Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #255 Jason Flom with Dieter Tejada

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#255 Jason Flom with Dieter Tejada · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: In early two thousand and eight, Dieter Tejato was a
0:04
Speaker 1: high school senior dating a girl named Avery Ascebado until
0:07
Speaker 1: a heated argument led to their breakup. At a party
0:11
Speaker 1: on March eighth, two thousand eight, Teta received a call
0:13
Speaker 1: from Avery's number, but a guy named Nick Schwartz was
0:16
Speaker 1: on the other end, slurring and making threats in a
0:19
Speaker 1: fake New York accent. Dismissing the tough guy persona and
0:23
Speaker 1: the threats, Theeter put him on speaker to share what
0:25
Speaker 1: he'd believed to be trivial and amusing with the other partygoers.
0:28
Speaker 1: But Theeter soon realized his mistake when he arrived at
0:31
Speaker 1: Avery's house and was met by Nick and three friends,
0:35
Speaker 1: all with baseball bats. Instead of having a few laughs
0:39
Speaker 1: at Nick in front of the partygoers who'd come along,
0:42
Speaker 1: Theeter was in very real danger. Unbeknownst to Deeter, Nick
0:47
Speaker 1: was on designer drugs that night and had a history
0:49
Speaker 1: of violence along with a troubling psychiatric diagnosis. Nick hit
0:54
Speaker 1: Peter in the chest, and eventually Dieter was able to
0:57
Speaker 1: wrestle away the bat and hit Nick as well before
1:00
Speaker 1: calling the fight over. At that point, Nick go to
1:04
Speaker 1: the crowd that had slowly amassed. It's a further violence.
1:07
Speaker 1: While Dieter left the scene. According to the law, since
1:10
Speaker 1: Nick was the instigator, Deeer had the right to match
1:13
Speaker 1: force with him, and a bat is arguably a deadly weapon. However,
1:17
Speaker 1: theeter did not get even close to the force that
1:20
Speaker 1: he was legally allowed to use. Yet Nick's family's access
1:24
Speaker 1: to power appears to have mattered much more than the law.
1:27
Speaker 1: With a corrupt prosecutor calling the shots, this is wrongful conviction.
1:43
Speaker 1: Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today's episode. Well, it's an
1:46
Speaker 1: important episode. It's a different type of episode than maybe
1:51
Speaker 1: you're you know, expecting. We were usually discussed cases with
1:55
Speaker 1: insanely long death sentences and terrible, terrible crimes, But what
2:01
Speaker 1: we have here is a really well, relatively short sentence
2:04
Speaker 1: when you look at it in a big picture via
2:06
Speaker 1: one of the more common ways of which waffle convictions happened,
2:09
Speaker 1: and that's by a guilty plate for an alleged crime
2:12
Speaker 1: that doesn't even warrant a long prison sense. I mean,
2:16
Speaker 1: it wasn't even a crime in the first place. But
2:18
Speaker 1: this also makes this sort of wrongful conviction a lot
2:21
Speaker 1: closer to home. Than some of our listeners might initially realize.
2:25
Speaker 1: And the man we're going to be interviewing today is
2:26
Speaker 1: one of the four guys who lived through this nightmare.
2:28
Speaker 1: But he's become a really close friend and somebody I
2:31
Speaker 1: admire a lot of them, proud to work with. And
2:33
Speaker 1: without further ado, I'll now introduce my friend, dear Tejada Theater.
2:39
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
2:40
Speaker 2: Hey, Jason, happy to be here.
2:42
Speaker 1: Man. So I think it's interesting because you were like
2:45
Speaker 1: a relatively normal kid with a seemingly pretty normal, if
2:49
Speaker 1: you could call anything normal family background. Is that fair
2:53
Speaker 1: to say?
2:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, my parents were both teachers. I grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut.
2:58
Speaker 2: I was like an average door key kid, had good grades,
3:02
Speaker 2: class clown. What happened to me? I never saw happening
3:05
Speaker 2: to somebody like me. For anyone who's listening to this,
3:07
Speaker 2: if you're a parent, if you happen to be middle
3:10
Speaker 2: class and you think that the justice system that it
3:13
Speaker 2: only affects other people, you're gonna want to stay tuned
3:16
Speaker 2: because your kids are not safe.
3:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, whether you're a teenager yourself, or you have teenagers,
3:21
Speaker 1: or or you're just somebody who's concerned about fairness and justice.
3:25
Speaker 1: This story it's important because of how things spiraled from
3:30
Speaker 1: what started off as a dispute amongst young men. And
3:36
Speaker 1: have you ever had any issues with police or any
3:38
Speaker 1: other type of thing like this before.
3:40
Speaker 2: No, I was very small most of my life. I
3:44
Speaker 2: had never gotten in fights before.
3:46
Speaker 1: You were not the instigator, neither were your friends. But
3:50
Speaker 1: rather than me talk about it in the abstract, let's
3:53
Speaker 1: go back to the incident that was at the core
3:56
Speaker 1: of this whining road of what turned out to be
3:59
Speaker 1: official misconduct, and ultimately I'm just saying like madness in
4:04
Speaker 1: the system that was supposed to be there to protect
4:06
Speaker 1: and serve you and everybody. At Norwalk, it.
4:09
Speaker 2: Was my senior year of high school and we were
4:11
Speaker 2: at a party one of my friend's houses. There was
4:14
Speaker 2: a bunch of us from Norwalk, just a bunch of
4:16
Speaker 2: friends there. We were drinking, So there were crimes done
4:19
Speaker 2: that night. Let's be clear. I just wasn't convicted of
4:22
Speaker 2: any of them. I drank and drove that night, but
4:25
Speaker 2: I was convicted of something that I didn't do anyway.
4:28
Speaker 2: So what happened is I'm at the party, I get
4:30
Speaker 2: a call from the girl that I've been seeing things
4:32
Speaker 2: hadn't ended well, and I pick up the phone and
4:35
Speaker 2: this guy on the other line it just immediately starts
4:37
Speaker 2: threatening me. He has like a New York accent, which
4:41
Speaker 2: one like I was. Let me be clear, I was
4:44
Speaker 2: less mature back then. So when he started threatening me,
4:48
Speaker 2: I laughed at it because he was from a town
4:52
Speaker 2: next over to me. The point is that it was
4:54
Speaker 2: a talent where these kids are not known for being tough.
4:57
Speaker 2: But this kid starts threatening me, and it on speakerphone.
5:00
Speaker 2: So a million witnesses right away, which is crazy how
5:03
Speaker 2: many witnesses there were involved. So if you think that
5:06
Speaker 2: like having a bunch of witnesses proving that you're innocent
5:09
Speaker 2: matters and that'll that that necessarily will save you. Not necessarily. Anyways,
5:13
Speaker 2: he threatened me, said he was like gonna kill me,
5:17
Speaker 2: said he was gonna come over there, and I was
5:19
Speaker 2: just like, no, it's okay. I'll come over to the
5:22
Speaker 2: girl's house where he was at. He said that he
5:26
Speaker 2: would have bats when I got there. I just again
5:29
Speaker 2: I was like, dude, you're from Westport, Like, you're not
5:31
Speaker 2: going to do that. You're not a killer. So again
5:35
Speaker 2: judged a book by the cover, or I didn't even
5:37
Speaker 2: know him. Also, for the kids out there, don't be stupid.
5:40
Speaker 2: If you do something stupid, things can spiral very quickly
5:44
Speaker 2: and you could end up going to prison. It's not fun.
