Speaker 1: Late in the morning on February six, George Bryant and
Speaker 1: Oscar Bridges were at Bryant's Kansas City home. According to
Speaker 1: four year old Kaylea Bryant, her father invited in three
Speaker 1: men dressed in black, whom she had seen at the
Speaker 1: house two days earlier. It's believed that they were there
Speaker 1: for a drug deal. While the men were in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: Kayla heard a gunshot. Her father fell, and Oscar Bridges
Speaker 1: ran into the basement, where he was later discovered bound, gagged,
Speaker 1: and shot twice in the head. While the men searched
Speaker 1: the house, George tried to run, was shot and bled
Speaker 1: out in the snow. The three men sped off in
Speaker 1: a white Oldsmobile. Police received anonymous tips naming ten men
Speaker 1: as suspects, including men who knew George Bryant carried Goodspeed,
Speaker 1: Senior and Junior, Marcus Merrill, and Ricky Kidd, with an
Speaker 1: alibi that included a trip to the Sheriff's office and
Speaker 1: not being identified by Kayla. Rickie was released after recording
Speaker 1: a video line up. Weeks later, Georgeience neighbor Richard Harris,
Speaker 1: was arrested while on parole in exchange for leniency. He
Speaker 1: offered a description of the crime that was inconsistent with
Speaker 1: all other witnesses, along with an ever growing confidence in
Speaker 1: his identification of Ricky Kidd. Despite evidence that mostly pointed
Speaker 1: toward Merrill and both Good Speeds, authorities decided to prosecute
Speaker 1: Ricky on the strength of an incentivised emporymant and against
Speaker 1: the protest of the four year old witness, sending Ricky
Speaker 1: away for life without parole. This his wrongful conviction. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Wrongful Conviction Today. You are going to hear
Speaker 1: from a guy who I'm really actually in awe of.
Speaker 1: I've heard him on the radio, on on podcasts, I've
Speaker 1: heard him on different platforms. I've read about him. He's
Speaker 1: somebody that everyone in the innocence movement respects and admires.
Speaker 1: He carries himself in a way that I think is
Speaker 1: just inspiring. I don't know how else to say it.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to introduce the man right now, and
Speaker 1: so Ricky Kid, welcome to Raw for Conviction. Yeah, thank you, Jason,
Speaker 1: appreciate it. I'm so glad you're here. Of course, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry you're here because the reason you're here is the
Speaker 1: miserable nightmare you had to live through. But before we
Speaker 1: get into all of that, Ricky, let's go back like
Speaker 1: they do in the movies when it gets all foggy
Speaker 1: and and let's time travel back. What was your life
Speaker 1: like growing up? What you call it a happy childhood? Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: like many of the individuals who find themselves on the
Speaker 1: wrong side of the law, wrongfully convicted, there was some
Speaker 1: poverty issues. I grew up smart. I was always two
Speaker 1: grades above and reading and math. I was innocent of
Speaker 1: the woes of the world, the eels, the injustices of
Speaker 1: the world at that time. And I was a mama's boy.
Speaker 1: My name is Ricky, my mother's name is Vicky, and
Speaker 1: my sister name is Nicky, so it was Nicky, Ricky
Speaker 1: and Vicky. My father never showed up, Jason. He for
Speaker 1: one reason or another, he decided not to participate in
Speaker 1: my life. And then in the nineteen ninety nine, my
Speaker 1: mother fell into crack cocaine addiction, and my sister, who
Speaker 1: had different fathers, so she went and stayed with her
Speaker 1: father's family, and my mother went into her addiction in
Speaker 1: the streets, and I was left essentially homeless. Wow, that's
Speaker 1: actually quite the opposite of a happy childhood. And it's
Speaker 1: my understanding of the situation you found yourself and led
Speaker 1: you to come to know both the eventual victims and
Speaker 1: the assailants in this case. In fact, you knew the
Speaker 1: good speed so well that people confused you for family.
Speaker 1: I grew up next door to Gary Gutsby Jr. We
Speaker 1: became friends and then started calling each other's cousins as
Speaker 1: we got older, and I would call his mother auntie.
Speaker 1: I will call his daddy uncle. Essentially, when my mother
Speaker 1: went a wall and went into her addiction, his family
Speaker 1: actually took me in. UM. I had an ultimatum from
Speaker 1: the good speech was you're gonna have to find a
Speaker 1: way to pay your way. So at a young age,
Speaker 1: I was introduced to selling crack cocaine, and the older
Speaker 1: guys would give me a hundred dollar pack five dollar rocks,
Speaker 1: and if I sold all one hundred of them, I
Speaker 1: get to keep twenty um. The idea was, little Ricky,
Speaker 1: if you get called so, you juvenile, you can't get
Speaker 1: into any trouble. So it just made sense to me,
Speaker 1: with the cards that my life had dealt me at
Speaker 1: that time, to do so. Thirteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen, I
Speaker 1: was still just you know, small time drug dealer. As
Speaker 1: we became older and I began to find my own
Speaker 1: way in this world, our passways began to go in
Speaker 1: different directions. When it came to February six nine, good
Speaker 1: speech would have not have been considered friends. They would
Speaker 1: not really have even been considered associates. And earlier on
Speaker 1: your connection to drugs put you in touch with the
Speaker 1: victim in this case, George Bryant, who was also involved
Speaker 1: in that same lifestyle. And while your path diverged from
Speaker 1: the good speeds, you had three children, Jasmine, Raven and Austin.
Speaker 1: Now you were supplementing your income still selling drugs, and
Speaker 1: eventually that put you on the radar of the local police. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would have been known to the police. So the
Speaker 1: idea that you can be a street guy, the hustler,
Speaker 1: it was good enough for them to say, you might
Speaker 1: as well be a murder. It's all the same to them.
Speaker 1: That's what that's what you do, right, You sell drugs,
Speaker 1: you get each other, you're robbing. But that just wasn't decay.
Speaker 1: I wasn't violent at all. I had um a drug conviction.
Speaker 1: I was arrested in October of drugs was found in
Speaker 1: a rental car and so I popped on their radar
Speaker 1: there just months before the commission of the homicide in
Speaker 1: February of just in time, of course, for your mug
Speaker 1: shot to be available for a photo lineup. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about the crime itself. So, like you said, it was,
Speaker 1: it's February. This happened just before noon and from the
Speaker 1: account of George's daughter Kayla, who was watching TV and
Speaker 1: having a happy meal, ironically, Uh, it looks like George
Speaker 1: had invited three men into the house. We believe to
Speaker 1: make some sort of a drug deal. Kayla had seen
Speaker 1: the men though two days before, when they had come
Speaker 1: by the house. She described one is vat and another skinny. Now,
Speaker 1: on the day of the crime, the men had come
Speaker 1: through the garage. They were dressed in black, and now
Speaker 1: they were all in the kitchen with George and a
Speaker 1: guy named Oscar Bridges. Kayla heard a gun go off
Speaker 1: and her father fell to the ground. Then Oscar ran
Speaker 1: down to the basement. One of the men followed Oscar,
Speaker 1: whose body was later discovered bound, gagged and shot twice
Speaker 1: in the head. The other two men searched George's pockets,
Speaker 1: and while they searched the rest of the house, George
Speaker 1: tried to run but was shot. He tragically bled out,
Speaker 1: laying in the snow outside like a horror scene. Kayla
Speaker 1: said the quote. Fat one came back in and told
Speaker 1: her it was going to be all right. Then the
Speaker 1: three men got into a white sedan and peeled off.
