Speaker 1: I think we have the best legal system.
Speaker 2: It's just the people that implement they get lost along
Speaker 2: the way and forget what their job really is.
Speaker 3: He just kept on trying to remind me that who
Speaker 3: was in authority, who was in control, and how easy
Speaker 3: it was for my body to be found in any
Speaker 3: alley of New York City.
Speaker 4: It's a tough prison when you have the guards going
Speaker 4: against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison.
Speaker 1: They do that.
Speaker 2: They'll give a guy a life sentence and go home
Speaker 2: in eat spaghetti like it was nothing.
Speaker 3: And anybody that said, well, why would you confess to
Speaker 3: something that you didn't do, My question to them will
Speaker 3: be why wouldn't you confess when somebody's threatening to kill
Speaker 3: your life?
Speaker 5: The judge, he said, how you feel?
Speaker 1: I said, I'm okay. He said, well, the days you're
Speaker 1: lucky day you're going home.
Speaker 4: This is wrong for conviction.
Speaker 6: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flumm. Today we
Speaker 6: have two extraordinary guests. Brian Ferguson, who served eleven years
Speaker 6: in maximum security prison, who sends the life in West
Speaker 6: Virginia and is a rising senior at Georgetown and is
Speaker 6: currently the executive director of the Mayor's Office of Returning
Speaker 6: Citizen Affairs in DC.
Speaker 4: Brian, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 6: And with Brian is my friend Mark Howard, who is
Speaker 6: a mentor to Brian and to me and a major
Speaker 6: force in this movement. Mark is a professor of government
Speaker 6: and law at Georgetown University, and he's also an acclaimed author.
Speaker 6: His most recent book is Unusually Cruel, Prisons, Punishment and
Speaker 6: the Real American Exceptionalism.
Speaker 4: Mark. It's great to have you here. Great to be here, Jason.
Speaker 6: So Brian, let's go back to the beginning of this
Speaker 6: crazy story of yours. There's a lot of typical things
Speaker 6: in your story that we see in wrongful convictions, but
Speaker 6: there's a number of unique characteristics, not the least of
Speaker 6: which is that you come from a very distinguished family,
Speaker 6: which is atypical of people who get caught up in
Speaker 6: the system and who get wrongfully convicted. Can you talk
Speaker 6: a little bit about your growing up and what that
Speaker 6: was like and what your family was like.
Speaker 2: Right, No, absolutely, you know. My family was very supportive.
Speaker 2: I have a close knit family. I have a small
Speaker 2: immediate family. I was born and raised in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: In Northeast DC, in Michigan Park. Relatively middle class family,
Speaker 2: but professional. Both of my parents were working, both of
Speaker 2: them were college graduates, and so in that respect, it
Speaker 2: definitely was unique in terms of the people that I
Speaker 2: ended up coming across in the penitentiary and then in
Speaker 2: the work that I do with people that have been
Speaker 2: incarcerated since.
Speaker 6: The work that you're doing now, right, And you have
Speaker 6: some legal professionals in your family as well.
Speaker 2: Right now, I have several legal professionals in my family. Ironically,
Speaker 2: as it turns out, so my mother, my aunt, my uncle,
Speaker 2: and my sister are all in the legal profession. My
Speaker 2: aunt is still currently a judge in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 6: Wow, that's a lot of lawyers in one family. Let's
Speaker 6: go back to how this happened and how you became
Speaker 6: a suspect in the first place. You were a college
Speaker 6: student at the time.
Speaker 2: Right, right, So I was a college student at West
Speaker 2: Virginia University, actually doing very well because I actually was
Speaker 2: on the track to go to law school and had
Speaker 2: intentions and plans on going to law school. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I was in West Virginia in my second year of undergrad.
Speaker 6: So, Brian, you were a four point zero student on
Speaker 6: your way to law school. Why did you pick West
Speaker 6: Virginia to go to school?
Speaker 2: By the way, because I was playing sports in West Virginia.
Speaker 2: I played soccer on the team and was recruited to
Speaker 2: go there.
Speaker 4: So your life was pretty good. Yeah, things were looking
Speaker 4: straight up, right.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought absolutely.
Speaker 6: I mean, your life was laid out in front of
Speaker 6: you like a like a damn red carpet. It just sounds,
Speaker 6: it sounds ideal. And then all of a sudden everything
Speaker 6: went wrong. You became a suspect in a murder. Did
Speaker 6: you even know about it?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So, I think, if I'm honest, it would have started
Speaker 2: before that with the police. I think it's it's important
Speaker 2: to understand the community that is in like small towns
Speaker 2: in West Virginia, especially being from a middle relatively middle class,
Speaker 2: like I said, family in DC, I you know, dressed
Speaker 2: relatively well, right, but well for DC is different for
Speaker 2: for what it is in West Virginia. So, you know,
Speaker 2: the police assumed that myself and there were a couple
Speaker 2: of other guys from New York, a couple of other
Speaker 2: guys from Los Angeles who were you know, generally the
Speaker 2: same in the same socioeconomic class, couldn't have just been
Speaker 2: that way because our parents might have been successful, or
Speaker 2: that we came from a different environment, but it had
Speaker 2: to have been that we were dealing drugs. So they thought, oh,
Speaker 2: you know this, these guys you know, might be and this.
Speaker 2: We weren't together or anything like. It was separate individuals,
Speaker 2: but just that I knew of these guys, you know,
Speaker 2: must be deal drums, are doing something wrong. And so
Speaker 2: there were a couple of incidents with the police where
Speaker 2: it was like.
Speaker 1: What are you doing or why are you?
Speaker 2: Why are you driving this car, Why don't you live
Speaker 2: in this part of town, why do you live in
Speaker 2: this part of town. So those kinds of things, I
Speaker 2: think are a good backdrop to.
Speaker 1: To kind of what ultimately happened.
Speaker 2: And so with respect to the particular incident, which is
Speaker 2: which which led up to I guess me being even
Speaker 2: included in the conversation was I had a girlfriend who
Speaker 2: this other guy at the school had made advances toward
Speaker 2: and she told me that, you know, this guy said X,
Speaker 2: Y and Z about you and and and doesn't very
Speaker 2: much appreciate you. And so I said, okay, well I
Speaker 2: ended up talking to the guy. Listen, I don't know you,
Speaker 2: I don't know you know what the issue is or whatever,
Speaker 2: but whatever you have to say, please say it to me,
Speaker 2: don't go to her. We had maybe a three minute
Speaker 2: argument and then that was it. That was literally it.
Speaker 2: And that was in my first year of college. And
Speaker 2: I say this in my first year of college because
Speaker 2: that's important timeline wise, because this gentleman ended up getting
Speaker 2: shot and died.
Speaker 1: He died from being shot. But that was a year
Speaker 1: and a half later.
Speaker 2: And so you know, after the argument that I had, apparently,
Speaker 2: and I learned this after the fact, you know, he
Speaker 2: would tell his friends and I don't like this guy.
