Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #574 Jason Flom with Alexis Ke'Erica Martin

Transcript

#574 Jason Flom with Alexis Ke'Erica Martin · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Connor Hall, one of the producers here
0:07
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, and I will be curating a list
0:10
Speaker 1: of episodes for the next few weeks, offering case updates,
0:14
Speaker 1: behind the scenes in FOE and maybe some insights. Now.
0:19
Speaker 1: When given this opportunity, a number of people immediately came
0:22
Speaker 1: to mind, including Alexis Kierka Martin. If you don't remember,
0:27
Speaker 1: she was fifteen years old when the robbery of her
0:32
Speaker 1: sex trafficker turned into his murder. Now, I'm sure many
0:37
Speaker 1: folks would be sympathetic to somebody in that situation if
0:40
Speaker 1: they were to be involved in a plot to bring
0:43
Speaker 1: about the demise of their sex trafficker, a child sex trafficker,
0:47
Speaker 1: But Kyerka maintains that she was not involved in any
0:51
Speaker 1: such plot, and without any direct evidence of her involvement,
0:54
Speaker 1: the d A in Akron, Ohio at the time still
0:57
Speaker 1: thought that Kierica needed to pay, which is strange given
1:02
Speaker 1: just the circumstances. Yet, in addition, Ohio had just enacted
1:07
Speaker 1: a safe harbor law, which he the judge and trial
1:10
Speaker 1: council should have known about, a law made for situations
1:14
Speaker 1: just like this one to end a human trafficking survivor's
1:18
Speaker 1: nightmare rather than compounding it with the legal system, and
1:23
Speaker 1: since that law was not invoked, Kierica was bound over
1:27
Speaker 1: into adult court, convicted and sentenced to twenty one years
1:30
Speaker 1: to life. And when this was brought to the attention
1:33
Speaker 1: of Ohio Governor Mike Dwine, he granted Kierka clemency, putting
1:39
Speaker 1: her on parole in April twenty twenty, and about a
1:42
Speaker 1: year later, we released our coverage of her case, at
1:45
Speaker 1: which time she was doing speaking engagements as well as
1:49
Speaker 1: a few normal jobs to save for college, with the
1:51
Speaker 1: plan of starting a nonprofit to help prevent human trafficking
1:55
Speaker 1: and support other survivors. Now a year on from that,
2:00
Speaker 1: can remember it like it was yesterday. I mean, we
2:02
Speaker 1: were at the twenty twenty two Innocence Network conference in Phoenix.
2:07
Speaker 1: We had just wrapped another day of interviews. It was
2:10
Speaker 1: really emotional, and it only got more emotional when we
2:14
Speaker 1: heard that Kierica had been sent back to prison. Apparently
2:18
Speaker 1: a friend of hers was in between living situations and
2:21
Speaker 1: asked to crash on her couch for a few nights,
2:24
Speaker 1: and then just mere hours after that person arrived at
2:29
Speaker 1: her apartment with a bunch of moving boxes, Kierka's parole
2:32
Speaker 1: officer came by for a random check, which may or
2:36
Speaker 1: may not have been so random, since this was used
2:40
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to bust not only a friend, but
2:43
Speaker 1: then also Kierica because unbeknownst to her, her friend was
2:47
Speaker 1: in possession of a number of items that were in
2:49
Speaker 1: violation of her parole, so she was sent back to
2:52
Speaker 1: serve the rest of that twenty one to life sentence. Luckily,
2:57
Speaker 1: a huge law firm, Daikema, got wind of Kerka's story
3:00
Speaker 1: and took on her case pro bono. They were able
3:03
Speaker 1: to show the ineffectiveness of her trial council for first
3:07
Speaker 1: not even being aware of and then failing to properly
3:11
Speaker 1: invoke Ohio's Safe Harbor Law, which would have stopped Kierka's
3:15
Speaker 1: legal troubles before they started, so her murder conviction was vacated,
3:20
Speaker 1: at which point the state could have dismissed the charges,
3:23
Speaker 1: especially with what the safe Harbor law demands, but they didn't,
3:27
Speaker 1: which left Kierica with a choice to remain in prison
3:31
Speaker 1: while the state appealed, and if they lost there, they
3:34
Speaker 1: would retry her.
3:35
Speaker 2: And who knows how long any of this would take
3:38
Speaker 2: before they could finally get it back into the juvenile
3:41
Speaker 2: court to then invoke the safe harbor law and finally
3:45
Speaker 2: clear her name. So Kierica reluctantly accepted a guilty plea
3:51
Speaker 2: to involuntary manslaughter with the sentence maxing out at eleven years,
3:55
Speaker 2: just enough to let her go with time served, which
3:59
Speaker 2: is going to do her exactly, zero favors and getting
4:03
Speaker 2: any kind of compensation or standing in a civil proceeding.
4:07
Speaker 2: And I want you all to keep that.
4:08
Speaker 1: In mind when you listen to her story. It's a
4:12
Speaker 1: very unique story, but the outcome is typical in a
4:16
Speaker 1: state like Ohio or any state. Really, this is the
4:19
Speaker 1: outcome that they felt comfortable delivering.
