Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #416 Jason Flom and Maggie Freleng with Andre Brown (Live from the UJC Summit 2023)

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#416 Jason Flom and Maggie Freleng with Andre Brown (Live from the UJC Summit 2023) · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: On the evening of January fifteenth, nineteen ninety nine, a
0:06
Speaker 1: masked man approached two teenage boys in front of a
0:09
Speaker 1: bodega in the Bronx on a corner known for drug activity.
0:14
Speaker 1: The assailant drew a gun and shot one of the
0:16
Speaker 1: young men several times while the other ran off. The
0:20
Speaker 1: gunman chased the other young man down the block and
0:23
Speaker 1: around the corner before paralyzing him with one shot to
0:26
Speaker 1: the back. While both victims survived, only one was conscious,
0:31
Speaker 1: but he couldn't or wouldn't provide a lead. An eyewitness
0:35
Speaker 1: said that she recognized the shooter as a guy from
0:38
Speaker 1: the neighborhood named Drey. The police remembered Andre Brown, a
0:43
Speaker 1: neighborhood kid who was shot in the leg one year
0:45
Speaker 1: prior in a drug dispute. The specter of his injured
0:48
Speaker 1: leg and alternate suspects were ignored when both the witness
0:53
Speaker 1: and the victim agreed that Andre was the assailant. But
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Speaker 1: this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. Recently,
1:16
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm and I were asked to record an interview
1:18
Speaker 1: in front of a live audience at the annual United
1:21
Speaker 1: Justice Coalition Summit. The UJC aims to raise awareness around
1:25
Speaker 1: social justice issues and the need for criminal legal system reform.
1:30
Speaker 1: So for our live interview, we thought of a mutual friend,
1:33
Speaker 1: someone whose case I covered on my podcast Unjustin Unsolved
1:36
Speaker 1: while he was still wrongfully incarcerated, Andre Brown. Andre agreed
1:41
Speaker 1: to join us at the summit along with his attorney
1:43
Speaker 1: Oscar Michelin.
1:49
Speaker 2: Thanks everybody for being here. I'm gonna ask, first of all,
1:51
Speaker 2: how many people in this room were wrongfully convicted and sentenced?
1:55
Speaker 2: Oh my god, see that? And how many people here
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Speaker 2: know somebody who was wrongfully convicted? Oh my god, that's
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Speaker 2: a lot of hands. Yeah, this shit is everywhere. It's horrible,
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Speaker 2: and I'm really really thrilled to be here with these amazing,
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Speaker 2: amazing people. Maggie Feeling, Oscar, and of course Andre Brown.
2:11
Speaker 2: And I'm so glad that Andrea is here. I mean,
2:14
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you're here, because I'm so glad you're
2:15
Speaker 2: here with your amazing, beautiful family and everything. But his
2:19
Speaker 2: case start with this, Okay. It features a witness who
2:24
Speaker 2: didn't testify, but her testimony was allowed in any way,
2:28
Speaker 2: which meant that no one was allowed to cross examine her.
2:31
Speaker 2: Second of all, the shooter shot one guy execution style,
2:35
Speaker 2: then chased his friend caught up to him on the street. Now,
2:38
Speaker 2: this is an eighteen year old kid running for his life,
2:41
Speaker 2: and somehow this guy was fast enough to catch up
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Speaker 2: with him and shoot him and paralyze him too. Andre
2:46
Speaker 2: had a bullet wound in his leg and had a
2:49
Speaker 2: syndrome that meant that he could barely walk, much less run.
2:54
Speaker 2: And it also features a lawyer who, while he was
2:58
Speaker 2: representing Andrea A. Try Well, had a side hustle which
3:01
Speaker 2: was committing so many crimes for the Banano crime family
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Speaker 2: that he ended up being the only attorney in American
3:08
Speaker 2: history to enter the Witness Protection program. So it's a
3:13
Speaker 2: shit show. So get ready to hear what we're about
3:15
Speaker 2: to hear, because this is just different and Andre is
3:18
Speaker 2: just a different kind of guy. I mean to no
3:20
Speaker 2: one is to love him.
3:21
Speaker 1: So with that, Maggie all right, So hello everyone, thanks
3:25
Speaker 1: for coming. So we're just gonna start from the top
3:28
Speaker 1: with Andre. Why don't you tell us a little bit
3:30
Speaker 1: about yourself.
3:31
Speaker 3: I was raised in a two parent household. It was
3:34
Speaker 3: the Uptime area, the Northeast Bronx. The crack epidemic was
3:38
Speaker 3: going on a lot of gun shots being fired continuously.
3:42
Speaker 3: The trains were littered homeless people, and it was just
3:45
Speaker 3: a real, just tragic time in the Bronx. My life
3:49
Speaker 3: was a fair life. My mother was a stewardess for
3:53
Speaker 3: the airlines, and she raised us and groomed us to
3:56
Speaker 3: be good individuals. And then my mother and my father separated.
4:01
Speaker 3: At that time, I was in high school, and now
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Speaker 3: I was taken on the onus of raising my brothers.
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Speaker 3: So I said, how can I now change the course
4:14
Speaker 3: of their lives and allow myself to continue in an
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Speaker 3: upward manner. First I took on a job at creating barrel,
4:24
Speaker 3: trying to think that it would be able to fit
4:27
Speaker 3: the bill, and it didn't. It couldn't feed my little
4:30
Speaker 3: sister or my other two brothers. So at that time
4:34
Speaker 3: I said, you know what, I have to do something else.
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Speaker 3: And my friend introduced me to selling drugs. And when
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Speaker 3: I started to sell drugs, literally I thought I was
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Speaker 3: a genius at it. And this is how your mind
4:46
Speaker 3: gets cultivated poorly in the streets. You start to really
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Speaker 3: engage and think that you know better than law enforcement,
4:54
Speaker 3: you know better than society, and you also know better
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Speaker 3: than that old adage car tune the turtle and the rabbit,
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Speaker 3: thinking that, oh, I know what I'm doing. I'm running
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Speaker 3: past this little working man, this turtle. So in selling
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Speaker 3: drugs and thinking I was a genius, I got shot,
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Speaker 3: a simple leg shot, mind you, It hit my major
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Speaker 3: artery and I almost led to death. And that was
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Speaker 3: the turning point in my life.
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Speaker 1: So you almost died, So you got on a better
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Speaker 1: path in life.
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Speaker 3: Yes, First of all, you have to be an enforcer
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Speaker 3: on a block in order to hold it down. I
5:31
Speaker 3: was injured, critically injured. I was at the point where
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Speaker 3: I couldn't walk, I could no longer hold down a block.
