Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I was brought up with cops are the good guys.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
Speaker 3: do know that everything was stacked against me.
Speaker 4: Everything like everything.
Speaker 3: This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I
Speaker 3: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with this. How is this possible?
Speaker 4: I grew up trusting the systems. I grew up believing
Speaker 4: that every human being should do the right thing. And
Speaker 4: that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with
Speaker 4: corerough people, I wasn't going to break anyone to get
Speaker 4: me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the
Speaker 4: fact that I break my way out of my wife's death.
Speaker 4: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I
Speaker 4: prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me.
Speaker 1: Our system. Since I've been out ten years, it has
Speaker 1: come a little ways, but it's still broken.
Speaker 4: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
Speaker 2: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with
Speaker 2: Jason Flamm That's me And today we have an extraordinary
Speaker 2: event happening here in the studio because my friend and
Speaker 2: Daba Mandela is here to talk about criminal justice reform.
Speaker 2: And Daba welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Jason, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And Daba you are I've not gotten to know you recently.
Speaker 2: You are a real throwback to your grandfather. I mean,
Speaker 2: everything I've gotten to interact with you has been well,
Speaker 2: it's the closest I'm going to get to meeting the
Speaker 2: great Man, and you were actually raised by him.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's correct, that's correct.
Speaker 2: So before we get into talking about criminal justice reform,
Speaker 2: which I know is a passion of yours your blood,
Speaker 2: can you just give us a little bit of the
Speaker 2: backstory because it's one of the most fascinating stories I know.
Speaker 1: Yes, So basically, I like to describe myself as the
Speaker 1: second son of the second son of Nelson Mandela. I
Speaker 1: come from the first marriage of Nelson Mandela, which is
Speaker 1: he was married to Evelyn Marse. A lot of people
Speaker 1: don't know that because they think his original wife was
Speaker 1: Winnie Mandela, but that was actually the second wife. The
Speaker 1: first one is Evelyn, and then they had four children.
Speaker 1: The first one died at six months. The second one
Speaker 1: was my uncle Tembekuler. He passed away while my grandfather
Speaker 1: was still in jail. And then the third one was
Speaker 1: my father. So the first was a daughter, son's son, daughter,
Speaker 1: and my father gave birth to four boys, and I
Speaker 1: am the second son. And so when my grandfather came
Speaker 1: out of jail, he basically sent my parents to university
Speaker 1: because they never had the opportunity to go to university
Speaker 1: while he was a whale. And so when he sent
Speaker 1: them to university, he didn't want them to also worry
Speaker 1: about raising me at the same time, so he took
Speaker 1: me in when he sent my parents to university. I
Speaker 1: was about eleven years old at that time, and so
Speaker 1: I you know, from the time I was eleven years old,
Speaker 1: I grew up with my grandfather.
Speaker 2: He raised me basically a real witness to history. I mean,
Speaker 2: you had the front seat, yep for one of the
Speaker 2: most important periods of time that ever took place anywhere
Speaker 2: in the world in terms of the impact it had
Speaker 2: on global change and civil rights and human rights and
Speaker 2: just everything. It's just a remarkable, remarkable story in so
Speaker 2: many ways. And of course you'd visited him in prison,
Speaker 2: is that right?
Speaker 1: Yes, I did, you know the first time. Actually when
Speaker 1: I visited him in jail. You know, my parents told
Speaker 1: me that we're going to visit our grand father in jail,
Speaker 1: and so I had a typical image of what jail
Speaker 1: was like, concrete bars, wardens, you know, dog security everywhere.
Speaker 1: But when we got there, it was a house, a
Speaker 1: house that looked much better than the house I lived in,
Speaker 1: because I didn't understand that they had actually removed him
Speaker 1: from you know, the Robin Island and put him in isolation.
Speaker 1: They were trying to break him down mentally, to say, Madiba,
Speaker 1: you're an old man. Now denounce the movement of the
Speaker 1: liberation movement, denounce your comrades, denounce your party, and lived
Speaker 1: the rest of your life in this luxury and enjoy
Speaker 1: your family and your grandkids. But of course we know
Speaker 1: that that didn't work out right. So when we got there,
Speaker 1: it was a beautiful house. There was a swimming pool.
Speaker 1: I never had a swimming pool, right. We watched a
Speaker 1: never ending story. There was a chef. We met the man,
Speaker 1: of course, and he was very warm and was so
Speaker 1: happy to meet every one of us. So looking at that,
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, this is a beautiful house. You know,
Speaker 1: I would like to have a house like this one day.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, unlike most kids growing up thinking
Speaker 1: I want to be a lawyer, I want to be
Speaker 1: a doctor, I said when I grew up, I want
Speaker 1: to go to jail.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's what an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: How old were you I was ten? No, eight is old.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's so that's logical at that age that should
Speaker 2: be probably what the reaction would be for somebody coming
Speaker 2: from this circumstance and seeing this as it was. So
Speaker 2: it's interesting because I've been to his jail cell on
Speaker 2: Robin Island and I've seen obviously it's empty now, but
Speaker 2: I've taken the tour and it's a very profound experience
Speaker 2: to see what, you know, he and his comrades went through.
Speaker 2: And anyone who's you know, even a casual student of
Speaker 2: the history, I recommend that they go when they get
Speaker 2: the chance, well to South Africa for starters, but if
Speaker 2: you get a chance to visit Robin Ilan, it's not
Speaker 2: an experience that anyone will ever forget. He was locked
Speaker 2: up for almost three decades.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, twenty seven years.