4:26
Speaker 3: Alexis Kierka Martin was raised by her grandmother in Akron, Ohio,
4:30
Speaker 3: and had a strained relationship with her birth mother and father.
4:34
Speaker 3: She had a boyfriend, Deshaun Spear, but they broke up
4:37
Speaker 3: around age thirteen, the same time that an older man
4:41
Speaker 3: named Angelo Kearney began grooming her for the sex trade.
4:46
Speaker 3: By the time she was fourteen, she was actively being trafficked.
4:50
Speaker 3: Time passed and Deshaun reached out to Kierica to ask
4:54
Speaker 3: if the rumors he had heard about prostitution were true.
4:57
Speaker 3: Then one night, after a party, a Angelo Kearney's Kierka
5:01
Speaker 3: and another woman, Jenney Jones, were alone with Angelo and
5:05
Speaker 3: his brother Alicio Samuel while she was being raped by Alicio.
5:10
Speaker 3: Samuel to Shaun and his friend Travaski Jackson broke in,
5:14
Speaker 3: wearing masks and carrying guns. Kearney was shot and killed,
5:19
Speaker 3: and Samuel survived a gunshot to his head. When Samuel
5:24
Speaker 3: came to at the hospital, he mentioned nothing about the
5:27
Speaker 3: child he had been raping, but he did mention the
5:29
Speaker 3: other people he had been with earlier that night. A
5:33
Speaker 3: further investigation led to Alexis Kierka Martin. Ohio's brand new
5:38
Speaker 3: safe Harbor law was written for situations just like this,
5:42
Speaker 3: but neither her lawyer nor the state invoked it before
5:45
Speaker 3: she was tried in adult court for the murder of
5:48
Speaker 3: the man that held her captive in child sex slavery.
5:53
Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
6:13
Speaker 3: Jason Flamm That's me. I'm your host, and today if
6:16
Speaker 3: my voice is cracking a little, it's because this story is.
6:20
Speaker 3: It's painful to read, it's painful to talk about. It's
6:24
Speaker 3: an absolute disgrace that any of this happened. It's also
6:28
Speaker 3: the story of triumph over tragedy though with us today,
6:32
Speaker 3: we have an extraordinary lawyer, Sasha Naman from the Ohio
6:36
Speaker 3: Justice and Policy Center. Sasha, it's wonderful to have you here.
6:39
Speaker 3: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
6:41
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, and we're.
6:43
Speaker 3: Going to tell the story with the person who lived it,
6:47
Speaker 3: Alexis Kierica Martin. You'll hear her referred to as Kierica
6:51
Speaker 3: as we go through, but she's also known as Alexis Martin.
6:54
Speaker 3: So Alexis, thank you for being here and sharing your story.
6:57
Speaker 5: Thank you for allowing me the time and opportunity.
7:00
Speaker 3: So let's go back to your childhood, Akron, Ohio, Hardland
7:06
Speaker 3: of America. What was your childhood like before this tragedy,
7:11
Speaker 3: this series of tragedies struck.
7:14
Speaker 5: My childhood would be what some people would call unstable.
7:18
Speaker 5: I grew up with multiple family members, but predominantly I
7:23
Speaker 5: was blessed with having my grandmother raised me. All in all,
7:26
Speaker 5: through everything, I would say that she did a pretty
7:28
Speaker 5: good job with at least making sure I knew how
7:30
Speaker 5: to say thank you.
7:33
Speaker 4: Alexis was a child when she was trafficked. She had
7:36
Speaker 4: a tough childhood in some ways, and she said her
7:39
Speaker 4: grandma was a light in that in a big way.
7:42
Speaker 4: But at fourteen years old, she was surviving some horrific things,
7:46
Speaker 4: things that are unimaginable to many Americans. Is a prolonged
7:50
Speaker 4: and terrible sex trafficking situation, and she wanted a life
7:53
Speaker 4: that was free and safe and healthy, where she could
7:56
Speaker 4: go to school, where her and her siblings weren't in danger.
8:00
Speaker 4: And she was a child, so she was in a
8:02
Speaker 4: position where she hoped that she could finally have this
8:05
Speaker 4: opportunity to flee from the trafficking, and that brought her
8:09
Speaker 4: into involvement with the robbery of her trafficker.
8:13
Speaker 5: I was fourteen when I met my trafficker, and me
8:18
Speaker 5: and my co defriend and DeShawn Spirit. He was my
8:21
Speaker 5: boyfriend and we separated before this case occurred, and then
8:27
Speaker 5: while I was in active trafficking, we would see each
8:30
Speaker 5: other and check on each other, but I never got
8:33
Speaker 5: too close with him. Everybody kept hearing rumors about me
8:36
Speaker 5: being prostituted. Some people were bold enough to act, some
8:40
Speaker 5: people weren't. They just you know, kind of turned their
8:43
Speaker 5: nose up to me. Well, he asked me a couple
8:46
Speaker 5: of times, and I continued to deny it and just
8:48
Speaker 5: admitted that I was dancing, but I wouldn't tell him
8:51
Speaker 5: where I was dancing at.
8:53
Speaker 3: So as of that moment, he's left in the dark.
