Speaker 1: I had the privilege of interviewing Jimmy Dennis on April
Speaker 1: one of two thousand nineteen, shortly after he was released
Speaker 1: from death row in Pennsylvania. He served twenty five and
Speaker 1: a half years and had two execution dates actually scheduled.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm talking about they asked him what his
Speaker 1: last meal was gonna be, where he wanted his remains
Speaker 1: to be taken. It's unbelievable. Twenty five and a half
Speaker 1: years he lived in a tiny cell on death row
Speaker 1: with the lights on. They never turned him off, and
Speaker 1: yet he came out joyful, with a bounce in his step,
Speaker 1: ready to get back, you know, as much as he
Speaker 1: could have what he had lost. And here's the incredible thing.
Speaker 1: He was a singer when he was wrongfully arrested when
Speaker 1: he was eighteen years old. He was, you know, on
Speaker 1: the verge of getting a record deal with his group.
Speaker 1: And the good news is that a few months ago
Speaker 1: he made his on stage singing debut in New York
Speaker 1: City at the Church of Rock and Roll event. At
Speaker 1: Gospel he's saying Hallelujah, and he killed it. I gotta
Speaker 1: be honest with you. Now, he's in the process of
Speaker 1: launching a dog grooming business with his wife. The business
Speaker 1: plan is set and I think they're going to make
Speaker 1: it a real success. He's also been the subject of
Speaker 1: the first Now this video documentary of the Row of
Speaker 1: Conviction podcast and it is a beautiful, beautiful piece. He's
Speaker 1: a beautiful, beautiful guy. And Jimmy, if you're listening, I
Speaker 1: hope you're smiling and and sleeping well too, because you
Speaker 1: deserve nothing but the best of everything, and we're here
Speaker 1: to share your story. Please sit back and listen to
Speaker 1: Jimmy Dennis. This call is from a correction facility and
Speaker 1: it's subject to monitoring and recording. Nine day and a
Speaker 1: hundred years. That's man. I'm a kid. I didn't do anything,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, you know that was that was
Speaker 1: real payingful man. No, because my life was discarded as
Speaker 1: if you know, like I was a piece of trash
Speaker 1: or something, you know, a hundred years. I had dreams
Speaker 1: and I wanted to do things I wouldn't committing crimes.
Speaker 1: You know. That was a very good young man. That
Speaker 1: is what happened. In so many cases. The cops have
Speaker 1: a hunch, because they're so smart at the scene, they
Speaker 1: have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch,
Speaker 1: they sort of developed tunnel vision, and they take off
Speaker 1: marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so
Speaker 1: many of these wrongful convictions. Were opening the cell door
Speaker 1: and I locked downstairs, and I actually walked downstairs to
Speaker 1: be outside. It felt very strange to be, like I said,
Speaker 1: to be walking without no shackles on my feet. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a dream. But then again, it wasn't
Speaker 1: a dream. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today,
Speaker 1: I have a guest whose story has to be heard
Speaker 1: to be believed. It's a Philadelphia story. It's a death
Speaker 1: penalty story. And it's sort of a miracle actually that
Speaker 1: you're even here at all under the circumstances, much less
Speaker 1: with a smile in your face. So um, and he
Speaker 1: does have a big smile. So I want to welcome
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction. Jimmy Dennis. Thank you so much, Jason, Jimmy, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're welcome. And like I always say, I'm I'm sorry
Speaker 1: you're here, but I'm glad you're here. Um. And I
Speaker 1: want to get right into it because I think it's
Speaker 1: super important to talk about this case, not only because
Speaker 1: it was a death penalty case. But also because of
Speaker 1: the fact of your case being so bizarre and that
Speaker 1: there was never anything to connect you to this crime,
Speaker 1: not that I know about it right now. The case
Speaker 1: happened October twenty second in the fern Rock station to Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: A young lady by the name Shadel Williams was really
Speaker 1: murdered for pair air rings about three men fifty dollar
Speaker 1: ear rings. Paer four hundred and fifty dollar air rings. Right,
Speaker 1: high school girl. When they say four and fifty dollar earrings,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that's retails. Whoever whoever killed her for these
Speaker 1: earrings probably got maybe a hundred dollars for him at best.
Speaker 1: That's what her life was worth a high school girl.
Speaker 1: When this happens, it's a high profile case. The community
Speaker 1: is outraged by someone, and so forth. In Philadelphia, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure in high profile cases for the
Speaker 1: cops to save crime. So you weren't there when it happened. No,
Speaker 1: I wasn't there. In fact, you weren't even close by.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even close by. Well, let's go back to that,
Speaker 1: because where were you and how did they end up?
Speaker 1: Like what I mean, it seems so random that you
Speaker 1: were several miles away, and then yet they end up
Speaker 1: picking you up, and then the whole thing goes sideways
Speaker 1: and backwards from there. So at the time of the crime,
Speaker 1: I was on a bus in Philadelphia called the K Bus,
Speaker 1: traveling to Abbeys food Projects, where I've seen someone familiar,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, just acquaintance. I said hi
Speaker 1: to all. This was abstantiated right even the time I
Speaker 1: said that I got on the bus and got off
Speaker 1: the stop. The bus driver testified that that was correct. Right,
Speaker 1: So all these things were stantuated. So the police came around.
Speaker 1: They went to every neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: and they started picking up stick up boys. And when
Speaker 1: they did that, a group of individuals lied and said
Speaker 1: my name for ungodly reasons of jealousy or whatever you
Speaker 1: might want to call it. And you were I was
Speaker 1: twenty one, I was barely I was a young man.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even a man. I had many aspirations of
Speaker 1: being in the music business. Um I would come up
Speaker 1: here to New York to the New Music Seminar every year.
Speaker 1: My group was one of the best amateur groups in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: and we were receiving interests from you know, music people
Speaker 1: a sensation and uh, we didn't want many talent shows.
Speaker 1: What kind of style of music was R and B
Speaker 1: and you were the singer. I was the lead singer,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, who knows, we might have even cross
Speaker 1: past the music. But um, but then things obviously went
Speaker 1: took a terrible terror and then things just started to
Speaker 1: turn from there. You even seeing the statements that they
Speaker 1: all had talked on the phone or whatever, and then
Speaker 1: they just you know, made up this you know story
Speaker 1: Cory that I, you know, had on these clothes and
Speaker 1: that I was doing these things, and the police ran
Speaker 1: with it. But none of these people ever testified. I mean,
Speaker 1: were you caught up in the gang life. I wasn't
Speaker 1: caught up in any gang life anything like that. I wasn't,
Speaker 1: you know, in any type kind of gangs. It really
Speaker 1: not really gangs in Philadelphia like that at that time,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So this was just people
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood didn't like me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I had no significant criminal history orsoever. I had a
Speaker 1: misdemeanor drug offense on my record. Uh, and that's all
Speaker 1: I've had on my record up until the time that
Speaker 1: I was arrested. So, going back from the misdemeanor, I
Speaker 1: had a picture, you know, mug shot that the police
Speaker 1: kept in the number one spot the entire time when
Speaker 1: they were showing witnesses the photo rays. So one witness said,
Speaker 1: I think so. They said, can you be sure? They
Speaker 1: said no yet, and still they ran with that. And
Speaker 1: what was the description of the subject of five ten
Speaker 1: to six ft tall, two hundred and eighty to two
Speaker 1: hundred pounds, dark skin complexion. Now when they say dark
Speaker 1: skin complexion, they're talking about Miles Davis and Wesley Snipes.
