Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #010 Jason Flom on Christmas Behind Bars: A Special Episode with Amanda Knox, Jarrett Adams, and Jeffrey Deskovic

Transcript

#010 Jason Flom on Christmas Behind Bars: A Special Episode with Amanda Knox, Jarrett Adams, and Jeffrey Deskovic · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: I came from a beautiful neighborhood, had a beautiful life.
0:07
Speaker 2: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first
0:09
Speaker 2: day of my high school year. I was going to
0:12
Speaker 2: be a senior.
0:12
Speaker 3: At twenty two, I was set to start college.
0:15
Speaker 2: I woke up and my life was never the same again.
0:19
Speaker 3: Cops came out with guns drawn, and I never saw
0:22
Speaker 3: freedom ever since after that.
0:24
Speaker 2: It's like roach mode, Tom. Once you get in, you
0:27
Speaker 2: and I can't mouth.
0:31
Speaker 4: This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome to another
0:50
Speaker 4: episode of Wrongful Conviction. This is our holiday episode, which
0:54
Speaker 4: we are calling a very special wrongful Christmasman Knox laughing.
1:01
Speaker 4: I would like to introduce our guests. Each one has
1:05
Speaker 4: a very unique story, but they all have one terrible
1:08
Speaker 4: thing in common, which is that they spent years upon
1:12
Speaker 4: years in prison and holiday after holiday in prison for
1:16
Speaker 4: crimes that they didn't commit. Jared Adams an Xannery from Wisconsin. Jared,
1:21
Speaker 4: Welcome to the show.
1:22
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for having me on the show.
1:24
Speaker 1: I really appreciate being here and having a platform to
1:27
Speaker 1: talk about anything involved in roll for previction and criminal
1:29
Speaker 1: justice reform.
1:30
Speaker 4: Yes, and you are certainly you certainly have a unique
1:32
Speaker 4: perspective on it. I'm looking forward to talking more about that.
1:36
Speaker 4: Jeff Deskovic, an axannery from New York who served almost
1:40
Speaker 4: seventeen years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Jeff,
1:45
Speaker 4: Welcome to the show, and happy holidays to you too.
1:48
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. Happy holidays, Jason.
1:51
Speaker 4: And last but not least, we have someone who you'll recognize.
1:56
Speaker 4: I'd like to introduce my friend, Amanda Knox. Amanda, Welcome
1:58
Speaker 4: to the show, Thank you, and happy holidays.
2:01
Speaker 5: Happy holidays.
2:02
Speaker 4: So before we get into talking about what holidays are
2:05
Speaker 4: like in prison for someone who's innocent, I want to
2:08
Speaker 4: talk a little bit about each of your cases so
2:11
Speaker 4: we can begin to understand the psyche the psychology was
2:15
Speaker 4: going on when you were stuck there. Jarl, let's start
2:18
Speaker 4: with you.
2:19
Speaker 1: I'm from Chicago, and I made my way to Wisconsin
2:22
Speaker 1: by making a stupid decision as a kid. Told my
2:25
Speaker 1: parents I was going to spend a night over a
2:27
Speaker 1: friend's house. And we got in the car and we
2:30
Speaker 1: made a trip up to Wisconsin, which border Chicago, about
2:33
Speaker 1: an hour fifteen minutes out, and we went to a
2:36
Speaker 1: college party. And we went to the college party, and
2:38
Speaker 1: we did what college kids do we, you know, experienment
2:42
Speaker 1: with drinking, with smoking, and sex, and we were ultimately
2:46
Speaker 1: accused of a sexual assault that never happened, you know.
2:49
Speaker 1: Allegations were made up out of embarrassment by this girl.
2:54
Speaker 1: And the thing about it was the police knew from
2:56
Speaker 1: the very beginning. We were accused of sneaking up a
2:58
Speaker 1: flight of stairs, gang and the girl and fleeing the building.
3:01
Speaker 2: But there were witnesses, you know.
3:03
Speaker 1: From students, who saw us and saw us from a
3:06
Speaker 1: timeline from basically like eight nine, ten eleven, twelve o'clock
3:10
Speaker 1: one o'clock, so the allegations were false. The police knew
3:14
Speaker 1: about these witnesses, and we didn't have all of the
3:17
Speaker 1: information and the statements from these witnesses to be able
3:20
Speaker 1: to prove that it was impossible time wise for us
3:24
Speaker 1: to be participating in the gang rape and fleeing the building.
3:27
Speaker 1: So ultimately two of us ended up being found guilty.
3:31
Speaker 1: And the difference between the two out of the three
3:34
Speaker 1: was I, along with my co defended Dimitri Helling. We
3:37
Speaker 1: weren't able to afford an attorney. We were giving public defenders.
3:41
Speaker 1: My other co defendant, he had an attorney and his
3:43
Speaker 1: attorney was litigating and fighting it all the way, filing
3:46
Speaker 1: the appeals and saying, look, there's not enough evidence to
3:49
Speaker 1: charge these boys with a rape. There's nothing but an allegation,
3:52
Speaker 1: and they shouldn't be able to bring this in court.