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Speaker 3: So I said, what am I going to do now
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Speaker 3: with my life? And I started going back to college.
5:43
Speaker 3: At that point I enrolled in BMCC. And that's when
5:47
Speaker 3: you know.
5:48
Speaker 1: Tragedy occurred, right, And I want to bring that to Oscar.
5:52
Speaker 1: January fifteenth, nineteen ninety nine. What happened that day?
5:56
Speaker 4: So, on that day there was a shooting on a
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Speaker 4: street corner in the Bronx Allerton Avenue, White Planes Road.
6:02
Speaker 5: That area.
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Speaker 4: The corner there was Little Bodeig, a little corner store
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Speaker 4: had been a spot where young Jamaican gang had started
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Speaker 4: selling marijuana out of for the past about year or so,
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Speaker 4: and the cops were aware of that, and so there
6:16
Speaker 4: became a little bit of a rival turf war for
6:19
Speaker 4: that location from the earlier crews that had been working
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Speaker 4: there selling marijuana. And so the first incident that happened
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Speaker 4: was on January eleventh, there was a shootout on that corner,
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Speaker 4: two exchanges of gunfire. Nobody got shot, some cars were
6:34
Speaker 4: shot up, so the police responded. On January thirteenth, two
6:38
Speaker 4: days later, one of the guys that hustles on that corner,
6:41
Speaker 4: guy named O'Neil virgo, got arrested, and sure enough the
6:45
Speaker 4: gun he had on him was connected to the shooting
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Speaker 4: on the eleventh, so he gets the rest of for
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Speaker 4: a gun charge. And then on the fifteenth, O'Neil Virgo
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Speaker 4: and another man, Sewann Nicholson or out on that corner
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Speaker 4: selling drugs. Somebody comes up right down White Planes Road,
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Speaker 4: sees them on the corner, They see the gun, got
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Speaker 4: a mask on. The shooter literally stands over O'Neil virgo
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Speaker 4: and shoots him several times and then runs down the
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Speaker 4: street to try to get the other guy, Sewan Nicholson
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Speaker 4: they were in a full city block.
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Speaker 5: He makes a left turn onto the.
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Speaker 4: Next block, which is Alinville, and the shooter shoots him
7:18
Speaker 4: there one time, hits him in the spine and paralyzes him.
7:21
Speaker 4: Somehow they both survived, so his attempted murder, there was
7:25
Speaker 4: lots of discrepancies as to what the shooter was wearing.
7:28
Speaker 4: Was it a face mask, was it a a handkerchief
7:30
Speaker 4: of bandana, et cetera. So they asked the victim at
7:34
Speaker 4: that time, Sean Nicholson, mister Virgo could not speak. He
7:37
Speaker 4: was the one who shot five or six times. And
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Speaker 4: that initial police report Sewan Nicholson, he says, I can't
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Speaker 4: identify the shooter, and so the police start scouring the
7:46
Speaker 4: area looking for witnesses.
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Speaker 2: So how did it end up with them settling on
7:52
Speaker 2: a guy who, it should have been painfully obvious from
7:55
Speaker 2: the very beginning not only didn't do it, but couldn't
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Speaker 2: have done it.
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Speaker 4: They started listening to rumors in the in the street
8:02
Speaker 4: and one of the women who later recanted said, you know,
8:06
Speaker 4: the shooter looked a little bit like this guy I
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Speaker 4: know from the neighborhood Dre. So the next thing they
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Speaker 4: do with that is go to the hospital and get
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Speaker 4: Sean Nicholson, who had repeatedly said I didn't see the
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Speaker 4: guy he had a mask to pick Andre allegedly out
8:20
Speaker 4: of a photo array. So what Nicholson actually said, or
8:23
Speaker 4: what the police got him to say, was, as he
8:25
Speaker 4: was falling to the ground, he looked over his shoulder
8:28
Speaker 4: and saw the shooter pulled the mask off his face
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Speaker 4: and he could recognize Andre from the neighborhood.
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Speaker 5: Sounds totally legitm exactly happens all the time.
8:36
Speaker 4: Two days later, a witness comes forward who claims she
8:40
Speaker 4: was in her car when the shooting occurred. And this
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Speaker 4: is about five point thirty six o'clock at night on
8:46
Speaker 4: a winter night, so it was just starting to get
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Speaker 4: dark in January. And then she says she saw the
8:50
Speaker 4: shooter run past her and pull up his mask just
8:53
Speaker 4: as he passed her car window. She also said that
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Speaker 4: the shots were fired by her car, but the shots
9:00
Speaker 4: that shot mister Nicholson as a described around the corner,
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Speaker 4: so she would not have been able to see what
9:06
Speaker 4: she said she saw. And she said that she was
9:08
Speaker 4: so upset that night she reported to the police because
9:11
Speaker 4: she almost had a heart attack and she was treated
9:13
Speaker 4: for Angina that night, so she didn't come forward until
9:15
Speaker 4: two days later. After there was already the rumors in
9:19
Speaker 4: the neighborhood and they were already looking for Andre.
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Speaker 1: So, Andre, when you found out they were looking for you,
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Speaker 1: you turned yourself in with a lawyer.
9:26
Speaker 5: Yes.
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Speaker 3: They came to my girlfriend's house early in the morning.
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Speaker 3: They missed me. I had just went out to get
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Speaker 3: breakfast really quick and came back. She was trembling and
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Speaker 3: she said, listen, the police were here. They left the
9:37
Speaker 3: card that they searched the home. I immediately reached out
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Speaker 3: to my mom and she said, Andre, they were just here.
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Speaker 5: Also, I was just about to call you.
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Speaker 3: And I went to the Bar Association to meet Martin Fisher.
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Speaker 3: Martin Fisher was a family attorney, and I said, Marty,
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Speaker 3: they're looking for me. I don't know what they're looking
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Speaker 3: for me for. They were contacted by Martin and they said,
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Speaker 3: we want to ask him a few questions. He said, no,
10:00
Speaker 3: he's represented by me. You cannot ask him any questions.
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Speaker 3: I said, okay, Well, if we need him, we'll contact you.
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Speaker 3: Two days later, on the Wednesday morning, they contacted him,
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Speaker 3: which was the twentieth of January, and I went down
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Speaker 3: there with my mom and my girlfriend at the time,
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Speaker 3: and walked right into the prison. I didn't have a
10:17
Speaker 3: worry in the world because I knew that I didn't
10:20
Speaker 3: have anything to do with this case. So at that
10:23
Speaker 3: time I was not a prisoner yet. I was actually
10:25
Speaker 3: seated outside of the push door. And it's ironic because
10:30
Speaker 3: one of the detectives there, he said, Andre, don't you
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Speaker 3: remember me?
