Speaker 1: Hi everyone, this is Gilbert King. Today we're introducing you
Speaker 1: to the podcast ear Witness and the Alabama wontful conviction
Speaker 1: case of Tafaris Johnson. As many Bone Valley listeners know,
Speaker 1: after the attention Season one brought to Leo Schofield's case,
Speaker 1: Leo was finally released from prison after spending thirty six
Speaker 1: years behind bars for a murder he did not commit.
Speaker 1: And as fans of season three Graves County know, the
Speaker 1: attention Maggie Freeling brought to Quincy Cross's case has led
Speaker 1: key witnesses to recant their testimony, resulting in new evidentiary
Speaker 1: hearings that could grant him a new trial and potentially
Speaker 1: free him after decades of incarceration. There's something unique happening
Speaker 1: across these Bone Valley series. Storytelling with heart grounded in
Speaker 1: rigorous investigation is making a real difference where the courts
Speaker 1: have often fallen short. We're seeing meaningful developments and it
Speaker 1: underscores the urgency of reval visiting official narratives in cases
Speaker 1: we believe resulted in wrongful convictions. This has been essential
Speaker 1: to the work of Jason Flohm and the entire team
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good. That's why we wanted you to
Speaker 1: hear the story of Tafaris Johnson, who has been on
Speaker 1: Alabama's death row for more than twenty five years. Beginning
Speaker 1: January twenty eighth, we'll be releasing all episodes right here
Speaker 1: in the Bone Valley Feed as Bone Valley Season four
Speaker 1: Ear Witness available as a binge on Lava for Good
Speaker 1: plus on Apple Podcasts. Then on February four, all episodes
Speaker 1: will be released as a binge in the Free Bone
Speaker 1: Valley Feed. I'm joined today by Beth Shelburne, the creator
Speaker 1: and host of ear Witness, an award winning investigative journalist
Speaker 1: and writer and producer of the critically acclaimed documentary The
Speaker 1: Alabama Solution. The film, currently streaming on HBO Max, has
Speaker 1: earned widespread praise for its unfiltered look at systemic abuse, violence,
Speaker 1: and human rights failures inside the Alabama Department of Corrections,
Speaker 1: and has been shortlisted for an Academy Award. We're also
Speaker 1: joined by the film's co directors, Andrew Direki and Charlotte Kaufman. Andrew,
Speaker 1: I want to start with you before we dig into
Speaker 1: The Alabama Solution. I'd love your take on ear Witness.
Speaker 1: People know your work from Capturing the Freedmen's to The
Speaker 1: Jinks and the Jinks Part two and your long commitment
Speaker 1: to criminal justice storytelling. For someone deeply familiar with Alabama's system,
Speaker 1: what stood out to you about Tafarist Johnson's case when
Speaker 1: you first learned about it.
Speaker 2: Well, I follow everything that Beth does anyway, and I
Speaker 2: knew that if she was going to spend time on
Speaker 2: this case, it was going to be infuriating. And one
Speaker 2: of the things that's so, I don't know, surprising, is
Speaker 2: that the allegations are absurd. It sort of falls in
Speaker 2: that heading of travesties of justice that a regular human
Speaker 2: being on the street would be able to see, but
Speaker 2: somehow the justice system can't absorb because of the rules
Speaker 2: and the formality of it.
Speaker 1: And Charlotte, you've collaborated with Andrew on the Alabama Solution
Speaker 1: and the Jinx, and you're also part of Netflix The
Speaker 1: Innocence Files. Spending years immersed in prisons and rawful conviction
Speaker 1: reporting can fundamentally change how you see power and truth.
Speaker 1: Did it change how you listen to or evaluate a
Speaker 1: case like to Forests, especially when the system insists it
Speaker 1: got the conviction right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think when you listen to a
Speaker 3: podcast like Earwitness, it inspires you to want to interrogate
Speaker 3: any conviction really because you know, in the case of
Speaker 3: DeForest Johnson, you could read it on paper and say like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: they did have evidence to con to this man, like
Speaker 3: there was a woman Violet who said that he was responsible.
Speaker 3: But when you dig just a little bit further, you
Speaker 3: realize how weak the case against him might be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Actually, Beth, I want to ask you about that
Speaker 1: because one of the most unsettling aspects of your witnesses,
Speaker 1: how much of the case hinges on contested memory and
Speaker 1: a single eyewitness. When did you begin to realize that
Speaker 1: this testimony wasn't just questionable, but potentially the foundation of
Speaker 1: a wrongful conviction.