Speaker 2: And I'm interested in how that shaped your view and
Speaker 2: your priorities now because you know, you well, probably of
Speaker 2: all the grandchildren, you were the closest to him, right
Speaker 2: because you were around him the most. He from what
Speaker 2: I understand, he took a particular interest in you and
Speaker 2: saw in you a future leader, which, of course, especially
Speaker 2: at his age, he would have been very driven to
Speaker 2: ensure that there's you know, a continuation of the movement
Speaker 2: that he built and of the progress that he made.
Speaker 2: Of course it's forwards and backwards and one step and
Speaker 2: two steps in the whole thing, and even in America now.
Speaker 2: But so, how did his experience from your perspective, shape him,
Speaker 2: and how did it shape you? And what are your
Speaker 2: what are your views now on criminal justice reform in
Speaker 2: in Africa, in the world.
Speaker 1: You know, I think to a large extent, because he
Speaker 1: sacrificed his own family, you know, for the freedom of
Speaker 1: his country. You know, he sacrificed what he had here
Speaker 1: for the larger good of the of the society. It
Speaker 1: maybe it was the second chance for him to be
Speaker 1: a father, to play that fatherly role, you know, because
Speaker 1: he never had that opportunity. And so, you know, because
Speaker 1: he was a man that was a comrade, you know,
Speaker 1: was a soldier fighting against the system. You know, he
Speaker 1: made sure that he instilled certain values in me to
Speaker 1: become a leader. And you know, one thing he said
Speaker 1: to me, which I'll never forget, is that, Dabba, you're
Speaker 1: my grandma, so therefore people will look at you as
Speaker 1: a leader. Therefore you must get the best marks in class.
Speaker 1: And of course at that time, I was just an adolescent.
Speaker 1: I was like granddad, Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's
Speaker 1: too much pressure. I just want to get by. You know,
Speaker 1: I was a kid much like my grandfather, rebel, you know,
Speaker 1: sitting at the back of the class, very naughty. You
Speaker 1: hardly did my homework, pe shooting, you know, the girls,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of thing. But of course, as
Speaker 1: you grow up, you know a lot, a lot of
Speaker 1: the time, you don't want to be treated as a
Speaker 1: special kid or the special someone. You just want to
Speaker 1: be a normal kid. And one of the things you also,
Speaker 1: you know, instilled with me was humility. It was very
Speaker 1: important to him. He said, Dabbah, you must never drive
Speaker 1: a Jaguar because people will know you have money. And
Speaker 1: as a leader, it's important that you are seen as
Speaker 1: one of the community. As part of the community, you
Speaker 1: understand even if you have more money than them or
Speaker 1: have more access to them, But when you are socializing,
Speaker 1: there must not be any sort of sense that you
Speaker 1: are more important or you should be treated in any
Speaker 1: other different way. So for me, it's the same thing
Speaker 1: when you talk about the criminal justice system or any
Speaker 1: sort of justice system, is how do we treat people
Speaker 1: with the same equality, right, whether you're black, whether you're white,
Speaker 1: whether you're male or female. Right, And the laws that
Speaker 1: we have, of course standing from aparthdate segregation laws, similar
Speaker 1: to the Jim Crow laws. Right, when you talk about
Speaker 1: people who are trying to pretty much just live on
Speaker 1: an equal footing, right, that is really the struggle were
Speaker 1: that were that they were fighting against. And that is
Speaker 1: the same struggle when you talk about the justice system,
Speaker 1: because the laws that apply to black people who are poor,
Speaker 1: who are marginalized are not the same as the laws
Speaker 1: that apply to white people who have access, who are
Speaker 1: wealthy or well off. Right, you know, I was very
Speaker 1: inspired to be at the event last week in d
Speaker 1: C the Criminal the Center, Southern Center for Human Rights.
Speaker 1: That's right, and it was the Frederick Douglas Awards ceremony, which,
Speaker 1: of course well know Frederick Douglas is one of the
Speaker 1: most powerful leaders evolutionists, you know. And for me, it's
Speaker 1: really about making sure that people have first of all,
Speaker 1: education to understand what their rights are right and be
Speaker 1: able once you understand his rights, to be able to
Speaker 1: push right. You know, you have right for legal represent
Speaker 1: you know, you have the right to express what it
Speaker 1: is and not be afraid so to speak, all right,
Speaker 1: And that's really for me. The importance is how do
Speaker 1: we make sure that we live in a society where
Speaker 1: everybody is treated the same, regardless of your race or
Speaker 1: your sex.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a dream that I think has been shared
Speaker 2: by all the great civil rights leaders. And I'm glad
Speaker 2: you brought up Frederick Douglas because it was eighteen forty seven,
Speaker 2: right when he started his abolitionist newspaper and he, you know,
Speaker 2: the courage that he and the two I forgot the
Speaker 2: names of the two people who started with him. One
Speaker 2: of them was a woman, but the I mean, their
Speaker 2: lives were at risk every minute of every day, as
Speaker 2: Mandela's was. And you know there's a through line with
Speaker 2: all of this. I mean, it's so odd that we
Speaker 2: still have to have this conversation today, right, but we do,
Speaker 2: and it's probably more, you know, more poignant at this
Speaker 2: moment than it would have been at almost any other
Speaker 2: time in recent history. Speaking as an American, of course,
Speaker 2: but there are these parallels. And in America, everyone knows
Speaker 2: you have the right to an attorney. Is it the
Speaker 2: same thing in Africa? And one thing I tell in
Speaker 2: my listeners as often as I can is if you
Speaker 2: are arrested for something you didn't do, or someone that
Speaker 2: you love is arrested for something they didn't do, all
Speaker 2: you're supposed to say. All you should say is this
Speaker 2: is my name, this is my address, and I want
Speaker 2: a lawyer because at that point they have to stop intarrogeting.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know how it works in South Africa,
Speaker 2: but here people, innocent people waive those rights because they
Speaker 2: don't think they have anything to hide, and they think, well,
Speaker 2: if I just cooperate, then I can go home. And
Speaker 2: they want to be helpful generally, right, people want to
Speaker 2: help the police, They want to be good citizens, they
Speaker 2: want to be Yes, yes, it's a paradox, but how
Speaker 2: does it work in South Africa? I mean, ironically, I
Speaker 2: think we have a much higher incarceration rate than you
Speaker 2: do now, especially for people of color. But in South Africa,
Speaker 2: is it a similar system? Are you entitled to an attorney?