Speaker 1: Police arrived at eleven am and found Kaylas still on
Speaker 1: the phone with the nine one one dispatcher. Police received
Speaker 1: various anonymous tips uh naming ten different suspects, including Marcus
Speaker 1: Meryll and then also Dary good Speed Senior and Junior,
Speaker 1: and then of course you, Ricky. So investigators put together
Speaker 1: a photo lineup for Kayla that included you, Meryll and
Speaker 1: good Speed Jr. And get this, Kayla only picked out Meryl. Now,
Speaker 1: like you said, you were no longer associated with these guys,
Speaker 1: but you were still listed with the police as known associates.
Speaker 1: And so when the double homicide had taken place, unbeknowth
Speaker 1: to my lawyers and I at the time that the
Speaker 1: real killers good Speed, Singer Junior, and Merrow had not
Speaker 1: only committed the crime and fled, but to buy them
Speaker 1: some time in some space. They called CHIPS hotline and
Speaker 1: said that Ricky Kidd had something to do with this homicide.
Speaker 1: And so that's how I end up popping up on
Speaker 1: their radar in the first place. They picked me up
Speaker 1: on February, interrogating me for about five or six hours.
Speaker 1: I participated in a photo lineup video lineup, and they
Speaker 1: arrested Monica, your girlfriend at that time as well. They
Speaker 1: separated you and interrogated you both, and your stories matched
Speaker 1: perfectly correct, and the stories are pretty compelling. They could
Speaker 1: have easily verified these stories, right, Which was that on
Speaker 1: the morning of the crime, you had agreed to watch
Speaker 1: your nephew, right well, your sister was at work. And
Speaker 1: then in that same morning that this crime took place,
Speaker 1: you and Monica and the little guy DJ had gone
Speaker 1: to Nikki's office to pick up your car and then
Speaker 1: stopped at McDonald's and went to the Jackson County Sheriff's office.
Speaker 1: That match. How how good of an alibi DA need?
Speaker 1: And this is the Sheriff's office at Late Jacomo where
Speaker 1: you applied for a gun permit. So I mean that's it, right.
Speaker 1: No more investigation is necessary than to just do those
Speaker 1: very basic things and go check the videotape at McDonald's.
Speaker 1: Go check and see if in fact you're at the
Speaker 1: sheriff's office. They would have a record of that obviously
Speaker 1: if applied for a gun permit. Now you agreed to
Speaker 1: stand at the videotape lineup, allowed police to search the
Speaker 1: car and belongings. And I got to go back to
Speaker 1: the fact that you and your monica, your story is
Speaker 1: matched exactly. Now, if you were lying since you were separated,
Speaker 1: there's no chance that those stories would have matched, not
Speaker 1: at all. It seems like initially when they first rescued,
Speaker 1: they basically acknowledged that you weren't the guy, and they
Speaker 1: had let me go. They said, at the time it
Speaker 1: appeared that somebody was storing my name and a hat,
Speaker 1: trying to shuffle things around, and they released me February fifteen.
Speaker 1: In my mind, there was no frame of reference at
Speaker 1: that time for me to even understand it. I was
Speaker 1: in trouble. Hey, I'm in the You can clearly go
Speaker 1: verify that I'm in a set and might whereabouts at
Speaker 1: the time of the crime. And they did not pursue that.
Speaker 1: Now they go and they decided to go to test
Speaker 1: six pairs of your shoes, and they compared them to
Speaker 1: shoeprints that were found in the kitchen. There was one
Speaker 1: shoe print that was found on a piece of bread,
Speaker 1: and the other one was in blood on linoleum. And
Speaker 1: your shoes as well as the shoes of the victims
Speaker 1: were excluded as the source of the prints. You don't
Speaker 1: have to be Sherlock Holmes here, ladies and gentlemen, right
Speaker 1: so they also, at the same time, though, began to
Speaker 1: investigate Meryl, Good Speed Junior, and Good Speed Senior. All
Speaker 1: of them, interestingly enough, lived in Georgia, where Meryll and
Speaker 1: Good Speed Junior shared an apartment. Now get this. Airline
Speaker 1: records showed that the three men had flown from Atlanta
Speaker 1: to Kansas City a few days prior to the murders
Speaker 1: and stated at Adams Mark Hotel before returning to Georgia
Speaker 1: after the murders. Alamo rent the car records show the
Speaker 1: Good Speed Senior rented a you guessed at a white Oldsmobile,
Speaker 1: which fit the description the real descriptions of the getaway
Speaker 1: car and Good Speed Senior's fingerprint was found on a
Speaker 1: CarMax lip bomb wrapper with a price tag from a
Speaker 1: good to Ghost store. One of which was a block
Speaker 1: and a half from Brian's home. Again, these are clues
Speaker 1: that are starting to really add up. I mean, that
Speaker 1: would be a crazy set of coincidences could happen. But okay,
Speaker 1: So then on March Richard Harris, who lived near Mr Bryant,
Speaker 1: was arrested on a parole violation. I want to take
Speaker 1: us through this part, Ricky. Yeah, this individual you're you're
Speaker 1: talking about, Richard Harris, was an alleged witness to the
Speaker 1: commission of the crime and he had a parole violation.
Speaker 1: He was brought in and detectives had already received the
Speaker 1: call that he might have some information as it related
Speaker 1: to the double homicide. And so when he go into
Speaker 1: the police station for his parole violation, homicide brings him down.
Speaker 1: They began to enter gate him and that's where they
Speaker 1: received their first cooperating or what I like to call
Speaker 1: car Hurst witness. And so the opportunity was ripe for
Speaker 1: him to receive some type of favor in exchange for information,
Speaker 1: even if it was inaccurate, information, to get himself back
Speaker 1: out of the trouble that he found himselves in. And
Speaker 1: so what detectives done to help facilitate that was. They
Speaker 1: showed Richard Harris a single photo of me first, and
Speaker 1: Richard Harris said, I cannot say that was him. Then
Speaker 1: they showed him a five man photo spread, and low
Speaker 1: and behold, who's the fifth man? And the five man
Speaker 1: photo spread the same guy he just saw on a
Speaker 1: single photo. So then he said, I think I think
Speaker 1: that's the guy. They said, but you can't be sure.