5:48
Speaker 2: So I went over to that house, me, two girls
5:51
Speaker 2: hopped in the car, and two of my friends. Long
5:54
Speaker 2: story short, the reason I went there is because I
5:55
Speaker 2: did not believe him. I did not believe anything was
5:58
Speaker 2: going to happen other than me making fun of him,
6:00
Speaker 2: and I was wrong.
6:01
Speaker 1: As I understand it. You arrive with your little crew
6:06
Speaker 1: and the kids who were there at the house, one
6:11
Speaker 1: of whom who seems to have been the main instigator
6:13
Speaker 1: we find out later had a history of acting out
6:17
Speaker 1: and violent and antisocial ways.
6:19
Speaker 2: I definitely did not know the facts of his mental
6:23
Speaker 2: health history, his violent tendencies. I didn't know that then,
6:27
Speaker 2: and I also did not know that until only a
6:30
Speaker 2: couple of years ago when I first found out the
6:32
Speaker 2: fact of what he had been diagnosed with when I
6:35
Speaker 2: looked it up online. Essentially, what it said was that
6:38
Speaker 2: we don't like to call people's psychopaths when they're kids,
6:42
Speaker 2: so we instead say that they have this type of
6:44
Speaker 2: antisocial disorder. You don't get diagnosed with this unless you
6:48
Speaker 2: have violent tendencies. One thing that I didn't know at
6:51
Speaker 2: that time too. I could tell that he was like
6:53
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit drunk, maybe high. But the problem
6:56
Speaker 2: was again is that, like it's what I didn't know about.
6:59
Speaker 2: The different is between the two towns too normal. We
7:02
Speaker 2: were in blue collar, middle class now basically thirty three
7:05
Speaker 2: percent white black. Hispanic was the breakdown of my high school.
7:08
Speaker 2: The town that he was from is all white, pretty
7:10
Speaker 2: much a couple of Asians maybe like one black person,
7:13
Speaker 2: and they're very wealthy. And the difference is that I
7:17
Speaker 2: smoked weed and drank. That's all we had really in
7:20
Speaker 2: Norwalk at that time. Things have changed, but that's all
7:23
Speaker 2: we had. Where he's from, they had been having one
7:25
Speaker 2: of these parties where they were all taking a bunch
7:27
Speaker 2: of different drugs. So I didn't realize that this kid
7:31
Speaker 2: was on the drugs that he was on at this time,
7:34
Speaker 2: nor was that evidence ever introduced during my case. It
7:38
Speaker 2: was only afterwards, in the newly discovered evidence that I
7:42
Speaker 2: got many years later.
7:43
Speaker 1: That would have been useful information for you to know
7:46
Speaker 1: at the time, but of course that was withheld. Then
7:48
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. But so these kids come out
7:50
Speaker 1: of the house with baseball bats.
7:52
Speaker 2: Right, That is right, four guys come out with bats.
7:55
Speaker 2: One of them was like a younger kid, so not
7:56
Speaker 2: a big deal. But I'll tell you what. I was
7:59
Speaker 2: about one hundred and fifteen pounds, the tallest kid, which
8:03
Speaker 2: I didn't know who was who. Unfortunately, the tallest kid
8:05
Speaker 2: was the one that had called me, and yeah, like
8:08
Speaker 2: he was a lot bigger than me, and he wouldn't
8:10
Speaker 2: have necessarily needed the bat to kill me, but he
8:13
Speaker 2: had the bat, and I was unarmed. At that point,
8:15
Speaker 2: two of my friends hopped out of the car, and meanwhile,
8:18
Speaker 2: we're all Spanish, Like my other friends are much more
8:22
Speaker 2: Spanish looking. So I also thought this town, they're probably
8:25
Speaker 2: a little bit racist, and they're gonna be scared of
8:28
Speaker 2: us because we're I don't know, ethnic and stuff. But
8:31
Speaker 2: I was wrong. He wasn't scared at all. I mean,
8:33
Speaker 2: he shouldn't be scared once he has the bats. He
8:36
Speaker 2: went right up to me and basically started things off
8:39
Speaker 2: by putting the bat right up against my head. And
8:41
Speaker 2: in that moment, I realized that, like my plan going
8:44
Speaker 2: over there and just having a couple of laughs, that
8:47
Speaker 2: that plan had gone out the window. And things escalated,
8:50
Speaker 2: so quick fast forward is I get charged with assault
8:54
Speaker 2: in the first degree. So normally the defense in my
8:57
Speaker 2: case is simple, was it assault or was it self defense?
9:01
Speaker 2: So self defense one is that you can't be the
9:04
Speaker 2: initial aggressor, So the first question is who started it.
9:07
Speaker 2: If you're the initial aggressor, you can't do self defense.
9:11
Speaker 2: If the other person's initial aggressor, then there's only one
9:13
Speaker 2: more factor really to consider, what kind of force did
9:17
Speaker 2: they use? Now there's two types of force. One is
9:21
Speaker 2: common as usual, it's not like intended to kill or
9:24
Speaker 2: mame or hurt. That's usually like fists, unless your boxer,
9:28
Speaker 2: maybe you might get the deadly forced. But the second
9:30
Speaker 2: thing is deadly force. So deadly force anytime that you're
9:34
Speaker 2: intending to really hurt somebody, so you could use a
9:37
Speaker 2: knife or a bat. A bat could be used to
9:41
Speaker 2: kill somebody, right, especially like a bat put up against
9:44
Speaker 2: somebody's head. So technically, from the moment that he put
9:48
Speaker 2: the bat up against my head while I was unarmed,
9:52
Speaker 2: I could have acted in self defense. And the level
9:55
Speaker 2: of self defense that I could use is the same
9:58
Speaker 2: as the level of that I'm threatened with. The point
10:02
Speaker 2: is that you tell me audience, knowing this about self defense?
10:06
Speaker 2: Was this self defense or was I guilty of ass all?
10:09
Speaker 1: Well, tell us what happened, because this is the crux
10:11
Speaker 1: of the story right here. And I mean it's a
10:13
Speaker 1: traumatic experience even if nothing had come from it other
10:16
Speaker 1: than the altercation itself.
10:18
Speaker 2: No, so he puts the bat up against my head.
10:22
Speaker 2: I'm scared, I'll be honest. I had never been that scared,
10:25
Speaker 2: and the kid was clearly a little bit off. I
10:28
Speaker 2: realized at that point he's sort of stumbling around and
10:30
Speaker 2: realistically he probably would have killed me if he hadn't
10:33
Speaker 2: been so screwed up. But he goes from the bat
10:36
Speaker 2: up against my head. I try and push it away,
10:38
Speaker 2: you know, I wanted to try and talk. He was
10:40
Speaker 2: not having that. Basically looked at me. H. I didn't
10:44
Speaker 2: know that he had been diagnosed with a mental disorder.
10:48
Speaker 2: He was scary looking. Nobody had looked at me like
10:50
Speaker 2: that before. So he takes the bat after that and
10:52
Speaker 2: just hits me in the stomach. I'm not stare out
10:55
Speaker 2: of me. I mean, as much as my case sucked,
10:57
Speaker 2: it could have been worse. I could have been dead,
10:59
Speaker 2: and I might have been dead if I hadn't had
11:00
Speaker 2: my friends there. If they had decided to come along
11:03
Speaker 2: because they had heard about the bad thing, I guess
11:04
Speaker 2: they took it more seriously than I. But after he
11:07
Speaker 2: hits me, he turned around and was laughing to his
11:10
Speaker 2: friends or whatever. And one of my buddies ran over
11:13
Speaker 2: and punched him in the head, knocked him down. He
11:15
Speaker 2: starts trying to get up, so I run over punch him,
11:19
Speaker 2: grab the bat from him. After he hits me, he
11:21
Speaker 2: like swings it at me, like loosely on the ground.