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Speaker 5: And I'm like, no, I don't.
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Speaker 3: Who are you? He said, when you were shot? I
10:38
Speaker 3: came to the hospital, so they knew that I was
10:40
Speaker 3: shot already before even any questions were occurring. And then
10:46
Speaker 3: my attorney went inside spoke to them, and he came
10:49
Speaker 3: back out, and at that point they arrested me. And
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Speaker 3: I became enraged. You know, I was yelling at my attorney.
10:56
Speaker 3: I was yelling at them. I said, listen, I could
10:58
Speaker 3: have never committed this crime. I showed them my injury.
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Speaker 3: They noted it. It was on the police reports. And
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Speaker 3: then I went to a lineup, and when I went
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Speaker 3: to the lineup, I was picked out of the lineup
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Speaker 3: as the suspect.
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Speaker 2: It's a perfect time to highlight the fact that I
11:26
Speaker 2: witness identification has been proven in experiments to be less
11:29
Speaker 2: accurate than guessing when you're in a hyper tense situation,
11:34
Speaker 2: like your own life is on the line, when there's
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Speaker 2: gunshots being fired, when it's a running gun situation. Literally
11:39
Speaker 2: in this case, your adrenalinees going. And most people think
11:42
Speaker 2: their minds work like a camera, but in fact we're
11:45
Speaker 2: so easily influenced that in this case, it seems like
11:47
Speaker 2: the police may have influenced these witnesses, and I'm being
11:50
Speaker 2: very kind.
11:51
Speaker 5: They may have, and.
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Speaker 4: We believe that she did witness it, that she was there,
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Speaker 4: that we do believe, but we believe that she was
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Speaker 4: guided into picking the wrong person.
12:00
Speaker 1: In addition to any guidance the victim and the witness
12:03
Speaker 1: may have received from law enforcement, Andre's case features a
12:06
Speaker 1: very unfortunate coincidence. It became clear many years later when
12:11
Speaker 1: the true assailant was discovered that he and Andre could
12:14
Speaker 1: easily be mistaken for one another, especially given the alleged
12:18
Speaker 1: quick glances that the witness and victim were relying on
12:21
Speaker 1: to make their identifications.
12:24
Speaker 5: What were the charges to attempted murders?
12:27
Speaker 3: Two assaults, breakleast endangerment and the list just goes on.
12:31
Speaker 5: And on, and everything under a gun possession, gun possession.
12:35
Speaker 4: The family hired a well known criminal defense attorney named
12:38
Speaker 4: Ira Brown, and the first appearance, Iira says to the judge,
12:41
Speaker 4: But the family retained me, but they don't have enough
12:43
Speaker 4: money to pay for an expert. Can the court pay
12:45
Speaker 4: for an expert? You see, Judge, my client just recently
12:48
Speaker 4: started being able to walk without a cane. He's still
12:51
Speaker 4: undergoing physical therapy, and at the time of this shooting,
12:54
Speaker 4: he couldn't possibly have ran the two city blocks that
12:58
Speaker 4: the shooter did. So I want to get the medical records,
13:01
Speaker 4: and I want to hire an expert orthopedist. And the
13:03
Speaker 4: judge said, well, that sounds like a pretty strong defense.
13:06
Speaker 4: So let me start with five hundred dollars, get the
13:08
Speaker 4: medical records, and then when you hired the expert, let
13:11
Speaker 4: me know you know what else you need, because yes,
13:13
Speaker 4: we'll pay for that. What happened was Ira was on
13:17
Speaker 4: trial two or three times in a row when Andrea's
13:20
Speaker 4: case was on and the family decided we have to
13:22
Speaker 4: get somebody else. At that time, there were a lot
13:25
Speaker 4: of mafia trials going on, you know, the Gotti cases,
13:28
Speaker 4: and mafia lawyers were kind of considered the.
13:30
Speaker 5: Cream of the crop.
13:31
Speaker 4: And they hired a guy named Thomas Lee to take
13:34
Speaker 4: over the case, and that's where everything fell apart. So
13:38
Speaker 4: even though the judge had approved this money, Thomas never
13:41
Speaker 4: pursued the medical evidence after that. And there were two
13:45
Speaker 4: witnesses that he told the court he was trying to
13:48
Speaker 4: locate who would name another shooter, a witness named Graham
13:51
Speaker 4: and a witness named Cleveland. And he gave subpoenas to
13:54
Speaker 4: the judge and he didn't have the addresses on the subpoenas,
13:57
Speaker 4: so the judge said, I can't sign a blank subpoena.
13:59
Speaker 4: Get me the addresses and I'll sign them. And he
14:02
Speaker 4: never did anything else after that. The last straw, and
14:05
Speaker 4: what Jason was referring to, was that the one eyewitness
14:08
Speaker 4: was going to testify. The woman in the car ran
14:10
Speaker 4: into Andre's mother and a family friend at a laundromat
14:14
Speaker 4: and they pleaded with her, you know, you made a mistake.
14:17
Speaker 4: My son didn't do this. She reports that to the DA,
14:19
Speaker 4: who reports it to the judge, and the judge said, well,
14:22
Speaker 4: that's perfectly normal. They didn't threaten her. They just told
14:24
Speaker 4: her they think her son is innocent. But what the
14:26
Speaker 4: DA was saying was that she didn't want to come
14:28
Speaker 4: forward and testify. We believe she didn't want to come
14:31
Speaker 4: forward and testify because she knew that she probably did
14:33
Speaker 4: not identify the right person. But what happened after that
14:36
Speaker 4: is the day before she's supposed to testify, a bullet
14:39
Speaker 4: in an envelope ends up under her windshield wiper and
14:42
Speaker 4: it says, this is what happens to rats, you fat bitch.
14:47
Speaker 3: And it was written in reading and ready with two
14:50
Speaker 3: bullets in a left on her windshield.
14:53
Speaker 4: Right, so of course Andre's incarcerated, so so he didn't
14:57
Speaker 4: do it right. The point about Lee being involved, what
15:01
Speaker 4: the judge said was it had to have been someone
15:04
Speaker 4: connected to the defendant. What she didn't consider it was
15:07
Speaker 4: the lawyer was a fully made member of the Banano
15:09
Speaker 4: crime family and one of the crimes he got arrested
15:12
Speaker 4: for and turned informant was that he would go to
15:15
Speaker 4: the jail and speak to the dawn who was arrested
15:18
Speaker 4: because he could go see him without anybody listening. He's
15:20
Speaker 4: a lawyer, and he would go back and give instructions,
15:23
Speaker 4: including who to give a garbage contract to in Staten Island,
15:27
Speaker 4: who to give a garbage contract to in the bronx
15:29
Speaker 4: and who to kill and who to promote within the family,
15:33
Speaker 4: who's more likely to intimidate it Like that's their game,
15:35
Speaker 4: that's what they do.