Speaker 1: He said, no, I can't be sure. So they said, okay,
Speaker 1: let's go into this other room where they showed him
Speaker 1: the video line up. All the faces changed except up
Speaker 1: for Ricky Kidd. So at this stage he went from
Speaker 1: the single polar and I'm not sure the five man
Speaker 1: photo spread it maybe number five, to the video lineup.
Speaker 1: He became two thousand and one percent sure that Ricky
Speaker 1: Kidd was the guy that he saw, despite describing everything
Speaker 1: contrary to what the police began to collect or report
Speaker 1: on the evidence. For example, all witnesses said that there
Speaker 1: was three men they hopped in a white late model
Speaker 1: Oldsmobile they backed down the street, that they all had
Speaker 1: on ski mass and black trench coats. Richard Harris described
Speaker 1: one of them without a coat on at all. One
Speaker 1: with the brown coat and that they didn't back up.
Speaker 1: They actually went forward and they was not in a
Speaker 1: late model Oldsmobile. They was in a Nissan Stanza. And
Speaker 1: so early on, he's getting key facts wrong. This guy
Speaker 1: obviously didn't see it. But nonetheless, a few months after
Speaker 1: this awful crime, with arrested again, they came and they
Speaker 1: pulled their guns as I was driving away from my apartment,
Speaker 1: made me stop the car. I was surrounded by squad
Speaker 1: and police and detectives. My girlfriend Monica Gray at the time,
Speaker 1: she was with me, made us put our hands up
Speaker 1: and they slapped those code handcuffs on us and took
Speaker 1: us down to the police station. And I'm thinking, in
Speaker 1: my mind, what didn't they understand the first time? It's
Speaker 1: gonna be yet another inconvenience because I'm moving, You're gonna
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be late. I'm gonna be late. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna go to prison. Innocent people don't go to prison.
Speaker 1: I'm just about to be hostled. Um let go, and
Speaker 1: they once again realized that they have the wrong person.
Speaker 1: I had no previous experience with our justice system. You
Speaker 1: told Detective j Pruding that you were with Monica all day,
Speaker 1: and that whoever identified you must have confused you with
Speaker 1: somebody else, quite possibly your uncle, Gary good Speed Senior.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless you and Merrill were charged with the murders.
Speaker 1: Take us to what happens over the next month when
Speaker 1: when you reached out to this detective, right, I was
Speaker 1: letting them know through the whole time that I was
Speaker 1: in the county jail. I had no bond um that
Speaker 1: I was innocent. First, I did not know why they
Speaker 1: would think I would be guilty, so I had to
Speaker 1: wait for my discovery. Once I was able to receive
Speaker 1: the police reports, about six hundred pages, maybe a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty of them was keeping everything that they collected together.
Speaker 1: Maybe about fifty or sixty pages was related to me,
Speaker 1: But the rest of the six hundred pages were all
Speaker 1: related to the good Speed and those clues and the
Speaker 1: dots that connected them to being involved in the commission
Speaker 1: of this crime. And so as I received my discovery
Speaker 1: in the county jail, I was smart enough as a noist,
Speaker 1: as a regular citizen to see that you are barking
Speaker 1: up the wrong tree. And how can you possibly not
Speaker 1: see this, as season detectives unless you are purposely trying
Speaker 1: to send the wrong person to prison. So I would
Speaker 1: reach out, my my sister would reach out. I would
Speaker 1: get on the phone. My lawyers would tell me, might
Speaker 1: I advise you don't talk to the detectives. And I
Speaker 1: heard her. I was smart enough to understand the basis
Speaker 1: of that. But in my mind, I'm thinking, an innocent
Speaker 1: man can never get itself in any trouble. He's innocent.
Speaker 1: So I would not listen, and I would call the
Speaker 1: detectives and I would wrestle with them over the phone
Speaker 1: until they one day came and picked me up and
Speaker 1: brought me over to headquarters. And I had about thirty
Speaker 1: minutes to articulate their case back to them. And man,
Speaker 1: you are to seeing day. I wish that was recorded.
Speaker 1: You are to scene their faces. I mean, I was
Speaker 1: a young Perry Mason, if you will um, And I'm
Speaker 1: kind of being funny but serious. I was really laying
Speaker 1: out like, this is how you're making a mistake, and
Speaker 1: answer why this and why that. Gary Goodspeed Junior was
Speaker 1: picked up by the detectives and asked what time did
Speaker 1: George Bryant die? And Gary Goodspeed Junior says, and this
Speaker 1: police report he died at eleven forty seven or eleven
Speaker 1: forty six. Who else would know that other than the killer.
Speaker 1: It was never reported in papers, It was never reported
Speaker 1: in the news, It was never reported anywhere else. In
Speaker 1: fact that he tected asked them, how do you know that?
Speaker 1: Good speed, Junior? He said, my dad told me so.
Speaker 1: He would have been better off saying I read it
Speaker 1: in the newspaper, and we could try to find that
Speaker 1: newspaper that did not exist. But the news at that
Speaker 1: time had not reported the time of death, so how
Speaker 1: would you know? So it was these things. It was
Speaker 1: these glaring facts that I was challenging to detect us with,
Speaker 1: and they got so frustrated. You know, usually they put
Speaker 1: us in a pigeon box to speak when they get
Speaker 1: us in there. But I hid them in the pigeon box. Uh,
Speaker 1: so much so that they called it off. One of
Speaker 1: the leaders are just said, get him out of here,
Speaker 1: and don't bring you back over here again. This episode
Speaker 1: is underwritten by A i G, a leading global insurance company.
Speaker 1: A i G is committed to corporate social responsibility and
Speaker 1: is making a positive difference in the lives of its
Speaker 1: employees and in the communities where we work and live.
Speaker 1: In light of the compelling need for pro bono legal
Speaker 1: assistance and in recognition of a i g s commitment
Speaker 1: to criminal and social justice reform. The a i G
Speaker 1: pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other support
Speaker 1: to underrepresented communities and individuals. The prosecutor, Amy McGowan, wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to Gary Goodspeed Senior and wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to Gary Goodspeed Junior. I was making too much of
Speaker 1: a fuss that I was innocent and that they were
Speaker 1: guilty according to the evidence that they have in their possession.