Speaker 1: Look at this guy driving around. He thinks he's this,
Speaker 1: he thinks.
Speaker 2: He's that, or he wanted your girl, right, Yeah, basically,
Speaker 2: but after that interaction, I had no further interactions with him.
Speaker 2: And so for the next year and a half, I
Speaker 2: went about my business, he went about his business, and
Speaker 2: I had no occasion to kind of come across him until,
Speaker 2: like I said, the police asked me about shooting.
Speaker 1: Right, I had no idea.
Speaker 6: So here's what we know. At seven pm on February second,
Speaker 6: two thousand and two. Jerry Wilkins was his name, right,
Speaker 6: was shot in the back in front of his apartment,
Speaker 6: and court records indicate that witnesses gave varying descriptions of
Speaker 6: the gunman. However, prosecutors charged you with murder because basically
Speaker 6: they didn't know who did it, right, and they were
Speaker 6: able to find somebody or a couple of people who said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: that's the guy. There was one guy who had an argument,
Speaker 6: you know, because he had gone as you just said,
Speaker 6: he had gone around telling people that he had had
Speaker 6: beef with you. So here comes the police knocking on
Speaker 6: your door or what happened?
Speaker 2: So you mentioned the witnesses. I think it's the most
Speaker 2: interesting and really disappointing thing to me about the witnesses
Speaker 2: was that they were varying accounts, but the one thread
Speaker 2: of commonality between the witness accounts was that it was
Speaker 2: a very skinny, dark skinned, black gentleman that was the assailant.
Speaker 2: And I've been confused with a lot of different things
Speaker 2: in my life, but skinny, dark skinned guy is not
Speaker 2: really one of them.
Speaker 6: So skinny, dark skinned, black gentleman, I think you resemble
Speaker 6: that description about as much as I do. Brian is
Speaker 6: you know, he looks like a football player actually is
Speaker 6: not dark skinned, so that was an inconvenient truth, but
Speaker 6: they managed to find a way around it, as they
Speaker 6: do in.
Speaker 4: These cases certainly, and how they do that.
Speaker 2: One of the key moments I think in the trial
Speaker 2: when it comes to the witness identification was when the
Speaker 2: witness refused to ident I mean, I'm sitting in court
Speaker 2: obviously in the defendant's table, but when asked, the witness
Speaker 2: refused to identify me as the person whom she had seen.
Speaker 2: The witness that was the closest to the crime was
Speaker 2: asked about, you know, whether the assailant was in the courtroom,
Speaker 2: and first we did the person have a mask on?
Speaker 2: You know he did, and I saw his face. Can
Speaker 2: you identify him? Have you identified him before? And can
Speaker 2: you identify him now? And the answer to that was no.
Speaker 2: At that point I was thinking that, Okay, well this
Speaker 2: is over and we should really just like have whatever
Speaker 2: motion that needs to happen to drop the case right
Speaker 2: now should really happen. And that's that was my misconception
Speaker 2: of what kind of the next couple of hours were
Speaker 2: going to be like.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't.
Speaker 6: Let's go back a little though, so you were you
Speaker 6: were arrested. That must have been enough of a shock.
Speaker 1: That was a tremendous shock.
Speaker 4: But let me ask you, did you even know that
Speaker 4: he had been killed?
Speaker 1: No? Not at all.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't like talk on campus or anything like that.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: So they came to my friend's house. I was at
Speaker 2: my friend's house and they came in, asked could they
Speaker 2: come in? You know, we let them in, and they
Speaker 2: started asking me about Jerry Wilkins. Right, that was a
Speaker 2: gentleman's name. I didn't know that his neck because he
Speaker 2: went by a nickname on campus. So for the first
Speaker 2: i'm gonna say three minutes of the conversation, it was
Speaker 2: like an Abbott Costello, Who are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Oh? You know who we're talking about? No, I don't.
Speaker 2: And then so one of them said, oh, well you
Speaker 2: know it's it's JP. Is this guy's nickname? Okay, well
Speaker 2: I know who you're talking about. And so that at
Speaker 2: that point they informed me that he had been shot.
Speaker 2: And I had no idea up until that very moment
Speaker 2: that that had happened.
Speaker 4: Did they take you away right then and there?
Speaker 1: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: So they questioned, they asked if they could question me.
Speaker 2: I agreed, to let them search everything that I had,
Speaker 2: because I had nothing to hid, and I wanted them
Speaker 2: to disco help me as a suspect if I were
Speaker 2: a suspect, which they told me that I wasn't, of course,
Speaker 2: as they want to do sometimes, but spoke with them,
Speaker 2: finished the conversation with them, and kind of just went
Speaker 2: on about my business and didn't hear about it again
Speaker 2: for another I'm gonna say, six months, and then I
Speaker 2: got a call. I was actually back in DC at
Speaker 2: this time, working as an intern for one of the
Speaker 2: largest law firms in the country on an importer, and
Speaker 2: I got a call from my lawyer who told me, so,
Speaker 2: you've been indicted for this homicide and you need to
Speaker 2: come and turn yourself in.
Speaker 1: And that was the first time I had heard about
Speaker 1: it since.
Speaker 6: And I'm just always at a loss to try to
Speaker 6: imagine the shock, the emotions, the confusion that everything that
Speaker 6: must go on inside your head when this all of
Speaker 6: a sudden is like, wait, what the fuck are you
Speaker 6: talking about? In a different way, like, for instance, if
Speaker 6: you're picked up and putting a handcuffs and taking in right,
Speaker 6: you've got to actually now go and get yourself back there.
Speaker 6: You've got to take this journey back to West Virginia
Speaker 6: to go show up and be processed. Right then, what
Speaker 6: I mean, did you go the next day?
Speaker 4: Did you go? And what do you I mean the
Speaker 4: first person you called was who in this happened?
Speaker 2: So I'm pretty sure that the first person I called
Speaker 2: was my mother, who is and remains, you know, the
Speaker 2: closest person person to me obviously other than my wife
Speaker 2: at this point. But we talked about it, and you know,
Speaker 2: obviously it had to be done to go back to
Speaker 2: West Virginia. So we made the arrangements to with and
Speaker 2: I'm not exactly short, I'll recall exactly how long it was,
Speaker 2: but it was within a day or two that we
Speaker 2: went back and in process. Yeah, So we went up,
Speaker 2: met with my lawyer, and then went over to h
Speaker 2: to the courthouse for the initial hearing.
Speaker 4: That we had, and then you were arraigned.
Speaker 2: So I was arraigned, and because the judge made several
Speaker 2: statements from the bench saying, well, I don't really know
Speaker 2: what's going on here, and we're going to assume that
Speaker 2: this hearsay evidence is valid and I'm going to let
Speaker 2: it in. Because other than that he said from the bench,
Speaker 2: that the prosecution has no case at all, Set the
Speaker 2: bail very low for a capital murder case. Set the
Speaker 2: bail ten thousand dollars, and I made bail and went home.