Speaker 4: So you know, this single eyewitness I think that you're
Speaker 4: referring to is the fifteen year old whose tips to
Speaker 4: police ended in to forrest and his co defendants arrest.
Speaker 4: Her name is Yolanda Chambers. She's dead now, met a
Speaker 4: very tragic end in two thousand and nine after working
Speaker 4: off and on as a police informant for years, which
Speaker 4: really sort of speaks to how our criminal legal system
Speaker 4: often railroads, not just defendants, but witnesses as well. She
Speaker 4: got ensnared and all that. But I think I realized
Speaker 4: that this was a wrongful conviction when I read the
Speaker 4: trial transcript that resulted in too Forrest's conviction and death sentence,
Speaker 4: and realized that the only evidence the state presented was
Speaker 4: the ear witness. This is, of course, after the fifteen
Speaker 4: year old witness fell apart and the state abandoned her,
Speaker 4: and then they used Violet Ellison, the ear witness, as
Speaker 4: their star witness. And what she testified to can be
Speaker 4: argued was hearsay. She claimed she overheard a jailhouse phone
Speaker 4: call in which somebody that identified themselves as to Forrest
Speaker 4: talked about the murder, and she eavesdropped on this call.
Speaker 4: That was the single piece of evidence that the state
Speaker 4: presented to convict him. There's no forensic evidence, there's no
Speaker 4: physical evidence, there was no murder weapon recovered, he had
Speaker 4: an alibi, there was no eyewitness that placed him at
Speaker 4: the scene. So that was it. When I read that
Speaker 4: and really saw it on paper, I had already been
Speaker 4: told that by his family, by his attorneys, I had
Speaker 4: sat through a five hour court hearing. But when I
Speaker 4: actually read through the transcript. That was my holy shit moment.
Speaker 2: I think it's worth pointing out that the prosecutors and
Speaker 2: a lot of these cases are behaving in a way
Speaker 2: that's equally irrational seeming right that there's a prosecutor who's
Speaker 2: in court, sees all the evidence, there's no question that
Speaker 2: some part of them is thinking, yeah, maybe I would
Speaker 2: have turned over that exculpatory piece of evidence, or I'm
Speaker 2: not sure this is the strongest case I've ever worked on,
Speaker 2: and yet they throw themselves into it with absolute conviction.
Speaker 2: And then when later somebody finds out that the prosecution
Speaker 2: was deeply flawed and maybe they fudged something or flubbed
Speaker 2: something that not only don't they question their own judgment,
Speaker 2: very often they will double down and bring the case
Speaker 2: back for trial again and again, and it sort of
Speaker 2: makes you realize that, you know, if you're a prosecutor,
Speaker 2: you might be the most senior law enforcement official who
Speaker 2: should be deciding what cases should be brought, but very
Speaker 2: often you're just assuming that it's an adversarial system, and
Speaker 2: there you're always in the position of trying to get
Speaker 2: a conviction, which is why you see cases like Tafarest
Speaker 2: case where there's so many times when this case could
Speaker 2: have been abandoned by the prosecutors, and yet they're still
Speaker 2: convinced that he's the enemy and that you've got to
Speaker 2: defeat your enemy.
Speaker 1: So why is Tofares Johnson still on death row when
Speaker 1: even prosecutors have called for a new trial.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a question I get all the time, and
Speaker 4: I think that defies logic when you listen to your
Speaker 4: witness and hear the facts of the case. That the
Speaker 4: current district attorney in the county where he was convicted
Speaker 4: did a full review of the conviction through his Conviction
Speaker 4: Integrity Unit and said that this conviction can't stand. He
Speaker 4: has filed multiple motions in court asking a court to
Speaker 4: grant to forest a new trial, with the support of
Speaker 4: the original prosecutor, a man named Jeff Wallace, who we
Speaker 4: interviewed for ear witness and listeners can get to know
Speaker 4: in the series. I have not found another capital case
Speaker 4: anywhere around the country where the original prosecutor who asked
Speaker 4: a jury to send the person to death row supports
Speaker 4: a new trial. So with all of that, how is
Speaker 4: he still sitting on death row? Well, it's in front
Speaker 4: of a court right now, it's in front of a
Speaker 4: new judge in Jefferson County. So there's a lot of
Speaker 4: hope there that she's spending a lot of time looking
Speaker 4: at all the evidence and the arguments and that the
Speaker 4: right thing can still happen. But you also have the
Speaker 4: Attorney General of Alabama, who represents the people, and their
Speaker 4: position has always been to defend the original conviction at
Speaker 4: all costs. The Attorney General's office has shown no even
Speaker 4: curiosity about the District Attorney's findings in his conviction integrity review.