Speaker 1: You're sitting here before me. You know, I'm brown skin.
Speaker 1: I waved a hundred and twenty five pounds at the time.
Speaker 1: I had a diminutive frame and I'm filed four in height.
Speaker 1: There's no way you're gonna get five nine five ten
Speaker 1: six ft one to two hundred pounds from a hundred
Speaker 1: twenty five and you're not gonna ever mix me up
Speaker 1: with Wesley Snipes or Miles Davis. Yeah, I mean, that
Speaker 1: should have been a moment alone for everybody to go, well, okay,
Speaker 1: let's just look and see if he's got an alibi,
Speaker 1: and if he does, maybe it wouldn't even need that
Speaker 1: maybe would just say, well, okay, the description doesn't work.
Speaker 1: The one witness who at least is even saying anything
Speaker 1: still isn't sure. But that would have been inconvenient like this, right,
Speaker 1: because they would have had to go back to the
Speaker 1: drawing board. And we know how these things work, especially
Speaker 1: in Philly in the early nineties. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: a time where I would say that from what I
Speaker 1: know about the history of Philadelphia, it probably would have
Speaker 1: been a time when Philadelphia was probably the wrong for
Speaker 1: conviction capital of America. Um, they were arresting uh and
Speaker 1: beating up people of color and everybody. But it was
Speaker 1: it was basically a policy, and it came from the top.
Speaker 1: There was that infamous police chief Rizzo, who became the mayor,
Speaker 1: and he was a notoriously brutal, lawless type of a
Speaker 1: guy in the area that I grew up in the
Speaker 1: North Philadelphia Abbess four projects. There are five, literally five
Speaker 1: people that have been proven to be innocent, myself included,
Speaker 1: that have all come home. And Anthony Wright, who I
Speaker 1: believe you may have had on this show, was one
Speaker 1: of the guys that came from North Philadelphia. Him and
Speaker 1: I have the same police officers that worked on his
Speaker 1: case did the same thing to me. And there's an
Speaker 1: amazing I'm glad you brought that up because there's an
Speaker 1: incredible article that ran a Rolling Stone magazine about Tony
Speaker 1: Wright's case, and I'll never forget there was a pool
Speaker 1: quote in that article where it said that in whatever
Speaker 1: year that was nineteen ninety or something that he was convicted. Uh,
Speaker 1: it said a black man had a better chance of
Speaker 1: getting justice in Philadelphia, Mississippi than they did in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: That is that is so true. I mean, I'm happy
Speaker 1: to see that now we have a whole different situation
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia with Larry Krass getting much better with Mr Krasner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know it had to change. But you were
Speaker 1: caught up in exactly the wrong place at the wasactly
Speaker 1: the wrong time. So at what point did they arrest you?
Speaker 1: Was it a day or two after there? So as
Speaker 1: soon as I heard like this is one thing, that
Speaker 1: one other thing that people don't know, um, I got
Speaker 1: arrested like a month later. But as soon as I
Speaker 1: heard any rumors in the neighborhoo my name being mentioned,
Speaker 1: actually went down to the police station and asked them
Speaker 1: that they want to speak to me, and stayed down
Speaker 1: there for over four hours, and they did not want
Speaker 1: to speak to me. Everybody has this thing about what
Speaker 1: innocent people should do. You don't run, you go to
Speaker 1: the police station, so on and so forth. So I
Speaker 1: get arrested November nine ninety one. So before I get arrested,
Speaker 1: I went down there, me and my father and my
Speaker 1: brother asked that they want to talk to him. I
Speaker 1: signed in the police law book. All this was said
Speaker 1: at trial they didn't want to talk to me. But
Speaker 1: two weeks later they came and arrested me. In a
Speaker 1: nightmare begin. I did everything you're supposed to do, and
Speaker 1: I still got my life stolen away. Until you go
Speaker 1: to trial. When you had a quarter point lawyer? No, actually, UM,
Speaker 1: my dad and I you know, pay for my first attorney.
Speaker 1: It wasn't quarter pointed we had. My dad was a
Speaker 1: um musician. He wasn't rich anything like that. We were poor.
Speaker 1: But my dad put the money together and he got me.
Speaker 1: Uh what we thought was a you know, decent enough
Speaker 1: lawyer to represent me, but he did not do his job.
Speaker 1: How much time did you get to spend with him
Speaker 1: before the trial? None? None, none, he never visited. You
Speaker 1: came to see me one time to tell me that
Speaker 1: they were charging me with more cases, and that's it. Left.
Speaker 1: I would call him all the time, no answer, so
Speaker 1: on and so forth. It was that bad. Wow, And
Speaker 1: then you go to trial. Then I go to trial
Speaker 1: with an attorney you don't even know, Yeah, who doesn't
Speaker 1: really know much about your case, right, who's really not
Speaker 1: investigating things like that? And you know, so on and
Speaker 1: so forth. It was. It was the typical nightmare that
Speaker 1: you have come to know with all the great work
Speaker 1: that you do. But it was the typical standard. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't care. I mean he wasn't really then you
Speaker 1: are so much as processing you at the president there
Speaker 1: you go, And I mean was he alcoholic or drug No.
Speaker 1: There was an article at the time and said him
Speaker 1: and two other attorneys took on the most homicide cases
Speaker 1: in the city of Philadelphia. It kind of came out
Speaker 1: like in the mid nineties. But you know, so he
Speaker 1: was just thinking as many cases as he could get,
Speaker 1: to make as much money as he could, and not
Speaker 1: really worrying about the outcome. Yeah, that's how I feel.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like I I mean, when when you
Speaker 1: say they were trying to put other cases on you.
Speaker 1: What was charged with over nine other robbery cases. They
Speaker 1: tried to make it look like I was Jesse James,
Speaker 1: and I was nothing of the sort. If you go
Speaker 1: back in my community and you do your own type
Speaker 1: of investigation, which my lawyers and everybody do, everybody be like, yo,
Speaker 1: he was a good kid, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You know, nobody's perfect, but he ain't. No, you know,
Speaker 1: he ain't no robbery, no murdering, He no stick up,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I was charged with
Speaker 1: nine of the cases that were later dropped, all except
Speaker 1: for one, all except for the one the original one,
Speaker 1: or except for another one besides that, all except for
Speaker 1: another one besides that. So you go to trial and
Speaker 1: you charged with capital murder, which is murder in the
Speaker 1: act of committing another family, which was robbing or of
Speaker 1: the ear rings? Right? And so how long did the
Speaker 1: trial last? The trial went from September about October sixteenth.
