Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #505 Jason Flom with Fernando Bermudez

Transcript

#505 Jason Flom with Fernando Bermudez · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: I came from a beautiful neighborhood. I had a beautiful life.
0:08
Speaker 2: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first
0:10
Speaker 2: day of my high school year.
0:12
Speaker 1: I was going to be a senior at twenty two,
0:14
Speaker 1: I was set to start college. I woke up and
0:17
Speaker 1: my life was never the same again. Cops came out
0:21
Speaker 1: with guns drawn, and I never saw freedom ever since
0:24
Speaker 1: after that. It's like groach mode, Tom, once you get
0:27
Speaker 1: in and I can't mount.
0:31
Speaker 3: I'm Jason Flamm. Today we'll be talking for Nando Bermudez,
0:34
Speaker 3: a young man sent away for the rest of his life.
0:37
Speaker 4: The arrested him and they sew away the key thing
0:39
Speaker 4: that it did another bit of investigation accusations.
0:42
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety one for Nando Bermudez was arrested for
0:45
Speaker 3: the murder of a sixteen year old boy in Greenwich Village,
0:47
Speaker 3: even though he was five miles away with his friends
0:49
Speaker 3: that had multiple alum by witnesses who placed him far
0:52
Speaker 3: away from the scene of the crime.
0:54
Speaker 1: A young lady said that I looked cute, and that
0:56
Speaker 1: was enough for her to share the pictures and for
0:58
Speaker 1: the witnesses to communally agree that I resembled the perpetrator.
1:03
Speaker 3: He was convicted anyway, and since the twenty three years
1:06
Speaker 3: to life in maximum security prisons in New York State,
1:10
Speaker 3: this is wrongful conviction. With Jason Flumm Fernanda, Welcome to
1:36
Speaker 3: the show.
1:36
Speaker 1: Thank you Jason for having me.
1:38
Speaker 3: So I want to talk to you about what your
1:40
Speaker 3: life was like, what happened, what went wrong, what you
1:45
Speaker 3: learn from it, and where you're at now. So let's
1:48
Speaker 3: go back to nineteen ninety one.
1:51
Speaker 1: Major cities in the nation are under attack from within.
1:54
Speaker 2: Nowhere are the problems more visible than in New York City.
1:58
Speaker 1: Bob Fall reports.
2:00
Speaker 5: New York has gotten so mean and so dangerous.
2:02
Speaker 3: The mayor actually went to church yesterday and pleaded with
2:05
Speaker 3: residents to come out from behind locked doors.
2:08
Speaker 1: What nineteen ninety one was a year where New York
2:11
Speaker 1: City was crime ridden. The homicide rates were on average
2:15
Speaker 1: two thousand per year, and it was a time where
2:20
Speaker 1: I think the city was transitioning into a intention to
2:24
Speaker 1: get tough on crime.
2:26
Speaker 3: I lived in New York my whole life, and so
2:27
Speaker 3: I remember the only thing growing faster than the crime
2:31
Speaker 3: rate was the hysteria over the crime rate, right. I mean,
2:33
Speaker 3: it wasn't like everybody was getting killed or mugged or
2:36
Speaker 3: but it seemed like it at the time. So but
2:39
Speaker 3: how were you doing back then? What were you Were
2:40
Speaker 3: you in high school college at the time, what was
2:43
Speaker 3: your family situation?
2:45
Speaker 5: Where'd you live?
2:46
Speaker 1: I lived in Washington Heights, a predominantly Dominican neighborhood, mixed
2:51
Speaker 1: with a lot of immigrants who had moved to the
2:53
Speaker 1: other side of Upper Manhattan. And yet there was certainly
2:57
Speaker 1: a commingling of ethnic groups and so forth. But for myself,
3:01
Speaker 1: I was twenty two year old, twenty two year old
3:04
Speaker 1: at the time, and I was a happy person growing
3:07
Speaker 1: up in a close knit family, four siblings, two parents
3:10
Speaker 1: who worked hard to achieve the American dream as Dominican
3:13
Speaker 1: immigrants in coming to this country. And at twenty two
3:17
Speaker 1: I was set to start college.
3:18
Speaker 3: So let's talk about the night that your life took
3:22
Speaker 3: such a terrible turn. Let's talk about the crime itself,
3:25
Speaker 3: and then where you were and how you got mixed
3:27
Speaker 3: up in this.
3:29
Speaker 5: Nightmare.
3:30
Speaker 1: Well, the crime itself, according to documented evidence, is that
3:34
Speaker 1: there was a shooting at a nightclub, the mock Ballroom,
3:37
Speaker 1: in the Greenwich Village section the mock Ballroom Misser, and
3:40
Speaker 1: it was near NYU. And so this kid named From Lopez, sixteen,
3:45
Speaker 1: who had have sconded it from a work release program,
3:47
Speaker 1: had gotten punched by another guy named Raymond.
3:50
Speaker 5: Blount inside the club.
3:52
Speaker 1: Inside the club outside, From Lopez had wanted revenge after
3:57
Speaker 1: telling his friend from the West nineties neighborhood who had
3:59
Speaker 1: punched him.
3:59
Speaker 5: So these two different groups of kids, yes, and they
4:05
Speaker 5: wanted to start something.
4:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lopez had been punched, though, he was embarrassed and
4:09
Speaker 1: wanted revenge, and so he told his friends from the
4:13
Speaker 1: West nineties neighborhood not only inside that he had gotten punched,
4:17
Speaker 1: but also outside he identified the person who had punched him.
4:20
Speaker 1: So I'm lay ensued in which Raymond Blount's friends were
4:25
Speaker 1: attacked by From Lopez's friends and his group from the
4:29
Speaker 1: West nineties. And in that confusion, under nighttime conditions conducive
4:34
Speaker 1: to a mistaken that witness identification, Raymond Blunt was shot
4:38
Speaker 1: and killed and killed.
4:40
Speaker 3: Right, And so what happens next? So now we have
4:43
Speaker 3: a murder, it's near NYU. That that puts a lot
4:45
Speaker 3: of pressure on the cops. Right, So you're where were
4:48
Speaker 3: you at the time of this?
4:49
Speaker 1: So at the time, I'm actually uptown meaning where I lived.
4:52
Speaker 5: Did you have alibi witnesses?
4:54
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And that's definitely part of the story because
4:57
Speaker 1: we were together driving throughout the city in a car
5:00
Speaker 1: that I had just newly acquired. It was like that
5:03
Speaker 1: same day, August third and fourth, I had just gotten
5:05
Speaker 1: that car, and it was sort of like a big gift. Well,
5:09
Speaker 1: it was a big day, not just that the car
5:11
Speaker 1: was out for the first time, but also that was
5:13
Speaker 1: the car that I was going to use to go
5:14
Speaker 1: to college, to drive to for my home, which was
5:17
Speaker 1: right across in the Bronx where I was going to
5:18
Speaker 1: go to college. And we were driving around and enjoying ourselves,
5:22
Speaker 1: oblivious to anything that had happened. And at the time
5:25
Speaker 1: when the actual crime occurred, we were uptown in my neighborhood,
5:29
Speaker 1: driving around.