8:55
Speaker 3: And before the night that the Shawn Spirit tried to
8:58
Speaker 3: free Kierika, which was November seven, twenty thirteen, Sasha, she
9:03
Speaker 3: had tried to find another way to get out of
9:05
Speaker 3: that life, right.
9:06
Speaker 4: She was trying to reach out to adults for help.
9:09
Speaker 4: So before the night of this offense happened, she was
9:12
Speaker 4: trying to turn herself in. She actually proactively went to
9:16
Speaker 4: the juvenile system because she had kind of an active
9:19
Speaker 4: case that had kind of been going on in parallel,
9:21
Speaker 4: and she was hoping that they would take her in,
9:23
Speaker 4: that they would arrest her, they would put her in
9:25
Speaker 4: a program. But her trafficker sends her with someone who
9:28
Speaker 4: poses as her caretaker and says she's fine and she's
9:32
Speaker 4: cared for, and even though these adults see the way
9:35
Speaker 4: she's dressed, even though they see these red flags, they
9:37
Speaker 4: let her back out with that person.
9:39
Speaker 3: Alexis, as much as you're comfortable with talking about it.
9:43
Speaker 3: That night, when this robbery occurred. Can you tell us
9:47
Speaker 3: how this whole thing happened and how somebody ended up dead.
9:50
Speaker 5: I was caught to the house and Jenney Jones was
9:54
Speaker 5: also there. They had a party and Angela was training
9:57
Speaker 5: me more so to be his madam. I had to
10:00
Speaker 5: be there to make sure that the rest of the
10:02
Speaker 5: girls did what they were supposed to and that I
10:06
Speaker 5: made money that night. So during the whole time that
10:09
Speaker 5: the party occurred, I did what Angelo told me to do.
10:13
Speaker 5: I danced, I collected money, I served drinks, and then
10:17
Speaker 5: as it got late, everybody left. But that means that
10:22
Speaker 5: there was a lot of eyewitnesses that seen me with him,
10:26
Speaker 5: some of his other brothers, they were there that night.
10:29
Speaker 5: When they left, it was just me, Jenny Jones, Angelo Kearney,
10:33
Speaker 5: and Alisio Samer.
10:35
Speaker 4: Alexis was aware that Deshaun and Trevaski were going to
10:40
Speaker 4: be coming into the house. And in Ohio there's something
10:45
Speaker 4: called felony murder, as there is in many other states.
10:48
Speaker 4: And if you're aware of something like a robbery, if
10:50
Speaker 4: you are found legally culpable in something like a robbery
10:54
Speaker 4: and then somebody gets killed, then you're culpable for the
10:58
Speaker 4: homicide that happened. Alexis never shot anybody, never hurt anybody,
11:03
Speaker 4: never wanted anybody to get hurt. But there was this
11:06
Speaker 4: robbery that happened, and when Deshaun Spears and Travaska Jackson
11:11
Speaker 4: break in, when they shoot her trafficker and kill him
11:15
Speaker 4: when they shoot the man who's raping her. Although she
11:17
Speaker 4: is the child and she's the victim there, she became
11:20
Speaker 4: legally culpable ultimately for the death.
11:24
Speaker 5: Once Alisio was shot and Angela was killed, the question
11:28
Speaker 5: was where was I because I was always with him,
11:33
Speaker 5: and if I wasn't with him, then I was in
11:34
Speaker 5: a position where one of his brothers knew where I
11:36
Speaker 5: was at, So where was I was missing? After Alicio
11:41
Speaker 5: woke up in the hospital, he identified Janey. He never
11:46
Speaker 5: identified me. And my theory on this subject is he
11:49
Speaker 5: didn't identify me because I was a child and he
11:52
Speaker 5: was adult. But other people that the police questioned that
11:55
Speaker 5: night continuously brought up my name. So I turned myself
11:59
Speaker 5: in and I was arrested. I was fifteen, and I
12:04
Speaker 5: felt like it was the first time in life that
12:06
Speaker 5: anybody was actually like listening to me. I kind of
12:11
Speaker 5: just told him everything that they wanted to know. My
12:14
Speaker 5: only thing was I just wanted to know was he
12:17
Speaker 5: alive or was he dead? Because I wasn't sure. And
12:20
Speaker 5: when he told me Angelo was dead, I didn't really
12:22
Speaker 5: know how to feel. It didn't click into me that
12:25
Speaker 5: I was truly being arrested for his death until they
12:28
Speaker 5: took me away from the detention center. I was on probation,
12:31
Speaker 5: so I've been arrested a couple times. I was used
12:34
Speaker 5: to the detention officers and stuff like that, so it
12:37
Speaker 5: was kind of like, finally that night, I was going
12:40
Speaker 5: to be safe until they pulled away from there and
12:45
Speaker 5: took me down to the adult Question interrogation where they
12:49
Speaker 5: left me in the code for about three or four hours.
12:53
Speaker 5: I threw up on the table. They didn't clean that up.