Speaker 2: And if so, when and how does it?
Speaker 1: Yes, you are entitled to an attorney if you can
Speaker 1: afford on. The state will provide one for you, right, right,
Speaker 1: same thing. But of course, and a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: the or the view, right, the general view is that
Speaker 1: it's better to have money to pay an attorney because
Speaker 1: once you're able to pay an attorney, he does a
Speaker 1: better job. Right, generally speaking, that is the general view
Speaker 1: what people have. But what I've seen actually is that
Speaker 1: because you know, my own brother was involved in a
Speaker 1: criminal case. He was accused wrongfully of raping a young
Speaker 1: girl who was under the age, right, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was a very you can imagine, rape is a
Speaker 1: very sensitive case, right, And my brother was acquitted because
Speaker 1: obviously he did not commit the rape. So it was
Speaker 1: some sort of a witch hunt that we didn't really
Speaker 1: understand where it came from. But that said, yes, everybody's
Speaker 1: afforded lawyer. Otherwise you go with the state lawyer.
Speaker 2: I have so many questions about how the system works
Speaker 2: in South Africa. One of them is the death penalty.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows that I'm a strong advocate of abolishing the
Speaker 2: death penalty. I don't think it serves any it doesn't
Speaker 2: serve any useful purpose. It's been proven in every study,
Speaker 2: doesn't deserve one crime from happening ever, ever, ever. And
Speaker 2: it is barbaric, and it is arbitrary and capricious, and
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's I mean, everything about it is wrong.
Speaker 2: It's expensive, even if that's where you're coming from. It's
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's imperfect. Even in a perfect system,
Speaker 2: it would be imperfect. Right, it's inhumane. But also you
Speaker 2: know the conversation I have with people who are pro
Speaker 2: death penalty, I say to them, and I had this
Speaker 2: conversation recently. I was giving a talk at the New
Speaker 2: School and one guy came up afterwards and he said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm in favor of the death penalty. And
Speaker 2: I said, okay, how many innocent people is it okay
Speaker 2: to execute? What percentage? He says, no, no, no, you
Speaker 2: can't execute it. I said, okay, Well, then you're talking
Speaker 2: out of both sides of your mouth, because we know
Speaker 2: the system isn't perfect. You know, the system's imperfect, even
Speaker 2: if everyone is an honest actor in the system and
Speaker 2: doing the best job that they can and and and
Speaker 2: everything is moving through the way it's supposed to, which
Speaker 2: it doesn't and it can't and it never will. We
Speaker 2: can make it better, but will never make it perfect.
Speaker 2: You're still going to execute a certain percentage of inness
Speaker 2: in people. So that's where it all breaks down. It
Speaker 2: should break down for everyone. But do you still have
Speaker 2: the death penalty?
Speaker 1: And no. The first thing, one of the first things
Speaker 1: that our government did, the ANC led government, was to
Speaker 1: abolish the death penalty because we come from a system
Speaker 1: that was using violence as a means to govern, you understand,
Speaker 1: So we had to make sure that we break the
Speaker 1: cycle of violence. You know, killing someone because someone killed
Speaker 1: somebody is not gonna like you just said, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna take us anywhere. You're just going to continue perpetuating
Speaker 1: the cycle of violence. So where does it end? You
Speaker 1: understand what I'm saying. So that was a very key
Speaker 1: thing that we did in our country was to abolish
Speaker 1: the death the death penalty completely.
Speaker 2: And what about sentencing laws in South Africa? How does
Speaker 2: it because here, as you know, we have some of
Speaker 2: the harshest sentencing policies in the world, and it always
Speaker 2: boggles my mind, like why, why and how we got
Speaker 2: to this place. I understand it intellectually, but I don't
Speaker 2: understand it on any other level, on a humanitarian level.
Speaker 2: It's insane. I mean, we just had a case actually
Speaker 2: this week where a gentleman in Tennessee had been convicted
Speaker 2: of his first time offense. He was selling I think
Speaker 2: a small quantity of drugs from inside of his own
Speaker 2: home too adults. Right, there was no no violence, no
Speaker 2: threat of nothing else. Right, But it turned out he
Speaker 2: was in a school zone, right, but he was inside
Speaker 2: of his own house.
