Speaker 1: On January twenty third, two thousand and seven, in order
Speaker 1: to obtain a search warrant, a narcotics officer claimed to
Speaker 1: have seen Meek mill selling crack out of his home.
Speaker 1: The following day, Meek was stopped on his way to
Speaker 1: a corner store and they found a gun. He was
Speaker 1: badly beaten, arrested for illegal possession of a firearm, and
Speaker 1: later charged with assaulting arresting officers who claimed that he
Speaker 1: had pointed the gun at them. In two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: due to the cost, Meek waved a jury trial, was
Speaker 1: tried for drug and weapons charges and sentenced to two
Speaker 1: years prison plus eight years probation, which kicked off his
Speaker 1: storied clash with Judge Denise Sprinkley. Over the decade that followed,
Speaker 1: parole tight restrictions and his contentious relationship with Brinkley made
Speaker 1: more punishment almost an inevitability. In November of twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: she sentenced him to at least two more years in
Speaker 1: prison for alleged violations, including popping a wheelie without a helmet.
Speaker 1: This gained plenty of outrage and public support, largely due
Speaker 1: to a police department whistleblower who exposed Meeks two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven arresting officer as a liar and a thief.
Speaker 1: His two thousand and eight conviction was overturned. He was
Speaker 1: granted a new trial under a new judge, bringing his
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven criminal case and probation to a
Speaker 1: long overdue close in August of twenty nineteen. However, his
Speaker 1: litigation was still ongoing at the time of this episode's
Speaker 1: original release. Meek Mills' notoriety shines a light on the
Speaker 1: regularity legalized harassment by authorities and the recidivism that results.
Speaker 1: A docuseries chronicling his legal saga called Free Meek, is
Speaker 1: now streaming on Prime Video, and Meek's friend Michael Rubin,
Speaker 1: one of the owners of Philadelphia seventy six ers, joined
Speaker 1: us for a discussion that unfortunately is as relevant.
Speaker 2: Today as it was back then. This is Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 2: with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Speaker 1: That's me and today we have an extraordinary show and
Speaker 1: you're about to find out why today's guest is the
Speaker 1: one and only Meek Milly and Michael Rubin is with
Speaker 1: him and Meek. You need no introduction, but welcome to
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me Man. I appreciate you for
Speaker 3: bringing me on the show.
Speaker 1: I appreciate all the work you're doing, and we're going
Speaker 1: to get into that right away. But with him is
Speaker 1: Michael Rubin, who is the owner of this Philadelphia seventy
Speaker 1: six ers and has an amazing background as an entrepreneur
Speaker 1: and businessman, but who has become a tremendous advocate for
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform and is about to really shake things up. Michael,
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to have you in the movement, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're here on the show.
Speaker 4: Hey, thanks for everything you're doing. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1: So Meek. One of the reasons I wanted to have
Speaker 1: you on the show is because your original case was
Speaker 1: in fact a wrongful conviction, and that's something a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't understand. And there's a lot more they
Speaker 1: don't understand about the circumstances in which you were arrested
Speaker 1: and how this nightmare saga, which is now in its
Speaker 1: second decade in the criminal justice system has unfolded. And
Speaker 1: it's important to tell this story because it shines a
Speaker 1: light on so many aspects of what's wrong with the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. And we're here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, not Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: But even still, the system here has been so backwards
Speaker 1: for so long, and you were born right into the
Speaker 1: thick of it. I mean, let's talk about that y
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven. So the number of people incarcerated United
Speaker 1: States stayed relatively constant from nineteen hundred till about nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: and then it went crazy. It doubled and tripled and quadrupled,
Speaker 1: and Philadelphia was a hot spot. And you were born
Speaker 1: into a situation in which black men were being incarcerated
Speaker 1: at rates that were unprecedented actually in the history of
Speaker 1: the world. There's a book that really touches on everything
Speaker 1: that you went through, called On the Run by Alice Goffman,
Speaker 1: a Princeton PhD. Sociologist who went and lived on Sixth
Speaker 1: Street in Philadelphia. She said, in the first eighteen months
Speaker 1: that I spent the neighborhood, at least once a day,
Speaker 1: I watched the police stop pedestrians or people in cars,
Speaker 1: searched them, run their name for warrants, asked them to
Speaker 1: come in for questioning or make an arrest. And that
Speaker 1: same eighteen month period, I watched the police breakdown doors,
Speaker 1: search houses, and question, arrest or chase people through houses
Speaker 1: fifty two times. Nine times police her helicopters circled overhead
Speaker 1: and beam search lights on the local streets. I noticed
Speaker 1: blocks taped off in traffic directed as police search for
Speaker 1: evidence fourteen times during my first eighteen months of near
Speaker 1: daily observation, I watched the police punch, choke, kick, stomp on,
Speaker 1: or beat young men with their night sticks. That's what
Speaker 1: the situation was like. It's what it still is like,
Speaker 1: and that's what has to change. Yeah, can you talk
Speaker 1: about that about how you grew up and how this,
Speaker 1: you know, was almost almost a fade of complete Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, I come from Philadelphia, actually North Philadelphia which
Speaker 3: now is called the Temple Area, and you know, we
Speaker 3: grew up in environments where like dragonfest environments where a
Speaker 3: lot of violence, a lot of drugs, a lot of
Speaker 3: things taking place. So it's like you could be standing
Speaker 3: in the wrong place and lose your life, or you
Speaker 3: could be standing in the wrong place and get charged
Speaker 3: with a crime you didn't do. That was just like normal. Actually,
Speaker 3: I've been hanging with my friend pe Mind probably fifteen
Speaker 3: years and I remember back he went to jail when
Speaker 3: he was probably about fifteen years old. He just turned
Speaker 3: thirty one, and was like, yeah, the first time I
Speaker 3: went to prison, he said, a white guy just pulled
Speaker 3: up in the back of a car and just pointed
Speaker 3: at me out the car and said, I robbed him
Speaker 3: for seven dollars, but he had three hundred and eighty
Speaker 3: dollars in his pocket and he went to jail for that.
Speaker 3: He ended up doing I think like two years and
Speaker 3: that in the juvenile facility. But that wasn't the worst part.
Speaker 3: The worst part was he's got a felony on this
Speaker 3: record for arm robbery. And you know, if you know him,
Speaker 3: he not like a it's not robbery. He's not robbery.
Speaker 3: And his system he made mistakes in his life. But
Speaker 3: me being around him, I never knew that. But I
Speaker 3: witnessed that so many times. I wouldn't have standing on
Speaker 3: a corner and the cop pulled up with a Mexican
Speaker 3: guy in the back, and I don't know. Sometimes we
Speaker 3: say and then our world in a sycastic way of
Speaker 3: being funny, we always be like white people look the
Speaker 3: same to us. Some of my white friends were like
Speaker 3: all black people were saying to us. But sometimes that
Speaker 3: is the case with people and they just pull up
Speaker 3: and they point people out, and you stand there when
Speaker 3: the cops pull up and like, I hope this guy
Speaker 3: don't point me out. And that's just one of the
Speaker 3: scenarios out of a million scenarios, being caught in the
Speaker 3: middle of poverty, drug infested the neighborhood where people are
Speaker 3: getting robbed left and right, where you know, cop flocking
Speaker 3: people who have left and rights just to get stripes
Speaker 3: on that record. You know what I'm saying. And we
Speaker 3: grew up in that and you know, at eighteen years old,
Speaker 3: I was caught up in that system. And even though
Speaker 3: I've been on the path ever since of doing spectacling
Speaker 3: in my life from where I come from, that same
Speaker 3: system is still haunting me and hanking me down. Even
Speaker 3: at the age of thirty one and having a record
Speaker 3: deal and being able to handle business and work, it's
Speaker 3: still haunted me to pull me back to the same
Speaker 3: system where I just left eleven years ago.
