how you at that

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Speaker 3: moment you made a commitment to do everything you could

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Speaker 3: not only to survive, but to memorize every detail of

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Speaker 3: your assailant, your attacker, your your torturer, so that you

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Speaker 3: could identify him. I mean that's some very amazingly sort

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Speaker 3: of clear thinking at a time of utmost terror. Right,

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Speaker 3: you were a clear eyed college student. You weren't high

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Speaker 3: or stoned, you hadn't been out drinking that night. You

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Speaker 3: were perfect for this particular task that now lay in

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Speaker 3: front of you. When this attack finally ended, And how

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Speaker 3: long did it go on for?

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Speaker 7: By the way, well, from the beginning of when he

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Speaker 7: woke me up to when I was able to escape

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Speaker 7: was probably around twenty minutes. The assault lasted probably five

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Speaker 7: and I was able to talk him off of me

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Speaker 7: after part of the assault had happened, because I knew

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Speaker 7: that I needed to find a way to escape. But

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Speaker 7: during that time, when I was trying to figure out

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Speaker 7: a plan, I was able to stand close to him,

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Speaker 7: to gauge his height, to gauge his weight, to remember

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Speaker 7: his clothing. I mean, everything became important to me that night.

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Speaker 7: And I'm glad you said task because that's exactly what

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Speaker 7: was happening in my head. I was very task driven,

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Speaker 7: I mean, a survive, find a way to live and

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Speaker 7: be watch him rotten hell for the rest of his life.

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Speaker 7: So I was making a very concerted effort to pay

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Speaker 7: attention to everything even listening to his voice as he

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Speaker 7: began to talk to me, trying to pick up any

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Speaker 7: details that he might you know, kind of drop, and

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Speaker 7: I could remember in getting myself into different positions of light.

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Speaker 7: It was all, you know, part of that need to survive,

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Speaker 7: and that task gave me that need and will to

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Speaker 7: survive until I was able to escape after about twenty minutes.

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Speaker 3: You made this amazing commitment to this process right when

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Speaker 3: I think most people would have just been focused on

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Speaker 3: getting out of there. Right, and if this wasn't enough

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Speaker 3: of a horror movie scenario, your sailing had cut the

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Speaker 3: phone line as well. Right, He had.

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Speaker 7: Cut the phone line. He had been in my apartment

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Speaker 7: for hours, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer out of my refrigerator.

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Speaker 7: He'd stolen money out of my wallet. He'd even gone

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Speaker 7: through a photo album and taken photographs of me out

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Speaker 7: and actually asked permission. He said, I hope you don't mind,

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Speaker 7: but I took some of the photographs of you to keep.

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Speaker 7: I mean, it was it was a mental, physical torture,

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Speaker 7: and you know, it was sexual assault and violence. It

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Speaker 7: is a forever thing. And he changed me that night

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Speaker 7: in ways that I that you know, the girl was

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Speaker 7: just the girl died that night. She she was gone.

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Speaker 3: You did manage to escape, obviously and run down the road,

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Speaker 3: which was a very brave thing to do, not knowing

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Speaker 3: you know, he could have come after you, and he

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Speaker 3: did come after me.

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Speaker 7: He chased me through the.

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Speaker 3: Dark, unreal. But you out ran him. Is that basically

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Speaker 3: how to come down?

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Speaker 7: I outran. The trick for me was I knew I

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Speaker 7: had to get to light, and I knew he wouldn't

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Speaker 7: come under light with me. So I found a carport

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Speaker 7: that was on at a house that I didn't know

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Speaker 7: who lived there. I just kind of prayed that people

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Speaker 7: were there, but I knew he wouldn't come underneath that

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Speaker 7: carport because if someone was home, they would see him.

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Speaker 7: So that kept him away from me. As I banged

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Speaker 7: on the door, and fortunately the husband and wife and

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Speaker 7: the family were there, and the woman recognized me. She

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Speaker 7: was a professor at the college I was attending. I

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Speaker 7: didn't take any of her classes, but she had seen

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Speaker 7: me on campus and they let me in and basically

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Speaker 7: saved my life.

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Speaker 3: Well, what a story I have any words? Now, Ronald,

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Speaker 3: let me turn to you for a second. So did

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Speaker 3: you live in the same town I did yes. And

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Speaker 3: in the days and weeks prior to your arrest, were

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Speaker 3: you aware of this was this big local news?

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Speaker 6: Well, I guess it was. The week before I got arrested.

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Speaker 6: Me and my brother were standing on the Sweet corner

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Speaker 6: and I let a newspaper, local newspaper down and in

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Speaker 6: the rapper. I pulled it out the rapper on the

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Speaker 6: front page and there was this SketchUp guy and it

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Speaker 6: described him and showing a picture of him and instruction

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Speaker 6: that he committed a crime upon this female and it

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Speaker 6: was Jennifer. I didn't know Jennifer, you know. I just

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Speaker 6: read the article and I told my brother then that

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Speaker 6: I don't know who the guy is. But when they

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Speaker 6: get him, I said, he's through, you know, he's done.

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Speaker 6: And uh. Well, that following Monday, I went home from

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Speaker 6: not staying in the hotel with my girlfriend, and my

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Speaker 6: mother and boyfriend told me as I approached the door

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Speaker 6: that the police had been looking for me, and I

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Speaker 6: went down to find out for that particular crime.

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Speaker 3: Now, prior to this nightmare unfolding in your life, how

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Speaker 3: was your life before that? How old were you?

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Speaker 6: I was about the same age. Well, I had been

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Speaker 6: working at local restaurants and you know, seafood places and uh.

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Speaker 6: And at the particular moment in the time, I was

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Speaker 6: not working. I was unemployed. I was in the process

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Speaker 6: I building that application here and there, you know, trying

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Speaker 6: to become employed.

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Speaker 2: Uh.

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Speaker 6: But that particular time, I had been in the fast

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Speaker 6: lane running the bars. And you know, I had quit

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Speaker 6: school and and I was working. I was just enjoying

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Speaker 6: life in general. Once my mother boyfriend instructed me that

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Speaker 6: the cops were looking for me, I had walked inside

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Speaker 6: the apartment. I know. It was a paper there on

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Speaker 6: a television. It had named on it. So I took

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Speaker 6: the paper. I read it, and instruction on it was

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Speaker 6: how this individual had entered the Stompson apartment and committed

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Speaker 6: to scrime upon her. And I said, no, they got

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Speaker 6: the wrong guy. And some of my mother boyfriend said, well,

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Speaker 6: you all gonna get it straightened out. And so I

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Speaker 6: walked outside and I looked across the road and I

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Speaker 6: noticed my neighbor Patricia was standing on the front board sweeping,

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Speaker 6: and I walked over and asked her to bought her

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Speaker 6: car to drive down the police apartment and see what's

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Speaker 6: going on in this matter. I said, well, I take

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Speaker 6: my sister Tuoty with me just in case they locked

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Speaker 6: me up, and that way she can bring your car back.

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Speaker 6: So on our way there, we buried off and went

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Speaker 6: by my girlfriend Teresa's place, and she come running to

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Speaker 6: the car and crying, holling Ryan and Ron the police

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Speaker 6: been over here looking for you, saying that you rate

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Speaker 6: this woman. And she said, I know you didn't. I said, no,

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Speaker 6: I did not. I said, baby, we're all getting ready

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Speaker 6: to go to the police department right now and trying

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Speaker 6: to get this minter taken care of. So I want

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Speaker 6: to ride. So we all hopped in the car and

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Speaker 6: went down and pulled in the parking lot. I exited

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Speaker 6: the car. I was approaching the police apartment and I

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Speaker 6: looked up. You know, it was about two three stories high,

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Speaker 6: and the older cops that was I saw him looking

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Speaker 6: at the window. Rush away from the wonder and run

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Speaker 6: downstairs and met me at the door. And out the

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Speaker 6: door pops Mike Golden, and uh, he saidthing detected, Mike Goldan.

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Speaker 6: I said, yes, I heard you. I've been looking for

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Speaker 6: me for a crime in the community that I need committed.

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Speaker 5: Uh.

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Speaker 6: He said, well, come on inside and let's talk. About it,

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Speaker 6: and uh, you know, trying to get this thing worked out.

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Speaker 6: So I went inside and the alibi that I gave

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Speaker 6: them was totally different, because you know, I parted a

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Speaker 6: lot and I wasn't keeping up with everything.

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Speaker 3: So how long after the actual crime was this taking place?

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Speaker 6: Augustry? First?

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Speaker 7: Three days?