5:30
Speaker 3: And so when did you first come in contact with
5:33
Speaker 3: the authorities?
5:35
Speaker 5: How did that happen?
5:37
Speaker 1: August sixth, nineteen ninety one. So this is a couple
5:40
Speaker 1: of weeks, two days, two days right after the murder,
5:43
Speaker 1: and I'm driving home. I'm with my brother and we
5:46
Speaker 1: had actually met two young ladies that night. It was
5:50
Speaker 1: another you know, good moment, and we was driving home
5:54
Speaker 1: when suddenly cops came out with guns drawn and pointed
5:58
Speaker 1: them out the window, and everyone just.
6:00
Speaker 5: Screamed, you were in a traffic light.
6:02
Speaker 1: No, we were in front of my home. We drove.
6:04
Speaker 1: The cops had been waiting for me. They had been
6:07
Speaker 1: upstairs speaking to my mother and my siblings. When my
6:12
Speaker 1: mother said that I should be coming home shortly, they
6:14
Speaker 1: positioned themselves outside. So when we came out, they chew
6:17
Speaker 1: their guns and told me to get out the car.
6:19
Speaker 1: And I never saw freedom ever since after that.
6:23
Speaker 3: So obviously you're twenty two and you're scared out of
6:28
Speaker 3: your mind and they take you in. They tell you've
6:30
Speaker 3: been charged with murder. Is that right?
6:32
Speaker 1: That's correct. I was taken to the sixth Precinct and
6:36
Speaker 1: and it's interesting because I was so scared, everyone was
6:39
Speaker 1: so scared. I just got out. I complied, and I
6:42
Speaker 1: got in the car. And then when they took me away,
6:45
Speaker 1: the girl was saying, I thought you were a nice guy,
6:48
Speaker 1: and I said, I screamed back, I said, I am,
6:50
Speaker 1: you know, And I was taken to the precinct. I
6:53
Speaker 1: was interrogated for over ten hours, and they want to
6:55
Speaker 1: know my whereabouts. On the night of August thirty fourth,
6:58
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. I told them, I told them who
7:00
Speaker 1: I was with. I told them that on no circumstances
7:02
Speaker 1: I was involved in any violence. I told him what
7:04
Speaker 1: I was wearing.
7:05
Speaker 5: Ten hours.
7:06
Speaker 3: That's a tough I mean, that's a long time to
7:09
Speaker 3: be interrogated.
7:10
Speaker 5: So did you did they get you to confess?
7:12
Speaker 1: No, I didn't confess. For me, it was surreal experience.
7:16
Speaker 1: I just felt that if I told the truth that
7:18
Speaker 1: it would be resolved. If I was just patient, that
7:21
Speaker 1: it would be resolved. What I needed to do was
7:23
Speaker 1: remember why I was, what I did, who I was with,
7:26
Speaker 1: and it would be resolved.
7:27
Speaker 3: And well, that's interesting to hear you say that, Frenda,
7:29
Speaker 3: because there's a lot of distrust among the Latino community
7:34
Speaker 3: of police nationally. I think the figure sixty nine percent
7:37
Speaker 3: of Latinos will actually even call the police if they're
7:41
Speaker 3: a victim of a crime or if they witness a crime, because.
7:43
Speaker 5: There is that distrust. But you felt differently.
7:47
Speaker 3: You felt that the police were on your side and
7:48
Speaker 3: that if you were truthful, then everything would work out
7:50
Speaker 3: all right.
7:51
Speaker 1: Well, absolutely, cops for me at that point were heroes
7:53
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, I had gotten It's an interesting
7:56
Speaker 1: anecdote when I was about maybe ten years old, I
7:59
Speaker 1: had found the stolen car and we went to the
8:02
Speaker 1: thirty fourth Precinct, our local neighborhood, and the cops gave
8:06
Speaker 1: me a bag of jelly beans and put the cop
8:08
Speaker 1: had on me, and they said, good job for finding
8:10
Speaker 1: my cops, I mean my father's stolen car. So I
8:13
Speaker 1: admired them, and plus they were protecting my community.
8:15
Speaker 3: As a ten year old, that's a big moment in
8:18
Speaker 3: anybody's life. Yeah, you helped out your dad, you found,
8:20
Speaker 3: you solved the crime, and the cops are giving you
8:24
Speaker 3: big props. I'm not surprised then that you had some
8:27
Speaker 3: you had a lot of faith in the system. What
8:29
Speaker 3: happens next?
8:30
Speaker 1: So because I refused to confess, I was taken to
8:34
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Tombs Central Booking in other words, and I
8:38
Speaker 1: was processed, I was arranged, I pled not guilty, and
8:42
Speaker 1: from then on. Hours later, I was sent to Rikers Island,
8:45
Speaker 1: where my nightmare really began in Earnest.
8:48
Speaker 3: So you're in Rikers Island now your nightmare is fully underway.
8:52
Speaker 3: I mean, this is I think this is everyone's nightmare.
8:54
Speaker 1: Solarly, I had to go into survival mode because all
8:56
Speaker 1: around me. I mean people were fighting over the phone
9:00
Speaker 1: to make phone calls. I mean the phones were racially divided,
9:03
Speaker 1: two phones, one Latino and one Black, and those anyone
9:07
Speaker 1: who crossed those lines so use those phones will be
9:10
Speaker 1: cut in the face, smashed in the face with a phone.
9:12
Speaker 1: These are things I actually saw, and it was black
9:14
Speaker 1: market operations. They were burgeoning gangs and what would become
9:19
Speaker 1: groups like Latin Kings and stuff like that. And now
9:21
Speaker 1: I was terrified. I just tried to mind my business
9:24
Speaker 1: and all along, in my heart, I still felt that
9:26
Speaker 1: the American criminal just system would prevail if I stayed patient.
9:29
Speaker 3: Was there bail said in your case, no bail, so
9:32
Speaker 3: you had no hope of getting out it before your trial.
9:34
Speaker 5: How long did it take you to get the trial?
9:36
Speaker 1: My trial took about seven months to get on their way.
9:39
Speaker 3: So you're locked up for seven months, taken away from
9:41
Speaker 3: your family, taken away from your life, put into this
9:45
Speaker 3: devastating circumstance was what was Let's just talk about the
9:51
Speaker 3: jail for a minute. Rikers Island is technically pacified as
9:53
Speaker 3: a jail, even though but people don't understand that many
9:56
Speaker 3: jails like Rikers are actually more dangerous than maxims prisons.
10:01
Speaker 3: So in those seven months, what you know what went
10:05
Speaker 3: through your mind?