Speaker 1: And you just brought up a very important point, which
Speaker 1: is that we know from decades of research now that
Speaker 1: cross racial identifications are extremely unreliable. Identifications in general are
Speaker 1: unreliable because people have witness a crime, especially violent crime,
Speaker 1: goes crazy and the perception gets screwy and the brain
Speaker 1: doesn't function properly, so it almost becomes like guessing. But
Speaker 1: it gets even worse. And there's a movement now in
Speaker 1: various places to try to put in a system where
Speaker 1: a jury has to be instructed in the case in
Speaker 1: which across racial identification is an important factor that these
Speaker 1: things are as unreliable as they are because they need
Speaker 1: to know, but in most cases they don't know. They
Speaker 1: just think an identification is the most powerful thing. Going
Speaker 1: to court room to a guy points at you and
Speaker 1: goes that to him. You know, it's hard for a
Speaker 1: jury to see past that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like it's a neighborhood. We all wearing white
Speaker 3: Teas of the summer of two thousand and three, everybody
Speaker 3: white T shirts is the popular thing to wear denim shirts.
Speaker 3: And you got a guy, he might be Asian. He
Speaker 3: pulled up on the corner. We all seven of us
Speaker 3: got braids, and four of us got a little cousin.
Speaker 3: But we all look the same, the ones that got
Speaker 3: braids to him. It's just you allowed to repick to
Speaker 3: get caught up in the system like whoever you point at,
Speaker 3: that's you. And you better hope you don't have no
Speaker 3: felonies on your record already because you might go to
Speaker 3: jail for a long time.
Speaker 1: And sociologically speaking, and this goes back again to the
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties. Right at the same time that they
Speaker 1: were rolling back welfare and other programs for the urban poor,
Speaker 1: they were ramping up the policing and they were Now
Speaker 1: you created the perfect storm because what was happening was
Speaker 1: you had these systems coming in for tracking arrests. You
Speaker 1: had so many more cops. In fact, I think in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia sixty nine percent more police decade over decade than
Speaker 1: they were before, and they had to make arrests. So
Speaker 1: whereas before they were largely ignoring what was going on
Speaker 1: in the community, now there were heightened penalties for not
Speaker 1: just for violent crimes, but also for all kinds of
Speaker 1: different drug crimes, for vagrancy, for trespassing, for anything. And
Speaker 1: they were in a position where they were arresting people
Speaker 1: left and right and creating this permanent underclass. And Michael,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously you grew up here too, right, but
Speaker 1: your situation must have been.
Speaker 5: Very, very different world. I grew up maybe twenty minutes
Speaker 5: from me. But Mike Ustall said to me, we used
Speaker 5: to have this argument for years. He'd say to me, Michael,
Speaker 5: there's two Americans. And I'd be like, like, dude, shut up,
Speaker 5: there's like there's there's one America. Like stop, you know,
Speaker 5: like you're doing great, Like you know, I didn't understand,
Speaker 5: like what are you telling me about these two worlds?
Speaker 5: We live in one great country and and you know,
Speaker 5: we'd argue about it all the time. And I remember
Speaker 5: the day that that meet got sentenced November six, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 5: He called me from the Philadelphia job before they transferred
Speaker 5: to a different Jennal and they said, he said, you see,
Speaker 5: I told you this is what happens to the black
Speaker 5: people on that oade, right, And I just like that,
Speaker 5: you know, I said you were right, I was wrong,
Speaker 5: and there is two worlds. And you know, for me,
Speaker 5: November six, twenty seventeen was really a life change in moment,
Speaker 5: because I would never have been able to understand who
Speaker 5: really believe And I don't think anybody would be able
Speaker 5: to believe how crazy a circumstance he was living in
Speaker 5: because it didn't seem possible until you sat in the courtroom.
Speaker 5: And even people that have come to later court hearings
Speaker 5: of Judge Brinkley have said, I've heard everything about this,
Speaker 5: but I didn't believe it until I actually saw it,
Speaker 5: and it's so crazy. So for sure, I grew up
Speaker 5: in a completely different environment. But Meek always told me
Speaker 5: from the day I met him. I remember we were
Speaker 5: at a NBA All Star game, and you know, within
Speaker 5: a few minutes, you know, Meek realized I was involved
Speaker 5: with the Philadelphia seventy six ers and was telling me
Speaker 5: a little bit about his background. He told me that
Speaker 5: he was charged for pointing a gun at multiple cops.
Speaker 5: And he said to me, like, you know, I didn't
Speaker 5: do that.
Speaker 4: If I pointed, you know, a.
Speaker 5: Gun at multiple cops, I'd be dead. Like I heard him,
Speaker 5: but I didn't really comprehend it. And then like, if
Speaker 5: I've told that story to five hundred people in the
Speaker 5: last seven months, every person from law enforcement to politics,
Speaker 5: to anyone who understands anything, they all say the same thing.
Speaker 5: He's right, he'd be dead. No one would pull a
Speaker 5: gun on multiple cops and not get shot. And Meek
Speaker 5: can't obviously talk about the case, because the case is
Speaker 5: still unfortunately going on, which is crazy in itself sense, right,
Speaker 5: But I mean you're talking about a guy who was
Speaker 5: wrongfully convicted when he was eighteen years old of a
Speaker 5: crime that he didn't commit. It's been sent back to
Speaker 5: jail multiple times, never committed a new crime, and he's
Speaker 5: the perfect example of someone who's been stuck in a
Speaker 5: completely broken criminal justice system for.
Speaker 4: Criming to commit.
Speaker 5: And it's now thirteen years later and it's still going on,
Speaker 5: and that shows how broken the criminal justice system is.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. You know, we have two point two million
Speaker 1: people in prison in America and including jail.
Speaker 4: Another four and a half million people on probation in parole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the latest figure I heard was four
Speaker 1: point eight, right, And once we accept those figures, you
Speaker 1: also have to accept the fact that we now have,
Speaker 1: between jail, prison, probation, and parole, we have more black
Speaker 1: people with mostly men, under criminal justice supervision in America
Speaker 1: than all the slaves at the height of slavery in
Speaker 1: America in the eighteen fifties or sixties whatever that was.
Speaker 1: What are we doing? Well, It's like Michelle Alexander says,
Speaker 1: is the new Jim Crow.
Speaker 5: What words can't explain is Meek is still on probation
Speaker 5: for something that we've already said he didn't do, and
Speaker 5: it's been going on for thirteen years from the original
Speaker 5: wrongful conviction. But he can't, like you can't live that way.
