Speaker 1: Alexis Kierka Martin was raised by her grandmother in Akron, Ohio,
Speaker 1: and had a strained relationship with her birth mother and father.
Speaker 1: She had a boyfriend to Shawn Spear, but they broke
Speaker 1: up around age thirteen, the same time that an older
Speaker 1: man named Angelo Kearney began grooming her.
Speaker 2: For the sex trade.
Speaker 1: By the time she was fourteen, she was actively being trafficked.
Speaker 1: Time passed and Deshaun reached out to Kierka to ask
Speaker 1: if the rumors he had heard about prostitution were true. Then,
Speaker 1: one night, after a party at Angelo Kearney's, Kierka and
Speaker 1: another woman, Jena Jones, were alone with Angelo and his
Speaker 1: brother Alicio Samuel. Kierka was aware that robbery was about
Speaker 1: to take place that would afford her an opportunity to escape.
Speaker 1: While she was being raped by Alicio, Samuel, Deshaun and
Speaker 1: his friend Travaski Jackson broke in, wearing masks and carrying guns.
Speaker 1: Kearney was shot and killed, and Samuel survived.
Speaker 2: A gunshot to his head.
Speaker 1: When Samuel came to at the hospital, he mentioned nothing
Speaker 1: about the child he had been raping, but he did
Speaker 1: mention the other people he had been with earlier that night.
Speaker 1: A further investigation led to Alexis Kierka Martin. Ohio's brand
Speaker 1: new safe Harbor law was written for situations just like this,
Speaker 1: but neither her lawyer nor the state invoked it before
Speaker 1: she was tried in adult court for the murder of
Speaker 1: the man that held her captive in child sex slavery.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Speaker 2: That's me.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, and today if my voice is cracking
Speaker 1: a little, it's because this story is it's painful to read,
Speaker 1: it's painful to talk about. It's an absolute disgrace that
Speaker 1: any of this happened. It's also the story of triumph
Speaker 1: over tragedy. Though with us today we have an extraordinary lawyer,
Speaker 1: Sasha Naman from the Ohio Justice and Policy Center. Sasha,
Speaker 1: it's wonderful to have you here. Welcome to wronful Conviction.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and we're going to tell the
Speaker 1: story with the person who lived it, Alexis Kierica Martin.
Speaker 1: You'll hear her referred to as Kierica as we go through,
Speaker 1: but she's also known as Alexis Martin. So, Alexis, thank
Speaker 1: you for being here and sharing your story.
Speaker 3: Thank you for allowing me the time and opportunity.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to your childhood, Akron, Ohio, Heartland
Speaker 1: of America. What was your childhood like before this tragedy,
Speaker 1: this series of tragedies struck.
Speaker 3: It would be what some people would call unstable. I
Speaker 3: grew up with multiple family members, but predominantly I was
Speaker 3: blessed with having my grandmother raise me. All in all,
Speaker 3: through everything, I would say that she did a pretty
Speaker 3: good job with at least making sure I knew how
Speaker 3: to say thank you.
Speaker 4: Alexis was a child when she was trafficked. She had
Speaker 4: a tough childhood in some ways, and she said her
Speaker 4: grandma was a light in that in a big way.
Speaker 4: But at fourteen years old, she was surviving some horrific things,
Speaker 4: things that are unimaginable to many Americans. Is a prolonged
Speaker 4: and terrible sex trafficking situation, and she wanted a life
Speaker 4: that was free and safe and healthy, where she could
Speaker 4: go to school, where her and her siblings weren't in danger.
Speaker 3: And she was a.
Speaker 4: Child, so she was in a position where she hoped
Speaker 4: that she could finally have this opportunity to flee from
Speaker 4: the trafficking, and that brought her into involvement with the
Speaker 4: robbery of her trafficker.
Speaker 3: I was fourteen when I met my trafficker, and me
Speaker 3: and my co defriend and DeShawn Spear. He was my
Speaker 3: boyfriend and we separated before this case occurred, and then
Speaker 3: while I was in active trafficking, we would see each
Speaker 3: other and check on each other, but I never got
Speaker 3: too close with him or really like engaged. Everybody kept
Speaker 3: hearing rumors about me being prostituted. Some people were bold
Speaker 3: enough to act, some people weren't. They just you know,
Speaker 3: kind of turned their nose up to me. Well, he
Speaker 3: asked me a couple of times, and I continued to
Speaker 3: deny it and just admitted that I was dancing, but
Speaker 3: I wouldn't tell him where I was dancing at.