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Speaker 6: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Oh, sub short time.

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Speaker 6: Augustr first around about twelve thirty, and we went upstairs

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Speaker 6: and they began to ask me a question about Jennifer.

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Speaker 6: You want They ended, I want in this woman apartment,

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Speaker 6: committed all the acts un her, and I said, I

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Speaker 6: kept telling him, no, I did not. I said, my

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Speaker 6: reason for coming down here, for trying to get this

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Speaker 6: matter taken care of. And then the police chief he

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Speaker 6: told me that, yeah, I took a flashlight and held

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Speaker 6: it in a woman's facing rape, which I was I said,

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Speaker 6: I convict him. Happened that night as well. I told him, Noah,

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Speaker 6: I said, you got me wrong. You know I did

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Speaker 6: not commit this crime. He said yeah, he said, you

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Speaker 6: think you missed the big stuff going around town swim

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Speaker 6: white women. I said, sir, you're totally wrong. I did

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Speaker 6: not commit these crimes. Then they was instructed to take

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Speaker 6: me in a room and lock me up, you know,

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Speaker 6: photograph me, fangle print me, and they took me down

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Speaker 6: to that Damans County jail, put mine one hundred and

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Speaker 6: fifty thousand dollars bail.

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Speaker 3: And there was no way you could post that.

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Speaker 6: No, I was there ontil due date.

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Speaker 3: A trial actually didn't walk out for eleven years. Yes,

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Speaker 3: I mean that night you spent in the motel was

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Speaker 3: the last night you spent as a free man. Yes,

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Speaker 3: until this whole thing was finally resolved all those years later. So, Jennifer,

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Speaker 3: you had now seen his picture see Royn's picture in

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Speaker 3: a photo array, and you had identified him, and now

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Speaker 3: they had him under arrest, so you must have felt

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Speaker 3: a huge sense of relief I did.

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Speaker 7: I mean, there had been another rape immediately after mine,

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Speaker 7: and we knew it was the same person. An hour later,

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Speaker 7: a mile down the road, there's another woman who's assaulted,

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Speaker 7: and I felt that we had a serial rapist in

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Speaker 7: the community and he needed to be removed. So yes,

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Speaker 7: I thought a huge sense of relief after I knew

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Speaker 7: that he had been arrested and of course would be

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Speaker 7: held over for probable cause and we would go to trial,

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Speaker 7: which became a next task.

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Speaker 3: How did they know that it was the same person.

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Speaker 7: It was a description of the clothing. Both of us

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Speaker 7: had said that the person who had attacked us had

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Speaker 7: had on a navy blue shirt with three white stripes

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Speaker 7: that went along as biceps. He had on khaki tight pants.

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Speaker 7: He had white gloves that were knit. I mean, both

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Speaker 7: of us had the same exact description. And as he

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Speaker 7: was running from the second rape survivor, police were being called,

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Speaker 7: and he actually passed the police, so there was a

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Speaker 7: police that actually got a short glimpse of the assailants,

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Speaker 7: so we knew it was the same person. It was

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Speaker 7: the same person who had attempted to break into the

302
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Speaker 7: woman before me, because she had said the same thing

303
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Speaker 7: and arm was coming through her door, blew shirt with

304
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Speaker 7: white stripes, nick gloves. She just happened to be awake

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Speaker 7: and called the police. So he never assaulted the first woman.

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Speaker 3: The other woman who was raped, Was she involved in

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00:16:33,240 --> 00:16:35,400
Speaker 3: this process in any way? Did they show her the

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Speaker 3: same photo array and if so, did she identify ron

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Speaker 3: as well?

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Speaker 7: They did show her the same array, and she was

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Speaker 7: much older than me. And during her assault, he hit

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Speaker 7: her and bitter and put a flashlight in her eyes

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Speaker 7: and put a pillow on her face when he raped her,

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Speaker 7: So she was not able to get the same kind

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Speaker 7: of description and details that I was able to get.

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Speaker 7: And so when she went to the photographic lineup and

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Speaker 7: physical lineup, she wasn't sure. She said that I think

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Speaker 7: it's number four, but it could be number five. And

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Speaker 7: so the district attorney made the decision to not try

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Speaker 7: the cases together, that they would only try my case

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Speaker 7: because basically they had a better conviction with just my identification.

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Speaker 3: Right again, yours was perfect, seemingly right right.

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Speaker 7: I literally was called the perfect witness.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're in prison. You're getting some sleep now,

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00:17:27,320 --> 00:17:30,360
Speaker 3: hopefully by not really, where were you staying, by the way,

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Speaker 3: when this rapist was still on the loose.

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Speaker 7: I was staying about three miles off campus in a

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Speaker 7: condominium complex.

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Speaker 3: But you didn't stay in your own apartment after this?

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Speaker 7: Oh no, I never returned, just only for my things.

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Speaker 7: And you know, again, the thing about being an assault

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Speaker 7: survivor is when when you're broken, like I was broken,

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Speaker 7: you can't ever return to that place that you were before.

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Speaker 7: And I talk to people, your lens that you look

335
00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:01,120
Speaker 7: at through the world becomes distorted and everything you choose

336
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:05,040
Speaker 7: becomes seen through that distortion. Your place in the world

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00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:07,480
Speaker 7: is now distorted. What value do I have?

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Speaker 6: You know?

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00:18:09,320 --> 00:18:11,800
Speaker 7: Where do you go from here? Because who you were

340
00:18:11,840 --> 00:18:15,480
Speaker 7: before is no longer an option and it's now trying

341
00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:19,840
Speaker 7: to recreate this new person. But you have no support.

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Speaker 7: So people didn't want to hang out with me. My

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00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:25,560
Speaker 7: family wouldn't talk to me about it. My boyfriend said

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Speaker 7: he just couldn't handle it, so he broke up with me.

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Speaker 7: I mean, literally everything in my world was gone, and

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Speaker 7: your task now with trying to somehow recover. And I

347
00:18:39,359 --> 00:18:43,439
Speaker 7: use that like with a big sigh, because it is

348
00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:46,640
Speaker 7: a forever recovery. It's just as long as you live,

349
00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:47,720
Speaker 7: you're still in recovery.

350
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Speaker 3: It's hard for me to adam how those particular people

351
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Speaker 3: who were so close and intimate with you made exactly

352
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Speaker 3: the wrong choice ron back to you. So you are

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Speaker 3: in crazyland now, right because you can't possibly understand I

354
00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:07,040
Speaker 3: imagine why this is happening. And now all of a sudden,

355
00:19:07,040 --> 00:19:09,000
Speaker 3: you find yourself in the situation that you had just

356
00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:11,560
Speaker 3: been discussing with your brother, right, you had just predicted

357
00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:14,639
Speaker 3: your own fate actually right, because you had said, whoever

358
00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:17,160
Speaker 3: they get well of this guy's going down whatever, right,

359
00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:19,639
Speaker 3: that's right, and now it's you. The day of the

360
00:19:19,680 --> 00:19:22,480
Speaker 3: trial comes. How long had you been held by then?

361
00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:26,160
Speaker 6: About four months?

362
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Speaker 3: Four months, so you had been in for quite a while.

363
00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:31,560
Speaker 3: And the jail. I don't know how that jail was,

364
00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:33,480
Speaker 3: but we know that a lot of the jails in

365
00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:36,520
Speaker 3: America are even worse and even more dangerous and scary

366
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Speaker 3: than the maximum security prisons. Was this jail one of those?

367
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Speaker 6: I wasn't one of those. Just a lot of guys

368
00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:45,960
Speaker 6: talking jump and you know, if you wanted to make

369
00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:48,440
Speaker 6: a stand, you know, you took a chance, you know.

370
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Speaker 3: So, Jennifer back to you. So the day of the

371
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:53,840
Speaker 3: trial comes, you're there hoping to get some closure, right.

372
00:19:54,280 --> 00:19:57,600
Speaker 7: Well yeah, closure is such an interesting part. Well yeah,

373
00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:00,000
Speaker 7: I mean you're looking for justice, is what you're looking for.

374
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Speaker 7: And that's what I was looking for. I was looking

375
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Speaker 7: for him to be held responsible for what he had

376
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:08,800
Speaker 7: done to not just me, but the other woman who

377
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:11,560
Speaker 7: wasn't going to be able to tell her story and

378
00:20:11,800 --> 00:20:14,119
Speaker 7: other women who could never find justice. So it was

379
00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:17,000
Speaker 7: like kind of this thing I needed, I really needed

380
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:19,720
Speaker 7: it to move to the next place of my life.