11:24
Speaker 2: That one did not hurt, I'll tell you that much,
11:26
Speaker 2: but it did piss me off. I'd go down wrestle
11:29
Speaker 2: with him for the bat again. I'm pretty strong now,
11:32
Speaker 2: I was not strong then. He was about double my size,
11:35
Speaker 2: and if he hadn't been high on drugs, I don't
11:38
Speaker 2: think I would have won in that time. He was,
11:40
Speaker 2: and so I wrestled the bat away from him. He
11:43
Speaker 2: rolled over. I hit him in the legs twice and
11:45
Speaker 2: then hit him in the back once. One thing I
11:48
Speaker 2: learned that night was that I had never hit somebody
11:50
Speaker 2: with a bat before, and I don't have it in
11:52
Speaker 2: me to hit somebody with a bat full force. So
11:54
Speaker 2: I didn't hurt him. Maybe if I'd hurt him or
11:57
Speaker 2: things would have gone differently, but I didn't hurt him
11:59
Speaker 2: that badly. And what's interesting is one of the stories
12:02
Speaker 2: that evolved afterwards was that I hit him in the
12:06
Speaker 2: head with a bat and hurt him early bad. I
12:09
Speaker 2: never did him in the head with the bat at all,
12:12
Speaker 2: And it's ironic because what actually did happen is he
12:15
Speaker 2: did put his hands over his head and I remember
12:18
Speaker 2: I like like he held down it and was like,
12:20
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna hit you in the head, you idiot.
12:23
Speaker 2: And then I was before I hit him in the legs.
12:26
Speaker 2: Long story short after I hit him with the bat
12:27
Speaker 2: a couple of times, which, again I know, it sounds
12:30
Speaker 2: pretty bad hitting somebody with a bat, not assault, not
12:34
Speaker 2: under the circumstances of when that bat was wielded against you.
12:37
Speaker 2: And trust me, he was fine. He got back up,
12:40
Speaker 2: he was spry at that point. Gets backed up, and
12:42
Speaker 2: now he went to go pick up the bat and
12:45
Speaker 2: he started trying to get in a second fight with me,
12:49
Speaker 2: and I was just like, nah, now put the bat down, though,
12:52
Speaker 2: like why are you get on the bat again? Basically
12:54
Speaker 2: we're all sprawled out on the lawn at that point.
12:57
Speaker 2: Long story short after he got back up and threatened me.
13:00
Speaker 2: I just kept on turned down to fight. The girl
13:02
Speaker 2: comes out. At that point things get pandemonic. But that
13:05
Speaker 2: was the end of my involvement. But what did end
13:08
Speaker 2: up happening is he did end up getting into something
13:10
Speaker 2: with a couple other kids. So three other kids show
13:14
Speaker 2: up a little while after after we had that first scuffle.
13:18
Speaker 2: They came from the party that I was at. I
13:21
Speaker 2: didn't call them. I didn't I didn't have anything to
13:23
Speaker 2: do with them showing up there, except that everybody at
13:25
Speaker 2: the party I've been at, like heard it on speakerphone.
13:27
Speaker 2: But he gets into a fight with them, and in
13:32
Speaker 2: the second fight again he basically starts it chest bumps
13:35
Speaker 2: one of the kids. He gets punched in the face
13:37
Speaker 2: again drops and this time he got kicked while I
13:41
Speaker 2: was on the ground. But I wasn't involved in any
13:43
Speaker 2: of that. And shortly after that, I mean, he did
13:47
Speaker 2: get up and we just left went back to Norwalk
13:51
Speaker 2: and that was that. I remember thinking that night, Okay,
13:54
Speaker 2: that was my first fight. You know, I'd heard about
13:57
Speaker 2: other people getting in fights. That's my first fight. I
13:59
Speaker 2: thought I was gonna be a crazy night that you know,
14:01
Speaker 2: talk about for a week and whatever, but it ended
14:05
Speaker 2: up being at the start of the most defining thing
14:07
Speaker 2: that happen in my life.
14:21
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by global law firm Greenberg Trrig
14:24
Speaker 1: through its pro bono program.
14:26
Speaker 3: Greenberg Traig leverages its more than twenty four hundred lawyers
14:29
Speaker 3: across forty two offices to serve the greater good of
14:31
Speaker 3: our communities and provide equal access to justice for all.
14:35
Speaker 3: In the field of criminal justice, Greenberg TRIVIERG attorneys have
14:38
Speaker 3: exonerated in Free deomand in Philadelphia, represent numerous individuals previously
14:43
Speaker 3: sentenced to life for crimes committed as juveniles and resentencing hearings,
14:46
Speaker 3: and received the American part Association's twenty twenty one Exceptional
14:50
Speaker 3: Service Award for Death Penalty Representation for their.
14:52
Speaker 1: Work on five death penalty cases. GT is reimagining what
14:57
Speaker 1: big law can be because a more just world only
15:00
Speaker 1: happens by design.
15:08
Speaker 2: If you think that your kid, all all you us
15:10
Speaker 2: to do is go in and tell the truth, well,
15:13
Speaker 2: let me tell you this is facts. Anything you say
15:16
Speaker 2: can and will it will be used against you. It
15:18
Speaker 2: will not be used in your favor. So don't believe
15:21
Speaker 2: that it's a good idea to just bring your kid in,
15:24
Speaker 2: your kids, that honest kid, and you can just say
15:27
Speaker 2: what happened, and that's going to be helpful or won't.
15:30
Speaker 2: Going into this, I thought that the system worked a
15:32
Speaker 2: certain way. Our parents did too. We thought assault for
15:36
Speaker 2: self defense, so we thought that mattered. But guess what,
15:39
Speaker 2: all that stuff went out the window, right, like facts
15:41
Speaker 2: evidence that was not part of the case. Basically, they
15:45
Speaker 2: decided from beginning who they were going to go after
15:47
Speaker 2: and what the facts were going to be. That I
15:50
Speaker 2: was guilty of assault, and the first degree mainly happened
15:54
Speaker 2: a little bit later, and they had trouble with it
15:56
Speaker 2: because to have a first degree charge you need to
15:59
Speaker 2: actually show evidence of injury, and they were not willing
16:03
Speaker 2: to turn over the medic because I think the way
16:06
Speaker 2: that the case actually first got to the police was
16:09
Speaker 2: Nick may have been hurt, but he also was clearly
16:12
Speaker 2: on drugs that night, pretty heavy drugs. When he got there.
16:16
Speaker 2: They needed to give him his antipsychotics, basically calm him down.