Speaker 4: They called the DA's conviction review unsanctioned and even suggested
Speaker 4: that he may have acted with misconducts, saying he acted
Speaker 4: outside the scope of his duties, which is really incredible
Speaker 4: if you think about, because prosecutors' jobs are not just
Speaker 4: to convict people, but to make sure the right person
Speaker 4: was convicted.
Speaker 3: You know, it was very, very interesting while Beth was
Speaker 3: making the podcast, you know, the same time as we
Speaker 3: were all working on the Alabama solution, and I remember
Speaker 3: some of the most interesting conversations we had was trying
Speaker 3: to get into the psychology of those prosecutors and the
Speaker 3: psychology of the people who were involved in convicting this man,
Speaker 3: who were now being presented with a really the wrong
Speaker 3: case for his innocence, being Beth presenting it to them,
Speaker 3: and the experience of how they responded. You know what
Speaker 3: that's like, That someone keeps pursuing their case despite the
Speaker 3: fact that it's clearly wrong. It really makes you want
Speaker 3: to question everybody who might be convicted in the prisons.
Speaker 3: And that was I think an experience working on the
Speaker 3: Alabama Solution. We were making a film about the institutional
Speaker 3: crisis of the Alabama prisons and the experience people have
Speaker 3: in prisons, whether they are innocent or not. However, along
Speaker 3: the way, we met so many men whose cases don't
Speaker 3: add up. I want to just step back for a second.
Speaker 3: For those who haven't seen our film, you know, our
Speaker 3: film starts with the premise that prisons across America are
Speaker 3: run as black sites. And any journalist or filmmaker that
Speaker 3: has worked on a film about prisons knows that the
Speaker 3: only way you get to do that work is if
Speaker 3: it is state sanctioned, if you get permission by the
Speaker 3: wardens or the administration to visit the prison. You know,
Speaker 3: you can't speak with prisoners unless it's on recorded wall phones.
Speaker 3: You can't visit the prison to see what's happening inside
Speaker 3: unless you have been approved by the state or the
Speaker 3: warden to go inside. And I think because of that
Speaker 3: secrecy and that state control, they get to control the
Speaker 3: narrative too, and they get to control what quote unquote
Speaker 3: evidence of how their systems are running gets put into
Speaker 3: the public domain.
Speaker 2: It's not just that it prevents people from getting too
Speaker 2: much information. It's that the knowledge that journalists are not
Speaker 2: going to come and see what happens actually creates a
Speaker 2: culture of impunity where they then can take it to
Speaker 2: the next level and just lie about what's happening. So
Speaker 2: you see these cover ups happen where the Department of
Speaker 2: Corrections will often not tell a family when somebody has
Speaker 2: been killed inside the prison because they know they have
Speaker 2: some liability a guard very often maybe somebody who's committed
Speaker 2: a terrible crime against one of those men. But rather
Speaker 2: than their internal affairs people coming in and saying, let's
Speaker 2: put these three officers on ice, let's do an investigation,
Speaker 2: they immediately start scrambling the witnesses to protect the guards.
Speaker 2: So I guess the secrecy it's not just that you
Speaker 2: don't get to see what you don't get to see
Speaker 2: it's that it gives them the freedom to start lying
Speaker 2: about lots of other stuff because they know nobody's going
Speaker 2: to question it.
Speaker 3: And you know, with our film, we were able to
Speaker 3: overcome that sort of state control because we were speaking
Speaker 3: to people on contraband cell phones, so we did not
Speaker 3: have to wait for wardens to approve what we could
Speaker 3: see inside or where we could go and visit in
Speaker 3: the prison, because the people we were speaking with with
Speaker 3: their phones could take us there and show us without
Speaker 3: the state controlling it. And through that we saw a
Speaker 3: lot more of the reality inside Alabama's prisons, and it
Speaker 3: is very shocking when you realize the extent of the abuse,
Speaker 3: the extent of the negligence, and the corruption. It's sort
Speaker 3: of like you go through the looking glass. This is
Speaker 3: the largest law enforcement agency in the state of Alabama,
Speaker 3: yet it is being run as a criminal enterprise. The
Speaker 3: rate of overdose is happening inside their facilities are multiple
Speaker 3: times higher than on the street. It's like everything is
Speaker 3: topsy turvy. And the secrecy that exists in prisons is
Speaker 3: part of what sustains this very abusive system because it
Speaker 3: not only keeps secret the crimes committed by the officers
Speaker 3: or the administration, But it also keeps secret the humanity
Speaker 3: of the people who are inside the facilities, and it
Speaker 3: makes it easier for the public to turn a blind
Speaker 3: eye to what's happening. And I think in our story
Speaker 3: telling in the film The Alabama Solution, and certainly in
Speaker 3: the ear Witness, it's really important to bring back that
Speaker 3: humanity that has been silenced.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's Beth. I'm just really curious, what do you
Speaker 1: think about Alabama trying to silence to far As humanity
Speaker 1: by not allowing him to speak to the media.