381
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Speaker 7: And the trial was over, two weeks long.

382
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Speaker 3: Wow, Yeah, that's a long trial. I'm actually surprised it

383
00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:30,200
Speaker 3: was that long. But by now you had identified ron

384
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,440
Speaker 3: in a photo array and in a lineup, and it's

385
00:20:33,480 --> 00:20:36,840
Speaker 3: important to highlight the fact that he was the only

386
00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:39,919
Speaker 3: person that was featured in both the photo array and

387
00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:43,359
Speaker 3: the lineup that is correct, which is obviously going to

388
00:20:43,480 --> 00:20:48,160
Speaker 3: have some impact on your perception, your memory, right.

389
00:20:48,560 --> 00:20:50,080
Speaker 7: And of course what we know now is that the

390
00:20:50,119 --> 00:20:53,000
Speaker 7: perpetrator was never in any of the lineups.

391
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Speaker 3: So it seems like they did what they could in

392
00:20:56,720 --> 00:21:00,480
Speaker 3: a very imperfect system to try to be in harshall.

393
00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:01,520
Speaker 3: Was that accurate?

394
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:02,040
Speaker 6: Not?

395
00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:05,399
Speaker 7: Really. They had thought before I went down to do

396
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:08,800
Speaker 7: the photographic lineup, they had believed that Ronald Cotton had

397
00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:12,640
Speaker 7: actually committed these crimes. So during the first lineup, which

398
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:14,960
Speaker 7: was the photographic lineup and what they call six pack,

399
00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:18,640
Speaker 7: and I had been given some instructions to take my time,

400
00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:22,479
Speaker 7: not feel compelled to choose anyone, which was pretty modern

401
00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:23,800
Speaker 7: thinking in nineteen.

402
00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:24,960
Speaker 3: Eighty four, right, that's what I was referraing.

403
00:21:25,119 --> 00:21:28,480
Speaker 7: Yeah, but when I picked Ronald out of the photographs,

404
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:31,600
Speaker 7: they did tell me, good job. That's who we thought

405
00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:35,000
Speaker 7: it was. Of course, what we know now is that

406
00:21:35,119 --> 00:21:39,400
Speaker 7: just gave my certainty that confirmation I needed, and boy,

407
00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:42,679
Speaker 7: my certainty went out the roof once they said that

408
00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:48,640
Speaker 7: to me, Ronald Cotton, that photo became the rapist.

409
00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:53,040
Speaker 3: And we were dealing in this case with a cross

410
00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:57,920
Speaker 3: racial identification, which we know are the least reliable of

411
00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:01,520
Speaker 3: all the different forms of I would identification. It's been

412
00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:05,960
Speaker 3: proven in every study that's ever been done just how

413
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:09,439
Speaker 3: unreliable I woulds identification is. And we know that it

414
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 3: goes up in cases in which either the victim or

415
00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:17,640
Speaker 3: the witness is in mortal danger, which you certainly were.

416
00:22:18,320 --> 00:22:21,399
Speaker 3: Of course, it triggers all sorts of chemical reactions in

417
00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:28,200
Speaker 3: your brain, which in turn caused your memory to play

418
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:31,200
Speaker 3: tricks on you. It's odd, right, you were the perfect witness,

419
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,200
Speaker 3: but it was also the perfect storm because you had

420
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:38,359
Speaker 3: this particular case, had all of those factors right, You

421
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:41,960
Speaker 3: had again the cross racial identification problem, you had the

422
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 3: mortal fear problem, for lack of better the weapon focus, right,

423
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:49,439
Speaker 3: that's the best term for it. And so what should

424
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:54,000
Speaker 3: have been really an open and shut case was anything but.

425
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 3: But we didn't know that at the time.

426
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:59,119
Speaker 7: Now, we thought we were doing things best practices at

427
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 7: that time in nineteen eighty four.

428
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 3: We know now that it all went horribly wrong, and

429
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:11,520
Speaker 3: so you now had identified him in the photo array

430
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:17,119
Speaker 3: and in the lineup. You were given a positive reinforcement

431
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:20,280
Speaker 3: in both of those cases. Now the day the trial

432
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:26,840
Speaker 3: comes and you're asked to identify the perpetrator in the courtroom, Yeah,

433
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 3: that's great.

434
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:30,040
Speaker 7: I was on the stand for two days Jesus having

435
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:32,280
Speaker 7: to just over and over and over again talk about

436
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:34,639
Speaker 7: what had been done to me, well literally over and

437
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:37,640
Speaker 7: over again, in front of my family, in front of strangers.

438
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:41,360
Speaker 7: I mean, it was really awful. And then the rape survivor,

439
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 7: so the defense attorney is beginning to assassinate my character,

440
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:49,879
Speaker 7: basically blaming me for inviting my own rape because I

441
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:52,639
Speaker 7: had the audacity to go to bed that night in

442
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 7: just my underwear, and so didn't I know that's what

443
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 7: led people to rape women. And so there's a lot

444
00:23:58,800 --> 00:23:59,640
Speaker 7: of things happening.

445
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:01,880
Speaker 3: What are you supposed to wear a coat of armor?

446
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 7: Well that was my point. My point to the defense

447
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 7: attorney was basically, so if I had gone to bed

448
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 7: in a sweatsuit, and he would have looked at me

449
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 7: and said at I don't think, so it's just too

450
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 7: much trouble, is that what you're saying to me? And

451
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:17,960
Speaker 7: of course it shut that down immediately. But I was

452
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 7: so angry. I was so angry that somehow me going

453
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,679
Speaker 7: to bed as a twenty two year old woman and

454
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:29,680
Speaker 7: my underwear had been the cost of my own sexual assault. Yeah,

455
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 7: that's not And of course it didn't help ron honestly

456
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 7: with a jury. The jury was really angry at the

457
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 7: defense attorney for even suggesting that. So there were some

458
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 7: things that.

459
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 3: Happened that must have made you feel uncomfortable to ron

460
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 3: to have that line of questioning. I mean, here's this

461
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 3: woman that you've never met, that you don't know what

462
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:49,880
Speaker 3: happened or why you're in this situation that you're in.

463
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:53,399
Speaker 3: You're four months and five months in jail, whatever it was,

464
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 3: So your head's fitting around in all different directions, right,

465
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 3: and now you know your own team is acting in

466
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 3: a way that I can't imagine you would ever act.

467
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:11,119
Speaker 3: The whole situation is just wrong, and ultimately you're asked

468
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 3: to make a positive identification. And what happens.

469
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 7: I looked straight over at Ronald and I said, he's

470
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:19,399
Speaker 7: sitting at the defense table as the man who raped me,

471
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:22,600
Speaker 7: and the jury deliberated four hours and came back with,

472
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 7: of course, a guilty verdict on all charges.

473
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,199
Speaker 3: And what was that moment, like Ron, I mean, that

474
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:30,119
Speaker 3: had to be the worst moment of your life.

475
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:33,679
Speaker 6: I just couldn't believe it. You know, I just shook

476
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:35,600
Speaker 6: my head. You know, I looked at my atturneys and

477
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 6: I looked I recollect the judge and the foreman and

478
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 6: the jewels and Kurt reporter, and once a verdict was

479
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 6: read from the jeurid form, I just I said, no,

480
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:51,119
Speaker 6: that's what I'm saying to myself. I said, they have

481
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:55,159
Speaker 6: it wrong. And so the judge I said, if I

482
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:57,360
Speaker 6: had anything to say to the court, and I said yes.

483
00:25:57,440 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 6: I told him that I would like to have this

484
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,200
Speaker 6: permission to sing a song that I have written in jail.

485
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 6: And so I stood up and I sang the song.

486
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 6: And as I was singing that song, you know my

487
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:11,719
Speaker 6: turn is, you know, they saying with the head dropped,

488
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 6: you know, as if though I put him the shame.

489
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:18,159
Speaker 6: But I didn't care anything at that particular time because

490
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:20,360
Speaker 6: I had just been found guilty for crime or did

491
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 6: not commit and.

492
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 3: You sang a song. Can you sing it now.

493
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 6: Yeah, if I can remember word for word, I'll try

494
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 6: to anyway. It was a boem written to my girlfriend,

495
00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 6: but I changed the words and wrote a gospel song. Whatever,

496
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:39,159
Speaker 6: and they want something like this. The sit insa I

497
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 6: can know no longer me because my future so one

498
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 6: down to me.

499
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 3: And then.

500
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 6: I could no longer say he.

501
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 8: Because during that day I wonder at not a heard

502
00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:02,719
Speaker 8: with fear call his name, suddenly tears appear.