Speaker 1: I was found guilty October nineteenth. That gave me the
Speaker 1: death penalty. Each part of that trial it was horrible.
Speaker 1: I still relive it even to this day, everything that
Speaker 1: I went through. Because you don't think that this is
Speaker 1: gonna happen to you. You think even then, you believe
Speaker 1: that the truth is going to come out, that you
Speaker 1: believe in the system, that everybody can see that I'm
Speaker 1: not five to two hundred pounds and dark skin complexion.
Speaker 1: But you had a prosecutor that was something of a
Speaker 1: theme on law and order, right. You had jury members
Speaker 1: going to sleep, literally going to sleep. No mistrial. It
Speaker 1: was just a nightmare from beginning to end. I mean
Speaker 1: that's a pretty long trial. And I'm assuming that your
Speaker 1: lawyer wasn't doing much. What was he doing just sitting
Speaker 1: there listening? No, he was he he was doing I
Speaker 1: guess you could say he was doing I don't know
Speaker 1: what he was doing. To be perfectly honest with you, James,
Speaker 1: I don't know what he was doing. All I know
Speaker 1: is that it was the entire thing was a nightmare
Speaker 1: from beginning and end. There's a part in the trial
Speaker 1: like if you go back and look at the transcripts,
Speaker 1: they even took my height, right, and they get out
Speaker 1: of tape measure and they take my height so they
Speaker 1: see then I'm actually you know, five four, and I'm
Speaker 1: only five five with this one and a half inch
Speaker 1: hill on right, yeah, mean none of that made a
Speaker 1: difference to the jury. The fact that this crime took
Speaker 1: place within seconds. And you know, um, Dr Elizabeth Loff
Speaker 1: and say, can nobody identify nobody in two minutes, let
Speaker 1: alone seconds? You know what I mean? This is a
Speaker 1: violent crime, you know what I mean. So you know,
Speaker 1: if somebody runs into the studio right here, you know,
Speaker 1: robs us right now. Nine times our tend were all
Speaker 1: gonna get it wrong when it comes to the physical description.
Speaker 1: Nobody paid attention to that. Right in this crime, this
Speaker 1: took place, there was a chase. The poor girl was
Speaker 1: after her her earrings were stolen. She was shot in
Speaker 1: the throat um. She was with a friend who was
Speaker 1: luckily not harm But we know also from decades of
Speaker 1: research that in cases in which someone is up close
Speaker 1: when a violent crime is being committed, we know that
Speaker 1: that person is much more likely to mistakenly identify someone
Speaker 1: because you're in makes sense if you think about it, right,
Speaker 1: Your adrenaline is going crazy, your own life is threatened.
Speaker 1: It's all that fight or flight and all those reflexes
Speaker 1: and impulses and all the nerve endings are going crazy.
Speaker 1: And they've been experiments where they they've actually staged the crime,
Speaker 1: and then they bring in people from the outside, and
Speaker 1: they found that that people who weren't there have a
Speaker 1: better chance of being right than people So actually those
Speaker 1: witnesses are not even as good as guessing. So in
Speaker 1: this case, you had all of those factors, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you actually had three witnesses you know, that testify,
Speaker 1: but you actually had over now witnesses and the other
Speaker 1: six you know, didn't testify because they didn't say what
Speaker 1: the police wanted them to say. They actually said the opposite.
Speaker 1: What about the other evidence that showed that you were
Speaker 1: somewhere else? That evidence was with hell for over a decade,
Speaker 1: and which evidence was that? All right? So there was
Speaker 1: a welfare receipt from the young lady Oh that I've
Speaker 1: seen on the bus that stantuated my innocence as well,
Speaker 1: that the police went to her, threatened her and they
Speaker 1: took the welfare receipt from her. Now, welfare receipts are
Speaker 1: done in military time. She had picked up her welfare
Speaker 1: receipt and then she had got on the same k
Speaker 1: bus that I was on. So the receipts at three
Speaker 1: they told her that it said three or three pm
Speaker 1: because she couldn't tell military time. So when she takes
Speaker 1: the stand, she says exactly what they wanted her to say,
Speaker 1: that she seen me, you know, late on that day
Speaker 1: and not the actual time that she did see me. Right,
Speaker 1: So had they not lied about that, then you couldn't
Speaker 1: have been there because they know exactly so that that
Speaker 1: stayed hitting away. That was one thing. There were there
Speaker 1: other things that were with health as well. So the
Speaker 1: clothes that they said they took from my father's house
Speaker 1: that the police officers got on the stand and testified
Speaker 1: about and said they were the closed that was used
Speaker 1: at the crime. None of the witnesses ever seeing these clothes.
Speaker 1: They weren't cataloged and they suddenly poof disappeared, right, And
Speaker 1: all this stuff could have helped prove my innocence, you know,
Speaker 1: going back to other evidence, there still was never two
Speaker 1: other people locked up. It's supposed to be three people
Speaker 1: to the crime, but only one person was ever arrested,
Speaker 1: which was me. Right, So there's all these holes, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's all come from the same prosecutor and police
Speaker 1: officers and the and the very real consequence of this,
Speaker 1: aside from the obvious terrible injustice, that was done to
Speaker 1: you and your family is the fact that there's no
Speaker 1: justice for Schadel Williams. Not to mention that the citizens
Speaker 1: of Philadelphia remained in danger with these two or three guys,
Speaker 1: how many it was that actually committed this robbery and
Speaker 1: murder being out on the loose because you were in
Speaker 1: there instead of them. That's the hard or other situation
Speaker 1: that that family hasn't gotten justice. And when you lie
Speaker 1: about something to someone, you dishonored the victim and you
Speaker 1: dishonored their family as well. So let's go back to
Speaker 1: that day of the verdict. Can you give us a
Speaker 1: picture of the courtroom that day? I mean, you had
Speaker 1: now been in the system for almost a year, um,
Speaker 1: but you still said you had hope and you still
Speaker 1: believe that no one could possibly convict you because you
Speaker 1: knew that you weren't there, You knew that none of
Speaker 1: the evidence matched you, you had alibis, but you also
Speaker 1: knew that you know, this trial had been sort of
Speaker 1: a you know, for lack of a better world, I'll say,
Speaker 1: with a clusterfuck. And so but even with all of
Speaker 1: that that, you still have hope that the jury was
Speaker 1: gonna do the right thing. I still had hope that
Speaker 1: the jury was going to do the right thing because
Speaker 1: I always had faith, period, ever since I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I always had you know, faith and God that you know,
Speaker 1: I could get through anything. So I'm sitting there and
Speaker 1: I'm praying that the right thing is going to happen,
Speaker 1: that people sitting on this jury would be able to
Speaker 1: see through all the you know, the lies and things
Speaker 1: like that of that nature that went on in that courtroom.
