Speaker 1: On January six, twenty one year old woman who will
Speaker 1: refer to as BT, was working at a convenience store
Speaker 1: in Covington, Georgia. Went around four am. She was abducted,
Speaker 1: forced into a truck, and repeatedly sexually assaulted until she
Speaker 1: finally escaped ninety minutes later. At the time of the assault,
Speaker 1: her ex boyfriend, Ron Jacobson was a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: miles away in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with his pregnant fiancee and
Speaker 1: her mother. Over the course of several detailed statements, BT
Speaker 1: maintained that she did not know her attack her and
Speaker 1: that at one point during the abduction, she thought of
Speaker 1: fleeing to the home of her friend Ron Jacobson when
Speaker 1: they were close by. Despite these statements and the lack
Speaker 1: of any physical or forensic evidence inculpating Ron, police ultimately
Speaker 1: persuaded Bat that she had just repressed the memory of
Speaker 1: her friend Ron being her actual attacker. At trial, Ron's
Speaker 1: defense failed to bring up the inconsistencies between Batt's many
Speaker 1: earlier statements to Lease and the story of Ron being
Speaker 1: the perpetrator, and with DNA testing only in its infancy.
Speaker 1: Ron was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In
Speaker 1: two thousand three, Georgia enacted a law that allowed for
Speaker 1: post conviction DNA testing, but the Rape Shield Law, the
Speaker 1: law that has meant to protect rape survivors from irrelevant
Speaker 1: character assassinations, was first used to bar the DNA testing
Speaker 1: in this case, and then the introduction of the results
Speaker 1: when they clearly excluded Ron as BT's attacker. Finally, the
Speaker 1: newly elected district attorney took one look at Ron's case
Speaker 1: and dismissed all charges. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction. I'm your host, Jason Flam and today's
Speaker 1: story is terrifying for a number of reasons. First because
Speaker 1: of all the things that should have pointed investigators away
Speaker 1: from Ron Jacobson, not Adam, but even more so because,
Speaker 1: once DNA testing was available to exonerate him, the d
Speaker 1: at tooth and nail both to block that testing and
Speaker 1: then to maintain a conviction that they knew was unjust.
Speaker 1: So first of all, Ron, I'm sorry you're here because
Speaker 1: of the circumstances that brought you here, but I'm happy
Speaker 1: and honored to have you on the show. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. And with Ron is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: human beings. Ron's incredible attorney and champion who is a
Speaker 1: driving force not just in the Innocence Project, but also
Speaker 1: in the movement for justice across the board. And of
Speaker 1: course I'm talking about a voice you'll recognize, Vanessa Podkins
Speaker 1: of Vanessa Welcome back the Rawful Conviction. It's fantastic to
Speaker 1: be here. Okay, So before all this happened, Ron, you
Speaker 1: were engaged and Navy veteran and father to be, living
Speaker 1: and working between Georgia and Tennessee. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about your life before this terrible series
Speaker 1: of events took place. I was working as an ortu
Speaker 1: men mechanic and I was doing real good, making good money.
Speaker 1: My girlfriend was pregnant with our son, and we were
Speaker 1: planning on getting married. Rant a nice house in Georgia,
Speaker 1: you know, very middle class, comfortable life. My life was
Speaker 1: really really come together at that point when this happened.
Speaker 1: You know, everything I worked for was gone. Right, So
Speaker 1: you were renting a place in Georgia, but you were
Speaker 1: kind of spending part of your time in Chattanooka, Tennessee
Speaker 1: with your pregnant fiance. So things are sailing along smoothly.
Speaker 1: For now. Have you had any previous run ins with
Speaker 1: the law? Yes, that was one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: was in Georgia. I had an auto depth charge back
Speaker 1: in the eighties, and I was on parole and I
Speaker 1: was doing good, you know, no violations, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to put everything behind me and change get all my life.
Speaker 1: And before we get to the crime, a very important
Speaker 1: fact in this case is that you and the victim,
Speaker 1: this woman who were referring to as BT, you two
Speaker 1: had dated at some point prior to the incident, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: I met her one time. Then about a couple of
Speaker 1: months later, her mother was dating my roommate and a
Speaker 1: mother mentioned BT. She's working down here at a golden pantry.
Speaker 1: I'll fight twenty She would like to see you, talk
Speaker 1: to you, so you know, I drove on down. We
Speaker 1: talked and who could aff work. We drove back to Atlanta,
Speaker 1: went out to a little five Points for Irish pub
Speaker 1: and we started seeing each other. I want to say
Speaker 1: over October. So you dated her for approximately how long run?