Speaker 4: Then comes a trial, Then comes the trial.
Speaker 6: Right, It's interesting you had an ineffective assistance of council
Speaker 6: claim later on in your appeal, and typically well typically
Speaker 6: xuonneries were represented, whether or not the head in effects
Speaker 6: of assistants a council. In general, there are people who
Speaker 6: come from very humble roots and have no ability to
Speaker 6: pay for an attorney and are represented by a public defender.
Speaker 6: That wasn't the case with you, So let's talk about
Speaker 6: that too. Because your family hired an attorney who would
Speaker 6: on paper have seemed like the right guy to represent
Speaker 6: you in this situation.
Speaker 2: Right, right, So the determination was made to hire a
Speaker 2: local attorney because the thinking behind that was, Okay, this
Speaker 2: person knows the landscape of this particular small town. If
Speaker 2: it's necessary to pick a jury or to do the
Speaker 2: many different things that a lawyer would have to do
Speaker 2: both pre trial and during trial, that they would be
Speaker 2: well suited to do that in this environment.
Speaker 1: So that determination was made.
Speaker 2: So we went with an attorney that was from the
Speaker 2: Morgantown which is where West Virginia University is located the
Speaker 2: Morgantown area, to represent me in this case. I mean,
Speaker 2: that was a terrible mistake. It turns out we went
Speaker 2: to trial. The trial, and you mentioned earlier it seeming surreal,
Speaker 2: I can verify that for you that it didn't seem
Speaker 2: that it was surreal. I was completely baffled by the
Speaker 2: fact that I was even in this situation, that I
Speaker 2: was even having to answer for a crime like that,
Speaker 2: that that had never even crossed my mind. And the
Speaker 2: fact that I'm sitting in this chair and being even
Speaker 2: accused of something like that was completely foreign to me.
Speaker 2: And you know something I really resented, to be honest
Speaker 2: with you, but that I knew that I had to
Speaker 2: go through. So in trial, the case against me was
Speaker 2: literally all hearsay and had no evidence whatsoever, and that
Speaker 2: ultimately was brought up by the courts that released me.
Speaker 2: But basically the evidence in the trial was, oh, our friend,
Speaker 2: mister Wilkins told us you didn't like him. Our friends
Speaker 2: told us that y'all had some type of beef. That
Speaker 2: was really it.
Speaker 4: Mark, Let's turn to you for a second.
Speaker 6: You can't convict somebody in America based on that on
Speaker 6: rumors a capital murray case.
Speaker 4: How's that happen?
Speaker 5: Well, unfortunately, I think experienced listeners of your podcast will
Speaker 5: know by now that that's Sadly, that's not the case
Speaker 5: that when there's a lot of pressure in a community
Speaker 5: to solve a certain crime, when they identify a suspect,
Speaker 5: they go down a certain road that they don't want
Speaker 5: to go back from. They get their conviction once that
Speaker 5: train is in motion. If you're lying there on the tracks,
Speaker 5: they run over you and you get convicted.
Speaker 6: I want to explore that too, because in this case,
Speaker 6: what is is the idea that after Brian had been
Speaker 6: identified as a suspect, and after the wheels of let's
Speaker 6: call it justice and quotes had started turning, another more
Speaker 6: likely suspect emerged, right, who may have actually been the killer?
Speaker 6: But they never that was not followed up on because
Speaker 6: it wasn't the narrative that they had signed on too. Right,
Speaker 6: they'd picked their guy. Everybody was determined to solve this
Speaker 6: case or to clear it off their desk. Not to
Speaker 6: solve it, right, but to get rid of it. And
Speaker 6: if an innocent guy got caught in the crosshairs, and
Speaker 6: so be it, so be it. So the hearsay is
Speaker 6: admitted into court, which seems odd too. I mean, would
Speaker 6: you if you were representing him at that time, would
Speaker 6: that still have been allowed to be admitted into court?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure about the rules
Speaker 5: of evidence in West Virginia, but I'm sure they found
Speaker 5: a way to spin it and sort of use the
Speaker 5: notion that there were witnesses who somehow implicated him even
Speaker 5: though they didn't as a means of conviction. And from
Speaker 5: what I understand about Brian's case, there was evidence that
Speaker 5: came out about other suspects that the police essentially buried
Speaker 5: and put away that his attorney, member paid attorney, private,
Speaker 5: well respected established attorney found out about and didn't follow
Speaker 5: up on. That is just egregious and it's unusual. But
Speaker 5: I think there's a real lesson here, which is that
Speaker 5: it's not just about the people who who can't afford
Speaker 5: to represent themselves, who get bad public defenders who can't
Speaker 5: follow through and give adequate representation. It happens at every level.
Speaker 5: If that machinery of justice is determined to get you,
Speaker 5: they probably will regardless of your personal circumstances, and that's
Speaker 5: just shocking and in my view, totally unacceptable and outrageous.
Speaker 6: An everybody's feel I mean, because this can happen, and
Speaker 6: I think Brian is a great example of this, right,
Speaker 6: I talk about the fact that this can happen to anyone.
Speaker 6: It literally can happen anyone, or he wouldn't be sitting
Speaker 6: here because he ain't that guy. Right, So you got
Speaker 6: convicted of capital murder that moment. Take us back there.
Speaker 6: You're in the courtroom. You're not that far removed from
Speaker 6: having been the guy on campus who had it all?
Speaker 6: And did you expect that the jury was going to
Speaker 6: come back whether guilty or an innocent verdict?
Speaker 2: The entire time I expected them to come back with
Speaker 2: an innocent verdict. I had been making plans because remember,
Speaker 2: like I said, I was on bond. I had made
Speaker 2: bond and had been home and was driving myself every
Speaker 2: day from the hotel back and forth to court. And
Speaker 2: so the day of the conviction, I had driven myself
Speaker 2: from the hotel to the courtroom because they said they
Speaker 2: had a decision, and I was eager to get it
Speaker 2: over with because I wanted to go home and so
Speaker 2: my anticipation was that it would be not guilty, that
Speaker 2: I would be acquitted and go home and then deal
Speaker 2: with everything kind of after that.
Speaker 1: But that was far different from the reality. I actually knew.
Speaker 2: I found out that there was a conviction a little
Speaker 2: bit before they read it in court, because when they
Speaker 2: called the jury out from the box, they have a
Speaker 2: jury sheet, and the jury sheet has different lines, and
Speaker 2: the first line is not guilty, second line is, you know,
Speaker 2: first degree murder. Third line and fourth line are the
Speaker 2: different the underlying charges. I guess you would say so
Speaker 2: second degree manslaughter are different variations of the homicide charge.