Speaker 4: It's so infuriating all of the barriers that the system
Speaker 4: throws up with incarcerated people and their First Amendment rights.
Speaker 4: I honestly think there's a First Amendment case there. If
Speaker 4: there's any attorney listening that likes to take up First
Speaker 4: Amendment cases, that's a good one. We didn't get to
Speaker 4: interview to Forrest for the podcast Earwitness, but I have
Speaker 4: spoken to him several times, and I'm in regular communication
Speaker 4: with his family members, both of his daughters, his mom, Donna,
Speaker 4: and he's just a really incredible person. He is aware
Speaker 4: of the podcast, he's read some of the press coverage,
Speaker 4: he's talked to his family members and community about it
Speaker 4: at length, and has told me and his attorneys and
Speaker 4: his family, you know, no matter what happens with his
Speaker 4: legal case, he is so grateful that the truth is
Speaker 4: out there, because, as you know, Gilbert, when people are
Speaker 4: stripped of everything of their liberty, their freedom, their individuality,
Speaker 4: their humanity and put in a cage, the truth about
Speaker 4: themselves is really all they have. And you know, he
Speaker 4: has said that the lies that were told that got
Speaker 4: him arrested, and then the lies that were told that
Speaker 4: got him convicted, have bothered him just as much as
Speaker 4: his wrongful conviction and incarceration, and so the fact that
Speaker 4: there's now truth on the record in a really comprehensive way,
Speaker 4: he's grateful for that. He is still very hopeful that
Speaker 4: the right thing will happen. He has an incredible amount
Speaker 4: of hope and grace. Every time I've talked to him,
Speaker 4: he's cracking jokes. He's super funny. He is sort of
Speaker 4: the thread in his family that keeps everybody together. He's
Speaker 4: got five kids, nineteen grandkids, and they're all in constant contact,
Speaker 4: and to Forest is sort of the one that navigates
Speaker 4: all the dynamics and keeps everybody sane and positive. And
Speaker 4: here's just a little tiny insider thing that happened during
Speaker 4: the making of The Alabama Solution that just blew me
Speaker 4: away about the way that communities form inside prisons. Robert
Speaker 4: Earl Counsel, also known as Kinetic Justice, who's one of
Speaker 4: the primary men in the Alabama Solution. He has a
Speaker 4: life without Parole sentence. He's never been on death row.
Speaker 4: But when we were talking during one conversation during the
Speaker 4: making of the film, he said, Hey, the next time
Speaker 4: you talk to Lil Russ, tell him. I said, hello,
Speaker 4: Lil Russ is to Forest's nickname, And I was like,
Speaker 4: how in the world do you know to Forest? And
Speaker 4: he told me that for a brief time, he was
Speaker 4: incarcerated at Holman Prison and where death Row is, and
Speaker 4: he was working as a runner inside the prison, and
Speaker 4: he took meal trays over to death Row and would
Speaker 4: like have conversations through the bars, you know, with some
Speaker 4: of the men on death Row, and got to know
Speaker 4: to Forest that way and feels a real connection with him.
Speaker 4: And you know, of course, Kinetic knew that a podcast
Speaker 4: was coming out about to Forest's case and was really
Speaker 4: happy about that. So it's just amazing to me how
Speaker 4: humans can maintain relationships and their humanity even when they
Speaker 4: are locked away, thrown away in a cage, you know,
Speaker 4: away from the general public, as far away from society
Speaker 4: as the government can put them. You know, humans are
Speaker 4: still going to human.
Speaker 1: That's a great way of putting it. You know. It's
Speaker 1: interesting you I came up earlier that you were working
Speaker 1: on these projects at the same time. I'm just really curious.