Speaker 5: Like I say, I joke with him, I feel like
Speaker 5: I'm on probation because I'm worried about.
Speaker 4: Just something going wrong with him.
Speaker 5: If he decides to leave a state a day early
Speaker 5: because something changed with the schedule, or he gets you know,
Speaker 5: someone says, hey, I'm going to pay you to go
Speaker 5: do this contract. I want to go, and I have
Speaker 5: the proper days of permission, the judge will try to
Speaker 5: violate him. I mean, it's the system is chasing him
Speaker 5: and trying to violate and that's not what probation is
Speaker 5: supposed to be about, rehabilitating somebody, not trying to catch
Speaker 5: them and send that back to prison. And something that
Speaker 5: someone told me recently, and you know, I've now become
Speaker 5: too familiar with this, but seventy percent of people to
Speaker 5: go back to jail once they've been in jail in
Speaker 5: prison are going back for technical probation violations. Like to me,
Speaker 5: virtually none of those people should be going.
Speaker 4: You know, you had a.
Speaker 5: Technical probation violation, right, he didn't commit a crime, You
Speaker 5: were late for your probation officer. You you know, didn't
Speaker 5: pay a certain amount of money. You know, you travel
Speaker 5: out of the state. You know he went to his
Speaker 5: son in New Jersey because he lives in Pennsylvania. And
Speaker 5: you can be violated and sent back to jail.
Speaker 4: This is lunacy.
Speaker 1: This is absolute lunacy. And I want, I'm really glad
Speaker 1: you brought that up, Michael, because I don't want to
Speaker 1: get your take on this week because in a lot
Speaker 1: of the reforms that are underway right now, there's this
Speaker 1: hidden caveat or this hidden nightmare i'll call it, of
Speaker 1: enhanced probation and other ways of the government keeping people
Speaker 1: under control. So to me, a true crime reform bill
Speaker 1: should eliminate those problems. And you obviously can speak firsthand
Speaker 1: about just how restrictive that is, and Michael has said
Speaker 1: very eloquently, when you have seventy percent of people going
Speaker 1: back to jail or prison because they have some technical violation,
Speaker 1: that's insane. Right. Can you talk about that? Because I'm
Speaker 1: very concerned that they're sneaking these devils into the details
Speaker 1: in these new crime bills that are going to allow
Speaker 1: them to maintain this control. There's no other way to
Speaker 1: look at it. Over millions of people's lives, and there's
Speaker 1: a profit center in that for a lot of people too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is more saying to me, I take it as
Speaker 3: deep as like he said, I could go see my
Speaker 3: son in New Jersey and actually be locked in a
Speaker 3: cage and be locked and changed shackle from like angle
Speaker 3: to feet.
Speaker 1: For the crime of going from Pennsylvania to New.
Speaker 3: Jersey to see your son.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. I'm being facetious. Yeah, for the
Speaker 1: crime in quotes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll tell you this right now.
Speaker 5: Judge Brinkley is dying to do that too. She's trying
Speaker 5: to right now today, I promise you. She's sitting in
Speaker 5: her house obsessed about how she can figure out how
Speaker 5: to put them back in jail for nothing. And he
Speaker 5: can't talk about that, but I can't. I'm telling you
Speaker 5: straight up, that's what's going on.
Speaker 1: It's it's really bizarre. I mean, as a country, why
Speaker 1: would we want I mean, these are our tax dollars, right,
Speaker 1: and it hurts the average taxpayer, even if you're somebody
Speaker 1: who's not particularly concerned about criminal justice reform, or you
Speaker 1: think a lot of people or you maybe you think
Speaker 1: you're tough on crime or whatever. It might be. The
Speaker 1: money that's being spent to lock people like you meek
Speaker 1: up right and to keep you under supervision and this
Speaker 1: bloated and draconian system is pure insanity. I mean that
Speaker 1: money could be spent. I mean, I know that at
Speaker 1: one time eight bonaire, eight billionaire at one time. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if it's still true. But a few
Speaker 1: years ago I checked in California, which a lot of
Speaker 1: people think was in a progressive state, was spending more
Speaker 1: money locking people up than they were educating people. We
Speaker 1: have fact check that, but it's absolutely staggering. And the
Speaker 1: crazy thing is these are Americans. There are fellow people,
Speaker 1: you know, I say the politicians when I talk to him, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, if another country treated our people the way
Speaker 1: we treat our people, we'd invade this stuff.
Speaker 3: We wouldn't even do to our pets, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, Like you wouldn't lock your pet in the
Speaker 3: metal cell. For Sometimes we get locked in and I
Speaker 3: say we because I've been through this experience so many times,
Speaker 3: and like sometimes we get locked in a room for
Speaker 3: twenty three hours a day for a month or two weeks,
Speaker 3: some people actually even years. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: It's like they say, when you come home, it's a
Speaker 3: violation to be around felons. How is it a violation
Speaker 3: to be around felons when you just had me locked
Speaker 3: up amongst thousands of felons? Like what rule is this?
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up too, because that's another
Speaker 1: thing that creates this visious story.
Speaker 5: Ex's by the way you think about it. In the
Speaker 5: environment you grew up, what percentages of people that.
Speaker 4: Live on your block have had a felony?
Speaker 3: Ninety five percent?
Speaker 4: Right, So what you're saying is essential family.
Speaker 5: Anyone can put you back in prison because there's a
Speaker 5: rule that says you can't be around felons, but everyone
Speaker 5: you grew up with has a felony.
Speaker 3: If somebody really made that an issue, I would probably
Speaker 3: go to jail any day. Because if I go to
Speaker 3: the studio with a rapper and we make a song,
Speaker 3: I don't know his record, but.
Speaker 1: Right you don't know, how would you know? You have
Speaker 1: to have a like a database that we do at
Speaker 1: all times. Most people can't afford that. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: not going to do it. In the fact is, I'm just
Speaker 1: quoting a statistic here. One in four black children born
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety had an imprisoned father by the time
Speaker 1: he or she turned fourteen. Yeah, right, And the numbers
Speaker 1: just get worse and worse. I mean, thirty percent of
Speaker 1: black man without college educations today will have been to
Speaker 1: prison by their men thirties and spent up to a
Speaker 1: year in prison thirty percent. Yeah, I mean that's without
Speaker 1: college educations. And the numbers go to sixty percent when
Speaker 1: you look at black males without high school educations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sixty percent of black males out a high school education
Speaker 1: was better a year in prison or jail before their
Speaker 1: thirtieth birthday? What are we doing? And the fact is
Speaker 1: it's actually impossible to succeed, which is why I'm always
Speaker 1: amazed when somebody does come from the background that you
Speaker 1: came from and make it, because with that cycle, how
Speaker 1: do you do it? They've created a minefield that you
Speaker 1: can't walk through. Right, once you get arrested, You're going
Speaker 1: to get re arrested no matter what you do. Pretty much, Yeah.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent, and like me and Mike, we just
Speaker 3: spend the hour, Mike just teaching me about financial stuff
Speaker 3: and like texts and things that. Like when we're growing
Speaker 3: up from like age thirteen to twenty years old, we
Speaker 3: probably invest ninety five percent of our thinking time in
Speaker 3: the how to so in these type of conditions because
Speaker 3: it's like almost impossible to survive. So like you got
Speaker 3: to put like your awe into how this even my
Speaker 3: mind frame now, I still like even though I travel
Speaker 3: the world, it's still installed in my mind. It's still
Speaker 3: like something that is like I might come into a
Speaker 3: certain situation in a certain area and I go into
Speaker 3: survival move and I have to double back, and like
Speaker 3: this is not even that type of environment. Well, I
Speaker 3: don't live this type of life anymore, but it's just
Speaker 3: always installed inside my head, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And coming from environments like that, like you said sixty
Speaker 3: percent where I come from, it feels like it's ninety.