3:54
Speaker 1: Our attorneys were like, well, no, you know what, Look
3:57
Speaker 1: we don't think they did it. There's no evidence. Let's
3:58
Speaker 1: go to trial. Dangerous decision, which was motivated by them
4:02
Speaker 1: because as public defenders, they don't get paid unless the
4:05
Speaker 1: case is closed. So when they're incentive for rushing and
4:07
Speaker 1: going to court unprepared, was let me get this case
4:10
Speaker 1: closed and let me get paid. Whiles the other attorney,
4:13
Speaker 1: who was a paid attorney, he was on retainer and
4:16
Speaker 1: he was in no rush to serve us up on
4:19
Speaker 1: a platter. Basically, we ended up being found guilt, being
4:22
Speaker 1: found guilty and sentenced to serve twenty and twenty eight
4:24
Speaker 1: years respectively. I had an additional eight years add on
4:27
Speaker 1: to my sentence because at the sentence here, and you know,
4:30
Speaker 1: I refuse to be sympathetic and admit to a rape
4:34
Speaker 1: that I didn't commit, and the judge told me that
4:37
Speaker 1: I was being not being remorseful, and she gave me
4:41
Speaker 1: an additional eight years in prison. This eight years and
4:44
Speaker 1: the significance of it sent me to do time in
4:48
Speaker 1: a maximum slash super maximum correctional facility.
4:52
Speaker 2: And I got there in the first year.
4:54
Speaker 1: It was just like out of body of experience, you know,
4:56
Speaker 1: got to the point where it was like, look, I
4:59
Speaker 1: wasn't mad or angry anymore for the fact that they
5:02
Speaker 1: didn't believe me, right, I was more so angry and
5:05
Speaker 1: upset to the fact that I'm sitting in this prison.
5:08
Speaker 2: I have a mother aunts that raised me.
5:10
Speaker 1: I'm accused of a ridiculous crime that has no evidence,
5:13
Speaker 1: and the only reason I'm here is because I couldn't
5:15
Speaker 1: afford an attorney, and more importantly, because my accuser was
5:18
Speaker 1: white and we were black.
5:20
Speaker 4: But eventually you were exonerated.
5:23
Speaker 1: Yes, with the help of the Wisconsin Interscence Project, I
5:25
Speaker 1: was exonerated and released. But after all the serving close
5:29
Speaker 1: to ten years in prison. The last bit of the
5:32
Speaker 1: story is my co defendant, Although he was released, his
5:36
Speaker 1: record wasn't expunged because he missed the deadline. So here
5:40
Speaker 1: it is the code defendant in my case is released,
5:42
Speaker 1: but he still has it on his record for him
5:45
Speaker 1: missing a deadline to follow the same motion that I
5:49
Speaker 1: filed with the Innocence Project to get me out, and
5:51
Speaker 1: it absolutely makes no sense at all.
5:53
Speaker 4: And of course, one more thing, I can ever tell
5:56
Speaker 4: your story without talking about the incredible turn of events
6:00
Speaker 4: that led to you clerking in the same courtroom where
6:02
Speaker 4: you were exonerated. But now I'm very proud brag about
6:05
Speaker 4: you for a second, Jared. Now, Jared has just started
6:07
Speaker 4: his job as an attorney with the Ennisis Project in
6:09
Speaker 4: New York.
6:10
Speaker 2: So we'll give you a little roundable placate the All right, so.
6:14
Speaker 4: Let's go to you, Amanda.
6:15
Speaker 3: Sure.
6:17
Speaker 6: A month into my study abroad program, one of my
6:21
Speaker 6: roommates was found raped and murdered in her bedroom in
6:27
Speaker 6: the apartment that she shared with me and two other
6:29
Speaker 6: Italian roommates, and four days later I was arrested for
6:37
Speaker 6: having participated in her murder. I was led through a
6:44
Speaker 6: very coercive interrogation that led me to believe that I
6:49
Speaker 6: had witnessed the murder and had suffered amnesia and knew
6:55
Speaker 6: who the killer was, and presumably that person would have
7:00
Speaker 6: been my boss, who I was supposed to meet that
7:02
Speaker 6: night for work. What ended up happening was when DNA
7:08
Speaker 6: came back showing what had happened at the scene. It
7:13
Speaker 6: came back having nothing to do with me or my
7:16
Speaker 6: boyfriend who was my alibi, or my boss who had
7:20
Speaker 6: his alibi as well. It had to do with a
7:23
Speaker 6: local burglar who was known to break in enter carrying
7:28
Speaker 6: a knife. And instead of the police saying, oh, we
7:34
Speaker 6: made a mistake by arresting this girl and her boyfriend
7:37
Speaker 6: and her boss, what they did was they took my
7:41
Speaker 6: boss out of the equation and put this burglar into
7:44
Speaker 6: the equation, saying that I had manipulated these two young men,
7:51
Speaker 6: my boyfriend and this local burglar who I didn't know,
7:55
Speaker 6: into raping Meredith, my roommate, and then allowing me to
8:01
Speaker 6: murder her. And it took four years for me to
8:08
Speaker 6: get out of prison, and another four years for the
8:12
Speaker 6: case to finally be resolved and for me to be exonerated.
8:16
Speaker 6: I was convicted, then acquitted, then reconvicted, and then finally
8:22
Speaker 6: the Supreme Court overturned that conviction and definitively found me innocent.
8:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's quite stunning watching the documentary, which I
8:30
Speaker 4: thought was so brilliantly done, to see just how the
8:37
Speaker 4: evidence was so badly mishandled, how the whole procedure was
8:41
Speaker 4: so badly mishandled, and of course your case became such
8:44
Speaker 4: an international story, tabloid headlines everywhere, and that's you know,
8:54
Speaker 4: I think that in a very real way, precluded you
8:57
Speaker 4: from getting justice. Because I'm in theory they could have
9:01
Speaker 4: still done what was right. But we know that in
9:05
Speaker 4: smaller communities, especially when a case gets a lot of
9:09
Speaker 4: attention from the press and there's you know, there's a
9:13
Speaker 4: spotlight shown on it, it makes prosecutors and others actors
9:18
Speaker 4: in the system less inclined to accept evidence of innocence
9:25
Speaker 4: and basically admit that they were wrong. Now we'll turn
9:29
Speaker 4: to Jeff Deskovic.