Speaker 1: How did Beth come onto your radar and how did
Speaker 1: you start working together.
Speaker 2: Well, I was sitting I'm in my office here talking
Speaker 2: to Charlotte, and we were going back and forth looking
Speaker 2: at articles that had been written about the Alabama State
Speaker 2: prison system. So we were looking at al dot com,
Speaker 2: and we were looking at the Alabama Reflector and all
Speaker 2: the various news outlets, and we made a list of
Speaker 2: all the reporters who were covering the prison system. And
Speaker 2: we were already so devastated by what we were learning.
Speaker 2: We just thought, well, who are going to be the
Speaker 2: intrepid reporters that have made this their beat. So we
Speaker 2: went through the list and we started calling these reporters
Speaker 2: and we said, when did you first get involved in
Speaker 2: you know, prison reporting. And they said what And we said,
Speaker 2: you know, when did you really get engaged in this
Speaker 2: very disturbing situation. They were like, well, it's not really
Speaker 2: my thing. I just usually I write about shopping centers,
Speaker 2: but in this particular case, they handed me this and
Speaker 2: Charlotte and I said, how is it possible there's nobody
Speaker 2: in that state who considers this their mission. It's such
Speaker 2: an important part of journalism. And then you know, we
Speaker 2: started hearing Beth's name, and then Charlotte. How did we
Speaker 2: first reach out to that?
Speaker 3: A cold call? I probably sent her a maybe a
Speaker 3: Facebook message and then a cold call. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I did get a Facebook message from Charlotte, and she
Speaker 4: was very nice but formal. You know, I'm a filmmaker
Speaker 4: in New York and I'm working with another filmmaker in
Speaker 4: New York, and we're interested in Alabama prisons. As an
Speaker 4: Alabama based journalist, you know, we're very aware of the
Speaker 4: sort of parachuting in dynamic of like the New York
Speaker 4: Times fly by. You know, they'll come down here and
Speaker 4: use up the energy of local reporters and then go away.
Speaker 4: But when Charlotte and I had that initial phone conversation,
Speaker 4: I think we were on the phone, Charlotte for like
Speaker 4: two and a half three hours that conversation. I remember
Speaker 4: thinking like, this woman just fell into my life and
Speaker 4: she's like my you know, sister from another mother. And
Speaker 4: then you know, she told me about your work, Andrew,
Speaker 4: and I realized, oh, this is this is not fly by.
Speaker 4: These these folks are like genuine and very invested and
Speaker 4: Gilbert I should say that did turn out to be
Speaker 4: the case. I mean, I don't think this film could
Speaker 4: have been made without Andrew and Charlotte's dedication to investing
Speaker 4: the time, the brain power coming down to Alabama over
Speaker 4: and over and over again and spending weeks months at
Speaker 4: a time on the ground, building relationships, embedding with multiple
Speaker 4: stories down here. I mean, reporting on incarceration is hard,
Speaker 4: but doing a system critique and a documentary film is
Speaker 4: just Nobody else would do it. So I'm so glad
Speaker 4: that they did, and really proud that I was a
Speaker 4: small part of it, and so proud of the film.
Speaker 1: I want to just sort of go to a process
Speaker 1: question for Andrew. When you encounter an idea that might
Speaker 1: demand years of investigation, what tells you it's a story
Speaker 1: that you have to pursue.
Speaker 2: When you get into these things, I think there's just
Speaker 2: there's a natural sort of momentum and you either feel
Speaker 2: it or you don't. Right, you start looking into a
Speaker 2: story and you feel like, well, yeah, okay, I mean
Speaker 2: I sort of feel like I know where this is going.
Speaker 2: Then you give it some time to surprise you, and
Speaker 2: if it doesn't surprise you, then it's probably better for
Speaker 2: somebody else to do it. And in this case, I
Speaker 2: think it happened very very early that we got locked
Speaker 2: into this story because I had gone to Montgomery with
Speaker 2: my daughter on sort of a road trip because we
Speaker 2: were reading this book by Anthony ray Hinton, who had
Speaker 2: been wrongfully convicted in Alabama. And when we were down there,
Speaker 2: we met this prison chaplain who is in the film,
Speaker 2: and that led to us getting this sort of unique access,
Speaker 2: being able to go in and film a revival meeting.
