Speaker 1: I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was
Speaker 1: not eve enough to believe that I would be able
Speaker 1: to just present all of my proof of actual innocence,
Speaker 1: that they would investigate adequately and so that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be going to prison because I was a good person.
Speaker 1: I hadn't anything wrong. In the back of your mind,
Speaker 1: you say, well, when we go to a hearing or
Speaker 1: we go to court, the truth will come out. The
Speaker 1: prosecution from day one knew I was innocent and let
Speaker 1: forced testimony go uncorrected from the lower courts all way
Speaker 1: up to the United States Supreme Court. You have someone
Speaker 1: with a badge with ultimate and really in that moment,
Speaker 1: unchecked the thority. Don't presume that people are guilty when
Speaker 1: you see him on TV, because it may just be
Speaker 1: a dirty d A that is trying to rise upward.
Speaker 1: This is a wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: with Jason Flom. Today, I have two people who I
Speaker 1: admire greatly. Ronald Simpson Bay welcome to the show, Thank you,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. And Glenn Martin is here. Glenn
Speaker 1: is a remarkable activist and has an incredible story to
Speaker 1: tell as well. So Ronald let's start with you. You
Speaker 1: served almost twenty seven years in prison for a crime
Speaker 1: you didn't commit, and what you've done with that experience
Speaker 1: and how it's transformed you is something that I'm honestly
Speaker 1: in awe of and so I'm looking forward to getting
Speaker 1: to that. And Glenn, you have a similar story, although
Speaker 1: you were actually locked up for something you did do
Speaker 1: and have turned it into an incredible into a movement. Really,
Speaker 1: but Ron, let's go back to the beginning. You grew
Speaker 1: up in Michigan. Yes, I did, Flint, Michigan. How was
Speaker 1: your childhood? What was it like? Let's let's go back
Speaker 1: like this, you know, back in the day before everything
Speaker 1: went so horribly wrong. I was born in Flint, Michigan,
Speaker 1: to a two parent family. My dad was a school teacher.
Speaker 1: My mom was a homemaker, and I thought we lived
Speaker 1: a fairly normal lifestyle, kind of middle upper class because
Speaker 1: my dad, he was a school teacher. We got to
Speaker 1: travel last summer, we had a motor home. We did
Speaker 1: a lot of things that you know, you don't really
Speaker 1: see in the inner city community. So I was exposed
Speaker 1: to a lot at a young age, you know, traveling
Speaker 1: a lot, and you know, my dad made sure we
Speaker 1: were educated and well learned. But I lived in an
Speaker 1: abusive home that was the oldest of five children. My
Speaker 1: dad would beat me, beat my mom and stuff, and
Speaker 1: became an untenable situation. As a child, you don't realize
Speaker 1: how dysfunctional it is. You just feel like it's normal
Speaker 1: if you grow up so long like that. You know,
Speaker 1: you get fifteen sixty years old and that like, well,
Speaker 1: this must be normal. Everybody must go through this. But
Speaker 1: I and out later on that that wasn't the case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't know any different. Right. Then you
Speaker 1: get older and then you you sort of looked back
Speaker 1: and you have more experiences to compare it to, and
Speaker 1: then you realize just how how wrong that really is,
Speaker 1: and it's a horrible thing to hear. But even then,
Speaker 1: nothing prepared you for what was going to happen, right,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't like you were growing up in a
Speaker 1: gang lifestyle or in a type of situation where you
Speaker 1: were running with a tough crowd and getting mixed up
Speaker 1: in a bunch of problems. How did it happen? How
Speaker 1: did you end up in the system in the first place. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of like I said, I didn't
Speaker 1: expect that. No one expects this to happen. And I
Speaker 1: went to high school and with the comment to the
Speaker 1: Eastern Michigan I ran track for Eastern Michigan University in
Speaker 1: the seventies and I was a tooling die maker General
Speaker 1: Motors before I went to prison. And in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: the first really dramatic traumatic even in my life happened.
Speaker 1: My mom shot to kill my dad in the Marylton
Speaker 1: home in front of my two younger brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: I was like twenty or twenty one at the time.
Speaker 1: I was married to my first wife and I get
Speaker 1: a call at work one day. My ex wife called
Speaker 1: me say you need to come home right now, and
Speaker 1: she was pregnant, so I'm thinking that you know something
Speaker 1: wrong with the baby. So I drive home, said you
Speaker 1: need to go to your parents home. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: what's going on? So I had to make the two
Speaker 1: or three miles drive over the mom and Dad's home
Speaker 1: and I get there and it's like it's pandemonium. Police
Speaker 1: cards everywhere, ambulance, the crack didn't get down the street
Speaker 1: because of such a big crowd. And when I finally
Speaker 1: do get to the house, my mom sitting the back
Speaker 1: to the cruiser, police cruiser. You're like, what's going on
Speaker 1: here exactly? I'm like, what's going on? And they pulled
Speaker 1: me to the side and said, well, your dad is
Speaker 1: in the home. Your mom and shot your dad. And
Speaker 1: they took her off and I stayed there until the
Speaker 1: corner came and pronounced him dead and removed the body.
Speaker 1: And that was July and six years to the day,
Speaker 1: July six, I walked into prison. Well, my life took
Speaker 1: almost a perfect spiral. Wow, that's a that's a very
Speaker 1: strange and sort of horrible synchronicity. You know, and your
Speaker 1: cases is troubling for a lot of reasons, but not
Speaker 1: the least of which is that you were arrested and
Speaker 1: ultimately convicted for shooting an officer. But that officer changed
Speaker 1: his story over time, right where originally he had said
Speaker 1: that you weren't the guy. So you got blindsided? Really
Speaker 1: when you went to trial, for sure? I mean, how
Speaker 1: could It's so bizarre? I mean, you got I mean,
Speaker 1: you lived it. But I'm just sitting here looking back
Speaker 1: out and going, wait a minute, I can understand a
Speaker 1: witness changing their story, but the victim, I mean going
Speaker 1: that guy didn't shoot me. Oh yes, he did. You
Speaker 1: think you'd remember that. You think, how did they get
Speaker 1: you in their in their cross hairs in the first place. Well,
Speaker 1: the the case happened on a particular day in October.