Speaker 1: So as of that moment, he's left in the dark.
Speaker 1: And before the night that the Shawn Spirit tried to
Speaker 1: free Kierka, which was November seven, twenty thirteen, Sasha she
Speaker 1: had tried to find another way to get out of
Speaker 1: that life.
Speaker 4: Right she was trying to reach out to adults for help.
Speaker 4: So before the night of this offense happened. She was
Speaker 4: trying to and herself in. She actually proactively went to
Speaker 4: the juvenile system because she had kind of an active
Speaker 4: case that had kind of been going on in parallel,
Speaker 4: and she was hoping that they would take her in,
Speaker 4: that they would arrest her, they would put her in
Speaker 4: a program. But her trafficker sends her with someone who
Speaker 4: poses as her caretaker and says she's fine and she's
Speaker 4: cared for, and even though these adults see the way
Speaker 4: she's dressed, even though they see these red flags, they
Speaker 4: let her back out with that person.
Speaker 1: Alexis, as much as you're comfortable with talking about it.
Speaker 1: That night when this robbery occurred, can you tell us
Speaker 1: how this whole thing happened and how somebody ended up dead.
Speaker 3: I was caught to the house and Jenney Jones was
Speaker 3: also there. They had a party and Angela was training
Speaker 3: me more so to be his madam. So I had
Speaker 3: to be there to make sure that the rest of
Speaker 3: the girls did what they were supposed to and that
Speaker 3: I made money that night. So during the whole time
Speaker 3: that the party occurred, I did what Angelo told me
Speaker 3: to do. I danced, I collected money, I served drinks,
Speaker 3: and then as it got late, everybody left. But that
Speaker 3: means that there was a lot of eyewitnesses that seen
Speaker 3: me with him, some of his other brothers, they were
Speaker 3: there that night. When they left, it was just me,
Speaker 3: Jenny Jones, Angelo Corney, and Alisio Samer.
Speaker 4: Alexis was aware that Deshaun and Trevaski were going to
Speaker 4: be coming into the house. And in Ohio there's something
Speaker 4: called felony murder, as there is in many other states.
Speaker 4: And if you're aware of something like a robbery, if
Speaker 4: you're found legally culpable in something like a robbery and
Speaker 4: then somebody gets killed, then you're culpable for the homicide
Speaker 4: that happened. Alexis never shot anybody, never hurt anybody, never
Speaker 4: wanted anybody to get hurt. But there was this robbery
Speaker 4: that happened, and when Deshaun Spears and Travaska Jackson break in,
Speaker 4: when they shoot her trafficker and kill him, when they
Speaker 4: shoot the man who is raping her, although she is
Speaker 4: the child and she is the victim there, she became
Speaker 4: legally culpable ultimately for the death.
Speaker 3: Once Alicio was shot and Angela was killed, the question
Speaker 3: was where was I, Because I was always with him,
Speaker 3: and if I wasn't with him, then I was in
Speaker 3: a position where one of his brothers knew where I
Speaker 3: was at, So where was I was missing? After Alicio
Speaker 3: woke up in the hospital, he identified Jane, he never
Speaker 3: identified me, And my theory on this subject is he
Speaker 3: didn't identify me because I was a child and he
Speaker 3: was an adult. But other people that the police questioned
Speaker 3: that night continuously brought up my name. So I turned
Speaker 3: myself in and I was arrested. I was fifteen, and
Speaker 3: I feel like it was the first time in life
Speaker 3: that anybody was actually like listening to me. I kind
Speaker 3: of just told him everything that they wanted to know.
Speaker 3: My only thing was I just wanted to know was
Speaker 3: he alive or was he dead? Because I wasn't sure,
Speaker 3: And when he told me Angelo was dead, I didn't
Speaker 3: really know how to feel. It didn't click into me
Speaker 3: that I was truly being arrested for his death until
Speaker 3: they took me away from the detention center. I was
Speaker 3: on probation, so I've been arrested a couple times. I
Speaker 3: was used to the detention officers and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: so it was kind of like finally that night, I
Speaker 3: was going to be safe until they pulled away from
Speaker 3: there and took me down to the dog question interrogation,
Speaker 3: where they left me in the code for about three
Speaker 3: or four hours. I threw up on the table. They
Speaker 3: didn't clean that up. I asked for my mother. They
Speaker 3: told me that my mother left, and I knew some
Speaker 3: of my rights, and I was like, you know, I
Speaker 3: thought my mom had to be present because I was
Speaker 3: only fifteen, and they told me she didn't care. And
Speaker 3: then I continuously asked for my attorney. And I was fifteen.