10:06
Speaker 1: Sure, well I was there over a year, but it
10:08
Speaker 1: took seven months to get to my trial. And you know,
10:10
Speaker 1: during the whole year and change that I was there,
10:13
Speaker 1: I mean, I was deeply affected by just seeing the
10:18
Speaker 1: violence perpetuated by not just inmates on inmates, but correctional
10:23
Speaker 1: officers attacking inmates, and even inmates attacking correctional officers. When
10:27
Speaker 1: you see someone get stabbed with sewing machine efficiency, you
10:33
Speaker 1: know there's something in you that dies and yet lives.
10:37
Speaker 1: It affects your psyche in a way that you're never
10:40
Speaker 1: the same because you see another human being injured in
10:42
Speaker 1: a way that just makes an impression, a bad impression
10:46
Speaker 1: in your.
10:46
Speaker 5: Life, and there's nothing you can do about it.
10:48
Speaker 1: There's nothing you can do about it, even if it
10:50
Speaker 1: happens to be someone that you knew and even shared
10:53
Speaker 1: a meal with for some reason.
10:55
Speaker 3: Were you when you went in, would you consider yourself
10:58
Speaker 3: a tough guy? Were you a guy who could handle
11:00
Speaker 3: himself in a fight or you what was your I mean,
11:03
Speaker 3: Fernando as a guy who keeps himself in very good shape.
11:06
Speaker 3: But I don't know you back then I've known you
11:08
Speaker 3: now for six or seven years, so yeah, I mean,
11:11
Speaker 3: how were were you equipped to deal with this situation anyway?
11:14
Speaker 1: Well, mentally, I wasn't equipped physically, perhaps I had a
11:19
Speaker 1: better fighting chance than a more scronier person. I mean
11:21
Speaker 1: I was a bodybuilder at the time, and that's what
11:24
Speaker 1: would make also the distinction in this case in terms
11:27
Speaker 1: of the identification procedure and why they even made me
11:29
Speaker 1: sit down. They described the perpetrator by the witnesses themselves.
11:33
Speaker 1: The perpetrator was described as five ten, one hundred and
11:35
Speaker 1: sixty five pounds. I'm six two, weighing two twenty and
11:39
Speaker 1: so they made me sit down in the lineup to
11:40
Speaker 1: hide the identification procedure. But for me, it was a
11:43
Speaker 1: matter of just trying to adjust because you couldn't even
11:46
Speaker 1: have a fair fight without getting jumped. That's what happened
11:48
Speaker 1: to me when I was attacked. I was trying to
11:51
Speaker 1: defend myself against someone in one instance, and then his
11:53
Speaker 1: friends came and attacked me. I had no I couldn't
11:55
Speaker 1: fight three guys.
11:57
Speaker 5: And what happened then, were you well.
12:00
Speaker 1: Went into my locker and stole my food and the
12:02
Speaker 1: soap and deodorant, that my parents brought me.
12:04
Speaker 5: But were you badly beating up at the time.
12:06
Speaker 1: I wasn't that badly beating up, but I was very embarrassed.
12:09
Speaker 1: And you know, it was a turning point because I
12:12
Speaker 1: was at a point where I was waiting for my
12:13
Speaker 1: trial to occur. I'm waiting for the American criminal just
12:16
Speaker 1: system to work in my case, and I'm being patient,
12:19
Speaker 1: and this is something that really tries your patient. And
12:22
Speaker 1: when once the Latino groups saw what had happened to me,
12:25
Speaker 1: someone tried to pass me a razor and they say, yo,
12:27
Speaker 1: you could resolve it this way, and I declined because
12:31
Speaker 1: I want to go home. If I stab or hurt
12:33
Speaker 1: someone even worse, I could end up in prison even longer.
12:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you were already facing a very long
12:39
Speaker 3: sentence and you knew it at the time, right. So,
12:42
Speaker 3: And it's interesting too, the eyewitness identification. I just want
12:46
Speaker 3: to touch on that for a minute, because there are
12:47
Speaker 3: a lot of tricks that they play, right, and we
12:49
Speaker 3: know that eyewitness identification is a factor in seventy five
12:53
Speaker 3: percent of the DNA exonerations that have happened nationwide. So
12:56
Speaker 3: there's a lot of movement now on the Innis's project,
12:59
Speaker 3: The Spearhead this along with some other groups to reform
13:02
Speaker 3: how I wouldn't identifications are done everything from videotaping to
13:07
Speaker 3: other procedures what we call a double blind. But in
13:11
Speaker 3: your case, they obviously just wanted to get you, and
13:13
Speaker 3: they were willing to do some dirty tricks in order
13:16
Speaker 3: to get a conviction, so they weren't really interested in
13:19
Speaker 3: the truth.
13:20
Speaker 5: Is that fair to say that's correct?
13:21
Speaker 1: I mean, as proven, the witnesses were placed in a room,
13:26
Speaker 1: these teenage witnesses at that who have been beaten, who
13:28
Speaker 1: were hungry, who were tired, who were joking around, who
13:30
Speaker 1: by their own accounts did not want to be there,
13:32
Speaker 1: and they were placed in a room and allowed to
13:35
Speaker 1: just shift through pictures, and three friends of deceased who
13:40
Speaker 1: were in a separate identification procedure, correctly identified who would
13:44
Speaker 1: become the state star witness. And the four of the
13:47
Speaker 1: witnesses who were in another room selecting pictures, then selected
13:51
Speaker 1: my picture, and a seventeen year old young lady said
13:55
Speaker 1: that I looked cute, and that was enough for her
13:58
Speaker 1: to share the pictures and for the witnesses to uh
14:00
Speaker 1: communally agree that I resembled the perpetrator and that was enough.
14:03
Speaker 5: They looked at the pictures together.
14:05
Speaker 1: Yes, which is illegal.
14:06
Speaker 5: Of course it's illegal.
14:07
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons I got read it.
14:09
Speaker 5: Oh my god, that's it.
14:10
Speaker 3: That's I've heard a lot, but I hadn't heard that
14:12
Speaker 3: particular story before, you know, having having you know, been
14:17
Speaker 3: being that I'm familiar with so many of these cases.
14:19
Speaker 3: But that's that's just straight crazy. So there you are,
14:23
Speaker 3: you're you're stuck there.
14:25
Speaker 5: And you go to trial.
14:27
Speaker 3: And and you were you were represented by a public
14:30
Speaker 3: defender at the time.
14:32
Speaker 5: You weren't a wealthy guy, right.
14:33
Speaker 1: I wasn't a wealthy guy. But my parents, uh got
14:36
Speaker 1: scared and they hired a private attorney based upon word
14:39
Speaker 1: of mouth, particularly because he spoke Spanish and he had
14:43
Speaker 1: a son named Fernando. Okay, so that was like for
14:47
Speaker 1: them for some reason that he had like a sign like,
14:50
Speaker 1: you know, and so they hired him. And you know,
14:53
Speaker 1: he was hoodwinked from the start in that the prosecutor
14:56
Speaker 1: didn't turn over excopolatory evidence, and when he did turn
14:59
Speaker 1: over boxes of evidence, it was after my jury was selected.
