Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #081 Jason Flom with Sunny Jacobs - RE-RELEASE

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#081 Jason Flom with Sunny Jacobs - RE-RELEASE · Wrongful Conviction

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I came from a beautiful neighborhood. I had a beautiful life.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: day of my high school year. I was gonna be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: a senior at twenty two, I was set to start college.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I woke up and my life was never the same again.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Cops came out with guns drawn, and I never saw
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: freedom ever since after that.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: It's like roach Moe Town. Once you get in, you
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and I can't now.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. With Jason Flommer today we have
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: a very special guest, Sunny Jacob's one of my favorite
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: people in the world. Sunny Jacob's story is as crazy
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: as it can get. Is that fair to say, Sonny?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: It's pretty crazy. So Sonny was wrongfully convicted in nineteen
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: seventy six. I'm particularly thrilled today because joining Sonny in
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: the studio with me is her Well. I could call
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: you a new husband, Peter Fringle. It's a few years now,
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: but he's still a new husband. And Sonny's daughter, Christina Tafarah,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: is going to speak today publicly for the first time ever.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: So Sonny, Peter, Christina, welcome to Ronful conviction very much,
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Jase. So, Sonny, let's go back to the beginning.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: You were living where at the time that this all
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: went down.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: At the time that this happened, we had been living
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: in North Carolina, but Jesse had gone down to Florida
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: with the promise of some work and we ended up
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: joining him down there.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: So he went down there originally to do some work
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: in Florida. But you went down with the two kids
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: afterwards to meet him. Yes, right, And then when you
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: went down there, your car broke down. Is that what
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: happens how this all started?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Pretty much, that's how it all started, right.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: So your car broke down. Now you're stranded in Florida.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: You got to get back home, right, right, So take
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: us through it. What happens next? You were offered a ride,
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: which was turned out to be a you know, the
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: beginning of the beginning of the terrible Saga of Sonny Jacobs,
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: which so fill us in filling the audience.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Well, the card broken down, and Jesse asked a friend
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: of his to give us a lift, and we were
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: going to go someplace where he knew someone where we
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: could stay and wait for my parents to send some money.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: So we could get back home to North Carolina.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Right, but then you end up you end up actually
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: taking a rest in the car when this.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Happened, right, yeah, we pulled into a rest area off the.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Highway in Florida.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yep, in Florida. This was and I was in the
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: back with the two children. Now, my son at the
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: time was nine years old. My daughter was only ten
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: months old. She was still nursing, right, yeah, she was
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a baby. And so Jess was in the passenger seat
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: and his friend who's driving, And then so we were
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: sleeping in the car in the rest area. Nothing was
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: going on, there was no crime being committed, there was
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: no reason for anybody to.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: It seems like an unlikely place for everything to.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Go wrong completely, I mean in your sleep.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Now, just to give you a visual. By the way,
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: if you would meet Sonny, you would see that she
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: looks like the least likely person who have ever served
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: time in anything other than you know, it looks like
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: some of you would meet in a coffee shop or
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: a in a theater or something. I mean, she's the
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: least likely person to have ever served time on death road.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: At the time, I was, besides being a young wife
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: and mother. I was also a hippie, you know, like.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Still a hippie.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, cool. It was a hippie and a vegetarian. So
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, I was totally the least likely person to
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: be in any way involved in a scene where somebody
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: would get killed.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: So you're in the car, you're sleeping, and there's a
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: knock knock on the window, right.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we were sleeping in the car. And then
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: the police apparently came to do a routine check of
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: the rest area, and it was in the police notes
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: that they said that when they looked in the driver's window,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: they saw a handgun between the driver's feet, and that's
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: what started the whole thing. They pulled open the door,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: they took the gun, they or pulled him out of
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: the car. Then they ordered Jesse out of the car.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: They took everyone's ID.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: You were still in the back seat with the kids.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I was still in the back seat with the kids.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I never left the back seat, and they called in
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: the driver's identification. Then they wanted Jesse's idea and he
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: was reluctant to give it, and then they asked me
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: from my ID. And then the word came back on
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: the police radio that the driver from whom they had
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: taken the handgun was on parole, and as I say, so.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: He was subject to arrest.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Well, as I say, off of.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Your gun and being on parole.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, even in America, you're not allowed to have
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: a gun if you're on parole. So that changed everything.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: The policeman then drew his gun and he said something
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: like if nobody moved, the next one to move is dead.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: And then there's a gunfire. And so I just covered
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: the children.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: So you're like literally laying on top of the children
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: as a mother would. Yes, I mean to protect them,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: and then there's guns and you don't know what's going on.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: At this point seven thirty in the morning, it was foggy,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: it was a bit cool still in the morning, and
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, this insane thing is going on.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how many bullets were fired,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: but it was like, all of a sudden, we were
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: in a war. And I was over the children until
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: it got quiet, and I actually wasn't sure if we
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: were still alive because it was so quiet, and then
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: I determined that I was breathing. We were all, I
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: guess shocked by what was happening. And then I looked
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: up to see if Jesse was okay, and I saw
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: him just standing there, frozen in between the two cars,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: looking as shocked basically as I felt. And the other
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: guy was running around the car with a gun in
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: his hand, ordering Jesse to put us into the police car.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: At that point we became hostages of the man who
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: had just shot the two policemen.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Right now, it's more surreal. Right now, you're being ordered
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: to get into a police car by a guy who
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: just killed two policemen who you thought was your friend,
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: who was doing your favor giving you a ride. So
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: it doesn't get much weirder than that. And now you've
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: got to take the kids at gunpoint and put him
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: in a police car, that's right.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: And as he helped me out of the car with
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: the baby and with my son Eric, Eric slipped and
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: fell into a pool of blood. Well, and that's when
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: I saw the two policemen on the ground. So helped
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Eric up and we got We were put into the
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: back of the police car, Jesse again in the passenger side,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: and the guy drove us away.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: You know, if this was in a movie, nobody would
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: believe it, right so now you're in the police car.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: What happens next?