503
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:10,199
Speaker 9: Until God came in my life. Until God came in

504
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 9: my life, I was often alone and people I really conface.

505
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 9: I just didn't know what to do before I feel

506
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 9: so wild a place. How many time as I say

507
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 9: this before you agree, there's no other God whoever loved

508
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 9: of you, not quite as much as Lord God. Believe me, everyone,

509
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:52,200
Speaker 9: because God will change your life. And that is a fire,

510
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:57,360
Speaker 9: because I will pave of night and day until you.

511
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 6: God, oh bye.

512
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 3: To me.

513
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, hey, all those words too. I just don't

514
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 7: sound like that.

515
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 3: Oh God, that's beautiful. Your life is literally coming to

516
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:18,159
Speaker 3: an end, and then you get up and sing a

517
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 3: damn song. Unbelievable. Now things start to get crazier because

518
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 3: you're in prison. What steps did you take and what

519
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 3: hope did you have?

520
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 6: Well, I had uh entered the prison system with life

521
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 6: in fifty four year prison term. Immediately they pointed me

522
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:49,479
Speaker 6: a guidance counselor in the prison and I went in

523
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 6: and met him, took tests, talked with him about my

524
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 6: being in prison, and uh, you know the crime that

525
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 6: I was in there for, but he said, we're not

526
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 6: here for that, We're here to keep So you know,

527
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 6: I know it was a lost couse I was fighting,

528
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 6: and so it was all upon me to do what

529
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 6: I had to do to survive, and that was to

530
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 6: stay in contact with my trial lawyers, which still continued

531
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 6: to fight my case on a pill.

532
00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 3: So you actually had a competent attorney in this case. Yes,

533
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 3: it would have needed OJ's dream team, and you probably

534
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 3: might have still gotten convicted. I don't I don't know

535
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 3: that there's a lawyer on this planet that could have

536
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 3: gotten you out of this.

537
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 6: Now, I was fighting a lost court, but you know

538
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 6: it was a battle field that I was in that

539
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 6: I couldn't give up. Uh, you know. Immediately, you know,

540
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 6: I put myself in the school, I buried the central

541
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:38,239
Speaker 6: prison and start filing motions from inside the prison and

542
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 6: which didn't do any good at all. And so one

543
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 6: day I was on my way to the gym to

544
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 6: work out, and I recognized this inmate being escorted inside

545
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 6: the prison, and he looked very familiar to me, So

546
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:54,479
Speaker 6: I started thinking. I said, I saw this guy before,

547
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 6: you know, as I'm walking, and I went on continued

548
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 6: that process of working out, and I went back to

549
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 6: my dorm that night. You know, they had him finished

550
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 6: processing him inside the prison, and I went to him

551
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 6: the next day as I recognized him from being outside

552
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 6: in the recreation yard. I was playing a handball game

553
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 6: I was in and immediately I had someone to come

554
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 6: and relieve me from that game, and I made an

555
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 6: approach on him and I asked him where was he from,

556
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 6: and he told me he was from Burleton of Cardine also,

557
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 6: and I said, well, you look like they're drawing up

558
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 6: from part of the schedule rap that was committed in

559
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 6: Burlton that I'm in prison for. That you commit the crime,

560
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 6: And immediately he told me no, he did not, but

561
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 6: you just had a feeling. Yes, I had to feel,

562
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 6: because he resembled to drawing. You know, I had to

563
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 6: cut it out the local newspaper because I had my

564
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 6: hands from the newspaper in the count of jail, and

565
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 6: I cut it out and put it in my possession.

566
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 3: Now, finally destiny. So that throws you a bone, right,

567
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 3: because this guy, if he hadn't come to your prison,

568
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 3: you wouldn't have had any idea if you had to

569
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,400
Speaker 3: cross paths with him at that particular time, you might

570
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 3: not have had that same feeling, that instinct that you had.

571
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 6: Right, that is correct.

572
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 3: But here he goes and he denies it. You have

573
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 3: this instinct, this feeling. It turns out he's from the

574
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 3: same town. He denies it. So you're basically back where

575
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 3: you started. Accept it. Now you're under the same roof

576
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 3: with the guy who's responsible for destroying both of your lives.

577
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 3: But there's nothing you can really do about it. But

578
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 3: that all changed one day as a result of a

579
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 3: conversation that you had with another inmate, right, And can

580
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:36,600
Speaker 3: you tell us how that started, because this is a

581
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 3: really amazing part of the story.

582
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 6: Well, this guy, he began to lust after me in prison.

583
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 6: I told him one night as I was in a shower,

584
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 6: you know, I was washing my hair and shallow curtain

585
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 6: I heard slide, So I lifted up my hair because

586
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 6: I had an e f ro at the time, and

587
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 6: he was standing out lust and you know, telling me

588
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 6: what a beautiful body I had, And I told him

589
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 6: I'm not trying to hear that need to keep moving,

590
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 6: you know, and he kept on. I said, well, I'm

591
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 6: not gonna want to try to fight a guy, you know,

592
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 6: in the nude. You know, I might slip and fallow

593
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 6: my head, you know, bump on the floor or something,

594
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 6: getting knocked out unconscious, and you know, got do me in.

595
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 6: So I just chilled. And the next day I was

596
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 6: in the gym shooting pool a guy from Greensboro named Roger.

597
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 6: He told me to cott now Kenny and the kids

598
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 6: and talking junk about you, you know, And I said, well,

599
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 6: I'm tired of this stuff. I'm gonna get this man

600
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 6: straightened out right now. So I'm hand in my pool

601
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 6: stick and I chug a log up to the kitchen.

602
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 6: He was in the parking paying the area with his

603
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 6: back turn. When I approached. I stopped so many feet

604
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 6: from him and I called his name out and he

605
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 6: turned around he said yeah. I said, look, man, you've

606
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 6: been talking junk about me for so many months. I'm

607
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 6: tired of it. You let my name taste like crap

608
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 6: in your mouth. And he proached me and said you

609
00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 6: better get up my face for I kill you. He

610
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 6: put his hand on me and I said, oh, you

611
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,239
Speaker 6: want to fight, right, I said, okay, let's go. So

612
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 6: he walked around in the corner and get off a camera,

613
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 6: you know, and we falled and I ended up breaking

614
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 6: his jaw and put them down, and you know, and

615
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 6: they got bou off of him, and he goes to

616
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 6: surrogation and I do not because you know, they prism

617
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 6: stewards in the kitchen had heard me telling this guy

618
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 6: to leave me alone. So you know, they they got

619
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 6: on my side. And so he went the hole for

620
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 6: thirty days. And after thirty days he come out. I

621
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 6: was sating in my dorm. I was sitting in the corner.

622
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 6: Come my bump was in a corner wall. I kept

623
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 6: three chairs lining up along the wall. And he walked

624
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 6: up to the window and he said cott and I

625
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 6: said yeah. He said, let me holler at you man.

626
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 6: I told him come on. Then you know, he comes

627
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 6: in my dorm and I told him to have a seat.

628
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 6: He sit down and he span he said, I'm sorry

629
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,320
Speaker 6: to fight you. He said, you're fighting, dude, And I said, no,

630
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 6: I'm just not gonna go for that bull, you know.

631
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 6: So he said, I apologize. I just wanted to become

632
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 6: your friend. I said, well, becoming a friend and don't

633
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 6: approach me in that way. And he said, well, I

634
00:33:57,640 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 6: just want to tell you that mister Poole told me

635
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 6: that he committed the crime you in prison for. And

636
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 6: I said, well, thank you. And so he gets up

637
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 6: and he walks off. And so later that night, I

638
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 6: go to my locker and I put out my legal

639
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 6: pad and a pen, and I set up about two

640
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 6: o'clock in the morning, and I wrote my lawd your

641
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,319
Speaker 6: feel most and I told him what had been told

642
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 6: to me. And so a week or two went by,

643
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 6: he wrote me back and instructed me, well, then we're

644
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 6: gonna look into it, you know, but right now we

645
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 6: got to go through the process of the pills. And so, uh,

646
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:34,919
Speaker 6: I just went head on. And about the next week

647
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 6: mister Poole approached me. He said, cause he worked, he

648
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 6: got a job in the kitchen as well. He said that. Uh,

649
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:42,800
Speaker 6: he said, I know you got a lot of sisters, man. Uh,

650
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:44,400
Speaker 6: he said, why don't you let me write one of

651
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 6: your sisters. I said, what, I don't normally let guys

652
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 6: in prison write my sisters. And uh, I said, but

653
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 6: with view two with exception I consider. I said, but

654
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 6: first of all we have to do I said, we

655
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 6: have to take a photograph together. And uh, I a

656
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 6: letter and I sent it to my sister. I said,

657
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 6: she see what you look like. She'll write your back.