Speaker 1: You know, when you look at the physical description, when
Speaker 1: you're seeing that, stuff just don't make sense, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I had hope. So when they
Speaker 1: stood me up and then they read the verdict, it
Speaker 1: was like like somebody just knocked the wind out of me.
Speaker 1: It was like Tyson hitting somebody. You know. I immediately
Speaker 1: started crying. I remember my mom crying. I remember my
Speaker 1: sister rocking back and forth. I remember friends that I
Speaker 1: grew up with, men crying. Everybody broke down and just
Speaker 1: started crying because nobody could believe that this was happening.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of lives would destroyed on that day,
Speaker 1: a lot of dreams were destroyed. It was a horrible scene.
Speaker 1: You know, when you hear these cries and these wells,
Speaker 1: and you you like in this moment that's so sad
Speaker 1: and like out of body, like you don't want to
Speaker 1: be in here, and and you know when I'm shaking
Speaker 1: and I can't believe it. And then you said a
Speaker 1: few days later, you're sentence of death, which is the
Speaker 1: only thing worst that could happen, everything that's already happened.
Speaker 1: And then you get taken. I get taken to the
Speaker 1: greatest for a prison. From there you go to Camp
Speaker 1: Hill and then you get your destination. What prison that
Speaker 1: you go to? So I wound up at Huntington's death
Speaker 1: row after these other two stops of death row. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, you get your first taste of
Speaker 1: death row. Um, can you explain what that's like for
Speaker 1: the audience, because that process, uh, going a death row
Speaker 1: is um your shackle, UM, your feet and your hands
Speaker 1: and shackle they got like a belt in a black
Speaker 1: box on you. You literally can't move and they basically
Speaker 1: strip your neck it, which is a very dehumanizing process.
Speaker 1: When you come, they got the cameras on you and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and then they throw you on the shelf,
Speaker 1: you know, and then the nightmare. It's even worse if
Speaker 1: you can believe it, you know, um prison it's such
Speaker 1: a dehumanizing place. Prisoners meant to destroy families and relationships
Speaker 1: of everybody, and being on death row, you're considered the
Speaker 1: worst of the worst, less than human. And you get
Speaker 1: it from all sides, you know what I mean. Even
Speaker 1: though you've got people in general population that may have
Speaker 1: worst crimes, it's a perception about people on death row
Speaker 1: like they're the worst of the worst. You know, so
Speaker 1: you catch it, catch it from all sides. What you
Speaker 1: gotta understand. You can't be in prison for nothing like this.
Speaker 1: Is so when I say that I went through hell,
Speaker 1: it's actually an understatement to describe what I went through.
Speaker 1: I got it from every side, guards, prisoners. I was
Speaker 1: basically in a fight for my life just to be
Speaker 1: the whole period. And that is because the case was
Speaker 1: such a high profile case. It was a high profile case.
Speaker 1: But back then, you couldn't be in prison for nothing
Speaker 1: like this, anything that had to do with a woman
Speaker 1: or a child. You can't be in prison. This is
Speaker 1: real prison. I was in, you know, real situations where
Speaker 1: I was jumped. I was you know, I had to fight,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I had to defend myself,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I was jumped, I was
Speaker 1: set up by guards, I was rolled on, my prisoners,
Speaker 1: on and so forth. It was a living night man,
Speaker 1: something that you never recover from, something that that you
Speaker 1: never get over. I got teeth in my mouth right
Speaker 1: here that are broke and fix from stuff I went
Speaker 1: through imprison You know, the battle scars are still warm
Speaker 1: me and then my soul. My situation is just like
Speaker 1: what we all know that Kylief Browder went through. I
Speaker 1: went through a lot of that, and you're on death
Speaker 1: row for a quarter of a century. Yeah. I spent
Speaker 1: twenty five point five years in prison. Yeah, how did
Speaker 1: you maintain sanity? How did you maintain hope? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if someone wants to meet you now, they
Speaker 1: would have no idea that you've been through this. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there's that saying that everyone you meet is
Speaker 1: fighting the battle you know nothing about. Just be kind,
Speaker 1: But this is the extreme version of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: everyone's going through their stuff. You don't know what anyone's
Speaker 1: going through. It might be all heartbreak, might have just
Speaker 1: lost their job. Who knows what you have our stuff?
Speaker 1: But this is a different level. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: an extraordinary ordeal for anybody to go through and survive.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure there were a bunch of people that
Speaker 1: you met, a bunch of men you met on death
Speaker 1: throw who didn't survive. I mean that that is kind
Speaker 1: of trippy because when I was in there, Um, I've
Speaker 1: seen people kill theirselves. You see the body bags coming,
Speaker 1: and you see the ambulance coming. You see people died
Speaker 1: from natural causes or what have you, a deabilitating diseases.
Speaker 1: But how did you, like, what was it that that
Speaker 1: allowed you to you know, persevere and to not not
Speaker 1: take your own life and not go down this rabbit
Speaker 1: hole that so many of the guys went down. So
Speaker 1: you so when you in prison, For me to sit
Speaker 1: here and tell you that I never thought about suicide,
Speaker 1: that's a lie. Many times, even when I was in
Speaker 1: the county because like I told you, I was suffering
Speaker 1: so greatly, um and and nobody was hearing my cryd
Speaker 1: Like one time, I was literally gonna take my life
Speaker 1: because I just couldn't take it. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm innocent, and I'm not getting proper representation that you know,
Speaker 1: everything is going on. You know, the cops don't you know, Framie.
Speaker 1: Whatever the case may be. So for me, I once
Speaker 1: read this book by Victor E. Franko called a Man
Speaker 1: Search for Me No. And in this book he had
Speaker 1: this quote by Nicie. It said, he who he who
Speaker 1: has a wife, can bear with almost anyhow. And my
Speaker 1: wife has always been my daughter's and my mom, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like, I literally connected with it
Speaker 1: so much because here it was they had no hope,
Speaker 1: and he created hope for himself and he didn't give up.
Speaker 1: You know, the stories he would tell the other people
Speaker 1: and the concentration camps about their family so that they
Speaker 1: could live and survive and have hope of some rival,
Speaker 1: you know. And for me, I would do the same thing.
Speaker 1: I would visualize myself home with my daughters someday. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about your daughters. What are their names. My oldest
Speaker 1: daughter's named for Team, and my youngest daughter's named ki Era.
Speaker 1: And when you went to prison, one of them wasn't
Speaker 1: even born yet. Kiara wasn't born. Um, she was born
Speaker 1: one week after I was stolen away. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: never got to see her until you got out of prison.
Speaker 1: My dad would bring her to see me a lot.
Speaker 1: Did the family would bring them to see me, but
Speaker 1: I never literally spent a day with them with her
Speaker 1: until I got out. So everything I went through was
Speaker 1: for them and my father, you know. And then I
Speaker 1: wanted to restore my family name back, you know. And
Speaker 1: for me, faith, faith and guy was the key and music.