Speaker 1: I want to say, four weeks? Three? Four weeks? All right?
Speaker 1: So Vanessa, take us back to the incident itself. On
Speaker 1: the night of January six, it's an awful, unspeakable crime,
Speaker 1: but just walk us through it, okay. So Bt was
Speaker 1: working overnight at the Golden Pantry convenience store and was
Speaker 1: abducted into a white, grayish truck and driven up the interstate,
Speaker 1: where the assailant beat her, forced her to perform oral
Speaker 1: sex at some point pulled over and vaginally and anally
Speaker 1: raped her. The assailant kept driving and actually ran out
Speaker 1: of gas, and so they were pulled over on the
Speaker 1: side of the road, and somebody stopped seeing the car
Speaker 1: in distress on the side of the road, and the
Speaker 1: assailant got into the car with this good samaritan and
Speaker 1: drove off, presumably to get gas. And so Bat saw
Speaker 1: this as her opportunity to escape. She ran to a
Speaker 1: nearby house and ultimately knocked on the door. The person
Speaker 1: who lived there, you know, opened it up and saw Bat,
Speaker 1: who was bloody and shaken up, and called police. At
Speaker 1: this point, the Sheriff's office actually had already arrived at
Speaker 1: the Golden Pantry because the customer had come in noticed
Speaker 1: that nobody was in the store, saw blood and the
Speaker 1: store and disarray, and so had called the sheriff office,
Speaker 1: and somebody from a convenience store across the way had
Speaker 1: said that they saw BT getting into this truck, and
Speaker 1: so she was immediately taken to the hospital. They performed
Speaker 1: a sexual assault kit and recovered male DNA. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they found more evidence as well, write a bloody handprint
Speaker 1: on the wall, folding knife outside on the ground, and
Speaker 1: the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the gb I performed blood
Speaker 1: tests on the knife and the handprint, so they had
Speaker 1: tons of evidence, I imagine. They also had a description
Speaker 1: of the truck. Now, was the assailant wearing a mask
Speaker 1: B any chance? No, But it's hard to know actually
Speaker 1: what really happened because BT gave different stories to the police.
Speaker 1: So in the week right after the crime, she talked
Speaker 1: to the police on three different occasions, and the first
Speaker 1: time she did she gave a really detailed statement, and
Speaker 1: she said that she was working at the convenience store
Speaker 1: and that a group had come in of two gods
Speaker 1: and two girls earlier in the evening, and that one
Speaker 1: of the men returned several hours later and that was
Speaker 1: the person who came behind the counter and ultimately abducted her.
Speaker 1: And in this statement, she was extremely detailed and very
Speaker 1: specific about the assailant being a stranger. She told police
Speaker 1: that she said to him, I'm quoting. I said, what
Speaker 1: did I ever do to you? I don't even know you,
Speaker 1: she said, I just knew my own personal opinion. He
Speaker 1: had come by the store, saw me earlier, got the
Speaker 1: idea that I might be there alone, come in there.
Speaker 1: Sure enough, I wasn't so busy. So he took off
Speaker 1: young girl alone three o'clock in the morning. Why not.
Speaker 1: So she's very detailed about this being a stranger, and
Speaker 1: she even says it's this person who was with a
Speaker 1: group earlier in the evening, and then she goes on
Speaker 1: to give other statements. Two days after the attack, she
Speaker 1: gives a description of her assailant. She talks about him
Speaker 1: being five or ten. She wasn't clear if he had tattoos.
Speaker 1: Of course, at that time, Ron is a half a
Speaker 1: foot taller. He's six three. He has multiple tattoos. So
Speaker 1: she's describing somebody who's not Ron. And then she gives
Speaker 1: a third statement, right, which is a written statement, and
Speaker 1: the police take her on a drive through of the
Speaker 1: route that the assailant had taken her, and she points
Speaker 1: several locations where she was sexually assaulted and walks through
Speaker 1: a lot of details. She says in this statement that
Speaker 1: at one of the stops during the attack that she
Speaker 1: thought this could be an opportunity to escape, and that
Speaker 1: she had a friend, Ronald Jacobson, who lived nearby, and
Speaker 1: she said, you know, maybe I could escape if I
Speaker 1: have the chance, and I could get help from him.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all craziness. The victim grant that she's
Speaker 1: traumatized for sure, but she said she was hoping to
Speaker 1: escape to the home of none other than ron Jacobsen.