Speaker 3: I knew some of my rights right because of Criminal
Speaker 3: Minds and whatever else I watched, but I didn't really
Speaker 3: know how to enforce my rights. How they knew I
Speaker 3: had involvement was I admitted my own involvement. I didn't
Speaker 3: know what human trafficking was. I only knew what prostitution
Speaker 3: and escorting was. I didn't understand that I was a victim.
Speaker 3: I also admitted to the cops Angela was training me
Speaker 3: to be his madam. And I also admitted to the
Speaker 3: cops that I called this man my dad. But that
Speaker 3: night and for months on, nobody pays attention to that.
Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by Stand Together.
Speaker 1: Stand Together is a philanthropic community dedicated to helping.
Speaker 2: People improve their lives.
Speaker 1: For more than twenty years, Stand Together and its partners
Speaker 1: have been on the front lines of criminal justice reform.
Speaker 1: By empowering people to take action, supporting nonpropit fits, and
Speaker 1: working with businesses. Stand Together tackles the root causes of
Speaker 1: problems in our communities and empowers those closest to the
Speaker 1: problems to drive solutions. Solutions like reducing unjust prison sentences
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Speaker 4: Before Alexis's case happened, iiO had passed this safe harbor
Speaker 4: law that was specifically meant to protect survivors of human
Speaker 4: trafficking like Kerica. The law would allow juvenile courts to
Speaker 4: offer services to children like her who were trafficked and
Speaker 4: to help them. And when she was arrested and sent
Speaker 4: to juvenile court, that law was in effect, but her
Speaker 4: attorney didn't know about it and didn't understand it. And
Speaker 4: Kierko is actually the one who brought this question about
Speaker 4: this law to the attorney because she had heard about
Speaker 4: it somewhere, so she was now advocating for herself. And
Speaker 4: this is above and beyond a fifteen year old who
Speaker 4: is trying to educate her attorney.
Speaker 3: Who then did look into it but didn't.
Speaker 4: Understand the law, and then neither he nor the court
Speaker 4: nor the prosecutor brings it up. You have this case
Speaker 4: that the law is made for, the law is in effect,
Speaker 4: and nobody brings it up, nobody applies it. In fact,
Speaker 4: the only person who had mentioned it in the process
Speaker 4: really is Kerka herself.
Speaker 1: Just to clarify for our audience, the Save Harbor Law
Speaker 1: Ohio specifically mandates that miners under the age of sixteen
Speaker 1: do not need to prove that they were compelled to
Speaker 1: engage in commercial sexual activity. They're automatically considered victims of
Speaker 1: child sex trafficking, and the statute requires juvenile courts to
Speaker 1: appoint a guardian to the defendant, a professional other than
Speaker 1: a parent or attorney, who was responsible for advocating in
Speaker 1: the best interests of the child on trial. So here
Speaker 1: the defense, lawyer, the court itself, everybody. They just didn't
Speaker 1: do what they're supposed to do. Nobody did. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: and then to make matters worse, they send you to
Speaker 1: adult court.
Speaker 3: At that point, I was educated on what human trafficking was,
Speaker 3: so I actually realize that you're a victim and you
Speaker 3: hold no power, and that somebody you thought you cared
Speaker 3: about was hurting you. To know that they were knowledgeably
Speaker 3: hurting you, and that was their only intent ever, was
Speaker 3: to hurt you, it's pretty defeating. It hurts. So I
Speaker 3: know all this now. I learned about what the grooming
Speaker 3: process was, and I identified what my grooming process was.