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: I was thinking in my mind, okay, like, how do
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: we get away from the sky. He was racing down
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: the highway, and because it was on the interstate, then
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: he pulls off. He was looking for to change cars.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I guess he realized that the police car was a
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: little too conspicuous. So there was a man, an old fellow,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: going out to get his mail, and the driver walked
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: up to him, and Jesse followed him. And I was
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: still in the back of the car with the kids,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: and I thought, ah, now now I can get get
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: away from here, you know. So I tried to open
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: the doors, but you can't open the back of a
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: police car. Yeah, so we're stuck. Anyway, Jesse came back
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: and said, listen, he says, we have to go with
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: him in this man's car. So it takes us in
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: the transfers into what is now slightly less conspicuous in
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: a police car, a orange Cadillac.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Oh that's great. This guy's this guy's got a flair
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: for the dramatic.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: So now this other poor man is also hostage. They
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: put me and the children in the front seat. Jesse
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: and the older man are in the back seat. He's
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: driving along and there's very heavy traffic by now.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: Right, it's a rush hour.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: It's rush hour, and I could hear helicopters above, and
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: I thought, oh my god, maybe the traffic is so
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: bad because maybe there's a roadblock or something, and maybe
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: that's a helicopter. And we're gonna be saved, right, You're
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: gonna be saved.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Right, the cops are gonna come get you. Great nightmare.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: And what we didn't know at the time was that
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: when the man went out to get his mail, his
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: wife was watching out the window. Something shouldn't happen to
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: him from the building to the post box and back,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: you know, and she saw whole thing, and she called
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: the police. So the police. So this means two things. One,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: the police knew that this man had been kidnapped by
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: this other guy who had with the police car and
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: US number. Two, they knew that there was a woman,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: two children, and a man hostage in that car.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: In the orange Cadillac.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're driving along in the orange Cadilloc. I'm now
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: in the front with the two children. Jesse's in the
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: back with the old man, and we come upon the roadblock.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: You can see it. There's a roadblock. Thank god, I'm
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: thinking he makes this insane decision to try to avoid
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: the roadblock, at which point he makes a sharp left
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: and all the police lined up at the roadblock with
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: their rifles open fire on the car. Holy shit, again,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: we are being bomb guarded by bullets. I covered the
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: children again, and the car was bouncing with the bullets,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: just like you know in the movie about Bonnie and Clyde,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: where the car is actually bouncing with bullets. That's how
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: it was. And then we crashed. We crashed into a
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: semi that was parked as part of the roadblock. The
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: police surround the car. The only one who's actually injured
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: was the driver. He was shot in the leg.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: That's a miracle, yes, yes, it's.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: A miracle that we were all alive. So they took
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: him and put him in an ambulance. They took Jesse
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: out of the car. They handcuffed him. They took the
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: man out of the car, They took him away somewhere,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: and Jesse's standing there, handcuffed and a cop comes from
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: the crowd with his gun turned around with the button
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: forward and ran over and smashed Jesse in the head
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: and knocked them to the ground, and he said, you
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: better get away from me because they're gonna kill me.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Okay, so you're holding his hand, you're holding the baby, Christina,
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: who's here. Now we can call you a miracle baby.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Now since you survived before you were a year old,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: you survived two gun fights. I mean, it's quite extraordinary,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: you know, very lucky. And she's a lovely, lovely young
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: woman if you'd meet her now, So go ahead. So
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: now what I mean even still, what are you thinking? Now?
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: Are you thinking because you your saviors are here the cops.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: No, they're not saviors anymore, because they're pointing guns at me.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: A minute ago they were, yeah.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, the whole thing turned,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: and now they're pointing guns at me.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: And I.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Tried to explain that we didn't know. I didn't know,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: like really what was going on, But they didn't. They
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: weren't listening because they were there. They had just had
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: two of their comrades at the time. I didn't know,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: but they were killed. They were dead. We or one
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: of us or all of us, we respond and it
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: wasn't up to them to figure it out. It was
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: up to them to apprehend us, and so they take
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: us to an unused portion of the railroad track where
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: the police get out of their cars and start arguing
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: among themselves whether or not to take us in or
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: to simply kill us right there and say we tried
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: to escape. Wow, I couldn't tell you how many there were,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: but there was a group of them, and I remember
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: there were three of them standing right by the car
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: where I was, and they were so vehement about it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: They were like, you know, like when you people are swaying,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: they start spitting, you know, like I could see the
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: spit coming out in their molines when they were talking,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: you know, And it was it was one of the
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: most frightening moments. And like I'm sitting there praying, like
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I hope the one I call in my head the
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: voice of reason should prevail, which thing God Eventually he did,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: because otherwise they were nobody would have known. So he
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: did prevail. They decided they would take us in. Two
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: detectives came in and they started trying to question me,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: and they record. In those days, they had the you know,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the tape recorders with real tape, right, you know, and
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: so they kept trying to ask me what was what happened,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: and I kept telling them.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: I'm really I really don't know.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I really don't know exactly what happened, because just like
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I told you, they were taking our id and asking
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: us questions and then they were shooting, and I honestly
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: didn't see who were shooting. So they didn't believe me
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: because they figure, if you're there, you know what happened.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: So they every time I'd say, you know, you're trying
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: to get me to say something that's not true, they'd
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: stopped the recording and start a new recording. While we
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: were being interrogated, the guy, the driver, the guy who
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: actually did the killing, from his hospital bed, asked to
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: speak to the prosecutor. Now I was this is how
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: later I found this out. I didn't know. We didn't
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: know at the time, but you see, he knew he
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: was facing the electric chair, so he wanted to make
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: a deal, so he requested to speak to the prosecutor.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: And the prosecutor at the time was apparently had ambitions
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: to run for district attorney, so rather than get one conviction,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: he was going to get three convictions, and after our trials,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: he did, in fact resign as prosecutor and run for
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: district attorney on the basis of his strong stance against crime.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: So what happened was that the killer was offered a
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: plea bargain for three life sentences in exchange for his
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: testimony against Jesse and me. These plea bargains should not
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: be allowed in capital cases because it's always going to
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: be the most guilty party that takes the plea bargain
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: because they're the one who has the most to lose.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: Well, they have everything to lose their life.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I thought, yes, exactly, So I thought, well, when
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: I found out about it, I thought, well, this is
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: a no brainer. No innocent person would accept three life sentences.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's not a bargain, you know, not to
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: an innocent person. So I figured the jury will who this,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: they'll know and we'll go home.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: By the way, I never just did the concept of
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: three life senses. Does anyone have three lives? I don't
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: know why in this country. It's very odd, right, I'm
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: never like, I mean, anyway, it's very very odd. And
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: he eventually got out. But that's another story. So it's
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: even weird.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's another story. But he's also back in so
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: just so people shouldn't how do you.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Have three lifess why didn't you give the guy one
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: life sentence and keep them in instead of three life senses?