Speaker 1: Not selling to children.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, nothing like that. And he was sentenced to
Speaker 2: seventeen years in prison. So yeah, So he was just
Speaker 2: freed this week actually with the cooperation of the prosecutor,
Speaker 2: which is so you know, such a nice thing to see.
Speaker 2: We don't see it often enough. But he still served
Speaker 2: ten years in prison. I mean, we're so out of step.
Speaker 2: That's like murder, right, he was treated as a murder.
Speaker 2: And so how do you deal with that in South Africa?
Speaker 2: What about the drug laws is it? Do you treat
Speaker 2: it the same way that we do so harshly.
Speaker 1: I don't think they treated so harshly in South Africa,
Speaker 1: of course, I think which was the same. Here will
Speaker 1: be the mitigating factors as to how you put the sentencing.
Speaker 1: You know, is the person remorseful, do they understand the
Speaker 1: detrimental effect that they have on society? And what what
Speaker 1: are the mitigating factors? You know, you can't just say, oh,
Speaker 1: you were selling cocaine there for your automatically get fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Was her first time offender, second time of funder, a
Speaker 1: third time offender, So you have to really look at
Speaker 1: all the different mitigating factors to actually come up with
Speaker 1: the right sentencing. And in South Africa, I would say
Speaker 1: it's pretty fair because you know, looking at you know,
Speaker 1: when we achieved independence in nineteen ninety four, there were
Speaker 1: even before ninety four we had the Truth and Reconciation
Speaker 1: Commission right where we basically gave amnesty to perpetrators of
Speaker 1: violence against the victims if they were coming to the
Speaker 1: table to disclose everything that had happened. So if you
Speaker 1: come up and you say exactly what happened, be very honest.
Speaker 1: Who were you with, what made you do it? Et
Speaker 1: cetera et cetera. And you would be literally sitting in
Speaker 1: front of the victims of those people that you perpetrated against.
Speaker 1: They would give you amnesty. So for us, I think
Speaker 1: personally that the system in Slavica are currently is not
Speaker 1: as harsh as that of America. For example, you know,
Speaker 1: we met a gentleman last week at the event. I
Speaker 1: forget his name now, but that gentleman. You know what
Speaker 1: struck me was that he received twenty three years, which
Speaker 1: is the equivalent of two life sentences, for stealing goods
Speaker 1: of five hundred and fifty dollars, a first time offender,
Speaker 1: a man with a college degree.
Speaker 2: And the Navy veteran said, well, Navy.
Speaker 1: Veteran, that would have happened in Africa, that would not happen.
Speaker 1: That is absurd, that is insane.
Speaker 2: Yes, So they were talking about Lenny Singleton, who was
Speaker 2: convicted of a series of what we call dash and
Speaker 2: grab robberies. Right where he went in and he pretended
Speaker 2: he stuck hit his finger in his pocket, he pretended
Speaker 2: to have a weapon, right, so technically that's considered arm
Speaker 2: robbery in America. But he never heard anybody, never touched anybody.
Speaker 2: He just grabbed the money.
Speaker 1: From the cash register and he didn't have a weapon.
Speaker 2: He didn't have a weapon.
Speaker 1: Ye pretended to he didn't have.
Speaker 2: Nobody argued at that point. And he can fast, you know,
Speaker 2: so he he was so in your you know, in
Speaker 2: your system. This which anyway, it's so crazy, and here
Speaker 2: with drugs, it's it's absolute madness, because you know, years ago,
Speaker 2: I did a presentation for the Democratic Policy Committee in
Speaker 2: the United States Senate, and I brought with me. One
Speaker 2: of the people I brought with me was federal Judge Castillo,
Speaker 2: who was the chairman vice chairman of the US Sentencing Commission,
Speaker 2: and he talked about how he was given this most
Speaker 2: profound responsibility, which is to sentence another human being to prison,
Speaker 2: and then the Congress took all that power away from
Speaker 2: him because they establish these mandatory sentencing laws, which we
Speaker 2: have here now, so that if someone gets picked up
Speaker 2: with drugs, they just look at the chart. Here's how
Speaker 2: much drugs it was, here's the thing abobouve and then
Speaker 2: you get that much time and the judge has no
Speaker 2: power to judge. The jury says guilty, and off you go,
Speaker 2: according to the chart. But in almost all other types
Speaker 2: of crimes, when there's no mandatory sentence involved. They look
Speaker 2: at the other factors as they do in South Africa, right,
Speaker 2: and they say, well, your childhood was this, or you
Speaker 2: were or you're disabled in such way, or you have
Speaker 2: an experience of this, or your positive contributed positively to
Speaker 2: society in certain ways, and those things are mitigating factors
Speaker 2: and go into the sentence that the judge then decides on.