Speaker 1: And so every day I would wake up, I would
Speaker 1: hear these songs in my mind. Literally, because it didn't
Speaker 1: have a good radio station up there, couldn't listen to
Speaker 1: the music I wanted to listen to. But every day
Speaker 1: I would hear the Wanning's Trusting God, John Coltrane, Their Lord,
Speaker 1: and then I would hear Bruce Springsteen in the Eastreet Band,
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen, as you know, he has all these wonderful
Speaker 1: ad libs. All right, come on, you know, and I
Speaker 1: would play Hungry Hard or Born and Run in my head,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And then it would go
Speaker 1: to Stevie Wonder if It's Magic and Fleetwood Mac Don't Stop.
Speaker 1: And every day those songs would play in secession in
Speaker 1: my head, and then I would get up. I would
Speaker 1: work on the Justice for Jimmy campaign. I would work
Speaker 1: on legal work. I would call my lawyers, I would
Speaker 1: discuss law when I'm legal issues, How did you know
Speaker 1: proceed and what we should do and things like that,
Speaker 1: And I just I think everybody has it in them,
Speaker 1: you know, to make it out of any situation if
Speaker 1: they believe. And I just knew and believe that my
Speaker 1: dead truth was going to come. On every single letter,
Speaker 1: if you would have received a letter from me in prison,
Speaker 1: and you would have opened it up, on the top
Speaker 1: head of the paper said praying for the truth. And
Speaker 1: that was my motto, praying for the truth. And I
Speaker 1: always believe that my dead truth was gonna come. And
Speaker 1: I see you have a bracelet on it says in
Speaker 1: big letters, never ever give up, ever ever give up,
Speaker 1: and this one say not throwing away my shot. My
Speaker 1: lawyers from Arnold and Porter um, who are like my family, UM,
Speaker 1: gave me these when when I came home. Now we
Speaker 1: understand how you found this extra gear, this extra this
Speaker 1: extraordinary otherworldly grace or whatever it is that allowed you
Speaker 1: to maintain yourself and maintain your sanity in an in
Speaker 1: an insane situation. Um, how did you end up getting out?
Speaker 1: How did that work? You know? For so long I
Speaker 1: labored just trying to yell out that I was innocent
Speaker 1: over and over again, and the system felt me horribly
Speaker 1: over and over again until I got the Federal court
Speaker 1: on auguste. The Honorable Judge Needed Brody gave this forty
Speaker 1: six page legal opinion that breaks down the truth about
Speaker 1: what happens to me. And the part that met everything
Speaker 1: to me was the first paragraph. If you read that opinion,
Speaker 1: it says James Dennis was wrongfully convicted of this crime.
Speaker 1: And she called it a quote grave miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 1: And she's she wrote that police and prosecutors ignored, lost,
Speaker 1: or covered up evidence that was favorable to you, and
Speaker 1: then came three years later, because nothing happens that quick.
Speaker 1: The Third Circuit, the entire panel ruled and a majority
Speaker 1: decision vote. You know that it was a great mischaracter
Speaker 1: of justice that started the will's rolling to me getting home.
Speaker 1: So you know, the d A offered a deal to
Speaker 1: get me out, and it was something that I didn't
Speaker 1: want to do, and um something that bothers me to
Speaker 1: this day. But sometimes you gotta make decisions that's best
Speaker 1: for your family and not so much um you, or
Speaker 1: just to get you out, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: because you might be in there another five years and
Speaker 1: you don't know what's going to happen because I was
Speaker 1: um literally at the end of my role. So if
Speaker 1: they appeal this decision, you go to the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and most people asked me that aren't familiar
Speaker 1: with this work. How could it be that that's what
Speaker 1: Judge need the Brodie called this a great mischaracter. Justice
Speaker 1: said you were innocent. Then the Third Circuit Court rules,
Speaker 1: I think it was four strong majority, strong majority, and
Speaker 1: it's a very scathing legal opinion. Quote evidence suppressed by
Speaker 1: the prosecution or received corroborating Dennis's alibi, an inconsistent statement
Speaker 1: by the Commonwealth, key eye witness, and documents indicating that
Speaker 1: another individual committed the murderer effectively gutted the Commonwealth's case
Speaker 1: against Dennis. And she finishes by saying, I'm getting the chilled.
Speaker 1: The withholding of these pieces of evidence denied Dennis of
Speaker 1: fair trial and state court. So they ruled that you
Speaker 1: were innocent. And then people say, well, doesn't that mean
Speaker 1: in America you go home when you're innocent. But that's
Speaker 1: not the way it works sometimes, No, that's not the
Speaker 1: way we're um. They were going to appeal to the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, because no one's really trying to say we
Speaker 1: made a mistake, we did anything wrong. So that would
Speaker 1: have took more years out of my life. If you
Speaker 1: look and just ask comparison, If you look at the
Speaker 1: Anthony Right case, it took him three years to go
Speaker 1: to trial after the DNA you evidence proved him indicine,
Speaker 1: then he still had to go to trial. Why do
Speaker 1: you have to go to trial and the DNA have
Speaker 1: been So this is Philadelphia. This is not where people
Speaker 1: are gonna do the right thing. With Lorenzo Johnson and
Speaker 1: you go, and I can name other cases, William niaz
Speaker 1: On and so forth, and the list goes on where
Speaker 1: they don't want to do the right thing. So I
Speaker 1: would have spent another three to five years or more
Speaker 1: in prison, and we wouldn't even be sitting here talking.
Speaker 1: And you could have died in there too, from I
Speaker 1: mean just from deprivation. You could die in there. But
Speaker 1: and then I want to go back to the you
Speaker 1: know said it was a scathing opinion. How did it
Speaker 1: feel to hear those words? So I'm sitting there in prison,
Speaker 1: so I just want to take you back to when
Speaker 1: the first one happened. Every day I used to walk
Speaker 1: back and forth and I'm looking for a sign for
Speaker 1: unit man your account. So that runs the block to
Speaker 1: come and say you gotta call your lawyers because your
Speaker 1: lawyers called up here good news or whatever. You don't know,
Speaker 1: or it might be a family emergency. This particular day,
Speaker 1: it didn't even click in. I'm thinking something bad had
Speaker 1: happened with my mom because I had already lost my
Speaker 1: dad very tragically. You know, Um he died from all
Speaker 1: Thomas and didn't even remember who I was. But just
Speaker 1: to let you know, when my dad found out that
Speaker 1: I was actually going to trial back in two he
Speaker 1: had a stroke sitting at the table and he never
Speaker 1: was the same again. So this is the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that I endured. So um, that day they come
Speaker 1: to sell, they said, you gotta call your lawyers. I
Speaker 1: called my lawyers. A guy yells out the door. That's
Speaker 1: not bad news. Suty is what they call me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, shorty, do what because of the music thing?
Speaker 1: So they said, that's not a bad call. So I
Speaker 1: pick up the phone and my lawyers say James A.