Speaker 2: And then when Charlotte and I went back down there,
Speaker 2: we were told, you know, by the warden, well, don't
Speaker 2: talk to any of the men. They're very dangerous and
Speaker 2: they'll tell you stuff that's not true, and they'll try
Speaker 2: to give you little pieces of paper and just you know,
Speaker 2: steer clear of those men. We'll give you two or
Speaker 2: three people you can talk to, which, of course, if
Speaker 2: you say that to a documentary filmmaker, were like, the
Speaker 2: only people I don't want to talk to her the
Speaker 2: three people that he's introducing me to. And then when
Speaker 2: we went in there, the men were so shocked that
Speaker 2: anyone was allowed in there with cameras, and then they
Speaker 2: started calling us aside and saying, off camera, listen, if
Speaker 2: you want to talk about this, if you're interested in this,
Speaker 2: this is a horrific situation. They're not showing you what's
Speaker 2: really going on in this prison, and started pointing out
Speaker 2: to us areas of the prison where that's where they
Speaker 2: have the solitary confinement. There are people that have been
Speaker 2: in there for five years. Looking at other areas, there
Speaker 2: was a you know, they have a dorm called the
Speaker 2: Behavior Modification Unit, and that was a sight of a
Speaker 2: tremendous amount of violence, and they were just telling us,
Speaker 2: your visit is curated and if you have any inclination
Speaker 2: to talk to us, we need to tell our story.
Speaker 2: And that's when we discovered that some of them had
Speaker 2: access to contraband cell phones, so we were going to
Speaker 2: be able to have an unmediated unfiltered conversation. When you
Speaker 2: walk into a situation like that, there's no turning back.
Speaker 2: You're not going to say to those people. You know,
Speaker 2: I realized that there're you know, people being murdered under
Speaker 2: the noses of the taxpayers paying for this institution, and
Speaker 2: that you guys are in desperate straits. But you know,
Speaker 2: I have this baseball movie I want to work on
Speaker 2: like it. Just it's out of the question that you
Speaker 2: would walk out of that. Just it's like an obligation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know you mentioned surprises, Andrew, and your your
Speaker 1: work is kind of known for having pretty significant surprises.
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering because now I know, Beth, you tried
Speaker 1: to speak with Alabama's Attorney General, Steve Marshall, and at
Speaker 1: the time he would not talk, But Andrew and Charlotte
Speaker 1: he did speak for you in the Alabama Solution and
Speaker 1: just talk about why it was important to get him
Speaker 1: on record and what that was like trying to get
Speaker 1: him to talk.
Speaker 3: Well. As Andrew was saying, we felt compelled to make
Speaker 3: the film after that first visit to the prisons, but
Speaker 3: we didn't know what the story was going to be.
Speaker 3: We didn't know what the angle would be We just
Speaker 3: wanted to understand what was happening inside Alabama's prisons as
Speaker 3: a way to understand more broadly, you know, what's happening
Speaker 3: with criminal justice in America, and we approached him with
Speaker 3: that interest. And I think, you know, looking at Andrew's
Speaker 3: prior work, The Jinx is a series that investigates Bob
Speaker 3: Drst who's very wealthy that got away with murder for many,
Speaker 3: many years, and due to the investigative work Andrew did,
Speaker 3: eventually got prosecuted. So I think, you know, for Steve Marshall,
Speaker 3: he saw that we were interested just in understanding his
Speaker 3: position on criminal justice and that our work had been
Speaker 3: fair in the past, and he was willing to sit
Speaker 3: down with us. And I think for us going into
Speaker 3: that interview wasn't trying to get, you know, a gotcha
Speaker 3: moment or trying to criticize him right in the interview
Speaker 3: or anything like that. We genuinely wanted to know how
Speaker 3: he thinks about the criminal justice system and just give
Speaker 3: him the space to explain his worldview and the way
Speaker 3: he justifies the crisis.
Speaker 2: We've been able to see through the documentary that when
Speaker 2: he says there's some theory that we have a systemic
Speaker 2: problem within all of our facilities, and I wholeheartedly disagree
Speaker 2: with that. Well, he's saying, you know what, call that
Speaker 2: his truth or call that his cover story. But we've
Speaker 2: just watched the result of his ignoring the prison problem
Speaker 2: that is under his nose. And so when you see
Speaker 2: those two things juxtaposts, it's much more powerful than if
Speaker 2: I'm sitting in front of him saying isn't it true, sir?
Speaker 2: That let the audience discover that, and boy, they do
Speaker 2: discover it.