Speaker 1: My buddies and I were driving around Flinch, you know,
Speaker 1: being knuckleheads. We weren't boy scouts. We were driving around
Speaker 1: doing stupid stuff, and I stopped by a place a
Speaker 1: friend of mine I had sold some drugs to to
Speaker 1: pick some money up, but he wasn't home at the time,
Speaker 1: and it was in an apartment building where a lot
Speaker 1: of drug activities, and it was under surveillors, undercover cops.
Speaker 1: So they saw us leave the place and thought we
Speaker 1: had robbed it. So they followed us, and about two
Speaker 1: blocks away from the scene, my buddies was driving my car, say,
Speaker 1: somebody's following us. That's what stopped. Is probably the guy
Speaker 1: that owes me the money. I'm thinking that's who it was.
Speaker 1: We stopped. I get out of the car. I'm standing
Speaker 1: and waiting for this car to pull up. But as
Speaker 1: it pulls up, no one recognized the guy driving the car.
Speaker 1: One o'clock in the afternoon, z Camaro and guy jumps
Speaker 1: out with a blue jeans suit on the hed. We
Speaker 1: all had Jerry Curls back then, that's how far back.
Speaker 1: And I still had hair. Yeah, I had had a
Speaker 1: Jerry Currell man manching that. But so the guy gets
Speaker 1: out and he just in the car door squashed down
Speaker 1: and pull the guns. I'm asking the guy, y'all know
Speaker 1: who this guy is? No one knows who is he is.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden fire he's shooting the guys
Speaker 1: in my car shooting at him. I'm in the crossfire.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to run and get out of the way.
Speaker 1: So I get out of line of fires. The guys
Speaker 1: in my car take off and the undercover car takes
Speaker 1: off behind them. Wait, you got back in the car. No,
Speaker 1: the car took off without me. Okay, that's nice, friends,
Speaker 1: you got there, but go ahead. Yeah, so anyway, I
Speaker 1: know honor among thieves. I guess now. I started walking
Speaker 1: because the car could hear the cars going through the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and I can hear the shooting because the guy's panel.
Speaker 1: They're shooting from my car back at the officers car
Speaker 1: and I go to the garage. I worked on cars
Speaker 1: back then. I'll go to the garage I worked at
Speaker 1: was about a mile away from the shooting scene, and
Speaker 1: I get on the phone. I called the guy's girlfriend
Speaker 1: of driving my car. I say, if the guys come
Speaker 1: by the apartment, tell him come pick me up at
Speaker 1: the garage, not knowing that, you know, we didn't shoot
Speaker 1: out with police officers. About a half hour later, I
Speaker 1: called her back. She said, they've been arrested by the officers.
Speaker 1: What officers they were to shoot out with police? I said, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, so they're wait. So you still didn't realize
Speaker 1: at this point that the guys that have been shooting
Speaker 1: at you were cops. It never announced himself with cops
Speaker 1: and what had happened during the car chase scene after
Speaker 1: I had gotten out two miles down the road, the
Speaker 1: cars run off the road and there's a second shootout,
Speaker 1: and that's where that's what actually got he got hit
Speaker 1: in the arm and his second shootout. So you weren't
Speaker 1: anywhere near the place, No, I wasn't. I mean, this
Speaker 1: would have been more believable, easier to understand if it
Speaker 1: would have happened during the first shootout, because at least
Speaker 1: you were there, and they might arrested everybody they might
Speaker 1: arrested you, and they might, you know, the confusion, They
Speaker 1: might have thought you were the guy doing the shooting,
Speaker 1: and who the hell knows, But in this case, you
Speaker 1: weren't even there. Do you look like the other guys?
Speaker 1: But they say, we all look at like I know,
Speaker 1: I leve myself open for that one. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: like your twin brothers, so not by long shot. So
Speaker 1: they end up arresting you and charging you with assauliden
Speaker 1: to commit murder of a police office. Yes, bad, bad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You go to jail, yes, awaiting trial. Yes, I got
Speaker 1: out on bind. I was in jail for about two
Speaker 1: months and posted sixty dollar buy and got out okay.
Speaker 1: And how long did it take to get to trial?
Speaker 1: About six seven months. I got out in December and
Speaker 1: the trials in June. So you go to trial and
Speaker 1: who represented you? I had an attorney. My attorney was
Speaker 1: he's a former judge in the county in which I
Speaker 1: had to trial. He usould be a city judge on
Speaker 1: the circuit court bench. So that sounds like, you know,
Speaker 1: you were giving yourself a good shot at least you
Speaker 1: you would think. But the problem with that was and
Speaker 1: that didn't discovered till later, is that the judge we
Speaker 1: were in front of. My attorney and the judge hated
Speaker 1: each other when he was on the bench, and he
Speaker 1: didn't bother to tell you that, well, not initially when
Speaker 1: he tried to get the case moved to another court,
Speaker 1: because he said, this judge and I have animosity towards
Speaker 1: each other, and I don't think he gave me a
Speaker 1: fair trial. Oh my god, that's just what you need
Speaker 1: to hear, exactly. And then he's not going to make
Speaker 1: the relationship any better by asking that the trial be
Speaker 1: moved to another right. Okay, so now you've got a
Speaker 1: pretty good idea that things are looking bad exactly as
Speaker 1: a confluence of crazy events. You know, the prosecutor came
Speaker 1: over his theory of the case, and the officer himself
Speaker 1: changed his testimony to fit that theory of the case.
Speaker 1: There were four of us involved in this crime, myself
Speaker 1: and three code defenders, and to the co defenders turned
Speaker 1: States evidence against me and one other guy. They testified
Speaker 1: against us, and their testimony fit the theory of the
Speaker 1: prosecutor's case as well, even though none of the evidence fit.
Speaker 1: Who had a clear statement from the officer we had
Speaker 1: his his handwritten police report from the damn the event,
Speaker 1: saying I hadn't done you know, it wasn't me. Eight
Speaker 1: months later, when the trial went down, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm the one that jumped out of the car shooting
Speaker 1: at him. It was it was crazy. So they had
Speaker 1: everybody at the trial basically telling the story that the
Speaker 1: prosecutor wanted to be told. The police officer changed his story,
Speaker 1: the other two witnesses changed their story or or came
Speaker 1: up with a story that was in line with the
Speaker 1: prosecutor wanted. And so did you believe that when the
Speaker 1: jury went out? Did you believe that you were going
Speaker 1: to be convicted? There is no way I thought I
Speaker 1: was gonna be convicted. It was a three week trial,
Speaker 1: and not a week in to the trial they came
Speaker 1: and offered me a plea bargain. I said, there's no
Speaker 1: way I'm taking the polee bark. I got the officers
Speaker 1: statements saying I didn't shoot at him, so I'm not
Speaker 1: taking a polee bargain. That's so crazy, right, And Glenn
Speaker 1: and said, I see Glenn rolling his eyes. So let's
Speaker 1: just reflect on this particular aspect of because this is
Speaker 1: not a story I've ever heard before. So they came
Speaker 1: to you and offered you a polee bargain. What was
Speaker 1: the plea bargain? Uh? Seven to ten? The sins was
Speaker 1: seven to seven to ten years sentence. I forgot with
Speaker 1: the charge some reduced charge assault with great body harm
Speaker 1: but intentional to great body harm or something like that.