Speaker 1: Dennis and they never set my you know, my entire name,
Speaker 1: said James A. Dennis, And he said innocence has been proven.
Speaker 1: My two lawyers on the phone, Amy and Ryan, who
Speaker 1: are like brothers and sister to me, and they were
Speaker 1: telling me like I kept saying it, but I didn't
Speaker 1: really fully get the full magnitude of it. And then
Speaker 1: when I got off the phone, I put my toel
Speaker 1: up to the window and I broke down and cried
Speaker 1: because for me, everything that I went through in prison,
Speaker 1: I've been waiting for that. So when you read the
Speaker 1: legal opinion and you see the first words were say
Speaker 1: James A. Dennis was wrongly, that meant everything to me.
Speaker 1: That's what I waited for, period. And you don't know
Speaker 1: that you're going to get that, but that's what I
Speaker 1: waited for my entire life that I was in Carceret.
Speaker 1: So when the second decision come, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: I put the towel up, I put my head into
Speaker 1: the pillow and I cried. Guy never cried before. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what was gonna happen. I'm hoping and praying
Speaker 1: that they're going to do the right thing. And so
Speaker 1: when it came, it was like you know, and the
Speaker 1: lawyers came up there and we talked and what does
Speaker 1: this mean? And it's a real emotional roller coaster where
Speaker 1: you know, did y'all call my mom, did y'all tell
Speaker 1: my mom? Did y'all tell my daughters? Did you you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Do all these people know what
Speaker 1: just happened? So it's an emotional roller coaster. It's the
Speaker 1: best way I can explain it. I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: can possibly begin to understand that that hasn't been through it.
Speaker 1: And and let's talk about the day you got out.
Speaker 1: May thirteenth, seventeen. I was released from s c I
Speaker 1: Green Prison. Corby was there, My lawyers were there. Um,
Speaker 1: a cool guy by the name of Dan was there,
Speaker 1: and they were waiting outside for me in the van,
Speaker 1: you know. But my lawyer Ryan came in to get
Speaker 1: me and give me a suit. And I hadn't had
Speaker 1: on a suit and twenty five years, you know, since
Speaker 1: I've been the church. Oddly enough to last night that
Speaker 1: I was home, I was in church. You know, I
Speaker 1: went to church and did not get arrested that morning.
Speaker 1: So it had been a long time since I put
Speaker 1: on a suit. So I put on this suit this time,
Speaker 1: and we walk out. There's hugs, things like that, and
Speaker 1: then we get on this van, and then we're going
Speaker 1: and everything seems surreal. And I started making phone calls
Speaker 1: to my mom, to my daughters, to my supporters, you know,
Speaker 1: thanking everybody. And I'm on my way to Philadelphia and
Speaker 1: we're playing Boys and Men, were playing Meek Mills, We're
Speaker 1: playing Elton John Philadelphia Freedom. Where we were were, you know,
Speaker 1: as we come into city, you know, we were playing
Speaker 1: Pagla Bell. We're playing you know, all my favorites. As
Speaker 1: we're on the highway, you know, driving John Coltrane, you know,
Speaker 1: the boss in the East Street band is up in
Speaker 1: there where we just grooving down the highway. Me I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there. There's a lot of laughter going back and forth,
Speaker 1: and I'm in the moment. I don't know what to eat.
Speaker 1: When we get to a rest stop by I can
Speaker 1: tell you that my first meal was like some French
Speaker 1: fries with some onions on it and the milkshake with
Speaker 1: some sunfly seeds. I I don't know what to eat.
Speaker 1: I didn't know, you know what I mean. I I've
Speaker 1: never seen a convenience story where McDonald's and a gas
Speaker 1: station all that was in one now, you know, stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So when we get to Philadelphia. After we
Speaker 1: get down the highway, you know, my mom and daughters
Speaker 1: are at the hotel and we have this there's this
Speaker 1: moment with me and my mom. It's it's a beautiful moment.
Speaker 1: What we just sit there and we just hold their
Speaker 1: hands and you know that it's emotional, you know. And
Speaker 1: and now I'm back home, And how did you meet
Speaker 1: your beautiful wife who I've just recently met myself. She's
Speaker 1: my childhood sweetheart. We actually met at Girls High Um
Speaker 1: High School in Philadelphia and we were singing on the
Speaker 1: District six Festival choiring. Back then. She was an auto,
Speaker 1: I was a soprano. And uh we had met on
Speaker 1: the choir at eleven and twelve years old, but there
Speaker 1: was twenty five and a half year gap in there.
Speaker 1: So there was a petition that was started by my
Speaker 1: supporters to save my life on change dot org. So
Speaker 1: my supporters would send me in the mail the actual
Speaker 1: petition to see how it was growing. And I was
Speaker 1: going through the names and then they were in like
Speaker 1: alphabetic order, and then when it got to see I've
Speaker 1: seen Corby, and it was like, oh, whoa know, It's
Speaker 1: like that moment when you're like Okay, Okay, that's my
Speaker 1: childhood sweetheart, right, you know what I mean? And you're
Speaker 1: like okay. So then I had asked my sister Hope
Speaker 1: to ask her, you know, did she believe in my innocence?
Speaker 1: And my sister Hope asked her and she said yeah.
Speaker 1: And it was like, okay, good because you're looking for
Speaker 1: a silver lining for anybody to believe in you, but
Speaker 1: for anybody to know the truth. You want everybody, every
Speaker 1: single person that ever cared about you, to know the
Speaker 1: truth about the situation. And did she read about it?
Speaker 1: And you know, and how did she find me? Basically?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, because I basically like it's
Speaker 1: almost like I fell off the face of the earth
Speaker 1: for so many years and we didn't have any contact.
Speaker 1: So when I seen her name on the petition, I
Speaker 1: was like blown away. So I eventually called home and
Speaker 1: my mother says, somebody's here, and I said, and she
Speaker 1: don't tell me. It's like a little game. Then she
Speaker 1: gets on the phone and we start talking. I'm still
Speaker 1: not thinking that another I don't want to Maybe she
Speaker 1: just came to see my mother and check on me,
Speaker 1: you know. But the next Sunday I called she's there
Speaker 1: again and again, and so then you start to feel
Speaker 1: like okay, maybe, and then eventually she wanted to come
Speaker 1: see me, but I had shut down. I was on
Speaker 1: some I stopped having visits for a number of years,
Speaker 1: For over at least eight years or so, I stopped
Speaker 1: having visits. I stopped going the yard, the library. I
Speaker 1: built a library and mysell the lawyers that sent me books,
Speaker 1: and all I was doing was getting up every day,
Speaker 1: study and working on the Justicer Jimmy campaign because I
Speaker 1: was already suffering from the panic in the anxiety text
Speaker 1: and didn't know that I had to PTSD. Anyway, she
Speaker 1: came five years prior to me being released, before any
Speaker 1: of the good stuff started to happen, And it just
Speaker 1: seemed like when she came, all the good stuff started
Speaker 1: happening again, you know what I mean. You got the
Speaker 1: legal decision after that, you know, the one from the
Speaker 1: honorable judge and the brody, and she insisted on coming
Speaker 1: to see me, and it just went from there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just went from there and got lucky. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you did. You know, you're a remarkable guy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm always just totally in awe of people like yourself.