9:31
Speaker 3: Sure, at age sixteen, I was arrested for a murderer
9:36
Speaker 3: rape which I did not commit, and the arrest was
9:39
Speaker 3: based upon a coerce false confession which they obtained after
9:43
Speaker 3: interrogating me for six and a half to seven hours.
9:46
Speaker 3: This was in Westchester County here in New York. I
9:51
Speaker 3: turned seventeen before the trials started, and despite a pre
9:55
Speaker 3: trial negative DNA exclusion which showed that semen found the
9:58
Speaker 3: victim did not come for me, nonetheless was wrongfully convicted
10:02
Speaker 3: based upon that coers, false confession, prosecutorial misconduct, fraud by
10:07
Speaker 3: the medical examiner, a terrible public defender. I was in
10:12
Speaker 3: prison from age is aged seventeen to thirty two. I
10:16
Speaker 3: lost all seven of my appeals. I got turned down
10:18
Speaker 3: for parole because I stood on my innocence. Ultimately, I
10:21
Speaker 3: was exonerated through further DNA testing with the assistance of
10:25
Speaker 3: the Innocence Project via the DNA Data Bank. And not
10:29
Speaker 3: only was I exonerated, but the actual perpetrator was identified
10:33
Speaker 3: and subsequently arrested and convicted.
10:35
Speaker 4: You speak of it so eloquently but almost matter of factly.
10:39
Speaker 4: And the idea that you were interrogated without a lawyer,
10:42
Speaker 4: without a parent, without a guardian, you were sixteen years old,
10:46
Speaker 4: You were threatened with physical violence, and it was the
10:49
Speaker 4: false promise.
10:50
Speaker 3: Also, you know that they promised me that if I
10:53
Speaker 3: did as they wanted, that they would stop the interrogation
10:56
Speaker 3: process and that I was not going to be arrested.
10:59
Speaker 3: That was a dynamic also. And the other thing I
11:01
Speaker 3: want to share Jason with the audience is that they
11:04
Speaker 3: drove me from Peak Skill, which was in Westchester County.
11:07
Speaker 3: They drove me out of county to Putnam County to
11:10
Speaker 3: deliver me into the hands of a polygraphist who conducted
11:14
Speaker 3: this procedure, which he himself referred to as GtC. You know,
11:18
Speaker 3: get the confession.
11:21
Speaker 4: Right, and they promised you that if you signed the confession,
11:23
Speaker 4: you would go home and be able to stay in
11:25
Speaker 4: your own bed with your brother.
11:26
Speaker 3: Well they promised me, yeah, if I confess, they'd stopped.
11:28
Speaker 3: But just so everybody understands the outrageousness though, just even
11:32
Speaker 3: beyond what we've already said, the interrogation was not videotaped.
11:36
Speaker 3: It was an audio tape, and there was no signed confession.
11:40
Speaker 3: It was just the officer's word, which allowed them at
11:42
Speaker 3: the trial to omit the threat and false promise from
11:45
Speaker 3: their testimony.
11:46
Speaker 4: What is also really important for us to highlight is
11:51
Speaker 4: the idea that because of this false confession, you were
11:55
Speaker 4: convicted in spite of the fact that you had DNA evidence.
12:00
Speaker 4: In cases involving juveniles, false confessions are amazingly common, disturbingly common,
12:07
Speaker 4: and the idea that a jury would disregard scientific evidence
12:13
Speaker 4: that you could not have been at the crime scene
12:16
Speaker 4: because of a confession is something that you know, I
12:20
Speaker 4: just want everybody to reflect upon for a second, because
12:23
Speaker 4: that is you know that that can never happen again.
12:25
Speaker 3: To kind of jump ahead in terms of what I'm
12:27
Speaker 3: doing now, I use some of the money that I
12:30
Speaker 3: won from the lawsuit, and I started a nonprofit organization
12:33
Speaker 3: named after me, the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, whose
12:37
Speaker 3: goal is to exonerate other innocent people. In our four
12:41
Speaker 3: years of existence, we exonerated two people, William Lopez, who
12:44
Speaker 3: was wrongfully in prison for twenty three and a half years. Recently,
12:48
Speaker 3: we exonerated William Hawhee, who served eight years and four months.
12:52
Speaker 3: Currently trying to raise funds through a website called Patreon
12:55
Speaker 3: in order to hire more staff to assist more innocent people.
12:59
Speaker 3: The last quick thing I'll mention is following in the
13:04
Speaker 3: footsteps an example of Jared Adams is here with us today.
13:08
Speaker 3: I'm also in I'm in law school one year in
13:12
Speaker 3: my first year at the Elizabeth Hopp School of Law.
13:14
Speaker 3: In my planes and you know, when I saw Jared
13:16
Speaker 3: walk across the stage, you know, getting his law degree,
13:21
Speaker 3: all doubts in my mind because I was going back
13:23
Speaker 3: and forth, do I really want to become a lawyer
13:25
Speaker 3: or do I just want to remain an advocate and
13:27
Speaker 3: just have lawyers work for me and work with me.
13:30
Speaker 3: All that disappeared. It was a clear cut decision.