658
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 6: If she doesn't, I don't know what to tell you.

659
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:13,399
Speaker 6: And so we took the photograph. Anyway, I didn't send

660
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:15,880
Speaker 6: that letter to my sister. I sent it to my lawyer.

661
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 6: He liked what he saw, Yeah, that it really got

662
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 6: the ball kind of rolling. Well. I was transferred on

663
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 6: through the prison and I ended up in Mason, Tennessee,

664
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 6: and I wrote the quartover ap pills from there, you know,

665
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 6: by listening to the OJ trial, you know, I took

666
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 6: my legal paths shot taking notes on the DNA and

667
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 6: when I felt I had enough evident and information written

668
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:40,359
Speaker 6: down on my legal paths, I said, well, it's time

669
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 6: for me to write to the Court of Appills and

670
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 6: Requests for this DNA test. So once I wrote the

671
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 6: letter and send it out, Tiger Harner from Raleigh. He

672
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 6: wrote me a letter and told me that. He said,

673
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 6: you got a good case. The pills caught we Uh,

674
00:35:57,440 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 6: he said, they turn it down, but we're gonna continue

675
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 6: looking at it. So he forwarded my letter to law

676
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 6: school at UNC, and wasn't long after that they wrote

677
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:12,400
Speaker 6: me a letter from the legislator, I mean the lawyer,

678
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 6: and he told me, I said that Cotton. Uh, we're

679
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 6: gonna do your request and send you and you have

680
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 6: a DNA done. They didn't send me to do it,

681
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 6: but they're gonna have it done. Said, we'll do your

682
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 6: DNA testing, but if the tests come back stating that

683
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 6: you committed to scribe, you're gonna spend the rest of

684
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 6: your life in prison. What do you want us to do?

685
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:35,399
Speaker 6: I didn't hesitate for one moment. I immediately I sent

686
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 6: a letter back out do the test, because come back

687
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 6: stating anything other than innocent, guilty, realant, I said, because

688
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 6: I'm an innocent man, I said, the Good Lord knows them.

689
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 6: I know in my heart that I did not commit

690
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 6: the scribe.

691
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 3: Jennifer, were you aware of this, any of this stuff

692
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 3: going on at this time?

693
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:54,919
Speaker 6: No?

694
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 7: Not at that time, and we had gone through a

695
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 7: second trial nineteen eighty seven.

696
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:00,880
Speaker 3: Did Bobbypool to fight that trial.

697
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 7: Well, in nineteen eighty seven, they had told me that

698
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:07,439
Speaker 7: there was this new name out there, Bobby Pool, that

699
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 7: you know, Ronald had been claiming that he had confessed

700
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:15,319
Speaker 7: to it. But don't worry about it. We know that

701
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 7: we have the right guy. So in the second trial

702
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 7: they brought Bobby Pool into the courtroom under wardeer. They

703
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 7: had removed the jury, so the jury never knew about

704
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:27,080
Speaker 7: Bobby Pool. And of course in the court Bobby Pool

705
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:29,399
Speaker 7: denied it, said he had never said anything, he didn't

706
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,359
Speaker 7: commit the crime. And by that point three years had

707
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:37,360
Speaker 7: gone by and there was no memory of Bobby Pool

708
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 7: in my head or the second survivor who was in

709
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:42,879
Speaker 7: the courtroom, and both of us said that we did

710
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,280
Speaker 7: not recognize Bobby Pool. And then we were asked again,

711
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 7: did we see the person in the courtroom who had

712
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:50,840
Speaker 7: raped us? And we both pointed out Ronald Cotton. So

713
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 7: you go to put your life back together again as

714
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 7: best as you can. You know, life moves on. I

715
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:02,439
Speaker 7: had gotten married, I had gotten pregnant, I gave birth

716
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 7: to triplets the spring of nineteen ninety I had two

717
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 7: little girls and a baby boy. And by you know,

718
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety five, my babies. I have three five year olds,

719
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 7: and I'm busy. You know, I'm a busy mama.

720
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 3: I'm halfway surprised you even showed up with a child, because,

721
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 3: I mean, you said you were busy, and you were

722
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 3: absolutely certain that the justice had already been done. Why

723
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 3: would you even want to go back that you weren't

724
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 3: forced to come back, were you? No?

725
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 7: But you want to make sure that the person that

726
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,359
Speaker 7: you think tried to kill you stays in prison, all right,

727
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 7: So you have a vested interest in this.

728
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 3: So you were there not to learn anything but to

729
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 3: reaffirm what you already knew, and to you know, make

730
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 3: sure that nothing went wrong and that he was ever

731
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 3: free to prey on anybody else.

732
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 7: Absolutely absolutely, And you know, by ninety five, when they

733
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:48,760
Speaker 7: came to me and said that there was this thing

734
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 7: called post conviction DNA testing, something I had never heard of.

735
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 7: I knew what DNA was, but I had never heard

736
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 7: the word exoneration or wrongful convictions. It wasn't part of

737
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:00,680
Speaker 7: my life. It wasn't part of my story.

738
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:02,280
Speaker 3: It wasn't really part of anybody.

739
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 7: It wasn't it was really it wasn't anybody's story at

740
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,320
Speaker 7: that point we're talking about nineteen eighty five. But my

741
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 7: blood from the rape kit had dissolved and sintegrated after

742
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 7: those eleven years, and at some point the courts would

743
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 7: probably require me to give a new blood sample. And

744
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 7: I said to them, I said, you know, I've got

745
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 7: five year old triplets, and I'm busy, and I'm a

746
00:39:23,200 --> 00:39:25,319
Speaker 7: mama now, and that's my job and that's what I

747
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:27,360
Speaker 7: want to do. So I went to the lab that

748
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 7: day and I had my doctor take blood, put it

749
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 7: in a vial, give it straight to the ADA and

750
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 7: Mike Golden, who now was captain of the Burlington Police Department,

751
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:40,759
Speaker 7: and I said, run the test because I can't do

752
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 7: this anymore.

753
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 3: And then and then we had hit the.

754
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 7: Fan pretty yeah much. I mean it was three months later,

755
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 7: which in legal time, three months is like two seconds lightning.

756
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:55,800
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, probably not when you're in prison.

757
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 7: Not when you're in prison. But you know, some of

758
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,839
Speaker 7: these tests take years and years years, and this one

759
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 7: was three months. And they came to my house and

760
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 7: told me that the DNA had completely excluded Ronald Cotton

761
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:12,880
Speaker 7: but had been a direct hit on Bobby Pool.

762
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 3: You you must have been florid.

763
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 7: It was one of the worst days of my life.

764
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 3: I'm getting the shells done. So when they told you this,

765
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 3: did you immediately realize that, in fact, this was true

766
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 3: and that you had been wrong all this time?

767
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:39,279
Speaker 7: Well? I think what happened for me was part of

768
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 7: my degree had been science. So I understood DNA like

769
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:46,839
Speaker 7: I understood DYNA in relation to human memory. I got

770
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:52,240
Speaker 7: that that human memory is fallible. DNA was pretty dang

771
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:57,320
Speaker 7: spot on. I understood it like I understood that Ronald

772
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 7: was now going to be exonerated, understood that Bobbypool had

773
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:06,720
Speaker 7: committed all these crimes, that a mistake had been made.

774
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:09,719
Speaker 7: The best I can say is it's like the earth

775
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 7: opened up and it swallowed me, and everything became black

776
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 7: and dark, and I dissolved. I felt paralyzed. I felt

777
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 7: like I couldn't breathe. I couldn't function. I mean, you know,

778
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 7: I try to talk about this in terms of I

779
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:30,959
Speaker 7: could do my day to day things like I could

780
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 7: make a peanut butter sandwich, and I could put the

781
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,840
Speaker 7: clothes from the washer into the dryer. But I couldn't function.

782
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:42,280
Speaker 7: And when it got quiet and I was left by myself,

783
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 7: I just was debilitated with fear and guilt. It just

784
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:57,400
Speaker 7: suffocated me and I stopped functioning for two years, two years,

785
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 7: two years. I just couldn't got in, you know, what

786
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 7: to do.

787
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 6: Right.