15:03
Speaker 5: So this is where so he had no time, no time.
15:07
Speaker 1: Even when he asked he was not allowed.
15:09
Speaker 3: Right, And we know that the Supreme Court ruled in
15:11
Speaker 3: Brady that they have to turn over exculpatory evidence, but
15:14
Speaker 3: it seems like it's almost routinely ignored by prosecutors, which
15:17
Speaker 3: is shocking. Should be shocking to everyone in America, right,
15:22
Speaker 3: I mean, everyone who watches TV, watches crime shows, knows
15:25
Speaker 3: that that's the responsibility of the prosecutor. And most people,
15:28
Speaker 3: i think, believe that the prosecutor wants to get the
15:30
Speaker 3: right guy and would want to get the right guy
15:33
Speaker 3: because who would want the wrong guy to still be
15:34
Speaker 3: out there? Right? That's always crazy to be fre nanda
15:37
Speaker 3: that when you aside from the human tragedy of locking
15:41
Speaker 3: up the wrong person, the idea that the real perpetrator
15:45
Speaker 3: is out there and is going in many cases, in
15:48
Speaker 3: almost all cases, he's going to commit more mayhem, be
15:51
Speaker 3: responsible for more mayhem and hurt other people should be
15:55
Speaker 3: enough motivation in itself for law enforcement to want to
15:58
Speaker 3: do the right thing. But obviously in your that was
16:00
Speaker 3: not the case. I'm sure these guys were feeling a
16:02
Speaker 3: lot of pressure, so much crime, so many cases they
16:04
Speaker 3: deal with, they want to get it off their desk.
16:06
Speaker 3: You were victimized by that mentality and that lack of morality.
16:12
Speaker 3: I would say, as well, so now you're at trial,
16:16
Speaker 3: you have your alibi. Witnesses there were they called to
16:19
Speaker 3: the stand.
16:20
Speaker 1: Yes, matter by witnesses came forward. I testified, and even
16:23
Speaker 1: three friends of deceased came forward and said that I
16:25
Speaker 1: wasn't the guy who shot their best friend.
16:28
Speaker 3: And so then people are listening, They're going, well, wait
16:31
Speaker 3: a minute, wouldn't that be enough, wouldn't that be.
16:34
Speaker 5: The case closed? No?
16:35
Speaker 1: Well that's what I thought, That's what I had hoped.
16:37
Speaker 1: But what the jury didn't know, and I didn't even
16:41
Speaker 1: know until the investigation unraveled on my behalf, was that,
16:46
Speaker 1: for example, from Lopez, the state start witness sixteen years old,
16:51
Speaker 1: who knew the actual perpetrator had told the police and
16:54
Speaker 1: prosecutors who actually committed the crime, but they suppressed that
16:57
Speaker 1: evidence and where he could be found. In exchange for
17:01
Speaker 1: his false testimony, he named me as someone I totally
17:04
Speaker 1: was not, and the police still did not go investigate
17:07
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. He got, after over twenty hours of interrogation,
17:11
Speaker 1: an opportunity to escape from murder charges, and the witnesses
17:16
Speaker 1: the teenage witnesses as well. In addition, who didn't know
17:19
Speaker 1: it from Lopez, but who did say that it was him.
17:22
Speaker 1: They got that that part right. They had gotten charges
17:26
Speaker 1: dismissed on the eve of their trial. Two had unrelated
17:29
Speaker 1: criminal charges pending it which were dismissed right before my
17:32
Speaker 1: trial began.
17:33
Speaker 3: So it's amazing that prosecutors have this much power, right.
17:37
Speaker 3: The fact is that people think that the judge has
17:42
Speaker 3: a lot of power, or that the police or the
17:45
Speaker 3: defenders have power. The fact is that an overwhelming amount
17:49
Speaker 3: of the power rests with the prosecutors, because they can
17:51
Speaker 3: decide whether to prosecute or drop charges against anyone for
17:54
Speaker 3: any reason.
17:55
Speaker 5: Is that right, yes, sir.
17:56
Speaker 3: So it's interesting because we know everyone who follows is
18:01
Speaker 3: even aware of anything to do with criminal justice, knows
18:03
Speaker 3: that you can't bribe a witness, right, But yet the
18:06
Speaker 3: state is able to offer the best bribe that there is,
18:10
Speaker 3: which is that, Hey, you got a lot of trouble
18:13
Speaker 3: on your hands, kid, right, you're facing a murder charge
18:15
Speaker 3: or you're facing assault or other things, and you know what,
18:19
Speaker 3: we're just going to ask you to do us a
18:20
Speaker 3: little favor here, you know, tell us what we need
18:22
Speaker 3: to hear, and you could go home and we're going
18:24
Speaker 3: to clean it up and keep it moving, right, I mean,
18:27
Speaker 3: what could be better than that? And I think that
18:29
Speaker 3: a lot of people would have trouble resisting that if
18:31
Speaker 3: they're looking at a long period in prison, a long
18:34
Speaker 3: many many years they're facing. They're scared too, and they
18:38
Speaker 3: want to go home, and they go, well, I don't
18:40
Speaker 3: even know this guy, Fernando, but you know what, screw him,
18:43
Speaker 3: you know. So I think that's something that's important for
18:47
Speaker 3: people to understand. People who are going to be serving
18:50
Speaker 3: on juries, people who are involved in the system in
18:52
Speaker 3: any way, I think they need to know that well absolutely.
18:56
Speaker 1: And it's also how the system sets up the vulnerability
18:59
Speaker 1: of this case. Teenage witnesses, you know, who haven't even
19:02
Speaker 1: had their prefrontal cortex meant for good judgment even fully developed.
19:07
Speaker 1: In my case, for example, two of the witnesses, one
19:10
Speaker 1: of whom had one of the charges dismissed, told the
19:13
Speaker 1: prosecutor that didn't want to come testified. They didn't believe
19:15
Speaker 1: I was the guy, and yet they were arrested, physically
19:18
Speaker 1: taken from their home as material witnesses.
19:20
Speaker 5: That doesn't sound closer either.
19:22
Speaker 3: I mean there's just so it was really a series
19:25
Speaker 3: of mistakes that read to you that led to your
19:28
Speaker 3: both both deliberate and accidental, but mostly deliberate. Right, Yes,
19:33
Speaker 3: so you're now you get convicted. The moment of that,
19:39
Speaker 3: the jury coming back in, I can't imagine the pressure,
19:43
Speaker 3: but you're you're standing there, You're still hoping that this
19:46
Speaker 3: is going to be you know, the system's going to work,
19:49
Speaker 3: and you're going to go home and try to forget
19:51
Speaker 3: this whole thing. But then they come back and they
19:55
Speaker 3: read off the verdict, and then.