Speaker 1: How do we square that with the idea that run Jacobson,
Speaker 1: she later says, was the guy who was attacking her.
Speaker 1: I mean, how did they eventually convinced her to identify him?
Speaker 1: And they interviewed her father as well, I mean, how
Speaker 1: does that play into this? So she told police that
Speaker 1: at the time that the assailant came into the store,
Speaker 1: that there was somebody else with her and she couldn't
Speaker 1: really remember who it was, but she thought it was
Speaker 1: Bob Knight, who was an older man who had worked
Speaker 1: at the store previously but was friends with her father.
Speaker 1: In the days following her attack, Bob Knight and the
Speaker 1: father are talking and the father says, well, you know,
Speaker 1: she was having some issues with this guy she dated,
Speaker 1: Ron Jacobson. Maybe he did it. So Bob Knight takes
Speaker 1: Ron Jacobson's name to the police and says, I think
Speaker 1: I know who the assaylant is, Ron Jacobson. Bob Knight
Speaker 1: had never met Ron Jacobson. He's just going off of
Speaker 1: the statement that the dad said. So police pull a
Speaker 1: picture of Ron Jacobson, his d m V photograph and
Speaker 1: show it to Bob Knight, who then says, that's the
Speaker 1: person I saw in the store. But I mean that
Speaker 1: line up or photo show up procedure is just bonkers
Speaker 1: and of itself, because they give him Ron Jacobson's driver's license,
Speaker 1: which presumably has his name on it, and he says, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the guy. And so based on that, the police
Speaker 1: go back to Bet and say we think we know
Speaker 1: who didn't it's Ron Jacobson and she says, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: So she's adamant that it's not Ron, and then the
Speaker 1: police want to polygraph her. So you have BT saying no,
Speaker 1: it's not Ron, and the police saying we don't believe you,
Speaker 1: and we're going to polygraph you. I've never even seen
Speaker 1: this circumstance in any case that I've worked on, where
Speaker 1: the police seek to polygraph the victim because the victim
Speaker 1: is not identifying the person who they believe as the suspect.
Speaker 1: But that's what was happening here. It turns out that BT,
Speaker 1: at the time of her attack was newly pregnant, and
Speaker 1: so the polligrapher refused to administer the polygraph, and instead
Speaker 1: the police consult with a behavioral analyst at the Georgia
Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation that says to them, go back to her,
Speaker 1: talk to her. Sometimes victims repress things. Tell her you
Speaker 1: know what happened, and eventually she'll remember and she'll come
Speaker 1: forward with the information. And so that's what happens. They
Speaker 1: go back to her, and then she eventually says it
Speaker 1: was wrong. And then six days later, January twelve, Ron
Speaker 1: they brought you in. How did that go? I mean,
Speaker 1: you must have been shocked to even find yourself in
Speaker 1: that situation in the first place. Well, how was at
Speaker 1: work in Atlanta? And the phone ring it was my prouser.
Speaker 1: He said, look, I need to come into the office
Speaker 1: as fast as possible, So okay, I'll be there so
Speaker 1: I'm thinking myself, okay, it's a random your analysis in
Speaker 1: and out. So I told my Boston, I said, look,
Speaker 1: I gotta go. I'll be back an hour. So I'll
Speaker 1: walk into the Pro office. Another Pro officer walks in
Speaker 1: behind me, pushed me against the wall, put me in handcuffs,
Speaker 1: says I'm under arrest. So now I'm wondering, you know,
Speaker 1: for what. I didn't violate parole and they said no,
Speaker 1: for a suchual saut of the victim BT, And so
Speaker 1: I explained, IL said, BT nah, I was in Tennessee
Speaker 1: with Janey, my girlfriend, and they called the Sheriff's department
Speaker 1: and the g b I agents Sheriff's department come up,
Speaker 1: picked me up, drove me back to the county jail.
Speaker 1: So it was a total shock to me. So police
Speaker 1: didn't record the interrogation, but nonetheless they went I had
Speaker 1: an issue a police report that was written in the
Speaker 1: first person, as if Ron had written it right. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, to double down on this obvious mouthfeasance, they
Speaker 1: also never showed a copy of the report to Ron
Speaker 1: or his team to determine whether it was accurate or not.