13:33
Speaker 4: And Jeff, it's let's give you a round of applause
13:36
Speaker 4: as well, because it's fantastic. You know, we have three
13:53
Speaker 4: different people here, different backgrounds, different faiths. You know, people
13:57
Speaker 4: don't think about as they're going about their holiday business, right,
14:01
Speaker 4: and of course New York is no different than anywhere
14:04
Speaker 4: else in the country. There's you know, sales coming up,
14:06
Speaker 4: and then there's all the things you do to get
14:08
Speaker 4: busy around the holidays and buy ugly sweaters for your friends,
14:12
Speaker 4: and different traditions that people participate in, whether you're you know, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, whatever,
14:18
Speaker 4: everybody has their things atheist, I mean, even they celebrate
14:22
Speaker 4: the holidays, right, So yes, thank you. The fact is
14:28
Speaker 4: that there's a whole different holiday going on for the
14:31
Speaker 4: two point three million people who are locked up and
14:34
Speaker 4: will be locked up this holiday season. I want to
14:37
Speaker 4: give some insight to the audience about what that's like
14:42
Speaker 4: being behind bars. Manda. Let's start with you. I mean
14:45
Speaker 4: here you were in Italy, right in prison. How long
14:49
Speaker 4: had you been in by the time the holidays came around.
14:52
Speaker 6: The first time, so I was arrested on November sixth,
14:55
Speaker 6: and so I was in prison for you know, about
15:00
Speaker 6: a month, a month and a half before you know,
15:03
Speaker 6: the Christmas season came around, and I mean all the
15:09
Speaker 6: Christmases were largely the same. That first one was particularly
15:15
Speaker 6: fraught with confusion and fear and uncertainty because by that
15:22
Speaker 6: time I was still hoping that all of this was
15:24
Speaker 6: just a big mistake and that I was going to
15:26
Speaker 6: get to go home with my mom. That ended up
15:30
Speaker 6: not being the case. It's my experience of the holidays
15:36
Speaker 6: in prison is that it just serves as a reminder
15:38
Speaker 6: of how much life is passing without you, and how
15:45
Speaker 6: you know, every year I would call back home for
15:48
Speaker 6: my ten minute phone call and my you know, I
15:52
Speaker 6: had cousins who were one years old when I left,
15:55
Speaker 6: and they were talking to me by the time I
15:57
Speaker 6: was finally coming home. And it's a reminder of how
16:05
Speaker 6: much your family is sacrificing for you. My family had
16:10
Speaker 6: to cross an ocean to get to me, and they
16:14
Speaker 6: it was a tremendous sacrifice to them. My mom had
16:19
Speaker 6: to come during the winter holidays because she's a teacher
16:21
Speaker 6: and she didn't, she didn't have to go to work.
16:24
Speaker 6: My sisters could come to finally visit me during the
16:27
Speaker 6: winter holidays, and we would spend those trying to trying
16:35
Speaker 6: to feel like we were celebrating something, usually by my
16:38
Speaker 6: stepdad making you know, turkey and bringing it into the
16:42
Speaker 6: prison for me so I could at least take part
16:46
Speaker 6: separately in the family meal.
16:50
Speaker 4: How long were they allowed to visit you on what
16:53
Speaker 4: we're talking specifically about Christmas Day?
16:56
Speaker 6: Well, and not necessarily in Christmas Day. It depended on
16:59
Speaker 6: what day visits was allowed, so it was usually the
17:02
Speaker 6: day nearest to Christmas that they were allowed to come.
17:07
Speaker 6: You weren't necessarily allowed that given day. I was only
17:10
Speaker 6: allowed to see my family for six hours a month,
17:13
Speaker 6: and visitation periods were an hour at a time. Occasionally
17:18
Speaker 6: they would allow us an extra hour.
17:21
Speaker 4: Did it provide you any sort of peace or any
17:26
Speaker 4: sort of an escape. Were you able to detach for
17:29
Speaker 4: even that brief period of time.
17:32
Speaker 6: No. It did remind me that there was a whole
17:36
Speaker 6: world outside waiting for me, and that the people who
17:40
Speaker 6: cared about me were still there as much as they
17:42
Speaker 6: possibly could be. But we were still in the you know,
17:47
Speaker 6: the visitation room, and I was still not allowed to
17:53
Speaker 6: you know, we weren't allowed to like touch too much.
17:56
Speaker 6: Like we were allowed to hold hands, but we you know,
17:59
Speaker 6: we couldn't just stand there hugging the whole time if
18:02
Speaker 6: we wanted to, like, it wasn't allowed. You had to
18:03
Speaker 6: sit down in your chair, You had to sit down
18:06
Speaker 6: and talk because it was visitation. And then when it
18:10
Speaker 6: was time to go, we were allowed to hug and
18:12
Speaker 6: they left.
18:14
Speaker 4: So it's hard to even hear this. You were basically
18:17
Speaker 4: not far removed from being a child at this point
18:19
Speaker 4: in time. We were just out of high school. Yeah,
18:21
Speaker 4: I was twenty years old, Jeff. For you, you were
18:23
Speaker 4: even younger, I mean sixteen years old.
18:26
Speaker 3: My first holiday inside was spent at seventeen.
18:29
Speaker 2: So on.
18:31
Speaker 3: So on Thanksgiving, I mean, they served the meal that
18:34
Speaker 3: was supposed to replicate a traditional Thanksgiving meal, except that
18:39
Speaker 3: you know, the stuff it was extremely it was so
18:41
Speaker 3: salty it wasn't palatable, and the turkey was processed. The
18:47
Speaker 3: guards knew that it was a halfway decent meal, you know,
18:50
Speaker 3: compared to the other fair and so they rushed us
18:53
Speaker 3: out of the vessol, barely giving us ten minutes to
18:55
Speaker 3: eat it was a very stressful time. Everybody wanted to
19:00
Speaker 3: use the telephones to call home, but there was nowhere
19:02
Speaker 3: near enough telephone, so it was almost impossible to get
19:06
Speaker 3: on the phone and make a phone call. I would
19:09
Speaker 3: say the same thing was true on Christmas, one of
19:15
Speaker 3: the bright spots there, because it wasn't I mean, it
19:17
Speaker 3: was horrible, but there were a few bright spots here
19:19
Speaker 3: and there, relatively speaking. So there was a volunteer that
19:23
Speaker 3: used to come into the prison every Christmas, and there
19:26
Speaker 3: was a staff person who also would would come in
19:28
Speaker 3: on what was obviously an off day for them. So
19:30
Speaker 3: those two would pair with the guard and they would
19:33
Speaker 3: have a bugle and they would actually play Christmas carols
19:36
Speaker 3: at the at the bottom of the the first floor
19:39
Speaker 3: of each tier, and so everybody could could hear it.