Speaker 1: And so the prosecutor's office worked to get Gary Goodspeed
Speaker 1: Senior and Gary Goodspeed Junior to participate in sworn depositions.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Gary Goodspeed Senior and Gary Goodspeed
Speaker 1: Junior was Marcus Murrell's alibi witness. Marcus Merrill and I
Speaker 1: were charged. Marcus Merrill is saying that was not with
Speaker 1: Ricky Kidd. I was with Gary Goodspeed Senior, and I
Speaker 1: was with Gary Goodspeed Junior and Gary Goodspeed Senior and
Speaker 1: Junior saying, yeah, what Marcus Merrill said, We was with
Speaker 1: him and we were not with Ricky Kidd. And so
Speaker 1: they reported to Amy mcgallant's office for a sworn deposition.
Speaker 1: Marcus Merrill lawyers was their detectives were summons to be
Speaker 1: there to read them that Miranda rights. Why would you
Speaker 1: be reading these law abiding citizens that Miranda rights if
Speaker 1: you did not have an indication that these were your
Speaker 1: guilty men. And so everybody was there except for Ricky
Speaker 1: Kidd's representation Teresa Anderson. Now, by law, since this was
Speaker 1: a joint trial, all parties must be summons together. You
Speaker 1: cannot take a deposition outside of the presence of the
Speaker 1: other parties of individuals that was involved. We was unaware
Speaker 1: that good Speed Senior and Junior were being deposed of
Speaker 1: and Amy the Prosecutor's office. During the deposition, they swore
Speaker 1: under oath that they was not with Ricky Kidd, further
Speaker 1: proof that I was innocent, and that they were indeed
Speaker 1: with Marcus merroll uh and with each other. And they
Speaker 1: further went to collaborate evidence that suggested they did it.
Speaker 1: So police already had this five hundred page of police reports,
Speaker 1: um that some of the spots and dots were already there.
Speaker 1: And what these two individuals did in a sworn deposition
Speaker 1: in the prosecutor's office is basically connect themselves to those
Speaker 1: spots and dots. What happened was Amy McGowan, She would
Speaker 1: have had to realize that she, indeed, at this point
Speaker 1: emphatically is holding the wrong person and the Jackson County
Speaker 1: Jail across the street, and the real killers is sitting
Speaker 1: in her office. What did she decided to do? She said,
Speaker 1: escort these individuals out of here and let them go,
Speaker 1: and proceeded knowing that she was sending the wrong person
Speaker 1: to prison. And just one more little caveat to add
Speaker 1: to that, only did she not invite my legal team
Speaker 1: to the depositions, but she also hid the fact that
Speaker 1: it even existed in the first place. Those transcripts of
Speaker 1: those depositions were printed, were created, and they was buried,
Speaker 1: buried as if it never exists. It was only years
Speaker 1: later that Professor Shan O'Brien in the Midwest Instance Project
Speaker 1: was able to find those hitting and buried uh depositions
Speaker 1: and we was able to present them to a court
Speaker 1: and prove emphatically to the court that Amy McGowan withheld
Speaker 1: key evidence and she did it maliciously. What the fuck
Speaker 1: is wrong with you people? You're absolutely right they should
Speaker 1: have put the cups on them right there. They should
Speaker 1: have assigned somebody to go across the street and say
Speaker 1: we're sorry, mr kid, this was a big misunderstanding. We
Speaker 1: wish you well. At a minimum, that's what they should
Speaker 1: have done. But they were like, no, let these guys
Speaker 1: go and hope they don't go and murder anybody else.
Speaker 1: Imagine that. That's the level of evil that I think
Speaker 1: is hard for most people with any sort of conscience
Speaker 1: to understand. But it's real because you're here to tell
Speaker 1: this story, which is a miracle in itself. You know,
Speaker 1: if the National Registry of Exonerations have noted in their
Speaker 1: report of wrongful conventions has a direct correlation with police
Speaker 1: and prosecutorial misconduct fifty I believe one of the last
Speaker 1: studies I read was that about four percent ever have
Speaker 1: any inquiry period, no matter how egregious it is aiming.
Speaker 1: McGowan's behavior that we're talking about today was so egregious,
Speaker 1: so egregious that nobody has come to her defense except
Speaker 1: for her lawyer. It is actually before the Missouri Supreme
Speaker 1: Court is hardly ever gone this far. This case is
Speaker 1: so serious, her behavior so serious that the Missouri Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: which is a very conservative court here in this region
Speaker 1: said no, no, no, we're gonna take this case up
Speaker 1: and we're gonna decide what type of punishment she deserves
Speaker 1: for this injustice acts that she participated in. I wish
Speaker 1: I had more confidence that they're going to do the
Speaker 1: right thing. The right thing really would be to put
Speaker 1: her where you were for twenty three years, correct. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not an eye for an eye person by any
Speaker 1: strategy imagination, but you don't have to be to understand
Speaker 1: that in lesson until there's real accountability, not just losing
Speaker 1: your law license, and that almost never happens either. If
Speaker 1: there's only been five prosecutors in the history of this
Speaker 1: vast wrongful conviction universe that goes back now hundreds of
Speaker 1: years in America, there's only been five prosecutors this barred,
Speaker 1: and you know one was recent and it on Huffington's
Speaker 1: case in Maryland. But only five this barred, and only
Speaker 1: two have ever gone to jail. Only two of the
Speaker 1: Duke Lacrosse Mike Nifong, he went to jail for one day,
Speaker 1: and in the Michael Morton case in Texas, guy named
Speaker 1: Anderson went to jail for three days. After putting Michael
Speaker 1: in prison for twenty four years and seven months for
Speaker 1: a crime that it was proven he knew, he knew,
Speaker 1: just like they knew in your case, he didn't commit it.
Speaker 1: So here comes the trial Jackson County. So you went
Speaker 1: to trial with Meryl. Right, Meryl and his attorneys pointed
Speaker 1: the finger at you and said that you committed the
Speaker 1: crime with the good speeds. And of course your defense
Speaker 1: was that Meryll here defends. Her defense was the truth,
Speaker 1: which was that Merril committed the crime with the good speeds.
Speaker 1: But truth had no place in this proceeding or this courtroom.
Speaker 1: And of course we know how this plays out, but
Speaker 1: it still took another couple of twists and turns. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about little Taylor, right, who's now maybe five years
Speaker 1: old at this point. Right, this poor little child, a
Speaker 1: baby who's been through an experience that should probably bless
Speaker 1: her heart, has probably never will recover from it, certainly
Speaker 1: had recovered from at this point. So she got on
Speaker 1: the witness then tell us about this. It must have
Speaker 1: been a surreal moment for you. It was, and it
Speaker 1: was side what happened. They showed her a five man
Speaker 1: photo spread and said, can you identify the individuals? That
Speaker 1: you saw at your house that day, and she pointed
Speaker 1: to number three, Marcus Murrow, and they said, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: good job. Now, now can you point to the other
Speaker 1: person you said you saw in the house that day?