Speaker 2: So judges, of course hate these mandatory sentencing laws because
Speaker 2: they can't do their jobs. So there's you know, I've
Speaker 2: been on the board of Families Against Mandatory Minimums for
Speaker 2: twenty five years now famm dot Org. I hope people
Speaker 2: will go and look, because they're doing the most important
Speaker 2: work in eliminating these crazy sentencing draconian sentencing policies that
Speaker 2: send people to prison for these horrendous amounts of time
Speaker 2: for nonviolent first offenses. It's just nuts. And I don't
Speaker 2: know why we do that to our own citizens. Every
Speaker 2: one of these people is a child of someone, a brother,
Speaker 2: a sister, a mother. They know they it's like you're
Speaker 2: ripping these communities and part and of course it affects
Speaker 2: people of color disproportionately. That goes without saying and I'm
Speaker 2: assuming that's probably still true in South Africa even to
Speaker 2: this day.
Speaker 1: Well, of course, I mean the dynamics a little bit
Speaker 1: different because in South Africa eighty seven percent of the
Speaker 1: population is black are the natives as they used to
Speaker 1: call us, and thirteen percent of other white people. One
Speaker 1: thing that I always wonder about is that, you know,
Speaker 1: in South Africa, being a cop is not such a
Speaker 1: beneficial job as I see in America. Right. I see
Speaker 1: in America that the cops are very well looked after
Speaker 1: by the by the system. But in South Africa, it's
Speaker 1: very easy to bribe a cop. It's very easy to
Speaker 1: bribe a cop. You don't have to have a lot
Speaker 1: of money. You can literally bribe a cop with equivalent
Speaker 1: of ten dollars, you know, to get away with drinking
Speaker 1: under the influence, for example. You know, that's how easy
Speaker 1: it is, and that's that's generally the the the thing
Speaker 1: across the continent of Africa. But I don't I don't
Speaker 1: see that happening here in America. I see the cops really,
Speaker 1: you know, being hardcore. I think my perception anyway, to
Speaker 1: bribe a cop for do you are, you'd have to
Speaker 1: play him like a thousand or five thousand dollars something
Speaker 1: like that, right.
Speaker 2: And of course it's another crime. If you try to
Speaker 2: bribe a law enforcement official, they can add to the charges,
Speaker 2: you know, if they you know, and so and here,
Speaker 2: I think you're right. It doesn't happen often. And I'm
Speaker 2: one of these people who I say, you know that
Speaker 2: I believe been a system of laws. I want to
Speaker 2: make it better, I want to make it fairer. But
Speaker 2: I recognize that most of the people in the system
Speaker 2: are people who mean to do well. They took these
Speaker 2: jobs because they wanted to protect society. And you know
Speaker 2: that holds true for the judges and many of the
Speaker 2: prosecutors as well. There are some bad ones, though, and
Speaker 2: the bad ones, if you have the misfortune to run
Speaker 2: across one of those, your life can be turned upside
Speaker 2: down in an instant. And we know too many of
Speaker 2: those stories. And it's really Lenny Singleton was one, and
Speaker 2: of course you met John Huffington when you were there
Speaker 2: as well, who's been on the show. So it's sort
Speaker 2: of thirty two years on death row for murders to
Speaker 2: murders that they knew he didn't commit. And you know,
Speaker 2: he's an amazing, amazing guy. He had that great saying
Speaker 2: right when somebody we were talking to him and somebody said,
Speaker 2: aren't you bitter? And he says, no, man, he goes,
Speaker 2: that's why the rearview mirror is small and the windshield
Speaker 2: is big. And I was like, oh, man, I love that.
Speaker 2: He must have read some of your grandpa's books like something,
Speaker 2: because you know, that's that's channeling that spirit. Right, So
Speaker 2: if you could wave a magic wand and you know,
Speaker 2: obviously there's so much going on in South Africa beyond
Speaker 2: the criminal justice system. You know, we're we're here with
Speaker 2: the guys from bet Paw, who is an organization that's
Speaker 2: devoted to trying to save the rhinos and the elephants,
Speaker 2: because you know, you're facing an existential crisis there with
Speaker 2: the possible extinction within a decade of the most iconic
Speaker 2: animals in the world and what that will mean in
Speaker 2: so many it's there's so many terrible consequences of that, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, it hurts, it hurts my heart. But also
Speaker 2: with tourism and everything else. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: issues that you're dealing with. And I know you're very
Speaker 2: active in you know, in the affairs of the country,
Speaker 2: and you love your country. I'm looking forward to visiting
Speaker 2: you over there to huh. And but if you could
Speaker 2: wave a magic wand at the criminal justice system and
Speaker 2: make it, you know, remake it in a way that
Speaker 2: was more consistent with your own values vision, if it
Speaker 2: was you know, again drawing from the lessons of you know,
Speaker 2: your grandfather, the great hero, what would it look like
Speaker 2: and what would you do? Because maybe you'll have the opportunity,
Speaker 2: I hope, so.
Speaker 1: You know there are For me, what I've learned is
Speaker 1: that you know, people will commit crime. There are two
Speaker 1: reasons why people commit crime. One's poverty. Two is purely
Speaker 1: criminal element, right, trying to cook the system. So as
Speaker 1: much as you want to deal with the criminal justice system,
Speaker 1: you have to look at the fact as why people
Speaker 1: commit crimes. Right, it's poverty, and then you have gangsterism,
Speaker 1: which is just pure criminal element. So for me, a
Speaker 1: large part of that is the poverty. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're able, my one would be to make sure that
Speaker 1: people have education, get rid of poverty, because once you
Speaker 1: get rid of poverty and people have education, half the
Speaker 1: people who are in jail will not be in jail.