Speaker 2: And when the jury walked out, the foreman had it
Speaker 2: in his hand, but he had it in his hand,
Speaker 2: and as he stepped I could see I couldn't tell
Speaker 2: which line had been checked, but I knew that it
Speaker 2: wasn't the first one, and I knew that the first
Speaker 2: one was not guilty. So for about two minutes, I
Speaker 2: knew that it was some kind of guilty verdict, but
Speaker 2: just didn't know what.
Speaker 1: And I was in total disbelief.
Speaker 4: In the court room. I'm assuming your family was there.
Speaker 2: Right, so my entire like I said, I have a
Speaker 2: small family, but we're very close knit, so I had
Speaker 2: my mother was their father, both my siblings, cousins, and
Speaker 2: some friends were there.
Speaker 6: And it must have been I mean, it's just like
Speaker 6: the worst kind of imaginable sort of nightmare. You're there
Speaker 6: surrounded by all these people who know you couldn't possibly
Speaker 6: have done it, who love you and care for you,
Speaker 6: and are people who have accomplished so much in their
Speaker 6: own lives and have been a part of the justice
Speaker 6: system at one level or another, even including your aunt
Speaker 6: who's a judge, and who are suddenly powerless to stop
Speaker 6: this grave injustice from happening to a person that they
Speaker 6: love and care about deeply, which is you.
Speaker 4: And then it's.
Speaker 6: All just a I just my head explodes when I
Speaker 6: try to even imagine this. And I wasn't there, but
Speaker 6: you were there, and you were in the middle of it,
Speaker 6: and now you get taken off to prison.
Speaker 1: Right. So it was.
Speaker 2: Worse than that, actually, because prior to us actually going
Speaker 2: into the courtroom, the marshals, who had been obviously there
Speaker 2: for the entire court proceedings, took me aside and asked me,
Speaker 2: you know, not even me, but they took me in.
Speaker 2: A couple of mine family members aside and asked, do
Speaker 2: you want to talk to the media or anything afterward?
Speaker 2: Because we have sat through several or hundreds even of
Speaker 2: court proceedings here, we can kind of tell one way
Speaker 2: or the other which way it's going to go. We
Speaker 2: really feel like you shouldn't even be here, that this
Speaker 2: is going to be an acquittal. So if you don't
Speaker 2: want to talk to the media, let's figure out a
Speaker 2: way to get you out of the back door and
Speaker 2: into your current back to the hotel. Asked me where
Speaker 2: the hotel was, because their anticipation was that if you
Speaker 2: don't want to talk, then let's get you out of here.
Speaker 2: And we're honestly sorry for this. And that was the
Speaker 2: conversation that I had literally before I walked into the
Speaker 2: courtroom itself.
Speaker 6: Even they knew you were in Oh somehow other twelve
Speaker 6: other people call the jury couldn't figure it out. So
Speaker 6: I want to talk about the prison experience. Eleven years
Speaker 6: in a place that must have been as terrifying and
Speaker 6: foreign to you as could be imagined.
Speaker 4: So you got taken off to which prison.
Speaker 2: So initially you're taken to jail, right, So I spent
Speaker 2: about a year and a half in the jail awaiting
Speaker 2: transfer to prison. So from the courtroom I was walked
Speaker 2: down and put into a holding cell for about four
Speaker 2: or five hours to give my clothes up and the
Speaker 2: change and into kind of basically jail jumpsuit. And then
Speaker 2: later that night I was transferred to the jail where
Speaker 2: I ended up staying for about a year and a half,
Speaker 2: and then after a year and a half, I was
Speaker 2: then transferred to the state's maximum security prison, which is
Speaker 2: called Mount Olive in West Virginia.
Speaker 6: And the jail, the jail is is that in a
Speaker 6: building or is it like a Is it a sprawling complex?
Speaker 2: Is it it's a standalone complex, So it's it's sprawling,
Speaker 2: but it's they're all interconnected.
Speaker 6: Because in many cases jails like Rikers Island or Harris
Speaker 6: County are even more dangerous in maximum security prisons because
Speaker 6: of the fact that there's really no order there right
Speaker 6: because people are transient. It seems insane that you were
Speaker 6: kept there for a year and a half before transferring
Speaker 6: you to prison. I mean, how did you get through
Speaker 6: that way?
Speaker 2: So I would say that the worst thing was for me,
Speaker 2: you know, I felt like, and this was the case
Speaker 2: throughout I felt like as a man, you can deal
Speaker 2: with even a terrible thing that happens to you. I
Speaker 2: could deal with something that happened to me, as bad
Speaker 2: as it was and as much as I wanted to
Speaker 2: change it, it was something that I felt like I
Speaker 2: could adjust to and deal with in the moment, because
Speaker 2: I always felt that I would eventually come home. I
Speaker 2: just didn't know when. The thing that was the worst
Speaker 2: for me was the prospect of losing my parents or
Speaker 2: seeing what my incarceration did to my family, and you know,
Speaker 2: the things that they had to deal with, and at
Speaker 2: the same time be helpless about it.
Speaker 1: Like you said, it's nothing that they can do. They
Speaker 1: do the time with you.
Speaker 2: I think anyone who's ever had a family member in prison,
Speaker 2: anyone who's been around a family who's had someone in prison,
Speaker 2: knows that those close family members especially do every minute
Speaker 2: of that time with that person. And so having my parents,
Speaker 2: my siblings, my really close friends go through that it
Speaker 2: was no fault of mine, but for sure no fault
Speaker 2: of their own, and not be able to do anything
Speaker 2: and not really know how I'm taking it, because I
Speaker 2: know how I'm taking it, but they don't, and so
Speaker 2: they might expect the worst, and so having them or
Speaker 2: seeing them rather go through that, I would say that
Speaker 2: was definitely and it's not even close the worst part
Speaker 2: of the experience.
Speaker 6: For me, because we were walking around with that guilt,
Speaker 6: right or r right. I mean, ironically, you're innocent, and
Speaker 6: you have guilt because of the fact that you're even
Speaker 6: though you're not responsible, you're feeling responsible for this misery
Speaker 6: that you know your family's going through, only because they
Speaker 6: love you and they care, right, It's just it's a
Speaker 6: totally twisted cycle.
Speaker 4: Was there anything positive at all?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know there there are, ironically a lot of
Speaker 2: different positive moments. Humans are a resilient kind of species,
Speaker 2: and especially if you're a strong person. And I've seen
Speaker 2: the system break a lot of people and so I
Speaker 2: don't want to say that they're not strong. But for
Speaker 2: the people that you know have hope, for the people
Speaker 2: you know that that are able to kind of adjust
Speaker 2: to their not accept it, but to adjust to the environment,
Speaker 2: you can find people doing things that make them feel better.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So for me, that was helping people in even worse situations.
Speaker 2: In mind, I had a terrible situation. I was given
Speaker 2: a life sentence without the possibility of parole, And so
Speaker 2: that meant that if the sense were kept the way
Speaker 2: that it was, I was never going to be given
Speaker 2: the opportunity to come home. I was to die in prison.