19:56
Speaker 1: What And at that moment, I just had an out
20:00
Speaker 1: of body experience because I couldn't believe that, you know,
20:03
Speaker 1: all my hopes and dreams were shattered in the American
20:06
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. I really had believe in the system.
20:09
Speaker 1: I told the truth, honestly, and I was just shattered.
20:13
Speaker 1: I mean, my mother started crying. My six year old
20:16
Speaker 1: sister at that time fell to the floor, and you know,
20:18
Speaker 1: my grandmother, she like nearly fainted. I couldn't turn around
20:22
Speaker 1: because the hand of the bailiffs was shifting me now
20:26
Speaker 1: to not being able to look at my family, but
20:28
Speaker 1: to look directly at the jury or the judge. And
20:31
Speaker 1: I was just I was terrified. I didn't even feel
20:33
Speaker 1: like I was there. I felt my body, but I
20:36
Speaker 1: felt myself floating away.
20:50
Speaker 3: The nightmares now fully underway. You're in a maximum security prison.
20:54
Speaker 3: Is it as bad as people think it is?
20:56
Speaker 1: Yeah? It is. It is. You're living in a six
20:58
Speaker 1: by night foot cell. It's very small. I mean I
21:01
Speaker 1: could stretch out my hands and almost touch the cell walls.
21:06
Speaker 5: And there's two of you in there.
21:08
Speaker 1: Well, there was one at times there was too. Throughout
21:11
Speaker 1: my years, I would be forced to be with someone else,
21:13
Speaker 1: but in the beginning I was by myself. They didn't
21:16
Speaker 1: have double bunking in the beginning of my inconserration.
21:19
Speaker 3: And so there you are, facing the possibility of spending
21:23
Speaker 3: the rest of your life there. And then things took
21:25
Speaker 3: a very interesting turn. And this is the story again,
21:30
Speaker 3: one of the many things that makes your story so
21:33
Speaker 3: unique and makes you such an inspiring character to me.
21:38
Speaker 3: So your story is national news, right it became. It
21:43
Speaker 3: got a lot of coverage. I mean there's a lot
21:44
Speaker 3: of murders at this time, but your story got a
21:46
Speaker 3: lot of coverage.
21:47
Speaker 6: Fernando Bermudez five people testified against him, and the judge
21:51
Speaker 6: put them away for life, but was he wrongly convicted
21:54
Speaker 6: of murder. Fernando Bermudez had an alibi. He says he
21:57
Speaker 6: was driving around with friends.
21:59
Speaker 2: There was no physical evidence against him, no blood, no gun,
22:02
Speaker 2: but there was no getting around those witnesses. Maryann de Berry,
22:05
Speaker 2: with the father's help, was able to track down all
22:07
Speaker 2: the witnesses who testified against Fernando and get them to
22:11
Speaker 2: admit that under pressure, they gave false testimony.
22:15
Speaker 3: And so then you received a letter. Let's talk about
22:18
Speaker 3: this because this is really and you wrote a lot
22:21
Speaker 3: of letters, but this letter that came in you probably
22:24
Speaker 3: remember pretty well what it said, right.
22:26
Speaker 1: Well, absolutely. I was in my cell and I was
22:30
Speaker 1: working out, and I just finished writing another legal letter
22:33
Speaker 1: because I was always writing letters to try to get help.
22:37
Speaker 1: And a young lady wrote me. She had saw my case.
22:41
Speaker 1: She was living in Oklahoma at the time, and she
22:43
Speaker 1: wrote me and she says she believed in me. She
22:45
Speaker 1: said that she wanted to pray for me. And I
22:48
Speaker 1: was just amazed that at her persistent persistence in continuing
22:53
Speaker 1: a relationship.
22:54
Speaker 5: With me, and she had to go to some trouble
22:56
Speaker 5: to find you and gave your address on the TV.
22:59
Speaker 1: Show, Oh no, no, no, yees. She had to investigate.
23:01
Speaker 1: At the time, there was no internet and things like that,
23:05
Speaker 1: and so she had to go. She was working for
23:07
Speaker 1: the phone company, so she had to actually call places,
23:10
Speaker 1: and finally she called Rikers Island and they got so
23:12
Speaker 1: fed up with her after calling so many different departments
23:15
Speaker 1: they already had heard about her that they just scribbled
23:17
Speaker 1: off some numbers and you know, some more information that
23:20
Speaker 1: when she was able to see on the TV apart
23:22
Speaker 1: from my name, and then she wrote me a letter.
23:25
Speaker 3: So you get this letter, and there was no picture attached, right, So,
23:29
Speaker 3: as far as you knew, could have been anybody, but
23:31
Speaker 3: just you didn't know that this was going to be
23:32
Speaker 3: the woman of your dreams at the time, right, right,
23:35
Speaker 3: But then things progressed.
23:37
Speaker 1: That's right. She sent me a picture and she was
23:39
Speaker 1: beautiful apart from her description, and most importantly to me
23:43
Speaker 1: was that she brought the word of God in my life.
23:45
Speaker 1: I mean, I was at a point where I didn't
23:47
Speaker 1: know what to believe anymore. The American criminal justice system
23:49
Speaker 1: had failed me. I felt that God had abandoned me.
23:53
Speaker 1: And here was this young girl speaking about God to
23:56
Speaker 1: me and bringing about faith. You know, renewing it, and
24:00
Speaker 1: that's what she did, and she came to visit me
24:02
Speaker 1: and we got married.
24:04
Speaker 5: You got married at the prison in prison, so I
24:06
Speaker 5: couldn't believe it.
24:08
Speaker 3: Wow, that was And that's Crystal Now, Crystal is. I've
24:12
Speaker 3: met Crystal several times. She's an amazing person, beautiful, has
24:17
Speaker 3: such a great disposition, so positive. And then you had kids, yes,
24:22
Speaker 3: while you're in prison. Yes, And your daughter was born
24:27
Speaker 3: in what ninety six, ninety five.
24:31
Speaker 1: In the early nineties, and then we had another We
24:33
Speaker 1: had our second daughter, who was born in two thousand
24:37
Speaker 1: and one, followed by my son in two thousand and five.
24:41
Speaker 3: So as much as it's a blessing to have kids
24:44
Speaker 3: and have another reason to live right and to be
24:49
Speaker 3: you know, motivated to get out of bed every day
24:52
Speaker 3: when you're in this impossible situation, how difficult is that
24:55
Speaker 3: to grow up apart from your kids, And how does
24:58
Speaker 3: that affect them when they're that that is, you know,
25:01
Speaker 3: not accessible to them.
25:02
Speaker 1: What was extremely difficult decision for myself because first I
25:06
Speaker 1: told Chris, I said, Chris, I said, we shouldn't get married.
25:09
Speaker 1: You know, you really even shouldn't bother with me because
25:11
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm getting out.