Speaker 1: If not more, if not more, so, let us deal
Speaker 1: with the fundamental issue at hand. That is the fundamental
Speaker 1: issue for me. That's why I would wave my.
Speaker 2: Wand yeah, I mean that's addressing it at the cause right,
Speaker 2: as opposed to the effect. And I think we have
Speaker 2: to deal with I call it prevention and cure. I mean,
Speaker 2: we have to deal with these problems on every level. Ironically,
Speaker 2: it is a cycle, right, because we know that in America,
Speaker 2: the sociologists that have studied this issue have come to
Speaker 2: the conclusion, which is probably not a shock, that the
Speaker 2: number one determining factor of whether a child will end
Speaker 2: up in prison eventually is whether they've had a parent
Speaker 2: in prison. And so we have to break that cycle,
Speaker 2: and we have to attack it on both fronts. We
Speaker 2: have to reverse mass incarceration and let these people out
Speaker 2: who are not any threat to society. We have to
Speaker 2: hear reform the bail system. I'm curious to know how
Speaker 2: that works in South Africa as well. That's the next
Speaker 2: thing I want to talk to you about. And we
Speaker 2: have to get rid of these mandatory sensing laws that
Speaker 2: lock these people up for these insane periods of time.
Speaker 2: You know, the great Brian Stevenson. Have you met Brian.
Speaker 2: You'll have the privilege at some point and he'll have
Speaker 2: the privilege of meeting you. I hope so. Brian Stevenson
Speaker 2: is a great hero of mine, and he has a
Speaker 2: wonderful expression where he says, I believe everyone is better
Speaker 2: than the worst thing they've ever done. And it's true.
Speaker 1: I think I believe that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to start looking at these people as
Speaker 2: people and not numbers and not statistics, and not inmates
Speaker 2: and not you know, I mean, this is it's the
Speaker 2: it's the new Jim Crawl, right, it's the modern version
Speaker 2: of slavery. And you know, I don't know if you
Speaker 2: know this, but in America, when slavery was abolished, it
Speaker 2: was only abolished for free people. So they never change that.
Speaker 2: So it's still legal if you're in custody of the state.
Speaker 2: So it's an economic engine, right right, which feeds the
Speaker 2: rich people at the expense of the poor, and then
Speaker 2: we end up in this vicious cycle, like I said,
Speaker 2: which takes us right back to you know, the impact
Speaker 2: that it has on the families and the communities of
Speaker 2: these people who are again mostly people of color, who
Speaker 2: are being taken away from that because of transgressions that
Speaker 2: they're and I consider myself one of the lucky ones
Speaker 2: because I grew up in a you know, in an
Speaker 2: upper middle class environment where I was not subjected to
Speaker 2: the same type of treatment. So so what about That's
Speaker 2: one topic I do want to cover is bail. How
Speaker 2: does it work in South Africa? Because here we have
Speaker 2: a crazy system where if you're arrested and you're charged
Speaker 2: with shoplifting or jumping a turnstyle, or drinking a beer
Speaker 2: in public, whatever might be, bail might be said at
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty dollars or one thousand dollars or whatever.
Speaker 2: It is small amount, but if you don't have that money,
Speaker 2: you're just staying in jail until your trial. That could
Speaker 2: be weeks or months or even years. And what we
Speaker 2: should be doing, of course, is sending people home to
Speaker 2: their family, to their job, to their church, whatever they're doing,
Speaker 2: and then come back and here's your date to come back,
Speaker 2: and we'll see you in court and then we figure
Speaker 2: this out and that's it. But that's not the way
Speaker 2: it works here. We have almost a half a million
Speaker 2: people in jail in America while we're sitting here, just
Speaker 2: because they're too poor to post their own bail. So
Speaker 2: we have two separate systems of justice here, one if
Speaker 2: you're rich and one if you're poor. That's a violation
Speaker 2: of the sixth Amendment and the fourteenth Amendment, but we're
Speaker 2: not going to get into that now. It's not a
Speaker 2: constitutional law class. However, how does it work in South Africa?
Speaker 2: Do you have a similar arrangement there?
Speaker 1: It's pretty much the same. It's pretty much the same.
Speaker 1: But in my experience and my knowledge, bail is never
Speaker 1: really set that high. Generally people can afford bail, but
Speaker 1: of course you are. You do have poor people who
Speaker 1: cannot afford, who cannot afford it, and it's terrible because
Speaker 1: now you're in jail, you know, you get fired from
Speaker 1: your job, so you don't even have a means to
Speaker 1: pay for that bail, you know, if you're able to
Speaker 1: continue your job, you know. Because it should be innocent
Speaker 1: until proven guilty, But the minute you are accused, for example,
Speaker 1: of rape, most people automatically assume that you are guilty.
Speaker 1: You know, and I have a personal experience to this
Speaker 1: because my younger brother was actually accused of rape. Now,
Speaker 1: the minute you're accused of rape, and we know this.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most sensitive crimes is the minute
Speaker 1: you're accused of rape, most people automatically assume that you
Speaker 1: are guilty or will side with the female without knowing
Speaker 1: any you know, information about how it took place, where
Speaker 1: it took place, any information whatsoever. Just because you were
Speaker 1: accused of rape, he must be built. Why would the
Speaker 1: woman accuse him, you know, out of nowhere for rape,
Speaker 1: you know. But they don't even know what the situation.