Speaker 3: I learned about the trafficking. I learned about the stages
Speaker 3: with a juvenile counselor named Hilary Finkel, and she's the
Speaker 3: one who's bringing in this lady named Magan Madimo, who
Speaker 3: ultimately brings up the safe harbor law to the juvenile
Speaker 3: court after I'm bound over into the adult court, who
Speaker 3: ultimately educates my attorney. But while I was in the courtroom,
Speaker 3: Judge Theodosia, who leads the Human Trafficking Division in Summon
Speaker 3: County still to this day, set, out of her own mouths,
Speaker 3: can we take a second in pause? And I want
Speaker 3: to ask you, Noah, my attorney and the prosecutor, what
Speaker 3: do we do about this fifteen year old's trafficking? She
Speaker 3: admits out her mouth that I'm traffic. Not only was
Speaker 3: I sex traffic, but labor traffic. She admits this. Nobody
Speaker 3: had a response. The prosecutor and my attorney looked at
Speaker 3: each other, looked at the judge and was kind of
Speaker 3: dumbfounded when she asked this question. My attorney, I can't
Speaker 3: even remember. He mustered up some answer, but it clearly
Speaker 3: must not have been good enough for Thiodosia, because two
Speaker 3: months later, even after you admit that I'm traffic, I
Speaker 3: got bound over, and that made me feel like prior
Speaker 3: to the trafficking, I was raped and I've reported it
Speaker 3: and I never got help. One of my cousins raped
Speaker 3: me from nine to ten and they found him not guilty,
Speaker 3: and it made me feel the exact same way that
Speaker 3: no matter how many times I tell somebody somebody did
Speaker 3: something to me that was wrong, I'm always going to
Speaker 3: either be accused of a liar or it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: So I started to lose hope again.
Speaker 1: It's a miracle that you clung onto any hope at
Speaker 1: all after everything you had been through. And so February seventeenth,
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, a day that will live in it infamy. Kieraka,
Speaker 1: you were advised by your attorney that, with the goal
Speaker 1: of returning to juvenile court, you should plead guilty to
Speaker 1: polonious assault and murder. Yes, this was, of course a
Speaker 1: terrible strategy, and ultimately you were sentenced to twenty one
Speaker 1: to life.
Speaker 2: How did you process that.
Speaker 1: Sentence and how did you manage to maintain any sort
Speaker 1: of trace of sanity.
Speaker 3: Well, I have a little sister that's three and a
Speaker 3: half years younger than me, and we were talking when
Speaker 3: I was six years old, and I promised her that
Speaker 3: I would never let nobody hurt her and I would
Speaker 3: always be there to protect her. While I was fighting
Speaker 3: my case at detention center, I tried to kill myself.
Speaker 3: I busted all the above vessels in my face, and
Speaker 3: I was really close. It hurt her bad while I
Speaker 3: was in prison. She's left out in the world with
Speaker 3: my father and my birth mother, the two people I've
Speaker 3: tried to protect her from my whole life. So if
Speaker 3: I gave up fighting, I gave up fighting for her life.
Speaker 3: If I gave up fighting, everything that happened to me,
Speaker 3: every time a man abused me, hit me, sex with me,
Speaker 3: everything that I have ever done to protect her was
Speaker 3: ultimately for nothing. If I lay down and just gave up. Now,
Speaker 3: I was scared to go to trial because my co defendant,
Speaker 3: Deshan just got forty one to life. I would have
Speaker 3: went if I had somebody believe in me that told
Speaker 3: me to go. I had two people that told me
Speaker 3: you should maybe go to trial. One was another fifteen
Speaker 3: year old girl, and all she said was best friend,
Speaker 3: if you go, I'm gonna support you. And then I
Speaker 3: had my older sister who was paying for my attorney,
Speaker 3: and she was telling me she thinks I should take
Speaker 3: it to trial. I had an indecisive father that kept
Speaker 3: telling me one minute plead out and act crazy. The
Speaker 3: next one, he was telling me to take it to
Speaker 3: trial my birtha. She barely went to any hearings, but
Speaker 3: she was telling me, plead, because you don't want to
Speaker 3: get max out at the box. And then I have
Speaker 3: my attorney who knows more than me that's telling me, plead,
Speaker 3: we have a good chance of winning your appeal because
Speaker 3: of this safe harbor law. So I pled, but I
Speaker 3: kept fighting because I have a baby's sister that at
Speaker 3: the end I promise I would protect and if I
Speaker 3: didn't protect her, nobody else would. So I fought and
Speaker 3: I continue to fight after denial after denial, after denial.
Speaker 4: Her new attorney. Ke's new attorney, Jennifer Kinsley, ends up
Speaker 4: taking on this case pro bono and appealing it all
Speaker 4: the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, arguing that Kierka
Speaker 4: should have received the protections of the Safe Harbor law,
Speaker 4: and ultimately the Ohio Supreme Court rejected the case. And
Speaker 4: they did that while saying that there is ample evidence
Speaker 4: that Kierka was a victim of human traffic. But unfortunately,
Speaker 4: the original trial attorney didn't present evidence linking the crime
Speaker 4: to Kerka being a victim of sex trafficking, So the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court said, because he didn't create that link between
Speaker 4: the known trafficking and the crime. They were not going
Speaker 4: to apply the safe harbor law to Key, And to me,
Speaker 4: that's a little bit absurd, because of course there's a connection.