12:55
Speaker 5: I asked for my mother. They told me that my
12:58
Speaker 5: mother left, and I knew some of my rights, and
13:00
Speaker 5: I was like, you know, I thought my mom had
13:02
Speaker 5: to be present because I was only fifteen, and they
13:05
Speaker 5: told me she didn't care. And then I continuously asked
13:08
Speaker 5: for my attorney. And I was fifteen. I knew some
13:12
Speaker 5: of my rights right because of Criminal Minds and whatever
13:15
Speaker 5: else I watched, but I didn't really know how to
13:18
Speaker 5: enforce my rights. How they knew I had involvement was?
13:22
Speaker 5: I admitted my own involvement. I didn't know what human
13:26
Speaker 5: trafficking was. I only knew what prostitution and escorting was.
13:29
Speaker 5: I didn't understand that I was a victim. I also
13:33
Speaker 5: admitted to the cops Angela was training me to be
13:36
Speaker 5: his madam. And I also admitted to the cops that
13:38
Speaker 5: I called this man my dad. But that night and
13:43
Speaker 5: for months on, nobody pays attention to that.
13:59
Speaker 4: Before Alexis's case happened, Ohio had passed the Safe Harbor
14:03
Speaker 4: Law that was specifically meant to protect survivors of human
14:07
Speaker 4: trafficking like Kerica. The law would allow juvenile courts to
14:11
Speaker 4: offer services to children like her who were trafficked and
14:14
Speaker 4: to help them. And when she was arrested and sent
14:18
Speaker 4: to juvenile court, that law was in effect, but her
14:21
Speaker 4: attorney didn't know about it and didn't understand it. And
14:25
Speaker 4: Kierko is actually the one who brought this question about
14:28
Speaker 4: this law to the attorney because she had heard about
14:30
Speaker 4: it somewhere.
14:31
Speaker 5: So she was.
14:32
Speaker 4: Now advocating for herself. And this is above and beyond
14:35
Speaker 4: a fifteen year old who is trying to educate her attorney,
14:37
Speaker 4: who then did look into it but didn't understand the law.
14:40
Speaker 4: And then neither he, nor the court nor the prosecutor
14:43
Speaker 4: brings it up. You have this case that the law
14:46
Speaker 4: is made for, the law is in effect, and nobody
14:49
Speaker 4: brings it up, nobody applies it. In fact, the only
14:52
Speaker 4: person who had mentioned it in the process really is
14:56
Speaker 4: Kerka herself.
14:58
Speaker 3: Just to clarify for all you, it's the safe Harbor
15:01
Speaker 3: law in Ohio specifically mandates that miners under the age
15:05
Speaker 3: of sixteen do not need to prove that they were
15:07
Speaker 3: compelled to engage in commercial sexual activity. They're automatically considered
15:12
Speaker 3: victims of child sex trafficking, and the statute requires juvenile
15:16
Speaker 3: courts to appoint a guardian to the defendant, a professional
15:20
Speaker 3: other than a parent or attorney who was responsible for
15:23
Speaker 3: advocating in the best interests of the child on trial.
15:26
Speaker 3: So here the defense, lawyer, the court itself, everybody, they
15:31
Speaker 3: just didn't do what they're supposed to do. Nobody did.
15:34
Speaker 3: It's crazy, and then to make matters worse, they send
15:37
Speaker 3: you to adult court.
15:39
Speaker 5: At that point, I was educated on what human trafficking was,
15:44
Speaker 5: so actually realize that you're a victim, and you hold
15:47
Speaker 5: no power, and that somebody you thought you cared about
15:50
Speaker 5: was hurting you. To know that they were knowledgeably hurting you,
15:54
Speaker 5: and that was their only intent ever, was to hurt you,
15:58
Speaker 5: it's pretty defeating. It hurts. So I know all this now.
16:04
Speaker 5: I learned about what the grooming process was, and I
16:07
Speaker 5: identified what my grooming process was. I learned about the trafficking.
16:11
Speaker 5: I learned about the stages with a juvenile counselor named
16:15
Speaker 5: Hilary Finkel, and she's the one who's bringing in this
16:20
Speaker 5: lady named Maggan Madimo, who ultimately brings up the safe
16:23
Speaker 5: harbor law to the juvenile court after I'm bound over
16:26
Speaker 5: into the adult court, who ultimately educates my attorney. But
16:32
Speaker 5: while I was in the courtroom, Judge Theodosia, who leads
16:37
Speaker 5: the Human Trafficking Division in Summon County still to this day,
16:41
Speaker 5: set out of her own mouths, can we take a
16:43
Speaker 5: second in pause? And I want to ask you, Noah,
16:48
Speaker 5: my attorney and the prosecutor, what do we do about
16:52
Speaker 5: this fifteen year old's trafficking? She admits out her mouth
16:56
Speaker 5: that I'm traffic. Not only was I sex traffic, but
16:59
Speaker 5: labor traffic. She admits this, nobody had a response. The
17:05
Speaker 5: prosecutor and my attorney looked at each other, looked at
17:07
Speaker 5: the judge and was kind of dumbfounded when she asked
17:10
Speaker 5: this question. My attorney, I can't even remember. He mustered
17:13
Speaker 5: up some answer, but it clearly must not have been
17:17
Speaker 5: good enough for Teodosia, because two months later, even after
17:21
Speaker 5: you admit that I'm traffic I got bound over and
17:25
Speaker 5: that made me feel like prior to the trafficking, I
17:29
Speaker 5: was raped and I've reported it and I never got help.
