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Speaker 1: On January twenty third, two thousand and seven, in order

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Speaker 1: to obtain a search warrant, a narcotics officer claimed to

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Speaker 1: have seen Meek mill selling crack out of his home.

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Speaker 1: The following day, Meek was stopped on his way to

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Speaker 1: a corner store and they found a gun. He was

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Speaker 1: badly beaten, arrested for illegal possession of a firearm, and

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Speaker 1: later charged with assaulting arresting officers who claimed that he

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Speaker 1: had pointed the gun at them. In two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 1: due to the cost, Meek waved a jury trial, was

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Speaker 1: tried for drug and weapons charges and sentenced to two

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Speaker 1: years prison plus eight years probation, which kicked off his

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Speaker 1: storied clash with Judge Denise Sprinkley. Over the decade that followed,

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Speaker 1: parole tight restrictions and his contentious relationship with Brinkley made

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Speaker 1: more punishment almost an inevitability. In November of twenty seventeen,

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Speaker 1: she sentenced him to at least two more years in

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Speaker 1: prison for alleged violations, including popping a wheelie without a helmet.

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Speaker 1: This gained plenty of outrage and public support, largely due

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Speaker 1: to a police department whistleblower who exposed Meeks two thousand

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Speaker 1: and seven arresting officer as a liar and a thief.

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Speaker 1: His two thousand and eight conviction was overturned. He was

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Speaker 1: granted a new trial under a new judge, bringing his

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Speaker 1: two thousand and seven criminal case and probation to a

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Speaker 1: long overdue close in August of twenty nineteen. However, his

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Speaker 1: litigation was still ongoing at the time of this episode's

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Speaker 1: original release. Meek Mills' notoriety shines a light on the

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Speaker 1: regularity legalized harassment by authorities and the recidivism that results.

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Speaker 1: A docuseries chronicling his legal saga called Free Meek, is

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Speaker 1: now streaming on Prime Video, and Meek's friend Michael Rubin,

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Speaker 1: one of the owners of Philadelphia seventy six ers, joined

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Speaker 1: us for a discussion that unfortunately is as relevant.

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Speaker 2: Today as it was back then. This is Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 2: with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.

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Speaker 1: That's me and today we have an extraordinary show and

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Speaker 1: you're about to find out why today's guest is the

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Speaker 1: one and only Meek Milly and Michael Rubin is with

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Speaker 1: him and Meek. You need no introduction, but welcome to

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Speaker 1: the show.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me Man. I appreciate you for

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Speaker 3: bringing me on the show.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate all the work you're doing, and we're going

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Speaker 1: to get into that right away. But with him is

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Speaker 1: Michael Rubin, who is the owner of this Philadelphia seventy

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Speaker 1: six ers and has an amazing background as an entrepreneur

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Speaker 1: and businessman, but who has become a tremendous advocate for

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Speaker 1: criminal justice reform and is about to really shake things up. Michael,

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Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to have you in the movement, and I'm

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Speaker 1: glad you're here on the show.

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Speaker 4: Hey, thanks for everything you're doing. I'm glad to be here.

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Speaker 1: So Meek. One of the reasons I wanted to have

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Speaker 1: you on the show is because your original case was

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Speaker 1: in fact a wrongful conviction, and that's something a lot

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Speaker 1: of people don't understand. And there's a lot more they

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Speaker 1: don't understand about the circumstances in which you were arrested

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Speaker 1: and how this nightmare saga, which is now in its

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Speaker 1: second decade in the criminal justice system has unfolded. And

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Speaker 1: it's important to tell this story because it shines a

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Speaker 1: light on so many aspects of what's wrong with the

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Speaker 1: criminal justice system. And we're here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, not Philadelphia, Mississippi.

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Speaker 1: But even still, the system here has been so backwards

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Speaker 1: for so long, and you were born right into the

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Speaker 1: thick of it. I mean, let's talk about that y

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven. So the number of people incarcerated United

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Speaker 1: States stayed relatively constant from nineteen hundred till about nineteen seventy,

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Speaker 1: and then it went crazy. It doubled and tripled and quadrupled,

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Speaker 1: and Philadelphia was a hot spot. And you were born

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Speaker 1: into a situation in which black men were being incarcerated

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Speaker 1: at rates that were unprecedented actually in the history of

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Speaker 1: the world. There's a book that really touches on everything

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Speaker 1: that you went through, called On the Run by Alice Goffman,

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Speaker 1: a Princeton PhD. Sociologist who went and lived on Sixth

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Speaker 1: Street in Philadelphia. She said, in the first eighteen months

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Speaker 1: that I spent the neighborhood, at least once a day,

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Speaker 1: I watched the police stop pedestrians or people in cars,

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Speaker 1: searched them, run their name for warrants, asked them to

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Speaker 1: come in for questioning or make an arrest. And that

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Speaker 1: same eighteen month period, I watched the police breakdown doors,

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Speaker 1: search houses, and question, arrest or chase people through houses

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Speaker 1: fifty two times. Nine times police her helicopters circled overhead

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Speaker 1: and beam search lights on the local streets. I noticed

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Speaker 1: blocks taped off in traffic directed as police search for

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Speaker 1: evidence fourteen times during my first eighteen months of near

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Speaker 1: daily observation, I watched the police punch, choke, kick, stomp on,

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Speaker 1: or beat young men with their night sticks. That's what

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Speaker 1: the situation was like. It's what it still is like,

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Speaker 1: and that's what has to change. Yeah, can you talk

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Speaker 1: about that about how you grew up and how this,

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Speaker 1: you know, was almost almost a fade of complete Uh.

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Speaker 3: You know, I come from Philadelphia, actually North Philadelphia which

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Speaker 3: now is called the Temple Area, and you know, we

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Speaker 3: grew up in environments where like dragonfest environments where a

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Speaker 3: lot of violence, a lot of drugs, a lot of

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Speaker 3: things taking place. So it's like you could be standing

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Speaker 3: in the wrong place and lose your life, or you

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Speaker 3: could be standing in the wrong place and get charged

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Speaker 3: with a crime you didn't do. That was just like normal. Actually,

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Speaker 3: I've been hanging with my friend pe Mind probably fifteen

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Speaker 3: years and I remember back he went to jail when

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Speaker 3: he was probably about fifteen years old. He just turned

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Speaker 3: thirty one, and was like, yeah, the first time I

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Speaker 3: went to prison, he said, a white guy just pulled

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Speaker 3: up in the back of a car and just pointed

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Speaker 3: at me out the car and said, I robbed him

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Speaker 3: for seven dollars, but he had three hundred and eighty

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Speaker 3: dollars in his pocket and he went to jail for that.

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Speaker 3: He ended up doing I think like two years and

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Speaker 3: that in the juvenile facility. But that wasn't the worst part.

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Speaker 3: The worst part was he's got a felony on this

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Speaker 3: record for arm robbery. And you know, if you know him,

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Speaker 3: he not like a it's not robbery. He's not robbery.

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Speaker 3: And his system he made mistakes in his life. But

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Speaker 3: me being around him, I never knew that. But I

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Speaker 3: witnessed that so many times. I wouldn't have standing on

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Speaker 3: a corner and the cop pulled up with a Mexican

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Speaker 3: guy in the back, and I don't know. Sometimes we

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Speaker 3: say and then our world in a sycastic way of

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Speaker 3: being funny, we always be like white people look the

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Speaker 3: same to us. Some of my white friends were like

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Speaker 3: all black people were saying to us. But sometimes that

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Speaker 3: is the case with people and they just pull up

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Speaker 3: and they point people out, and you stand there when

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Speaker 3: the cops pull up and like, I hope this guy

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Speaker 3: don't point me out. And that's just one of the

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Speaker 3: scenarios out of a million scenarios, being caught in the

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Speaker 3: middle of poverty, drug infested the neighborhood where people are

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Speaker 3: getting robbed left and right, where you know, cop flocking

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Speaker 3: people who have left and rights just to get stripes

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Speaker 3: on that record. You know what I'm saying. And we

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Speaker 3: grew up in that and you know, at eighteen years old,

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Speaker 3: I was caught up in that system. And even though

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Speaker 3: I've been on the path ever since of doing spectacling

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Speaker 3: in my life from where I come from, that same

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Speaker 3: system is still haunting me and hanking me down. Even

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Speaker 3: at the age of thirty one and having a record

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Speaker 3: deal and being able to handle business and work, it's

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Speaker 3: still haunted me to pull me back to the same

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Speaker 3: system where I just left eleven years ago.