Speaker 1: And she said, no, I only saw one. I told
Speaker 1: you I only saw one. And so they would ask
Speaker 1: to judge, can we approach she's she's tired, she's hungry,
Speaker 1: she's this, that and the other. So they tried to
Speaker 1: go back over there and rehabilitate her or get her
Speaker 1: to look around the court and see if you can
Speaker 1: identify any of those individuals that you saw in your
Speaker 1: home that day, and she could not. When they further
Speaker 1: pressed her on the stand, she became even more frazzled
Speaker 1: and frustrated, and she said, I forgot, I forgot the story.
Speaker 1: I forgot the whole story. Now, given that a five
Speaker 1: year old can miss speak as they're learning for sentences, um,
Speaker 1: but as adults, when people use that type of language, story,
Speaker 1: it's something that's made up, is something that's told to them,
Speaker 1: and so we don't just say that loosely. There's other
Speaker 1: evidence that support that she was told a story. Her
Speaker 1: mother admits that she was told things that she told
Speaker 1: her daughter things. And so the idea that is coming
Speaker 1: out in trial that they that they are trying to
Speaker 1: get this little girl to send an innocent person to
Speaker 1: prison based on what she was told, not based on
Speaker 1: what she actually may know, at least in full. So
Speaker 1: their case, rightfully so was weak. And so they had
Speaker 1: to figure out, yeah, honor, can we take a quick break? Uh?
Speaker 1: And they had to figure out, how do I show
Speaker 1: up this case. And so after they took a little
Speaker 1: ten minute break, some wise guy on the prosecutor side saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: let's call the detectives who said that she said that
Speaker 1: to them and have them to say that to the jury.
Speaker 1: And that's what they did, Jason. They brought in the
Speaker 1: homicide detectives. Violated a hearsay rule where I had the
Speaker 1: right to confront my witness, but my witness had said
Speaker 1: what she said. So they said, let's bring the detectives in.
Speaker 1: They came in, about two or three of them, took
Speaker 1: the stand and said, yeah, we know what she wasn't
Speaker 1: able to do today. But they looked to the jury,
Speaker 1: they looked to the court, they looked at the judge
Speaker 1: and said, but that's what she told us. They said
Speaker 1: that this is what happened at headquarters. She came in,
Speaker 1: We got her calm, we got her chill, and then
Speaker 1: we began to proceed with the identification. Says that she
Speaker 1: couldn't identify him in the photo spread, but when we
Speaker 1: showed her the video, she started shaking real bad. She
Speaker 1: she had to be consoled in control that she began
Speaker 1: to cry and say that's him, that guy right there,
Speaker 1: that's who killed my daddy, says the police. You have recordings,
Speaker 1: you have in fact transcribed these recordings, and nothing nowhere
Speaker 1: near on paper suggests that she identified me at all. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: once police said that this is what she did and trial,
Speaker 1: they testified to that what happened at police headquarters. They said, well,
Speaker 1: then what did you do next? They said, well, we
Speaker 1: took her in the video recording room and we video
Speaker 1: recorded a statement from her. They played the video recorded statement.
Speaker 1: Not a question asked about Ricky kiting. It's hard to believe.
Speaker 1: Not a question asked, Not even a question. Look, don't
Speaker 1: they didn't have to. Okay, maybe we didn't go into
Speaker 1: the weeds of it. You didn't even you have an
Speaker 1: opportunity to memorialize a sensitive interview of a four and
Speaker 1: a half or five year old child. You say in
Speaker 1: the other room, this is all that she said. But
Speaker 1: when you get a chance to video record and memorialize it,
Speaker 1: you don't do it. Why don't you do it? Because
Speaker 1: it didn't happen. That's why they didn't do it. But
Speaker 1: they took those police detective words as a credible So
Speaker 1: this little five year old, this brave, little fatherless child,
Speaker 1: tried to do the right thing, even though she probably
Speaker 1: desperately wanted to listen and had been influenced by these
Speaker 1: people who were trying everything they could, and she must
Speaker 1: have desperately wanted to help find and bring to justice
Speaker 1: that the person who killed her daddy and the other
Speaker 1: man in the else that day. And even then, even
Speaker 1: under all that pressure, she stood up. And their response
Speaker 1: is to go conspire to put lies upon lies. And
Speaker 1: it sounds a lot like hearsay as well, right, because
Speaker 1: they're coming in we go, well no, but she said
Speaker 1: a different time, I mean, this is how that's admissible.
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm at a loss. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't even know why we have perjury laws if we're
Speaker 1: not going to hold these people to account for what
Speaker 1: is the most one of the most obvious cases of
Speaker 1: perjury that anybody's ever seen. But like you said, it
Speaker 1: happens every day, all day and twice on Sunday. So
Speaker 1: then comes Richard Harris. So when we talk about the
Speaker 1: state witness, Richard Harris let me context that there's no
Speaker 1: physical evidence connecting me to the crime. So all they
Speaker 1: had was Caleb Bryant, who we just talked about, and
Speaker 1: then what they had left was Richard Harris, this neighbor
Speaker 1: got who was into trouble, who was looking to save
Speaker 1: his own soul. He testifies that he is two thousand
Speaker 1: and one percent sure that it was Ricky Kidd who
Speaker 1: he saw committing the crime on that day. To help
Speaker 1: bolster his memory, I don't know if they worked with
Speaker 1: him on this um. He called me the terminator. How
Speaker 1: do you know so much? Because he walked like a terminator,
Speaker 1: and I guess stunt to I don't know a robot.
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure, but I just think it was
Speaker 1: designed to bolster his identification that he was accurate. The
Speaker 1: problem was, I didn't walk like no terminator. I didn't
Speaker 1: have any walk like a terminator. But they didn't say
Speaker 1: Ricky Kid you get up and you walk, can you
Speaker 1: demonstrate to the jury. So on the surface, it sounds
Speaker 1: like he gotta be right because he was able to
Speaker 1: distinguish how this how this guy walks. It was designed
Speaker 1: to boaster a false testimony. Um, he gives me a beard.
Speaker 1: I'm twenty two years of age at that time. I
Speaker 1: did not have a beer. It he he put a
Speaker 1: beard on me. My lawyer tried to impeach him there.