17:32
Speaker 5: One of my cousins raped me from nine to ten
17:35
Speaker 5: and they found him not guilty. And it made me
17:37
Speaker 5: feel the exact same way that no matter how many
17:40
Speaker 5: times I tell somebody somebody did something to me that
17:43
Speaker 5: was wrong, I'm always gonna either be accused of a
17:47
Speaker 5: liar or it doesn't matter. So I started to lose
17:51
Speaker 5: hope again.
17:53
Speaker 3: It's a miracle that you clung onto any hope at
17:55
Speaker 3: all after everything you had been through. And so February seventeenth,
17:59
Speaker 3: tw fifteen, a day that will live in infamy, Karaka,
18:02
Speaker 3: you were advised by your attorney that, with the goal
18:05
Speaker 3: of returning to juvenile court, you should plead guilty to
18:08
Speaker 3: polonious assault and murder. Yes, this was, of course a
18:13
Speaker 3: terrible strategy, and ultimately you were sentenced to twenty one
18:18
Speaker 3: to life. How did you process that sentence and how
18:22
Speaker 3: did you manage to maintain any sort of trace of sanity.
18:28
Speaker 5: Well, I have a little sister that's three and a
18:31
Speaker 5: half years younger than me, and we were talking when
18:34
Speaker 5: I was six years old, and I promised her that
18:37
Speaker 5: I would never let nobody hurt her and I would
18:39
Speaker 5: always be there to protect her. While I was fighting
18:44
Speaker 5: my case at detention center, I tried to kill myself.
18:48
Speaker 5: I busted all the above vessels in my face and
18:50
Speaker 5: I was really close. It hurt her bad while I
18:56
Speaker 5: was in prison. She's left out in the world with
18:59
Speaker 5: my father and my birth mother, the two people I've
19:01
Speaker 5: tried to protect her from my whole life. So if
19:04
Speaker 5: I gave up fighting, I gave up fighting for her life.
19:08
Speaker 5: If I gave up fighting, everything that happened to me,
19:12
Speaker 5: every time a man abused me, hit me, sex with me,
19:16
Speaker 5: everything that I have ever done to protect her was
19:19
Speaker 5: ultimately for nothing. If I lay down and just gave up. Now,
19:24
Speaker 5: I was scared to go to trial because my co defendant,
19:28
Speaker 5: DeShawn just got forty one to life. I would have
19:30
Speaker 5: went if I had somebody believe in me that told
19:33
Speaker 5: me to go. I had two people that told me
19:38
Speaker 5: you should maybe go to trial. One was another fifteen
19:41
Speaker 5: year old girl, and all she said was best friend,
19:44
Speaker 5: if you go, I'm gonna support you. And then I
19:48
Speaker 5: had my older sister who was paying for my attorney,
19:50
Speaker 5: and she was telling me she thinks I should take
19:53
Speaker 5: it to trial. I had an indecisive father that kept
19:56
Speaker 5: telling me one minute, plead out and act crazy. The
19:58
Speaker 5: next one he was telling me to take it to trial.
20:01
Speaker 5: My birth mother, she barely went to any hearings, but
20:04
Speaker 5: she was telling me, plead because you don't want to
20:06
Speaker 5: get max out at the box. And then I have
20:09
Speaker 5: my attorney, who knows more than me, that's telling me, plead,
20:13
Speaker 5: we have a good chance of winning your appeal because
20:17
Speaker 5: of this safe harbor law. So I pled, But I
20:21
Speaker 5: kept fighting because I have a baby's sister that at
20:25
Speaker 5: the end I promised I would protect and if I
20:27
Speaker 5: didn't protect her, nobody else would. So I fought, and
20:32
Speaker 5: I continue to fight after denial after denial, after denial.
20:37
Speaker 4: Her new attorney. Ke's new attorney, Jennifer Kinsley, ends up
20:41
Speaker 4: taking on this case pro bono and appealing it all
20:44
Speaker 4: the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, arguing that Kierka
20:49
Speaker 4: should have received the protections of the Safe Harbor law,
20:52
Speaker 4: and ultimately the Ohio Supreme Court rejected the case. And
20:55
Speaker 4: they did that while saying that there is ample evidence
20:59
Speaker 4: that Kierica was a victim of human trafficking, but unfortunately,
21:03
Speaker 4: the original trial attorney didn't present evidence linking the crime
21:07
Speaker 4: to Kerica being a victim of sex trafficking. So the
21:11
Speaker 4: Supreme Court said, because he didn't create that link between
21:14
Speaker 4: the known trafficking and the crime, they were not going
21:17
Speaker 4: to apply the safe Harbor law to Key. And to me,
21:21
Speaker 4: that's a little bit absurd, because of course there's a connection.
21:25
Speaker 4: You have a fifteen year old child trying to free
21:28
Speaker 4: herself from being trafficked by adults. It doesn't take a
21:32
Speaker 4: lot to think about how there could be a connection there.
21:36
Speaker 3: While justice was delayed, it surely wasn't going to be denied. Ultimately,
21:42
Speaker 3: you petitioned Governor de Wine for clemency and you had
21:44
Speaker 3: a hearing on that in September of twenty nineteen.