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Speaker 1: And you just brought up a very important point, which

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Speaker 1: is that we know from decades of research now that

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Speaker 1: cross racial identifications are extremely unreliable. Identifications in general are

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Speaker 1: unreliable because people have witness a crime, especially violent crime,

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Speaker 1: goes crazy and the perception gets screwy and the brain

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Speaker 1: doesn't function properly, so it almost becomes like guessing. But

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Speaker 1: it gets even worse. And there's a movement now in

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Speaker 1: various places to try to put in a system where

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Speaker 1: a jury has to be instructed in the case in

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Speaker 1: which across racial identification is an important factor that these

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Speaker 1: things are as unreliable as they are because they need

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Speaker 1: to know, but in most cases they don't know. They

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Speaker 1: just think an identification is the most powerful thing. Going

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Speaker 1: to court room to a guy points at you and

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Speaker 1: goes that to him. You know, it's hard for a

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Speaker 1: jury to see past that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like it's a neighborhood. We all wearing white

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Speaker 3: Teas of the summer of two thousand and three, everybody

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Speaker 3: white T shirts is the popular thing to wear denim shirts.

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Speaker 3: And you got a guy, he might be Asian. He

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Speaker 3: pulled up on the corner. We all seven of us

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Speaker 3: got braids, and four of us got a little cousin.

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Speaker 3: But we all look the same, the ones that got

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Speaker 3: braids to him. It's just you allowed to repick to

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Speaker 3: get caught up in the system like whoever you point at,

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Speaker 3: that's you. And you better hope you don't have no

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Speaker 3: felonies on your record already because you might go to

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Speaker 3: jail for a long time.

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Speaker 1: And sociologically speaking, and this goes back again to the

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Speaker 1: seventies and eighties. Right at the same time that they

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Speaker 1: were rolling back welfare and other programs for the urban poor,

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Speaker 1: they were ramping up the policing and they were Now

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Speaker 1: you created the perfect storm because what was happening was

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Speaker 1: you had these systems coming in for tracking arrests. You

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Speaker 1: had so many more cops. In fact, I think in

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Speaker 1: Philadelphia sixty nine percent more police decade over decade than

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Speaker 1: they were before, and they had to make arrests. So

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Speaker 1: whereas before they were largely ignoring what was going on

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Speaker 1: in the community, now there were heightened penalties for not

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Speaker 1: just for violent crimes, but also for all kinds of

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Speaker 1: different drug crimes, for vagrancy, for trespassing, for anything. And

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Speaker 1: they were in a position where they were arresting people

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Speaker 1: left and right and creating this permanent underclass. And Michael,

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Speaker 1: you know, obviously you grew up here too, right, but

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Speaker 1: your situation must have been.

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Speaker 5: Very, very different world. I grew up maybe twenty minutes

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Speaker 5: from me. But Mike Ustall said to me, we used

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Speaker 5: to have this argument for years. He'd say to me, Michael,

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Speaker 5: there's two Americans. And I'd be like, like, dude, shut up,

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Speaker 5: there's like there's there's one America. Like stop, you know,

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Speaker 5: like you're doing great, Like you know, I didn't understand,

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Speaker 5: like what are you telling me about these two worlds?

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Speaker 5: We live in one great country and and you know,

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Speaker 5: we'd argue about it all the time. And I remember

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Speaker 5: the day that that meet got sentenced November six, twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 5: He called me from the Philadelphia job before they transferred

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Speaker 5: to a different Jennal and they said, he said, you see,

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Speaker 5: I told you this is what happens to the black

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Speaker 5: people on that oade, right, And I just like that,

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Speaker 5: you know, I said you were right, I was wrong,

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Speaker 5: and there is two worlds. And you know, for me,

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Speaker 5: November six, twenty seventeen was really a life change in moment,

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Speaker 5: because I would never have been able to understand who

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Speaker 5: really believe And I don't think anybody would be able

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Speaker 5: to believe how crazy a circumstance he was living in

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Speaker 5: because it didn't seem possible until you sat in the courtroom.

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Speaker 5: And even people that have come to later court hearings

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Speaker 5: of Judge Brinkley have said, I've heard everything about this,

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Speaker 5: but I didn't believe it until I actually saw it,

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Speaker 5: and it's so crazy. So for sure, I grew up

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Speaker 5: in a completely different environment. But Meek always told me

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Speaker 5: from the day I met him. I remember we were

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Speaker 5: at a NBA All Star game, and you know, within

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Speaker 5: a few minutes, you know, Meek realized I was involved

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Speaker 5: with the Philadelphia seventy six ers and was telling me

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Speaker 5: a little bit about his background. He told me that

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Speaker 5: he was charged for pointing a gun at multiple cops.

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Speaker 5: And he said to me, like, you know, I didn't

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Speaker 5: do that.

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Speaker 4: If I pointed, you know, a.

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Speaker 5: Gun at multiple cops, I'd be dead. Like I heard him,

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Speaker 5: but I didn't really comprehend it. And then like, if

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Speaker 5: I've told that story to five hundred people in the

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Speaker 5: last seven months, every person from law enforcement to politics,

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Speaker 5: to anyone who understands anything, they all say the same thing.

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Speaker 5: He's right, he'd be dead. No one would pull a

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Speaker 5: gun on multiple cops and not get shot. And Meek

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Speaker 5: can't obviously talk about the case, because the case is

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Speaker 5: still unfortunately going on, which is crazy in itself sense, right,

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Speaker 5: But I mean you're talking about a guy who was

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Speaker 5: wrongfully convicted when he was eighteen years old of a

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Speaker 5: crime that he didn't commit. It's been sent back to

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Speaker 5: jail multiple times, never committed a new crime, and he's

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Speaker 5: the perfect example of someone who's been stuck in a

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Speaker 5: completely broken criminal justice system for.

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Speaker 4: Criming to commit.

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Speaker 5: And it's now thirteen years later and it's still going on,

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Speaker 5: and that shows how broken the criminal justice system is.

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Speaker 1: It's incredible. You know, we have two point two million

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Speaker 1: people in prison in America and including jail.

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Speaker 4: Another four and a half million people on probation in parole.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the latest figure I heard was four

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Speaker 1: point eight, right, And once we accept those figures, you

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Speaker 1: also have to accept the fact that we now have,

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Speaker 1: between jail, prison, probation, and parole, we have more black

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Speaker 1: people with mostly men, under criminal justice supervision in America

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Speaker 1: than all the slaves at the height of slavery in

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Speaker 1: America in the eighteen fifties or sixties whatever that was.

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Speaker 1: What are we doing? Well, It's like Michelle Alexander says,

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Speaker 1: is the new Jim Crow.

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Speaker 5: What words can't explain is Meek is still on probation

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Speaker 5: for something that we've already said he didn't do, and

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Speaker 5: it's been going on for thirteen years from the original

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Speaker 5: wrongful conviction. But he can't, like you can't live that way.

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Speaker 5: Like I say, I joke with him, I feel like

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Speaker 5: I'm on probation because I'm worried about.

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Speaker 4: Just something going wrong with him.