16:20
Speaker 1: So you've got a group of rich kids high on
16:23
Speaker 1: drugs and something's wrong with their friend Nick, who's also
16:26
Speaker 1: on various drugs and got into a fight. They called
16:29
Speaker 1: Westport PD at one seven am and requested an ambulance. Now,
16:33
Speaker 1: Nick was allegedly in a semi conscious state, and so
16:37
Speaker 1: one of the main goals of this group of drugged
16:39
Speaker 1: out rich kids at this point had to be to
16:40
Speaker 1: hide the fact that they were in fact all high
16:43
Speaker 1: on drugs, which certainly affected their interactions with the police. Now,
16:47
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what happened after you left the
16:50
Speaker 1: scene that night THEA but what we do know is
16:52
Speaker 1: that Schwartz was well enough to try to continue to
16:55
Speaker 1: fight you, followed by the crowd that had gathered. But
16:58
Speaker 1: as you just mentioned, the first degree assault charge against
17:01
Speaker 1: you was, I mean, as flimsy as it could be,
17:04
Speaker 1: not even counting the self defense aspect of this. But
17:07
Speaker 1: because they never turned over the medical records and still
17:11
Speaker 1: have it right, so it really calls it to question
17:14
Speaker 1: the validity of any claims of injury. I mean, you know,
17:18
Speaker 1: I've read about these alleged injuries in the news slippings
17:21
Speaker 1: because the prosecutor said it. But sorry to separate what's true.
17:26
Speaker 1: He was alleged to have been in the ICU for
17:29
Speaker 1: a week, followed by physical and cognitive rehabilitation. What we
17:33
Speaker 1: do know is that you did not could not have
17:37
Speaker 1: caused that level of injury to Schwartz, even though in
17:40
Speaker 1: self defense in theory, you were legally allowed to have
17:44
Speaker 1: done so with no legal issues. So this is a
17:47
Speaker 1: double whammy. This is like really what? But now back
17:50
Speaker 1: to the people who had something to hide, we're talking
17:53
Speaker 1: again about the drugged out rich kids. What happens between
17:56
Speaker 1: them and the police.
17:58
Speaker 2: The way that the detective work happened is first talked
18:00
Speaker 2: to him and his friends. Friends lied really badly. They
18:04
Speaker 2: said that we were a bunch of Mexicans they met
18:05
Speaker 2: a library. Told this like ludicrous story. So the detective
18:10
Speaker 2: had them come back in and actually she had to
18:12
Speaker 2: make them change their story to another lie not as
18:16
Speaker 2: consistent as their first one, and their next one was
18:18
Speaker 2: all like a little bit scattered. The point is that
18:21
Speaker 2: she tried to fit the pieces in together after my interview.
18:25
Speaker 2: In fact, the detective did some of the most like
18:27
Speaker 2: leading interviews that I've ever seen. You know, I went
18:31
Speaker 2: to law school. I've seen a bunch of cases and
18:33
Speaker 2: it's up there. And some of the interviews, including my own,
18:36
Speaker 2: were quote lost after they were recorded because Unfortunately my
18:41
Speaker 2: interview wasn't that great for the prosecution. It sounded pretty credible.
18:45
Speaker 2: I didn't buckle under any questioning, just tole the truth.
18:49
Speaker 2: And after the investigation we went to go hire my attorney.
18:52
Speaker 2: And this was the best piece of advice he gave
18:54
Speaker 2: us from the beginning was this. We went there, were
18:56
Speaker 2: getting ready to tell him my story, the facts, evidence,
18:59
Speaker 2: but he astutely surmised that none of that mattered. The
19:03
Speaker 2: only thing that mattered was the prosecutor.
19:06
Speaker 1: Who do you know?
19:07
Speaker 2: That was the first thing that my parents now raised
19:10
Speaker 2: by my attorney, who do you know? Because that's how
19:14
Speaker 2: this guy operates, by this guy who was talking about
19:17
Speaker 2: the prosecutor of my kids.
19:19
Speaker 1: That's exactly the way this shouldn't work. And that's why
19:22
Speaker 1: anyone who cares about fairness and equity should care about
19:26
Speaker 1: fixing our system, because this is unfortunately not unique. As
19:30
Speaker 1: you said, this case is, you know, unique in certain ways,
19:33
Speaker 1: but it's so typical in so many others, including that
19:37
Speaker 1: particular aspect. So ultimately, like a lot of other people,
19:41
Speaker 1: you were faced with the Sophie's choice, right, you didn't
19:43
Speaker 1: know anybody. The fact is your family didn't have any
19:46
Speaker 1: particular contacts high up in the hierarchy in the town.
19:50
Speaker 1: And so you were now really especially because of the
19:54
Speaker 1: fact that they were willing to operate outside of the
19:57
Speaker 1: law right and break and bend the rules, you know,
20:00
Speaker 1: in service of I don't know who what I guess
20:03
Speaker 1: the family that was on the other side of this equation.
20:06
Speaker 1: So Teter, I got to turn the question around, So
20:09
Speaker 1: who did they know?
20:10
Speaker 2: The difference was my parents were teachers. They didn't know anyone.
20:13
Speaker 2: The closest we got was I had shadowed for the
20:16
Speaker 2: mayor of Norwalk once not good enough. On the other hand,
20:20
Speaker 2: the kid who I was accused of assaulting his parents
20:23
Speaker 2: were both attorneys. They won that battle and the rest
20:26
Speaker 2: of the case just led from there. The prosecutor in
20:29
Speaker 2: my case was a who do you know type of prosecutor,
20:32
Speaker 2: which there's a number of them out there, and he
20:34
Speaker 2: was very ambitious. So the moment that he figured out
20:38
Speaker 2: who knew somebody more important, who knew somebody that could
20:40
Speaker 2: actually advance his career or get him ahead, or help
20:43
Speaker 2: him in some way, that's when when the case of
20:46
Speaker 2: this side, it wasn't personal. He didn't he didn't intentionally
20:50
Speaker 2: do something to hurt me. He didn't care about that.
20:53
Speaker 2: He didn't want to get people wrongfully convicted. He will
20:56
Speaker 2: wrongfully convict you if it helps him. He will also
20:59
Speaker 2: do justice if it helps him. That's how this guy operated.
21:02
Speaker 2: Three of my friends, we were just stepping stones on
21:05
Speaker 2: this man's journey to the top, and he actually made
21:08
Speaker 2: it there a couple of weeks ago. Finally came crashing
21:11
Speaker 2: down because the typical things that he did, the thing
21:14
Speaker 2: that I learned about him twelve years ago, he finally
21:18
Speaker 2: got caught doing it. But this time he got caught
21:20
Speaker 2: doing it by the FBI, and the governor got pretty
21:22
Speaker 2: upset and they wanted him out, so he actually resigned
21:26
Speaker 2: in disgrace. He had made it all the way up
21:28
Speaker 2: to the Chief State's Attorney's office, along the backs of
21:32
Speaker 2: who knows how many other people. He did this too.
21:34
Speaker 2: But I'll just tell you this that we were on
21:36
Speaker 2: the wrong end of that who do you know question.
21:38
Speaker 1: Back there, and that's where this thing goes so hardly wrong.
21:41
Speaker 1: Although it is nice to see that it's come full
21:43
Speaker 1: circle and that you know, at least justice delayed seems
21:47
Speaker 1: like it won't be justice denied here, although you're still
21:50
Speaker 1: dealing with this. So let's get to this sophie's choice
21:52
Speaker 1: that I'm talking about, right, So here you are, they're
21:55
Speaker 1: not disclosing the exculpatory evidence to you. There's a lot
21:59
Speaker 1: of us there's stuff going on behind the scenes that
22:01
Speaker 1: you had no way of counteracting or fighting back against,
22:05
Speaker 1: first of all, because you didn't know about it a
22:07
Speaker 1: lot of it, and the rest of it was you
22:08
Speaker 1: didn't know anybody, you know who could pull the strings
22:11
Speaker 1: for you. So you were just a thing to be
22:15
Speaker 1: sort of processed for the advantage of other people who
22:19
Speaker 1: didn't have good intentions, and as a result, you end
22:22
Speaker 1: up with this sophie's choice. So tell us about that,
22:26
Speaker 1: because they you know, you're looking at a ten year
22:29
Speaker 1: sentence on this first degree assault charge, and then they
22:32
Speaker 1: come and they offer you a plea deal, right, And
22:37
Speaker 1: I can't imagine having to decide, am I going to
22:39
Speaker 1: take a plea for something I didn't do, which is,
22:42
Speaker 1: I would say, in your case, in too many cases,
22:45
Speaker 1: the logical and rational choice, or am I going to
22:48
Speaker 1: fight this and risk a ten year sentence, which would
22:52
Speaker 1: be at that point, you know, a large percentage of
22:55
Speaker 1: the time you've even been on the planet.
22:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think that's another one of the key
22:59
Speaker 2: facts in my case, sort of. I haven't seen many
23:02
Speaker 2: stories about Rolberic Conviction's work. It was a plea deal,
23:04
Speaker 2: but I'll tell you this much. It's probably the number
23:07
Speaker 2: one way why because ninety five percent of cases are
23:11
Speaker 2: determined by a plea deal. People think that prosecutors if
23:14
Speaker 2: they come to you with like, oh, the prosecutor is
23:15
Speaker 2: a ninety five percent conviction rate, he's really good. No,
23:19
Speaker 2: he isn't. All he is is a good like car
23:21
Speaker 2: salesman who has everything in his hand. Essentially, I knew
23:25
Speaker 2: that I was innocent, but I also knew math, and
23:27
Speaker 2: so did the prosecutor, and he did good math. I
23:31
Speaker 2: was ninety five percent sure that ever went to trial,
23:34
Speaker 2: I would win out. I was one hundred percent sure
23:36
Speaker 2: I wouldn't get an assault one charge. I wasn't so
23:38
Speaker 2: sure about the assault three charge, but that was only
23:40
Speaker 2: because they had been switching up the facts so much.
23:43
Speaker 2: I mean, in retrospect, it's so clear, it's so clear,
23:46
Speaker 2: the case is so easy. But you know, my parents
23:49
Speaker 2: and I, we were new to the system. We had
23:50
Speaker 2: never seen it before. So long story short, they dragged
23:54
Speaker 2: this case out. All this stuff keeps going on. I
23:57
Speaker 2: had gotten into college. In the meantime, I was terrifying,
24:00
Speaker 2: and I remember eventually, after a number of continuancies, I
24:04
Speaker 2: went in one day. I didn't know I was going
24:06
Speaker 2: to go to prison that day, but I go in
24:08
Speaker 2: and finally the prosecutor comes back with the ultimate deal.
24:11
Speaker 2: It's a take it or leave it. They haggled. Originally
24:14
Speaker 2: it was going to be a year, and then he
24:16
Speaker 2: was like, make the quote victims. You need to make
24:19
Speaker 2: them happy. If you make them happy, maybe i'll give
24:23
Speaker 2: you a better deal. And my parents against mine. This
24:27
Speaker 2: is an interesting part of the case too, is you think,
24:29
Speaker 2: because I know what people think, that people get want
24:31
Speaker 2: fully convicted only if they're broke. We weren't broke. My
24:35
Speaker 2: parents were middle class and if you have money, you
24:37
Speaker 2: won't get wrong fully convicted. Yeah, we had money. They
24:39
Speaker 2: gave it all to these people for a deal, for
24:42
Speaker 2: a deal that one wasn't honored. So I was supposed
24:45
Speaker 2: to get a better deal because my parents gave money,
24:47
Speaker 2: but we didn't get a better deal. Didn't affect the
24:50
Speaker 2: case at all. But long story short, money was part
24:53
Speaker 2: of the deal, and I accepted nine months because I
24:57
Speaker 2: knew that. The math said, that's the deal to take
25:00
Speaker 2: the hardest decisions that I ever made. But it was
25:02
Speaker 2: the right decision based on the facts. Back then, all
25:06
Speaker 2: of my co defenders, we all took the same deal
25:09
Speaker 2: based on the facts we had. Now the facts we
25:11
Speaker 2: had were not the full facts. That was the issue.
25:16
Speaker 2: But at that time, Yeah, it took nine months, over
25:20
Speaker 2: ten years. And trust me, I know everyone thinks they
25:22
Speaker 2: wouldn't do it. Yes you would, Yes you would, and
25:26
Speaker 2: you would hate it, and you would cry as your
25:28
Speaker 2: kid goes in and he will be hurt. He might
25:32
Speaker 2: not make it out. I'm well aware that I was lucky,
25:35
Speaker 2: and I've been lucky since.
25:52
Speaker 1: All four of you were convicted. All four of you
25:55
Speaker 1: were minors. All of you served your full sentences, a
25:58
Speaker 1: prison and parole. Caesar Cordero, your friend who I've gotten
26:03
Speaker 1: to know, was deported to El Salvador as a result
26:05
Speaker 1: of the conviction, which was a country he had no
26:07
Speaker 1: knowledge of. It was a baby when he was brought
26:10
Speaker 1: here from there, so even more dire consequences for him.
26:15
Speaker 1: So prison, as it turns out, the transformative experience for
26:20
Speaker 1: you in some ways that are positive, not because of prison,
26:23
Speaker 1: and not because you belonged there, because you didn't. But
26:26
Speaker 1: it informs your life's work. So tell us about prison
26:31
Speaker 1: and how it affected you and made you want to
26:34
Speaker 1: become this sort of justice warrior that you've become.
26:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, so prison was a turning point, especially after sentencing.
26:42
Speaker 2: You know, I thought I was at the lowest point ever.
26:45
Speaker 2: I went into sentencing and I thought I was going
26:47
Speaker 2: to talk about everything that had happened that was so wrong.
26:50
Speaker 2: But instead I didn't, which was the hardest thing I
26:53
Speaker 2: had ever done. But I knew that I've get hit
26:55
Speaker 2: with a harder sentence. I remember I didn't cry much
26:59
Speaker 2: while I was in side, but I think twice my
27:02
Speaker 2: first letter from my parents. But I cried after sentencing
27:06
Speaker 2: alone in a cell and thought my life was over.
27:09
Speaker 2: Judge said that my life was over.
27:10
Speaker 1: He was wrong.
27:12
Speaker 2: My life now that I'm living, which is the better
27:14
Speaker 2: life than I ever had, It started while I was inside.
27:18
Speaker 2: For me, it was one the wake up Paul was
27:20
Speaker 2: that this is how the system works, this is what
27:22
Speaker 2: it is. What I saw was a bunch of people
27:24
Speaker 2: that didn't deserve to be in there, a prison system,
27:27
Speaker 2: in a court system that was nothing like what the
27:30
Speaker 2: general public were people like the average person, people like
27:33
Speaker 2: you and me thought it was. And I knew that
27:37
Speaker 2: even the people that were running it, the lawyers, the judges.
27:40
Speaker 2: One of the big epiphanies I had was like, do
27:43
Speaker 2: they even know what it's like in here? And I
27:47
Speaker 2: knew that they did it, So I knew that one
27:49
Speaker 2: of the big problems was that the people that are
27:53
Speaker 2: running the system, they are changing laws that are actually
27:57
Speaker 2: executing them that even they they don't really know. So
28:02
Speaker 2: how in God's name with a system that doesn't include
28:05
Speaker 2: people that have been through it, If they're not included
28:08
Speaker 2: in the process of making the system better, how will
28:10
Speaker 2: it ever be solved? So prison was not a very
28:14
Speaker 2: long sentence for me, but it was a massive period
28:17
Speaker 2: of change. I committed to doing something about it.