15:36
Speaker 5: This sounds like a mob guy.
15:38
Speaker 4: And it would also explain why he wouldn't do the
15:40
Speaker 4: rest of the work because he says, there's one witness.
15:43
Speaker 4: If she doesn't show up, the case is over, and
15:47
Speaker 4: I can't you know, many times they would tell clients,
15:48
Speaker 4: you know, they would say, don't worry, she's not going
15:50
Speaker 4: to show up. And I would say them, you know,
15:52
Speaker 4: the third floor in Attica is called a she showed
15:55
Speaker 4: up wing. Okay, you know, don't count on someone not
15:58
Speaker 4: showing up. She's going to show she hates you, okay.
16:02
Speaker 4: But so Heap was probably counting on that he was
16:04
Speaker 4: going to be able to intimidate her and I don't
16:06
Speaker 4: need to worry about it.
16:08
Speaker 1: Even though it's believed that this witness refused to testify
16:11
Speaker 1: due to her doubts over her identification, the appearance of
16:14
Speaker 1: witness intimidation probably did not reflect well on Andre. Meanwhile,
16:19
Speaker 1: his attorney's trial strategy hinged on both her absence and
16:23
Speaker 1: being able to cross examine the victim, who had initially
16:26
Speaker 1: said that he could not identify the shooter. Well, both
16:29
Speaker 1: of those things came to pass. The witness's absence at
16:32
Speaker 1: trial had an unforeseen and unfortunate result.
16:36
Speaker 4: They let the DA read her testimony from the grand jury.
16:40
Speaker 4: It was a total of six questions, Where were you
16:44
Speaker 4: on that night in my car? What happened? Somebody ran
16:47
Speaker 4: behind me? What happened after that? I saw a second
16:49
Speaker 4: person would have gone ran after him. What happened after that?
16:52
Speaker 4: I heard shots? What happened after that? He pulled his
16:54
Speaker 4: mask off. Were he able to see his face?
16:56
Speaker 5: Yes? Did you recognize him? Yes? Who? Andre Bran?
17:00
Speaker 4: Now she didn't know the name Andre Brown. She only
17:02
Speaker 4: knew was Dre. But by the time the grand jury
17:05
Speaker 4: she had learned the name, and he said, how do
17:07
Speaker 4: you know him.
17:07
Speaker 5: From around the neighborhood? That's it?
17:09
Speaker 4: Okay, those eight questions, whatever I just went through. That
17:13
Speaker 4: was her testimony. That's what convicted Andre essentially was those
17:16
Speaker 4: eight questions. But she wasn't cross examined about being in
17:18
Speaker 4: the car at night, being scared. The jury never heard
17:21
Speaker 4: she almost had a heart attack. The jury never saw
17:24
Speaker 4: how similar Andrea looked to the real shooter. Obviously, now
17:27
Speaker 4: Nicholson testified, you know, also that he saw him as
17:30
Speaker 4: he fell, and he was pretty well cross examined by Lee.
17:33
Speaker 4: I will say that that's what he was good at
17:35
Speaker 4: to say how incredible it could be that you could
17:37
Speaker 4: be falling down looking over your shoulder and catch a
17:39
Speaker 4: glimpse of a guy, you know. So that was the
17:42
Speaker 4: whole evidence.
17:43
Speaker 1: Right there, right So to just summarize the entire evidence
17:46
Speaker 1: against you, Andre, was not cross testimony from this witness.
17:51
Speaker 1: That's it.
17:51
Speaker 5: That's it. No motive, no physical evidence.
17:54
Speaker 1: Those eight questions convicted Andre.
17:57
Speaker 2: So Andre, that moment when the jury came back in,
18:01
Speaker 2: can you take us inside your heart, your soul, your
18:04
Speaker 2: experience of being in that courtroom the jury comes back
18:08
Speaker 2: and says guilty.
18:10
Speaker 3: At that very moment, I was shaking the pinnacle of
18:13
Speaker 3: either I'm going home or I received this forty years.
18:17
Speaker 3: And I sat there and the judge came in and
18:20
Speaker 3: we all rose, and there was one guy I'll never
18:23
Speaker 3: forget in the jury and he kept looking at me
18:25
Speaker 3: and he was shaking his head like, yo, Yo, it's
18:27
Speaker 3: not good, man, it's not good. And I looked at him.
18:30
Speaker 3: I said what happened? He said, Yo, They found you guilty,
18:33
Speaker 3: and I told Lee.
18:35
Speaker 5: I hit him.
18:36
Speaker 3: I said, Yo, they're gonna find me guilty. He said,
18:39
Speaker 3: what are you talking about. I put on a great
18:41
Speaker 3: defense and he put on no defense. Didn't bring my
18:44
Speaker 3: medical records anything like that to the jury's attention. And
18:47
Speaker 3: I was trembling knowing that I was about to be convicted.
18:51
Speaker 3: I just felt like an entire cold go over my body.
18:55
Speaker 3: It's almost as if your soul leaves you, because you
18:58
Speaker 3: know this is the trend information of life itself. After
19:02
Speaker 3: I was convicted, I was taken back upstairs. I was
19:06
Speaker 3: crying continuously, taking back to records island.
19:09
Speaker 5: So the judge waited.
19:11
Speaker 3: I think it was like three months before sentencing, and
19:14
Speaker 3: I thought that the judge would have saw the lies
19:17
Speaker 3: and would have changed her mind and sent me home.
19:22
Speaker 3: I can remember it clearly. I said, she's going to
19:25
Speaker 3: see it. She'll see the lies, she'll see that Thomas
19:29
Speaker 3: Lee didn't put on the defense. She'll be able to
19:32
Speaker 3: see medical records something. But when I come back, I'm
19:37
Speaker 3: going to be freed. And when I was sentenced, I
19:40
Speaker 3: snapped again and I said, do you see what you're
19:43
Speaker 3: doing to an innocent man? Do you see what you're
19:45
Speaker 3: taking me away from Do you see that You're taking
19:47
Speaker 3: me from my college, from my family, from my potential girlfriend,
19:52
Speaker 3: everything that I've worked so hard for. Do you see
19:55
Speaker 3: what you're taking away from me? And she said, mister Brown,
19:57
Speaker 3: I'll understand, but you have an appeal. And she sentenced me.