Speaker 1: And you were facing what life if you lost the trial?
Speaker 1: So if you were guilty, that sounds like a pretty
Speaker 1: good deal, right. And now here is we have Glenn Martin,
Speaker 1: who's the founder and leader of Just Leadership USA. Glenn
Speaker 1: himself was incarcerated for six years for robbery and has
Speaker 1: become I could say, probably the most important voice in
Speaker 1: the de incarceration movement. Was that fair, Glenn? Uh? If
Speaker 1: I wanted to toot my own horn, Yeah, that's fair, right.
Speaker 1: And he's been instrumental in the Closed Riker's campaign, has
Speaker 1: done so much incredible advocacy work that it sometimes makes
Speaker 1: me feel like I'm standing still And I know that
Speaker 1: now you guys work together, right, Glenn, Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard a story like that where the witness I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, we just heard it, but I'm having
Speaker 1: trouble processing I do a ton of public speaking, and
Speaker 1: I am constantly retelling this story because I am so
Speaker 1: blown away by it. The fact that the prosecutor even
Speaker 1: offered that, you know, relatively low number suggested to me
Speaker 1: that they even thought that they may not win that case,
Speaker 1: which would be another reason for Ronald to just hold out.
Speaker 1: Like if they you know, if I'm facing life and
Speaker 1: they're offered me seven to ten in the middle of trial,
Speaker 1: that suggests that they think they may not make it
Speaker 1: to the finish line. So I would have done the
Speaker 1: same thing. But having the key witness who got shot
Speaker 1: not just change his story in the middle, but also
Speaker 1: the fact that Ronald even wasn't on the scene when
Speaker 1: he finally got shot, you know, it blows me away,
Speaker 1: except I gotta be honest. I mean, everything about our
Speaker 1: criminal justice system is just unfair and there's no equity there,
Speaker 1: and people of color get outcomes like this over and over.
Speaker 1: Maybe not as egregious, but Ronald's story has always riveted
Speaker 1: me as one that stands out for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: And we're just touching on the story now. There's a
Speaker 1: lot more to tell. But the reason I asked Ronald's
Speaker 1: permission to tell the story over and over is because
Speaker 1: I think it gets to the core of what's rotten
Speaker 1: in our criminal justice system. And I would go even
Speaker 1: a step further and say that when the prosecutor offered
Speaker 1: you that deal, what Glenn says is certainly, which is
Speaker 1: that they must have thought that there was a pretty
Speaker 1: good chance that they weren't gonna win. But also they
Speaker 1: must have known that you weren't that guy, because if
Speaker 1: you're a prosecutor, you're not trying to let a guy
Speaker 1: who shot a cop out after seven to ten years.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you look at in comparison, Glenn was
Speaker 1: convicted of robbery, right, simple robbery, so he got six years.
Speaker 1: What we're led to believe now is that they're willing
Speaker 1: to say, all right, this guy is a bad motherfucker.
Speaker 1: He shot a cop, but we're gonna give him seven
Speaker 1: to ten. We're just gonna be nice people. Right. Most
Speaker 1: people who shoot cops and end up in prison never
Speaker 1: get out to be honest. Yeah, I mean, we can
Speaker 1: debate that all day long, but that's a terrible crime. Right.
Speaker 1: We cannot have people shooting at law enforcement. It's not happening, right,
Speaker 1: And I can agree that people who are violent, and
Speaker 1: certainly people who attack law enforcement officers in a way
Speaker 1: like that need to be in prison because they're dangerous.
Speaker 1: But this story is really it stinks. Honestly, it stinks,
Speaker 1: and you know it does. So the jury goes out.
Speaker 1: It was a jury trial, right, and three weeks of
Speaker 1: the courtroom you developed almost like some rap poor with them. Right,
Speaker 1: You're in close quarters for three weeks every day, all
Speaker 1: day except weekends. And then they go out and come
Speaker 1: back in And did they even look at you? Did
Speaker 1: you get that sense when they walked in. When they
Speaker 1: walked in, I had the sense of, oh, shoot, I'm
Speaker 1: in trouble. Because one of the jurors was crying. One
Speaker 1: of the women, a young woman was crying. I said,
Speaker 1: that can't be good. What was the makeup of the jury,
Speaker 1: because Flint is a very racially diverse city, right, the
Speaker 1: jury wasn't out of the twelve jury. There were two
Speaker 1: blacks on my jury and Flint is what uh huh
Speaker 1: that Glenn. Do you think that's a coincidence? No, I
Speaker 1: think that's a stute prosecutor who's managing the jury pool.
Speaker 1: After I was convicted, you know, you get to speak
Speaker 1: to the court, and I spoke to that exact point
Speaker 1: that you know that I didn't have a jury of
Speaker 1: my peers. It wasn't racially made up. And out of
Speaker 1: the two black people that were on where older black
Speaker 1: people from prior to the civil rights there, and they
Speaker 1: were used to bound down to when the white person
Speaker 1: says something. They were worse than the white people on
Speaker 1: the jury because they because the people that I thought
Speaker 1: were holding out with the woman that was crying, and
Speaker 1: somebody else kind of looked to me like just kind
Speaker 1: of shook their head and just like this is the
Speaker 1: way it is. It's the way it is. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and we know too that after a three week trial
Speaker 1: and they're stuck in that jury room, people get angry.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to go home. They don't want to be there,
Speaker 1: and it could get abusive in there, you know. And
Speaker 1: if they're that old, I mean, I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: excusing what they did. I could understand it. The last
Speaker 1: day before I was convicted, when they were deliberating, they
Speaker 1: had deliberated for over twelve hours, and they told the
Speaker 1: judge they wanted to go home. He said, no, we're
Speaker 1: not leaving till you come back. With a D. There
Speaker 1: you go. I rest my case so they come back.