21:49
Speaker 5: I went in front of the pro board on determination
21:52
Speaker 5: of my clemency in November. I got an eight to
21:56
Speaker 5: two vote, eight in favor, two agains. In January, Governor
22:00
Speaker 5: DeWine considered my clemency and said that he wanted me
22:04
Speaker 5: to do this program Tapestry, and after I completed it,
22:07
Speaker 5: I would come home. I started Tapestry January twenty first,
22:11
Speaker 5: twenty twenty. Tapestry closed down due to COVID and I
22:17
Speaker 5: was released April twenty of twenty twenty.
22:19
Speaker 3: So, after serving seven long years in prison, what was
22:24
Speaker 3: it like walking out? Take us inside? That day?
22:29
Speaker 5: That moment April eighteenth, on national television, I was told
22:34
Speaker 5: I was going to be released. It didn't seem real
22:39
Speaker 5: at all, Like this is something that I drinked about
22:42
Speaker 5: many days in prison. It was going home, going home.
22:45
Speaker 5: And now I'm signing a paper to agree to conditions
22:49
Speaker 5: of parole and clemency and being told that I'll be
22:52
Speaker 5: free by monday. So I signed the papers, and then
22:56
Speaker 5: I'm told, you have to go to the whole to
22:59
Speaker 5: the the craziest things ever. Yes, I have to go
23:03
Speaker 5: get COVID nineteen tested and be put in quarantine in
23:08
Speaker 5: the whole until Monday so that I could be released
23:11
Speaker 5: to this program. So I pack up my stuff and
23:14
Speaker 5: for two days, it's like the longest agony in the world,
23:18
Speaker 5: knowing that in two days you'll be released. In two days,
23:23
Speaker 5: you'll get to enter into a world of something you
23:27
Speaker 5: don't know. I left as a kid, and I left
23:29
Speaker 5: a world of chaos, and I'm supposed to be being
23:32
Speaker 5: released into a world of peace and freedom. Right. I
23:35
Speaker 5: decided that I didn't want to go back to my
23:37
Speaker 5: hometown Akron because I didn't want to go back to
23:40
Speaker 5: the same people, the same way, as the same lifestyle.
23:43
Speaker 5: I believe that was, you know, the biggest reason of
23:47
Speaker 5: why I didn't get to reach my goals as a kid.
23:49
Speaker 5: I believe God gave me a second opportunity with the
23:52
Speaker 5: new family, and I chose to take it. They released
23:56
Speaker 5: me from the prison and it's this long corridor you
23:59
Speaker 5: have to walk down, really really really long, and they
24:02
Speaker 5: hand him my release ID, and it's none of this
24:05
Speaker 5: is still real that I'm really being released until I
24:08
Speaker 5: passed through the other side of the metal detectors and
24:12
Speaker 5: there's Jennifer and Sasha and they hug me and we
24:20
Speaker 5: walk out the doors, and we walk out the doors
24:22
Speaker 5: to cameras in my face. They tell me I get
24:25
Speaker 5: to say hi. I say hi, and finally I get
24:30
Speaker 5: to embrace my little sister. Finally I get to embrace
24:35
Speaker 5: this little girl that's not a little girl anymore. I
24:39
Speaker 5: left and she was eleven, and I came home and
24:42
Speaker 5: she's eighteen and has a big, old round belly. It
24:47
Speaker 5: was hard seeing somebody that I thought was my baby
24:52
Speaker 5: not a baby no more.
25:04
Speaker 3: So are you Are you an aunt? Now?
25:07
Speaker 5: I am? I also have another niece. She was born
25:11
Speaker 5: four months after I went to prison. The reason why
25:14
Speaker 5: I mentioned this is that I was supposed to raise her,
25:19
Speaker 5: and four months before she is born into this world,
25:21
Speaker 5: I am tooken away from her. Currently, right now, we
25:27
Speaker 5: are in the process of getting temporary custody of her
25:30
Speaker 5: and she is here with me. So I am an aunt.
25:34
Speaker 5: I am an aunt by a lot. I have eleven
25:37
Speaker 5: nephews and nieces together.
25:39
Speaker 3: So I want to talk now about something you began
25:44
Speaker 3: in prison that I hear you're hoping and planning to
25:47
Speaker 3: continue with on the outside, and that's working with other survivors.
25:51
Speaker 3: I heard that when you were in prison, and this
25:54
Speaker 3: sounds I mean incredible, but hear me out. You improved
25:57
Speaker 3: on an existing program by reaching out to someone with
26:01
Speaker 3: the FBI who had actually interviewed you.
26:04
Speaker 5: I got interrogated by the FBI about the human trafficking
26:07
Speaker 5: and stuff, and so I contacted one of the contacts
26:10
Speaker 5: and told her like, Hey, you know, I'm trying to
26:12
Speaker 5: run this group. Do you have any pointers on what
26:14
Speaker 5: I should teach these girls about what is human trafficking?
26:17
Speaker 5: And she actually sent me like these packets and stuff.
26:20
Speaker 5: So me and one of my case managers we went
26:22
Speaker 5: through what I wanted to touch on, and I created
26:26
Speaker 5: a twelve week group on human trafficking and prostitution education.