20:01
Speaker 3: She said, for the first count, I'm going to sentence
20:03
Speaker 3: you to twenty years, and then she said for the
20:08
Speaker 3: second count, I'm going to sentence you to twenty years.
20:11
Speaker 3: And both of these sentences will run consecutive to one another.
20:15
Speaker 3: And I didn't understand what that meant at the time.
20:18
Speaker 3: And then when I got back and they gave me
20:22
Speaker 3: my sentence and commitment papers, it said forty years. I
20:36
Speaker 3: want our audience to really understand going through a bullpen
20:39
Speaker 3: therapy in the three stages of prison, because it changes
20:44
Speaker 3: the cognition of your mind.
20:45
Speaker 1: Well as you were a child, so your brain is
20:47
Speaker 1: still developing when you went into prison.
20:49
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so you know I'm arrested, kicking, screaming, being dragged
20:55
Speaker 3: into prison saying you did something that you didn't do.
20:58
Speaker 3: I go through the central booking is the first stage
21:01
Speaker 3: in prison, straight madness and chaos. People sleeping on the floor,
21:05
Speaker 3: you're trying to get to the phone system. You're trying
21:07
Speaker 3: to lay on a bench where individuals is fighting and
21:10
Speaker 3: pulling and tugging and saying if you're not built like that,
21:12
Speaker 3: you're not sleeping on the bench. You're going to sleep
21:15
Speaker 3: under the bench. You're going to sleep on the floor.
21:16
Speaker 3: You may sleep near the toilet whereas all urine filled.
21:21
Speaker 3: So this is the first stage of being thrown inside
21:25
Speaker 3: the madness. And then the second stage is going through
21:28
Speaker 3: reyk As Island. And now you're fighting to get on
21:31
Speaker 3: the phones again, you're fighting in the yard, you're making
21:35
Speaker 3: sure now you're exercising so that you can stay you know,
21:38
Speaker 3: built for anything that's going to come at you. So
21:42
Speaker 3: it's a war zone from Central Book and two reyk
21:44
Speaker 3: As Island. And now you're getting thrown inside the Department
21:48
Speaker 3: of Corrections where they're supposed to rehabilitate you. But now
21:52
Speaker 3: it's more gangs, it's more violence, it's more police assault,
21:58
Speaker 3: it's more just the pitfalls of the criminal justice system.
22:03
Speaker 3: So immediately my mind started to trigger Andre. Now you're
22:07
Speaker 3: going to be like them. You have to now engage
22:11
Speaker 3: into the brutality to make it to take phone to
22:17
Speaker 3: carry raisers, to carry sharp objects, to protect yourself. You
22:21
Speaker 3: have to battle in order to have your core beliefs
22:26
Speaker 3: and your freedoms met in the minds of these men
22:30
Speaker 3: who understand that we're criminals.
22:33
Speaker 1: When you put an innocent child in prison with people
22:37
Speaker 1: that are actually dangerous, there are dangerous people in prison.
22:41
Speaker 5: You have to survive, absolutely.
22:43
Speaker 1: And that could also be a huge hindrance to him
22:46
Speaker 1: getting out if he got in a fight or someone
22:48
Speaker 1: attacked him and something happened. I mean, we don't even
22:52
Speaker 1: think about that. When we put someone like you in
22:54
Speaker 1: prison that's innocent, you could come out an actual criminal
22:57
Speaker 1: at that point.
22:58
Speaker 5: It came up.
22:58
Speaker 4: But as strong as you got into a fight, and
23:00
Speaker 4: the DA brought it to the attention that he got
23:02
Speaker 4: into a violent altercation at prison because they made a
23:05
Speaker 4: bail application. So even though you didn't know that, that's
23:08
Speaker 4: exactly what happened.
23:09
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, but yeah, that could have hurt
23:11
Speaker 1: your chances of getting out absolutely. So, Oscar, how did
23:15
Speaker 1: you get this man out of prison?
23:16
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's get to the good stuff here.
23:19
Speaker 4: Well, So, one of the reasons I got involved in
23:21
Speaker 4: Andrea's case is this is my neighborhood we went to
23:23
Speaker 4: the same high school, Christopher Columbus and the Bronx for Columbus.
23:26
Speaker 2: He wrongly identified a whole country.
23:28
Speaker 4: Exactly wasn't even on the same continent. But in any event,
23:34
Speaker 4: the case right, I said, it spoke to me, but
23:36
Speaker 4: also showed how weak it was. We just found out
23:39
Speaker 4: a lot during freedom information laws, which is everybody's good friend.
23:43
Speaker 4: We first found a report at DD five that was
23:46
Speaker 4: not given to either mister Ira Brown or to Lee
23:50
Speaker 4: that showed that the police had actually tested the bullets
23:53
Speaker 4: and found that the bullets on the fifteenth matched the
23:57
Speaker 4: gun that was used on the eleventh, So we already
24:01
Speaker 4: knew that Virgo had one of the guns, so this
24:05
Speaker 4: had to be the gun that was shooting at Virgo
24:07
Speaker 4: on the eleventh. So, frankly, I felt that was almost
24:10
Speaker 4: enough because now we had a motive for the jury
24:12
Speaker 4: that the same person who shot at these two young
24:14
Speaker 4: men also shot them on the fifteenth, and O'Neil Virgo
24:18
Speaker 4: had told the police he got a look at the
24:20
Speaker 4: person who shot him on the eleventh and he didn't
24:22
Speaker 4: think it was Andre. So if Andre didn't shoot him
24:25
Speaker 4: on the eleventh, and how could Andre have had the
24:27
Speaker 4: gun on the fifteenth, and the judge at his hearing
24:29
Speaker 4: had a lot of questions about that. That was the
24:30
Speaker 4: first thing. We then found another DD five of a witness,
24:33
Speaker 4: Courtney Weezy, who said that the shooter was wearing a TAM.
24:36
Speaker 4: A tam is what Jamaica men were to hold the dreads.
24:39
Speaker 4: It's a big woolf cat. Courtney Weezy said the shooter
24:43
Speaker 4: had a TAM and he was showing a photo array
24:46
Speaker 4: with Andrea's picture in it and said he couldn't recognize
24:49
Speaker 4: anybody in the photo ray or We only got the
24:51
Speaker 4: first page and I noticed there was a check mark
24:54
Speaker 4: on the front page as witness can I d yes?
24:57
Speaker 4: And then no one ever got the second page, said
24:59
Speaker 4: makes I.