19:42
Speaker 3: And as you might imagine it, it drew a mixed reaction.
19:47
Speaker 3: Some of the prisoners, like myself, we we enjoyed listening
19:50
Speaker 3: to it. It brought back some uh, you know, good memories,
19:54
Speaker 3: while other people didn't appreciate it, and so they would
19:57
Speaker 3: start yelling up scenides trying to get them to stop,
20:00
Speaker 3: but they would ignore and and and keep going.
20:05
Speaker 4: Sort of a surreal, uh picture that you're painting, right.
20:09
Speaker 3: It definitely was the only only thing I just want
20:11
Speaker 3: to add is, you know, in my experience, you know,
20:13
Speaker 3: I didn't have any visitors on the on the holidays
20:17
Speaker 3: themselves because they were they were all getting together and
20:20
Speaker 3: doing the family thing, and so they didn't end that
20:23
Speaker 3: tradition to instead for a couple of them to come
20:27
Speaker 3: drive the four hours each way to come and see
20:30
Speaker 3: me in the prison.
20:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:32
Speaker 4: I'm still stuck on this idea of this contrast, right
20:36
Speaker 4: of the Christmas music with people alternately either humming or
20:41
Speaker 4: singing along or yelling curses and epithets.
20:45
Speaker 3: It was what it was. It was a madhouse. It
20:47
Speaker 3: was it was. It was a madhouse.
20:49
Speaker 4: Were the guards I mean, they must not have been
20:53
Speaker 4: particularly thrilled to be in uh in prison on the holidays.
20:58
Speaker 4: Did it affect their behavior in any way?
21:01
Speaker 3: You know, they rushed us instead of giving us the
21:04
Speaker 3: normal time we would normally be allotted, you know, to eat,
21:07
Speaker 3: they would rush us out. And then the last half
21:10
Speaker 3: of my sentence, I think that some kind of policy
21:12
Speaker 3: was changed and so instead of them allowing us to
21:15
Speaker 3: have recreation at night, they took that away. They gave
21:19
Speaker 3: us an hour recreation so they could hurry up and
21:22
Speaker 3: lock the facility down so that they could engage in
21:24
Speaker 3: a Christmas party, a Thanksgiving party, a New Year's party
21:29
Speaker 3: while we were all just you locked in the cage.
21:31
Speaker 4: That's another thing that you really wouldn't think of.
21:34
Speaker 3: Well, you could tell by the look on their faces
21:36
Speaker 3: that many of them were not happy to be there
21:38
Speaker 3: despite that, And so for me personally, I know a
21:41
Speaker 3: lot of the other prisoners too. We used to walk
21:43
Speaker 3: on eggshells on those days. The best thing to do
21:46
Speaker 3: was to try to somehow avoid being noticed at all,
21:50
Speaker 3: because you don't want to be the target of their frustration.
21:55
Speaker 4: Jarrett, what was it like for you? I mean, first,
21:58
Speaker 4: among other things, you're in a particularly called climate.
22:01
Speaker 2: It's brutal cold.
22:02
Speaker 1: Well, my first actual holiday incarcerated was when I was
22:07
Speaker 1: first arrested because I couldn't afford it to get a bail,
22:10
Speaker 1: Like my family didn't have enough money to get a
22:12
Speaker 1: bail and stuff like that, and so not enough money
22:15
Speaker 1: to get a bill, I don't enough money to get
22:17
Speaker 1: a lawyer. So I sat there and basically I turned
22:22
Speaker 1: eighteen and spent my first Christmas and Thanksgiving and stuff
22:27
Speaker 1: like that while I was in jail, and it was,
22:30
Speaker 1: you know, one of these things where it was like
22:32
Speaker 1: I couldn't afford to get out, and so what they
22:36
Speaker 1: did was I live in Chicago, so they arrested me
22:39
Speaker 1: in Chicago and they were just extraditing me too Wisconsin.
22:44
Speaker 1: So I spent those days in the Cook County Jail,
22:46
Speaker 1: which I don't know if many of your listeners may know,
22:49
Speaker 1: they can do some research, but Cook County Jail is
22:51
Speaker 1: one of the most violent jails there is in the
22:53
Speaker 1: United States. And so that's why I spent my first birthday,
22:58
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and stuff like that be extradited. And it's just horrible.
23:03
Speaker 1: It's really no different than a prison. Besides it's it's
23:07
Speaker 1: in many ways can be more violent because like everyone
23:10
Speaker 1: is on right on top of each other in the
23:12
Speaker 1: county jail, and there's so many people, and there's lack
23:14
Speaker 1: of bed space, and you have bunk beds, you know,
23:17
Speaker 1: all out in the day room, and you know, it's
23:19
Speaker 1: just it's just a different climate. And so what they
23:22
Speaker 1: did in Cook County Jail was they would they would
23:25
Speaker 1: push they would push a cart in, you know, into
23:30
Speaker 1: the the pod, and they would have someone in there
23:34
Speaker 1: who would pass it out and stuff like that.
23:36
Speaker 2: But it was nothing to look forward to.
23:38
Speaker 1: I mean, all of it was a rendition of what
23:40
Speaker 1: you would normally get when you with your family, right.