Speaker 1: And Ron was arrested the same day, charged with aggravated
Speaker 1: side of me kidnapping with bodily injury and a bit
Speaker 1: of assault. And then six months later Ron went to
Speaker 1: trial in Newton County Superior Court and in the opening
Speaker 1: state with the prosecutor now get this, okay, The prosecutor
Speaker 1: acknowledged that the case was problematic. He said that the
Speaker 1: police quote went back to Bat and kind of told
Speaker 1: her who it was, and at that point in time
Speaker 1: she said, yes, it was him, and she went and
Speaker 1: told the whole same story again, but just supplied his
Speaker 1: name at this point in time unquote. So from what
Speaker 1: we already know of the investigation, that summary is misleading
Speaker 1: at best. There was, of course, zero physical or forensic
Speaker 1: evidence tying Ron to the crime. So it comes down
Speaker 1: to the problematic testimony to Bob Knight and Bat, to
Speaker 1: which the jury was simply not aware of how these
Speaker 1: pieces of evidence were gathered. Now, Night testified that he
Speaker 1: recognized Ron as the man who came into the store
Speaker 1: that night as he was leaving, and then Bat went
Speaker 1: ahead and identified you Ron as her attacker. And she
Speaker 1: said she didn't immediately it ify you because you had
Speaker 1: threatened to kill her if she did. No Vanessa go ahead,
Speaker 1: tell us about the defense here, BT is never really
Speaker 1: confronted with the detailed statements that she gave implicating somebody else.
Speaker 1: It is mentioned at trial that she initially didn't say
Speaker 1: it was wrong, and she says it was because you know,
Speaker 1: she was scared of her life. But just not saying
Speaker 1: it was wrong at the beginning could mean you didn't
Speaker 1: say it in the first hour or two. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you know. And the jury never was told you
Speaker 1: gave these really detailed statements. Right, You've talked about even
Speaker 1: going to Ron for help. You talked about this group
Speaker 1: of people coming in and one of the guys coming back,
Speaker 1: and you saying to him, I don't even know you.
Speaker 1: I mean, none of that came out to the jury.
Speaker 1: So there's two possibilities, right, it wasn't turned over and
Speaker 1: either the police buried it or the prosecution buried it,
Speaker 1: or it was turned over and his defense attorney just
Speaker 1: failed to use it. I don't have the answer to that,
Speaker 1: as the records aren't perfect, and because Ron's lawyer was
Speaker 1: so bad that it is possible that he didn't use it,
Speaker 1: and the witnesses that Ron had in his favor to
Speaker 1: say that he was a hundred and fifty miles away
Speaker 1: when this happened. It was his girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 1: it was pregnant, her mother. They were watching TV at
Speaker 1: two thirty three in the morning. He's hours away from
Speaker 1: where this crime happened at shortly probably after four am.
Speaker 1: And there's reason that they would remember this night. It
Speaker 1: was just within days of his girlfriend's birthday. He had
Speaker 1: got up there that weekend. He brought her car as
Speaker 1: a president. So it's just none of that really came
Speaker 1: out at trial to really add credibility and show why
Speaker 1: these people who were testifying and had been with Ron,
Speaker 1: you know, why they were so believable and credible, and
Speaker 1: that just didn't come out. It was just like five
Speaker 1: questions and you're done. The defense that Ron had. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is where you feel like you're in a movie,
Speaker 1: like this is a horror movie. You're from Brooklyn, you're
Speaker 1: stuck basically in Georgia, You're now facing trial, and your
Speaker 1: lawyer is scared of his own shadow or just doesn't care.
Speaker 1: And I think one just being an outsider in this place,
Speaker 1: which is you know, close to Atlanta, but whirled away
Speaker 1: right Even on his booking sheet there was a line
Speaker 1: for deformities, and the deformity listed is Brooklyn accent Ron.
Speaker 1: What are your recollections of the trial? Stranger in a
Speaker 1: Strange Land. My trial attorney came to see me, I
Speaker 1: believe maybe twice at the most prepare. He never talked
Speaker 1: to none of my witnesses till the day to trial.
Speaker 1: So the night before my attorney comes walking down to
Speaker 1: jail and he said, we got to trial on the morning.
Speaker 1: Try to get a haircut and cut your beard. I
Speaker 1: got an old, rusty razor. I trimmed my beard off.
Speaker 1: So the day to trial, I go in. Now you've
Speaker 1: got this prosecutor to jury looking at him, he tried
Speaker 1: to change his appearance. He shaved his beard off. Basically,
Speaker 1: everything my trial attorney did was negative. When he had
Speaker 1: bat on the witness stand, he popped the question off
Speaker 1: as well, what's your relationship tonight? The district attorney john
Speaker 1: I you know, he jumped up, So whoa, whoa, whoa?