788
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:04,960
Speaker 7: There's nobody was talking about these issues. Nobody was even

789
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 7: talking to me about rape and what happened to me,

790
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 7: but they really weren't talking about wrongful convictions. And I

791
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 7: had nobody to turn to. There was nobody for me

792
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:17,840
Speaker 7: to talk to. You know, Ronald was on the Larry

793
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 7: King Show and in People magazine, and I understood that,

794
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:24,760
Speaker 7: like I understood that, but there was nobody that cared

795
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:27,880
Speaker 7: about me. And not only did they not care about me,

796
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:30,919
Speaker 7: but they were blaming me right.

797
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 3: And that's a crazy phenomenon too.

798
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 6: It happens to.

799
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 7: All of our crime survivors. We get blamed for something

800
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:40,719
Speaker 7: that should never have been our fault. Like we're the

801
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:45,359
Speaker 7: first person harmed. There is someone to blame, it's the perpetrator.

802
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 7: Because not only did Bobby Poole destroy my life and

803
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 7: the second survivor, but he sat there and watched an

804
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 7: innocent man go to prison, and he committed over two

805
00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 7: dozen other crimes that fall of nineteen eighty four, in

806
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:02,799
Speaker 7: the spring of nineteen eighty five, before he was ever apprehended.

807
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 7: He raped many women, sexually assaulted them, broke into their homes,

808
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:14,399
Speaker 7: terrorized them for months, and yet somehow the media and

809
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 7: the general public felt that it was okay to bludgeon

810
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 7: me to a bloody pulp for something that was never

811
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 7: my fault. Like, there's no survivor in the world that

812
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 7: wants to get this wrong. No, no, we want the

813
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:33,840
Speaker 7: person to go to prison who committed the crimes against

814
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 7: us or murdered our families. Nobody wants to get this wrong.

815
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:41,720
Speaker 7: I mean, it was wrong, but it wasn't my fault.

816
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:44,960
Speaker 7: It was just Jason for me to explain. I mean,

817
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 7: I got death threats, people who would say people who

818
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 7: said to me, if I find her, I will kidnap her,

819
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,680
Speaker 7: I will rape her, I will slit her throat from

820
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 7: ear to ear, and I will watch her die and

821
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 7: bleed to death in a ditch lock.

822
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 3: Is that all about, I mean, blaming me.

823
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 7: For something that was never my fault, something that Ron

824
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 7: didn't even blame me for.

825
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 3: Well, then that's a very very important part of the story, obviously.

826
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 3: I mean, the grace of this man who's sitting in

827
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 3: front of us is impossible to exaggerate or describe accurately,

828
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 3: And we'll get to that part of the story in

829
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 3: a second. But yeah, it's so it's so bizarre because

830
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:30,920
Speaker 3: now you've got to deal with the guilt of having

831
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,920
Speaker 3: convicted an innocent man, which I know has such a

832
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:39,319
Speaker 3: profound effect on you and still does. And also the

833
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 3: idea that you were now in a situation where you

834
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:47,200
Speaker 3: had not done the thing that was most important to you,

835
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 3: which was to correctly identify your assailant, which led to

836
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 3: these terrible outcomes for all these other women. It seems

837
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 3: like to me, like every where you look, it's just bad.

838
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:06,320
Speaker 7: Well, first of all, I want to make sure everybody

839
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 7: understands that I did not.

840
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 3: Convict Ronald count Well, you can't convict anybody.

841
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:14,360
Speaker 7: Exactly, I mean, but that's something that gets narrated in

842
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 7: a way that is not right. Like the state of

843
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 7: North Carolina indicted Ronald and press charges and convicted Ronald.

844
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 7: Jennifer Thompson had no power to convict anybody. Did I

845
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 7: pick Ronald out of a lineup?

846
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 3: I did?

847
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 7: And I can explain to you how those kind of

848
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 7: things happen, how memory kind of contaminates itself over time.

849
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 7: But there was no way for me to adequately explain

850
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 7: what was happening to me. For the exonery and their families,

851
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 7: an overturning of a conviction is the day they've been

852
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 7: praying for. Is that they're happy ending for a crime survivor,

853
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:59,239
Speaker 7: for murder victim, family member who thought that the system

854
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 7: had given them justice, which is what they promised to

855
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 7: do for a victim, and find out that the system

856
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 7: had failed to give me justice. It had failed my family,

857
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 7: it had failed Ronald, it had failed Ronald's family, it

858
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:19,239
Speaker 7: had failed the other women in the community. I have

859
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:21,640
Speaker 7: not come up with a word yet that can actually

860
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 7: explain what that looks like and what that feels like

861
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 7: for those of us they get impacted, except it is

862
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 7: an additional nightmare. So for Ronald, he's home, he's with

863
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 7: his family. They've supported him, they're embracing him. The community

864
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 7: is celebrating this man who comes back to freedom, and rightly,

865
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 7: so that's exactly what should be happening. The crime survivor

866
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:48,320
Speaker 7: should be cared for as well. And I've talked to

867
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 7: lots of police and prosecutors in training and talking about

868
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 7: these things, and they'll come up to me at the end,

869
00:46:54,120 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 7: and they say, you know, oh my god, I totally

870
00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 7: forgot about the victim in these cases. And it shocked

871
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:03,280
Speaker 7: me because for every wrongful conviction.

872
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 3: There's a victim, right, and even if that victim is

873
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 3: someone who was killed, that there's a family, and we are.

874
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 7: Ignored and we are placed aside and our harm is

875
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:19,720
Speaker 7: not validated. And then on top of it, the media

876
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 7: places to blame and says things such as rape survivor

877
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 7: falsely accuses innocent man and sends him to prison not once,

878
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 7: but twice. And there's everything wrong with that sentence.

879
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 3: Right, as if you were doing it deliberately, that this was.

880
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 7: To kill a mockingbird, and I was just making.

881
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:40,240
Speaker 3: Up a story, right, And so then the most amazing

882
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 3: part of this story, I would say, the positive part

883
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 3: starts right, which is Jennifer reaches out, and how did

884
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:47,840
Speaker 3: that happen?

885
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:52,320
Speaker 7: I actually called Mike Golden at the police department and said,

886
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 7: I am not doing well. It's been two years. I

887
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:59,839
Speaker 7: haven't moved forward at all. I need you to set

888
00:47:59,880 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 7: up a private meeting. Because Ron was the first dnags

889
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,480
Speaker 7: honery in North Carolina. I mean he was about twenty

890
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 7: third I think in the country. So everybody was trying

891
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:10,800
Speaker 7: to find the girl. Everybody wanted to find the girl.

892
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 7: So I asked him to set up a private meeting

893
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 7: where journalists couldn't find us because they were all trying

894
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 7: to find me. So they set it up at a

895
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 7: church that was about a mile and a half from

896
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 7: where I had been raped thirteen years before that. And

897
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:26,839
Speaker 7: he didn't know where he was going, and I didn't

898
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 7: know where I was going, so we couldn't accidentally leak

899
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:31,280
Speaker 7: it to anybody. And I found myself at the pastor

900
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 7: study and looking out the window, I see this humongous

901
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 7: six foot four man kind of walking towards the building.

902
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 7: And I remember thinking, as I looked at him, because

903
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 7: his wife was seeing him beside of him, who is

904
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 7: my height? And the first thing I thought of was,

905
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 7: my god, he's too tall. That my attacker had never

906
00:48:51,960 --> 00:48:56,040
Speaker 7: been that tall. Now now it hit me because I

907
00:48:56,040 --> 00:48:59,520
Speaker 7: had that relation right, I'm looking, I'm thinking, oh my god,

908
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 7: he's huge, and he was five inches taller.

909
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:08,320
Speaker 3: What'd you say? What did you say? How did what happened?

910
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:11,319
Speaker 6: Well, my wife she didn't want me to go in

911
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 6: the beginning, but I had to determine that I was

912
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 6: going anyway. She said, no, you're not going. I said, yes,

913
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 6: I am, I said, because there would be a book

914
00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:24,320
Speaker 6: closed brain closure. So, you know, after I got dressed

915
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 6: and I looked at my wife, she was there, and

916
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:29,000
Speaker 6: she said, well, I'm going too. So we jumped in

917
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:31,640
Speaker 6: my truck and we pull up and I'll get out

918
00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:34,360
Speaker 6: and she gets out, and we met to take the

919
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,480
Speaker 6: goll and my lawyaf Tom Blambert, and Jennifer's husband was there.