Speaker 1: They don't even know the relationship of these people, right,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the worst sort of crimes out there, right,
Speaker 1: to be honest, it's one of the worst. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: bail is pretty much works the same.
Speaker 2: Right, and here it's supposed to be said according to
Speaker 2: your ability to pay, but it's not done in that
Speaker 2: manner typically. Here it's just sort of done almost by
Speaker 2: it's almost like it's done by a machine. It's just
Speaker 2: sort of here's the thing. They just draw a line.
Speaker 2: They're accused of shoplifting. It's going to be five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Because there's too many people going through the system, it's overloaded,
Speaker 2: and so they just some of them don't. You don't
Speaker 2: ever see a lawyer. You don't get any You may
Speaker 2: even be doing it on a video screen. They may
Speaker 2: do it in a group. People aren't aware of this
Speaker 2: until they get caught in it. But man, once you
Speaker 2: get caught in it just gets worse and worse. And
Speaker 2: it's exactly as you describe, because then your life gets
Speaker 2: significantly worse because most of these people, if they can't
Speaker 2: afford bail, it's because they're living paycheck to paycheck. And
Speaker 2: now your job is going away, your apartment, you're going
Speaker 2: to lose that if you have one, you could lose custody.
Speaker 1: Of your kids.
Speaker 2: It's just a terrible, terrible downward spirals that you get
Speaker 2: into and only because you're poor. And that doesn't make
Speaker 2: any logical sense whatsoever. And it's another one of these things.
Speaker 2: If I had a magic one, that'd be one of
Speaker 2: the first things that I would fix that in our
Speaker 2: system of parole and probation and all this other stuff.
Speaker 2: How about the jail conditions, because it's such an odd thing.
Speaker 2: You know, now we have groups of people going from
Speaker 2: the United States to visit prisons in Western Europe. In
Speaker 2: some of the countries in Western Europe, like Germany, the
Speaker 2: prisons are designed for the purpose of rehabilitation, and their
Speaker 2: prisoners are treated humanly, do with respect. The same is
Speaker 2: true in Scandinavia, where they're treated, you know, in a
Speaker 2: way where it's basically a philosophy of hey, you guys
Speaker 2: are going to come out one day, you're going to
Speaker 2: be our next door neighbors. That's how the guards approach it.
Speaker 2: The guards have to study for two years, they have
Speaker 2: to get degrees in psychology. It's amazing, right, And as
Speaker 2: a result, those countries have much lower recidivism rates than
Speaker 2: we do. They're allowed out for furloughs and things like
Speaker 2: that to go work, and even before they're release they
Speaker 2: go out to look for jobs and things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, so the good news is we now have
Speaker 2: delegations from our corrections system institutions, some political leaders going
Speaker 2: and visiting and seeing how it can be done there.
Speaker 2: There's some movement. They have a long way to go,
Speaker 2: but basically our system here is designed for punishment, not rehabilitation,
Speaker 2: and some of the conditions in the jails and prisons
Speaker 2: are absolutely brutal.
Speaker 1: Same in South Africa. I mean, you used to be
Speaker 1: able to get a degree in jail. You can't. You
Speaker 1: can't anymore that that that has been taken away completely.
Speaker 1: There's so much overcrowding in cells. You know, you get
Speaker 1: a room like we're in right now with easily twenty
Speaker 1: people living in a cell like this. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know about here, but the the amount of rape
Speaker 1: that occurs inside the inside the prisoner is heavy. You know,
Speaker 1: there's gangs obviously in prison, and there's one of the
Speaker 1: gangs in South Africa that actually specialize in violence and
Speaker 1: systematically you know, raping and stealing fear in other prisoners.
Speaker 1: There's also the amount of corruption because of poverty. You know,
Speaker 1: prisoners are able to bribe the wardens to the point
Speaker 1: where if a adolescent right juvenile, you can pay the
Speaker 1: warden to say, hey, I want that young boy to
Speaker 1: come to myself tonight and they can have his way
Speaker 1: have his way. I'll tell you about one of the
Speaker 1: I studied criminology, and there was a gentleman I forget
Speaker 1: his name now, but he had such a crazy story.
Speaker 1: He was actually a general right in the in the
Speaker 1: in the prison, so he was one of the most
Speaker 1: ruthless shit persons. He even had a way of how
Speaker 1: to attack and kill somebody that he had to kill,
Speaker 1: you know, he used a pen, you chop and a pen.
Speaker 1: He'd go for the neck, go for the eye, you know.
Speaker 1: But one day, he said, when everything switched for him,
Speaker 1: is that when he witnessed a young boy hardly sixteen
Speaker 1: years old, got gang raped by about ten guys and
Speaker 1: was on the floor, bleeding, crying, just completely in shambles.