Speaker 2: It was a death sentence, just an extended one.
Speaker 4: Well, what is worse than that? Not much, But you
Speaker 4: said there are people even worse situations.
Speaker 2: All, so there are people in worse situations in mind
Speaker 2: in that you know, they came in, didn't have any
Speaker 2: kind of family support, still had those really really long
Speaker 2: sentences or life sentences, but they didn't have the advantage
Speaker 2: of being able to call home and talk to somebody.
Speaker 2: They didn't have the advantage of already having an education.
Speaker 2: And so you know, when I was able to help people,
Speaker 2: to tutor people to get their ged or to help
Speaker 2: them through the really limited college classes that they had,
Speaker 2: or to even help them with their legal work, because
Speaker 2: a lot of times people were stuck with the really
Speaker 2: terrible lawyers or no lawyers at all, and were responsible
Speaker 2: for their own legal work, but couldn't read, or couldn't
Speaker 2: read well enough to be able to analyze what their
Speaker 2: case was as compared to what the law was, and
Speaker 2: how to juxtapose those two things. So being able to
Speaker 2: help people with their law work and also with kind
Speaker 2: of feeling like they accomplished something, whether it's getting a
Speaker 2: ged or taking college classes.
Speaker 1: That's where I found my solace.
Speaker 6: Amazing that you could dig deep enough in this midst
Speaker 6: of this darkest place that you could possibly find yourself
Speaker 6: in to help others.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's as simple as that. There's really no
Speaker 4: better way of putting it. And so let's get to
Speaker 4: the appeal.
Speaker 6: You had sort of a dream team, right, not like
Speaker 6: the OJ dream team, like your own version of that
Speaker 6: you had. I mean you actually had sort of legal
Speaker 6: royalty on your side.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I did. And again, you know you said that,
Speaker 2: like what could be worse in my situation, My situation
Speaker 2: was made far better by the fact that I had
Speaker 2: distinct hope as opposed to just kind of nebulous, Oh,
Speaker 2: I think and I hope that I'll get out one day.
Speaker 2: I really was able to believe and to kind of
Speaker 2: know inside that the people that were working on my
Speaker 2: case were the very best. So Covington and Berlin, which
Speaker 2: is either the top or one of the very top
Speaker 2: law firms in the country, took my case pro bono,
Speaker 2: which is fortunately because there's no way, even with a
Speaker 2: professional family, that we would have ever been able to
Speaker 2: afford their services. And not only did they take my
Speaker 2: case pro bono, but they put amazing lawyers on my team,
Speaker 2: and so for the first few years of the appeal,
Speaker 2: even with that, But it's important to point out that
Speaker 2: it was eleven years that it took for my case
Speaker 2: to be overturned. But one of my lead attorneys was
Speaker 2: Eric Holder, who ultimately became the Attorney General of the
Speaker 2: United States in two thousand and nine when President Obama
Speaker 2: was elected, and so he did an amazing job. Jim Garland,
Speaker 2: Sarah Wilson, Sarah Frederick, Paul Schmidt. There are amazing lawyers
Speaker 2: that put not only hard work, but they put their
Speaker 2: really their soul into into the case.
Speaker 1: They called me.
Speaker 2: I did as much work with them as I did
Speaker 2: with anyone else, and ultimately the case was overturned.
Speaker 4: It's really amazing to listen to you.
Speaker 6: I mean, you're very calm and sort of ethereal type
Speaker 6: of being for the short time I know you. But
Speaker 6: eleven years it took, even with the support of an
Speaker 6: amazing and accomplished and brilliant family and representation at the
Speaker 6: highest level, that someone could hope for years. I'm getting
Speaker 6: the chills just thinking about that. And it turned to
Speaker 6: Mark for a second because the conviction was overturned. So
Speaker 6: for the average person, you go, Okay, that's it, right,
Speaker 6: go home. Conviction overturned. Mistakes were made. We're sorry, mister Ferguson.
Speaker 6: Can we get you a ride somewhere? You know what
Speaker 6: I mean? Do you need a lift? That's not the
Speaker 6: approach that West Virginia took. They still wanted their pound
Speaker 6: of flesh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So from my understanding is they appealed this reversal, right,
Speaker 5: which kept Brian for another year and a half right
Speaker 5: in prison, despite the fact that the conviction had been overturned,
Speaker 5: but the indictment still stood, and so they were appealing
Speaker 5: the fact that he should have been released at that point,
Speaker 5: which is actually very common in wrathful conviction cases. And
Speaker 5: it's really appalling and sickening. And sometimes it's even after clear,
Speaker 5: you know, demonstrable DNA tests and they still will appeal.
Speaker 4: That though, what is it? It's so strange and Brian,
Speaker 4: maybe you have it might not Mark, you must because
Speaker 4: it makes me nuts.
Speaker 5: Well, it's the very simple human reflex of not wanting
Speaker 5: to admit you were wrong morally, they've been so invested
Speaker 5: in it. Sometimes they just want to believe it. Many
Speaker 5: cases they really do believe it, they convince themselves, and
Speaker 5: then they don't want to admit publicly that Often a
Speaker 5: case that even might have made their reputation, that their
Speaker 5: reputation of their office is grounded on, was based on
Speaker 5: a terrible, horrific mistake. And this happened so many times,
Speaker 5: where you'd think there would be they'd be on their
Speaker 5: knees begging for forgiveness and apologize, but no.
Speaker 6: And on their way to go look for the guy
Speaker 6: who actually did it exactly before he killed somebody else.
Speaker 5: And if they really cared about justice, that they cared
Speaker 5: about law and order, right, these concepts they like to
Speaker 5: talk about, then they would be doing those things. No,
Speaker 5: but they want to keep that person that they know
Speaker 5: and come to learn is innocent, if they didn't know
Speaker 5: it already, keep that person in just to preserve their reputation,
Speaker 5: preserve their careers. And it's just unconscionable.
Speaker 4: You don't seem angry, what's up with that?
Speaker 2: You're not the first person to point that out. But
Speaker 2: what I'd like to say when anyone mentions that is
Speaker 2: that you know there's a threshold beyond which you're not
Speaker 2: worried about retribution, or you're not worried about being mad
Speaker 2: about the situation. If you would have caught me after
Speaker 2: maybe two or three years, yeah, I'd have been pissed.
Speaker 2: I was still pissed that my name was even brought
Speaker 2: up in a situation like this, that these people twisted
Speaker 2: the law, that they hid evidence that they knew another
Speaker 2: person was actually the one who committed the murder. But
Speaker 2: after a while, after you have to worry about your
Speaker 2: parents ever seeing you on the outside again. You have
Speaker 2: to worry about ever, you know, as you see your
Speaker 2: friends getting older, graduating from college and postgraduate degrees and
Speaker 2: having families and going off and doing all kinds of things,
Speaker 2: and the world passing you by. At some point you
Speaker 2: just want to come home. And so when you get
Speaker 2: that opportunity. For me, when I got the opportunity, I
Speaker 2: was far more happy to be home and to have
Speaker 2: the opportunity to build my life again than I am mad.