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Speaker 5: If he decides to leave a state a day early

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Speaker 5: because something changed with the schedule, or he gets you know,

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Speaker 5: someone says, hey, I'm going to pay you to go

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Speaker 5: do this contract. I want to go, and I have

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Speaker 5: the proper days of permission, the judge will try to

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Speaker 5: violate him. I mean, it's the system is chasing him

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Speaker 5: and trying to violate and that's not what probation is

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Speaker 5: supposed to be about, rehabilitating somebody, not trying to catch

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Speaker 5: them and send that back to prison. And something that

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Speaker 5: someone told me recently, and you know, I've now become

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Speaker 5: too familiar with this, but seventy percent of people to

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Speaker 5: go back to jail once they've been in jail in

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Speaker 5: prison are going back for technical probation violations. Like to me,

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Speaker 5: virtually none of those people should be going.

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Speaker 4: You know, you had a.

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Speaker 5: Technical probation violation, right, he didn't commit a crime, You

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Speaker 5: were late for your probation officer. You you know, didn't

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Speaker 5: pay a certain amount of money. You know, you travel

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Speaker 5: out of the state. You know he went to his

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Speaker 5: son in New Jersey because he lives in Pennsylvania. And

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Speaker 5: you can be violated and sent back to jail.

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Speaker 4: This is lunacy.

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Speaker 1: This is absolute lunacy. And I want, I'm really glad

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Speaker 1: you brought that up, Michael, because I don't want to

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Speaker 1: get your take on this week because in a lot

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Speaker 1: of the reforms that are underway right now, there's this

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Speaker 1: hidden caveat or this hidden nightmare i'll call it, of

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Speaker 1: enhanced probation and other ways of the government keeping people

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Speaker 1: under control. So to me, a true crime reform bill

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Speaker 1: should eliminate those problems. And you obviously can speak firsthand

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Speaker 1: about just how restrictive that is, and Michael has said

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Speaker 1: very eloquently, when you have seventy percent of people going

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Speaker 1: back to jail or prison because they have some technical violation,

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Speaker 1: that's insane. Right. Can you talk about that? Because I'm

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Speaker 1: very concerned that they're sneaking these devils into the details

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Speaker 1: in these new crime bills that are going to allow

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Speaker 1: them to maintain this control. There's no other way to

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Speaker 1: look at it. Over millions of people's lives, and there's

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Speaker 1: a profit center in that for a lot of people too.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, is more saying to me, I take it as

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Speaker 3: deep as like he said, I could go see my

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Speaker 3: son in New Jersey and actually be locked in a

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Speaker 3: cage and be locked and changed shackle from like angle

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Speaker 3: to feet.

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Speaker 1: For the crime of going from Pennsylvania to New.

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Speaker 3: Jersey to see your son.

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Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. I'm being facetious. Yeah, for the

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Speaker 1: crime in quotes.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll tell you this right now.

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Speaker 5: Judge Brinkley is dying to do that too. She's trying

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Speaker 5: to right now today, I promise you. She's sitting in

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Speaker 5: her house obsessed about how she can figure out how

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Speaker 5: to put them back in jail for nothing. And he

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Speaker 5: can't talk about that, but I can't. I'm telling you

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Speaker 5: straight up, that's what's going on.

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Speaker 1: It's it's really bizarre. I mean, as a country, why

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Speaker 1: would we want I mean, these are our tax dollars, right,

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Speaker 1: and it hurts the average taxpayer, even if you're somebody

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Speaker 1: who's not particularly concerned about criminal justice reform, or you

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Speaker 1: think a lot of people or you maybe you think

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Speaker 1: you're tough on crime or whatever. It might be. The

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Speaker 1: money that's being spent to lock people like you meek

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Speaker 1: up right and to keep you under supervision and this

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Speaker 1: bloated and draconian system is pure insanity. I mean that

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Speaker 1: money could be spent. I mean, I know that at

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Speaker 1: one time eight bonaire, eight billionaire at one time. I

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Speaker 1: don't even know if it's still true. But a few

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Speaker 1: years ago I checked in California, which a lot of

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Speaker 1: people think was in a progressive state, was spending more

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Speaker 1: money locking people up than they were educating people. We

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Speaker 1: have fact check that, but it's absolutely staggering. And the

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Speaker 1: crazy thing is these are Americans. There are fellow people,

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Speaker 1: you know, I say the politicians when I talk to him, Like,

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Speaker 1: you know, if another country treated our people the way

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Speaker 1: we treat our people, we'd invade this stuff.

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Speaker 3: We wouldn't even do to our pets, you know what

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Speaker 3: I'm saying, Like you wouldn't lock your pet in the

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Speaker 3: metal cell. For Sometimes we get locked in and I

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Speaker 3: say we because I've been through this experience so many times,

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Speaker 3: and like sometimes we get locked in a room for

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Speaker 3: twenty three hours a day for a month or two weeks,

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Speaker 3: some people actually even years. You know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 3: It's like they say, when you come home, it's a

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Speaker 3: violation to be around felons. How is it a violation

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Speaker 3: to be around felons when you just had me locked

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Speaker 3: up amongst thousands of felons? Like what rule is this?

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up too, because that's another

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Speaker 1: thing that creates this visious story.

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Speaker 5: Ex's by the way you think about it. In the

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Speaker 5: environment you grew up, what percentages of people that.

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Speaker 4: Live on your block have had a felony?

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Speaker 3: Ninety five percent?

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Speaker 4: Right, So what you're saying is essential family.

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Speaker 5: Anyone can put you back in prison because there's a

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Speaker 5: rule that says you can't be around felons, but everyone

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Speaker 5: you grew up with has a felony.

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Speaker 3: If somebody really made that an issue, I would probably

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Speaker 3: go to jail any day. Because if I go to

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Speaker 3: the studio with a rapper and we make a song,

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Speaker 3: I don't know his record, but.

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Speaker 1: Right you don't know, how would you know? You have

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Speaker 1: to have a like a database that we do at

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Speaker 1: all times. Most people can't afford that. I mean, you're

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Speaker 1: not going to do it. In the fact is, I'm just

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Speaker 1: quoting a statistic here. One in four black children born

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety had an imprisoned father by the time

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Speaker 1: he or she turned fourteen. Yeah, right, And the numbers

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Speaker 1: just get worse and worse. I mean, thirty percent of

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Speaker 1: black man without college educations today will have been to

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Speaker 1: prison by their men thirties and spent up to a

364
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Speaker 1: year in prison thirty percent. Yeah, I mean that's without

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Speaker 1: college educations. And the numbers go to sixty percent when

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Speaker 1: you look at black males without high school educations. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: sixty percent of black males out a high school education

368
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Speaker 1: was better a year in prison or jail before their

369
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Speaker 1: thirtieth birthday? What are we doing? And the fact is

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Speaker 1: it's actually impossible to succeed, which is why I'm always

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Speaker 1: amazed when somebody does come from the background that you

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Speaker 1: came from and make it, because with that cycle, how

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Speaker 1: do you do it? They've created a minefield that you

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Speaker 1: can't walk through. Right, once you get arrested, You're going

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Speaker 1: to get re arrested no matter what you do. Pretty much, Yeah.

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Speaker 3: One hundred percent, and like me and Mike, we just

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Speaker 3: spend the hour, Mike just teaching me about financial stuff

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Speaker 3: and like texts and things that. Like when we're growing

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Speaker 3: up from like age thirteen to twenty years old, we

380
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Speaker 3: probably invest ninety five percent of our thinking time in

381
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Speaker 3: the how to so in these type of conditions because

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Speaker 3: it's like almost impossible to survive. So like you got

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Speaker 3: to put like your awe into how this even my

384
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Speaker 3: mind frame now, I still like even though I travel

385
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Speaker 3: the world, it's still installed in my mind. It's still

386
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Speaker 3: like something that is like I might come into a

387
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Speaker 3: certain situation in a certain area and I go into

388
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Speaker 3: survival move and I have to double back, and like

389
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Speaker 3: this is not even that type of environment. Well, I

390
00:19:23,680 --> 00:19:25,600
Speaker 3: don't live this type of life anymore, but it's just

391
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Speaker 3: always installed inside my head, you know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 3: And coming from environments like that, like you said sixty

393
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Speaker 3: percent where I come from, it feels like it's ninety.