Speaker 1: You told the judge get the juriority here, and they
Speaker 1: displayed my attorney. They brought up the rape shield. You're
Speaker 1: not supposed toy asked, no kind of sexual relationships, past relationships,
Speaker 1: but you know it was too late. The jury already
Speaker 1: heard this question, so they bring it back. And from
Speaker 1: that point on, my attorney sat there and drew little
Speaker 1: sailboats on his pad, so it was a foregone conclusion
Speaker 1: though I was gonna get convicted. He drew little sailboats
Speaker 1: on his pass, and you're sitting there watching him do this.
Speaker 1: So you've got like a split screen horror show. You've
Speaker 1: got these people up there telling all kinds of lies
Speaker 1: about you, and you've got the one person who's there
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be your last line of defense. Really,
Speaker 1: John fucking sailboats on a path. It's really nut. And
Speaker 1: then of course it gets worse because in June twelve,
Speaker 1: the jury convicted you of aggravated psotomy can have a
Speaker 1: bodily injury and aggravated a sawt in sense your life
Speaker 1: in prison. It was a hards show. Then I took
Speaker 1: the stand in my own defense. My trial attorney you
Speaker 1: never really asked me any questions, but then the prosecutor
Speaker 1: he told a jury everything I said. I'm pathological liar,
Speaker 1: viitual liar. I brought up a valley the police, you know,
Speaker 1: with the statements, and oh, so you're accusing the police
Speaker 1: being liars when you're the liar, but you know small
Speaker 1: town politics. And here I am, you know, from Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: outsider New Yorker, and this is what happens. A gross miscaracter.
Speaker 1: Justice cost me thirty years, eight months, and thirteen days
Speaker 1: of my life. This episode is underwritten by a i G,
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture, a global
Speaker 1: professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security.
Speaker 1: Working to reform the criminal justice system is a key
Speaker 1: pillar of the ai G pro Bono Program, which provides
Speaker 1: free legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations
Speaker 1: and individuals most in need as part of Accenture's commitment
Speaker 1: to racial and civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access Program provides
Speaker 1: pro bono legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations,
Speaker 1: bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide. When I
Speaker 1: first went to prison, it's basically like a wild dog pack.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants being l fa mail, so you don't trust nobody.
Speaker 1: You gotta watch your back, you gotta watch what you say.
Speaker 1: And the guards, you know, they don't care. People getting
Speaker 1: killed there every week, no prosecution on because you've got
Speaker 1: twenty year old kids, with life sentences. No whole begin now,
Speaker 1: so they're gonna do what they want. When you first
Speaker 1: get convicted, you go through the stage, is a lot
Speaker 1: of anger, anger at the world. Then it's acceptance. You
Speaker 1: say to yourself, Okay, this happened to me, what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do about it? So now you educate yourself,
Speaker 1: go to law library, you start reading and start researching.
Speaker 1: And I happened to be watching j trial and I've
Speaker 1: seen Baryscheck talking about d NA. I talked to my mom.
Speaker 1: I said, look that DNA is gonna clear me one day.
Speaker 1: So I started researching, and I've seen Barrischeck wrote a book,
Speaker 1: Actual Innocence, So my mom sent it to me. I
Speaker 1: read this book like sixteen times. And at the time,
Speaker 1: around two thousand, Free Georgia passed the law for post
Speaker 1: conviction DNA test. So I sat down, wrote thirteen fifteen
Speaker 1: page letter to Georgia Innocent Project and the Innocent Project
Speaker 1: in New York and Georgia. People wrote me right back,
Speaker 1: said okay, we'll help you. We'll take your case, send
Speaker 1: it to transcripts and everything. So I did. About a
Speaker 1: year goes by. They send everything back says at this time.
Speaker 1: We can't do nothing for you, but your case is
Speaker 1: still open. Ten years go by, it was in ateen.
Speaker 1: Out of the blue, I get a letter, go up
Speaker 1: to the mail room, get legal mail, and here it
Speaker 1: is a letter from the INDUS project says we're going
Speaker 1: to accept your case. And it was just like a
Speaker 1: lot of load off my back. So I'll run over
Speaker 1: to the low Library get everything not US gets straight
Speaker 1: into mail. And I've been working with Vanessa seven eight
Speaker 1: years now. It's been an uphill battle. Yeah, uphill sounds
Speaker 1: about right, because from what I understand is that this
Speaker 1: d A who's now, by the way, a judge, her
Speaker 1: name is La Lazan, she fought both to disallow the
Speaker 1: DNA testing to begin with and then to disallow the
Speaker 1: admission of results that they knew would have cleared you,
Speaker 1: which is just freaking nuts. So Vanessa, can you tell
Speaker 1: us about the fight against this da Laylazan, who was
Speaker 1: just how bent on maintaining this awful injustice. The DNA
Speaker 1: test results that we obtained clearing ron came back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seventeen, and when we got those results,
Speaker 1: the d A opposed relief fought against a new trial
Speaker 1: and her primary argument was Ron could not use these
Speaker 1: test results to prove his innocence because the rape shield
Speaker 1: law prevented him from using the DNA to secure his exoneration.