25:13
Speaker 5: You don't know if you're getting out, That's what I'm saying.
25:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so she was like, I have faith in
25:18
Speaker 1: God that it's going to turn out. And then came
25:20
Speaker 1: the decision to have kids. For me. I didn't want
25:22
Speaker 1: to have kids because I didn't want to bring more
25:25
Speaker 1: burdens to not only ourselves in the situation we were in.
25:28
Speaker 1: But if I didn't get out, then the children would
25:30
Speaker 1: essentially almost be fatherless apart from me being alive in
25:33
Speaker 1: prison if I survived. But also I was so angry
25:37
Speaker 1: at the system and what it did to me and
25:39
Speaker 1: the confines and controls that I found myself in that
25:44
Speaker 1: I said to myself, Wow, you have to do something
25:48
Speaker 1: that means if you have a kid that can survive
25:52
Speaker 1: if you don't. So it was that decision as well.
25:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, and listen, it was a great decision because you
25:58
Speaker 3: have a wonderful family, have three kids, right, yes, Yeah,
26:01
Speaker 3: it's fantastic. So then let's talk about how you so
26:04
Speaker 3: when things turned for the better and how you did
26:05
Speaker 3: get out.
26:06
Speaker 5: What was the breaking tipping point?
26:08
Speaker 3: Who was it, what organization or person or combination of
26:14
Speaker 3: things and others take it through.
26:16
Speaker 5: When you were released.
26:18
Speaker 6: Well.
26:18
Speaker 1: The foundation of my case leading to my exoneration, upon
26:21
Speaker 1: which all the good intention and no well spoken lawyers
26:27
Speaker 1: who fought hard for my case. The foundation begins with
26:32
Speaker 1: Marianne the Barry, who was a former nun turned attorney
26:36
Speaker 1: in her late forties, who began investigating my case as
26:39
Speaker 1: early as nineteen ninety three, nineteen ninety two and so forth.
26:42
Speaker 1: And she began investigating my case, and she started laying
26:46
Speaker 1: the foundation of all the misconduct that occurred and everything.
26:51
Speaker 1: And even though I was denied ten appeals, you know,
26:56
Speaker 1: with her help and all the different lawyers, including Hellerstein
27:00
Speaker 1: you know, and got rest Marianne's soul as she passed
27:03
Speaker 1: away last year. The tipping point became around two thousand
27:08
Speaker 1: and eight when I had gotten help from another attorney
27:13
Speaker 1: from Seaton Hall Law School, and she was involved in
27:15
Speaker 1: my case, and she got what would many prisoners would
27:19
Speaker 1: call a dream team, including lawyers from Washington, d C.
27:23
Speaker 1: New York law firms and other people from New Jersey
27:27
Speaker 1: as well. And she also got involved on New York's
27:30
Speaker 1: Innocence Project and together we all went into court in
27:33
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine after I had rejected a plea
27:37
Speaker 1: bargain from the District Attorney's office. So for me, that
27:40
Speaker 1: was a turning point because I finally got to test
27:43
Speaker 1: the evidence before a new judge in Manhattan stan Supreme Court.
27:48
Speaker 1: And it was a moment where I felt good because
27:52
Speaker 1: I had rejected a plea, a plea bargain and off
27:54
Speaker 1: for plea. But I was also scared because it meant
27:57
Speaker 1: that if I had lost this eleventh a pal, I
27:59
Speaker 1: would definitely or most likely, I should say, die in prison.
28:03
Speaker 3: Well, that's an unbelievable amount of pressure, and an Alfred
28:06
Speaker 3: plea for those of you who aren't aware, means that
28:09
Speaker 3: you're the state basically comes to you and says you
28:13
Speaker 3: we kind of they kind of give you like a wink, right,
28:16
Speaker 3: like we kind of know we mess this up, but
28:18
Speaker 3: we're not gonna admit that we're wrong, which means you
28:21
Speaker 3: can't sue us, but we're gonna let you go home. So,
28:24
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a tough decision to make, right, I mean,
28:26
Speaker 3: as bad as you want to get out of there.
28:28
Speaker 3: But at the same time, it's a it's sort of
28:30
Speaker 3: like a I mean, it's I don't know if you
28:32
Speaker 3: call it like a Sophie's choice. But it's a brutal
28:36
Speaker 3: decision to have to make. But you made the right decision.
28:39
Speaker 3: And yours was not a DNA case because it was
28:42
Speaker 3: a shooting, so there was no physical evidence at the time.
28:45
Speaker 3: There was actually no physical evidence of any kind that
28:47
Speaker 3: connected you to.
28:48
Speaker 1: The crime, none whatsoever.
28:49
Speaker 5: Never was never.
28:56
Speaker 3: So you go to trial with this dream team innocence projects,
29:02
Speaker 3: this group of dedicated individuals, and now you got the
29:09
Speaker 3: full Now you got the odds a little bit in
29:11
Speaker 3: your favor, right, it's fair to say. And so you
29:14
Speaker 3: go to court. Let's have let's talk about the opposite experience.
29:16
Speaker 3: You're there saying, you know, different kind of pressure, right,
29:20
Speaker 3: You've been through everything that they can throw at you.
29:23
Speaker 1: What happens, Well, I'm in court and I'm just like
29:28
Speaker 1: glad that I rejected that offer because I really wanted
29:30
Speaker 1: to get down to the matter of these witnesses coming forward.
29:33
Speaker 2: And NBC News investigation shows if those witnesses are now
29:36
Speaker 2: telling the truth, and Fernando Bermudas is the wrong man.
29:41
Speaker 5: Your kids are there, wife is there.
29:43
Speaker 1: My wife was there, and all a lot of the
29:45
Speaker 1: past lawyers throughout the years were there as well. Mary
29:49
Speaker 1: Anne was actually in a cave and Israel praying for me.
29:53
Speaker 1: She went out, she was already out there, and the
29:55
Speaker 1: hearing came and she was just there and she sent
29:57
Speaker 1: word that she'd be praying in the cave, okay, and
30:00
Speaker 1: so that was good. I felt confident with that. And
30:03
Speaker 1: we were there and the EVIDENTI hearing under the leadership
30:06
Speaker 1: of Barry Pollock from Washington, d C.
30:10
Speaker 5: It went well.
30:10
Speaker 1: It went well. I mean, the detective I don't know
30:15
Speaker 1: what kind of problems he's had in his past, but
30:19
Speaker 1: he did have, for example, past the rest for drunk
30:21
Speaker 1: driving in which he hit two girls. He came into
30:23
Speaker 1: the courtroom seemingly drunk. The prosecutor, who up until this
30:27
Speaker 1: point was so smug and confident in his position about
30:32
Speaker 1: his case against me, now was shaken, visibly shaken. They
30:37
Speaker 1: brought in a surprise detective who they said would now
30:42
Speaker 1: testify that he was observing the witnesses and that they
30:44
Speaker 1: were not engaged in the illegal identification procedures, which we
30:48
Speaker 1: already were on the verge of proving. And he couldn't
30:51
Speaker 1: remember any details. So it's like they even made a
30:53
Speaker 1: mistake bring him in because he couldn't remember.