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: I don't know whatever. That's just another aspect of the case.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: That's that's very strange and the system is very strange.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: But anyway, so go ahead.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: So this plea arrangement was made unbeknownst to us. And
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: also in order to justify giving the plea bargain, they
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: have to give the person a polygraph test to prove
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: that they're not making the deal with the real killer. Okay,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: so apparently he was given a polygraph test and they
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: submitted a report that he passed a polygraph test. Therefore
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: they were justified in making the plea bargain. Jesse's trial
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: went first. He has tried, convicted, and sentenced to death
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: in four days. My trial lasts two weeks. We all
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: were appointed the public defender. But because now one was
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: going to testify against the others, they had to give
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: us special public defenders, which is regular lawyers who act
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: as who represent you as if they were the public defender,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: and they don't get paid a lot, so they don't
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: always do a lot because they have other clients, they
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: have to make a living. So and my parents were asked, actually,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: do you want to maybe get a hire a lawyer.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: But we thought, why should they have to mortgage their
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: home to try to get me a lawyer, because we
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: were told even in those days, it'd be one hundred
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars or more. In those days, I was a
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: total fortune. So I said, there's no need to do that.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: I'm completely innocent. I mean, it's not like there was
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: even a fingerprint, there's nothing. It was absolutely nothing against me.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: So we didn't have the dream team and we didn't
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: have the expert witnesses or whatever. And my lawyer at
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: the time, the appointed lawyer, said, we're not going to
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: put up a defense because there's absolutely no nothing against you.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: There's no evidence against you, and it gives me a
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: better position in the closing arguments. So I go, fine,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: you know whatever you say, you're my lawyer. I'm not scared.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: I didn't do anything. I still believed in truth, justice
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: in the American way, and Superman and all those things.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So in the second week of the trial, the jury
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: started asking questions. They weren't convinced by the killer, so
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: It turns out that the prosecutor or his team, whoever
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: it was, went and located a girl in the jail
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: who had been arrested for a minor drugs charge, and
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: she and her boyfriend were arrested, and they told her
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: that if she could help them to convict me, she
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: and her boyfriend would released the next day. If they couldn't,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: then she would go to prison for a long time,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: her life would be ruined, and she'd never get back
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: to university.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: Jail House snitches are actually, you know. In the most
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: recent report from the Center for Ronful Convictions, it was
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: shown that in almost forty six percent of the capital
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: cases that have been overturned, forty five point nine percent,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: a jail house snitch was the sort of deciding factor, right, so, well, she.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Said that I spoke to her in the one night
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: that they put her in the bit cell block where
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I was, and I never spoke to her that. She
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: said that I told her that I did it, I
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: enjoyed it, and I'd do it again. Like, all right,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: somebody would really say that to a strange person, you know,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: I thought, now they're really going to know that this
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: is ridiculous. And the jury wasn't convinced, and in fact,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: they asked more questions, and they were starting to ask
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: questions about like maybe could they at least consider accomplice
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: or something like that. And it was as a result
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: of the judge's instructions to the jury at that point
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: that they felt that they had no choice to convict,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: but to convict because we didn't put up a defense.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: And I should say that the judge had been a
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: former highway patrolman and we had asked him to recuse
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: himself from the cases because you couldn't possibly be non
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: biased in a case that involved the killing a policeman
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: if you had been part of that brotherhood yourself. But
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: he refused to step down from the cases.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: So it was worth noting that the judge judge had
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: a nickname which was Maximum Dan.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, and he kept a little miniature electric chair on
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: his desk that he used to do ZIZI.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: You know, let's just reflect on that for a moment.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: So you have a judge, this is America. You have
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: a judge who's a former state trooper presiding over a
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: trial in which a state trooper was he a state
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: trooper was killed. There's no reason to think that he
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be totally objective under those circumstances. And he's got
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: an electric chair on his desk going zoop zoop zoop,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: right touching it and like almost like taunting you, right,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: And he's and his name was Maximum Dan.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: So it was as a result though, of his explanation
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: of the law to the jurors that they felt they
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: had no choice but to convict. Then comes the sentencing,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: and in the sentencing phase they have to be unanimous
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: in order to give a death sentence. Okay, And there
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: was one juror, and this is really important for people
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: to know because people think, oh, you know, one person
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: doesn't make a difference. One person does make a difference
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: because this juror wasn't convinced. He wasn't really convinced that
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: they should have convicted me, but he surely wasn't going
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: to sentence me to death. And so he stood up
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: for what he believed in the face of all the
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: pressure from the other jurors to agree with them, and
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: as a result of his integrity that my jury wasn't
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: able to be unanimous and I was sentenced to life.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: That's where the judge gets involved, right, And This principle
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: of judicial override is something I want to talk about
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: because this judge then overrode the jury right and he
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: decided that you should be sentenced to death right. And
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: that's an interesting thing to talk about because there were
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: only three states in which this principle of judicial override
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: was constitution was considered constitutional. Now there's only one, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: it won't shock you to know that it's Alabama. Even
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Florida has had it overturned, as has Delaware, which was
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: the other holdout. So now only an Alabama can that happen, right,
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: and judicial override has It's been an issue in about
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: a quarter of the death penalty cases since the death
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: penalty was re enacted in the seventies, and yet it's
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: been a factor in fifty percent of the death sentences
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: that have been overturned. So what that tells you is
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: that the jury is very focused on, or at least
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: interested in the idea that they may be convicting, but
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: they may have enough of a shred of a doubt
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: that they don't want to sentence you the death and
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: that finality. But the judge, for whatever reason, doesn't feel
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: the same compunction. And in your case, it's obvious why
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: he was a former state trooper and he was a
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: who was a you know, a very he was maximum
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: dan right, he was going to throw the death penalty
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: if he was going to throw it out of vegetarian
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: hippie like you. So anyway, so you're sentenced to death,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: you end up on At this point, there is no
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: death row for women in Florida.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Right, No, no, because in nineteen seventy six there had
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: been a three year moratorium just prior to our cases,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: and they had changed all the death sentences to life.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: So there were very few men on death row and
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: there were no women. So I became the only woman
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: in the United States with a sentence of death at
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: that time.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it is a sort of a distinction, I suppose.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: And so they didn't actually know what they were going
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: to do with me, so everybody was kind of speculating
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: in the jail what they would do with me. And
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: what they did is they cleared out a building that
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: had been used for disciplinary purposes, like if there had
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: been a riot in the prisoner or whatever, and they
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: had to lock up a lot of people. That was
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: what that building had been used for. So there were
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: a number of cells on each side. It was like
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: a dungeon there, Like I'll just say six, I'm not
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: really sure anymore. How there were six cells on each side,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: and in the front there was an office where the
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: guards would stay, and the whole building was surrounded by
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: its own barbed wire fence. Within the barbed wire of
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: the prison itself. No other prisoners were allowed in proximity
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: of that building.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: So there you are all alone, right, There's nobody else
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: in there.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: I was the only person in that building.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: How insane is that?