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Speaker 3: Like do that count death death is going to they

395
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Speaker 3: probably go up to probably ninety five percent young black

396
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Speaker 3: men being murdered going to prison probably sixty plus another

397
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Speaker 3: thirty five percent.

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Speaker 4: Mick, I've heard you talk about this.

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Speaker 5: You know, how many people do you know that you

400
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Speaker 5: were close with it, you had a real relationship with

401
00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:55,480
Speaker 5: that have been murdered.

402
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Speaker 3: Twenty twenty five. That's how many?

403
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Speaker 1: I know?

404
00:19:58,520 --> 00:19:58,840
Speaker 3: How many?

405
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Speaker 4: Zero?

406
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Speaker 1: You know?

407
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Speaker 5: You know how many I know that's been close zero? Right,

408
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:05,920
Speaker 5: So you're talking about yeah, different environments, So.

409
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's crazy.

410
00:20:06,600 --> 00:20:07,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great.

411
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Speaker 1: We have two Shepherd systems of justice in America, one

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Speaker 1: for people with money and one for people without, and

413
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Speaker 1: one for people who are of color and one for

414
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Speaker 1: people who are not. And when you hit the reverse

415
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Speaker 1: jackpot of being a person of color without being born

416
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Speaker 1: into a wealthy family, which is a huge majority, you.

417
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Speaker 3: Don't even have to come from a wealthy family to

418
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Speaker 3: like not be around somebody that was murdered. It's really

419
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Speaker 3: like territorial, Like I got one of my songs where

420
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Speaker 3: I'm talking about like like we've been put in groups

421
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Speaker 3: in certain areas, even with public house and public house,

422
00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:39,440
Speaker 3: and it's really across Philadelphia. So if you grow grow

423
00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:42,679
Speaker 3: up less fortunate, they're sticking people in certain areas if

424
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Speaker 3: you pay attention to it, Like it's North Philadelphia, but

425
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Speaker 3: not the whole North Philadelphia is a certain part in's

426
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Speaker 3: South Philadelphia. It's a rich part of South Philadelphia where

427
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Speaker 3: like houses cost a million dollars and then you got

428
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Speaker 3: some houses that cost forty thousand. They only moving us

429
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Speaker 3: in certain areas. And I always say this, like, if

430
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Speaker 3: you take a drone, the main line in Philadelphia is

431
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Speaker 3: like city Line Avenue where my apartments used to be.

432
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Speaker 3: At City Line Avenue. You take a drone and then

433
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Speaker 3: you make the drone go high in the sky, and

434
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Speaker 3: if the drone had a zoom in ker zoom on

435
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Speaker 3: this side of the left and right, you will see

436
00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:18,640
Speaker 3: as quiet his peace here and this chaos going here.

437
00:21:18,680 --> 00:21:20,639
Speaker 3: And if you take a kid from over here and

438
00:21:20,720 --> 00:21:24,480
Speaker 3: let him spend three summers in this area, it will

439
00:21:24,560 --> 00:21:27,480
Speaker 3: be less. He won't be the way chaos says. He

440
00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:30,040
Speaker 3: would turn to be more leaning like these people in

441
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 3: this area. And I witnessed that with my family. I

442
00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:35,080
Speaker 3: used to have a nephew. He lived in the projects.

443
00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:37,919
Speaker 3: He used to cuss, He's seen a lot of things.

444
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:40,359
Speaker 3: He used to act up in school, and you know,

445
00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:42,800
Speaker 3: he moved to a suburban area and his whole life

446
00:21:42,920 --> 00:21:45,399
Speaker 3: changed within two years. It was just that simple.

447
00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:57,840
Speaker 1: For a long time, I've been pondering thinking about obsessed

448
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:02,720
Speaker 1: with the idea of with the grim statistics and scenario

449
00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:05,119
Speaker 1: that we're painting here, and you're exactly the guy. I

450
00:22:05,119 --> 00:22:08,160
Speaker 1: want to ask this question, how many people as talented

451
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:11,399
Speaker 1: as you are either got shot or got locked up

452
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:16,160
Speaker 1: in prison, and society as a result is being deprived

453
00:22:16,359 --> 00:22:19,400
Speaker 1: of those talents and all the revenue and all the

454
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:21,640
Speaker 1: culture that would have come from that. How many jay

455
00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:24,240
Speaker 1: zs are there that didn't make it out and ended

456
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:25,080
Speaker 1: up in prison doing the.

457
00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:27,280
Speaker 3: Back of the life thousands, you know what I'm saying.

458
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:29,920
Speaker 3: I know there's guys in there and locked with as

459
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:31,719
Speaker 3: talented as me, you know what I'm saying, And they

460
00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:36,040
Speaker 3: probably there for felonies on felonies. And when you say,

461
00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 3: like when people label you as a felon, like how

462
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:40,360
Speaker 3: it's that my friend called a felony he was fifteen

463
00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:42,639
Speaker 3: for something he ain't do now actually when he do

464
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:45,719
Speaker 3: make a mistake, when he do go hang on the corner.

465
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:49,080
Speaker 3: When we come up on the corner around drug doos.

466
00:22:49,119 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 3: Everybody sell drugs. Your first step is to pick up

467
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:56,240
Speaker 3: a drug. So when you get your second felony, you

468
00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 3: might be actually good at basketball. You might have been

469
00:22:58,920 --> 00:23:01,240
Speaker 3: in eleventh grade actually one of the best players on

470
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 3: the team. And here come you in a bad neighborhood.

471
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:09,320
Speaker 3: You get arrested for something else, and we don't have

472
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:11,119
Speaker 3: a lowyer money. You might take a deal, and the

473
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:13,440
Speaker 3: deal is put this fundingly on your record. Now you

474
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 3: got three fuling these on your record, and you're not

475
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,040
Speaker 3: They might call you a career criminal. You're not a

476
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:21,400
Speaker 3: career criminal. You just was in the wrong mix. Basically,

477
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:25,280
Speaker 3: Now you might get fifteen years for something small. You

478
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:27,400
Speaker 3: see how he told you that the guy got fifteen

479
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:31,240
Speaker 3: Well he had two life sentence for stealing. Now your record,

480
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:33,200
Speaker 3: your jacket is up, you get fifteen years. So now

481
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:36,399
Speaker 3: you trapped inside a prison while you never get a

482
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:38,640
Speaker 3: real shot at life. And you might be good as

483
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 3: Ben Simmons or Joe and Beebe and you know all

484
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 3: that went down to dream But far as Rapp is hundreds.

485
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:48,439
Speaker 3: So it was probably at least fifty guys that was

486
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,440
Speaker 3: actually good where I was at, where I was locked

487
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 3: up at, where if they was on the street, we

488
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 3: would spend time in the studio and build together and

489
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 3: make music together. Fifty I would say, in that one

490
00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:57,919
Speaker 3: prison that I know of.

491
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 1: Recently, hip hop recently passed and roll and rock and

492
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 1: pop as the most popular genre worldwide. Right, and it

493
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:07,400
Speaker 1: all comes from almost all of it comes from America. Right. Yeah,

494
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:10,600
Speaker 1: So when we're exporting that, we're bringing tax revenue into

495
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 1: this country. When guys like you are making records, selling

496
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:16,040
Speaker 1: millions of records, selling concert tickets, you're paying taxes. All

497
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:19,200
Speaker 1: that stuff goes back into the system. Everybody is being

498
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 1: hurt by that, and society is being deprived of geniuses.

499
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: As you said, basketball is another story, right, And when

500
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 1: you talk about a scenario like that, you have a

501
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,399
Speaker 1: kid as good as whoever you want to talk about,

502
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: Simmons or whatever. They get arrested like that, the college

503
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,400
Speaker 1: scholarship's going out the windows. They can't play college ball

504
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 1: now their whole thing. And let's say that guy was

505
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 1: going to make one hundred million dollars, not unrealistic. We

506
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:43,120
Speaker 1: have the owner the seventy six ers year, right, you're

507
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: the what right those checks?