Speaker 3: And I think the other thing that's important in speaking
Speaker 3: to state actors is we we talked a lot about
Speaker 3: the concept of the banality of evil, which is, you know,
Speaker 3: Hannah Ern's theory to understand how the atrocities that occurred
Speaker 3: in World War Two occurred. It's not always just like
Speaker 3: one psychopathic bad actor who's deciding to kill people or whatnot.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of people kind of just doing their job,
Speaker 3: coming up with their own justification of it. And I
Speaker 3: think being able to kind of see not only the
Speaker 3: type of very jaw dropping violence of a guard like
Speaker 3: Officer Gatson, but to also then see someone like Steve
Speaker 3: Marshall just sitting in his suit and very calmly explaining
Speaker 3: how he does his job. Like that's two sides of
Speaker 3: the picture. Like we need to understand both those things
Speaker 3: to get what's driving the issues. And I think that's
Speaker 3: also what Beth gets at really well in ear Witness
Speaker 3: is elements of the banality of evil too, that it
Speaker 3: can kind of just be for a lot of people,
Speaker 3: it's just like doing their job and then someone ends
Speaker 3: up on death row.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a really good point. You know, we
Speaker 1: really just have time for like one more question, but
Speaker 1: I want it to be all of you, and it's
Speaker 1: an important one for me because I think about it
Speaker 1: all the time and I'm just curious what you guys think.
Speaker 1: And it's really about the balance between journalism and advocacy.
Speaker 1: You know, you spend years and years on these cases
Speaker 1: and stories and you're convinced after a while that you
Speaker 1: know what happened, and eventually it infuriates you. So as
Speaker 1: journalists and storytellers, how do you balance that narratively when
Speaker 1: you're telling these stories.
Speaker 2: Well, there's this sort of big question mark that keeps arising,
Speaker 2: especially in the US where you have like conservative commentators
Speaker 2: who are fighting with liberal versions of the news or
Speaker 2: progressive versions of news, and this idea of like false equivalency,
Speaker 2: or having to build two sides of a case to
Speaker 2: make it appear that, you know, it's one person's opinion
Speaker 2: versus another person's opinion, and at all you know everybody's right,
Speaker 2: And the reality is, when you get into some of
Speaker 2: these stories and circumstances, you find that one side is
Speaker 2: terribly wrong.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: You don't always find that, But when you're Beth and
Speaker 2: you're working on Too Forest's case and you're seeing the
Speaker 2: most absurd legal arguments being made and then being replaced
Speaker 2: by alternate, equally absurd legal arguments, you know he will
Speaker 2: obviously he did it because we have this incredibly strong
Speaker 2: piece of evidence and this wonderful witness. Oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: your evidence isn't strong and your witness is terrible. Yes, well,
Speaker 2: that's we've always been saying. You know, there's this other
Speaker 2: piece of evidence that indicates So I think that there
Speaker 2: is a danger to this false equivalency, to saying that.
Speaker 2: You know, you go in as a dispassionate journalist and
Speaker 2: you see what's going on the Alabama State prison system,
Speaker 2: you should make a movie that says, yes, it's true
Speaker 2: that we're murdering people in the prison, and on the
Speaker 2: other hand, crime is bad. Okay, Well, we all want
Speaker 2: safe communities. But if you're trying to make a film
Speaker 2: that reveals something, sometimes what you reveal is sometimes they're
Speaker 2: not good arguments on both sides. And that's what we found,
Speaker 2: and I think that's what Beth found is balances you
Speaker 2: want to be You just recognize that the story you're
Speaker 2: going to be explaining is to the average person going
Speaker 2: to not be a two sided story. It's going to
Speaker 2: be more bad than good, or it's going to be
Speaker 2: more clear that law enforcement officers shouldn't be murdering people
Speaker 2: in their care. So at that point, you're telling the
Speaker 2: story in a neutral way. Truly, you're still telling an
Speaker 2: honest story and using evidence and using journalistic techniques that
Speaker 2: are ethical, but you just can't make an argument for
Speaker 2: the other side because they're killing people.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a great place to end up.
Speaker 3: I want to.
Speaker 1: Thank Beth Shelburn, Andrew Jureki, and Charlotte Kauffman for joining
Speaker 1: us to talk about ear Witness and the Alabama Solution,
Speaker 1: now streaming on HBO, mex and Guys congratulations to all
Speaker 1: of you on telling a story that's not only powerful
Speaker 1: but deeply necessary. Thank you, Andrew, Charlotte and Beth.