Speaker 1: She did a real terrible job doing that. All photos
Speaker 1: had shown that I was clean faced, like I couldn't
Speaker 1: have had a beard. I think they had got a
Speaker 1: photo of me just weeks before then. But this guy
Speaker 1: came in and testified that he was two thousand and
Speaker 1: one percent sure that I was the guy, despite getting
Speaker 1: everything else wrong about the commission of the crime. And
Speaker 1: listen to me, he didn't get one thing. Oh, I
Speaker 1: can see how he got a couple of things wrong,
Speaker 1: but he got a couple of things right. This state witness,
Speaker 1: Richard Harris, didn't get one thing right that all other
Speaker 1: independent neighbors were saying about what happened before and after
Speaker 1: the gunfire. But they found this guy, uhcredible. He lied
Speaker 1: and he had I mean I'm not excusing it by
Speaker 1: any means, but he had a hell of a choice,
Speaker 1: right He had the choice of either going back to jail,
Speaker 1: which they were threatening to throw him back to jail
Speaker 1: the pro violation, which he obviously didn't want to do,
Speaker 1: or say nothing, in which case they would have put
Speaker 1: it back in jail, or implicating the actual killers and
Speaker 1: he knew exactly who they were and putting his own
Speaker 1: life in very real danger, or pinning it on an
Speaker 1: innocent guy and walking free and just having to live
Speaker 1: with his own conscience. And he chose the easy way out, Ricky.
Speaker 1: This trial unlike some other wrongful convictions that we've covered,
Speaker 1: where they didn't even bother to present alibi witnesses or
Speaker 1: anything like that, due to the fact that they may
Speaker 1: not have been any because maybe the person was just
Speaker 1: home asleep at the time, or the fact that the
Speaker 1: attorney was just incompetent or didn't care or whatever. But
Speaker 1: in your case, you had credible alibi witnesses to refute
Speaker 1: the ridiculous false narrative that Mr Harris was putting forward.
Speaker 1: So tell us a little about who testified in your defense. Yeah, Jason,
Speaker 1: we had my stepfather testified that he came down early
Speaker 1: that morning and gave me a jump start. My sister
Speaker 1: testified that she stayed at my house, that she took
Speaker 1: my new core, that I came to her job to
Speaker 1: pick that new car. Two of her co workers testified
Speaker 1: that I came to her job that day as well,
Speaker 1: that they was the one who greeted me and and
Speaker 1: escorted me over to my sister to pick up the keys.
Speaker 1: My daughter, Jasmine, her mother, Kelly, she testified that I
Speaker 1: came out to her house as well. And then my
Speaker 1: girlfriend at the time, Monica Gray, testified to the fullness
Speaker 1: of all of that because she was with me all day,
Speaker 1: so she was the base of all of those added
Speaker 1: testimonies of where I was throughout the fullness of the day.
Speaker 1: The gun permit, I was at the Jackson County Sheriff's
Speaker 1: Department applying for a legal hang gun at the time,
Speaker 1: but they brought in a sergeant Buffalo. He was a
Speaker 1: prosecutor's witness who did not handle the screening for that
Speaker 1: that was not his job, and he testified this, yeah,
Speaker 1: this could have been mailed. In fact, stan could have
Speaker 1: been brought in by somebody else, and so he cast
Speaker 1: serious doubt of the fact that I would have been
Speaker 1: at the Sheriff's department when in fact he was wrong.
Speaker 1: It couldn't have been brought in by someone else because
Speaker 1: they require I D. It couldn't have been facts then,
Speaker 1: because it would have had a facts number at the top,
Speaker 1: and it couldn't have been mailed in because the individual
Speaker 1: wouldn't know the accuracy of the mailing system to be
Speaker 1: able to get that done. We had to later find
Speaker 1: Susan Jordan's the lady who actually did process that application,
Speaker 1: and she later testified in my appeals that it indeed
Speaker 1: happened the way Ricky's legal team said it happened. But
Speaker 1: back to the trial, this is the evidence that we
Speaker 1: was able to put on, and unfortunately the jury decided
Speaker 1: to side with the state and with the one guy
Speaker 1: who was far from credible, against all these people who
Speaker 1: were credible and whose stories all matched up together. But okay,
Speaker 1: so now comes a moment where the jury goes out,
Speaker 1: how long would they out for? I think an hour? Okay,
Speaker 1: so they come back after forty five minutes to an hour.
Speaker 1: Did you still hold out any hope? I thought that
Speaker 1: I was going home still. I just did not I
Speaker 1: believe even through all what I was saying, I did
Speaker 1: not believe that it is in people go to prison. Um.
Speaker 1: The judge told him to all rise. The verdict was
Speaker 1: read that it was guilty. It was guilty on all counts.
Speaker 1: Just imagine, because many of us have not lived through
Speaker 1: an earthquake. I have not, at least not the type
Speaker 1: of earthquake I'm talking about that's underneath the earth. But
Speaker 1: it felt like an earthquake. It just I felt my
Speaker 1: knees buckling, I felt my body shaken, and everything slowed down.
Speaker 1: And when they started seeing cute life without the positive
Speaker 1: tears were so intense streaming down my face that I
Speaker 1: could not see. I felled to my seat and I sobbed.
Speaker 1: I sobbed so hard, it was so loud. My nose
Speaker 1: was rhyming. Every every part of my fiber in my
Speaker 1: being was devastated. So off the prison I went March
Speaker 1: Potosi Correctional Center, maximum level five prison here in the
Speaker 1: state of Missouri, where they housed death row in needs.
Speaker 1: And I remember getting off that bus shackle to a
Speaker 1: about half a dozen to a dozen of other individuals,
Speaker 1: and the officer greeting us with a salutation of gentlemen,
Speaker 1: welcome to Hell and hell it was the coach stairs,
Speaker 1: the whistles, the stale environment. I did not know how
Speaker 1: I was gonna survive. I did not have a friend, uncle,
Speaker 1: a brother. I did not know a person in prison.
Speaker 1: And so these fifteen hundred men, most of them on
Speaker 1: the yard, it was recreation. I'm I'm thinking, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: in trouble. So I had to think real fast. I
Speaker 1: know I didn't have the the the muscle that these
Speaker 1: other individuals have. I didn't have the friends and the
Speaker 1: click that these other individuals would run with. I just
Speaker 1: had myself. One of the first things I did was
Speaker 1: not play tough, as to not to invite trouble and
Speaker 1: to really use my head. When I saw lures and
Speaker 1: traps of you know, come over here and meet me
Speaker 1: over here, I would decide not to. I did meet
Speaker 1: a couple of friends early on. Our associates who seemed
Speaker 1: to be good guys who made bad decisions, saw the
Speaker 1: goodness and me and pulled me up earlier and gave
Speaker 1: me the five or six seven pointers to avoid to
Speaker 1: make sure that I can have a successful bit that
Speaker 1: I could do this time with a little amount of
Speaker 1: trouble as possible. I saw violence, I saw assaults, I
Speaker 1: saw stabbings. I mean, you name it, I saw it,
Speaker 1: and I just would use my head. I would often
Speaker 1: tell myself intelligence over emotions, so I would try not
Speaker 1: to respond emotionally, even when I was being punked a
Speaker 1: couple of times, which they were called punk punked out
Speaker 1: of my seat, told to get up from having breakfast
Speaker 1: because this was their table, but they were sitting at
Speaker 1: the table over the day before. They said well, we
Speaker 1: want this table today, and so you're forced to either
Speaker 1: confront that or get up and stand by the island
Speaker 1: where you get your trade from and eat at the island.