Speaker 4: You have a fifteen year old child trying to free
Speaker 4: herself from being trafficked by adults. It doesn't take a
Speaker 4: lot to think about how there could be a connection there.
Speaker 1: While justice was delayed, it surely wasn't going to be denied. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: you petitioned Governor de Wine for clemency and you had
Speaker 1: a hearing on that in September of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: I went in front of the pro Board on determination
Speaker 3: of my clemency. In November I got an eight to
Speaker 3: two vote, eight in favor, two against. In January, Governor
Speaker 3: de Wine considered my clemency and said that he wanted
Speaker 3: me to do this program Tapestry, and after I completed it,
Speaker 3: I would come home. I started Tapestry January twenty first,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty. Tapestry closed down due to COVID and I
Speaker 3: was released April twenty of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: So, after serving seven long years in prison, what was
Speaker 1: it like walking out?
Speaker 2: Take us inside that day, that moment.
Speaker 3: April eighteenth, on national television. I was told I was
Speaker 3: going to be released. It didn't seem real at all,
Speaker 3: Like this is something that I dreamed about many days
Speaker 3: in prison. It was going home, going home, And now
Speaker 3: I'm signing a paper to agree to conditions of parole
Speaker 3: and clemency and being told that I'll be free by monday.
Speaker 3: So I signed the papers, and then I'm told, you
Speaker 3: have to go to the whole.
Speaker 2: To the hole.
Speaker 3: The craziest thing is, yes, I have to go get
Speaker 3: COVID nineteen tested and be put in quarantine in the
Speaker 3: whole until Monday so that I could be released to
Speaker 3: this program. So I pack up my stuff and for
Speaker 3: two days, it's like the longest agony in the world,
Speaker 3: knowing that in two days you'll be released. In two days,
Speaker 3: you'll get to enter into a world of something you
Speaker 3: don't know. I left as a kid, and I left
Speaker 3: a world of chaos, and I'm supposed to be being
Speaker 3: released into a world of peace and freedom. Right. I
Speaker 3: decided that I didn't want to go back to my hometown, Akron,
Speaker 3: because I didn't want to go back to the same people,
Speaker 3: the same way, as the same lifestyle. I believe that was,
Speaker 3: you know, the biggest reason of why I didn't get
Speaker 3: to reach my goals as a kid. I believe God
Speaker 3: gave me a second opportunity with the new family, and
Speaker 3: I chose to take it. They released me from the prison,
Speaker 3: and it's this long corridor you have to walk down,
Speaker 3: really really really long, and they hand him my release ID,
Speaker 3: and it's none of this is still real, that I'm
Speaker 3: really being released until I passed through the other side
Speaker 3: of the metal detectors and there's Jennifer and Sasha and
Speaker 3: they hug me and we walk out the doors and
Speaker 3: we walk out the doors to cameras in my face.
Speaker 3: They tell me I get to say hi. I say hi,
Speaker 3: and finally I get to embrace my little sister. Finally
Speaker 3: I get to embrace this little girl that's not a
Speaker 3: little girl anymore. I left and she was eleven, and
Speaker 3: I came home and she's eighteen and has a big,
Speaker 3: old round belly. It was hard seeing somebody that I
Speaker 3: thought was my baby not a baby no more.
Speaker 2: So are you are you an aunt? Now?
Speaker 3: I am? I also have another niece. She was born
Speaker 3: four months after I went to prison. The reason why
Speaker 3: I mentioned this is that I was supposed to raise her,
Speaker 3: and four months before she is born into this world,
Speaker 3: I am looking away from her. Currently right now, we
Speaker 3: are in the process of getting temporary custody of her,
Speaker 3: and she is here with me. So I am an aunt.
Speaker 3: I am an aunt by a lot. I have eleven
Speaker 3: nephews and nieces together.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk now about something you began
Speaker 1: in prison that I hear you're hoping and planning to
Speaker 1: continue with on the outside, and that's working with other survivors.