26:30
Speaker 5: So it talked about healthy relationships, talked about sex, It
26:34
Speaker 5: talked about what is grooming, It talked about family loves.
26:38
Speaker 5: It touched on the trafficking part of it, but also
26:41
Speaker 5: some of the healing process of it. And then after
26:44
Speaker 5: you went through the group, you became a mentor to
26:47
Speaker 5: the new ladies. I was going through a group, so
26:50
Speaker 5: it was an ongoing cycle that you had somewhere to go,
26:53
Speaker 5: and every time that group was going on, it would
26:56
Speaker 5: keep me and a lot of other girls out of
26:58
Speaker 5: trouble because you had to play where you were not alone,
27:01
Speaker 5: somebody could feel every emotion that you felt and wouldn't
27:05
Speaker 5: look at you like you were crazy. I actually have
27:08
Speaker 5: a mentee that I still talk to. She sits on
27:10
Speaker 5: a human trafficking board in Columbus, Ohio, and she wrote
27:14
Speaker 5: me a letter WHI was in prison and told me
27:16
Speaker 5: that because of me is the reason why she believed
27:21
Speaker 5: that she was a survivor and not just a prostitute.
27:24
Speaker 5: One thing with a lot of survivors is we have
27:27
Speaker 5: a problem with men for a while. So somebody that
27:31
Speaker 5: may not have had the issue with men, if I say,
27:33
Speaker 5: oh God, I want to punch him in his face,
27:37
Speaker 5: somebody that hasn't had that issue would be like, there's
27:39
Speaker 5: something wrong with her. But another survivor would be like, girl,
27:42
Speaker 5: I know too, Like yeah, he was talking really mean
27:44
Speaker 5: or something. You know. So the group was just very
27:47
Speaker 5: productive and supportive, and it gave us a family, which
27:51
Speaker 5: ultimately most of us never really had a family or helped.
27:54
Speaker 5: We had a family that cared about us. So those
27:57
Speaker 5: are one of the things that I did in prison.
28:00
Speaker 5: Since I've been home, I'm working on going back to
28:03
Speaker 5: college to start my business so I can do a
28:06
Speaker 5: business for at risk tines. That's ultimately what I want
28:09
Speaker 5: to work with. I want to work with kids before
28:11
Speaker 5: they even get involved in a victimization. So that is
28:17
Speaker 5: my dream.
28:18
Speaker 3: Oh my god, he's doing more than most three people.
28:20
Speaker 3: I know. It's a really beautiful thing. And I know
28:23
Speaker 3: after hearing your story, Jerka, people are gonna want to
28:26
Speaker 3: get involved even more than they already are. So please, Sasha,
28:30
Speaker 3: you want to.
28:31
Speaker 4: So there is a GoFundMe for Alexis Karaca Martin. She's
28:36
Speaker 4: building up her new future, so she's in a position
28:39
Speaker 4: where she's gonna need some resources to continue her education.
28:44
Speaker 4: She hopes to one day start her own nonprofit to
28:48
Speaker 4: serve survivors, but also just to get up on her feet.
28:51
Speaker 4: And there's this GoFundMe. If you look for Alexis Kierka
28:55
Speaker 4: Martin support fund, people can donate and help keep it
28:59
Speaker 4: on her way to the great future that she deserves.
29:01
Speaker 4: And the other pieces and say is Ohio Justice and
29:04
Speaker 4: Policy Center does lots of work to free people who
29:08
Speaker 4: are unfairly sentenced and unfairly incarcerated. And if people want
29:14
Speaker 4: to learn more about Key's case, or about similar cases,
29:17
Speaker 4: or about our work, our website is Ohio JPC dot org.
29:23
Speaker 4: So Ohio Justice Policy Center JPC dot org. Those are
29:28
Speaker 4: two distinct ways people can help key and then also
29:31
Speaker 4: learn more about the way we need to change our
29:32
Speaker 4: systems and the work that's being done throughout Ohio.
29:35
Speaker 5: And I wanted to say it's not up and running yet,
29:38
Speaker 5: but I would just ask that people stay tuned. I
29:41
Speaker 5: will be releasing my first poetry book. It's all the
29:44
Speaker 5: poems that I did fighting my case and while I
29:46
Speaker 5: was in prison. The person that I'm working with, we
29:49
Speaker 5: are hoping to publish it sometime after my birthday in
29:53
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one.
29:54
Speaker 3: Well, we will be happy and proud to help support
29:58
Speaker 3: it and promote it when it comes out. Congratulations on that.
30:02
Speaker 3: And we will also be putting the links to the
30:04
Speaker 3: GoFundMe in our episode guide, so we'll make it easy
30:08
Speaker 3: for our audience to get involved, and we'll post it
30:11
Speaker 3: on our Instagram as well. Thank you. Now we turn
30:15
Speaker 3: to the segment of the show that I always look
30:19
Speaker 3: forward to, closing arguments, where first of all, I once
30:23
Speaker 3: again thank each of you, Sasha Name and Kierka Martin
30:28
Speaker 3: for being here and sharing your amazing saga of a
30:32
Speaker 3: life and a case, we wish you all the best
30:35
Speaker 3: of everything. And then I turned my microphone off and
30:40
Speaker 3: I kick back in my chair and close my eyes
30:44
Speaker 3: so that you can share anything you want to share
30:46
Speaker 3: with our audience. And of course, Kerica, we'd like to
30:50
Speaker 3: save you for last. Sasha, if you can go first,
30:54
Speaker 3: and then whenever you're done, hand the mic off to
30:57
Speaker 3: Kierka Alexis.