25:00
Speaker 1: Know, so that's a Brady violation.
25:02
Speaker 4: That would be a Brady violation. But they argued that
25:04
Speaker 4: the shooter had a mask on, so you know, it
25:07
Speaker 4: wasn't a big deal and he couldn't see it. But
25:09
Speaker 4: the point is he had a right to know that,
25:10
Speaker 4: and so I said, well, there'd be no reason for
25:13
Speaker 4: Andre to be wearing a tan, So this shooter was
25:15
Speaker 4: likely Jamaican and I knew that back then. There was
25:19
Speaker 4: a lot of battle between Jamaicans and American blacks over
25:23
Speaker 4: turf as the Jamaicans are moving into the Bronx. So
25:26
Speaker 4: didn't make sense to me that both of the victims
25:28
Speaker 4: were Jamaican. Why would a Jamaican shoot these victims. But
25:30
Speaker 4: we found out when we located the witnesses was that
25:33
Speaker 4: the real shooter was a Jamaican guy who happened to
25:36
Speaker 4: have gotten into the neighborhood little bit earlier and was
25:38
Speaker 4: working with American blacks to sell weed at that location.
25:41
Speaker 4: And even though they were Jamaican, he didn't like that
25:44
Speaker 4: they were working at his corner, and that's what the
25:46
Speaker 4: shooting was all about. The guy who we discovered was
25:48
Speaker 4: the real shooter, we did some research and tried to
25:52
Speaker 4: get his yearbook picture, and we got his middle school
25:55
Speaker 4: yearbook picture. By sheer coincidence, the principal of the middle
25:58
Speaker 4: school that he went to ended up being my teacher
26:00
Speaker 4: from back in seventh grade. So there's a lot of
26:02
Speaker 4: connections for me in the case. If you put these
26:04
Speaker 4: pictures side by side, Andre and the real shooter look
26:09
Speaker 4: extremely similar. And that's a key factor is that the
26:13
Speaker 4: person who might have seen the real shooter when his
26:15
Speaker 4: mass was off could have easily picked him as Andre.
26:18
Speaker 4: They were the exact same height and the exact same weight, okay,
26:22
Speaker 4: and a very similar face. When we found the motion,
26:25
Speaker 4: we showed, hey, look what TAM means. The real shooter,
26:28
Speaker 4: we found out, was Jamaican. He would wear that the
26:30
Speaker 4: victims were selling weed. Andre never sold weed. This guy
26:33
Speaker 4: only sold weed. Seven months after this shooting, guess what happened.
26:36
Speaker 4: Real shooter gets gunned down.
26:38
Speaker 3: Just finding the funeral picture where he actually had dreads, right,
26:42
Speaker 3: we were able to actually put together the two pieces
26:45
Speaker 3: of the TAM and now the dreads with the funeral pictures.
26:47
Speaker 4: Right, we found his funeral program, which is great because
26:50
Speaker 4: it said his real name, but in the middle of
26:53
Speaker 4: it said Bonkers. Okay, his nickname was Bonkers. And the
26:57
Speaker 4: witness said, this guy was crazy. This guy would shoot
26:59
Speaker 4: you up for no reason. So it's like, let's put
27:02
Speaker 4: this together here, okay. And then we actually found a
27:06
Speaker 4: surgeon who did the surgery on Andre's leg. He had
27:10
Speaker 4: a very serious condition called compartment syndrome. And what happens
27:13
Speaker 4: there is you get shot and your leg swells up
27:15
Speaker 4: so much that they have to expose all four quadrants
27:19
Speaker 4: of your calf. They cut it open and they leave
27:22
Speaker 4: you lying in bed with open wounds until the pressure
27:26
Speaker 4: goes down. He had skin grasps. We're talking about a
27:28
Speaker 4: scar from his thigh down to his ankle, proven atrophy.
27:32
Speaker 4: And the doctor actually remembered the case, which is unbelievable.
27:36
Speaker 4: He's the head of trauma at Jacobi in the Bronx,
27:39
Speaker 4: which is a trauma one center, so this is not
27:41
Speaker 4: some quack. And now he was head of medicine and
27:45
Speaker 4: surgery at Mymodny's in Brooklyn.
27:48
Speaker 3: And listen, I just want to say that when you're
27:51
Speaker 3: wrongfully convicted, you better know God. All right, We're not
27:56
Speaker 3: going to allow that not to be set on this
27:59
Speaker 3: forum right now. It really must be stated because a
28:04
Speaker 3: lot of this is sheer luck and God's umbrella had
28:07
Speaker 3: to be on me because my surgeon was alive.
28:11
Speaker 4: And he said, there's no way someone with this injury
28:14
Speaker 4: could have ran. He said, maybe he could pull his
28:17
Speaker 4: leg along, he said, but he would have a noticeable
28:20
Speaker 4: limp at best. And the judge at Andrea's hearings said,
28:23
Speaker 4: could he jog? He said no, he could not jog.
28:26
Speaker 4: He could not jog. He could not run this quickly.
28:30
Speaker 4: The problem was because the case was so old there
28:32
Speaker 4: were no physical therapy records to show how far along.
28:37
Speaker 5: To when it got those medical.
28:39
Speaker 6: Records to make us his amazing wife, and not to
28:42
Speaker 6: mention my brother Devon who's not here, also where we
28:46
Speaker 6: were on the phone like illegally at that point making
28:50
Speaker 6: three week calls to Jacobe Hospital to locate these records.
28:53
Speaker 4: This surgeon he actually called over there to try to
28:56
Speaker 4: get him himself. I mean, he really knew that something
28:58
Speaker 4: wrong was going on. Ronald Simon, he said, there's got
29:02
Speaker 4: to be pt records there, maybe Ifi Coal, you know,
29:04
Speaker 4: we'll find them. And no one could find those therapy
29:07
Speaker 4: recordscause they don't preserve them. It's talking about the nineteen
29:09
Speaker 4: ninety we'll looking for them in twenty twenty, you know.
29:11
Speaker 4: But we did have Ira Brown telling the judge at
29:14
Speaker 4: his first court appearance, my client is still undergoing physical
29:18
Speaker 4: therapy and only recently was able to walk without a cane,
29:21
Speaker 4: and so that formed the basis.
29:25
Speaker 2: You know, there are a series of sort of miracles
29:27
Speaker 2: right that led to you being here. But it points out,
29:30
Speaker 2: you know, my estimate is that there's probably around two
29:34
Speaker 2: hundred thousand innocent people in prison while we're sitting here
29:38
Speaker 2: right now in this country, and that's probably conservative. And
29:42
Speaker 2: those people, many of them, don't have a way out.