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: When I was there, I was locked up twenty.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: Four hours a day, twenty four hours a day in
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: a tiny cell, that's right.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: It was six steps from the door to the toilet,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: and I could reach out both my arms and touch
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: the side walls. There was a metal shelf with a
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: thin mattress that was my bed, and then there was
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: a toilet and sink combination. That was all that was
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: in the cell. I spent the first five years of
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: the seventeen years that it took to resolve this in
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: solitary confinement, sence to death. After five years in solitary confinement,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: finally my first appeal came up. It took that long
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: in those days, and as a result of the judge
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: overruling the jury without giving a proper written reason for
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: having done so, they had to change my sentence from
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: death to life. So then they put me in the
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: prison population, which was another strange circumstance to try to
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: deal with after having been first a free person and
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: then isolated for five years and then be put into
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: the prison population. So that was another thing. But then
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: after a year after my sentence was changed from death
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: to life, that's when my parents were killed at or
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: plane crash. The worst part was that my children then
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: became orphans again, and by then my daughter was about seven.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Six years old.
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: And you remember it, I do remember it very clearly.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: I'm in awe of your mother. Do you watch that?
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: You do you listen to her and just say, I mean,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: who is she's like? Does she have a cake that
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: she wears around at night?
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: That's you have to ask to kill everyone.
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: My mom is the most amazing person you'll ever meet.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: She's my favorite. I mean, and then uh, and Peter,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: we haven't even gotten to you yet.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: She's also the funniest woman in the world.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And so sunny. So then yes, a number.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Of things happened in the interim. At one point, the
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: guy who actually did the killing was bragging in prison
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: about how he had killed the two officers, and you know,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: he had these other two people and death throw for
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: what he'd done. He confessed a number of times, and
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: on one occasion some other prisoners came forward and actually,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: we're willing to go to court and testify, but the
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: judge ruled that it was prisoner's word wasn't believable. So
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: how come it's believable if they testify against you, but
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: it's not believable if they testify for you, because it's
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: incons why, you know. So we didn't prevail. And when
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: that happened, Jesse was like, this is it, babe, We're
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: going home. You know I told you keep your spirits up.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: He was always trying to.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Keep my spirits up to letters. Yes, so you knew
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: that the real killer had been bragging and it essentially confessed. Yeah,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: so you're like, now we're going home. I mean obviously right.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: But we didn't go home.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: They didn't go home. In fact, quite the opposite, and.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: It was at that hearing that they brought us both
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: to court. That's the last time I ever saw Jesse
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: actually in person. I always advise people, if you're going
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: to have to go into the appeals process, to get
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: a very young lawyer, because my original appeals lawyer died
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: of a heart attack before the appeals process could be completed,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: because it takes so many years. As you know, people
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: spent twenty thirty years on death row before they're exonerated.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: A young lawyer who would think of that except for
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: you anyway.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: So anyway, these were two young lawyers who were mentoring
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: under him, and they both decided they would continue to
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: fight for my case because they believed in my innocence.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Thank god. In the eleventh year, these two young lawyers
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: who paired up and then eventually married, give me the
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: use of a private investigator from some other CALLI in
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: who it paid for it for one day, and I
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: want to find the woman, the young woman who testified
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: against me in the trial, right, the one that we
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: called the jail house snitch. So they said, forget about it.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: She's a drug addict. She's probably dead, but she wasn't
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: because after this happened, she cleaned up her life and
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: she never looked back, and she moved to Wyoming somewhere,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: and she was taking care of her sick father, and
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: she had a little family of her own, and she
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: had no idea what happened to me. She didn't even know.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: So the lawyer, the investigative founder, the lawyer's going they
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: see her, and she cried and she apologized. She was
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: devastated to find out that what at least partly as
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: a result of what she had done, had happened to me.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: But she would do anything except come back to Florida.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: And there's a reason why she wanted to come back to.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Her Yeah, because she was scared to death because the
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: prosecutor was now a district attorney, even more powerful, and
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: she was afraid that he would find a way to
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: put her in prison too, maybe for perjury that he
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: helped her do. So she was terrified. And unless she
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: was willing to come back to testify and be cross examined,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: we couldn't use her testimony, right, So the prosecutor sent
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: a couple of his guys out to Wyoming to talk
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: to her father, to have him convince his daughter that
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: she shouldn't come back and.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Get involved her sick father.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, and that's what made her come back. She got
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: so mad that they would dare to disturb her sick
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: father that she came back, and she is a hero.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: She's heroic. We had a federal hearing. She testified, She
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: took the stand, she told everything that happened. She sat
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: there and apologized to me. She cried. Then it was
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: the prosecutor's turn to cross examined. As he approached the
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: bench where she said, she grabbed her chest, she started
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: a hyperale and she had a heart attack. And honestly,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: all I can think of at that moment was please God,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: don't let her die before a cross examination. Please, because
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: unless we could cross examine, you can't use her testimony.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Everything she said would have been for nothing. Oh my god.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: So anyway, the medical person came in, they brought the paramedics.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: They took her away in an ambulance, and we didn't
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: know what was going to happen. Finally she recovered. She
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: went back to Wyoming, and the judge said that we
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: could videotape her testimony from Wyoming. So they all went
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: out there and they did the cross examination whatever, and
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: in the end, the judge ruled that it was her
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: word former drug addict against the word of the upstanding citizen,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: the prosecutor, and we didn't prevail again.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: So meanwhile, was this before or after Jesse was executed?