Speaker 1: Can you paint the picture of what what that was like?
Speaker 1: That one probably worst moment of your life. What did
Speaker 1: it feel like when the jury come in and just
Speaker 1: said with a defended rise When they get ready to
Speaker 1: announce the I felt like I had five hundred pounds
Speaker 1: on my should. I couldn't It was so hard to
Speaker 1: stand up. It was like, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you ever lifted weights, so squatt when you were
Speaker 1: in prison. We used to squat and I felt like
Speaker 1: I had five hundred pounds. I could not get up.
Speaker 1: And then as they announced the verdict, you know, and
Speaker 1: then each person was stating, you know, they agreed with
Speaker 1: the verdict. It was like every time they said guilty,
Speaker 1: it was like a death blow. Boom. It was literally
Speaker 1: a death blow literally, because they're taking your whole life away.
Speaker 1: And so you go to prison. What prison were you
Speaker 1: sent to? Jackson in Michigan? Because I was twenty seven
Speaker 1: years old when I went to prison, I was an
Speaker 1: older person apparently speaking, so they sent me to the
Speaker 1: adult prison, not the younger prison. So I'm with the
Speaker 1: Jackson Penitentiary in Jackson Michigan. And is that as bad
Speaker 1: as I think it is. Oh yeah, it used to be.
Speaker 1: It was built the world's largest war in prison because
Speaker 1: it was such a huge complex. Over five thousand prisoners
Speaker 1: were there and it was spread out of all his
Speaker 1: acres and they had you know, maximum security sales and
Speaker 1: medium security sale. There was a pretty wild place. And
Speaker 1: when you say that, I mean you want to elaborate,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to, but oh man, Jackson
Speaker 1: was Jackson was crazy. It was it was insane. And
Speaker 1: to give you some ideal, the nine seven, there was
Speaker 1: so much tension between the officers and the prisoners incarcerated
Speaker 1: people that they were killing each other, like literally like
Speaker 1: and marchha that year, female officer was killed in all
Speaker 1: because of that year, they in retaliation they choked and
Speaker 1: killed a carsprated person over an asset unit. And in
Speaker 1: December another officer was killed, stabbed at death. It was
Speaker 1: it was back and forth. Wow, that sounds it sounds
Speaker 1: like hell. It was hell. It was suicide. You know,
Speaker 1: people couldn't cope because of the violence and the conditions
Speaker 1: of confinement. You know, it was the old prison. You know, roaches,
Speaker 1: ratchet wasn't one of your new modern cottage campus type
Speaker 1: printed had bars, you know, old school, just like you
Speaker 1: see in the movies. Wow. I mean, and then something
Speaker 1: clicked inside of you, and you're already a man, unlike
Speaker 1: a lot of people that we talked to who were
Speaker 1: literally teenagers adolescence even when they went to prison. Nobody's
Speaker 1: prepared for this. But you, somehow or other, you found
Speaker 1: another level of strength that is out of this world.
Speaker 1: Not just to survive and keep your spirit up and
Speaker 1: and learn the law and actually end up figuring out
Speaker 1: a way to get yourself out. You could so easily
Speaker 1: have been another one of those victims. You could have
Speaker 1: been a suicide, You could have been killed. You could
Speaker 1: have also just given up, right, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I think there's probably a bunch of people that you
Speaker 1: left behind who, probably as innocent as you are, just couldn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so my question is where did that come from?
Speaker 1: For me? I mean, you do prison in stages. Anybody
Speaker 1: does time, especially long time. You're doing in phases. And
Speaker 1: the first five years of my car spration, I was angry,
Speaker 1: and I was a twenty seven year old, aggressive, angry
Speaker 1: young man and black man in prison. When I got
Speaker 1: the prison and discovered that in Michigan, sixty of the
Speaker 1: prisoner didn't have g DS. And I had been to
Speaker 1: college and and I was aggressives. I'm gonna run this place.
Speaker 1: So for the first five years, I was part of
Speaker 1: the problem, not part of the solution. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: we can all kind of have it on the yard, fights, stabbings,
Speaker 1: your name, and we were involved in it. And one
Speaker 1: day in nineteen ninety ninety ninety one, a good friend
Speaker 1: of mine brought me a book called Visions for Black
Speaker 1: Men by Dr Named Akbar, ninety page paperback, small but
Speaker 1: easy read, Visions for Black Men. Yes, I read that
Speaker 1: book and it was like an epiphany. Light came on
Speaker 1: and I could not believe what I I looked at
Speaker 1: myself differently. I looked at my community differently. I looked
Speaker 1: at my responsibility to myself and my family in my
Speaker 1: community a lot differently, and and it kind of snapped
Speaker 1: me out of my anger. I gotta I gotta do
Speaker 1: something different. I'm dying here. I'm gonna kill somebody here
Speaker 1: and then die. So that book made me be more
Speaker 1: reflective and introspective, and it kind of turned my attitude around,
Speaker 1: and I started looking at things differently, stopped not being
Speaker 1: about me so much by being about other people because
Speaker 1: I looked up for a chain first five years I
Speaker 1: had looked up and saw the degradation around me. I
Speaker 1: saw how people have been dehumanized by the system, and
Speaker 1: people that couldn't defend them themselves because he either had
Speaker 1: mental issues or just and had the faculty to do so.
Speaker 1: And I had the faculty and the mental capacity to
Speaker 1: do it. So I turned my life around and started
Speaker 1: going in the direction of trying to help other people.
Speaker 1: And then another tragedy occurred, as if you hadn't been
Speaker 1: tested enough right with the terrible, unimaginable circumstance of your
Speaker 1: your parents and then being wrongfully incarcerated, and then the
Speaker 1: only other worst thing that can happen to a person
Speaker 1: happened to you as well. Man. Indeed, indeed it two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. I have been in prison about fifteen
Speaker 1: sixteen years at the time, and Father's Day, I was
Speaker 1: waiting for a bit that I talked to my son
Speaker 1: and three daughters. I had a son and three daughters
Speaker 1: at the time, and I talked to my son that morning.
Speaker 1: His name is Ronald, and I called him and Hey, Dad,
Speaker 1: I'm bringing the girls up to see you and we
Speaker 1: will be up there. And said that were like great,
Speaker 1: you know, on Father's Day see your children and prisoners, like,
Speaker 1: nothing is better. So I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting.