Speaker 3: Like do that count death death is going to they
Speaker 3: probably go up to probably ninety five percent young black
Speaker 3: men being murdered going to prison probably sixty plus another
Speaker 3: thirty five percent.
Speaker 4: Mick, I've heard you talk about this.
Speaker 5: You know, how many people do you know that you
Speaker 5: were close with it, you had a real relationship with
Speaker 5: that have been murdered.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty five. That's how many?
Speaker 1: I know?
Speaker 3: How many?
Speaker 4: Zero?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 5: You know how many I know that's been close zero? Right,
Speaker 5: So you're talking about yeah, different environments, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: We have two Shepherd systems of justice in America, one
Speaker 1: for people with money and one for people without, and
Speaker 1: one for people who are of color and one for
Speaker 1: people who are not. And when you hit the reverse
Speaker 1: jackpot of being a person of color without being born
Speaker 1: into a wealthy family, which is a huge majority, you.
Speaker 3: Don't even have to come from a wealthy family to
Speaker 3: like not be around somebody that was murdered. It's really
Speaker 3: like territorial, Like I got one of my songs where
Speaker 3: I'm talking about like like we've been put in groups
Speaker 3: in certain areas, even with public house and public house,
Speaker 3: and it's really across Philadelphia. So if you grow grow
Speaker 3: up less fortunate, they're sticking people in certain areas if
Speaker 3: you pay attention to it, Like it's North Philadelphia, but
Speaker 3: not the whole North Philadelphia is a certain part in's
Speaker 3: South Philadelphia. It's a rich part of South Philadelphia where
Speaker 3: like houses cost a million dollars and then you got
Speaker 3: some houses that cost forty thousand. They only moving us
Speaker 3: in certain areas. And I always say this, like, if
Speaker 3: you take a drone, the main line in Philadelphia is
Speaker 3: like city Line Avenue where my apartments used to be.
Speaker 3: At City Line Avenue. You take a drone and then
Speaker 3: you make the drone go high in the sky, and
Speaker 3: if the drone had a zoom in ker zoom on
Speaker 3: this side of the left and right, you will see
Speaker 3: as quiet his peace here and this chaos going here.
Speaker 3: And if you take a kid from over here and
Speaker 3: let him spend three summers in this area, it will
Speaker 3: be less. He won't be the way chaos says. He
Speaker 3: would turn to be more leaning like these people in
Speaker 3: this area. And I witnessed that with my family. I
Speaker 3: used to have a nephew. He lived in the projects.
Speaker 3: He used to cuss, He's seen a lot of things.
Speaker 3: He used to act up in school, and you know,
Speaker 3: he moved to a suburban area and his whole life
Speaker 3: changed within two years. It was just that simple.
Speaker 1: For a long time, I've been pondering thinking about obsessed
Speaker 1: with the idea of with the grim statistics and scenario
Speaker 1: that we're painting here, and you're exactly the guy. I
Speaker 1: want to ask this question, how many people as talented
Speaker 1: as you are either got shot or got locked up
Speaker 1: in prison, and society as a result is being deprived
Speaker 1: of those talents and all the revenue and all the
Speaker 1: culture that would have come from that. How many jay
Speaker 1: zs are there that didn't make it out and ended
Speaker 1: up in prison doing the.
Speaker 3: Back of the life thousands, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I know there's guys in there and locked with as
Speaker 3: talented as me, you know what I'm saying, And they
Speaker 3: probably there for felonies on felonies. And when you say,
Speaker 3: like when people label you as a felon, like how
Speaker 3: it's that my friend called a felony he was fifteen
Speaker 3: for something he ain't do now actually when he do
Speaker 3: make a mistake, when he do go hang on the corner.
Speaker 3: When we come up on the corner around drug doos.
Speaker 3: Everybody sell drugs. Your first step is to pick up
Speaker 3: a drug. So when you get your second felony, you
Speaker 3: might be actually good at basketball. You might have been
Speaker 3: in eleventh grade actually one of the best players on
Speaker 3: the team. And here come you in a bad neighborhood.
Speaker 3: You get arrested for something else, and we don't have
Speaker 3: a lowyer money. You might take a deal, and the
Speaker 3: deal is put this fundingly on your record. Now you
Speaker 3: got three fuling these on your record, and you're not
Speaker 3: They might call you a career criminal. You're not a
Speaker 3: career criminal. You just was in the wrong mix. Basically,
Speaker 3: Now you might get fifteen years for something small. You
Speaker 3: see how he told you that the guy got fifteen
Speaker 3: Well he had two life sentence for stealing. Now your record,
Speaker 3: your jacket is up, you get fifteen years. So now
Speaker 3: you trapped inside a prison while you never get a
Speaker 3: real shot at life. And you might be good as
Speaker 3: Ben Simmons or Joe and Beebe and you know all
Speaker 3: that went down to dream But far as Rapp is hundreds.
Speaker 3: So it was probably at least fifty guys that was
Speaker 3: actually good where I was at, where I was locked
Speaker 3: up at, where if they was on the street, we
Speaker 3: would spend time in the studio and build together and
Speaker 3: make music together. Fifty I would say, in that one
Speaker 3: prison that I know of.
Speaker 1: Recently, hip hop recently passed and roll and rock and
Speaker 1: pop as the most popular genre worldwide. Right, and it
Speaker 1: all comes from almost all of it comes from America. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So when we're exporting that, we're bringing tax revenue into
Speaker 1: this country. When guys like you are making records, selling
Speaker 1: millions of records, selling concert tickets, you're paying taxes. All
Speaker 1: that stuff goes back into the system. Everybody is being
Speaker 1: hurt by that, and society is being deprived of geniuses.
Speaker 1: As you said, basketball is another story, right, And when
Speaker 1: you talk about a scenario like that, you have a
Speaker 1: kid as good as whoever you want to talk about,
Speaker 1: Simmons or whatever. They get arrested like that, the college
Speaker 1: scholarship's going out the windows. They can't play college ball
Speaker 1: now their whole thing. And let's say that guy was
Speaker 1: going to make one hundred million dollars, not unrealistic. We
Speaker 1: have the owner the seventy six ers year, right, you're
Speaker 1: the what right those checks?
Speaker 5: We look forward to writing many checks for one hundred
Speaker 5: million dollars because that we have that many great players.
Speaker 1: And let me ask you, do those players pay taxes
Speaker 1: on those checks? Of course, of course they do, right,
Speaker 1: huge amounts of money back into the city. Coming back
Speaker 1: to the state, coming back into the country, because those
Speaker 1: people were the few lucky ones that managed to escape
Speaker 1: from this, you know, sort of trap that society has built.