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: That was in the eleventh year.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Right, so he was still alive.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, In the fifteenth year incarceration, Jesse received his third
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: death warrant, which is normally fatal, and in his case
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: it was as well, and he was taken to the
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: electric chair, right.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: And then it gets worse because in Jesse's case, and
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: people may remember this because it's a very well documented
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: and famous tragic situation. So in Jesse's case, he went
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: to the electric chair, but the electric chair malfunctioned. It
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: was known as old sparky, right, so it wasn't exactly
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: a modern piece of equipment by prisoners by prisoners, and
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: there's at least a theory going around that they may
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: have deliberately tampered with it in order to make his
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: execution more they were like a torture, yes, because he
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: had of course been convicted of killing two police officers.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: So in his case, the electric air malfunctioned, it took
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: over ten minutes for him to die.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: It took thirteen and a half minutes for Jesse to
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Pharaoh to die, and the word was in the prison
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: that they had substituted the natural sea sponge in the
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: helmet with an artificial one so that when they pulled
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: the switch, instead of dying, instead of conducting the current properly.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: He caught fire. Fire.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: The witnesses on behalf of the media said that the
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: flame shot two feet in the air out of his head,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: and that smoke came out of his ears, and then
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: it took thirteen and a half minutes for Jesse to
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Farah to die.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: And we shouldn't have a death penalty in this country
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: in my opinion at all. I don't think the death
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: penalty should exist in any country because if you believe
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: in the death penalty, you have to be willing to
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: accept the idea that people like Jesse to Fara are
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: going to be executed. There is no perfect system, there
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: is no way to make sure you've got it right.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: There's always going to be human error. You can't get
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: that back. So Jesse's actually.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Can't give him back to his children either.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: No, you can't give him back to his children. I mean,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: and Christina, I mean, I can't even It's hard for
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: me to even bring myself to ask you what you
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: experienced during this period of time. I mean, were you
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: aware that your parents were innocent?
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: How No, I wasn't aware they were innocent, but I
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: mean I didn't. I didn't believe it either. Now I've
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: blacked out a lot from it, just as a coping
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: mechanism for myself. Not blacked out. I remember a lot
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: of things. I don't really honestly remember what I thought.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: I just knew that they were gone, and you know,
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: my mom was always telling me, you know, I'm coming
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: home home, you know, coming home soon. You know, I
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: just wanted them back. I don't think I cared. I
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: don't think I cared. I just wanted my parents back.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: It's funny because the day they killed my father, I
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: had two friends with me and I saw them both
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: yesterday after like twenty years. Both of them we were children,
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: and I'll never forget that morning because I wanted to
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: go to school. I didn't want to be home sinking
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: in the news and my parents are watching it. It's on.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: I'm fifteen now, and my two friends, Sarah and Marvin
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: were on my bus with me, but I was the
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: first one on the bus, and when I got on
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: the bus. The bus driver was actually listening to it
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: on the radio and I could hear it as she
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: didn't know. And the next stop.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: The bus driver didn't know.
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: The bus driver didn't know that was my father, right,
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: So the next stop was my friend Sarah, and I'm
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: just sitting stoic on the bus. I probably was crying.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Sarah knew.
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: Sarah knew what was happening, and she came and she
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: just got on the bus and sat on one side
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: of me and put her arm around me. We didn't
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: say a word. Then my friend Marvin, who's an NYPD
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: officer here by the way, but he was now but
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: we were kids, then got on the bus and he
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: sat on my other side and just put his arm
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: around me, and they held me in love the entire
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: way to school, and they knew what was happening. And
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: I didn't end up staying in school because I had
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: an issue while I was at school and I got
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: sent home, which I should have been home anyway, but.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: I didn't know.
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: I didn't know about the malfunction of the chair, and
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: I act he found out walking through the mall. I
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: think it was the next day through a friend of
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: mine who was like, you know, I'm really sorry about
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: your dad, and I'm like thanks, you know. He's like,
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: it's terrible what happened, and I'm like it is and
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: he goes, no, but how his head caught fire? And
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: I had I didn't know. Nobody told me and I
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: wasn't watching TV. I wasn't I was trying not to
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: pay attention to it, to tell you the truth, And
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: that's how I found out. And I was angry, to
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: say the least, that nobody told me. And I'm hearing
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: it from not a stranger, but not somebody I should
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: be hearing that from either. And it was really hard.
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: I had seen my dad was it just a few
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: days before, right, And it was a really hard visit,
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: knowing what was going to happen to him, really emotional
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: visiting my grandmother, my grandma Kay, his mother. Somehow fenagled
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: me to get an actual contact visit because it was
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: my only visit with my father behind glass and it
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: was always contact visits, So knowing it's the last time
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: I'm going to see him, I really wanted to sit
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: on his lap. I wanted to give him a hug.
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: I wanted to kiss his face, you know, and somehow
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: she finagled it. But they did have to strip search me,
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: which was weird because I'm a kid, but I didn't care.
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: I just wanted to be with my dad.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: So but.
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: I will never forget that day. Yeah, insane, and I
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: you know, I don't know what to say about it,
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: but it was very, very, very hard because I'm connected
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: with my father, I'm connected with my mother on a
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: different level. I can feel them, I can, you know.