29:44
Speaker 2: They don't have an Oscar Michelin, right, they don't have
29:46
Speaker 2: a Maggie Feeling to do a podcast about the case.
29:49
Speaker 2: In fact, this goes back to very early when we
29:51
Speaker 2: first started the Wrongful Conviction podcast and our producer back
29:54
Speaker 2: then was a woman named Sabine Jas and she alerted
29:56
Speaker 2: me to your case. I brought it to our fantastic
30:00
Speaker 2: PR person named Don Cameron. Amazed to generate some interest.
30:05
Speaker 5: We brought Jeffrey Deskovic in.
30:06
Speaker 2: I was about to go there and let me brag
30:09
Speaker 2: on Jeffrey for a second. So Jeffrey Deskovic right there,
30:12
Speaker 2: sitting in the front row, standing in the front row,
30:15
Speaker 2: standing now wrongfully convicted, served sixteen years in New York
30:19
Speaker 2: State and is now a member of the bar. And
30:22
Speaker 2: he turned out to be Listen.
30:25
Speaker 3: As a joke, and as a joke, you know, we
30:28
Speaker 3: say that Jeffrey is the media whore.
30:32
Speaker 5: Okay, Now they.
30:34
Speaker 1: Love your case because the jeff you brought the case.
30:37
Speaker 3: Listen, they love jeff the media so immediately, and it's
30:42
Speaker 3: not a.
30:42
Speaker 5: Joke, guys, its a lot of attention to this.
30:44
Speaker 3: Yes, because Jeff is my brother. Jeff is the guy
30:50
Speaker 3: who went hard, extremely hard in the media for my case.
30:54
Speaker 3: Him and then Sabine will never forget Sabine because she
30:59
Speaker 3: contacted Jason and Jason said, who's Andre Brown, and so
31:02
Speaker 3: being explained it and he said, listen, we got to
31:05
Speaker 3: put Dawn on this because the only thing that Governor
31:09
Speaker 3: Cuomo does in the morning is he reads and not bad.
31:14
Speaker 3: So at that point he put Dawn right in the
31:18
Speaker 3: fray of everything, and the campaign began.
31:21
Speaker 4: First, we went to the Conviction Review Unit. They rejected
31:25
Speaker 4: the case, and so we filed a four to forty.
31:27
Speaker 3: At that time, it was COVID and they were not
31:30
Speaker 3: trying to bring me down on a hearing.
31:32
Speaker 4: We had asked for a virtual hearing because the courts
31:35
Speaker 4: were closed to in person hearings, and the DA opposed that,
31:38
Speaker 4: and then Jeff organized a rally in front of her
31:41
Speaker 4: office to try to get her to agree to a
31:44
Speaker 4: virtual hearing, and we had a hearing and the judge
31:47
Speaker 4: agreed that at the very least Lee was ineffective for
31:52
Speaker 4: not presenting the medical evidence, and just to put the
31:55
Speaker 4: icing on it. I've known Jeff for a long time.
31:57
Speaker 4: We kind of mentored him through with his law school
32:00
Speaker 4: experience and he became an admitted attorney right before we
32:04
Speaker 4: had got a hearing granted, so I asked him to
32:06
Speaker 4: second seat. Mean, Andre was just first client. So and
32:10
Speaker 4: he's back in a hundred.
32:13
Speaker 1: So, actually, Oscar, I do want to point out not
32:16
Speaker 1: exactly a hundred Andre.
32:18
Speaker 5: No, I shouldn't say that's right.
32:19
Speaker 1: Andrea is not exonerated yet, which is why we're here
32:22
Speaker 1: telling his story because the bronx DA is actually still
32:26
Speaker 1: fighting his conviction, wanting to put Andre back in prison.
32:31
Speaker 1: So not only do we need to exonerate him, we
32:33
Speaker 1: need to make sure that he doesn't go back to prison.
32:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're they're filed an appeal of the vacature of
32:40
Speaker 4: the conviction. And I got to tell you, and you know,
32:44
Speaker 4: the odds of its success are are not high, the low.
32:48
Speaker 4: But this room speaks to what happens when you caught
32:50
Speaker 4: up in the criminal justice system. Right if you if
32:52
Speaker 4: you're counting on the criminal justicism to work out for you,
32:55
Speaker 4: you know you're going to get very sorely disappointed. So
32:59
Speaker 4: it really, you know, is a case that should not
33:01
Speaker 4: be appealed. Never mind the fact that he served well
33:03
Speaker 4: over twenty years for a crime that we established, you know,
33:07
Speaker 4: he didn't commit, but to just drag it on, have
33:10
Speaker 4: this over his head. They fought bail. Now after the
33:13
Speaker 4: judge vacated his conviction. They asked for five hundred thousand
33:16
Speaker 4: dollars bail. Okay, the judge released him, but to supervise release,
33:22
Speaker 4: just like it wouldn't give us the measure that he
33:24
Speaker 4: was actually innocent. Took the safe path and said he
33:27
Speaker 4: was ineffective. You know, as I said to Jason before
33:30
Speaker 4: we came out here, I've been involved in a lot
33:32
Speaker 4: of cases. I've never had a case with this much
33:34
Speaker 4: evidence of innocence. And the judge just couldn't get there.
33:38
Speaker 4: And then he couldn't just do roar. He had to
33:40
Speaker 4: send him to supervised release. So it's just constant. The
33:43
Speaker 4: justice system loves finality. They want to, you know, keep
33:47
Speaker 4: that hold on you. To the point where when he
33:49
Speaker 4: first started going to the supervised release place, which is
33:52
Speaker 4: now run by the Fortune Society, they called us and said,
33:55
Speaker 4: why are we supervising this person. He went to another
33:59
Speaker 4: program to be interviewed and they ended up hiring them
34:02
Speaker 4: instead of supervising he works there.
34:04
Speaker 5: Now, yes, I mean it's really.
34:07
Speaker 4: Daunting and it's very discomforting to believe that.
34:10
Speaker 5: You know, we now have to wait.
34:11
Speaker 4: It'll take about two years to decide this appeal.
34:14
Speaker 2: And I want to get to what people here can do,
34:16
Speaker 2: if they can write letters, or if there's anything else
34:18
Speaker 2: they could do to make their voices heard for Andre.
34:20
Speaker 1: Well, I do know there's a go fundme for Andre
34:23
Speaker 1: It's GoFundMe such support Andre Brown, So that exists, so
34:28
Speaker 1: please donate.