30:55
Speaker 5: Because everybody could see he was lying, Yeah.
30:57
Speaker 1: We demonstrated through cross examination. So I was just like, wow,
31:02
Speaker 1: all this is finally coming to the point where my
31:05
Speaker 1: faith told me that my enemies would become my footstool. Wow,
31:10
Speaker 1: And that's what was happening. That's what was happening.
31:13
Speaker 5: And this was a judge, not a jury.
31:14
Speaker 1: This was before a judge. And after a two week proceeding,
31:19
Speaker 1: I waited a month because the judge says he needed
31:22
Speaker 1: more time to make the decision. And I was like, wow,
31:26
Speaker 1: I was stuck at Downstate correctional facility, starving. I mean,
31:30
Speaker 1: I was so hungry. I was actually taking rations from
31:33
Speaker 1: the mess hall and saving it in myself like a squirrel,
31:36
Speaker 1: just to get through because there I was like in
31:38
Speaker 1: between my irregular prison and rikers, waiting to be called
31:41
Speaker 1: back to court. So it was crazy. I came back
31:44
Speaker 1: to court and it was the big moment, this was
31:47
Speaker 1: my eleventh appeal. I walked into the courtroom and there
31:52
Speaker 1: was just like a hushed suffocation. All you could hear
31:55
Speaker 1: was the whirl of recorders of television cameras, reporters furiously scribbling,
32:04
Speaker 1: You could hear people breathing. The clock seemed to be
32:08
Speaker 1: just ticking so slow you could just hear that. And
32:13
Speaker 1: I was just like I was. I was nervous because
32:15
Speaker 1: this was a moment. And finally, finally the judge asked
32:20
Speaker 1: me to stand, and I stood, and my knees were shaken.
32:24
Speaker 1: I felt a touch of global warming under my shirt.
32:29
Speaker 1: I was just so nervous. And the judge declared me
32:31
Speaker 1: actually innocent, and the courtroom erupted in applause. And then
32:37
Speaker 1: the judge didn't stop there. He said that in this case,
32:42
Speaker 1: the prosecutor, James G. Rodriguez, knew and should have known,
32:45
Speaker 1: that he was relying upon perjured testimony, that the identification
32:49
Speaker 1: procedures were illegal and constitutional and should not have occurred,
32:52
Speaker 1: which a federal judge I previously ruled in my favor on,
32:56
Speaker 1: And that the State of New York admitted that its
32:58
Speaker 1: state start witness from Lopez had committed perjury, and he
33:02
Speaker 1: declared me actually innocent.
33:04
Speaker 6: Fernando Bermudaz was falsely accused of murder after a fight
33:07
Speaker 6: outside of Manhattan nightclub. He was convicted, though sent to prison,
33:10
Speaker 6: exonerated and released after nearly twenty years when a judge
33:13
Speaker 6: found misconduct in his case.
33:15
Speaker 4: This wrongful conviction was predicated upon perjury, was predicated upon manipulation,
33:22
Speaker 4: was predicated upon coercion and deceit of New York City
33:26
Speaker 4: District Attorney's Office and New York City Police Department.
33:30
Speaker 3: And then you walked out of the court room of
33:32
Speaker 3: free men. TV cameras there.
33:34
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, soon after that, I walked out.
33:37
Speaker 5: And that must have been like a crazy mixture of
33:40
Speaker 5: emotions too.
33:41
Speaker 3: I mean, your wife is there, You're able to hug
33:44
Speaker 3: her like a normal person, like a man, not in
33:47
Speaker 3: any nobody overseeing you or watching or anything else, right,
33:52
Speaker 3: But then you're out in the fresh air, and like,
33:55
Speaker 3: what's going through your mind?
33:57
Speaker 1: Well? I was scared because the world had changed so much.
33:59
Speaker 1: I mean by eighteen years, eighteen and a half years,
34:02
Speaker 1: several presidents and governors later. I mean, now there was
34:05
Speaker 1: the Internet. People were walking around, cell phones, Yeah, they
34:09
Speaker 1: were walking before I went to prison. The cell phones
34:13
Speaker 1: with the size of shoe boxes, assuming you even had one,
34:16
Speaker 1: you know, it was very rare, you know, And now
34:18
Speaker 1: everyone had one. People were talking to themselves on the street.
34:21
Speaker 1: I realized it was bluetooth technology. The fashion had changed
34:25
Speaker 1: from baggy pants to now skinny jeans. Besides that, I
34:30
Speaker 1: was just scared because it didn't even feel like I
34:32
Speaker 1: had permission to be outside.
34:33
Speaker 5: I was, I was psychologically Were you worried that they
34:36
Speaker 5: were going to send you back in, that this was
34:37
Speaker 5: all a dream, or that there was someone was going
34:39
Speaker 5: to grab you and go no, go back to your cell. Whatever.
34:43
Speaker 1: Well, I certainly felt that this can happen again. I
34:47
Speaker 1: felt that, but I've had trouble crossing the street. I
34:50
Speaker 1: got Disney in department stores because there were so many
34:52
Speaker 1: colors and choices.
34:53
Speaker 5: Like a PTSD kind of Well, then that's when I realized.
34:56
Speaker 1: After a while, I said, well, what's wrong with me?
34:58
Speaker 1: Why am I waking up in the middle of the night,
35:00
Speaker 1: getting up and feeling like I'm still in a prison cell,
35:03
Speaker 1: pacing and Crystal would tell me, you know, you got
35:05
Speaker 1: to get back to bed. You're not in prison anymore,
35:07
Speaker 1: you know. Walking the family dog at the point at
35:10
Speaker 1: that time was an issue. I felt like there was
35:13
Speaker 1: gun towers outside. I mean, it was just a lot
35:15
Speaker 1: of stuff. So I realized after I went to psychiatric
35:18
Speaker 1: evaluation that I have post traumatic stress disorder, and I
35:21
Speaker 1: didn't think I would have that.
35:22
Speaker 3: Well, you served, you know, of the of the in
35:25
Speaker 3: the DNA exoneration cases with homicide as the as a crime,
35:30
Speaker 3: the average time served a thirteen years, so you served,
35:34
Speaker 3: you know, significantly longer than the average one, although we
35:36
Speaker 3: had a couple of recent exonerations of guys who had
35:39
Speaker 3: served thirty four years, which is unbelievable, numbers.
35:42
Speaker 5: Almost twice as long.