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: So I knew he was gone his you know, and
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: then knowing what happened to him made it even harder.
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: And not being told immediately too, It's like wow. And
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: then you have everyone you know feeling sad for you
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: and makes it worse, you know. And then I got
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: sent away to school. I got sent away to boarding school,
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: like about six months later, eight months later.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: See, there's no help for the families of people who
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: are on death row. There's no help at all.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: I can't even talk.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I'll help you out here, you know, it was
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: it's no one knows what to do. There's there's actually
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: no help for the families. I mean, when at very
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: least when somebody's being executed, there should be somebody for
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: their family, and there isn't. So at first I was
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: very upset and angry at the foster parents who are
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: taking care of Tina, to know that instead of keeping
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: her there and loving her and giving her that family
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: support and letting her be perhaps with me and Grandma Kay,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: you know, so we could grieve together, she was sent away.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: But to be fair, I understand now they didn't know
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: what the heck to do. What do you do with
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: this child? How do you deal with this? And it's shame,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: the shame of it. So they sent her away to
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: a school for children with emotional behavioral problems and she
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: was locked up until she was eighteen years old. So
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: now she's locked up too. And yeah, and in a
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: strange way, it gave us a commonality, you know, like, yeah,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: I understand what it's like to be locked up, ma,
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: because I was locked up too. So the suffering of
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: these wrongful convictions isn't confined to the one person. It's
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: their whole family that suffers. And the people whose children
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: have family to go to that you know, they can
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: stay with you much better than the people whose children
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: don't have family to stay with and end up in
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: foster care because they just they just don't have a chance.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: The stigma on top of everything else, because for a
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: little Christina, you know, to be getting that sympathy is
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: sort of nice. But even that's got to be complicated
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: because your friends didn't know if your father was a
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: cop killer or not. Right, you didn't even know, right.
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: And could you grew up in a neighborhood like it was,
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: upper middle class neighborhoods, So there's a lot of maybe
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: keeping up with the Joneses, if I can say that.
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: And you know, the people I was with, you know,
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: they don't want everybody to know my story because again,
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: you know, people are going to judge. You know, oh
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: my gosh, you have this child in your house, you know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: so you know, and I just showed up out of
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: nowhere and all of a sudden, you know, I'm part
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: of their family and I have brother, and so it's
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: like it's complicated. It's really really complicated. And yes, I would.
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: I would go to visit my parents, and I would
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: I would come back to school, and obviously I would
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: have not mental issues, but I would have emotional issues
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: going on. I'm just you know, I go, I take
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: you know, a week out of school and I'm going
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: from prison to prison, and I'm getting sick. I have
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: double ear infections. You know, I'm on a boss to
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: Dad's was what like seven hours up to Dad's prison.
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: You know, I would fly by myself, and it was
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: very hard as a as a child. And again I
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: don't remember a lot of it, but I do remember
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: having a little trouble in school when i'd come back
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: and there was an adjustment again. And you know, I
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: just visited both my parents in prison and like that
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: to the.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Point where apparently it felt it was just too disruptive
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: to their lives to keep bringing her, and they stopped.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: So then finally, just after Jesse's execution, a friend of mine,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: a childhood friend, her name is Mickey Diakov. She came
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: to visit me because she wanted to console me over
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: what had happened. I mean, the whole country, the whole
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: world heard what happened to Jesse. In fact, they stopped
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: using the electric chair in Florida as a result of
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Jesse's execution.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: For us. Yeah, I was fifteen and living in New
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: York and I heard about it, so, you know, two
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: thousand miles away.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh, people over the world heard about it, and
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Jesse said, they will remember my name. That was one
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: of the last things he said. We had a ten
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: minute phone call just before he was executed, just maybe
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: a few hours before.
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: Do you remember the last thing he said to you?
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: He said, to be brave? Yeah, and you are and
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: I am.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: I think if he could see you now, he would
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: be extremely proud.
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: He can see me now.
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: Good answer.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: So Mickey came to visit me, and she said, what
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: can I do to help you? Because we were kids
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: growing up on Long Island together, and I was like
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: the most least likely person in the whole world to
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: ever be in any way involved in something like this,
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: and everybody that knew we knew that. So she said,
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: what can I do? And can I talk to a lawyer?
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: Because she's a documentary filmmaker and she has research skills,
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: and her partner is a civil lawyer, but still a
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: lawyer that knows about how the law works, and they
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: wanted to help me. So I said, sure, go talk
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: to my lawyer. Fine, you know. So they did, and
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: as a result of that, about two and a half
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: years after Jesse was executed, they were able to put
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: together my Habeas Corpus in a way with diagrams, which
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: they had to get special permissions, first time they ever
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: used diagrams and a habeas corpus, and they were able
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: to clearly show what we had been trying to show
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: for years is that I couldn't and Jesse couldn't possibly
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: have committed this crime, and my sentence and conviction were
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: overturned and I should have been free. But as you know,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: they don't like to admit they're wrong exactly, so they
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: threatened to take me to a new trial. And in
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: those days it was just just I think I was
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: the second person after Alfred that they did this. The
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Alford is a thing where they say, if you let
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: us convict you of a lesser to charge, you don't
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: have to plead guilty. You can maintain your innocence and
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: then you can leave. You can be free. But if not,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: we're going to take you back to a new trial.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: It could take years, we might sentence you to death again.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: And now they're more desperate than before because now it's
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: going to show all the illegal things that they did,
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: so they're really going to be desperate. We already knew
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: that they had another false witness already lined up to
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: come to the new trial. I even heard that she
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: was promised a white couch for her living room in
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: exchange for her testimony. A white couch.