Speaker 1: I did that for a couple of days until a
Speaker 1: couple again because friends came, our associates that came and
Speaker 1: said no, you could sit at our table. Overall through
Speaker 1: the twenty three years, it was my faith that I
Speaker 1: survived off of. It was the idea that I was
Speaker 1: innocent that I survived of. It was the idea of
Speaker 1: my family who I left behind, my kids, who I
Speaker 1: left behind. I wanted to commit suicide. I contemplated suicide
Speaker 1: on many occasions, but what halted those actions and behavior
Speaker 1: was seeing my family on the outside, still needing me
Speaker 1: and wanting me to be there. There's less than a
Speaker 1: one percent chance ever been successful on appeal when you're
Speaker 1: fighting wrongful convictions, and people will tell me to give
Speaker 1: it up, Ricky, it's a one percent chance, And I say, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you didn't say there was no percent chance. So
Speaker 1: I did not want to understand as much how the loss.
Speaker 1: I wanted to understand more of how did the one
Speaker 1: percent win? And that's what I would be guided by
Speaker 1: for those twenty three years until we was successful in
Speaker 1: becoming among that one percent and winning. Wow, there was
Speaker 1: absolutely no you had a much better than one percent
Speaker 1: chance of being killed while you're in prison. It's a
Speaker 1: miracle that you never did decide to take your own life,
Speaker 1: as so many people do in those facilities, wrongfully convicted
Speaker 1: or even people who were not wroth convicted. But you
Speaker 1: stood strong somehow or other. You found the will to live,
Speaker 1: to learn, and to fight, and and fight you did,
Speaker 1: and fortunately you were able to get the attention of
Speaker 1: the people that could help you. And of course now
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the Midwest Innocence Project because Tricia Bushnell,
Speaker 1: I mean google this one, google her. Because if you.
Speaker 1: I think if you look up, doesn't funk around, you know,
Speaker 1: hers might be one of the first names that comes up.
Speaker 1: I mean when she gets involved, this is when things
Speaker 1: can really turn. And I encourage people to join me
Speaker 1: in supporting the Midwest Innocence Project. They are one of
Speaker 1: the best in the country, best in class. We'll put
Speaker 1: a link in the in the bio of the episode
Speaker 1: of people want to donate to Tricia bush Down Racial Wester.
Speaker 1: Professor Shan O'Brien, who was also a great part of
Speaker 1: the legal team, often led the legal team like like
Speaker 1: the freaking Avengers came in right and it's it's a
Speaker 1: miracle that they did. I lost eleven times before I
Speaker 1: won my very last appeal. Appeal after appeal after appeal,
Speaker 1: everyone is good as the next. During the appeals process
Speaker 1: that whole twenty three years, my lawyers stayed on this guy,
Speaker 1: Richard Harris, and they was successful and being able to
Speaker 1: get this witness to expose his lives, I mean, Riddle Redder.
Speaker 1: Every time they talked to him, it was something different
Speaker 1: and they said, Ricky, we got him. He comes to
Speaker 1: court and any blind juris a judge will be able
Speaker 1: to see that this guy is not credible, and that
Speaker 1: the conviction should not stand, particularly since your conviction was
Speaker 1: solely based on this loan eyewitness testimony. And so my
Speaker 1: final appeal, that twelfth appeal, in April of two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: this Richard Harris came to court. So you're at this hearing,
Speaker 1: Richard Harris is getting ready to be torn to shreds
Speaker 1: by your Wall dream team, and then something totally unexpected happens.
Speaker 1: We was prepared to just show all the inaccuracies and
Speaker 1: and and straight outline. We had a chart sixteen inconsistencies,
Speaker 1: eight straight out lies, and we had the chart to
Speaker 1: match on this page and this deposition, and and he
Speaker 1: was toast. But before we can really even get to that,
Speaker 1: he had a conscious and he came clean. He testified
Speaker 1: that he lied and that it wasn't me. He testified
Speaker 1: that he knew it was the Good Speeds and that
Speaker 1: he picked me because there was no harm. But if
Speaker 1: he identified the Good Speech they would come after him
Speaker 1: and get him. So he was willing to lie. When
Speaker 1: the state attorneys general try to get up and rehabilitate
Speaker 1: his testimony, Richard Hair, it was in the movies. It's
Speaker 1: like a movie. He snapped, I'm sick of this. You're
Speaker 1: not scaring me. I'm not scared of you anymore. And
Speaker 1: he stood up to him doing the right thing today.
Speaker 1: And I'm adding some words in, but it was it
Speaker 1: was a flare. It was everybody in the courtroom was looking,
Speaker 1: including the judge. He's innocent and y'all should let him
Speaker 1: go now. I'm done with this. And he began to
Speaker 1: break down and cry and he looked over at me
Speaker 1: and uh, he said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so
Speaker 1: are and he got up and he didn't even get
Speaker 1: dismissed from the witness box, and he just got up
Speaker 1: and ran out of the courtroom. So wow, that is
Speaker 1: super dramatic. And by the way, it's hard not to
Speaker 1: think about the fact that this guy who led a
Speaker 1: hard life, I'm sure, and you know, I had to
Speaker 1: stay alive that almost quarter century where he finally came clean.
Speaker 1: If he would have died or you know, or something
Speaker 1: else happened to him or become incapacitated somehow, or moved
Speaker 1: away where they couldn't find him, then you would be
Speaker 1: still in prison now and for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: It all hung on that little thread, right, it is
Speaker 1: a very strong likelihood. Yeah, yeah, and I was always
Speaker 1: nervous about that. Fortunate for me and our legal team
Speaker 1: that wasn't the case and we didn't have to suffer
Speaker 1: such a devastating blow. And in the end, Judge Atkins
Speaker 1: ruled that the evidence, and this is a direct quote
Speaker 1: from the judge, established his innocence from multiple goals and
Speaker 1: quote Mike dropped. The evidence, he said, showed that you
Speaker 1: were not involved, that your alibi was truthful, that the
Speaker 1: inescapable conclusion was exactly what was known from the very beginning,
Speaker 1: which was that Bryant and Bridges were murdered by the
Speaker 1: good Speeds and by Meryl. When I got the legal call,
Speaker 1: there was an indication that the judge was gonna rule
Speaker 1: in our favor, just by the questions he was asking
Speaker 1: both parties as he was preparing his ruling, the emails
Speaker 1: he would send them. He has to send it to
Speaker 1: both sides, and so we was reading the tea leaves.