23:42
Speaker 4: Well, when you're said, they push the cart in a
23:43
Speaker 4: cart with.
23:44
Speaker 1: What with nothing but food, with your food inside of it,
23:47
Speaker 1: and it would be on a tray, and you know,
23:50
Speaker 1: everyone would come by and they would get a tray
23:52
Speaker 1: and you know, much like what Jeff was explaining that
23:55
Speaker 1: it would be a rendition of what stuffing was supposed
23:58
Speaker 1: to be. It would be a hard slash of what
24:00
Speaker 1: turkey was supposed to its supposed to look like.
24:03
Speaker 2: But it's like it's so processed you don't know what
24:05
Speaker 2: it is.
24:05
Speaker 6: Right.
24:06
Speaker 1: So that along with the phones being busy, but me personally,
24:11
Speaker 1: I just didn't I didn't even want to make a
24:13
Speaker 1: phone call, you know, I just didn't, you know, I
24:16
Speaker 1: want I wanted to block out the fact that you know,
24:18
Speaker 1: I was in there for the holidays. Man, I mean
24:21
Speaker 1: I'm turning eighteen, you know. There and everyone kept asking me, like, man,
24:25
Speaker 1: what you doing in here?
24:26
Speaker 2: Right?
24:26
Speaker 1: Because I had never been arrested before or anything like that.
24:29
Speaker 1: So it's just like, you know, you go in a
24:31
Speaker 1: place like that, and you stand out immediately if you
24:33
Speaker 1: don't know your way around or if people haven't seen
24:36
Speaker 1: you around in a place like that.
24:37
Speaker 2: So I didn't know anyone in there.
24:40
Speaker 1: I pretty much was kept to myself, read, you know,
24:44
Speaker 1: watch whatever was on TV. And what I tried to
24:47
Speaker 1: do each holiday was I tried to stay up all
24:51
Speaker 1: day the day before the holiday, so that way I
24:55
Speaker 1: could sleep the entire holiday and get it over with
24:57
Speaker 1: as fast as possible.
25:11
Speaker 4: Collectively, you served twenty nine We did the math before
25:17
Speaker 4: we got on the air. You served twenty nine Christmases, Thanksgivings,
25:22
Speaker 4: Monica's in prison. Were there any bright spots in any
25:28
Speaker 4: of those hollies? Was there anyone who sort of gave
25:32
Speaker 4: you a reason to feel anything other than lonely, sad, isolated?
25:40
Speaker 6: I mean, besides my family, which I can't say enough,
25:44
Speaker 6: they were there for me. One memory that I wanted
25:47
Speaker 6: to share with you is so there was a priest
25:51
Speaker 6: in my prison who was like my best friend because
25:54
Speaker 6: we would get into so many great, warm, intellectual arguments
25:59
Speaker 6: about fundamental human rights and why women couldn't be in
26:03
Speaker 6: the clergy if they didn't want to, and why gay
26:06
Speaker 6: people couldn't get married if they if they want to.
26:08
Speaker 6: And we had so many great arguments about that, and
26:09
Speaker 6: I loved him. And he allowed me to play guitar
26:14
Speaker 6: during Mass, which was so it was so great for me.
26:19
Speaker 6: And we learned this, I think you'll appreciate this. We
26:23
Speaker 6: learned this Jewish song in Italian for Christmas, which which
26:32
Speaker 6: goes ci a la par check.
26:35
Speaker 5: Noi ci a la par check noi ce la par
26:40
Speaker 5: check noi chalam chalam chalom Malachem. And so we sang
26:48
Speaker 5: this song in Mass. And one of the things about
26:51
Speaker 5: my prison was it's a woman's prison. And there were
26:54
Speaker 5: mothers there with small children. They were kept in a
26:57
Speaker 5: separate ward and they were allowed to keep their children
27:01
Speaker 5: up to three years old with them, but we saw
27:04
Speaker 5: them in Mass. And there was this one little girl
27:08
Speaker 5: who never ever, ever talked ever, but she always made
27:14
Speaker 5: eye contact with me.
27:15
Speaker 6: We played, and I caught her singing that song in
27:22
Speaker 6: the yard once you have a little girl. She never spoke,
27:26
Speaker 6: so like the yard was split off and there were
27:28
Speaker 6: bars between the yard where people like me were versus
27:32
Speaker 6: where the mothers with their children were. And this little
27:35
Speaker 6: girl was just like swinging on a little swing singing shot.
27:40
Speaker 4: It was really cute.
27:42
Speaker 6: So that was that was a really great moment for
27:44
Speaker 6: me that she had just like heard that song and
27:48
Speaker 6: felt really involved with it.
27:50
Speaker 4: I can't imagine the day before the kid turns three
27:53
Speaker 4: and what that must be like for them to be
27:55
Speaker 4: to know that they're going to be separated.
27:58
Speaker 6: Tried to commit suicide a lot of the time when
28:00
Speaker 6: their kids were taken away.
28:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's that's I can't even process that.
28:06
Speaker 4: And then the other thing that the musical part of
28:09
Speaker 4: my brain is about to explode from the my mind
28:13
Speaker 4: is going to a mix of your Jewish Italian Christmas
28:18
Speaker 4: song and the other bugle with the.
28:21
Speaker 6: Curses, and you can't forget like the clanging of the
28:24
Speaker 6: bars and the sounds of the keys churning in the lock,
28:27
Speaker 6: and like all of that just superimposed on everything, the
28:30
Speaker 6: echo of the corridors.
28:32
Speaker 4: Jeff, what about you? Were there anything uplifting at all
28:35
Speaker 4: that happened on any of the holidays, a birthday.