35:43
Speaker 3: But it affects everyone differently, and it obviously is going
35:46
Speaker 3: to infect anybody to go through this. So I think,
35:51
Speaker 3: you know, and it's interesting too, thinking back to that
35:53
Speaker 3: scene in the courtroom. You know, the odds are stacked
35:57
Speaker 3: against you when you're poor, when you're Latino or of color. Right,
36:02
Speaker 3: we know that a higher percentage of people of color
36:05
Speaker 3: are arrested, are prosecuted, are convicted. There's no justification for that,
36:10
Speaker 3: There's no evidence that they commit crimes at a higher
36:13
Speaker 3: rate or anything else. And so you finally got the
36:17
Speaker 3: scales of justice tipped in your favor and you emerged
36:20
Speaker 3: to this loving family. But then you still had another
36:24
Speaker 3: lawsuit to go, right, you still had a case. Now
36:26
Speaker 3: you have to file a suit against the city and
36:28
Speaker 3: against the state. Right, yes, so that that has now
36:33
Speaker 3: been resolved, Right, the first one.
36:36
Speaker 1: The first one, but it took me five and a
36:38
Speaker 1: half years. Let the record reflect.
36:40
Speaker 3: Five and a half years. So you're out with nothing
36:42
Speaker 3: for five no job skills, no resume. No, I mean,
36:45
Speaker 3: how to get a job right, It's got to be brutal.
36:48
Speaker 1: I mean all I had was, you know, an associate's
36:51
Speaker 1: degree of the concentration in business and working toward my bachelor's.
36:55
Speaker 1: And then when I got out, I had to go
36:57
Speaker 1: to college to finish my bachelor's and I had to
37:00
Speaker 1: take loans. There was no free ride here. I had
37:03
Speaker 1: to go to college and out there and you know,
37:05
Speaker 1: like most hard working young men and women do for
37:08
Speaker 1: their lives and futures. But the thing is, I had
37:11
Speaker 1: to deal with the psychological impact. I didn't know how
37:14
Speaker 1: to drive anymore. I had to get a license. People
37:16
Speaker 1: from my church closed me. They helped me get my
37:21
Speaker 1: license back. I didn't have money to get a license
37:23
Speaker 1: or even take driving school lessons. You know, it was funny.
37:26
Speaker 1: I'm forty years old and I got to learn how
37:28
Speaker 1: to drive again.
37:28
Speaker 5: No, it's interesting.
37:29
Speaker 3: For another you know, almost thirty five percent of xenneries
37:33
Speaker 3: don't get any money right because the compensation statutes are
37:36
Speaker 3: so different in every state and in some states, it's
37:39
Speaker 3: impossible to get money. So it's very difficult to get money.
37:42
Speaker 3: And I think people think that you come out and
37:46
Speaker 3: society just opens its doors to you and everything's great,
37:49
Speaker 3: and you get a check and you move on all
37:51
Speaker 3: your life with five and a half years with nothing
37:53
Speaker 3: struggling on the outside.
37:55
Speaker 5: I mean, I knew you back then, and I know
37:56
Speaker 5: what you were going through.
37:58
Speaker 3: That's got to be just an another almost another major
38:03
Speaker 3: challenge to get through. But you got through it. I
38:06
Speaker 3: mean you persevered. I know you went and did three
38:10
Speaker 3: hundred speaking engages. We talked about that before and just
38:12
Speaker 3: by cold calling, you've spoken all over the world.
38:15
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we've been to Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland.
38:18
Speaker 1: We tell our story. Fine, why to transform the criminal
38:22
Speaker 1: justice systems?
38:23
Speaker 3: So, Feranda, what I wanted to ask you is, what's
38:27
Speaker 3: the message you want to send?
38:28
Speaker 1: Well, certainly, the problem of wrong for convictions is far reaching.
38:32
Speaker 1: We have over seventeen hundred wrongful convictions that are just documented,
38:36
Speaker 1: and that's just documented in America today.
38:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, seventeen hundred exonerations, I think, yeah, it's almost yes, yes, yes,
38:43
Speaker 3: close to eighteen.
38:44
Speaker 1: Absolutely, close to eighteen hundred exonerations. Those are just the
38:47
Speaker 1: ones that are documented. And you know, over almost one
38:50
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty were released from death row, which is
38:53
Speaker 1: horrible as well.
38:54
Speaker 5: And no, that's what Brian Stevenson says.
38:56
Speaker 3: I mean, for every person we've executed, we've for every
38:59
Speaker 3: nine people we've executed, we've had one exonerated from death throw.
39:02
Speaker 3: And as he says, and he's one of my heroes,
39:05
Speaker 3: if you had planes and one out of every nine
39:08
Speaker 3: or ten planes crashed, nobody would fly.
39:11
Speaker 5: You can't have this system. So anyway, I'm sorry in
39:14
Speaker 5: directors to go ahead.
39:15
Speaker 1: So yeah, So on that note, there has to be accountability.
39:18
Speaker 1: You know, prosecutors get this immunity. We understand that we
39:22
Speaker 1: need prosecutors, and those who do a good job, kudos
39:25
Speaker 1: to them. But for those that don't, who flell out
39:27
Speaker 1: the system and our constitution, then shame on them. They
39:30
Speaker 1: should be held accountable. They have too much immunity. We
39:33
Speaker 1: need more accountability for those who are responsible. As a
39:36
Speaker 1: deterrent effect. Law is created to deter crime across the board.
39:42
Speaker 1: And if it doesn't deter crime or misconduct, then it
39:46
Speaker 1: doesn't work.
39:47
Speaker 5: Why is the law there above the law?
39:50
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah, So they shouldn't be. And you know, the
39:54
Speaker 1: damage that it causes families and the people directly affected
39:59
Speaker 1: body and costs of is just it's horrible. I mean,
40:03
Speaker 1: I'm affected today. I'm still free today, but i still
40:07
Speaker 1: feel like I'm in prison.
40:08
Speaker 5: For people who want to help, what can they do?
40:10
Speaker 5: Should they go online? Should they write letters? Should they donate? Well?
40:13
Speaker 1: I think that public needs to connect with their politicians
40:18
Speaker 1: and voice their concerns that this is an issue that
40:21
Speaker 1: matters to them. But more than that, they also need to, like,
40:24
Speaker 1: if possible, to use their resources, talents, and time to
40:28
Speaker 1: volunteer to their local innocence projects.
40:30
Speaker 3: You know, there are fifty five innosce projects around the
40:33
Speaker 3: country and so there's.
40:34
Speaker 5: Probably one near you wherever you are. Don't forget to.
40:43
Speaker 3: Give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts.
40:46
Speaker 5: It really helps.
40:47
Speaker 3: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and
40:50
Speaker 3: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
40:53
Speaker 3: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
40:57
Speaker 3: to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to do
41:00
Speaker 3: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
41:03
Speaker 3: Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show
41:06
Speaker 3: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
41:09
Speaker 3: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
41:12
Speaker 3: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
41:17
Speaker 3: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
41:20
Speaker 3: association with Signal Company Number one