Speaker 1: One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock. They don't show up.
Speaker 1: Now I'm getting worse. So I get on the phone.
Speaker 1: I stopped calling. And it's strange. I know thousands of
Speaker 1: people in Flint, Michigan. I could not catch anyone. I
Speaker 1: called all my family members and taught no one I
Speaker 1: ain't up dilling. My ex mother law's phone him, Hey mom,
Speaker 1: this is Royn you're doing Have you seen the kid
Speaker 1: they're supposed to come visit? She said, Uh, you haven't heard.
Speaker 1: I said, know what's going on? Said little Ronnie been
Speaker 1: shot and killed? My twenty one year old son had
Speaker 1: been shot and killed by fourteen year juvenile in the
Speaker 1: streets of Flint, Michigan. Um, I mean that's hard enough
Speaker 1: to prova, get the shows and to be in president
Speaker 1: and again, how could anybody deal with that? By that time,
Speaker 1: I had been for ten years. I had been you know,
Speaker 1: I had changed my life around. I had a whole
Speaker 1: new aptitude about life. I had become heads of various organizations,
Speaker 1: religious organizations, civic organizations. I was I was a name
Speaker 1: playing up on a class action lawsuits, so I was
Speaker 1: kind of a you know, I'm a high profile person inside.
Speaker 1: And by that time when my son died, I had
Speaker 1: been all these years. They had been given other people
Speaker 1: counsel when they when you know, grief counseling, and when
Speaker 1: think they got bad news from home that their wife
Speaker 1: left them, all that somebody died or whatever, I would
Speaker 1: counsel people. So when it came my turn, I had
Speaker 1: to apply my own constant to myself, because for me,
Speaker 1: the worst thing I can be as a hypocrite. I
Speaker 1: never want to be a hypocrite when anything that I do,
Speaker 1: so I had to do as I said do in
Speaker 1: my own Here I can hear my voice of all
Speaker 1: the consolat giving people over the years, and I just
Speaker 1: swallowed and took an in for myself. And as a
Speaker 1: result of that, I forgave that child who killed my son.
Speaker 1: I advocated for him to be treated as a juvenile,
Speaker 1: to go through the juvenile system and not be treated
Speaker 1: as an adult, because I felt that him serving a
Speaker 1: life sentence in a Michigan prison would serve no useful purpose.
Speaker 1: It wasn't gonna bring my son back. It was only
Speaker 1: going to deteriorate his family. Our community would rode even further.
Speaker 1: And I felt that that young man was this victim
Speaker 1: of the same environmental aspects as myself, my son, and
Speaker 1: many other black men in the community. That is so extraordinary.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't stop there. You actually went to bat
Speaker 1: for a person who murdered your son, your namesake. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't like you made a phone call right or
Speaker 1: wrote a letter. The fact is that when you started
Speaker 1: to advocate for this young man who had committed this terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible crime that in pacted you so so devastating to you.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor don't want to hear from you. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that being an inmate makes you not a father, right.
Speaker 1: I mean that there's nothing in the Constitution or anywhere
Speaker 1: else it says that, right. I mean that that should
Speaker 1: outweigh any other factor. Right, you would think, of course,
Speaker 1: in our system we treat people so terribly, even when
Speaker 1: it comes to trying to visit it in other people
Speaker 1: who have lost close family members behind bars. You know,
Speaker 1: if they get to go to the funeral, they have
Speaker 1: to find a way to pay for the guards to
Speaker 1: take them and things like that. I had to do that.
Speaker 1: Oh you didn't, so it's not even anomaly. So you
Speaker 1: had to go to extreme measures to try to get
Speaker 1: justice for this person who had wronged you. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: had to contact the judge. I mean, I'm a phone calls.
Speaker 1: I was. I was in prison, so I wasn't viewed
Speaker 1: as a traditional victim, so to speak. So that's probably
Speaker 1: why the prosecutor just kind of ignore my calls and
Speaker 1: letters to them, try to, you know, advocate on half
Speaker 1: of this child funding writing letters to the court. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a phone call that had my ex wife, my
Speaker 1: son's mother go down and advocate on his behalf, you know,
Speaker 1: because she could go there in person and talk to him.
Speaker 1: It was just we just had to keep at until
Speaker 1: one day they said we're gonna try him as a juvenile.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, right, imagine if it had flipped, if you
Speaker 1: had been writing letters to the prosecutors saying I demand
Speaker 1: that this kid get life in prison, they would have
Speaker 1: been like, yeah, Ronald, come on, ye testify that's right.
Speaker 1: We bring him right into the court room they would
Speaker 1: have put you understand, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: think that's a pretty safe bet. And so what eventually
Speaker 1: happened to that young fourteen year old boy. He served
Speaker 1: seven years in the juvenile attention facility most of us
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania. He got released and he's living in Cincinnati
Speaker 1: right now. And there's still some connection, right Yeah, well, actually,
Speaker 1: I mean the connection is the guy that killed my
Speaker 1: son was my son's girlfriend's younger brother. And the story
Speaker 1: is lead from she told me that. I just want
Speaker 1: to repeat that again, So just for my own sake
Speaker 1: and for the eyes, who was your son's girlfriend's brother
Speaker 1: that killed my son? Okay? And at the time he died,
Speaker 1: his girlfriend was pregnant with my grandson, with his son
Speaker 1: because he was born too much later. So my grandson
Speaker 1: is the nephew the guy to kill my son. Holy fuck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I knew that because I have read up
Speaker 1: on you but here and you say it it's convoluted,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's it's strange in fiction. Yeah. So, during
Speaker 1: your just about twenty seven years locked up in maximum
Speaker 1: security prison, did you spend time in solitary confinement? Yes,
Speaker 1: I spent several stints in solitary um in Michigan and
Speaker 1: administrative segregation. But it's the same thing. And the longest
Speaker 1: single stretch I stayed might have been eight months or so,
Speaker 1: but I had like four months here, three months there,
Speaker 1: two months, eight months over the years, probably close to
Speaker 1: three years total. Eight months. I'm just I mean eight months.