• 47:49
  Speaker 6: This is nice.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: You've got orange cadillacs and white couches. I mean, this
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: story is yeah.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, Nicky and Christy, my friends who
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: were helping me at the time, to help without helping
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: working with my lawyers, they were warned that it was
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: dangerous to even try to help, and that they were
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: being followed and that their phones were being tapped. Everyone
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: was so afraid because of the power. You know, a
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: person in that position has a lot of power.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: And they have almost all the power.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Actually, yes, it's you know, it's interesting how it works
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: because when someone is accused of crime, the police gathered
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: all the evidence, they give it over to the prosecutor.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: The prosecutor then decides which parts he's going to give
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: to the defense and which parts he doesn't have to
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: buy law gift to the defense to the defense, and
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: then they have the trials. So it's like we have
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: a deck of cards, fifty two cards. I have all
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: the cards. I'm gonna look at them. I'm gonna decide
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: which one is I'm gonna give you and now we're
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: gonna play. You're gonna play with me? Of course not,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: because the deck is totally stacked. I decide which cards
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: you can have. I'm not giving you all the aces
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: I can tell you. So that's how that's how it works.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: It's it's really not fair to put another human being
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: in that position, because look, we're all subject to human nature. Okay,
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: everybody wants to win, everybody wants to be the best.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: And if there's nobody ever gonna know, come on, you know,
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: nobody's ever gonna know that you hid that one card.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: We have a situation where there's these hearings going on.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: I am now offered a deal they offered to me.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: This is before the offer please thing comes up. They
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: offered to me. They say, okay, we're having these hearings.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: So exactly this is interesting what happened to hearings. First
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: of all, in the hearings, we find out about the
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: fact that, uh, there was a polygraph test. Now, Micky says,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: why should we believe them they lied about so much.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: We want to see this polygraph test, the actual graph
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: that came off the machine. Right, So they get a
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: hold of the poly test, and they hire a guy
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: who is a former policeman who's now a polygraph expert,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: and he takes a look at it and he says
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: he didn't pass the polygraph test. He failed a polygraph
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: test where it said he passed, he actually failed. So
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: the report that they entered saying he passed a polygraph
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: test was a lie. They entered a false report, and
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: that was the basis of their arrangement with him in
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: the first place. That day, they come to me and
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: they say, okay, we're going to offer you a deal.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: If you'll say that the guy they made the deal
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: with didn't do it, I didn't do it, we'll let
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: you go free today. You can have a steak dinner today.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Excuse me, I'm a vegetarian. What were they trying to say?
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: If I didn't do it and the other guy didn't
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: do it, then who did it?
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Your husband?
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: They figure will blame Jesse. He's dead anyway, right and we.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: All go out and everybody's fine.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: But I'm not doing that. Okay. First of all, he
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: still has children and a mother. Second of all, they
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: took everything from me. They took my whole life from me.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: They took everything from but my integrity, and it was
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: like I felt like I was. It was like dealing
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: with the devil. Now they wanted that last thing. They
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: wanted my very soul, and I wasn't gonna do it
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: because I had made a life for myself in prison.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: We started a little community group to try to make
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: life better for the life. First, I was teaching math
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: and English in the school. I was teaching yoga because
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: yoga and meditation and prayer was what saved me while
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I was on death row. There was not enough time
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: to tell everything, but it was my practice of yoga
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: that helped me with the physical effects of all the emotions,
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: and meditation that helped me to clear myself spiritually, and
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: prayer which gave me the hope that there was something
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: out there stronger than them that could see me through.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: And so I had made a life for myself in there.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: I could hold my head up and say, you know what,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: at least I have integrity, Whereas if I were to
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: do that, no matter where you are, you have to
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: live with yourself. So I said, I'm sorry, I don't
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: need steak, Thank you very much. Take me back to prison.
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: They were dealing with so I.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: Said, take me back, and they did. They took me back.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: Things went on usual. I went back to my job
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: in the prison whatever. And then uh, a week or
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: so later, I got called back on a Friday. Now
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: you get called back to court on a Friday. They
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: know that everybody's sure you're going home because they don't
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: want to keep you in the county over the weekend.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: So everybody lined, they lined the walkways. They were like,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: you're going home. You're going home. Oh, They're all pat
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: me on the back, sailor to your children. You know,
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: you're going home. They took me back to court and
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: I was like praying, and I was like I could
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: almost feel my parents and Jessie around me, you know,
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: in the van because you're you know, you've got your
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: hands handcuffed with the box, you know, so you can't
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: and your feet handcuffed and everything fit, feet coughed. I
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: guess you'd call it. And they took me back to
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: court and my lawyers say to me, Okay, they're offering
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: you this deal. Another deal. Yeah, this time they say
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: that if you'll just allow them to read into the record,
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: you know, a conviction of a lested degree. You don't
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: have to plead guilty, and you can go home.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: You don't have to implicate Jesse.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: No, and you can go home, and you have ten minutes.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: And I sat there and I thought, well, you know,
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: when I went into prison when this happened, I was
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: twenty seven years old. By the time I was sitting
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: there trying to make this decision, I was forty five
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: years old. When I went in. I was a young
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: mother and a wife and a daughter. And at that
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: point in my life when I had to make this decision,
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: I was a widow and an orphan and a grandmother
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: because my son Eric by then had a three and
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: a half year old daughter of his own. And I thought,
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: you know, you never know what will happen in the
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: next few years, if they're going to take me to
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: a trial again, and how long that's going to take,
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: and whatever the outcome would be, what.
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: They were capable of by this point, I mean, you
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: made the right decision.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: And so I told them that I would accept on
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: the condition that I was not going to plead guilty
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: to anything, that I would maintain my innocence, and they
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: said that was okay, but that during the hearing I
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: had to keep absolutely silent. I was not allowed to
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: say anything. That was the deal. I was not allowed
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: to say anything during this next hearing. So okay, thiss
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: hilarious by the way, she knows so because I can't
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: keep my mouth if she can't. And the judges, uh.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: You see what happens at one of these alpha and
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: hearing things is that the prosecutor is allowed to read
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: into the record everything he would have said against you
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: had there been a new trial, and you're not allowed
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: to say anything too refute what do you say? Which
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: is a bunch of crap.