30:59
Speaker 4: Kiera Ka Mark is this incredibly resilient and smart and
31:05
Speaker 4: kind human being, and she has survived a lot and
31:09
Speaker 4: in so many ways is a unique gift in this world,
31:15
Speaker 4: and in some ways her story is one that other
31:17
Speaker 4: people also have, and it's important to keep that in
31:22
Speaker 4: mind because the work toward criminal justice has to be
31:28
Speaker 4: centered on the humanity of people like Key, and right
31:32
Speaker 4: now we have a criminal legal system. It's not always
31:35
Speaker 4: a criminal justice system. Key came out of prison just
31:38
Speaker 4: as we had a pandemic. But also this moment where
31:42
Speaker 4: we're really starting to rethink the way we have justice
31:45
Speaker 4: and racial equity and the way we treat human beings
31:50
Speaker 4: in a system that cages people. So there's a lot
31:53
Speaker 4: of work to do and we're incredibly lucky that Governor
31:57
Speaker 4: DeWine granted clemency for Key because she's going to be
32:01
Speaker 4: a major player I think in the way we improve
32:04
Speaker 4: this world. And I'm just incredibly honored to be on
32:07
Speaker 4: her team and to be her friend and to get
32:10
Speaker 4: to see her grow and to be a part of it.
32:13
Speaker 3: Kierica is all yours, Okay.
32:16
Speaker 5: I just wanted to thank you, know, the listeners for
32:19
Speaker 5: staying tuned and listening. I wanted to thank you guys
32:22
Speaker 5: for having me on and talking with me. I wanted
32:27
Speaker 5: to clarify, just maybe for the listeners because I was thinking,
32:31
Speaker 5: like they may have been wondering, why do I want
32:34
Speaker 5: to be called Kerka? It is taking ownership of who
32:39
Speaker 5: I am. I feel like alexis Lexi Alex. They all
32:45
Speaker 5: have like a bad past. I feel like holding on
32:49
Speaker 5: to that part of my name is like holding on
32:52
Speaker 5: to baggage. I don't plan on dropping my name completely,
32:58
Speaker 5: but Kierka is something that my grandmother named me, and
33:03
Speaker 5: that's really the only good of a lot of my past.
33:06
Speaker 5: So I believe I have a new life, a new
33:10
Speaker 5: start or new home, a new dream, so why not
33:14
Speaker 5: a new name. So that is why I like being
33:17
Speaker 5: called Kiera Khurkee and my final thoughts and final things
33:22
Speaker 5: that I would say is the main reason why I
33:26
Speaker 5: tell my story. I call it getting naked. Main reason
33:30
Speaker 5: why I get naked in front of the audience and
33:32
Speaker 5: I let people see the vulnerability is that anybody can
33:37
Speaker 5: be a victim. Anybody. I was a girl who got
33:42
Speaker 5: all a's in school. I wanted to go to the
33:45
Speaker 5: Air Force. I was at ROTC. I just didn't have
33:48
Speaker 5: parents at home that loved me, but I had a dream.
33:51
Speaker 5: I wasn't some bad kid that a lot of people thought.
33:54
Speaker 5: Anybody can be a victim, but it takes love in
33:58
Speaker 5: the community to make that victim into a survivor. And
34:02
Speaker 5: that's the difference between me and a lot of other
34:04
Speaker 5: people is that I didn't let my victimization leave me
34:08
Speaker 5: as a victim. And I'm still fighting and I'm going
34:13
Speaker 5: to continue fighting, and so there's no longer a breath
34:15
Speaker 5: in my body to fight for survivors and not just
34:18
Speaker 5: survivors of human trafficking. And I hope that hearing my
34:23
Speaker 5: story encourages people to if you're not going to, at
34:27
Speaker 5: least support the calls, support your family, hug the little
34:31
Speaker 5: girl that's alone, play with the little boy that wants
34:34
Speaker 5: to play and just let your kids know that they're
34:38
Speaker 5: loved so that there's not men like my trafficker that
34:42
Speaker 5: can come in and use and abuse them.
34:51
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can
34:53
Speaker 3: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
34:55
Speaker 3: one week early and ed free by subscribing to Lava
34:59
Speaker 3: for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank
35:01
Speaker 3: our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well
35:05
Speaker 3: as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and
35:08
Speaker 3: Jeff Cleibern. The music in this production was supplied by
35:10
Speaker 3: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
35:13
Speaker 3: follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for
35:16
Speaker 3: Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me
35:19
Speaker 3: on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a
35:22
Speaker 3: production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
35:26
Speaker 3: Company Number One.
35:27
Speaker 1: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
35:29
Speaker 1: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
35:32
Speaker 1: by the individuals featured in this show are their own
35:34
Speaker 1: and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.