920
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 6: And so as we were getting ready to enter the

921
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:45,200
Speaker 6: room to go in to talk, Jennifer instructed that her

922
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,680
Speaker 6: husband stayed back and wasn't nobody but me, my wife,

923
00:49:48,680 --> 00:49:50,759
Speaker 6: and Jennifer in the room. So when I walked in

924
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:53,279
Speaker 6: the room, Jennifer sitting just like she's sitting down with

925
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 6: a Jane outfit on, and she had a nervous expression

926
00:49:57,200 --> 00:50:02,319
Speaker 6: on her face. And I walked up and looked at her,

927
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:06,240
Speaker 6: and she looked at me and she said, I'm sorry.

928
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:08,400
Speaker 6: She said, I don't know how, I don't know what

929
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 6: to call you, mister Cotton, Ronald Cotton, and she said

930
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, you know, and I said, I forgive you,

931
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 6: and I hugged her, and you know, I she stood up.

932
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:21,719
Speaker 6: I hugged her. She cried, I cried, I said, grown

933
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 6: me and nothing cried. But that's a lie. You know,

934
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 6: you got it hard to have sympathy for people. You

935
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 6: know you're gonna cry. You know, I don't care who

936
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 6: you are. You know, you try to be hard all

937
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 6: you want to. You know, people walk over you, you know,

938
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 6: walk on you. And uh so after that, Jennifer and

939
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:39,759
Speaker 6: my wife, they stepped to the side, said the little

940
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:43,760
Speaker 6: private things that women say together, you know, to encourage

941
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 6: each other to be strong and carry on. So then

942
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:49,840
Speaker 6: me and Jennifer, you know, after we went outside to

943
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:54,400
Speaker 6: leave the premises, but before that we exchanged phone numbers

944
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:56,240
Speaker 6: and you know, that way we can stay in contact

945
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:59,480
Speaker 6: with one another as time went by, and it was

946
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 6: it's like a good story coming to an end, and

947
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:07,320
Speaker 6: you know, but we continue to stay in touch. And

948
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 6: this book that he'll come about it. You know. I

949
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:13,879
Speaker 6: went on to be on Larry King Live and all

950
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 6: those shows, you know, and people back and saying, but

951
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:18,120
Speaker 6: I didn't let it blow my head up become My

952
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:22,120
Speaker 6: head is already big enough, you see, had so I

953
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 6: just went on with my life and she went on

954
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 6: with her you know. But so it was one thing

955
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:29,879
Speaker 6: after another. You know, I met the kids and all,

956
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 6: and she met my daughter after she come into this world,

957
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:37,880
Speaker 6: and it's just been an amazing thing, you know, to

958
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 6: know that this book has been written and it's out

959
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 6: and come together and it's been blossoming year after year.

960
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 6: You know, it's been over thirty years now and they

961
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 6: still talking about Peking Cotton and I believe my picking

962
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 6: every day.

963
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:54,600
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a close I do want to get

964
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 3: your perspective and your memories of that most incredible moment.

965
00:51:59,840 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 3: I think it's a very brave thing that you did

966
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways. So what was that moment

967
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:06,640
Speaker 3: like for you.

968
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:13,520
Speaker 7: I went in thinking that probably the best case scenario

969
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:16,759
Speaker 7: out of this meeting is going to be Ronald looking

970
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 7: at me, going okay, thanks for saying that. You know,

971
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 7: I don't want you any harm, but just go away,

972
00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 7: Like that was going to be the best scenario. The

973
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 7: worst was going to be, yeah, I'm screaming at me

974
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 7: and wishing me death and destruction and terrible things. What

975
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:35,759
Speaker 7: I didn't expect was what happened, and that was you know,

976
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:40,600
Speaker 7: really looking at him sincerely, and I was sobbing telling

977
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 7: him that if I spent the rest of my life

978
00:52:42,239 --> 00:52:45,560
Speaker 7: telling you how sorry I am. Can you ever forgive me?

979
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:49,800
Speaker 7: And Ronald literally took my hands and started to cry

980
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:54,320
Speaker 7: and he said, I'm not angry at you. I forgave

981
00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 7: you years ago. And Bobby Pool did this to both

982
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 7: of us, and we were both victims of this man.

983
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:05,720
Speaker 7: And it was really that foundation that we were able

984
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:08,399
Speaker 7: to love each other. And we spent the next two

985
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 7: hours asking each other questions I think that we had

986
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:14,120
Speaker 7: wanted to ask each other all those eleven years. You know,

987
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:16,880
Speaker 7: why did you think it was me? And you know

988
00:53:16,960 --> 00:53:19,759
Speaker 7: my question was, well, then if that if you weren't there,

989
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 7: then where were you? You know, that type of thing,

990
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:25,480
Speaker 7: like trying to peel back the layers of the truth.

991
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 7: And he really truly gave me back pieces of myself

992
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:37,600
Speaker 7: that I had lost and for the first time and

993
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:41,760
Speaker 7: thirteen years, there were parts of my spirit and my soul,

994
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 7: my heart that kind of found a way back. And

995
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:50,280
Speaker 7: you know, by watching Ronald and his just incredible love,

996
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 7: my next task was to find a way to let

997
00:53:53,640 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 7: go of what Bobby Pool had done to me all

998
00:53:56,960 --> 00:53:59,560
Speaker 7: those years ago, and you know, find a way to

999
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:01,880
Speaker 7: take my pack power back. Where do I want to

1000
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 7: give my power, and it sure as heck wasn't gonna

1001
00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:06,359
Speaker 7: be the Bobby Pool.

1002
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 3: So Bobby died in prison three years later after.

1003
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:11,839
Speaker 7: He was exonerated.

1004
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:16,040
Speaker 6: Yeah was he was he killed or he I had cancer. Yeah,

1005
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 6: I wanted to kill him though. I made me a weapon,

1006
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:21,160
Speaker 6: and I was going to do it, you know, until

1007
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:24,480
Speaker 6: my father payment visit, and uh, I told him what

1008
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 6: my intention were. And my father said, son, he said,

1009
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:29,719
Speaker 6: don't do that. He said, you tell me you're a

1010
00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 6: innocent man. I believe you're in it, he said, but

1011
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 6: if you kill him, he said, you're gonna be guilty.

1012
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:37,960
Speaker 6: And so I walked away thinking of that for two weeks.

1013
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:40,200
Speaker 6: You know, this guy he slept in the same dormitory

1014
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:44,360
Speaker 6: that I slept in, maybe from here to over there,

1015
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:47,319
Speaker 6: you know, the next room, and he walked by my

1016
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 6: bunk every day two or three times a day or

1017
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:53,920
Speaker 6: maybe more, and worked in the same kitchen. And you know,

1018
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 6: it was hard for me not to do it. But

1019
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 6: I'm glad I didn't do it, you know. But I

1020
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:02,000
Speaker 6: said a prayer to the Good Lord for me to

1021
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:04,680
Speaker 6: forgive Jennifer making a costly mistake on my life. That's

1022
00:55:04,719 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 6: how I was able to face her without saying any

1023
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:10,399
Speaker 6: bad things toward her. You know, I wanted to give

1024
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:14,279
Speaker 6: her love Strent and lift her up in the world,

1025
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:16,960
Speaker 6: you know, because you know, she had been down just

1026
00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 6: like myself. So y'all were down during time. She was

1027
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:22,799
Speaker 6: down in heart and in pain. I just had to

1028
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:25,319
Speaker 6: put one foot in front of the other and keep

1029
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:28,719
Speaker 6: on walking and you know, not be sad, but just

1030
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:32,400
Speaker 6: continue living my life as I am today. But my

1031
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 6: life today is more in freedom and crime free.

1032
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:42,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an amazing, amazing thing. I never get tired

1033
00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:45,760
Speaker 3: of hearing these stories. It puts a lot of gratitude

1034
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:48,280
Speaker 3: in my attitude, so thank you for that. I wanted

1035
00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 3: to talk about compensation because it's a very bizarre system

1036
00:55:53,480 --> 00:55:56,080
Speaker 3: that we have in America because it varies wildly from

1037
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:59,400
Speaker 3: state to state. And in your case, you were given

1038
00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:02,400
Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars a year, which is the North Carolina

1039
00:56:02,640 --> 00:56:05,600
Speaker 3: statute for or eleven years in present, one hundred and

1040
00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:08,040
Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars. How do you feel about that?

1041
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 6: Well, I felt bad about it at the beginning, but

1042
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 6: I had to accept it. You know, I would have

1043
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 6: fought for it, but it wouldn't have done any good

1044
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:20,759
Speaker 6: you know, they already had their mind made up. I

1045
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:24,319
Speaker 6: accepted and I walked away. You know, it's like they

1046
00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 6: give me a little bit and packed on the shoulder, say,

1047
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:30,400
Speaker 6: you know, enjoy life, Jason.