Speaker 1: I heard that when you were in prison. This sounds,
Speaker 1: I mean incredible, but hear me out you improved on
Speaker 1: an existing program by reaching out to someone with the
Speaker 1: f who had actually interviewed you.
Speaker 3: I got interrogated by the FBI about the human trafficking
Speaker 3: and stuff, and so I contacted one of the contacts
Speaker 3: and told her like, hey, you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 3: run this group. Do you have any pointers on what
Speaker 3: I should teach these girls about what is human trafficking?
Speaker 3: And she actually sent me like these packets and stuff.
Speaker 3: So me and one of my case managers we went
Speaker 3: through what I wanted to touch on, and I created
Speaker 3: a twelve week group on human trafficking and prostitution education.
Speaker 3: So it talked about healthy relationships, talked about sex, It
Speaker 3: talked about what is grooming, It talked about family loves.
Speaker 3: It touched on the trafficking part of it, but also
Speaker 3: some of the healing process of it. And then after
Speaker 3: you went through the group, you became a mentor to
Speaker 3: the new ladies that was going through a group. So
Speaker 3: it was an ongoing cycle that you had somewhere to go.
Speaker 3: And every time that group was going on, it would
Speaker 3: keep me and a lot of other girls out of
Speaker 3: trouble because you had a place where you were not alone,
Speaker 3: somebody could feel every emotion that you felt and wouldn't
Speaker 3: look at you like you were crazy. I actually have
Speaker 3: a mentee that I still talk to. She sits on
Speaker 3: a human trafficking board in Columbus, Ohio, and she wrote
Speaker 3: me a letter I was in prison and told me
Speaker 3: that because of me is the reason why she believed
Speaker 3: that she was a survivor and not just a prostitute.
Speaker 3: One thing with a lot of survivors is we have
Speaker 3: a problem with men for a while. So somebody that
Speaker 3: may not have had the issue with men, if I say,
Speaker 3: oh God, I want to punch him in his face.
Speaker 3: Somebody that hasn't had that issue would be like, there's
Speaker 3: something wrong with her, But another survivor would be like, girl,
Speaker 3: I know too, Like yeah, he was talking really mean
Speaker 3: or something. You know. So the group was just very
Speaker 3: productive and supportive, and it gave us a family, which
Speaker 3: ultimately most of us never really had a family or helped.
Speaker 3: We had a family that cared about us. So those
Speaker 3: are one of the things that I did in prison.
Speaker 3: Since I've been home, I'm working on going back to
Speaker 3: college to start my business so I can do a
Speaker 3: business for at risk tines. That's ultimately what I want
Speaker 3: to work with. I want to work with kids before
Speaker 3: they even get involved in a victimization. So that is
Speaker 3: my dream.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, he's doing more than most three people
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: It's a really beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: And I know after hearing your story, Kierka, people are
Speaker 1: going to want to get involved even more than they
Speaker 1: already are.
Speaker 2: So please, Sasha, you want to.
Speaker 4: So there is a GoFundMe for Alexis Kierka Martin. She's
Speaker 4: building up her new future, so she's in a position
Speaker 4: where she's gonna need some resources to continue her education.
Speaker 4: She hopes to one day start her own nonprofit to
Speaker 4: serve survivors, but also just to get up on her feet.
Speaker 4: And there's this GoFundMe if you look for Alexis Kierka
Speaker 4: Martin Support Fund, people can donate and help keep it
Speaker 4: on her way to the bright future that she deserves.
Speaker 4: And the other pieces and say is Ohio Justice and
Speaker 4: Policy Center does lots of work to free people who
Speaker 4: are unfairly sentenced and unfairly incarcerated. And if people want
Speaker 4: to learn more about Key's case or about similar cases
Speaker 4: or about our work, our website is Ohio JPC dot org.
Speaker 4: So Ohio Justice Policy Center JPC dot org. Those are
Speaker 4: two distinct ways people can help Key and then also
Speaker 4: learn more about the way we need to change our
Speaker 4: systems and the work that's being done throughout Ohio.