Speaker 2: Like that's not even a close. Those aren't even competing
Speaker 2: emotions in my mind.
Speaker 6: That's amazing. There's some sort of spiritual enlightenment going on here.
Speaker 6: That's that's kind of awesome to behold.
Speaker 5: You hear that with a lot of exguneries, then I hear.
Speaker 6: It over and over again, but it never gets old
Speaker 6: and it never ceases to amaze me. And everybody that
Speaker 6: I've I mean, I think every exunery I've ever met,
Speaker 6: and there's hundreds of them, have had some variation. Everyone's
Speaker 6: got their own take on it, everyone's got their own
Speaker 6: unique way of explaining it, and each one went through
Speaker 6: their own journey to get to that place, and of
Speaker 6: course so therefore there everyone has a little bit of
Speaker 6: a different way of expressing it. But it's absolutely remarkable
Speaker 6: when you hear somebody like you. I hope you understand
Speaker 6: how much that is inspires everybody else around you, and
Speaker 6: how much it inspires guys you know, like Mark and
Speaker 6: myself and so many others who are in this fight
Speaker 6: and trying to help prevent other people from following your situation,
Speaker 6: trying to help you know, other people like you find
Speaker 6: the freedom that they deserve and recover the life that
Speaker 6: was taken from them on the outside. And let's get
Speaker 6: to that too, because we got to still talk about
Speaker 6: the Alfred plea because it's a fascinating and terrifying concept
Speaker 6: that is hard for a lot of people, I think,
Speaker 6: to wrap themselves around. Because what happened in your case,
Speaker 6: which we see not infrequently in wrongful convictions, is that
Speaker 6: after this year and a half where you're now in
Speaker 6: this crazy limbo, right, you've known all along you're innocent,
Speaker 6: and they may have known all along you're innocent, but
Speaker 6: now you know that they know that you're innocent, right,
Speaker 6: and yet you're still in prison, and at a certain
Speaker 6: point you're faced with a decision that I don't think
Speaker 6: anybody who hasn't been there can even conceptualize, which is
Speaker 6: that it's really, do you want to bet your life? Hey, Ferguson,
Speaker 6: We just fucked you up, right, We just took you
Speaker 6: and just ground you up, and you're still here and
Speaker 6: that annoys us, right, and now you know you're you're
Speaker 6: in a position to make us look bad. We don't
Speaker 6: like that, right, And you're in a position to be
Speaker 6: able to sue us and get a lot of money.
Speaker 4: We don't like that either. And the tables are turned.
Speaker 4: We don't like that. We're going to give you a choice, right,
Speaker 4: which is.
Speaker 6: That even though we know that the right thing to
Speaker 6: do is to let you go and move on with
Speaker 6: your life. And like I said, we're going to go
Speaker 6: look for the guy that really did this, because there
Speaker 6: is no statute limitations on murder. There's a monster that's
Speaker 6: walking among us in our community where we live. But
Speaker 6: instead they came to you with a much different idea.
Speaker 6: You want to talk about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in my case, actually they knew the person
Speaker 2: was incarcerated. He had apparently been known to be very
Speaker 2: violent and especially with guns to people in that community.
Speaker 2: And so as is that happens, he ended up in prison,
Speaker 2: and so he was in the prison, in a federal
Speaker 2: prison actually for I think fifteen years. So they weren't
Speaker 2: actually worried about this person walking among them in their communities.
Speaker 2: What they were worried about, like you said, was losing
Speaker 2: money was me suing when they dropped the case, and
Speaker 2: they made it very clear to my attorneys after they
Speaker 2: put in their appeal, that appeal took a year and
Speaker 2: a half, that I had to stay in prison after
Speaker 2: my case was overturned the Supreme Court of the state.
Speaker 2: So the West Virginia Supreme Court once they got the
Speaker 2: case and then they voted to uphold the decision to
Speaker 2: release me, making kind of and what I've heard is
Speaker 2: unprecedented comments from the bench that this should have never happened,
Speaker 2: this is a travesty of miscarriage of justice, and that
Speaker 2: this case has bothered us for years. Saying things like
Speaker 2: that you would think would influence a prosecutor one way
Speaker 2: or the other, but it didn't because they have the
Speaker 2: discretion to do as they will with respect to retrying
Speaker 2: a case. And so after they made that decision, they
Speaker 2: being this Supreme Court and I was released, the West
Speaker 2: Virginia prosecutors still had the option to retry me and
Speaker 2: made it clear to my attorneys that at this point
Speaker 2: we could drop the case, but we're playing with house money,
Speaker 2: and by that they meant if we retry him and lose,
Speaker 2: we're in no worse position optically practically than we are
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: The case.
Speaker 2: There's egg on our face. You know, everybody sees that
Speaker 2: we messed up, and then we tried the wrong person.
Speaker 2: If we retry him and lose, that that position doesn't
Speaker 2: get worse.
Speaker 1: But that's if we lose.
Speaker 2: If we win, he gets a brand new life sentence
Speaker 2: with no possibility or parrole and this time there's no
Speaker 2: coming back from it, So what do you want to do?
Speaker 4: So, Mark, doesn't this sound like double jeopardy? How do
Speaker 4: they get away with that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean when the conviction's overturned, it's like a
Speaker 5: trial never happened.
Speaker 4: So they do start over.
Speaker 5: And so what they're effectively saying is we are going
Speaker 5: to try you for murder and go for the maximum sentence,
Speaker 5: which is what he'd had before, or we will let
Speaker 5: you go with this Alfred plea where it's time served.
Speaker 5: It's technically legally a conviction means there's a record, but
Speaker 5: you get to claim your innocence, right, And it's this
Speaker 5: very bizarre choice. It's not always offered, but when it
Speaker 5: is a lot of times people do take it because
Speaker 5: there's that fear. What I mean, this is West Virginia, right,
Speaker 5: this is going into a courtroom after what he'd been
Speaker 5: through already. How's he supposed to know it's not gonna
Speaker 5: go the same way again, even though there's no evidence.
Speaker 5: There's no evidence the first time, and okay there's more now,
Speaker 5: but who knows?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: But the key about the alphared plea, it's not a
Speaker 5: conviction with just time served and says, I plead guilty,
Speaker 5: I did it. He maintains his innocence and he gets
Speaker 5: to claim his innocence and they get technically the conviction,
Speaker 5: but then he's out. And I think many lawyers would say,
Speaker 5: take the deal because you need to get out. Out
Speaker 5: is out. And there are people who don't take it
Speaker 5: and who get convicted and they could have walked out
Speaker 5: that door.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and what a thing to live with that is
Speaker 6: so literally, Yeah, even if it's you know, look, even
Speaker 6: if you had somebody there saying, look, it's a it's
Speaker 6: a one percent chance, Brian, like you just do everything's
Speaker 6: in your favor. I mean, what do you what are
Speaker 6: you going to do? Like you could You're going to
Speaker 6: go back to prison for the rest of your life.