1048
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 7: It's important to note, though, that when he got compensated,

1049
00:56:33,680 --> 00:56:36,960
Speaker 7: the laws hadn't been changed for fifty years, so he

1050
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:40,800
Speaker 7: was actually eligible for five hundred dollars a year with

1051
00:56:40,920 --> 00:56:42,120
Speaker 7: a cap of five thousand.

1052
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:42,440
Speaker 6: Ye.

1053
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:46,160
Speaker 7: So Mike Goalden and I lobbied the legislature has changed

1054
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:48,520
Speaker 7: that to ten thousand dollars a year, and we thought

1055
00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:51,959
Speaker 7: we'd done this amazing thing. And then North Carolina changed

1056
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:54,920
Speaker 7: it again in the early two thousands, two thousands to

1057
00:56:54,960 --> 00:56:57,759
Speaker 7: fifty thousand dollars a year with a cap of seven

1058
00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 7: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But they and make it

1059
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:01,960
Speaker 7: retroactive to Ron.

1060
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 3: Well, I never understand that. So Jennifer, tell me about

1061
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:08,640
Speaker 3: the work you've been doing with Healing Justice, because it's

1062
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:11,760
Speaker 3: from what I've read, it seems like an extraordinary mission

1063
00:57:12,440 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 3: and it looks like it's making a real change.

1064
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:15,319
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1065
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:18,880
Speaker 7: We launched Healing Justice three years ago because I became

1066
00:57:18,920 --> 00:57:22,800
Speaker 7: frustrated why we weren't addressing this long term damage done

1067
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:25,920
Speaker 7: to everybody that gets harmed by a wrongful conviction. I

1068
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 7: would listen to crime survivors. I'd listen to family members

1069
00:57:28,720 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 7: of Exoneries and the ex Hooneries, and I would hear

1070
00:57:31,360 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 7: the stories about what they had lost. And you keep thinking,

1071
00:57:34,280 --> 00:57:37,240
Speaker 7: right that Pennsylvania is going to step up and fix

1072
00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:40,360
Speaker 7: the problems they created with ex houneries in Pennsylvania, and

1073
00:57:40,360 --> 00:57:43,480
Speaker 7: they weren't doing it. So I launched Healing Justice in

1074
00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:49,280
Speaker 7: twenty fifteen. And what we do is really look at

1075
00:57:49,320 --> 00:57:52,200
Speaker 7: the total harm done in our wrongful conviction and who

1076
00:57:52,240 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 7: gets impacted by it, and finding ways that we can

1077
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 7: address that harm in a myriad of ways, but probably

1078
00:57:59,240 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 7: the cornerstone program we do is we host healing retreats

1079
00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 7: four times a year and we bring together about twenty

1080
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:10,120
Speaker 7: five exgneries and their family members and crime survivors for

1081
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:12,440
Speaker 7: a weekend. We pay for all of it, We fly

1082
00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:16,840
Speaker 7: them in, and we do healing circles. We have art,

1083
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:22,200
Speaker 7: we address the harm, not the cases. We literally have

1084
00:58:22,320 --> 00:58:26,680
Speaker 7: people kind of unfold the grief sitting in a safe

1085
00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 7: space with people who get it. Because unless you've traveled

1086
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:33,640
Speaker 7: a road like Ron and I have traveled, you can't

1087
00:58:33,760 --> 00:58:37,000
Speaker 7: understand it, and so being in space with people who

1088
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:40,560
Speaker 7: understand it, you don't have to explain why you feel depression,

1089
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:44,720
Speaker 7: why you've had substance abuse issues, why you have family problems,

1090
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 7: like we understand it. So it's really a way of

1091
00:58:48,560 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 7: looking at the concentric circles of harm when the system fails.

1092
00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:56,520
Speaker 7: So the other thing we do is training for police

1093
00:58:56,560 --> 00:59:02,320
Speaker 7: and prosecutors about how do we address the aftermath of exonerations.

1094
00:59:02,400 --> 00:59:05,440
Speaker 7: You know, we're really we're not an innocence project. We

1095
00:59:05,480 --> 00:59:08,960
Speaker 7: really work on the aftermath, bringing folks together after the

1096
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 7: harm's been done. How do we heal from that place?

1097
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:17,560
Speaker 7: I'm using restorative justice principles, using peer support. It's very

1098
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:20,920
Speaker 7: unique and its kind because everything we do is driven

1099
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:24,240
Speaker 7: by those who have lived it. So all of our

1100
00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:27,760
Speaker 7: expertise is being given to us by folks that have

1101
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 7: been impacted and harmed.

1102
00:59:29,840 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 3: And how do people get involved? How do they.

1103
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:37,560
Speaker 7: Support www dot Healing Justice Project dot org. Do we

1104
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 7: really need the financial support to continue kind of expanding

1105
00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:43,800
Speaker 7: our work and bringing in more people. You know, we've

1106
00:59:43,800 --> 00:59:48,600
Speaker 7: got twenty two hundred wrongful convictions, so we have a

1107
00:59:48,640 --> 00:59:50,840
Speaker 7: lot of work ahead of us. We're excited about.

1108
00:59:50,600 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 3: It all right, So I'm going to give and I'm

1109
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:56,320
Speaker 3: going to ask everybody else to do the same. And

1110
00:59:56,360 --> 01:00:00,280
Speaker 3: then we have a tradition here at Wrongful Conviction to

1111
01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:05,160
Speaker 3: turn the mic over to you for any closing thoughts. Ron,

1112
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:08,920
Speaker 3: We're going to save you for last, Jennifer, the mic

1113
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:09,640
Speaker 3: is yours.

1114
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:12,760
Speaker 7: I really want people to understand that when a wrongful

1115
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:16,080
Speaker 7: conviction happens, at the center of all of it is

1116
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:19,040
Speaker 7: a perpetrator. And when we don't get it right, we've

1117
01:00:19,160 --> 01:00:22,440
Speaker 7: left the perpetrator on the streets to commit further harm,

1118
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:26,040
Speaker 7: something that I refer to as wrongful liberty. And everybody

1119
01:00:26,040 --> 01:00:29,080
Speaker 7: needs to care about that. Everybody needs to know that

1120
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 7: when a wrongful conviction happens, the system has failed every

1121
01:00:33,840 --> 01:00:38,200
Speaker 7: single person except the perpetrator, and he is the only

1122
01:00:38,240 --> 01:00:39,040
Speaker 7: person who wins.

1123
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:46,640
Speaker 6: Rod Well, when someone tells you that they are innocent,

1124
01:00:47,960 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 6: having an open ear and open eye to reach out

1125
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:59,120
Speaker 6: and touch and love very much, because just putting on

1126
01:00:59,200 --> 01:01:02,720
Speaker 6: foot in front of it, you can't walk your way out.

1127
01:01:02,760 --> 01:01:05,040
Speaker 6: You have to work your way out. It's easy to

1128
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:09,960
Speaker 6: say it than done. But I've learned my lesson. God,

1129
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:13,760
Speaker 6: I've been there, I know how it is. I keep

1130
01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:16,040
Speaker 6: my head to the sky every day because I'm not

1131
01:01:16,120 --> 01:01:19,520
Speaker 6: ashamed from where I've been yet not knowing where I'm going.

1132
01:01:20,320 --> 01:01:22,840
Speaker 6: I'm on the road that I'm leading in the hands

1133
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:26,600
Speaker 6: of the Good Lord because he knows best, and I

1134
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:27,840
Speaker 6: will not follow the rest.

1135
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 10: Thank you, don't forget to give us a fantastic review.

1136
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:39,560
Speaker 10: Wherever you get your podcasts.

1137
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:39,880
Speaker 3: It really helps.

1138
01:01:40,320 --> 01:01:43,160
Speaker 10: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and

1139
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:45,919
Speaker 10: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very

1140
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:49,640
Speaker 10: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.

1141
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:52,320
Speaker 3: Go to Innocence Project dot or org to learn how

1142
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 3: to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our

1143
01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:58,440
Speaker 3: production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in

1144
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:01,800
Speaker 3: the show is by three times pronominated composer Jay Ralph.

1145
01:02:02,160 --> 01:02:04,920
Speaker 3: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction

1146
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:09,320
Speaker 3: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with

1147
01:02:09,400 --> 01:02:11,080
Speaker 3: Jason Flamm is a production of

1148
01:02:11,160 --> 01:02:14,880
Speaker 10: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number

1149
01:02:14,920 --> 01:02:15,840
Speaker 10: one