Speaker 3: And I wanted to say it's not up and running yet,
Speaker 3: but I would just ask that people stay tuned. I
Speaker 3: will be releasing my first poetry book. It's all the
Speaker 3: poems that I did fighting my case and while I
Speaker 3: was in prison. The person that I'm working with, we
Speaker 3: are hoping to publish it sometime after my birthday in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: Well, we will be happy and proud to help support
Speaker 1: it and promote it when it comes out. Congratulations on
Speaker 1: and we will also be putting the links to the
Speaker 1: GoFundMe in our episode guide, so we'll make it easy
Speaker 1: for our audience to get involved, and we'll post it
Speaker 1: on our Instagram as well.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Now we turn to the segment of the show that
Speaker 1: I always look forward to, closing arguments, where first of all,
Speaker 1: I once again thank each of you, Sasha Name and
Speaker 1: Kierka Martin for being here and sharing your amazing saga
Speaker 1: of a life and a case. We wish you all
Speaker 1: the best of everything. And then I turned my microphone
Speaker 1: off and I kick back in my chair and close
Speaker 1: my eyes so that you can share anything you want
Speaker 1: to share with our audience. And of course, Kerica, we'd
Speaker 1: like to save you for last. Sasha, if you can
Speaker 1: go first, and then whenever you're done, hand the mic
Speaker 1: off to Kierka Alexis.
Speaker 4: Kerka Martin is. It's incredibly resilient and smart and kind
Speaker 4: human being, and she has survived a lot and in
Speaker 4: so many ways is a unique gift in this world
Speaker 4: and in some ways her story is one that other
Speaker 4: people also have and It's important to keep that in
Speaker 4: mind because the work toward criminal justice has to be
Speaker 4: centered on the humanity of people like Key, and right
Speaker 4: now we have a criminal legal system, it's not always
Speaker 4: a criminal justice system. Key came out of prison just
Speaker 4: as we had a pandemic, but also this moment where
Speaker 4: we're really starting to rethink the way we have justice
Speaker 4: and racial equity and the way we treat human beings
Speaker 4: in a system that cages people. So there's a lot
Speaker 4: of work to do, and we're incredibly lucky that Governor
Speaker 4: DeWine granted clemency for Key, because she's going to be
Speaker 4: a major player, I think, in the way we improve
Speaker 4: this world. And I'm just incredibly honored to be on
Speaker 4: her team and to be her friend and to get
Speaker 4: to see her grow and to be a part of it.
Speaker 2: Kierica is all yours, Okay.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to thank you, know, the listeners for
Speaker 3: staying tuned and listening. I wanted to thank you guys
Speaker 3: for having me on and talking with me. I wanted
Speaker 3: to clarify just maybe for the listeners, because I was thinking,
Speaker 3: like they may have been wondering, why do I want
Speaker 3: to be called Kerka? It is taking ownership of who
Speaker 3: I am. I feel like alexis Lexi Alex. They all
Speaker 3: have like a bad past. I feel like holding on
Speaker 3: to that part of my name is like holding on
Speaker 3: to baggage. I don't plan on dropping my name completely,
Speaker 3: but Kierka is something that my grandmother named me, and
Speaker 3: that's really the only good of a lot of my past.
Speaker 3: So I believe I have a new life, a new start,
Speaker 3: or a new home, a new dream, So why not
Speaker 3: a new name. So that is why I like being
Speaker 3: called Kiera Kurkey, and my final thoughts and final things
Speaker 3: that I would say is the main reason why I
Speaker 3: tell my story. I call it getting naked. Main reason
Speaker 3: why I get naked in front of the audience and
Speaker 3: I let people see the vulnerability is that anybody can
Speaker 3: be a victim. Anybody. I was a girl who got
Speaker 3: all a's in school. I wanted to go to the
Speaker 3: Air Force. I was in rotc. I just didn't have
Speaker 3: parents at home that loved me. But I had a dream.
Speaker 3: I wasn't some bad kid that a lot of people thought.
Speaker 3: Anybody can be a victim, but it takes love in
Speaker 3: the community to make that victim into a survivor. And
Speaker 3: that's the difference between me and a lot of other
Speaker 3: people is that I didn't let my victimization leave me
Speaker 3: as a victim. And I'm still fighting and I'm going
Speaker 3: to continue fighting, and so there's no longer a breath
Speaker 3: in my body to fight for survivors and not just
Speaker 3: survivors of human trafficking. And I hope that hearing my
Speaker 3: story encourages people to if you're not going to, at
Speaker 3: least support the calls, support your family, Hug the little
Speaker 3: girl that's alone, play with the little boy that wants
Speaker 3: to play, and just let your kids know that they're
Speaker 3: loved so that there's not men like my trafficker that
Speaker 3: can come in and use and abuse them.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flapp.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show, as always,
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful conviction podcast Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one