Speaker 1: So the rape shield law is a law that has
Speaker 1: been enacted to protect victims of sexual assault from defense
Speaker 1: attorneys going in and trying to say, oh, well, you
Speaker 1: know you slept with twenty other people and so you
Speaker 1: weren't really sexually assaulted, or you consented, or try to
Speaker 1: use victims past sexual history to somehow undermine the veracity
Speaker 1: of his or her claim. And it has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with if you have scientific evidence that goes to
Speaker 1: the heart of who committed the crime. Right, But this
Speaker 1: is how twin that the state was in this case.
Speaker 1: Their position was, we know Ron was the assailant, so
Speaker 1: if there's some male DNA in her rape kit, that,
Speaker 1: by the way, we know couldn't come from a prior
Speaker 1: act of consensual sex because she told hospital personnel she
Speaker 1: hadn't had sex in a week before the attack, so
Speaker 1: we know it couldn't have come from anyone else. But
Speaker 1: their position was, since it excluded Ron, it had to
Speaker 1: come from somebody else. She must be lying. She must
Speaker 1: have not been honest about another encounter and therefore Ron
Speaker 1: can't use it. And it's like that was crazy, and
Speaker 1: even ultimately the d A recognized it was crazy because
Speaker 1: of some cases that were going on in the Georgia
Speaker 1: Supreme Court at the time. So she tried to use
Speaker 1: the rape shield law as a rape shield sword against Ron.
Speaker 1: Then when that didn't prevail and his conviction was vacated,
Speaker 1: he was being held in the county jail with no bail.
Speaker 1: He was in on a sexual assault for which he
Speaker 1: had already served thirty years, and the court declined to
Speaker 1: set fail and so he was in jail for over
Speaker 1: a year with no activity. The state had made no
Speaker 1: real attempt to bring this case to retrial, but wouldn't
Speaker 1: dismiss the charges. And then, of course the COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: pandemic hits, and so in April we make this emergency
Speaker 1: motion to set bail in Ron's case. This is when
Speaker 1: the pandemic is taking off. It starts to spread like
Speaker 1: wildfire in jail's. People in jails are sitting ducks, right.
Speaker 1: They don't have access to mass and purel and all
Speaker 1: of the things that people were clamoring for out in society.
Speaker 1: And so it's at this point that we finally are
Speaker 1: approaching a hearing date. And by the way, in this jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: if you file emotion, the only way you can get
Speaker 1: on the court's calendar is if the d A sets
Speaker 1: it down. So for a while she wouldn't even set this,
Speaker 1: We couldn't even get the motion set. And finally we
Speaker 1: get an opportunity that the court is going to hear it,
Speaker 1: and she makes this offer to Ron, you know, if
Speaker 1: you just plead guilty, you can get out tomorrow. She
Speaker 1: even offers him an Alfred plea, which means that he
Speaker 1: could have maintained his innocence but still pledged guilty would
Speaker 1: have the same effect as a conviction. But he could
Speaker 1: have gotten out, you know, the next day, if he
Speaker 1: had just said I did it. But by saying no,
Speaker 1: Ron wasn't just taking this stance, he was also risking
Speaker 1: his life. You know, we didn't know what was going
Speaker 1: to go on with COVID. He didn't have access to
Speaker 1: even protect himself, so it was even more dangerous than usual,
Speaker 1: this thought that, you know, by saying no, Ron could
Speaker 1: have died in prison and just never had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to even walk out. And then, of course, after he
Speaker 1: turns down the deal, the state goes into court and
Speaker 1: argues that Ron shouldn't get bailed because he's too dangerous.
Speaker 1: So he's too dangerous to walk out of prison if
Speaker 1: he's maintaining his innocence. But if he had just said
Speaker 1: he was guilty, you were going to let him go, right.