28:21
Speaker 1: You get out of prison in October two thousand and nine,
28:24
Speaker 1: and you said in your law admissions letter, quote, I
28:27
Speaker 1: doubt I will ever experience the same level of euphore
28:30
Speaker 1: you as I did on that day. And of course
28:32
Speaker 1: you went to law school and excelled. But I want
28:35
Speaker 1: to talk about the evidence of your wrowful conviction that
28:39
Speaker 1: emerged too late to help you, but which we now
28:42
Speaker 1: know what were the key pieces of evidence that you
28:45
Speaker 1: were able to uncover that had you known about, would
28:48
Speaker 1: have been well, never would have You never would have
28:52
Speaker 1: made the decision to take a plea, and you would
28:53
Speaker 1: have gone to try and you would have won. I
28:55
Speaker 1: think that's almost a given, So talk about that.
28:58
Speaker 2: So I took a plea deal with because I had
29:02
Speaker 2: less than half the evidence. So my case originally was
29:05
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eighth nine conviction. The new evidence
29:09
Speaker 2: didn't come about until twenty twenty. So after law school,
29:13
Speaker 2: I had to take the bar and I went back
29:16
Speaker 2: to Connecticut to take it, and you know, you take
29:18
Speaker 2: the exam and then there's this thing called the character
29:21
Speaker 2: and fitness process. So in the process of that, they
29:24
Speaker 2: asked me to go get all the evidence in my case.
29:28
Speaker 2: So the police report is one of the key pieces
29:30
Speaker 2: of evidence in any case. It's usually just very good
29:34
Speaker 2: for the prosecutor because it's written by the police detective,
29:37
Speaker 2: especially if the detective happens to do a bad investigation.
29:40
Speaker 2: But in my case, that police report, I was missing
29:43
Speaker 2: more than half of it. Back in two thousand and eight,
29:46
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, when I was trying to make
29:47
Speaker 2: my decision, I had a twenty one page document. Many
29:50
Speaker 2: years later, many years after the case, I go back
29:53
Speaker 2: to get the police report from the Westport Police Department,
29:56
Speaker 2: and this time what I got was the document that
29:59
Speaker 2: was forty four paygs document that we had never seen before.
30:02
Speaker 2: In those twenty three pages, there was a lot of evidence.
30:05
Speaker 2: I know why we never got it before because it
30:07
Speaker 2: was all bad for the state's case. We got evidence
30:11
Speaker 2: of the not the full medical reports, still don't have
30:14
Speaker 2: them doing a Freedom of Information Act right now to
30:17
Speaker 2: get it, but we got evidence that showed that one
30:19
Speaker 2: the kid was on a number of drugs, drugs that actually,
30:21
Speaker 2: especially for somebody with his mental disorder, can lead to
30:25
Speaker 2: quote violence. Additionally, a diagnosis of the conduct disorder, which
30:31
Speaker 2: is only given to young people very rarely, and it's
30:34
Speaker 2: only in the case when they've exhibited violent tendencies. That
30:38
Speaker 2: coupled with some of the witness statements that either contradict
30:43
Speaker 2: completely the state's case or cast doubt on the credibility
30:48
Speaker 2: of their key witnesses, all of that evidence we never
30:51
Speaker 2: had before. One other key piece of evidence is actually interesting,
30:55
Speaker 2: so that at my sentence there was a big shell
30:58
Speaker 2: put on. They made a big deal and as they
31:00
Speaker 2: should in an assault one case, an assault one case
31:03
Speaker 2: you need to have an injury. So in two thousand
31:06
Speaker 2: and eight, two thousand and nine, what we were led
31:08
Speaker 2: to believe the prosecutor said during my centusing was that
31:11
Speaker 2: this kid, you know, he had been really hurt. He
31:14
Speaker 2: had a fractured skull, he was in the hospital, he
31:17
Speaker 2: had permanent injuries, he had cognitive and speech problems, trouble walking.
31:24
Speaker 2: The problem was that wasn't true, and a pretty strong
31:29
Speaker 2: evidence that he was actually totally okay. In fact, I
31:33
Speaker 2: didn't see this until many years later, but social media
31:36
Speaker 2: did exist in two thousand and nine and he was
31:39
Speaker 2: on it, and he has a post that I found
31:41
Speaker 2: that was up from that exact time when he's allegedly
31:45
Speaker 2: in a hospital bed fighting for his life and never recovering.
31:49
Speaker 2: The photo is of him and his family in Africa
31:53
Speaker 2: on a mountaintop and the line was summer of nine,
31:58
Speaker 2: best time of my life. So it's unclear to me
32:02
Speaker 2: yet whether or not he was lying to the prosecutor fully,
32:06
Speaker 2: but it's pretty clear that the prosecutor was lying or
32:09
Speaker 2: that what he said was lie. The kid was fine,
32:11
Speaker 2: and we took the plea deal based on the evidence
32:14
Speaker 2: back then, which included an alleged terrible injury, and as
32:19
Speaker 2: time of your life is not recovering from a terrible
32:22
Speaker 2: injury Africa sounds nice. After uncovering that, I remember, I
32:27
Speaker 2: brought it to my co defendants right away and just
32:31
Speaker 2: was like, hey, guys, have you had you ever seen this?
32:34
Speaker 2: None of us had, and all of us to the tea. Yeah,
32:38
Speaker 2: of course I never would have taken the plea deal
32:40
Speaker 2: had I seen this. Why would I. No dury in
32:44
Speaker 2: the world's going to convict us with this. So in addition,
32:48
Speaker 2: you know, after that, I started doing like a little
32:51
Speaker 2: investigation myself and started interviewing witnesses again, and some people
32:57
Speaker 2: lied back then. Wasn't personal. People were just looking at
33:00
Speaker 2: for themselves or you know, in the case of the
33:02
Speaker 2: kid who assaulted me, his friends they literally said why
33:05
Speaker 2: they lined, we were afraid of him getting in trouble.
33:08
Speaker 2: That's what they told the police detective after she made
33:10
Speaker 2: them redo their statement. But since then they've recanted that.
33:14
Speaker 2: In addition to the police report, which we always should
33:17
Speaker 2: have had, is basically the basis of wrong for the conviction.
33:20
Speaker 2: And on top of all that, the most recent thing
33:23
Speaker 2: is what happened with the prosecutor. Now his corruption charge,
33:26
Speaker 2: which really his credibility is shot, and the argument in
33:31
Speaker 2: terms of what he did to us and what he
33:34
Speaker 2: did intentionally, it's not that hard to make now that
33:36
Speaker 2: he's shown to be somebody who's still doing this stuff.