Speaker 1: I think if you went to your average person out
Speaker 1: there and said we need you to stay at the
Speaker 1: holiday inn for eight months and you know, somewhere in
Speaker 1: Florida or you know whatever, that's a stupid example. But
Speaker 1: somebody be like, I can't do that. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: I'll go crazy. Eight months. You make a baby in
Speaker 1: eight months? And what was that like? Because it's a
Speaker 1: little different everywhere, but it's always the certain things are
Speaker 1: the same. Yeah, I mean solitary segregation is it's a
Speaker 1: prison within the prison, and it's so terrible because the
Speaker 1: majority of the people over there have mental health issues.
Speaker 1: Because when you can't follow the rules in prison, this
Speaker 1: is where they put the people that can't follow the rules,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people that have mental health issues
Speaker 1: aren't able to follow the rules, so they go over
Speaker 1: there and and they don't get treatment. So it's just
Speaker 1: it's havoc. You can't sleep all night because they're screaming
Speaker 1: and holling and banging all night, banging on the doors,
Speaker 1: banging on the bar, banging steal lockers, and then they
Speaker 1: sleep all day. So the first had to get acclimated
Speaker 1: to that. I had to get see healthcare because I
Speaker 1: was haveing attention headache. I thought I was having a
Speaker 1: stroke because it was so bad to smoke because they
Speaker 1: burned toilet rolls to heat water with. And it's just, man,
Speaker 1: it's just if you ever saw Mad Max me on
Speaker 1: Thunderdome years and I'm telling my age now back in
Speaker 1: the eighties and that whole that sales. Seeing in that
Speaker 1: movie kind of reminded me. Solitary confined me because it
Speaker 1: was so chaotic and so noisy, and you're locked up
Speaker 1: in that cell twenty three hours, and twenty three hours
Speaker 1: a day you get out for one hour yard like
Speaker 1: three days a week, and the other two or three
Speaker 1: days you get time to get out the shower. You
Speaker 1: don't get showers every day. You get showers like three
Speaker 1: days a week. What did you do? I mean again,
Speaker 1: I keep coming back to it, but how did you
Speaker 1: maintain your sanity and your spirit, and in that prison.
Speaker 1: Within the prison, I kept busy. I had had access
Speaker 1: to my property, and then my property I had. I
Speaker 1: had my personal library of eight hundred books, so they
Speaker 1: allowed me to get books out of my property, and
Speaker 1: I was doing legal work, so I stayed busy while
Speaker 1: I was in that. I didn't let my mind get
Speaker 1: off into whatever's going on around me inside of the
Speaker 1: segregation unit. I just stayed busy and kept working until
Speaker 1: they said we're gonna let you go and you're able
Speaker 1: to shut out the noise that way and sort of
Speaker 1: at least find some sort of sanctuary, and you're you
Speaker 1: have to if you don't it to drive you crazy.
Speaker 1: I see why people go crazy. And now I mean
Speaker 1: people who are crazy, driving other people crazy and getting
Speaker 1: crazier while they're doing it. I mean, it really does
Speaker 1: sound like hell. I mean, it's hell inside of hell.
Speaker 1: So it's like, I don't know what the next thing
Speaker 1: is that's worse than hell, but that sounds like it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's cruel and in human punishment by any
Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination. And it is an added tragedy
Speaker 1: that we have these people who mental health treatment who
Speaker 1: end up in our prisons, and then, as you said,
Speaker 1: you can't obey the rules because they can't, not because
Speaker 1: they don't even necessarily want to, but they can't, and
Speaker 1: then they and we end up punishing them even more
Speaker 1: severely and then rendering them completely incapacitated and unable to
Speaker 1: ever return to society without reciervating and going back to
Speaker 1: prison because we've made them into what they are. And
Speaker 1: I keep coming back to what Glenn said it before.
Speaker 1: They're human beings. I mean, that's what gets me, like,
Speaker 1: it's so strange how in America we've gotten to a
Speaker 1: place where a switch goes off where the minute someone's arrested,
Speaker 1: they go from being a human being to just being
Speaker 1: an inmate, and people feel that they can treat them
Speaker 1: however they want. So let's talk about how you got
Speaker 1: yourself out and how you ended up working with this guy,
Speaker 1: Glenn Martin, and what you're doing now. Oh, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank man. Well. I I became a paralegal while obs inside,
Speaker 1: and I fought more on case for all those years,
Speaker 1: and twenty four years into my sentence, I got my
Speaker 1: conviction overturn. The federal courts granted habeas relief on my case.
Speaker 1: The crazy thing about that the state appealed the reversal
Speaker 1: of my conviction, and I sat in prison for three
Speaker 1: more years without a conviction because the court wouldn't grant
Speaker 1: me buying. They just they wouldn't even rule on it.
Speaker 1: They just left me sitting there. But three more years
Speaker 1: and my case was reversed on prosecutor misconduct. That's the
Speaker 1: issue in which I got back. I got released on
Speaker 1: prosecutorial misconduct, and they wait three more years for the
Speaker 1: same prosecutor's office to forgot what they want to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the fox guarding the handhouse. It's it's
Speaker 1: a reality in our system, and it's just it's so
Speaker 1: it's one of the reasons why it's so broken. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I ended up the court, the federal court and the
Speaker 1: Federal Peller Court to order them to either grant me
Speaker 1: a new trial and released me. So I go back
Speaker 1: down to the circuit court and the prosecutor they offer
Speaker 1: me a plea bargain, said well, if you take this
Speaker 1: police bargain, you can go home today. I said, if
Speaker 1: I don't get to go home today, I'm not taking it.
Speaker 1: So I took the polee bargain, but There was some
Speaker 1: confusion behind that because as I agreed to it, and
Speaker 1: the judge went on the record, because the judge wanted
Speaker 1: me to walk out the courtroom, but the Department of
Speaker 1: Corrections the officers were saying, well, we got ordered to
Speaker 1: bring him back and they want to recalculate his time,
Speaker 1: and the judge was like, what I said, he got
Speaker 1: time served. So the judge adjourn got off the bench.
Speaker 1: He went back and called the Department of Corrections himself.
Speaker 1: He called the central office at Lansing, Michigan, and it's like,
Speaker 1: I want to let this guy go home now, and
Speaker 1: they were telling him the same crap, but we got
Speaker 1: a procedure we have to recalculate their time make sure
Speaker 1: they was able to be released. And it just said, okay,
Speaker 1: I got this. The judge came back out beat red.