Speaker 2: Anything else you guys want to add, I would just
Speaker 2: say that the work that Beth is doing and has
Speaker 2: been doing the state of Alabama is in very short supply.
Speaker 2: There's a a earth of people that are reporting locally
Speaker 2: that have the fortitude and the willingness to devote their
Speaker 2: lives to this. So I think it's so important to
Speaker 2: try to read those stories and engage and try to
Speaker 2: learn more about what's happening in your own community, especially
Speaker 2: in your prisons. And I would hope also that some
Speaker 2: people would go to the website for the film, which
Speaker 2: is not just a promotional website. It's really quite a
Speaker 2: deep and interesting dive into what's actually going on and
Speaker 2: the full investigation that we did along with Beth, not
Speaker 2: just of the particular murders and particular deaths that we
Speaker 2: see in the film, but also around thirteen hundred and
Speaker 2: seventy seven deaths that have happened since we started making
Speaker 2: the film. And also you can go to that website,
Speaker 2: the Alabama Solution dot com, and it will give you
Speaker 2: some action items you can do very easily, like it
Speaker 2: will let you generate a letter to go to the
Speaker 2: governor's office and go to the Department of Corrections. And
Speaker 2: I think that kind of individual effort by real people saying, hey,
Speaker 2: we don't want this to continue. You know, you listen
Speaker 2: to a podcast or you read an article and you think, well,
Speaker 2: maybe my opinion doesn't matter, or there are millions of people,
Speaker 2: but the reality is that politicians and people in positions
Speaker 2: of power listen to voters, and they listen to Americans
Speaker 2: and they just have to be responsive to it. So
Speaker 2: it does matter. So I hope people will go there
Speaker 2: and click and put in their email address and be
Speaker 2: part of a part of the solution, their actual solution.
Speaker 3: And I would also just add that, you know, I
Speaker 3: know Bone Valley listeners appreciate not just revealing investigative reporting,
Speaker 3: but also really good storytelling that's engaging and suspenseful. And
Speaker 3: I think both ear Wetness and the Alabama Solution also
Speaker 3: prioritize that. So it's not just educating you on an
Speaker 3: urgent institutional crisis or urgent issue of a wrongful conviction.
Speaker 3: But we knew that because the issues were so urgent,
Speaker 3: we had to tell the story like it was a
Speaker 3: thriller so that we would get as many people engaged
Speaker 3: as possible. And I think it's very much in the
Speaker 3: spirit of your incredible series Bone Valley and of ear Witness,
Speaker 3: and it's quite an honor to get to talk about
Speaker 3: our film with you and to reach all of your
Speaker 3: many listeners, So thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 4: You know, Charlotte and I and Andrew have talked a
Speaker 4: lot during the making of The Alabama Solution about how
Speaker 4: these men were not just sources for the film. They
Speaker 4: were kind of our teachers and our guides into this
Speaker 4: world that for us we dip in and out of
Speaker 4: as journalists and filmmakers. But this is their reality twenty
Speaker 4: four to seven, and we had the privilege of being
Speaker 4: proximant to them and their experience inside the prison system
Speaker 4: and developing relationships not just with them, but with many
Speaker 4: other people who aren't in the film but helped inform
Speaker 4: our storytelling. And we hope that the film and the
Speaker 4: ear Witness series can provide that kind of opportunity for
Speaker 4: listeners who may not know anybody who's locked up, may
Speaker 4: not have a family member or a friend that has
Speaker 4: spent any time in jail or prison, but this kind
Speaker 4: of storytelling gives them a front row seat where you
Speaker 4: can get proximate and get as close to the system
Speaker 4: as possible without being in it. And that kind of
Speaker 4: proximity is what changes people's hearts and minds, and it
Speaker 4: takes prison and mass incarceration out of the abstract and
Speaker 4: makes it real and human. And I think that's really
Speaker 4: how we're going to end up changing the system.
Speaker 1: Beginning January twenty eighth, we'll be releasing all episodes of
Speaker 1: Tafarus Johnson's story right here in the Bone Valley Feed
Speaker 1: as Bone Valley Season four Ear Witness, available to binge
Speaker 1: on Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. Then on
Speaker 1: February four, the full series will be released as a
Speaker 1: binge in the free Bone Valley Feed. This is a
Speaker 1: case that demands attention, and we hope you'll listen, share it,
Speaker 1: and stay with us as the story unfolds. And thank you,
Speaker 1: as always for listening.