Speaker 1: And he showed his kid and he said to the kid,
Speaker 1: do something for yourself. And the kid said, I can't see,
Speaker 1: I can't feel. What can I do? And that touched
Speaker 1: them so deeply that he actually decided that he's going
Speaker 1: to change from becoming a general and actually expose the
Speaker 1: corruption that was happening in jail. And so he spoke
Speaker 1: to people outside the jail, he smuggled in cameras into
Speaker 1: the jail right and exposed the rape, exposed the criminal
Speaker 1: activities that the wardens were actually getting involved in, to
Speaker 1: the point where he even got a pardon from the
Speaker 1: from the president of our country. And he ended up
Speaker 1: marrying his lawyer, which was a white woman and he
Speaker 1: was a black guy, because of what he had witnessed
Speaker 1: of this sort of gang rape of this young boy
Speaker 1: that had come into into the into the cells, you know,
Speaker 1: So the conditions are horrific, The conditions are disturbing, to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, when I visited my you know,
Speaker 1: in jail cigarette our currency. Cigarettes are currency people smuggling
Speaker 1: anything and everything, as you can imagine, right, But more
Speaker 1: so it's the corruption of the actual system because the
Speaker 1: wardens themselves part of that corruption system that has been
Speaker 1: entrenched over decades, you understand, over decades. So basically, with money,
Speaker 1: you can do anything you want to do. If you
Speaker 1: have money, you can live like you are living in
Speaker 1: the normal apartment in mittm Manhattan pretty much.
Speaker 2: And if you don't, you're living in hell. Yeah, literal hell.
Speaker 2: I mean the way you described it can't be much
Speaker 2: worse than that.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: And in fact, we had an amazing guy, a hero
Speaker 2: of mine, Pete Uko from Kenya was on the show
Speaker 2: and he had been wrongfully convicted intense to death and
Speaker 2: he was describing a similar situation to what you said,
Speaker 2: where he was in a small cell with thirteen other guys,
Speaker 2: and he said that in order for them to sleep,
Speaker 2: they would all have to lay on one side facing
Speaker 2: the same way, and like sardines in a canon, they
Speaker 2: would have to roll over at the same time, and
Speaker 2: you know it's just yeah, I mean, it's so crazy
Speaker 2: and his story is amazing. I'll show you the podcast
Speaker 2: that Peluco is on and now he's about on Vergi
Speaker 2: of becoming a lawyer and he's just i think just
Speaker 2: joined on some one of the boards of Amnesty. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's doing amazing, amazing things and helping the youth over there.
Speaker 2: What a great guy. So anyway, we have a tradition
Speaker 2: here on wrongful conviction which I'm going to share with
Speaker 2: you now. And it's actually my favorite part of the show.
Speaker 2: Probably a lot of people in the audience would agree,
Speaker 2: But anyway, this is the part of the show where
Speaker 2: our featured, our honored guest gets the free reign of
Speaker 2: the microphone. What I do is I give you my thanks,
Speaker 2: and thank the audience and our producers as well for
Speaker 2: being here and sharing your thoughts and your wisdom, and
Speaker 2: thank everyone for listening. And now for the last part
Speaker 2: of the show, I just like to turn it over
Speaker 2: to you for any closing thoughts you have on anything
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: You know what I can say, in the words of
Speaker 1: Nelson Mandela, education is the most powerful weapon you can
Speaker 1: use to change your world. And that's why it's important
Speaker 1: for us to make sure that young people have access
Speaker 1: to information, of access to education so that they can
Speaker 1: understand that they are the masters of their destiny. We
Speaker 1: need to make sure that we're in power as many
Speaker 1: young people as we can. We need to become mentors
Speaker 1: in our society. Go on other days where your judges,
Speaker 1: your lawyers or doctors are the most influential people on society.
Speaker 1: These days it's your musicians, it is your actors, you
Speaker 1: entertainers who are the most influential people on the young
Speaker 1: people right, And those people are not always cognizant of
Speaker 1: the influence and the sort of role model position that
Speaker 1: they hold in society, and so they don't actually take
Speaker 1: it to consideration right, and they may be careless with it.
Speaker 1: So I would like to say that each and every
Speaker 1: single one of us has opportunity to mentor a young person,
Speaker 1: to make sure that young person can deal with whatever
Speaker 1: challenges that they face, even if it is just helping
Speaker 1: that young person with doing their homework, finding out how
Speaker 1: they dare was finding out how they weak was what
Speaker 1: you can help them with. You know, there are so
Speaker 1: many young people out there who parents are in jail,
Speaker 1: who grow up without a father, without a mother, you know,
Speaker 1: who don't value themselves in society, and they become easy
Speaker 1: prey to gangsterism and being recruited by the thugs in society.
Speaker 1: So I want to say to the people out there
Speaker 1: that you know, if you take just one hour a
Speaker 1: week to sit to the young person, to mentor a
Speaker 1: young person, and you do that one hour week that
Speaker 1: is nothing on a Saturday or a Sunday, to sit
Speaker 1: with the young person to mentor that person, think about
Speaker 1: the positive effect and the value that that young person
Speaker 1: will have to know that there's somebody out there who
Speaker 1: cares for them, who will spend the time, because time
Speaker 1: is just as important as money, to be with that person,
Speaker 1: to listen to them, to give them guidance. For me,
Speaker 1: we all need to go out there and try to
Speaker 1: be good mentors in society. One young person, that is all.
Speaker 1: It takes one hour week, you can make a much
Speaker 1: better society.
Speaker 2: Thank you again for being here. I'm wrong for conviction.
Speaker 2: I look forward to working together to make a difference,
Speaker 2: and that's exactly what we're going to do. So this
Speaker 2: has been an extraordinary experience for me and Thank you
Speaker 2: again to our audience for listening.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Jason, that was beautiful.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 2: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
Speaker 2: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 2: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot
Speaker 2: org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd
Speaker 2: like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
Speaker 2: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 2: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 2: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava
Speaker 2: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1: The Lady, The Way