Speaker 1: He went back on the record and he changed the
Speaker 1: whole plea bargain. He said, not only am I sense
Speaker 1: him to time served, but I'm gonna amend a sentence
Speaker 1: to fifteen years. I had already been out over my
Speaker 1: sentence by twelve. He gave me a ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: year sentence, which made me pass my outdate by twelve
Speaker 1: years to make sure I went home right there. Good
Speaker 1: for him. It's nice to hear those stories. We've spent
Speaker 1: so much time talking about prosecutor our misconduct and other
Speaker 1: misdeeds in the system, that it's important to highlight people
Speaker 1: like that judge who he had courage and he he
Speaker 1: did what was right, had courage and and those people
Speaker 1: can make a huge difference, and we need more of them,
Speaker 1: and more power to you too as well. I mean
Speaker 1: the idea that you figured out a way to represent
Speaker 1: yourself and overturn this crazy conviction, which I'm sure they
Speaker 1: made it as difficult as they could. They always do,
Speaker 1: but when when there's a case of a police officer
Speaker 1: being shot, they're gonna make an extra extra hard if
Speaker 1: they can. So you figured it out and then you
Speaker 1: come out and the world looks a lot different. Uh
Speaker 1: oh man, I was compared to the feeling I had.
Speaker 1: I felt like free offensed on stepping onto the set
Speaker 1: of The Jetsons. Of the Jetsons, Yeah, exactly right. I
Speaker 1: mean almost twenty seven years coming out, I mean we're
Speaker 1: to change. Yeah. I mean even imagine if somebody going
Speaker 1: in today it comes out twenty seven years or now.
Speaker 1: God knows what everything is. It really will be the
Speaker 1: Jetsons by then. Exactly how did you end up linking
Speaker 1: up with Glenn and his organization? And Glenn, can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about what it is that you're doing.
Speaker 1: Just leadership. There's so much that it's hard for me
Speaker 1: to get it into a sound bite. Sure, just leadership.
Speaker 1: We have the goal of cutting the number of people
Speaker 1: under correctional supervision and American and half by so that
Speaker 1: means probation, parole, correction, prison, jails, you name it. And
Speaker 1: the reason we have this ambitious goal is because we
Speaker 1: have a criminal justice system that is just off the charts.
Speaker 1: That's just a jugging out of a system that's locking
Speaker 1: up so many people. And we do that by investing
Speaker 1: in the leadership of people like Ronald. And it's counterintuitive,
Speaker 1: but the truth is, that's how you build movements, that's
Speaker 1: how you undo systems that dehumanize people, is to invest
Speaker 1: in the very people who have been dehumanized. And you
Speaker 1: listen to Ronald's case and you realize that we have
Speaker 1: a criminal justice system that just labels people and put
Speaker 1: someone to convey a belt and send them on their way,
Speaker 1: and you can never shake off the label. Except when
Speaker 1: you listen to Ronald's story, it's not just riveting. You
Speaker 1: recognize his humanity in the middle of that story. And
Speaker 1: so here you have Ronald who's a sophisticated advocate by
Speaker 1: any stretch of imagination, but also he has this story
Speaker 1: that is not just compelling, but it works as a
Speaker 1: way to help other people rehumanize people who are in
Speaker 1: the system. And I think that for us to start
Speaker 1: treating people differently, we have to recognize that they're people
Speaker 1: that their fathers and uncles and brothers and sisters. And
Speaker 1: Ronald's story, as difficult as it is to listen to,
Speaker 1: because the criminal justice system and all of its perverse
Speaker 1: incentives lead to all of those tragedies, in the end,
Speaker 1: I think what's most compelling is the story of a
Speaker 1: father who, while suffering in this system, found a way
Speaker 1: to be compassionate for a child who he didn't want
Speaker 1: to see end up facing the same sort of human
Speaker 1: carnage that comes out of our system now, and in fact,
Speaker 1: this same sentence that you were facing just another irony
Speaker 1: of the whole situation. You had to come out and
Speaker 1: navigate this new world, figure out why everybody's walking around
Speaker 1: with some sort of a gadget glued to their face, right,
Speaker 1: and and everything else that goes with the technology. Everything,
Speaker 1: everything is completely upside down from when you went in,
Speaker 1: because that's that's facing that's almost three decades. I'm sure
Speaker 1: some people that are listening haven't even been alive that long, right,
Speaker 1: And so, well, how did you end up connecting with
Speaker 1: Glenn and just leadership because you're you're in Michigan. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not you know, it's your sort of I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not the easiest thing in the world exactly. I
Speaker 1: think I met him sitting in the trailer. Before that
Speaker 1: we met, maybe would you came to my job at
Speaker 1: the trailer? What happened in I was a pailist at
Speaker 1: the University of Michigan at a conference or convention there
Speaker 1: and Glen was the keyno speaker for the student group
Speaker 1: had some kind of meet and going criminal justice reform
Speaker 1: conference going. So Glen was the keyno speaking. I was
Speaker 1: a pamalist and afterwards we met. He came to I
Speaker 1: worked at American Friend Service Committee and our office in
Speaker 1: a garage and Olbur Michigan and Glenn came to to
Speaker 1: the garage and I met him there and we talked
Speaker 1: and he told me this vision that he had for
Speaker 1: Starlish organization. He was working on it at that time,
Speaker 1: and he was telling me that, you know, he wanted
Speaker 1: me to apply for when the application went live, and
Speaker 1: he explained to me that, you know, his theory of
Speaker 1: those closer to the problem of being closest to the solution.
Speaker 1: And I always get a kick out. And I think
Speaker 1: that because I teased myself, if I get any closer
Speaker 1: to the problem, is gonna kill me after spending twenty
Speaker 1: seven years in prison, So so I was he offered
Speaker 1: me this opportunity to join this organization. So I did
Speaker 1: the application and got accepted to the first cohort for
Speaker 1: and I went through the Just Leadership year long leading
Speaker 1: with conviction training and it was an amazing experience and
Speaker 1: a life changing the experience with Glenn and and and
Speaker 1: the guys he had trained in US. And at the
Speaker 1: end of that process and the end of Glenn was
Speaker 1: in the process of hiring it his staff, his first
Speaker 1: staff people for Just Leadership, and he offered me a position,
Speaker 1: which I took And what is your job? Now? What
Speaker 1: do you what do you do every day. I'm the
Speaker 1: alumni associate for the organization. I'm the point of engagement
Speaker 1: for our three hundred and sixty six leaders in twenty
Speaker 1: nine states plus Washington, d C. We just added thirty
Speaker 1: six more leaders, so we're gonna have four hundred and
Speaker 1: two leaders in thirty one states. What is the leader formally?