34:29
Speaker 2: To that if you can, and we'll link to it
34:30
Speaker 2: in the episode.
34:31
Speaker 5: Yeah description as well.
34:32
Speaker 1: And you guys have the power to vote for the DA.
34:35
Speaker 1: I mean, we can vote in progressive district attorneys. So
34:38
Speaker 1: just so you guys know that you have the power
34:40
Speaker 1: to make sure that there are conviction review units, that
34:43
Speaker 1: there are progressive das that don't fight these convictions that
34:46
Speaker 1: are so obvious, so obvious.
34:50
Speaker 2: And before we go to we have a tradition on
34:52
Speaker 2: the show, we call it closing arguments. But before we
34:55
Speaker 2: do that, there's one other very special person in this
34:57
Speaker 2: room I want to acknowledge, and this is a young
34:59
Speaker 2: man named right, your.
35:01
Speaker 5: Son's daf Aj.
35:03
Speaker 2: I heard somewhere that he scored thirty points in a
35:06
Speaker 2: basketball game this week. So if there's any agents in
35:08
Speaker 2: the room, might want to get in now because he's
35:11
Speaker 2: only twelve.
35:12
Speaker 1: Actually, I did want to talk about Aja Tamika and
35:15
Speaker 1: Andre You knew each other from high school, yes, and
35:18
Speaker 1: now you're married. You did over twenty years in prison,
35:21
Speaker 1: and actually we talked about how you're lucky that you're alive,
35:23
Speaker 1: because if you're a leg you're lucky now that you're out,
35:26
Speaker 1: a lot of people get out and don't have family,
35:29
Speaker 1: and you have a wonderful wife and a son, Yes,
35:32
Speaker 1: that you're coming home to.
35:34
Speaker 2: Right there, right there, right look for.
35:39
Speaker 3: Not only do people not have family, they don't have hope,
35:43
Speaker 3: they don't have faith. They lose their souls inside of
35:47
Speaker 3: prison because they don't have friends. I've seen individuals walk
35:51
Speaker 3: in the yard until they turn mad because they're innocent,
35:55
Speaker 3: and now everybody has shunned them. So what does that
35:58
Speaker 3: really mean when society itself make you the treads and
36:03
Speaker 3: then inside of the prison you're a nobody.
36:09
Speaker 4: Well, it's just a dangerous place. Where we were waiting
36:11
Speaker 4: for Andrea's hearing because of COVID. One of the reasons
36:14
Speaker 4: we filed for the virtual hearing was Andre was actually
36:16
Speaker 4: on the phone with Tamika on Thanksgiving Day and some
36:21
Speaker 4: other guy in the prison thought he was on the
36:23
Speaker 4: phone too long and nearly took Andre's eyes, stabbed him
36:26
Speaker 4: in the face with a pen. Yeah, while he was
36:28
Speaker 4: on the phone with Tamika, right, Yes, And you know
36:32
Speaker 4: I wrote to the judge and said, look, we got
36:33
Speaker 4: to get this guy hearing like.
36:35
Speaker 5: He's in the Honors Prison.
36:36
Speaker 4: By way, this is the place in the Eastern Those
36:38
Speaker 4: are here know they call it Happy Nap because it's
36:40
Speaker 4: like the place where you're supposed to be the safest.
36:43
Speaker 4: And he got attacked just on the phone. So you know,
36:47
Speaker 4: sending someone to prison is you know, it could potentially
36:49
Speaker 4: be a death sentence.
36:50
Speaker 2: It is for too many people, and we know that
36:52
Speaker 2: right here in Manhattan and right here in New York
36:54
Speaker 2: Rikers Island. Since may Or Adams took office, twenty nine
36:57
Speaker 2: people at last count, have been murdered and Riker's Island,
37:00
Speaker 2: and most of them overwhelm the jar of them had
37:02
Speaker 2: even been convicted of anything.
37:03
Speaker 5: Yet most of them are presumed innocent.
37:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, just waiting for trials. Detainees, Yeah, exactly that could
37:08
Speaker 2: have been you, or could have been so many other
37:09
Speaker 2: people in this room. So anyone who's just listened to
37:11
Speaker 2: the Wrongful Conviction podcast knows this is my favorite part
37:14
Speaker 2: of the show. We call it closing Arguments. It's where
37:17
Speaker 2: we thank each of you, Maggie and I for being
37:20
Speaker 2: here with us today, everybody in the audience, everybody listening
37:24
Speaker 2: at home, and then turn it over to Oscar first
37:27
Speaker 2: to say anything else is left to be said, and
37:29
Speaker 2: then you take us off into the sunset anything you
37:31
Speaker 2: want to say.
37:32
Speaker 4: First of all, thank you for being involved in the
37:35
Speaker 4: issue and spread the word. Tell people that there were
37:38
Speaker 4: folks in there who don't belong there. There are many
37:40
Speaker 4: people who serve their time in a route that will
37:42
Speaker 4: never get the justice that they deserve, and that time
37:44
Speaker 4: has been lost. Will let people know that this is
37:46
Speaker 4: an issue that should be addressed at every time that
37:49
Speaker 4: there's a DA running for office.
37:51
Speaker 3: And for me, I got to mention some of my
37:54
Speaker 3: great colleagues, Michael Cobb, who we all know is shot,
37:58
Speaker 3: do Raphael Martinez, as Pedro Rodriguez, Nokia Rose, Ronaldo Morgan.
38:07
Speaker 3: These men are still fighting for their freedom today and
38:10
Speaker 3: I mentioned them because I want everybody here in the
38:15
Speaker 3: live audience at home to take a second look. I
38:20
Speaker 3: give you the analogy that I give to some of
38:23
Speaker 3: the students when I did my last speech with Jeff,
38:27
Speaker 3: and it is like when you guys are driving home
38:32
Speaker 3: and you just see something as simple as a pedestrian
38:36
Speaker 3: pulled over on the side of the road, and you're
38:40
Speaker 3: just like, oh, it must be a lawful stop, so
38:42
Speaker 3: you just keep moving. Take a second look, take a
38:47
Speaker 3: second look when you see somebody in trouble, because you
38:51
Speaker 3: never will know when it's your time to give that
38:55
Speaker 3: help in hand.
38:56
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You
39:07
Speaker 2: can listen to this and all the Lava for Good
39:09
Speaker 2: podcasts one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good
39:12
Speaker 2: Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team,
39:16
Speaker 2: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
39:19
Speaker 2: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. The
39:23
Speaker 2: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
39:25
Speaker 2: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
39:28
Speaker 2: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
39:31
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
39:35
Speaker 2: it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
39:38
Speaker 2: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one