Speaker 1: And then to top it all off, the prosecutor says,
Speaker 1: we oppose bail, but if you're going to set bail,
Speaker 1: set it at fifty thousand, and the court said, I'm
Speaker 1: going to send it at I mean, what master to
Speaker 1: these people, sir, because it certainly isn't justice. And Ron,
Speaker 1: can you take us back to that moment when they
Speaker 1: offered you the plea, where if you just accepted it
Speaker 1: and said you were guilty, that you could walk out
Speaker 1: the door the next day, right the very next day,
Speaker 1: after thirty years in prison. I mean, what went through
Speaker 1: your mind in that moment. I thought about that for
Speaker 1: a split second, and I said, well, if I give in,
Speaker 1: I've been saying I'm minister for thirty years. Also now
Speaker 1: I will change my story. I said, you know, the
Speaker 1: worst they can do if they reconvict me is give
Speaker 1: me another life sentence. They already took everything from me.
Speaker 1: My mom died, my brother died while I was in prison.
Speaker 1: I'm living up here with my sister now helping her.
Speaker 1: She supported me for thirty years and it's my turn
Speaker 1: to give back help her. So by not giving in,
Speaker 1: if somebody hears about my case that's in the same
Speaker 1: position and want to take a plea bargain, I'm not
Speaker 1: holding it against them. You know, it's their personal choice.
Speaker 1: But if they look at me and they take some
Speaker 1: strength and say, hey, I'm innocent, let's prove it, I
Speaker 1: don't give into these bastards. It's incredible to hear you
Speaker 1: say that you thought about it for a split second.
Speaker 1: It's like you've already seen the worst aspects of our system,
Speaker 1: so you knew what they could do to you. It
Speaker 1: took a lot of courage, and like you said, everybody
Speaker 1: makes that choice differently. It's another sort of sick thing
Speaker 1: about our system that people are put into that position,
Speaker 1: having already been through the unbelievable trauma of drawing from
Speaker 1: incarceration for a decade and then faced with possibly waiting
Speaker 1: gears for another trial and then potentially being framed again,
Speaker 1: but you stood by your guns and ultimately that was
Speaker 1: clearly the right decision, and all of us are thrilled
Speaker 1: that you've been vindicated, exonerated, and proven to have been
Speaker 1: telling the truth all along. Vanessa helped me out here
Speaker 1: because this is really it's evil. I mean, what they
Speaker 1: did to him is evil, right, I mean that's not
Speaker 1: too strong of a word. Well, I guess it's not
Speaker 1: when you consider that the district attorney Layla's On who
Speaker 1: was handling his case, had been exposed for having a
Speaker 1: little toy electric chair on her desk. I think you
Speaker 1: definitely identified the mentality that's going on here. And Ron,
Speaker 1: I want to highlight the fact that you ended up
Speaker 1: with a literal dream team here, right, I mean you
Speaker 1: have Vanessa and the Innocence Projects. I want to also
Speaker 1: shout out the other good guys here, Donald Samuel and
Speaker 1: Amanda Clark Palmer from the Atlanta law firm of Garland
Speaker 1: Samuel and Loebe. My understanding is that they played a
Speaker 1: really significant role in this. Am I right, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: When first came on board, that was such a relief
Speaker 1: over the years talking on the phone, getting the information
Speaker 1: about my case and learning more and seeing how the
Speaker 1: process works. It's amazing, especially Vanessa, and now that the
Speaker 1: I'm out have access to needed that so I could
Speaker 1: see the scope of the units of project now how
Speaker 1: many people they helped and affected their lives in a
Speaker 1: positive way. Don An, Amanda and Georgia, Vanessa, all the paralegals,
Speaker 1: the law students, I can name them all. I'm in
Speaker 1: their debt. And we did ultimately work with the Georgia
Speaker 1: Insens project as well. They were really instrumental when we
Speaker 1: were fighting to get the DNA testing and have been
Speaker 1: a great partner with us. So ultimately, justice was delayed
Speaker 1: by three decades, but not denied. In June, District Attorney
Speaker 1: Layla's on one of the major villains in this case,
Speaker 1: and an ironic twist of fate, her good fortune was
Speaker 1: the best thing that could have happened for Ron, because
Speaker 1: when she was appointed to a Superior Court judge ship
Speaker 1: and her chief deputy, Randy McGinley was sworn in as
Speaker 1: the new d A then also elected that November, he
Speaker 1: promised a review of Ron's case. At this point, Ron
Speaker 1: was already out on bail, but still not free until
Speaker 1: on August d A. McGinley had reviewed Ron's case and
Speaker 1: dismissed all the charges, and that days called me. She
Speaker 1: cried and said, you're free. They dropped the charges like
Speaker 1: it stunned me. I said, nah, it took a couple
Speaker 1: of days of walking around and letting the sink in.