508
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:46,119
Speaker 5: We look forward to writing many checks for one hundred

509
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 5: million dollars because that we have that many great players.

510
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: And let me ask you, do those players pay taxes

511
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:51,920
Speaker 1: on those checks? Of course, of course they do, right,

512
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 1: huge amounts of money back into the city. Coming back

513
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 1: to the state, coming back into the country, because those

514
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:00,119
Speaker 1: people were the few lucky ones that managed to escape

515
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 1: from this, you know, sort of trap that society has built.

516
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 4: But by way even more than money.

517
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 5: If you look at the math and you say there's

518
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:09,199
Speaker 5: six point seven or six point nine million people today

519
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 5: in America trapped in the criminal justice system, the question

520
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:14,439
Speaker 5: is what's appropriate. Like if we just all said, if

521
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 5: you got anyone together and said, what do you think

522
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:18,919
Speaker 5: someone should be in prison for? What should someone be

523
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 5: on probation for? If you said, hey, that person got

524
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 5: caught smoking weed, should any of those people be in prison?

525
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:29,439
Speaker 5: If someone stole one hundred dollars as a fifteen year

526
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 5: old kid, should they be stuck in prison? And the

527
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:33,639
Speaker 5: amount of story Like I think if you looked at

528
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:35,400
Speaker 5: the math and just said, let's just take this top

529
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:39,199
Speaker 5: down to six point nine million people in the criminal

530
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 5: justice system, I think you could say if we just

531
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 5: all said what should people be in the system for,

532
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 5: and not being the system, we just took a bunch

533
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 5: of rational people, the number is probably half And so

534
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:53,320
Speaker 5: to me, what's such a travesty is you've got millions

535
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 5: of people stuck in the criminal justice system that don't

536
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 5: belong there, and by the way, you're ruining their lives,

537
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,640
Speaker 5: their families, lives, their friends' lives. By the way, there's

538
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:04,400
Speaker 5: a lot of people that belong in prison. We want

539
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:06,239
Speaker 5: to live in a safe world. We want to have

540
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:10,240
Speaker 5: you know, violent offenders, people that murder people, or rapists.

541
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:10,880
Speaker 4: You know, armed robbers.

542
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 5: There are a lot of people that belong in prison,

543
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 5: and I want those people in prison. But the problem

544
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 5: is there's millions of people that shouldn't be in the

545
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 5: criminal justice system that are and that's the problem that

546
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 5: needs to be addressed. And that's what I know. Meek

547
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 5: is really excited to help make an impact on. I'm

548
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 5: excited to help make an impact on I think this

549
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 5: is an enormous problem that's costing tens of billions of

550
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 5: dollars and is ruined millions of people's lives.

551
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:36,199
Speaker 1: So so, yeah, and Michael, picking up on what you

552
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: were saying, thirty thirty five years ago, we had three

553
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people in prison in America. Right now it's

554
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 1: two point two million, and I'm sure the numbers on

555
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:47,680
Speaker 1: probation and parole were proportionately about, you know, seven times

556
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:49,360
Speaker 1: less like this one is too. And then you look

557
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:51,479
Speaker 1: at the country like Japan, right, well, we locked If

558
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:54,360
Speaker 1: you look at Western Europe, we lock people up at

559
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 1: five to nine times depending which country you choose. The

560
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: rate of the rest of the countries in Western Europe

561
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: below US is five times as many per capita. Right,

562
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:03,800
Speaker 1: And then when you look at we have more people

563
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 1: in prison just for drugs in America than everyone in

564
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 1: prison of all of Western Europe for everything in Western

565
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: Europe is much more. There many more people in Western

566
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: Europe than we're in America. And then you get to Japan.

567
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 1: In Japan they have approximately seventy thousand people in prison.

568
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: We probably have seventy thousand people in prison in a

569
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: mid sized state. Yeah, maybe even a smaller state than

570
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 1: this one, right, yeah, because I mean do the math.

571
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 1: So they we lock people up at fourteen times the

572
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,920
Speaker 1: rate per capita that Japan does. And for anybody listening, going, yeah,

573
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: but that's why we have a lower crime rate than

574
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,440
Speaker 1: they do. No, we don't. Our crime rates are the same,

575
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,640
Speaker 1: and there's no evidence that supports. In fact, I think

576
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 1: every social scientist that has studied this would agree that

577
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: this system is the worst system in terms of crime

578
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: and perpetuating the cycle because of the fact that when

579
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 1: people go to jail or prison, as we talked about

580
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: growing up in the situation they are, they come out,

581
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 1: they're unemployable to I'll understanding. That's something I talk about

582
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: on the show a lot, like people that are out

583
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,440
Speaker 1: out there that are employers take a shot with somebody

584
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,640
Speaker 1: who was system affected, because those people will work harder

585
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: and better. You know, there's a bakery in New York

586
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,360
Speaker 1: I just found out about. I saw Ted talk about

587
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: this that hires anybody who walks in system affected. They

588
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 1: don't even ask, yeah, and they're hugely successful. They make

589
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 1: all the brownies for Ben and Jerry's ice cream, right

590
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:21,439
Speaker 1: they sell a zillion can imagine me brownie's.

591
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 4: I want to move to a lot of them right

592
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:24,880
Speaker 4: now because we have a little weight loss back on,

593
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 4: so we can get this brown delivered to.

594
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 1: Him right now. If you're looking a little slimmer the last.

595
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 4: Time, yeah, yeah, neither is heavier.

596
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 1: Though, no, but it's you know, that's something that we

597
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: really need to as a society start to be much

598
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: more progressive on and more empathetic. I mean, I don't

599
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: want to sound like some like touchy feely person here,

600
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: and I'm with you, Michael.

601
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 5: I believe that that's an easier problem to solve because

602
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 5: I've actually been thinking, Look, we employ eight thousand people

603
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 5: between my companies, and you know, I think if you

604
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 5: got a bunch of business leaders to focus on taking

605
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 5: big companies and saying what areas in their company could

606
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 5: start to take people right out of prison to help

607
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 5: rehabilitate them. I think there are actually easy ways to

608
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 5: make real progress acainslight. I'm actually optimistic with a little

609
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 5: bit of focus and energy that real impact can be made.

610
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 5: There a lot of those cases. You have better employees,

611
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 5: as you just indicated as well, so we have, you know,

612
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 5: thousands of people that manufacture a power, working fulfillment centers,

613
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 5: working call centers. My point is there's you know, big

614
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 5: opportunities to hire people. And I think that again, if

615
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 5: you look at how many people work in America and

616
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 5: then how many people coming out of prison or jail

617
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 5: each year. If there's two point two million people in

618
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 5: prison in jail, maybe I don't know, five hundred thousand

619
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 5: people come.

620
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 4: Out a year.

621
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 5: I don't think it takes a lot to get a

622
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 5: set of big companies to focus on helping solve this.

623
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 3: Problem well, and especially with long time offenders. Like a

624
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 3: long time offenders, like people who serve over ten years,

625
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 3: they spend most of their jail time working. In fact,

626
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,719
Speaker 3: the result working for the prison that their mind, they

627
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 3: have experienced, their mind is structured to just work all day.

628
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 3: And member rival was telling us he had a program

629
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 3: hired like a lot of ex offenders, and he asked me, like,

630
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 3: how many of them messed up? Was you in that conversation?

631
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 3: He asked me, said how many you think messed up?

632
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 3: Out of two hundred, I'm probably like, I said one

633
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 3: ninety eight because I knew the number would be high,

634
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 3: because I know of long time offenders, people that come

635
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 3: home doing a lot of time. They don't they don't

636
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 3: really want to mess up again. He told me nothing

637
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:20,240
Speaker 3: out of.

638
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: Two hundred, none. Yeah, and that's amazing.

639
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 4: I was only two of I think this was twenty

640
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 4: or thirty years ago.