Speaker 1: Incostrated people that go through our training process. We have
Speaker 1: a year long leading with conviction training that we do
Speaker 1: here in New York City, and we have a one
Speaker 1: day snapshot of that train and called Emergent Leaders training
Speaker 1: that we do. We do travel around the country during
Speaker 1: that various locations, and the people that go through the
Speaker 1: programs become part of our network of leaders. And what
Speaker 1: do those leaders do on a daily basis? So what's
Speaker 1: their job? Oh, they they have their own job. A
Speaker 1: lot of run nonprofit organizations. One of them work for
Speaker 1: the Problement Justice, some new policy in Alaska, some do
Speaker 1: re entry in Florida, some do re entry in California.
Speaker 1: And some of the drug counselers what they do a
Speaker 1: wide range of things dealing with criminal justice. This reform,
Speaker 1: I mean, now I see why you're smiling so much,
Speaker 1: because you're now able to do something that is causing
Speaker 1: a ripple effect, absolutely, because everybody that you help is
Speaker 1: helping dozens of other people and then training them to
Speaker 1: go on and you know, and then all of this
Speaker 1: leads to when me and Glenn are probably you could
Speaker 1: finally take a bad case. That's right, I'm with you,
Speaker 1: that's probably. That's probably the soonest we can hope for.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's okay. This is it's funny because
Speaker 1: Glenn like carved out the perfect spot for me for
Speaker 1: I mean, for my challenge for this job. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm like the point of engagement for the for this
Speaker 1: for all our cohort, and I leaded. I have such
Speaker 1: a relationship with him. A lot of him call me
Speaker 1: uncle round, they come to the co Hey, I'll go round,
Speaker 1: just like we have a lot of fun. The most
Speaker 1: personable man I've ever met in my life did twenty
Speaker 1: seven years in prison. Seriously, Ronald's attitude is. I mean,
Speaker 1: you find people that have vast amounts of other sorts
Speaker 1: of wealth and don't have the spirit that Ronald has.
Speaker 1: No no, and he's charming, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I can say that, um, I may have I may start, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can call you um, but
Speaker 1: the this is really what a story, what a full circle,
Speaker 1: and what an incredible spirit you have. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: just uh, and you know it's amazing because I feel
Speaker 1: so I don't know. The only word I could think
Speaker 1: of is blessed to be able to be in a
Speaker 1: position to be around people like yourself, and to be
Speaker 1: able to do my part in helping to change the
Speaker 1: conversation around this issue and to help individuals both in
Speaker 1: getting themselves out of prison when they don't belong there
Speaker 1: and returning to life, reintegrating into society and excelling as
Speaker 1: you've done. It's an amazing process and it's you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's just every time, it never ceases
Speaker 1: to amaze me. And you are as good as an
Speaker 1: example and as good as an ambassador or as anybody
Speaker 1: could ever hope to have. So, Ronald, this has been
Speaker 1: an experience I'm not going to forget, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to having more great experiences with you and working
Speaker 1: together in this fight. Looking forward to it. But we
Speaker 1: have a tradition here on wrong for Conviction. I'd like
Speaker 1: to turn the microphone over to our featured guests. Well,
Speaker 1: you and Glenn, and give you each an opportunity to
Speaker 1: just say whatever it is it's on your mind, anything
Speaker 1: that we haven't covered, or anything you want to say
Speaker 1: about anything. I think, and in a nutshell for me,
Speaker 1: I mean, you kind of hit on it about about
Speaker 1: the humanity. I think my whole mission in life at
Speaker 1: this point is to put the humanity back into being human.
Speaker 1: We've gotten away from that. And you see how crash
Speaker 1: our society is. You know, all these shooting, how crazy
Speaker 1: it is because everyone's mad at each other, and for
Speaker 1: what usually superficial reason. If we took time to look
Speaker 1: at each other as humans, to treat each other as humans,
Speaker 1: just to follow the simple golden rule treat other people
Speaker 1: you want to be treated, you know, learn to develop
Speaker 1: a measure of empathy, not sympathy, but empathy, putting yourself
Speaker 1: into other person's shoes. And for me, that would go
Speaker 1: a long way and resolving a lot of issues that
Speaker 1: we had, because in order for us to make some
Speaker 1: type of sustainable reform, especially for criminal justice reform, we
Speaker 1: need harden mind change, and that comes through putting the
Speaker 1: humanity back into being human. You know, Jason, I went
Speaker 1: from exiting prison owing a hundred thousand dollars and find fees, restitution,
Speaker 1: find myself in midtown Manhattan, trying to figure out what's next,
Speaker 1: unable to find a job, to meeting one on one
Speaker 1: with the President of the United States thirteen years later.
Speaker 1: And the more I emerged as the exception is, the
Speaker 1: more I realized that it was reinforcing the existing narrative
Speaker 1: about everyone else. And so the question was, how can
Speaker 1: I one help people understand that I'm not the exception,
Speaker 1: that I was exposed to exceptional opportunities, and to uh
Speaker 1: expose other formally acustrated leaders, Ronald to the sort of
Speaker 1: opportunities that I've been exposed to. And you know, we
Speaker 1: tend to think that there's some voiceless people out there.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're voiceless people. I think there are
Speaker 1: people who have been deliberately silenced. And it just leadership USA.
Speaker 1: We create a space for people who have been silenced
Speaker 1: to not just have voice, but to end up in
Speaker 1: much closer proximity with the people I think need to
Speaker 1: hear these messages. And Ronald is just one of our
Speaker 1: hundreds of ambassadors at this point. But I appreciate the
Speaker 1: opportunity to be on here and create space for Ronald
Speaker 1: to tell his story. I just think it's hugely important
Speaker 1: for people who try to find compassion day to day
Speaker 1: in the world that we live in, to recognize that
Speaker 1: there are people who have been through a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of tragedy and still exercise humanity. And I think it
Speaker 1: challenges the rest of us to step up and be
Speaker 1: bolder and to lead without values. Don't forget to give
Speaker 1: us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It
Speaker 1: really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence
Speaker 1: Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting
Speaker 1: this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Speaker 1: Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to
Speaker 1: donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nomine composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one