Speaker 1: Who I get the privilege of being around on a
Speaker 1: very frequent basis. It's almost a daily basis. Actually, Um,
Speaker 1: having dinner tonight with John Huffington, who was in on
Speaker 1: death row for thirty two years in Maryland, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, I was with Damian Nichols this weekend, and
Speaker 1: U of course, you know, there's so many incredible human
Speaker 1: beings and one more so then the next. And I'm
Speaker 1: always like, every time I meet somebody like you, I
Speaker 1: always feel like I've heard everything there is to hear.
Speaker 1: And then i hear a story like yours, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: my head is just exploding again. But UM, I have
Speaker 1: to ask, are you better? I guess for me is
Speaker 1: what I want to tell you is that nobody comes
Speaker 1: through the prison system unscathed. For me, I'm in therapy.
Speaker 1: I go to therapy every week. I suffer from post
Speaker 1: traumatic stress disorder, panic and anxiety attacks. My life was
Speaker 1: destroyed for something I didn't do, and it's something that
Speaker 1: when I hear sirens, I just shook up. You know,
Speaker 1: I literally don't go nowhere. You know, me coming here
Speaker 1: was a was a thing. You know. It took a
Speaker 1: lot of courage for me just to come here. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of bitterness inside of me. To say
Speaker 1: that there's I would be lying. I'm hurt by what
Speaker 1: has happened to me, you know, and I'm hurt that
Speaker 1: is still happening to other people, like I know, other
Speaker 1: innocent men and women that are in prison. What I
Speaker 1: try to do with that bitterness and that hurt that
Speaker 1: I feel, I try to channel with and to doing
Speaker 1: productive things like my music or champion other people calls.
Speaker 1: It's like, um Ralph Stokes, who's an innocent man in
Speaker 1: prison at s CI Green, Willie VESSI who's locked up,
Speaker 1: who had the same police detectives and digit attorney and
Speaker 1: he's locked up. And I go to theirherents and try
Speaker 1: to be supportive to their families and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And when I have an opportunity to speak out, I
Speaker 1: speak out, you know. So there's a lot of hurt
Speaker 1: and me. You know, um, what my daughters went through
Speaker 1: while I was out of their life. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's yeah, yeah, I mean, let's not forget them and
Speaker 1: all of this too, right, I Mean, then talk about
Speaker 1: the innocent victim. They were baked, well, one wasn't even
Speaker 1: born yet, the other one, and you have to understand
Speaker 1: the ripple effects of that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: The last and ripple effects are not having your father
Speaker 1: and your life for twenty five point five years. You know.
Speaker 1: When the decision was made to get me out and
Speaker 1: I was on the phone with her, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things that she said to me was, I
Speaker 1: used to sit by um She said, I used to
Speaker 1: sit by the door every day and look out the
Speaker 1: window and wait for you to come home. That's that's
Speaker 1: something hard to swallow. And she said, oh, I want
Speaker 1: you to do is to come home and have a
Speaker 1: relationship with your granddaughter. And the ripple effects are very
Speaker 1: lasting on anybody who has been in prison, None of us,
Speaker 1: no matter how good it seems everyone is doing. No
Speaker 1: one comes through the system unscared. Me having nightmares all
Speaker 1: the time, struggling out here in the world. It's it's real.
Speaker 1: It's not easy, you know, because oftentimes when I hear siren,
Speaker 1: I think that they're coming back to still my life.
Speaker 1: I made sure that there's a locator on my phone
Speaker 1: at all times where I'm at. You know, when I
Speaker 1: first came home, I was literally calling the lawyers like
Speaker 1: every hour on an hour calling other people just so
Speaker 1: my whereabouts are always known. It's that deep. People that
Speaker 1: are listening, I'm sure they're thinking, what could I do
Speaker 1: to help right some of these guys that you left behind,
Speaker 1: who are innocent and stuck in a situation that you
Speaker 1: were in. What could they do to possibly help you? Um?
Speaker 1: Do you have any kind of social media? Do you
Speaker 1: do speaking? Do you have a page where people could
Speaker 1: donate um to to help you with your transition? If
Speaker 1: that's even something that interests you. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't want to make any assumptions. But what can people
Speaker 1: do to help either the people that you left behind? UM,
Speaker 1: let's start with that. Ralph Stokes, he has a Facebook
Speaker 1: page in the website Ralph Stokes dot org. Get in
Speaker 1: touch with his supporters. Did for Willie Vessy. You can
Speaker 1: look up his case and get in touch with his
Speaker 1: supporters and you can write these men. They are still
Speaker 1: in prison, Willie VESSI is doing life v E A
Speaker 1: s E way and Ralph Stokes has death at s
Speaker 1: CI Green and any one of you listening can make
Speaker 1: a difference. You can help by writing them and reaching
Speaker 1: out to them and then just start champion their calls
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to do, get involved on their support
Speaker 1: team and you know, help get them some type kind
Speaker 1: of justice, you know what I mean, Because everybody can
Speaker 1: make a difference, even when they think they can't. They
Speaker 1: could use their voice to make a difference through social media,
Speaker 1: through other outlets. What about what about you? Is? What
Speaker 1: do you need? What? What? What's I don't? I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily I'm not looking for a hand out, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I don't even want to say it
Speaker 1: that way. Maybe that's wrong enough, you know they say it.
Speaker 1: But there is a trust fund that my lawyer, Amy
Speaker 1: Rose set up Amy Row of Washington, d C. Merlin,
Speaker 1: and you can look it up on Facebook page where
Speaker 1: people could donate if they wanted to. But I have
Speaker 1: a social media Instagram, Um Jimmy Underscore, Dennis Underscore music.
Speaker 1: I just like for people to listen to my song.
Speaker 1: You said, if give a listen, if you like it,
Speaker 1: you like it, you know, hopefully you'll like it. Hea
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And I just really want to
Speaker 1: be a part of the music fraternity, you know, earn
Speaker 1: my keep that way. You know, It's always been my
Speaker 1: dream too being a business since I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and for me, I used to see my musical heroes
Speaker 1: Gladys Night, Bruce Springs staining all on the Grammys. And
Speaker 1: even when I was on death row. That was the
Speaker 1: one time on death row anybody could tell you that
Speaker 1: know me, you could not call me. When the Grammys
Speaker 1: on I disappeared. I would put on my headphones and
Speaker 1: I would watch the Grammys, and I was in New
Speaker 1: Yorker l a all the time. I would not respond
Speaker 1: to anybody. I was there watching, you know, and rooting
Speaker 1: and charing everybody on what's your favorite song to sing? Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily have a favorite song, and saying I
Speaker 1: just like, you know, whatever comes to my heart. You
Speaker 1: know what, what's your What do you want to sing
Speaker 1: right now? You want to sing something right now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The first time on anybody, I'm saying you said, I
Speaker 1: saying you said, if you don't mind, do it? Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: bull through the hurricane, We're through fire, rank filled door, last, pain, crazy,
Speaker 1: the end, sane for you, Woo for you, woo nothing
Speaker 1: ever writ bounce always there too, but found never once
Speaker 1: let's shut down. I was there for you. Woo for you,
Speaker 1: woo who hoo you said you love me, and true
Speaker 1: you said the sad you said, you love me, I'll
Speaker 1: be there for you. What's it? What's it? Address? Jimmy
Speaker 1: Dennis dot net. You can find a single you said,
Speaker 1: you said, what do you? And then the words said? Okay?