641
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 5: Robert Kraft had a real focus on taking people that

642
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 5: had come out of prison at hiring them.

643
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 4: And the point to your point was they were his

644
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 4: best employees.

645
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:34,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's best employees. And it's interesting too. I mean,

646
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: call it luck, call it whatever you want. I've got.

647
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: I've been very fortunate, blessed whatever to be able to

648
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 1: help advocate successfully for clemency for dozens of people deserving

649
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: people over the years, not just people who are innocent,

650
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: but people who were primarily who are sentenced to mandatory sentences,

651
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: crazy mandatory sentences like Lenny Singleton, who you referenced earlier,

652
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: or Travian Blount who was senced just at fifteen years

653
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: old since the six life terms for a robbery in

654
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 1: which no one was hurt. Fifteen years old, six life terms.

655
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: It made international news like what, what in the world

656
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 1: even is that? Like, that's it's got to be what

657
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: it is.

658
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:14,720
Speaker 3: That should be a crown that sentce of minds today

659
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 3: Like why that's.

660
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 5: And and to me, that's the that should be the

661
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 5: easy things to get everyone aligned on and fix. And

662
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 5: by the way, take talk about the state that meek

663
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 5: us from, that I'm from. In Pennsylvania, we're one of

664
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 5: three states in America that has no cap on probation.

665
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 5: So another forty seven states have caps of probation summer.

666
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 4: Three years, two years, four years, we have no cap

667
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 4: in Pennsylvania.

668
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, so someone like me who I didn't know that was.

669
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 5: Separate that he was wrongfully convicted thirteen years ago appointing

670
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 5: a gun that didn't point a gun and a cop

671
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 5: by the way, where multiple police officers come forward and

672
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 5: said it was a lie. So we have Affid davits

673
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 5: from a police officer came for in and said no,

674
00:31:57,080 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 5: I was one of the two resting officers.

675
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 4: I know he didn't point the gun.

676
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 5: Okay, Now after that, you've still got as system that's

677
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 5: just completely broken in Pennsylvania. He gets sentenced to probation,

678
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 5: and then he does a concert in a different state

679
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 5: without the proper authorization and attack on another five years

680
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 5: of probation. And now he's got he's still six years

681
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 5: of probation left, right, So he's got no chance to

682
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 5: actually succeed in that situation.

683
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 4: And I can tell you if you put me, the

684
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 4: Jewish kid from.

685
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:35,239
Speaker 5: Suburban Philadelphia on probation, I couldn't make a year with

686
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 5: what he needs to go through.

687
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 1: There's not possible.

688
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 3: In the primetime fuck up years of my life from

689
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 3: eighteen to thirty one, you.

690
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: Know, of all the people that I've been involved with

691
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 1: and helped get out of prison, none of them have

692
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 1: reoffended or offended for the first time. If they were innocent,

693
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 1: it's probably a better way of saying it. And again, none.

694
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,479
Speaker 5: But hold on, some will and that's okay because you

695
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 5: know what, at the end of the day, we need

696
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 5: to make the world a better place. And if we

697
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 5: get millions of people out of the criminal justice system,

698
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 5: and if you make mistakes, that's okay because there's a

699
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 5: lot of people that aren't in the criminal justice system

700
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 5: that will also make mistakes.

701
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 4: This is never going to be perfect.

702
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 5: And that's someone says, hey, we should keep that six

703
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 5: point seven or six point nine million people stuck in

704
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 5: the criminal justice system the few million that shouldn't be

705
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 5: there because someone may make a mistake. Nothing's perfect, like

706
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 5: we need we need to get it right overall. And

707
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 5: that's the same approach I take in business. We want

708
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 5: to make good overall decisions. We don't go for perfection.

709
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 5: We went for perfection, we never get anything done, of

710
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 5: course not.

711
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: And as I said, I've been lucky in that sense.

712
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: And of the people of the interest is project. Of

713
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: the people that we've gotten out, a tiny percentage of

714
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 1: them have ever been in any sort of trouble. Again,

715
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 1: people age truck and.

716
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 3: We were talking about real trouble, probably zero pens and

717
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 3: got back in real travel.

718
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: A couple of other very important topics I want to

719
00:33:56,600 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: talk touch on with you, Meek and Michael is prisons

720
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: themselves and how barbaric our prison system is when it's

721
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: supposed to be called a correctional institution and we know

722
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:11,960
Speaker 1: that that is the farthest thing from the truth in

723
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 1: most cases. And the other is how important it is

724
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 1: for people to get out and vote yeah, because I

725
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 1: don't think we can have this conversation without talking about that.

726
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: And some people I've heard somebody say we don't need

727
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,839
Speaker 1: criminal justice before, we need a criminal justice revolution. So

728
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:28,359
Speaker 1: which one do you want to take on first?

729
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 3: So we could talk voting it. This coming from my

730
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:33,759
Speaker 3: coach on where we come from. This goes for us

731
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 3: back when I say, like the other side of America

732
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,319
Speaker 3: where people don't even believe like that world tends to us.

733
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,760
Speaker 3: And I used to think that, but that was deeply false.

734
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 3: And one of my jobs is trying to teach people

735
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 3: the ropes of how volten go because it's even with

736
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 3: a judge trying to lock me up for what nothing,

737
00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 3: going over a bridge. Basically, we voted for her district

738
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 3: attorneys where they enforce mandatory minimums and they enforced locking

739
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 3: people up for smoking marijuana and things like that. We

740
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:08,640
Speaker 3: vote for them. We have to be the ones that vote.

741
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 3: In our culture, the black community, a lot of us

742
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:11,719
Speaker 3: don't vote.

743
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 1: So it's like white community too.

744
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:16,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I don't really know. I know that

745
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 3: in our community we don't vote at all. I don't

746
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 3: even know anybody my age. At the age of eighteen,

747
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 3: we ever got up as a group and everybody wanted

748
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 3: to vote. It was like never a thing. We didn't

749
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:27,440
Speaker 3: believe in it. So my new thing is to teach

750
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 3: the younger people from our culture that come up, well

751
00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 3: all younger people that come up, that voting is important

752
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 3: because you know, we have to live under these laws

753
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 3: that these people are creating, and if we don't vote,

754
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 3: we don't have a voice at all. It's like you

755
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 3: don't even count. And a lot of times you look

756
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:44,839
Speaker 3: at TV. They had a campaign that said vote or die.

757
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 3: I always seen it, but I never really knew what

758
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:49,839
Speaker 3: it meant. It was that probably was like eighteen years

759
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 3: old when they did that campaign. I never really understood it,

760
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 3: But nowadays I understood. It's like you eve a vote,

761
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 3: or you get housed done at a regime which will

762
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,440
Speaker 3: eventually league kill you, if not by jail, not by

763
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 3: keeping you in a ruthless environment, it will turn out

764
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 3: bad for you, basically. And I just believe that if

765
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 3: we vote, if we make our present on like justice reform,

766
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:18,320
Speaker 3: just reform right now is the number one topic in America.

767
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 3: Probably if we make this topic big enough politically, a

768
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 3: lot of people would have to lean towards being leaning

769
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 3: on these topics.

770
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 5: And I want you as leaning, I'd say appropriate, Yeah, yeah,

771
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:31,239
Speaker 5: I'd say I'd say punishment that fits the crime, because

772
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:32,280
Speaker 5: by the way, I'm not leaning.

773
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:34,279
Speaker 4: I want appropriate punishment.

774
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 3: And that was right, That was that was definitely right.

775
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:38,320
Speaker 1: You know, I've been on the board of Families Against

776
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 1: Mandatory Minimums, was a great organization for over twenty five

777
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 1: years now, and our motto is let the punishment fit

778
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: the crime.

779
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:44,399
Speaker 4: Yeah.

780
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody's advocating for chaos. Nobody wants a society

781
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: that is like, you know.

782
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 4: I want to feel I want to feel safe.

783
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:52,319
Speaker 1: Everybody does.

784
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 4: I want my daughter to be safe. I want your

785
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 4: family to be safe, but.