Speaker 4: But by way even more than money.
Speaker 5: If you look at the math and you say there's
Speaker 5: six point seven or six point nine million people today
Speaker 5: in America trapped in the criminal justice system, the question
Speaker 5: is what's appropriate. Like if we just all said, if
Speaker 5: you got anyone together and said, what do you think
Speaker 5: someone should be in prison for? What should someone be
Speaker 5: on probation for? If you said, hey, that person got
Speaker 5: caught smoking weed, should any of those people be in prison?
Speaker 5: If someone stole one hundred dollars as a fifteen year
Speaker 5: old kid, should they be stuck in prison? And the
Speaker 5: amount of story Like I think if you looked at
Speaker 5: the math and just said, let's just take this top
Speaker 5: down to six point nine million people in the criminal
Speaker 5: justice system, I think you could say if we just
Speaker 5: all said what should people be in the system for,
Speaker 5: and not being the system, we just took a bunch
Speaker 5: of rational people, the number is probably half And so
Speaker 5: to me, what's such a travesty is you've got millions
Speaker 5: of people stuck in the criminal justice system that don't
Speaker 5: belong there, and by the way, you're ruining their lives,
Speaker 5: their families, lives, their friends' lives. By the way, there's
Speaker 5: a lot of people that belong in prison. We want
Speaker 5: to live in a safe world. We want to have
Speaker 5: you know, violent offenders, people that murder people, or rapists.
Speaker 4: You know, armed robbers.
Speaker 5: There are a lot of people that belong in prison,
Speaker 5: and I want those people in prison. But the problem
Speaker 5: is there's millions of people that shouldn't be in the
Speaker 5: criminal justice system that are and that's the problem that
Speaker 5: needs to be addressed. And that's what I know. Meek
Speaker 5: is really excited to help make an impact on. I'm
Speaker 5: excited to help make an impact on I think this
Speaker 5: is an enormous problem that's costing tens of billions of
Speaker 5: dollars and is ruined millions of people's lives.
Speaker 1: So so, yeah, and Michael, picking up on what you
Speaker 1: were saying, thirty thirty five years ago, we had three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people in prison in America. Right now it's
Speaker 1: two point two million, and I'm sure the numbers on
Speaker 1: probation and parole were proportionately about, you know, seven times
Speaker 1: less like this one is too. And then you look
Speaker 1: at the country like Japan, right, well, we locked If
Speaker 1: you look at Western Europe, we lock people up at
Speaker 1: five to nine times depending which country you choose. The
Speaker 1: rate of the rest of the countries in Western Europe
Speaker 1: below US is five times as many per capita. Right,
Speaker 1: And then when you look at we have more people
Speaker 1: in prison just for drugs in America than everyone in
Speaker 1: prison of all of Western Europe for everything in Western
Speaker 1: Europe is much more. There many more people in Western
Speaker 1: Europe than we're in America. And then you get to Japan.
Speaker 1: In Japan they have approximately seventy thousand people in prison.
Speaker 1: We probably have seventy thousand people in prison in a
Speaker 1: mid sized state. Yeah, maybe even a smaller state than
Speaker 1: this one, right, yeah, because I mean do the math.
Speaker 1: So they we lock people up at fourteen times the
Speaker 1: rate per capita that Japan does. And for anybody listening, going, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's why we have a lower crime rate than
Speaker 1: they do. No, we don't. Our crime rates are the same,
Speaker 1: and there's no evidence that supports. In fact, I think
Speaker 1: every social scientist that has studied this would agree that
Speaker 1: this system is the worst system in terms of crime
Speaker 1: and perpetuating the cycle because of the fact that when
Speaker 1: people go to jail or prison, as we talked about
Speaker 1: growing up in the situation they are, they come out,
Speaker 1: they're unemployable to I'll understanding. That's something I talk about
Speaker 1: on the show a lot, like people that are out
Speaker 1: out there that are employers take a shot with somebody
Speaker 1: who was system affected, because those people will work harder
Speaker 1: and better. You know, there's a bakery in New York
Speaker 1: I just found out about. I saw Ted talk about
Speaker 1: this that hires anybody who walks in system affected. They
Speaker 1: don't even ask, yeah, and they're hugely successful. They make
Speaker 1: all the brownies for Ben and Jerry's ice cream, right
Speaker 1: they sell a zillion can imagine me brownie's.
Speaker 4: I want to move to a lot of them right
Speaker 4: now because we have a little weight loss back on,
Speaker 4: so we can get this brown delivered to.
Speaker 1: Him right now. If you're looking a little slimmer the last.
Speaker 4: Time, yeah, yeah, neither is heavier.
Speaker 1: Though, no, but it's you know, that's something that we
Speaker 1: really need to as a society start to be much
Speaker 1: more progressive on and more empathetic. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: want to sound like some like touchy feely person here,
Speaker 1: and I'm with you, Michael.
Speaker 5: I believe that that's an easier problem to solve because
Speaker 5: I've actually been thinking, Look, we employ eight thousand people
Speaker 5: between my companies, and you know, I think if you
Speaker 5: got a bunch of business leaders to focus on taking
Speaker 5: big companies and saying what areas in their company could
Speaker 5: start to take people right out of prison to help
Speaker 5: rehabilitate them. I think there are actually easy ways to
Speaker 5: make real progress acainslight. I'm actually optimistic with a little
Speaker 5: bit of focus and energy that real impact can be made.
Speaker 5: There a lot of those cases. You have better employees,
Speaker 5: as you just indicated as well, so we have, you know,
Speaker 5: thousands of people that manufacture a power, working fulfillment centers,
Speaker 5: working call centers. My point is there's you know, big
Speaker 5: opportunities to hire people. And I think that again, if
Speaker 5: you look at how many people work in America and
Speaker 5: then how many people coming out of prison or jail
Speaker 5: each year. If there's two point two million people in
Speaker 5: prison in jail, maybe I don't know, five hundred thousand
Speaker 5: people come.
Speaker 4: Out a year.
Speaker 5: I don't think it takes a lot to get a
Speaker 5: set of big companies to focus on helping solve this.
Speaker 3: Problem well, and especially with long time offenders. Like a
Speaker 3: long time offenders, like people who serve over ten years,
Speaker 3: they spend most of their jail time working. In fact,
Speaker 3: the result working for the prison that their mind, they
Speaker 3: have experienced, their mind is structured to just work all day.
Speaker 3: And member rival was telling us he had a program
Speaker 3: hired like a lot of ex offenders, and he asked me, like,
Speaker 3: how many of them messed up? Was you in that conversation?
Speaker 3: He asked me, said how many you think messed up?
Speaker 3: Out of two hundred, I'm probably like, I said one
Speaker 3: ninety eight because I knew the number would be high,
Speaker 3: because I know of long time offenders, people that come
Speaker 3: home doing a lot of time. They don't they don't
Speaker 3: really want to mess up again. He told me nothing
Speaker 3: out of.
Speaker 1: Two hundred, none. Yeah, and that's amazing.
Speaker 4: I was only two of I think this was twenty
Speaker 4: or thirty years ago.