Speaker 6: It's almost like a Sophie's choice. But at the same time,
Speaker 6: I guess you got to take it. And we know
Speaker 6: and there are people who roll the dice. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: you could say, well, that's a principal thing to do.
Speaker 6: It's a brave thing to do. It's also a crazy
Speaker 6: thing to when you know what they're capable of. And
Speaker 6: we've seen cases where they'll come right out and say, look,
Speaker 6: we got a new jailhouse, nitche. We've got somebody else
Speaker 6: that's gonna we're gonna roll out and they're going to
Speaker 6: testify against you, and you know we're going to get you.
Speaker 5: But the key thing is Brian always maintained his innocence,
Speaker 5: and he could maintain his innocence while taking that plea
Speaker 5: and afterwards. So it's very different from a guilty plea
Speaker 5: for time served, which sometimes innocent people will take sure
Speaker 5: where they admit guilt for something they didn't do because
Speaker 5: it lets them out. The Alfred plea lets him maintain
Speaker 5: his innocence throughout as he did.
Speaker 2: The prosecution made it very clear, and I think as
Speaker 2: close to word for word as I can get, the
Speaker 2: quote was, we're extremely confident in our ability to convince
Speaker 2: our jurors of whatever we want to.
Speaker 1: So that sounds like a threat right there. Says a lot.
Speaker 6: So you were finally free, right to go home, and
Speaker 6: no one would blame you, least of all me if
Speaker 6: you came out and decide, you know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna I'm gonna get drunk. I'm just gonna drink.
Speaker 6: I'm just gonna like I'm going on a bender, right,
Speaker 6: because look at what I just came out of, and
Speaker 6: I deserve to go have to de live my life
Speaker 6: like I'm in a rap video, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: But that's not really what happened though, right, I mean,
Speaker 6: your story is remarkable in so many ways, but not
Speaker 6: least of which because of what's.
Speaker 4: Going on now.
Speaker 6: And you know you're now a senior at Georgetown, Yes
Speaker 6: I am, so you've got what else is going on?
Speaker 2: So right now, I am the executive director of the
Speaker 2: Mayor's Office on Returning Citizen Affairs in Washington, DC. So
Speaker 2: the office is the only legislatively mandated office of its
Speaker 2: kind in the country, and basically the mission is to
Speaker 2: provide information, support and services to individuals who come home
Speaker 2: from incarceration back to the district.
Speaker 6: So you're giving back in a way that you are
Speaker 6: uniquely qualified.
Speaker 4: To be able to do.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 4: It's sort of a great full circle. Look, we'd all
Speaker 4: like to give you.
Speaker 6: Back those eleven years and make that just just to
Speaker 6: RaSE that from what we.
Speaker 2: Can You can't you can't get you can't ever get
Speaker 2: back the time. But you know, when I came home,
Speaker 2: the thing that was really on my mind was how
Speaker 2: many people went out of their way to help me.
Speaker 2: How many people stepped out of their comfort zone and
Speaker 2: what would have been completely acceptable for them to do
Speaker 2: or to not do, to go above and beyond to
Speaker 2: help me. Marcu is definitely one of those people. The
Speaker 2: lawyers that I had, they didn't need to do any
Speaker 2: of the stuff that they did, And if it weren't
Speaker 2: for what they did, there's no way that I would
Speaker 2: be in a position i am today or anywhere near there.
Speaker 2: So it's I believe a requirement for me to give
Speaker 2: at least some of that back, as much of it
Speaker 2: as I can. The people, like I said that there
Speaker 2: are worse positions than I was when I came home.
Speaker 2: I was fortunate enough to have a family to come
Speaker 2: home to. I didn't have to worry about where my
Speaker 2: next meal was coming from, or where I was going
Speaker 2: to get money to get food or anything like that,
Speaker 2: or clothes, or where I was going to live when
Speaker 2: I was looking for a job or anything like that.
Speaker 2: These are problems they face a lot of people when
Speaker 2: they come home from prison, whether they did two years
Speaker 2: or twenty years.
Speaker 1: And I didn't necessarily have to deal with all that.
Speaker 2: I still had tremendous hurdles, but the fact is that
Speaker 2: I had the supports and people help me through my situation,
Speaker 2: and so I want to do that for other people
Speaker 2: who are in even worse situation than I was when
Speaker 2: I came home.
Speaker 6: If one person clapping wouldn't sound so weird, I give
Speaker 6: you a round of applaus right after that, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's that's amazing.
Speaker 6: And you know, and I think a lot of people
Speaker 6: that are that do get involved in this stuff. I mean,
Speaker 6: I can't speak for everybody, but many of us recognize that.
Speaker 6: But there before the grace of God, go I right,
Speaker 6: this could happen definitely to anyone, because it did. I
Speaker 6: think it's great that there's so much interest and momentum
Speaker 6: behind an awareness that there's a huge number of people
Speaker 6: like you who need help, both people that were wrongfully
Speaker 6: convicted and people that are out the type of people
Speaker 6: you're helping now and have served their time and are
Speaker 6: just in this country. The punishment is so disproportionate in general,
Speaker 6: So the crime and the punishment continues with the stigmas
Speaker 6: that exist after you get out. I mean, some of
Speaker 6: it is deliberate, some of its government mandated punishment. I mean,
Speaker 6: you can't vote and all this other stuff, and some
Speaker 6: of it's just society looking down on people and not
Speaker 6: wanting to give people a second chance. When we see
Speaker 6: both xouneries and people who are formally incarcerated, who served
Speaker 6: their time, as you were saying, accomplishing extraordinary things. I
Speaker 6: want to ask two more things. One is, when you're
Speaker 6: finally released, what did you do.
Speaker 2: I got the hell out of West Virginia. This is
Speaker 2: the first thing I did. I wanted to drive. I
Speaker 2: told so my father picked me up, which you know,
Speaker 2: my father had been even when I had a life
Speaker 2: sentence with no parole and the appeals were stalling or
Speaker 2: going nowhere and there wasn't any discernible date to look
Speaker 2: forward to. He was always in my ear. Listen, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna pick you up. I'm gonna pick you up from
Speaker 2: right here, and we're gonna go wherever you want to go.
Speaker 2: And to have him be outside the gate when they
Speaker 2: let me go, it was a beautiful thing. It was
Speaker 2: one of the best moments in my life. But when
Speaker 2: we got in that car, I told him to get
Speaker 2: me the hell out of the state, and so we
Speaker 2: drove until we got to Maryland and then we stopped
Speaker 2: to eat and I don't even remember.
Speaker 1: Where it was, but it was great.
Speaker 4: It must have been incredible.
Speaker 1: It was amazing.