33:41
Speaker 1: And of course, the guy you're referring to is Richard Colangelo,
33:44
Speaker 1: who was the prosecutor in your case and who later
33:47
Speaker 1: served as Chief State's Attorney until March thirty first, twenty
33:50
Speaker 1: twenty two. So get this, While the FBI was investigating
33:55
Speaker 1: the state's second highest budget official, they subpoenaed all of
33:59
Speaker 1: his communication, and on the back of that, an independent
34:02
Speaker 1: investigation began into his relationship with Colangelo, who had hired
34:07
Speaker 1: this budget official's daughter. Yeah, okay, while lobbying to secure
34:12
Speaker 1: raises for himself and others. Again, it's just a pattern
34:17
Speaker 1: of who can benefit me, But in this case he
34:21
Speaker 1: was actually caught and forced to resign. So at the
34:24
Speaker 1: end of the day, your case is a laundry list
34:27
Speaker 1: of misconduct and misdeeds by people and official capacities who
34:34
Speaker 1: knew better and just didn't care. There are so many
34:38
Speaker 1: stories like this. There's a whole hashtag hashtag guilty plea
34:41
Speaker 1: problem for people to look up hashtag guilty plea problem,
34:45
Speaker 1: and many of them have much longer sentences, even for
34:48
Speaker 1: much more serious crimes. But people take the plea because,
34:52
Speaker 1: you know, when they're represented by an attorney maybe they
34:54
Speaker 1: haven't even met, who might not even know their name,
34:56
Speaker 1: who's juggling one hundred or two hundred cases, having trouble
35:00
Speaker 1: paying their bills, maybe having their own personal problems. We
35:02
Speaker 1: see time and again and you're sitting there and you
35:04
Speaker 1: know the government has endless resources, you know, to take
35:08
Speaker 1: you to trial and to basically make you look like
35:11
Speaker 1: you did the crime that you know you didn't do.
35:15
Speaker 1: The rational choice in too many of these cases is
35:18
Speaker 1: to take the plea, and there goes the guilty plea problem,
35:21
Speaker 1: of which you are a symbol anyway you've transcended this
35:26
Speaker 1: horrible experience. You come out swinging. Is a bad way
35:32
Speaker 1: to say it based on the initial incident, but the
35:35
Speaker 1: fact is you are on the way to changing things
35:39
Speaker 1: in I think a way that it's so profound that
35:42
Speaker 1: you know it's going to put you in a rarefied
35:45
Speaker 1: air among the people that I really look up to
35:48
Speaker 1: in the world of criminal justice reform. You're well on
35:51
Speaker 1: your way, so let's talk about the work you're doing now.
35:53
Speaker 1: I mean, you're the founder of the National Justice Impact
35:57
Speaker 1: Bar Association, which is of course a bar association for
36:01
Speaker 1: formerly incarcerated lawyers, an idea whose time has certainly come,
36:06
Speaker 1: you know, surprising, I think to a lot of people,
36:08
Speaker 1: a surprising number. I've formerly incarcerated people who have you know,
36:11
Speaker 1: gone on to become lawyers and excel of course, Marty
36:16
Speaker 1: tank Lip and so many others. You know, it's amazing,
36:19
Speaker 1: And there's a whole other category of people who just
36:21
Speaker 1: did brilliant legal work on their own, behalf on behalf
36:23
Speaker 1: of others behind bars, like I can'tnot mention Sean Hopwood, right,
36:26
Speaker 1: who's won US Supreme Court cases and taught himself the
36:29
Speaker 1: law in prison, and just you know, there's so much
36:33
Speaker 1: potential for these people to make a difference with their
36:36
Speaker 1: lived experiences, as you have so quickly tell us about
36:38
Speaker 1: the National Justice Impact Bar Association, and I want to
36:40
Speaker 1: talk about the other project that we're working on together.
36:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, so just the Backbar. It's the first legal bar
36:46
Speaker 2: association for impacted people. Essentially, it's just following my path
36:52
Speaker 2: trying to like expand the Deader plan to the masses.
36:55
Speaker 2: You know, inside, I decided that I needed to go
36:57
Speaker 2: to law school because I saw that the laws where
37:00
Speaker 2: the power was. During my journey, I realized that there
37:04
Speaker 2: were a lot of barriers, a lot of barriers that
37:06
Speaker 2: were specifically there because of my experience, which was crazy
37:10
Speaker 2: to me, because you know, I played the game to
37:13
Speaker 2: go to law school. I got four point zero. I
37:15
Speaker 2: got a one to seventy five ninety nine point five
37:17
Speaker 2: percent on the l SAT. And when I applied to
37:20
Speaker 2: law school, I should have gotten in everywhere. And now
37:22
Speaker 2: I would have, luckily partially because we've expanded things for people.
37:26
Speaker 2: But back then I was denied from a number of schools.
37:29
Speaker 2: I ended up going to Vanderbilt. It's very happy about that.
37:33
Speaker 2: It was great, But that barrier at the law school level,
37:37
Speaker 2: and the barrier that also exists afterwards, was the character
37:40
Speaker 2: and fitness process for licensing. That barrier is inspired initially
37:45
Speaker 2: for me to set up this bar association because I've
37:47
Speaker 2: talked to other people Marty Tancliffe, Tara Simmons, Sean Hopwood,
37:51
Speaker 2: Dwayne Betts, all these lawyers. When I was going to
37:55
Speaker 2: law school, I didn't know that it was possible. I
37:57
Speaker 2: was told it was impossible, and I didn't know that
37:59
Speaker 2: there were other people like that, but there are. That
38:01
Speaker 2: was one of the key things that, Like, I get
38:03
Speaker 2: out of law school and i find out about all
38:05
Speaker 2: these other lawyers and I'm like, holy, and they they're
38:10
Speaker 2: they're superheroes. I mean, they're they're they're We're there, We're
38:13
Speaker 2: changing the system. I'm blessed to be around in this
38:16
Speaker 2: time period. And that's what the bar works for, is
38:18
Speaker 2: to advance us to get more people like Shawn Hopplin.
38:21
Speaker 2: There are more Shawn Hoplins out there. I just talked
38:24
Speaker 2: to another guy who's formerly incarcerated, been working with him
38:26
Speaker 2: for like two years now. He just got into Yale
38:28
Speaker 2: Law School, that's the best law school in the country.
38:31
Speaker 2: Formerly incarcerated. Awesome, he's gonna he's gonna be a beast.
38:35
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
38:37
Speaker 2: It's an Axgonnery. I'll tell you this. I won't name
38:39
Speaker 2: them yet, but I know who the first justice in
38:41
Speaker 2: fact of the Supreme Court justice is gonna be. You
38:44
Speaker 2: can circle back with me in a couple of years,
38:46
Speaker 2: but you'll see. So these people are the people that
38:49
Speaker 2: are going to change the system, and.
38:50
Speaker 1: Of course to Justice Impact Alliance. As you know, the
38:54
Speaker 1: very first time you told me about this, it just
38:57
Speaker 1: hit me like a ton of bricks. And it's something
38:59
Speaker 1: that I think has the potential to help countless future
39:04
Speaker 1: Deeter Tejadas and others who are in situations that they
39:08
Speaker 1: have seemingly no way out of. So what is the
39:12
Speaker 1: Justice Impact Alliance and what do you view as its
39:15
Speaker 1: potential and the impact it's going to make.
39:17
Speaker 2: So that's the second thing. It's all about access, empowerment,
39:22
Speaker 2: and inclusion, and so the bar as it works to
39:26
Speaker 2: get impacted people involved in and through the field of law.
39:30
Speaker 2: The Justiceback Network is a new digital platform that came
39:34
Speaker 2: about again because of my experience. In my case, part
39:37
Speaker 2: of the reason I was want fully convicted was my
39:39
Speaker 2: parents and I we weren't layers, We did not know,
39:42
Speaker 2: we weren't stupid, but we didn't know where to go
39:44
Speaker 2: to get the help, or to get the self help
39:46
Speaker 2: resources that we could have used, or to connect with
39:49
Speaker 2: people that could have helped us in the situation. And
39:52
Speaker 2: that's a problem that's all too common. There are a
39:55
Speaker 2: number of resources out there, there are a lot of
39:57
Speaker 2: service providers out there, but up until this point, it's
40:00
Speaker 2: completely unnavigable, and that's what the DISPEC network works to fix. Essentially,
40:06
Speaker 2: it's like any other digital platform that has revolutionized other industries.