Speaker 5: Robert Kraft had a real focus on taking people that
Speaker 5: had come out of prison at hiring them.
Speaker 4: And the point to your point was they were his
Speaker 4: best employees.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's best employees. And it's interesting too. I mean,
Speaker 1: call it luck, call it whatever you want. I've got.
Speaker 1: I've been very fortunate, blessed whatever to be able to
Speaker 1: help advocate successfully for clemency for dozens of people deserving
Speaker 1: people over the years, not just people who are innocent,
Speaker 1: but people who were primarily who are sentenced to mandatory sentences,
Speaker 1: crazy mandatory sentences like Lenny Singleton, who you referenced earlier,
Speaker 1: or Travian Blount who was senced just at fifteen years
Speaker 1: old since the six life terms for a robbery in
Speaker 1: which no one was hurt. Fifteen years old, six life terms.
Speaker 1: It made international news like what, what in the world
Speaker 1: even is that? Like, that's it's got to be what
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 3: That should be a crown that sentce of minds today
Speaker 3: Like why that's.
Speaker 5: And and to me, that's the that should be the
Speaker 5: easy things to get everyone aligned on and fix. And
Speaker 5: by the way, take talk about the state that meek
Speaker 5: us from, that I'm from. In Pennsylvania, we're one of
Speaker 5: three states in America that has no cap on probation.
Speaker 5: So another forty seven states have caps of probation summer.
Speaker 4: Three years, two years, four years, we have no cap
Speaker 4: in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so someone like me who I didn't know that was.
Speaker 5: Separate that he was wrongfully convicted thirteen years ago appointing
Speaker 5: a gun that didn't point a gun and a cop
Speaker 5: by the way, where multiple police officers come forward and
Speaker 5: said it was a lie. So we have Affid davits
Speaker 5: from a police officer came for in and said no,
Speaker 5: I was one of the two resting officers.
Speaker 4: I know he didn't point the gun.
Speaker 5: Okay, Now after that, you've still got as system that's
Speaker 5: just completely broken in Pennsylvania. He gets sentenced to probation,
Speaker 5: and then he does a concert in a different state
Speaker 5: without the proper authorization and attack on another five years
Speaker 5: of probation. And now he's got he's still six years
Speaker 5: of probation left, right, So he's got no chance to
Speaker 5: actually succeed in that situation.
Speaker 4: And I can tell you if you put me, the
Speaker 4: Jewish kid from.
Speaker 5: Suburban Philadelphia on probation, I couldn't make a year with
Speaker 5: what he needs to go through.
Speaker 1: There's not possible.
Speaker 3: In the primetime fuck up years of my life from
Speaker 3: eighteen to thirty one, you.
Speaker 1: Know, of all the people that I've been involved with
Speaker 1: and helped get out of prison, none of them have
Speaker 1: reoffended or offended for the first time. If they were innocent,
Speaker 1: it's probably a better way of saying it. And again, none.
Speaker 5: But hold on, some will and that's okay because you
Speaker 5: know what, at the end of the day, we need
Speaker 5: to make the world a better place. And if we
Speaker 5: get millions of people out of the criminal justice system,
Speaker 5: and if you make mistakes, that's okay because there's a
Speaker 5: lot of people that aren't in the criminal justice system
Speaker 5: that will also make mistakes.
Speaker 4: This is never going to be perfect.
Speaker 5: And that's someone says, hey, we should keep that six
Speaker 5: point seven or six point nine million people stuck in
Speaker 5: the criminal justice system the few million that shouldn't be
Speaker 5: there because someone may make a mistake. Nothing's perfect, like
Speaker 5: we need we need to get it right overall. And
Speaker 5: that's the same approach I take in business. We want
Speaker 5: to make good overall decisions. We don't go for perfection.
Speaker 5: We went for perfection, we never get anything done, of
Speaker 5: course not.
Speaker 1: And as I said, I've been lucky in that sense.
Speaker 1: And of the people of the interest is project. Of
Speaker 1: the people that we've gotten out, a tiny percentage of
Speaker 1: them have ever been in any sort of trouble. Again,
Speaker 1: people age truck and.
Speaker 3: We were talking about real trouble, probably zero pens and
Speaker 3: got back in real travel.
Speaker 1: A couple of other very important topics I want to
Speaker 1: talk touch on with you, Meek and Michael is prisons
Speaker 1: themselves and how barbaric our prison system is when it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be called a correctional institution and we know
Speaker 1: that that is the farthest thing from the truth in
Speaker 1: most cases. And the other is how important it is
Speaker 1: for people to get out and vote yeah, because I
Speaker 1: don't think we can have this conversation without talking about that.
Speaker 1: And some people I've heard somebody say we don't need
Speaker 1: criminal justice before, we need a criminal justice revolution. So
Speaker 1: which one do you want to take on first?
Speaker 3: So we could talk voting it. This coming from my
Speaker 3: coach on where we come from. This goes for us
Speaker 3: back when I say, like the other side of America
Speaker 3: where people don't even believe like that world tends to us.
Speaker 3: And I used to think that, but that was deeply false.
Speaker 3: And one of my jobs is trying to teach people
Speaker 3: the ropes of how volten go because it's even with
Speaker 3: a judge trying to lock me up for what nothing,
Speaker 3: going over a bridge. Basically, we voted for her district
Speaker 3: attorneys where they enforce mandatory minimums and they enforced locking
Speaker 3: people up for smoking marijuana and things like that. We
Speaker 3: vote for them. We have to be the ones that vote.
Speaker 3: In our culture, the black community, a lot of us
Speaker 3: don't vote.
Speaker 1: So it's like white community too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I don't really know. I know that
Speaker 3: in our community we don't vote at all. I don't
Speaker 3: even know anybody my age. At the age of eighteen,
Speaker 3: we ever got up as a group and everybody wanted
Speaker 3: to vote. It was like never a thing. We didn't
Speaker 3: believe in it. So my new thing is to teach
Speaker 3: the younger people from our culture that come up, well
Speaker 3: all younger people that come up, that voting is important
Speaker 3: because you know, we have to live under these laws
Speaker 3: that these people are creating, and if we don't vote,
Speaker 3: we don't have a voice at all. It's like you
Speaker 3: don't even count. And a lot of times you look
Speaker 3: at TV. They had a campaign that said vote or die.
Speaker 3: I always seen it, but I never really knew what
Speaker 3: it meant. It was that probably was like eighteen years
Speaker 3: old when they did that campaign. I never really understood it,
Speaker 3: But nowadays I understood. It's like you eve a vote,
Speaker 3: or you get housed done at a regime which will
Speaker 3: eventually league kill you, if not by jail, not by
Speaker 3: keeping you in a ruthless environment, it will turn out
Speaker 3: bad for you, basically. And I just believe that if
Speaker 3: we vote, if we make our present on like justice reform,
Speaker 3: just reform right now is the number one topic in America.
Speaker 3: Probably if we make this topic big enough politically, a
Speaker 3: lot of people would have to lean towards being leaning
Speaker 3: on these topics.
Speaker 5: And I want you as leaning, I'd say appropriate, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'd say I'd say punishment that fits the crime, because
Speaker 5: by the way, I'm not leaning.
Speaker 4: I want appropriate punishment.