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: So I'm sitting there listening to this litany just ridiculous stuff,
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: in my opinion, and I'm trying to think what can
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: I say.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: There's gotta be something I can get away with saying. Here,
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: So I go, you run her, and my lawyer pinches me.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: She's pinching me, and he goes, yes, I said I'd
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: like a drink of water. I have a bad taste
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: in my mouth. Wow, Bailiff, get a drink of water.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: I get my water. And holl is dying. So at
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: least I said something to say something, to say something.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: I wasn't sure there was anything that could make me
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: love you more than I already do. That's it. That's
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: one of the that's one of the best one liners
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: in the history of the world. So congratulations on that
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: you got the last word at court right, so to speak,
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: because you managed to give them a very sunnyish sort
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: of middle finger to the entire system, and you were freed.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: And now I want to talk about your life now
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: because it's extraordinary. Everything about you is extraordinary, But the
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: crazy twist that life took several years ago is really
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: the subject that I want to turn to now.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: It's my favorite part.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: So it's one of my favorite parts too.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: So so what happened is I took time off to
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: get a life for myself and to get a persona
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: other than the victim of injustice, and I became Sonny
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: the yoga teacher, the happy pink dot floatner. I used
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: to wear pink all the time because in prison you
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: couldn't wear nice color. So I had this pink sweatpants
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: and pink sweatshirt and I used to run around being
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: the yoga teacher all over Los Angeles until finally I
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: went back into the death penalty movement again and I
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: met some representatives of Mnescy International from Ireland, and they
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: heard me talk and invited me to Ireland to speak.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: And this is where the story gets good ending, Yes,
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: the happy ending.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: She I got this phone call one day and.
• 58:37
  Speaker 6: American woman who said her name was Sunny Jacobs and
• 58:40
  Speaker 6: whom I'd never heard of, and said she was going
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: to be given a talk three days later where I
• 58:45
  Speaker 6: was in the town I was in, and invited.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Me to come along.
• 58:47
  Speaker 6: I said, what are you going to talk about? She
• 58:49
  Speaker 6: said that dead penalty. I said, yes, I'm interested in that.
• 58:52
  Speaker 6: I'll come along, and I brought two friends and so
• 58:55
  Speaker 6: I went along and the door opened across the room
• 58:58
  Speaker 6: and this little lady walked in and I walked over.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: To her and I said, you must be Sonny Jacobs
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: and she said.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: To me, well, you must be Peter Bringle, and.
• 59:05
  Speaker 6: She gave me this big smile which she has. So
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: she went to share her story and I listened, and
• 59:13
  Speaker 6: I was devastated by.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: What I heard.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: I was hugely emotionally.
• 59:18
  Speaker 6: Upset by the tragedy of what had happened to her.
• 59:22
  Speaker 6: And I knew that I had to talk to her.
• 59:24
  Speaker 6: I just knew I had to speak with her. This
• 59:26
  Speaker 6: was somebody who would understand my situation just as I
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: understood hers. And so afterwards I said, I'd like to
• 59:33
  Speaker 6: talk with you and she said, yes, so Di, she said,
• 59:35
  Speaker 6: but I'm leaving in an hour.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I said, where are you going? She said, we have
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: to go to Cork.
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: She was traveling around the country with the Secretary of
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: Amnesty Ireland, Mary Lawler, and she had to be in
• 59:49
  Speaker 6: Cork the following evening for the agm of Amnesty. That's
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: about five hours away from where we were. So I
• 59:57
  Speaker 6: said to her, well, if you stay over and I
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: here Galway, I guarantee I'll get you there in time
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 6: for your meeting. And so we did, and I took
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: her down to the countryside. She showed her all the sights,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 6: and we got the Cork and she did her talk.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 6: When we were crossing the river, Shannon and the car
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 6: ferry and Chris, our friend, had given us a.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Pack lunch and he was a vegetarian, of.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: Both vegetarians at the time, and so we had his
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 6: pack lunch and Sonny turned to me and she said,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: what's your interest in all of this? I said to well, well,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 6: I was wrongly convicted and sentenced that too. I spent
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 6: almost fifteen years in prison.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: Did you believe him?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: I couldn't believe.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she said, oh, she said, we just seem to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: have come out of it. Okay.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: She said, how did you get through? And I said, well,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: yoga and meditation Jesus, and that's what she had used
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 6: as well. And I said that to her. She just
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 6: lit up and she said, oh my god, the yoga meditation.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: So then when we were driving down after that from
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 6: the car ferry down to the Cork, we were sharing
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 6: our story with each other.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: It was the most.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 6: Amazing journey I've ever had in my life because we
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 6: were at various stages. We were laughing our heads off,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 6: we were crying our eyes out. It was a hugely
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 6: emotional trift the hallway down the road as we shared
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 6: things with each other and we see each other goodbye,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: we said we keep in touch, and we did, and
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: so our relationship.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: Developed and now, truly what is can only be considered
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: a full circle a current. Sonny and Peter now run
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: a thing called the Sunny Sanctuary, and the Sunny Sanctuary
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: is a truly a sunny sanctuary, although it's not that
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: much sun in Ireland, but it's a Sanctuary, share of it,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: you get our share. Yeah, it's everyone thinks it rains
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: all the time, but it doesn't. It doesn't. So and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: you have a lot of nice golf courses over there.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: So Sunny and Peter run the Sunny Sanctuary where they
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: have found an extraordinary way of sharing their experience and
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: creating a positive outcome from all this negative which is
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: a weak word to use for what's gone on in
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: your lives. And now they now bring newly exonerated people
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: over to stay with them, and they're able to share
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: their experiences and learn anything from yoga to farming to
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: just being How do people they want to give to
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: the Sunny Sanctuary? How do people? Is there? What's the website?
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a website. It's called the Sunny Center, the
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: Sunny Center.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: That's s U n n Y the Sunny Center, and
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: there's sunny is it Sunnycenter dot com.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: Dot com And in the website that it describes how
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: you can donate, you can and so so different ways.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: And you're just doing such incredible work.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 6: Yes, that's what we do, and that's what we love doing.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: And it's not just healing for the exonerties, for it's
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 6: healing for us too.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: Don't forget to give us a fit tast stick review
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: a proud donor to the Ennisnce Project, and I really
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: time OSCAR nominatede composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: Company Number one