Speaker 1: Last question? So what would you tell people? Because everyone
Speaker 1: that's listening right now someday is going to get a
Speaker 1: jury dooty notice and you went through a really crazy situation,
Speaker 1: people sleeping through a death penalty case. I mean, the
Speaker 1: word disrespect doesn't even come to mind. I mean that's
Speaker 1: not strong enough. Um, it's it's reprehensible, It's it's fucking terrible.
Speaker 1: But that's beside the point. What would you tell people
Speaker 1: they get called to jury duty and they end up
Speaker 1: on a criminal trial. What advice could you give people?
Speaker 1: People listening saying I don't ever want to make a
Speaker 1: mistake like that. I don't ever want to send an
Speaker 1: innocent man to jail? What what would they look out for?
Speaker 1: What would be the tips that you could give them.
Speaker 1: The first thing you shouldn't do is worry about making
Speaker 1: a mistake. You should go in there and it has
Speaker 1: to be like twelve angry men in that room. If
Speaker 1: you take jury duty, somebody has to be Jack Lemmon
Speaker 1: or Henry Fonder, right. You have to pay attention to
Speaker 1: every single thing going on. Don't be biased, sit back
Speaker 1: and pay close attention to the evidence and wait it.
Speaker 1: It is a large responsibility for anybody to take on
Speaker 1: jury duty, and you should want to because you could
Speaker 1: be the reason that somebody doesn't get real roaded like me,
Speaker 1: and that an innocent man and woman comes home. We
Speaker 1: don't need more Jimmy didn't, Damian Echoes, William Niez, jeffs Licks,
Speaker 1: and the man the Knox and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: We have to stop it somewhere, and by you sitting
Speaker 1: on a jury, paying attention to all the evidence and
Speaker 1: then weighing it properly, you can be the one voice
Speaker 1: that says this doesn't make any sense, or pay attention
Speaker 1: to this facts and not the theatrics of it all
Speaker 1: that the other side is trying to do. Because that's
Speaker 1: what happened here. A lot of theatrics from the parties
Speaker 1: that be, the d A and the police, a lot
Speaker 1: of theatrics and lies. And there was no way that
Speaker 1: anybody said on that jury and shouldn't have been paying
Speaker 1: attention to the facts. You have to pay attention to
Speaker 1: the facts. Facts matters. That's good advice and I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's going to help people as they go into, uh,
Speaker 1: into that situation, which a difficult situation for anybody. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, being in the courtroom and it's uncomfortable all
Speaker 1: it can take a long time, but it's a responsibility
Speaker 1: we all have to each other. I mean, because this
Speaker 1: could really happen to anybody, and you're living proof. You're
Speaker 1: just just a regular person. So okay, then I guess
Speaker 1: the last part now is just anybody that you want
Speaker 1: to think that maybe we haven't thought about already, and
Speaker 1: then um, any closing words that you have. This is
Speaker 1: a tradition that we have on wrongful conviction. At the
Speaker 1: end of the episode, I get to just sit and listen,
Speaker 1: which is what I like to do. And first I
Speaker 1: want to thank you Jimmy. It's very courageous of you
Speaker 1: to come up here. I know it wasn't easy and
Speaker 1: to share your thoughts and your experience with the audience,
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for being here. And I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward. I'm looking forward to maintaining a friendship and
Speaker 1: I have some ideas and you know you were talking
Speaker 1: before about how how comfortable the bed is at the
Speaker 1: Western New York. Well, wrongful conviction is going to get
Speaker 1: you that bed. So you'll you'll you'll sleep good. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe you'll all asleep listening to your old show anyway.
Speaker 1: So so we got that covered. But Um, anyway, so now,
Speaker 1: like I said, I get to I get to shut
Speaker 1: down my microphone and just put my headphones, kick back
Speaker 1: and listen. So it's all up to you. I want
Speaker 1: to first thank you Jason for having me. You encountered
Speaker 1: mean as the world to me. The hospitality is greatly appreciated,
Speaker 1: and I just want to commend you for the work
Speaker 1: you're doing in the innocence community. It takes a lot
Speaker 1: of courage to do what you do. I want to
Speaker 1: thank Jennifer Thompson. She's been one of my biggest supporters
Speaker 1: and she's a herod mine. I call him my she ro,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. She's been there for me,
Speaker 1: Um from day one, champion my calls. I like to
Speaker 1: thank all my supporters, um, you know around the country.
Speaker 1: Um that's been there for me when I was in
Speaker 1: prison and since I came home. Um, Jeff uh Melanie, Uh,
Speaker 1: Kathy and Ron and everybody. Um. I want to thank
Speaker 1: my friend and my friends have been an instrumental support
Speaker 1: for me. You know, when you get get out, you
Speaker 1: need support. You know, your family and your friends. I
Speaker 1: want to just want to think my friends and my wife,
Speaker 1: Corby and my friend Cosin quite their ski and that
Speaker 1: dude all for supporting me an ad Imported Law firm,
Speaker 1: um Amy, Ryan, Rebecca, Meghan, Melanie, Kitty Being and James.
Speaker 1: They did a wonderful job and it's because of them
Speaker 1: that I'm sitting here there like family to me and
Speaker 1: I love him dearly. And I just want to tell
Speaker 1: people listening that if you do your due diligence and
Speaker 1: you read the case and you want to get involved,
Speaker 1: don't be scared to get involved. Reach out to that
Speaker 1: person in prison. Become their supporter and become their champion,
Speaker 1: become their voice because a lot of people in prison
Speaker 1: have no voice. And to everybody on death row, to
Speaker 1: every man and woman in prison, never give up and
Speaker 1: never give up on a dream, no matter what your
Speaker 1: dreams are. For everybody in the innocent community, I don't
Speaker 1: care if you wanted to be a fisherman or a Carpenter,
Speaker 1: go for it and don't give up. Never give up,
Speaker 1: never ever give up. This has been an extraordinary episode
Speaker 1: of Wrongful Conviction with death Row Ex, Honoree, Jimmy, Dennis, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, don't forget to give us a
Speaker 1: fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps.
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 1: to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate
Speaker 1: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music on the show
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow thow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one