40:11
Speaker 2: Uber has revolutionized how you get arrived. Just the back
40:14
Speaker 2: network is going to revolutionize how people get justice. And
40:18
Speaker 2: it's not going to do it any in any complicated way.
40:20
Speaker 2: It's literally very simple. If we connect people with service
40:24
Speaker 2: providers that fit their specific need, we connect people with
40:30
Speaker 2: resources that fit their specific need. We have very cool
40:35
Speaker 2: program that brings in students and other allies and just
40:38
Speaker 2: connects the space to make this happen. But the key
40:42
Speaker 2: thing is, and it's the key thing with everything that
40:44
Speaker 2: I've done so far, is that we do it through
40:46
Speaker 2: the people. Just in fact, people are included from the
40:49
Speaker 2: beginning or working with developers that have done other justice
40:52
Speaker 2: tech projects, but we're the first digital platform where we
40:55
Speaker 2: from the beginning, it's been over a year of development.
40:58
Speaker 2: From the beginning, we were working with Impact of People,
41:01
Speaker 2: doing user testing with Impact of People, and where we
41:05
Speaker 2: have our pilot right now in New York and Connecticut,
41:08
Speaker 2: but we're going to be expanding nationally over time, and
41:11
Speaker 2: that's really exciting. It's awesome.
41:13
Speaker 1: I mean for me, it's just such an amazing idea
41:16
Speaker 1: because of the fact that it's simplifying what is a
41:20
Speaker 1: byzantine and intimidating process for a lot of people. This
41:23
Speaker 1: information is not readily available for people who need it
41:26
Speaker 1: in their time of great crisis and to their family members.
41:30
Speaker 1: So please go to the link in our bio right
41:34
Speaker 1: now click on the Justice Impact Alliance dot org to
41:38
Speaker 1: find out more about this incredible work and maybe to
41:41
Speaker 1: help somebody that you know that needs the help. And Peter,
41:44
Speaker 1: you know, amazing work, amazing story. Thank you again for
41:49
Speaker 1: being here on Ronful Conviction and sharing it. I've been
41:52
Speaker 1: looking forward to this for a while.
41:53
Speaker 2: Thank you Jackson, Thank you for everything you do. Man
41:56
Speaker 2: on one of the real ones out there. I'll just
41:59
Speaker 2: throw in that. Also, in my case, there's one other
42:02
Speaker 2: thing you could do. My co defendant, Caesar Cordero, he
42:06
Speaker 2: added the worst out of all of us. He was
42:08
Speaker 2: legally here, but because of the wrong folk conviction, he
42:11
Speaker 2: had lost his status. He ended up getting deported, He
42:14
Speaker 2: got sent back to El Salvador. He left there as
42:17
Speaker 2: a baby, got sent back there only because of the
42:20
Speaker 2: wrong for conviction. Ultimately, my goal is to work and
42:24
Speaker 2: to get him to be able to come back over here.
42:27
Speaker 2: That's going to be a long fight. But right below
42:29
Speaker 2: the justin back Lions one is going to be the
42:32
Speaker 2: link to his gofund me because he needs support.
42:35
Speaker 1: We will link to go fundme for Caesar as well
42:38
Speaker 1: in the buyout and hopefully people will join me and
42:41
Speaker 1: us in helping him. And now, of course we turned
42:44
Speaker 1: to the closing of our show, which is aptly titled
42:47
Speaker 1: Closing Arguments. This is the part where I kicked back
42:51
Speaker 1: in my chair with my headphones on, turn my microphone off,
42:54
Speaker 1: and just leave yours on for any last words you
43:00
Speaker 1: want to share with our audience to.
43:02
Speaker 2: The general public, to take anything from my story, to
43:05
Speaker 2: take this that what happened to me, it definitely can
43:08
Speaker 2: happen to you. It can happen to you if you
43:10
Speaker 2: have a you're on a roll kid, your kid that
43:13
Speaker 2: you love a lot that you can't ever imagine going
43:15
Speaker 2: to prison. You think that like you have the money,
43:18
Speaker 2: or that you have like some type of security, you don't.
43:21
Speaker 2: You don't. Necessarily, things can spile very quickly and depending
43:25
Speaker 2: on the characters involved, justice might not be done. They
43:30
Speaker 2: could go to prison. Another message I have is this.
43:34
Speaker 2: It's to all the impact of people both in and
43:37
Speaker 2: out of prison. Anybody that's listening to this one, if
43:41
Speaker 2: you want to be a layer, do it. Talk to me,
43:43
Speaker 2: reach out, check out the link. That's what we're working
43:46
Speaker 2: to do. We're trying to work to get.
43:47
Speaker 1: You in there.
43:48
Speaker 2: I didn't know that I could do it, but I did.
43:51
Speaker 2: I'm telling you right now you definitely can. So don't
43:53
Speaker 2: think about it, do it and hang in there. The
43:56
Speaker 2: one thing I found is that eventually, eventually you win
44:00
Speaker 2: eventually as long as you stay in just stay in
44:02
Speaker 2: the fight. And to everybody else, if you want to
44:06
Speaker 2: make a better system, I've seen it because I work
44:08
Speaker 2: with hundreds of students and hundreds of students, the future
44:11
Speaker 2: is bright. The future is super bright. And that's because
44:16
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people coming up that want to
44:17
Speaker 2: do the right thing. And here's the point. You can
44:21
Speaker 2: you can't get involved, work with us, work with impacted people.
44:26
Speaker 2: Right now, we're in the middle of a movement, a
44:28
Speaker 2: movement for justice. The point is that there's impacted people
44:31
Speaker 2: and their students are the two main groups that have
44:33
Speaker 2: been involved. But quite frankly, also if you're a lawyer
44:36
Speaker 2: or somebody else that's working in the system. Wake back up,
44:39
Speaker 2: Wake back up to the fact that, like you, don't
44:42
Speaker 2: have to give up on things and be totally burnt out.
44:46
Speaker 2: Things are changing right now and we look forward to
44:50
Speaker 2: anybody that wants to be part of this change to
44:53
Speaker 2: make it happen, and quite frankly, to anybody that doesn't
44:57
Speaker 2: want this change too bad, whether you like it or not. Luckily,
45:02
Speaker 2: I've gotten to the point where some of the things
45:05
Speaker 2: that I've built and I don't build things that are
45:08
Speaker 2: like Deet dependent. The more association is not Deeter dependent,
45:12
Speaker 2: just in fact alliances and deader dependent. These are machines
45:14
Speaker 2: that are going to be working for and through my
45:16
Speaker 2: people regardless of the follow year, and they're going to
45:19
Speaker 2: work to fix the system. They are systems that attach
45:23
Speaker 2: to the system to make the system better.
45:32
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
45:35
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wardis.
45:39
Speaker 1: With research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
45:42
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
45:45
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
45:49
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast and on Twitter at
45:53
Speaker 1: Wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
45:56
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
45:59
Speaker 1: TikTok Talk and Instagram at it's Jason flam raefl Conviction
46:03
Speaker 1: is the production of Lava for Good podcasts and association
46:06
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one