786
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 1: I want his kids to be saved too.

787
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 3: Some situations, though, that the crimes are bousou high up

788
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 3: is like, what is lenient?

789
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 4: But I'll make something really simple.

790
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 5: I would just say, how many people are in prison

791
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 5: in jail today are on probation because they have a

792
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 5: drug problem.

793
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:10,400
Speaker 4: It's more than a million.

794
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm not talking about selling drugs. I'm

795
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 5: going about anyone who smoked weed. How could you possibly

796
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 5: weed just becoming legal everywhere? How could you possibly put

797
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 5: someone in the criminal trust system for doing something that's

798
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:24,800
Speaker 5: becoming legal? It makes absolutely no sense. Someone had a

799
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 5: problem with perkoson, why do you send them in jail?

800
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 4: Send them to rehab? Makes no sense.

801
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:30,920
Speaker 5: So to me, that's where the punishment needs to fit

802
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:32,719
Speaker 5: the crime. I al would take everybody who has a

803
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 5: drug problem. Yeah, I would get them help, so get

804
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 5: they solve the drug problem.

805
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 3: But it's like as deep as this, Like if I

806
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 3: sell drugs and the cops come to my house and

807
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:43,600
Speaker 3: I'm not there, my mom get found guilty for these

808
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 3: drugs in my house. People moms are getting thirty years

809
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 3: in prison in federal prison for stuff like that. Like

810
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 3: your mom got thirty years in prison. That's a life sentence,

811
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 3: that's death.

812
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:53,799
Speaker 4: That's death.

813
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's deaf like you. I don't want to send

814
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 3: you to prison, even though she might preach to you

815
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 3: every day that you're selling drug. You're getting out of

816
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 3: my house and she knows wrong. But you have a son.

817
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:06,320
Speaker 1: If you're in a car with someone who's got drugs

818
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:08,280
Speaker 1: and you get pulled over and they find the drugs,

819
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 1: it belongs to everybody unless somebody takes responsibility for it,

820
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 1: and nobody ever does. Nobody ever goes, oh yeah, those

821
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:16,759
Speaker 1: are mine, right. So this is how crazy the system is,

822
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:18,919
Speaker 1: where you could just be next to someone who's doing

823
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: something wrong and then.

824
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 3: I'm not even talking about full innocis. I'm just talking about, like, say,

825
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:25,440
Speaker 3: if you come from where I come from, like your

826
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 3: mom on a crack, she's a strung out feeding you

827
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 3: thirteen years old. You got a seven year old sister,

828
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:34,240
Speaker 3: and you coming in the house, it's just baking, soda

829
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 3: and butter and refrigerator. And when you go out look

830
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 3: out the window, it's people on the corner selling weed, marijuana, crack, cocaine,

831
00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 3: and they running in fast cash, and your little sister

832
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:45,840
Speaker 3: don't got none to eat. The first thing you're gonna

833
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 3: do is go outside and pick up like this is

834
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 3: like normal. Like Mike, if you was in a situation,

835
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 3: I bet a million dollars on it that you would

836
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 3: go outside and pick out of a drug. If Collie

837
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 3: was in the house.

838
00:38:57,560 --> 00:38:59,880
Speaker 4: You fourteen heart, have made work for me to do.

839
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.

840
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 4: I'm talking about stuff.

841
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 3: No, I'm talking about if you don't have any of

842
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 3: this going on, and you're poor, like you don't have

843
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:08,360
Speaker 3: any family in the house, and you come see Kylie

844
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 3: and there I do.

845
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 4: But that's also where should that person have no punishment? No,

846
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 4: should they.

847
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 5: Be set to jail for thirty years? It's much ridiculous

848
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 5: thing I've ever heard, and that's why I said to me.

849
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:20,720
Speaker 3: But even if you bring it down to ten years,

850
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 3: ten years will ruin your life. So like what they

851
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 3: got is leaning, is not even leaning, Like it's the

852
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:28,359
Speaker 3: rates of boos step so high, like what they call

853
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 3: like I watch media and social send them to prison.

854
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 3: Like even when people be like he should have went

855
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 3: to prison, he broke probation. Even if I did break probation.

856
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 3: If I did commit a crime ten years ago and

857
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:44,360
Speaker 3: I broke probation, people are like send them back to prison.

858
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:46,879
Speaker 3: I'm like, do you know what prison is like. When

859
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 3: I say shackled up in a cage, I mean like

860
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:51,720
Speaker 3: shack of real change. When you take a baby step

861
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 3: is cutting your legs and like the same thing you

862
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 3: see in a slavery movie. It's the same thing. And

863
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 3: I'm like, do people really understand what they're saying, like

864
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:01,879
Speaker 3: send them to prison? Like Mike came to myself. Mike

865
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 3: was like, he was like, it's not bad as it

866
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:04,879
Speaker 3: could be in my head.

867
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh, but that's because I'm an optimistic person

868
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 5: and I always want to look at things positively.

869
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:12,319
Speaker 3: And it's ten degrees. I don't have a tallest seat.

870
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 3: The water that I'm coming out of my sink is

871
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 3: the same water connected to the tall is filthy. Like

872
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 3: it's like there's ten mices in my cell at night

873
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 3: running around you like is you can't even imagine it?

874
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I'm here. I didn't hurt anybody. I

875
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 3: didn't kill anybody. I didn't by the.

876
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 5: Way they think, it bothers me so much, the amount

877
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:34,239
Speaker 5: of people I've told about your story and everyone it's

878
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:37,400
Speaker 5: now proven that you were wrongfully convicted because we have

879
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:40,240
Speaker 5: a cop who is one of the two restaurant officersho

880
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 5: signed app davit saying no, you didn't point the gun,

881
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:45,280
Speaker 5: which what you were charged for. Yet and your probation

882
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 5: violations where you popped a wheelie on a motorcycle, you

883
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,799
Speaker 5: broke up a fight in an airport, Yet there are

884
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 5: people say, yeah, put them back in jail for ten years,

885
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 5: which is it shows how backwards so many people are

886
00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 5: in this country as well.

887
00:40:57,680 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 3: There when you speak in jail, that is like it's

888
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 3: just like a place, a hotel where you go to

889
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 3: sit at. Nah, it's some shit that will ruin your

890
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 3: whole train of thought, like you were in here, Like

891
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 3: the matches sleeping on is probably four inches thick, and

892
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,400
Speaker 3: after that it is metal and cement. Like you got

893
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 3: these guys eighty years old sleeping on mattresses and stuff

894
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 3: like they didn't kill anybody. They may have been on

895
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 3: probation and they fell in the after felling in. You

896
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 3: eighty years old, you you poor. You've been in the

897
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:29,320
Speaker 3: system so long it's hard to explain. You have to

898
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 3: see it and be there. Like even what they do

899
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 3: with juveniles, they got juveniles locked in cages. These are

900
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,960
Speaker 3: cement cages that they had these kids and most of

901
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,240
Speaker 3: these kids didn't kill you anybody.

902
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 4: Now tell you something. I was so proud of you.

903
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 4: But it's a scary story.

904
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 5: So the day that I brought Robert Kraft to visit

905
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 5: make in prison, we were sitting there and we were

906
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 5: just kind of talking, and I was really just kind

907
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 5: of listening to Robert Meek talking. Robert looked at me

908
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 5: and he said, you know, I don't understand how how

909
00:41:58,239 --> 00:41:58,840
Speaker 5: you're handling this.

910
00:41:58,880 --> 00:41:59,959
Speaker 4: So how are you so happy?

911
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 5: He said, Like, last time I was with you, we

912
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 5: were on a plane flying to an All Star game

913
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 5: and you were on the top of the world. Now

914
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 5: you're in an orange jumpsuit, locked in prison. You've got

915
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:14,879
Speaker 5: to smile from me. You ear to ear and Mick,

916
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 5: he's generally pretty quick with his answer. You thought about

917
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 5: it for about thirty seconds, and he looked at Robbery.