28:37
Speaker 3: Even, Yeah, later on in my sentence, I think it
28:39
Speaker 3: was from nineteen ninety nine or two thousand forward, So
28:43
Speaker 3: last five six years I got a different counselor in
28:47
Speaker 3: the prison. Carol Hellman, and she believed in my She
28:51
Speaker 3: was one of the rare people that believed in my innocence,
28:54
Speaker 3: and so we would She would typically call me to
28:58
Speaker 3: her office near near the Christmas holiday and you know,
29:02
Speaker 3: just doing the quarterly and she would always end the
29:05
Speaker 3: conversation by saying, you know, look, have happy holidays. That's convict,
29:11
Speaker 3: you know, So in her own way, she was trying
29:13
Speaker 3: to be empathetic and you know, human to me. So
29:16
Speaker 3: that was that was a bright spot. I used to
29:19
Speaker 3: enjoy talking to her. I mean, we would get the
29:23
Speaker 3: prison stuff out of the way quickly that she had
29:25
Speaker 3: to do, but then we would talk a little bit
29:27
Speaker 3: just as people, and it was nice to It was
29:29
Speaker 3: refreshing to have a conversation with somebody, you know, other
29:33
Speaker 3: than just another prisoner. And so that was that was
29:35
Speaker 3: a bright spot.
29:37
Speaker 1: And Jared turned to you, in the United States, they
29:41
Speaker 1: purposely seclude prisons is far away from the population and normal,
29:46
Speaker 1: you know, not not I don't want to say normal,
29:48
Speaker 1: but the inner city society or where most of the
29:51
Speaker 1: people who they house families come from. So because I'm
29:54
Speaker 1: all the way in Wisconsin, they pushed me like three
29:58
Speaker 1: or four hours deeper in to Wisconsin for a drive
30:01
Speaker 1: coming from Chicago.
30:03
Speaker 2: So it made the drive almost like four or five hours.
30:06
Speaker 1: So that way, if my family was going to come,
30:08
Speaker 1: they were they were going to have to you know,
30:09
Speaker 1: get a hotel or you know, you're talking about people
30:12
Speaker 1: who were reaching the age of being senior citizens, were
30:15
Speaker 1: very low income, and so it was hard for me
30:18
Speaker 1: to ever see them on the holidays except for this
30:22
Speaker 1: one holiday when I got the chance to get you know,
30:25
Speaker 1: my aunts and my uncle who was my godfather who
30:31
Speaker 1: just recently you know, passed away about a couple of
30:34
Speaker 1: years ago, and they came on a bus. They took
30:37
Speaker 1: a Greyhound because at this point, I mean, driving five
30:40
Speaker 1: hours was just ridiculous to ask of them coming from
30:42
Speaker 1: Chicago and bad weather that they you know, were coming in.
30:45
Speaker 1: So they came from Chicago on the bus and they
30:48
Speaker 1: visited with me that day. And at that time, they
30:50
Speaker 1: had a program inside the prison I was in where
30:53
Speaker 1: you were allowed to order some things and just for
30:57
Speaker 1: the purpose of it being a holiday Christmas, they would
30:59
Speaker 1: let you stuff in and the things that we let
31:02
Speaker 1: you get in were food items, and so in prison,
31:05
Speaker 1: those summer sausages are like gold, right, you know, so
31:09
Speaker 1: you get this Christmas pack and it has all the
31:13
Speaker 1: flavors you can think of, Jason Pepperoni flavors, smoked turkey flavor,
31:17
Speaker 1: and it has the different cheeses, the different spreads. So
31:21
Speaker 1: I got that before I knew I had a visit.
31:24
Speaker 1: So I got it and I was just so thankful.
31:26
Speaker 1: And I'm calling the house and no one is picking up,
31:30
Speaker 1: and I'm like, man, where are they at? You know,
31:32
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get in touch with them. And so
31:34
Speaker 1: I'm laying, you know, on my bunk, and I'm going
31:37
Speaker 1: through all these summer sausages with different crackers and stuff
31:40
Speaker 1: like that, and they're like, you gotta visit. And so
31:44
Speaker 1: I sat there because I was in the sale with
31:46
Speaker 1: someone else and I thought they were talking to him, right,
31:48
Speaker 1: And so then they left and they came back about
31:51
Speaker 1: five minutes.
31:52
Speaker 2: They're like, Adams, if.
31:52
Speaker 1: You don't take your visit, then we're gonna cancel your visit.
31:55
Speaker 1: And so I was like, all right, So I got
31:57
Speaker 1: up like a fireman.
31:58
Speaker 2: I jumped.
31:58
Speaker 1: I jumped off the bed fully, clothing into my shoes
32:01
Speaker 1: all at one time.
32:02
Speaker 2: Right, I went upstairs and I got a chance.
32:05
Speaker 1: To see my two aunts and my uncle Wood came
32:07
Speaker 1: to see me, and you know, I sat with them
32:09
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed that time because that at that time
32:11
Speaker 1: I hadn't had a visit, I want to say, in
32:14
Speaker 1: like a year year and a half. And you know,
32:16
Speaker 1: it was becoming extremely difficult for me because appeal after
32:20
Speaker 1: appeal was being denied and they weren't answering any of
32:24
Speaker 1: the evidence. They just kept saying, well, your lawyers chose
32:26
Speaker 1: to call no witnesses and chosen no defense theory, so
32:29
Speaker 1: we're not going to go into that and question their strategy.
32:32
Speaker 1: And it kept rubberstamding my appeal. So it got to
32:34
Speaker 1: the point where I became desponded. I didn't want to
32:37
Speaker 1: interact so much, you know, on the phone and and
32:41
Speaker 1: on visits, and look at the the wrinkles and creases
32:44
Speaker 1: of anguish lying on my mother's forehead.