Speaker 3: And that was right, That was that was definitely right.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been on the board of Families Against
Speaker 1: Mandatory Minimums, was a great organization for over twenty five
Speaker 1: years now, and our motto is let the punishment fit
Speaker 1: the crime.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody's advocating for chaos. Nobody wants a society
Speaker 1: that is like, you know.
Speaker 4: I want to feel I want to feel safe.
Speaker 1: Everybody does.
Speaker 4: I want my daughter to be safe. I want your
Speaker 4: family to be safe, but.
Speaker 1: I want his kids to be saved too.
Speaker 3: Some situations, though, that the crimes are bousou high up
Speaker 3: is like, what is lenient?
Speaker 4: But I'll make something really simple.
Speaker 5: I would just say, how many people are in prison
Speaker 5: in jail today are on probation because they have a
Speaker 5: drug problem.
Speaker 4: It's more than a million.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm not talking about selling drugs. I'm
Speaker 5: going about anyone who smoked weed. How could you possibly
Speaker 5: weed just becoming legal everywhere? How could you possibly put
Speaker 5: someone in the criminal trust system for doing something that's
Speaker 5: becoming legal? It makes absolutely no sense. Someone had a
Speaker 5: problem with perkoson, why do you send them in jail?
Speaker 4: Send them to rehab? Makes no sense.
Speaker 5: So to me, that's where the punishment needs to fit
Speaker 5: the crime. I al would take everybody who has a
Speaker 5: drug problem. Yeah, I would get them help, so get
Speaker 5: they solve the drug problem.
Speaker 3: But it's like as deep as this, Like if I
Speaker 3: sell drugs and the cops come to my house and
Speaker 3: I'm not there, my mom get found guilty for these
Speaker 3: drugs in my house. People moms are getting thirty years
Speaker 3: in prison in federal prison for stuff like that. Like
Speaker 3: your mom got thirty years in prison. That's a life sentence,
Speaker 3: that's death.
Speaker 4: That's death.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's deaf like you. I don't want to send
Speaker 3: you to prison, even though she might preach to you
Speaker 3: every day that you're selling drug. You're getting out of
Speaker 3: my house and she knows wrong. But you have a son.
Speaker 1: If you're in a car with someone who's got drugs
Speaker 1: and you get pulled over and they find the drugs,
Speaker 1: it belongs to everybody unless somebody takes responsibility for it,
Speaker 1: and nobody ever does. Nobody ever goes, oh yeah, those
Speaker 1: are mine, right. So this is how crazy the system is,
Speaker 1: where you could just be next to someone who's doing
Speaker 1: something wrong and then.
Speaker 3: I'm not even talking about full innocis. I'm just talking about, like, say,
Speaker 3: if you come from where I come from, like your
Speaker 3: mom on a crack, she's a strung out feeding you
Speaker 3: thirteen years old. You got a seven year old sister,
Speaker 3: and you coming in the house, it's just baking, soda
Speaker 3: and butter and refrigerator. And when you go out look
Speaker 3: out the window, it's people on the corner selling weed, marijuana, crack, cocaine,
Speaker 3: and they running in fast cash, and your little sister
Speaker 3: don't got none to eat. The first thing you're gonna
Speaker 3: do is go outside and pick up like this is
Speaker 3: like normal. Like Mike, if you was in a situation,
Speaker 3: I bet a million dollars on it that you would
Speaker 3: go outside and pick out of a drug. If Collie
Speaker 3: was in the house.
Speaker 4: You fourteen heart, have made work for me to do.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about stuff.
Speaker 3: No, I'm talking about if you don't have any of
Speaker 3: this going on, and you're poor, like you don't have
Speaker 3: any family in the house, and you come see Kylie
Speaker 3: and there I do.
Speaker 4: But that's also where should that person have no punishment? No,
Speaker 4: should they.
Speaker 5: Be set to jail for thirty years? It's much ridiculous
Speaker 5: thing I've ever heard, and that's why I said to me.
Speaker 3: But even if you bring it down to ten years,
Speaker 3: ten years will ruin your life. So like what they
Speaker 3: got is leaning, is not even leaning, Like it's the
Speaker 3: rates of boos step so high, like what they call
Speaker 3: like I watch media and social send them to prison.
Speaker 3: Like even when people be like he should have went
Speaker 3: to prison, he broke probation. Even if I did break probation.
Speaker 3: If I did commit a crime ten years ago and
Speaker 3: I broke probation, people are like send them back to prison.
Speaker 3: I'm like, do you know what prison is like. When
Speaker 3: I say shackled up in a cage, I mean like
Speaker 3: shack of real change. When you take a baby step
Speaker 3: is cutting your legs and like the same thing you
Speaker 3: see in a slavery movie. It's the same thing. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, do people really understand what they're saying, like
Speaker 3: send them to prison? Like Mike came to myself. Mike
Speaker 3: was like, he was like, it's not bad as it
Speaker 3: could be in my head.
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh, but that's because I'm an optimistic person
Speaker 5: and I always want to look at things positively.
Speaker 3: And it's ten degrees. I don't have a tallest seat.
Speaker 3: The water that I'm coming out of my sink is
Speaker 3: the same water connected to the tall is filthy. Like
Speaker 3: it's like there's ten mices in my cell at night
Speaker 3: running around you like is you can't even imagine it?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I'm here. I didn't hurt anybody. I
Speaker 3: didn't kill anybody. I didn't by the.
Speaker 5: Way they think, it bothers me so much, the amount
Speaker 5: of people I've told about your story and everyone it's
Speaker 5: now proven that you were wrongfully convicted because we have
Speaker 5: a cop who is one of the two restaurant officersho
Speaker 5: signed app davit saying no, you didn't point the gun,
Speaker 5: which what you were charged for. Yet and your probation
Speaker 5: violations where you popped a wheelie on a motorcycle, you
Speaker 5: broke up a fight in an airport, Yet there are
Speaker 5: people say, yeah, put them back in jail for ten years,
Speaker 5: which is it shows how backwards so many people are
Speaker 5: in this country as well.
Speaker 3: There when you speak in jail, that is like it's
Speaker 3: just like a place, a hotel where you go to
Speaker 3: sit at. Nah, it's some shit that will ruin your
Speaker 3: whole train of thought, like you were in here, Like
Speaker 3: the matches sleeping on is probably four inches thick, and
Speaker 3: after that it is metal and cement. Like you got
Speaker 3: these guys eighty years old sleeping on mattresses and stuff
Speaker 3: like they didn't kill anybody. They may have been on
Speaker 3: probation and they fell in the after felling in. You
Speaker 3: eighty years old, you you poor. You've been in the
Speaker 3: system so long it's hard to explain. You have to
Speaker 3: see it and be there. Like even what they do
Speaker 3: with juveniles, they got juveniles locked in cages. These are
Speaker 3: cement cages that they had these kids and most of
Speaker 3: these kids didn't kill you anybody.
Speaker 4: Now tell you something. I was so proud of you.
Speaker 4: But it's a scary story.
Speaker 5: So the day that I brought Robert Kraft to visit
Speaker 5: make in prison, we were sitting there and we were
Speaker 5: just kind of talking, and I was really just kind
Speaker 5: of listening to Robert Meek talking. Robert looked at me
Speaker 5: and he said, you know, I don't understand how how
Speaker 5: you're handling this.