Speaker 1: Finally free. Then you know, you start thinking about how
Speaker 1: many more people still in prison that I have no chance,
Speaker 1: have no help, And it hurts, you know, bothers you
Speaker 1: because after so many years of prison, my psyche, you know,
Speaker 1: is still there with them people. It's something that I
Speaker 1: can't let it go. And there's no telling how many
Speaker 1: countless people that are still innocent, still in prison with
Speaker 1: no help, never go, get no help. So I feel blessed.
Speaker 1: Don't take nothing for granted, no more, just one day
Speaker 1: at a time. Yeah, And it's really incredible to have
Speaker 1: you here today, just weeks since you were fully exonerated.
Speaker 1: So for those of you who are moved by Ron's
Speaker 1: story and who would like to help him as he
Speaker 1: begins this next chapter of his life, there's an Amazon
Speaker 1: wish list as well as a Mighty cause dot com story.
Speaker 1: We're gonna put links to both of these in the
Speaker 1: bio where you can donate to help Ron, So please
Speaker 1: go click on the link and the bio do it.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to join you in doing so here
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction as well. So now this is a
Speaker 1: part of the show called Closing Arguments, and it works
Speaker 1: like this. First of all, I thank you again Ron
Speaker 1: Jacobson for having the courage to come here and share
Speaker 1: your incredible story, and of course Vanessa Potkin for just
Speaker 1: being such a you know, super woman, freedom fighter, all
Speaker 1: around just awesome human. And so thanks to both of
Speaker 1: you for being here on the show. And now closing
Speaker 1: Arguments works like this. I turned my mic off, kicked
Speaker 1: back in my chair and leave my headphones on, and
Speaker 1: just leave your microphones on so you can share any
Speaker 1: other thoughts that we may have left out or anything
Speaker 1: that's on your mind of any kind. So Vanessa, with
Speaker 1: all due respect to you, will say the best for last,
Speaker 1: and of course Ron, that's you. You're the featured guest here,
Speaker 1: So Vanessa, once you go first and then just hand
Speaker 1: it off to Ron, and that's how we'll close out
Speaker 1: the show. You know, being here today and listening to
Speaker 1: Ron's speak, it's just hitting me, particularly now his incredible
Speaker 1: strength and forwarded to to have turned down that offer,
Speaker 1: and we just know how coercive the legal system is.
Speaker 1: Pre trial, the state tries to extort guilty please to
Speaker 1: resolve cases. The stakes are so high that you're incentivized
Speaker 1: to just take can leave and when you're innocent, or
Speaker 1: just give up your constitutional rights to a trial. So
Speaker 1: I am respecting the amount of courage and strength that
Speaker 1: took you, Ron, to make that decision and stand up
Speaker 1: to the system. And I'm so proud that you prevailed
Speaker 1: to making me think about the judges again, that the
Speaker 1: person really dragged this out through so many years is
Speaker 1: now on the bench. We need to get progressive prosecutors
Speaker 1: in place, but we also need to make sure that
Speaker 1: they're judges on the bench who are going to also
Speaker 1: be in line with change. And so I think those
Speaker 1: are the takeaways I'm experiencing. In addition to Ron, you're
Speaker 1: just an all around such an incredible person. And you know,
Speaker 1: when Ron got out, while he was still fighting to
Speaker 1: get the charges dismissed, he started going on social media
Speaker 1: and he was on Facebook. And when you're representing someone
Speaker 1: who could face a retrial, it's a real stressor to
Speaker 1: have them out there making all these comments. So I
Speaker 1: thought about reaching out to Ron and saying, hey, fall
Speaker 1: back a little bit nice reading what he was saying
Speaker 1: and his perspective on the legal system and change, and
Speaker 1: it was just so right on that I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying anything keep going wrong. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: my heart and soul bleeds for all my brother's sisters
Speaker 1: still behind the walls with no hope, and if I
Speaker 1: could be a voice in the wilderness to help them,
Speaker 1: you know, that's my goal life right now? Do you
Speaker 1: use my exoneration to help the next person pay forward,
Speaker 1: whatever it takes. And the Innocent Project and the Innocent Network,
Speaker 1: they do incredible work and I thanked them every day.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. Please support your
Speaker 1: local innocence organizations and go to the links in our
Speaker 1: bio to see how you can help. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburne,
Speaker 1: and Kevin wardas The music on this show, as always,
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction, and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one