918
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:23,240
Speaker 5: He said, you know, this has been my entire adult life.

919
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 5: I was wrongfully convicted for a crime and commit I've

920
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 5: been sent back to prison multiple times, never committed a

921
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 5: new crime. But this is the first time people actually

922
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 5: fighting for me, and that makes me so happy. So

923
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 5: for me, I was mortified at the situation, but completely

924
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,760
Speaker 5: proud of how well he was handling that horrific situation.

925
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the best situation I've ever been there

926
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 3: as far as dealing with the system. We're having like

927
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:49,319
Speaker 3: real credible people standing behind me because, like Mike said,

928
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 3: I'm telling him, like, Yo, if y'all had guns in here,

929
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 3: y'are not even police officers. If I came in here

930
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 3: all y'all had firearms and I came in here a

931
00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:58,919
Speaker 3: point a gun nine times out of ten, where would

932
00:42:58,920 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 3: I be?

933
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 1: Of course, the police.

934
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 4: Off against a cop.

935
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, cops are trained to neutralize people who cause threat

936
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,560
Speaker 3: towards their lives. Like this is like normal, Like, you

937
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 3: get away with this, This is what you should do.

938
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 3: You're trained to do this, not me one on one

939
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 3: with a cop, like and you know, one on one,

940
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 3: anybody could get scared and want to run away. Now

941
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:23,240
Speaker 3: this is a group of cops doing a full blown

942
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,239
Speaker 3: read and me being accused of pointing a gun at

943
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 3: all of them, and.

944
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 1: To me one more question Before I do that, I

945
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:34,759
Speaker 1: want to remind people who are listening vote, vote and

946
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: vote and vote in your local races. And your DA's

947
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: racist and your judges racist, your vote counts. We have

948
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 1: races that actually ended up tied. I mean, your vote counts.

949
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 3: And you, judge, don't have to be white against the

950
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 3: black to be racist. It could be white on white racism,

951
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:52,359
Speaker 3: it could be black on black racism. Make sure you

952
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:55,320
Speaker 3: vote for the right people. And when you vote for judges,

953
00:43:55,560 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 3: nobody really knows because you just see a judge d you.

954
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 4: Can make good decisions.

955
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:02,839
Speaker 5: And people knew when they vote it for the DA

956
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 5: in Pennsylvania that he was a more thoughtful person on

957
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:07,839
Speaker 5: the criminal justice system. And there been lots of new

958
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:10,800
Speaker 5: DA's that have had much more modern approaches. The approach

959
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 5: hasn't been lock everybody up and put all Black American

960
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 5: in prison. It's been let's have an accurate punishment for

961
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 5: a crime. And that's who you should be voting for.

962
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:21,400
Speaker 1: And I'm going to say one more thing before I

963
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: turned the last question over to you, which is everybody

964
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:26,600
Speaker 1: who's out there, at some point you're going to get

965
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:28,839
Speaker 1: asked to serve on a jury and nobody likes it.

966
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 1: We get those things in the mail, we're like, oh

967
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 1: my god, I got on a time for this. Whatever.

968
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 1: It's a big pain of you got to go because

969
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 1: when you go, there might be a meek mill in

970
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:40,839
Speaker 1: front of you, there might be somebody else who's meeting

971
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: and Eric RIDDI get fun of you. In case that

972
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:45,799
Speaker 1: all three of us are involved with and we're going

973
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 1: to get him out, well, come hell or high water.

974
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:51,839
Speaker 1: So get up, get out and go vote, and go

975
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:54,919
Speaker 1: serve on the jury, because the ask you save could

976
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:58,400
Speaker 1: be your own. And now, rather than ask a final question,

977
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna do what I do at the end

978
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:02,400
Speaker 1: of the show, which is I always say it's my

979
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show, and I think it's probably

980
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: the audience's favorite part of the show too, which is when

981
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 1: I stopped talking and just turned the mic over to

982
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 1: you for final last words. And Michael, I'm going to

983
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 1: let you go first and then me can back clean

984
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:18,839
Speaker 1: up and close out the show. So, Michael, what would

985
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:20,760
Speaker 1: you want to tell people? How could they get involved?

986
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: What can they do? What's the solution?

987
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 5: Well, I think we're in a great position because I

988
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 5: actually think this is a big problem that needs to

989
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:31,080
Speaker 5: be addressed. I think it's going to be I think

990
00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:34,240
Speaker 5: it would just take common sense to this juicy problem.

991
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:35,759
Speaker 4: We're going to make the world a better place.

992
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 5: And I'm actually for a guy who had absolutely zero

993
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 5: point zero exposure to the criminal justice system until I

994
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 5: met Meek and them still really didn't understand it until

995
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:49,239
Speaker 5: November sixth of last year. I'm really optimistic because I

996
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 5: believe that this is a completely broken system that with

997
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 5: a lot of focus and energy, we can make the

998
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 5: country a much better place than To me, that's exciting.

999
00:45:57,239 --> 00:45:59,319
Speaker 5: So you know what I'd say to everybody is make

1000
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 5: a difference. I didn't make any difference until seven months ago.

1001
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 5: And I'm actually you know, I've got three great businesses

1002
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 5: that I run, and I've got a great daughter and

1003
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:09,840
Speaker 5: great family and friends. Yet I'm as energized about this

1004
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 5: as anything because I see how broken it is and

1005
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 5: I see how much fixing it needs.

1006
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 1: Meek last words, and before you even go, I want

1007
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 1: to thank you and Michael and thank you not just

1008
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 1: for being on the show, but for lending your voice

1009
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:26,880
Speaker 1: and your energy and your money and your time to

1010
00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 1: this movement.

1011
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,320
Speaker 4: Thank you for your focus. What you're doing is incredible.

1012
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:32,480
Speaker 5: You've been at this for twenty five years, Meek's been

1013
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 5: sucking the system for thirteen years, and I've been at

1014
00:46:34,239 --> 00:46:34,919
Speaker 5: this for seven months.

1015
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 4: So thank you.

1016
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 1: Well, I'm older than yours, I've had more time question nonetheles,

1017
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's an obsession and I'm not going to

1018
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: stop until we fix it together. So but anyway, so

1019
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:47,640
Speaker 1: thank you both again for being here and sharing your

1020
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 1: thoughts and your energy, your collective wisdom. So, Meek, what

1021
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,319
Speaker 1: are your last words for the audience that's out there?

1022
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:57,320
Speaker 3: My last words to the audience is this, No, I'm dedicated.

1023
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 3: This is a life mission. I actually suffer from the

1024
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:05,080
Speaker 3: criminal justice system for over ten years, and you know,

1025
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:08,759
Speaker 3: I actually walked the walk on the other side of

1026
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 3: the wall with some innocent men who I know are

1027
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 3: basically suffering and families are suffering, So you know, I

1028
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:17,320
Speaker 3: felt the pain firsthand. And you know, I'm gonna continue

1029
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 3: to do what I need to do to help make

1030
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 3: change and not fix the system, but break the system

1031
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 3: completely and rebuild it again. Because the way we lived

1032
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 3: and the things we've been through with the system, it

1033
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:33,400
Speaker 3: doesn't even take crime or take being a villain to

1034
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 3: go to jail, you know what I'm saying. And you

1035
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:38,359
Speaker 3: know it's thousands of millions of people trapped inside on

1036
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:40,800
Speaker 3: the other side of the wall that actually need help.

1037
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 3: And you know, I think this is the right season

1038
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 3: to make change. And putting all my efforts onto it

1039
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 3: and hopefully, you know, we make change within the next

1040
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:51,640
Speaker 3: few years and free a lot of people from the

1041
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:57,760
Speaker 3: prison system.

1042
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you

1043
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:04,360
Speaker 1: get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud

1044
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 1: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll

1045
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping

1046
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org

1047
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:17,360
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like

1048
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.

1049
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR

1050
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on

1051
00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.

1052
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:34,320
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava

1053
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:39,240
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one