Speaker 4: So how are you so happy?
Speaker 5: He said, Like, last time I was with you, we
Speaker 5: were on a plane flying to an All Star game
Speaker 5: and you were on the top of the world. Now
Speaker 5: you're in an orange jumpsuit, locked in prison. You've got
Speaker 5: to smile from me. You ear to ear and Mick,
Speaker 5: he's generally pretty quick with his answer. You thought about
Speaker 5: it for about thirty seconds, and he looked at Robbery.
Speaker 5: He said, you know, this has been my entire adult life.
Speaker 5: I was wrongfully convicted for a crime and commit I've
Speaker 5: been sent back to prison multiple times, never committed a
Speaker 5: new crime. But this is the first time people actually
Speaker 5: fighting for me, and that makes me so happy. So
Speaker 5: for me, I was mortified at the situation, but completely
Speaker 5: proud of how well he was handling that horrific situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the best situation I've ever been there
Speaker 3: as far as dealing with the system. We're having like
Speaker 3: real credible people standing behind me because, like Mike said,
Speaker 3: I'm telling him, like, Yo, if y'all had guns in here,
Speaker 3: y'are not even police officers. If I came in here
Speaker 3: all y'all had firearms and I came in here a
Speaker 3: point a gun nine times out of ten, where would
Speaker 3: I be?
Speaker 1: Of course, the police.
Speaker 4: Off against a cop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, cops are trained to neutralize people who cause threat
Speaker 3: towards their lives. Like this is like normal, Like, you
Speaker 3: get away with this, This is what you should do.
Speaker 3: You're trained to do this, not me one on one
Speaker 3: with a cop, like and you know, one on one,
Speaker 3: anybody could get scared and want to run away. Now
Speaker 3: this is a group of cops doing a full blown
Speaker 3: read and me being accused of pointing a gun at
Speaker 3: all of them, and.
Speaker 1: To me one more question Before I do that, I
Speaker 1: want to remind people who are listening vote, vote and
Speaker 1: vote and vote in your local races. And your DA's
Speaker 1: racist and your judges racist, your vote counts. We have
Speaker 1: races that actually ended up tied. I mean, your vote counts.
Speaker 3: And you, judge, don't have to be white against the
Speaker 3: black to be racist. It could be white on white racism,
Speaker 3: it could be black on black racism. Make sure you
Speaker 3: vote for the right people. And when you vote for judges,
Speaker 3: nobody really knows because you just see a judge d you.
Speaker 4: Can make good decisions.
Speaker 5: And people knew when they vote it for the DA
Speaker 5: in Pennsylvania that he was a more thoughtful person on
Speaker 5: the criminal justice system. And there been lots of new
Speaker 5: DA's that have had much more modern approaches. The approach
Speaker 5: hasn't been lock everybody up and put all Black American
Speaker 5: in prison. It's been let's have an accurate punishment for
Speaker 5: a crime. And that's who you should be voting for.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to say one more thing before I
Speaker 1: turned the last question over to you, which is everybody
Speaker 1: who's out there, at some point you're going to get
Speaker 1: asked to serve on a jury and nobody likes it.
Speaker 1: We get those things in the mail, we're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I got on a time for this. Whatever.
Speaker 1: It's a big pain of you got to go because
Speaker 1: when you go, there might be a meek mill in
Speaker 1: front of you, there might be somebody else who's meeting
Speaker 1: and Eric RIDDI get fun of you. In case that
Speaker 1: all three of us are involved with and we're going
Speaker 1: to get him out, well, come hell or high water.
Speaker 1: So get up, get out and go vote, and go
Speaker 1: serve on the jury, because the ask you save could
Speaker 1: be your own. And now, rather than ask a final question,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna do what I do at the end
Speaker 1: of the show, which is I always say it's my
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show, and I think it's probably
Speaker 1: the audience's favorite part of the show too, which is when
Speaker 1: I stopped talking and just turned the mic over to
Speaker 1: you for final last words. And Michael, I'm going to
Speaker 1: let you go first and then me can back clean
Speaker 1: up and close out the show. So, Michael, what would
Speaker 1: you want to tell people? How could they get involved?
Speaker 1: What can they do? What's the solution?
Speaker 5: Well, I think we're in a great position because I
Speaker 5: actually think this is a big problem that needs to
Speaker 5: be addressed. I think it's going to be I think
Speaker 5: it would just take common sense to this juicy problem.
Speaker 4: We're going to make the world a better place.
Speaker 5: And I'm actually for a guy who had absolutely zero
Speaker 5: point zero exposure to the criminal justice system until I
Speaker 5: met Meek and them still really didn't understand it until
Speaker 5: November sixth of last year. I'm really optimistic because I
Speaker 5: believe that this is a completely broken system that with
Speaker 5: a lot of focus and energy, we can make the
Speaker 5: country a much better place than To me, that's exciting.
Speaker 5: So you know what I'd say to everybody is make
Speaker 5: a difference. I didn't make any difference until seven months ago.
Speaker 5: And I'm actually you know, I've got three great businesses
Speaker 5: that I run, and I've got a great daughter and
Speaker 5: great family and friends. Yet I'm as energized about this
Speaker 5: as anything because I see how broken it is and
Speaker 5: I see how much fixing it needs.
Speaker 1: Meek last words, and before you even go, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you and Michael and thank you not just
Speaker 1: for being on the show, but for lending your voice
Speaker 1: and your energy and your money and your time to
Speaker 1: this movement.
Speaker 4: Thank you for your focus. What you're doing is incredible.
Speaker 5: You've been at this for twenty five years, Meek's been
Speaker 5: sucking the system for thirteen years, and I've been at
Speaker 5: this for seven months.
Speaker 4: So thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm older than yours, I've had more time question nonetheles,
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's an obsession and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: stop until we fix it together. So but anyway, so
Speaker 1: thank you both again for being here and sharing your
Speaker 1: thoughts and your energy, your collective wisdom. So, Meek, what
Speaker 1: are your last words for the audience that's out there?
Speaker 3: My last words to the audience is this, No, I'm dedicated.
Speaker 3: This is a life mission. I actually suffer from the
Speaker 3: criminal justice system for over ten years, and you know,
Speaker 3: I actually walked the walk on the other side of
Speaker 3: the wall with some innocent men who I know are
Speaker 3: basically suffering and families are suffering, So you know, I
Speaker 3: felt the pain firsthand. And you know, I'm gonna continue
Speaker 3: to do what I need to do to help make
Speaker 3: change and not fix the system, but break the system
Speaker 3: completely and rebuild it again. Because the way we lived
Speaker 3: and the things we've been through with the system, it
Speaker 3: doesn't even take crime or take being a villain to
Speaker 3: go to jail, you know what I'm saying. And you
Speaker 3: know it's thousands of millions of people trapped inside on
Speaker 3: the other side of the wall that actually need help.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think this is the right season
Speaker 3: to make change. And putting all my efforts onto it
Speaker 3: and hopefully, you know, we make change within the next
Speaker 3: few years and free a lot of people from the
Speaker 3: prison system.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 1: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one