Speaker 6: Okay, so now comes the thing we typically do, as
Speaker 6: everyone who listens to the show knows, I like to
Speaker 6: just turn over the floor to you for closing thoughts.
Speaker 4: Let's call it closing thoughts.
Speaker 2: I think if I had to come up with closing
Speaker 2: thoughts right now, what's on my mind is just the
Speaker 2: opportunity that exists for people that are coming home from prison.
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, the federal system is its own thing,
Speaker 2: but in a lot of these states and a lot
Speaker 2: of these cities, DC especially, there's a tremendous amount of
Speaker 2: resources and services that are available to people. And like
Speaker 2: you said, the tide is turning with respect to how
Speaker 2: people look at the criminal justice system of mass incarceration,
Speaker 2: what needs to be done for people not only when
Speaker 2: they come home, but before they even get there in
Speaker 2: the prison. The treatment that's going on, a lot of
Speaker 2: it is criminal in and of itself, but DC and
Speaker 2: I work at the Mayor's office on returning citizen affairs.
Speaker 2: If you got to come home to somewhere after having
Speaker 2: been incarcerated. DC is a great place, and you know,
Speaker 2: we serve as an example for a lot of different things,
Speaker 2: one of which is the band of Box law that's
Speaker 2: happened then. I know New York is following suit on
Speaker 2: which is basically prevents employers from screening people for their
Speaker 2: criminal records and so that gives people opportunities for jobs.
Speaker 2: The mayor has dedicated millions of dollars to the re
Speaker 2: entry community in DC and has you know, made the
Speaker 2: priority of the needs of the returning citizen community. You
Speaker 2: have different nonprofit organizations all throughout the city and the
Speaker 2: nation that are really the kind of backbone of the
Speaker 2: movement to help people once they come home. And I
Speaker 2: want to really take my hat off, not just because
Speaker 2: I'm a student there, but to Georgetown and to other
Speaker 2: universities like that, but especially Georgetown because of what they
Speaker 2: do in the re Entry space Mark and the Prison
Speaker 2: Justice Initiative is an amazing example of that that they
Speaker 2: have identified the needs of this community as a priority
Speaker 2: as well and have utilized their resources and the brain
Speaker 2: power that exist in a university like that, a top
Speaker 2: tier university to be able to make a change. So
Speaker 2: I think that my last thought would be to just
Speaker 2: take my hat off to everyone who's doing the work,
Speaker 2: everybody who's listening that has either done the work or
Speaker 2: who is inclined toward people who are incarcerated, whether wrongfully
Speaker 2: or otherwise, because ninety seven percent of people that are
Speaker 2: incarcerated are coming home. So the question is what kind
Speaker 2: of neighbor do you want? What kind of person do
Speaker 2: you want is going to be at your school, is
Speaker 2: going to be in the store with you? What kind
Speaker 2: of society do you want?
Speaker 1: Do you want to participate in and contribute to?
Speaker 2: So those things I think are what are on my
Speaker 2: mind and what I want to have the audience take away.
Speaker 5: Mark, Yeah, so I agree with everything that Brian just said.
Speaker 5: But let me just close with something about Brian, because
Speaker 5: I think it's probably already clear to your listeners what
Speaker 5: an amazing person he is and how strong and resilient
Speaker 5: and caring he is. But he has so many different
Speaker 5: dimensions that might not come across right away on this podcast.
Speaker 5: But I got to know Brian. I remember getting an
Speaker 5: email from him a couple of years ago, and you know,
Speaker 5: dear Professor Howard, very polite and so on and saying
Speaker 5: very little but just about his own experience, and that
Speaker 5: he'd be interested in having a meeting sometime, and I thought, yeah,
Speaker 5: I definitely I'm interested. And when we met in my office,
Speaker 5: within five minutes I knew this guy is a winner.
Speaker 5: This guy is unbelievable. And we talked about the possibility
Speaker 5: of him coming to Georgetown because he'd stopped. He'd been
Speaker 5: at West Virginia and he'd stopped after two years despite
Speaker 5: having a great record, but that was over and it's
Speaker 5: hard to pick that up again. And we came up
Speaker 5: with the idea, why not have him be a transfer
Speaker 5: student to Georgetown, And so I supported that and wrote
Speaker 5: a letter of recommendation very long, where basically I was
Speaker 5: threatening to resign if Georgetown didn' admit. I said, if
Speaker 5: Georgetown is worth anything of its reputation of in terms
Speaker 5: of academic excellence, where he had the record and deserved it,
Speaker 5: just oh yeah, but also in terms of Georgetown's tradition
Speaker 5: of giving back and as a Jesuit institution of caring
Speaker 5: for others and so on. And he was admitted as
Speaker 5: a transfer student and then came on and then actually
Speaker 5: was in my classroom and I was teaching a course
Speaker 5: called Prisons and Punishment, which has about fifty students, and
Speaker 5: Brian was one of those students, and we talked beforehand
Speaker 5: and I said, you know, I'll let you decide when
Speaker 5: to reveal your story, and if you want me to,
Speaker 5: I'm happy to if you want to, you decide when
Speaker 5: the right time is. And I remember it was several
Speaker 5: weeks into the class and he'd already been active and
Speaker 5: asking questions and making comments and so on. But then
Speaker 5: at one point he said to the whole class, now
Speaker 5: might be a good time for me to tell you
Speaker 5: my story, what I've been through, why I have a
Speaker 5: connection with this issue. And you should have seen the
Speaker 5: jaws drop in that room, total silence and admiration and awe.
Speaker 5: And over the next few months, the role that he
Speaker 5: had in that classroom and in these students' lives, the
Speaker 5: respect that they had for him, it was life changing
Speaker 5: for them for me too, And I got course evaluations
Speaker 5: at the end of the semester that were through the roof,
Speaker 5: but so many of them said having Brian in this
Speaker 5: course was unbelievable, right, And so I'm really grateful to him,
Speaker 5: but not just in terms of what he did to
Speaker 5: me and for my students, but what he's giving back
Speaker 5: to so many people around him, right, And so it's
Speaker 5: one of these things where you never would wish this
Speaker 5: type of horrible thing to happen on anyone, but in
Speaker 5: a way, Brian is the person to have it happened
Speaker 5: to because he is so strong and he's taking from
Speaker 5: that something to help change this horrific system. And I
Speaker 5: think he's going to be a leader in the future,
Speaker 5: whether it's in DC or nationally. He's got an incredible
Speaker 5: future and we're all going to hear a lot more
Speaker 5: from him and about him.
Speaker 6: I think, don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 4: Wherever you get your post, it really helps.
Speaker 6: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
Speaker 6: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 6: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 6: to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate
Speaker 6: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Speaker 6: Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show
Speaker 6: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 4: Be sure to.
Speaker 6: Follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook.
Speaker 4: At Wrongful Conviction podcast.
Speaker 6: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
Speaker 6: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one