Speaker 1: If if he was gonna say no, he wouldn't be
Speaker 1: asking us for this. If he was gonna say yes,
Speaker 1: he would be asking us for this. He's asking us
Speaker 1: for this. But we never fully knew, and so I
Speaker 1: was working out that day on August fourteen, two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: they said, you have a legal call. I called my lawyers,
Speaker 1: and Trish and Rachel was on that phone. When two
Speaker 1: or more lawyers on the phone, it usually has been
Speaker 1: bad news. Only talked to one when it's just an
Speaker 1: update or some brief, so I did not know, oh
Speaker 1: what's going here, and so they was like, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: how's it going. And sometimes they'll do that too, to
Speaker 1: prepare me for the shocking news or the bad news.
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm doing fine. I said, tell me
Speaker 1: what's going on? They said, well, hold on, let me
Speaker 1: get the rest of the lawyers on the phone as well.
Speaker 1: Have made me kind of feel up beat, I said,
Speaker 1: the rest of the lawyers, She said, yeah, we're waiting
Speaker 1: for Cindy, Cindy Dodge and Shan O'Brien. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: this is good news in my mind. And so they
Speaker 1: all got on the call, all four of them on me,
Speaker 1: and nobody wanted to lead. Uh, so I just I said, hey,
Speaker 1: somebody tell me please, what's going on? And Shan O'Brien said, Ricky,
Speaker 1: you know what's going on and Cindy Dodge broke out.
Speaker 1: You're free. You're free. The judge has ordered you to
Speaker 1: go free. You're free, Ricky. Uh, and I just started crying.
Speaker 1: I just started crying the whole twenty minutes. They was
Speaker 1: telling me everything that was gonna happen next, and I
Speaker 1: didn't hear none of it. Uh, I didn't hear that
Speaker 1: of and I was crying so so hard. But it
Speaker 1: was a whole different type of crime, Jason And uh,
Speaker 1: that was the highlight. That was the highlight of my
Speaker 1: twenty three year rowful conviction. Knowing that that was the
Speaker 1: day that I was about to be freaking That's a beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful thing. What a beautiful description of an incredible moment,
Speaker 1: and what a profound experience for those lawyers and for
Speaker 1: lawyers who are listening. We have a lot of lawyers
Speaker 1: that listened to this show. Shout out to all of you.
Speaker 1: And if any of you were thinking, hey, I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about taking a pro bono case, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's go because there's a lot of ricky kids out there,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you know where some of them are
Speaker 1: too ricky. And if people want to if people want
Speaker 1: to reach out to you. How can they contact you
Speaker 1: if they do want to get in touch with you
Speaker 1: for it any number of reasons. You have an email
Speaker 1: or something else or Instagram I do. I have a
Speaker 1: website resilience Mode dot com, where they can find me there.
Speaker 1: I also have a link tree with a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff that they can get a quick glance at who
Speaker 1: I am, what I've been up to. We'll put a
Speaker 1: link into the episode bio. If I could just say,
Speaker 1: I actually went from being a client of the Mid
Speaker 1: s Innocence Project, I'm now in a colleague of Trisha
Speaker 1: bush Neil. I love Trisha bush Neil. I am our
Speaker 1: community engagement manager. I've also been elevated through my work
Speaker 1: to serve on the Innocence Network Executive Board. I'm on
Speaker 1: the District Attorney's Advisory Board here in Kansas City, and
Speaker 1: I just was recently assigned to the Exonerary Policy Council
Speaker 1: up in New York with Rebecca Brown and Olivia Barnes.
Speaker 1: And so I went from being underneath the problem to
Speaker 1: trying to be a part of the solution. I speak
Speaker 1: all across the country sharing my cautionary tale. I just
Speaker 1: started training prosecutors last year. Last October. We're planning to
Speaker 1: take that and expand it even more where other prosecutors
Speaker 1: could learn the pitfalls of wrongful convictions and have some
Speaker 1: proximity to innocence. A lot of prosecutors do not have
Speaker 1: proximity to innocence, and we want them to have that
Speaker 1: experience with the idea that perhaps it would influence our
Speaker 1: change their opinion as to how they do business when
Speaker 1: it comes to these cases that come before them. So
Speaker 1: I'm happy to be home, and I love collaborating, and
Speaker 1: you could just reach out and say, hey, let's collab
Speaker 1: I'm always open to that. So I'm very passionate about
Speaker 1: this work. Incredible. Well, I know I speak for everyone
Speaker 1: in our audience and our staff on our team here
Speaker 1: a Wrong for Conviction podcasts and the whole Lava for
Speaker 1: Good team and everyone in the Innocence Move with just
Speaker 1: wishing you every blessing in the world. It's aspiring to
Speaker 1: see you doing what you're doing. So now we turn
Speaker 1: to our closing of the show, which is appropriately called
Speaker 1: closing arguments. This is the part where I turn my
Speaker 1: microphone off, kick back in my chair with my headphones,
Speaker 1: and turn the volume up a little bit and just
Speaker 1: listen to anything else you want to share with me
Speaker 1: and our incredible audience. Yeah, I appreciate that. Jason, first
Speaker 1: and foremost of real special shout out to the entire
Speaker 1: Like you said, the entire Room for Conviction podcast team,
Speaker 1: who's doing this work raising awareness about room for convictions
Speaker 1: is so important. We need this podcast. The world need
Speaker 1: this podcast because people are not aware enough about the
Speaker 1: issues surrounding room for convictions. That has become my life
Speaker 1: work since I came home. I hit the ground running,
Speaker 1: raising my voice for those who is voiceless to raise
Speaker 1: awareness about room for convictions. I've testified before policymakers twice again,
Speaker 1: participating in various councils, committees, executive boards, social media. I
Speaker 1: quickly learned how to use social media and began to
Speaker 1: create content that was designed to raise awareness. I've been
Speaker 1: the twenty States since I've been home in three years.
Speaker 1: As we travel across the country, what I'm constantly learning
Speaker 1: it's people are not aware of wrongful convictions there and
Speaker 1: they have not heard enough about the issue. Anytime we
Speaker 1: get to get in this space and actually educate ourselves
Speaker 1: about the different type of issues surrounding wrong for convictions.
Speaker 1: The different type of cases surrounding wrong for Convictions, and
Speaker 1: any time we can leave, hopefully today the audience will
Speaker 1: leave feeling inspired, moved and motivated to do more, to
Speaker 1: get more involved. Then we're doing our job and we
Speaker 1: get to do it together. So that's what I would
Speaker 1: say to the audience, and once again, thank you Jason
Speaker 1: Connor the rest of the team for having this platform
Speaker 1: that we can come on here and then we get
Speaker 1: to educate and inspire together. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall,
Speaker 1: Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin Wardis. With research by Lila Robinson.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
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