32:46
Speaker 2: That stuff takes a toll on you.
32:48
Speaker 4: And that's so crazy, too, Jared, because the idea that
32:50
Speaker 4: they would willfully push you further away from your family,
32:55
Speaker 4: when as a society, we know that everyone is coming
33:00
Speaker 4: back from prison, almost everyone's going to get out, and
33:02
Speaker 4: you want that bond to remain intact so that people
33:05
Speaker 4: have a community to come back to, because ultimately, everybody
33:09
Speaker 4: that's in prison that comes out is going to be
33:10
Speaker 4: somebody's neighbor someday. And that's the approach that they take
33:13
Speaker 4: in European prisons, where they focus on rehabilitation and they
33:16
Speaker 4: treat the prisoners. Not in Italy, but I'm talking about,
33:20
Speaker 4: I should say, in the Scandinavian countries particularly, right, they
33:23
Speaker 4: have an approach where and in fact, there's one where
33:25
Speaker 4: I've seen a video where the warden talks about that
33:28
Speaker 4: when the prisoner's coming, he says, you're going to be
33:30
Speaker 4: my neighbors someday when you get out, so I'm going
33:32
Speaker 4: to treat you as I would want to be treated myself.
33:34
Speaker 4: And they actually sing, the guards sing a song. I mean,
33:37
Speaker 4: it's crazy, but it's such a different and it works
33:39
Speaker 4: much better. But that's another story. And some people may
33:42
Speaker 4: think they take it too far. But but that's a
33:43
Speaker 4: debate we can have on some o the time.
33:44
Speaker 6: It is true, like it's just a very practical measure.
33:47
Speaker 6: I mean one thing, just in response to something that
33:49
Speaker 6: you were saying that like the way that we imprison people.
33:52
Speaker 6: Now there's this dichotomy where you as like a social
33:57
Speaker 6: animal want your to be close to your family so badly,
34:02
Speaker 6: and you want to stay in touch with the real
34:03
Speaker 6: world so badly, But that's exactly what is taken away
34:07
Speaker 6: from you and the longer, Like, as the holidays add up,
34:12
Speaker 6: and as the time adds up, you see how your
34:15
Speaker 6: life has gone on a radically divergent path and the
34:19
Speaker 6: lives of all the people that you love, and you
34:22
Speaker 6: feel like your experience of the world and of reality
34:25
Speaker 6: is so different and so incompatible with what the rest
34:30
Speaker 6: of us take for granted out on the outside world. Like,
34:33
Speaker 6: how then do you expect people to get out of
34:37
Speaker 6: that situation and re engage with the real world. I mean,
34:41
Speaker 6: it's hard enough for people to re engage with their
34:43
Speaker 6: families even when they first get out, not to mention
34:47
Speaker 6: the rest of the world.
34:48
Speaker 4: It's devastating, right, It's it's almost perfectly designed to drive
34:51
Speaker 4: people crazy, and quite literally. But what I'd like to
34:55
Speaker 4: do the audience that's listening, now, let's say they want
34:58
Speaker 4: to get involved, and let's say they want to bring
35:00
Speaker 4: a ray of light into a prison. I'll throw one
35:03
Speaker 4: idea out there. I'm pen pals with a couple of
35:06
Speaker 4: people now, and I know just from the letters, how
35:09
Speaker 4: much it means for them to have interaction even though
35:11
Speaker 4: I'm a stranger with somebody who's in prison.
35:15
Speaker 6: Feel invested in the world and know that people aren't
35:18
Speaker 6: invested in you. That makes a big difference.
35:20
Speaker 1: You'd be surprised how far a car will go to
35:23
Speaker 1: lift the person spirit up, like I mean, you'd be
35:25
Speaker 1: surprised and just you know what, like Amanda was saying, Look,
35:28
Speaker 1: we can't cage people up like animals, feed them like animals,
35:31
Speaker 1: and then release them and sell them to be human.
35:33
Speaker 1: I mean, that goes against everything that they you know,
35:35
Speaker 1: you've been putting them through for all those years. So
35:38
Speaker 1: I just think that that what you just said, the
35:41
Speaker 1: communication a close interaction with society, and that will go
35:45
Speaker 1: a long way. Jason, Trust me, they are people who
35:47
Speaker 1: search every day for pen pals. They go in and
35:49
Speaker 1: look at newspapers to see people to write, Look, they
35:51
Speaker 1: are in me. They would love that.
35:53
Speaker 4: One idea I had is what if everyone was listening,
35:56
Speaker 4: or a lot of people are listening, to write a
35:58
Speaker 4: letter to somebody who's an innocent person who's suffering through
36:01
Speaker 4: the holidays on the inside, who maybe doesn't have family,
36:04
Speaker 4: doesn't have any really reason to celebrate. A letter could
36:08
Speaker 4: make such a big difference. So here's what you do.
36:11
Speaker 4: Go to Instagram at Wrongful Conviction or go to our
36:15
Speaker 4: Facebook page which is Facebook dot com slash Wrongful Conviction
36:18
Speaker 4: Podcast and you'll get some details and you'll be able
36:21
Speaker 4: to share some strength and some hope and hopefully even
36:26
Speaker 4: a little bit of joy with somebody on the inside
36:28
Speaker 4: who can really use your help. Don't forget to give
36:36
Speaker 4: us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It
36:39
Speaker 4: really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Ennocence
36:43
Speaker 4: Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting
36:45
Speaker 4: this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
36:50
Speaker 4: Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to
36:52
Speaker 4: donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
36:56
Speaker 4: Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show
36:59
Speaker 4: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
37:02
Speaker 4: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
37:06
Speaker 4: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
37:10
Speaker 4: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
37:13
Speaker 4: association with Signal Company Number one