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561: #561 Jason Flom with Rodney Roberts · Wrongful Conviction Podcasts

• 00:00:02 Speaker 1: America has two point two million people in prison. If just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people. That's a lot of people's lives destroyed. 00:00:13 Speaker 2: If the system want to take you out of society, they will do it no matter what laws they have to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but they're breaking the lord. 00:00:27 Speaker 1: Having to hear those people say that I was guilty of a crime that I did not commit, and then hear my family break down behind me and not be able to do anything about it. I can't describe the crushing weight that was. 00:00:39 Speaker 3: I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption. 00:00:44 Speaker 2: A lot of times we look and we see something happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said. That could never happen to me, but. 00:00:52 Speaker 4: They can. This is wrongful conviction. 00:01:13 Speaker 5: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm. Today's guest is the one and only Rodney Roberts. 00:01:20 Speaker 6: Rodney Roberts was held for seventeen years for the crime of raping a seventeen year old girl he had never met. Rodney was advised by his public. 00:01:30 Speaker 4: Defender to plead guilty. 00:01:32 Speaker 6: He was told that the seventeen year old girl who was right outside the courtroom had identified him, and if he did not plead guilty, he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail. 00:01:42 Speaker 7: Rodney Roberts story a guilty plead, born a fear, a maxed out sentence of seven years, and on the day of release, not a ride home, but a surprise transfer to civil commitment. It's a kind of imprisonment reserve for just one type of offender. It has no set sentence, no guarantee of release because the state deems them too dangerous to release, and the state says it's a treatment program, but the residents call it prison. He would be held there as an encouragible violent sex offender for a full decade, although it would later be proven that he had been innocent from the start. 00:02:18 Speaker 6: Rodney was finally released after seventeen years because he got a lawyer who had DNA evidence. 00:02:25 Speaker 4: Rodney, Welcome to the show. I'm glad you're here, Thank you. I'm glad to be here. 00:02:29 Speaker 5: So Rodney, this whole crazy saga of your life started when you were seventeen, really right, yes, And up until then your life had been what she's full, good, troubled, what was your background. 00:02:44 Speaker 3: Actually up in today. My life was very well. I had both parents, mother and father, and the household work. My mother she was hands on. She has a master's degree in education. She believed in education in US learning. I have six sisters and four brothers, so we had a house. 00:03:00 Speaker 4: That's a whole football team. 00:03:01 Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I was never alone. I was always well supervised. I had no trouble as a juvenile, no juvenile cross ration or no trouble in that level. 00:03:10 Speaker 4: I was a very good student. You know. 00:03:12 Speaker 3: We went to private school from first to eighth grade. So my life then was very positive, very If I was poor, I didn't have no I wasn't even aware of it because I was so well cared for by my parents and my older brothers and sisters, and my aunts and my uncles. 00:03:29 Speaker 4: And the people in the community. 00:03:31 Speaker 3: You know back then at that time, you know, you had like five six mothers in the neighborhood. You were watched by so many others that you could be disciplined by the lady down the street and she'd bring you to your mother and you and then get disciplined right in front of her and by your mother. So it was a different time than us, and the love in the community and the household. 00:03:50 Speaker 4: Was very strong, and which neighborhood was this well. 00:03:53 Speaker 3: Originally we grew up in the Project area on Montgomery Street, which again was different at that time. And then we moved to a one family house up in Wealsburg area that's in North New Jersey, right across the street from Walsburg Park, so I can run off my front porch right. 00:04:08 Speaker 4: Upto a park up in Newark, New Jersey. 00:04:11 Speaker 5: And it sounds really very sort of beautiful in a certain way, very community oriented, nice, Like you said, a huge family, had a huge extended family. And this is why when I tell people, if you don't think this can happen to you, this can happen to you, because you didn't just paint a likely scenario for someone who's going to end up really getting wrongly convicted twice and serving over two decades in prison for crimes you didn't commit. So let's get into that part of the story. Because when you were a kid, you were kind of hanging out with older guys, right, and then you kind of got blindsided because you weren't really aware of what these guys were up to. 00:04:48 Speaker 3: I mean, the blind side particularly came from the fact that I grew up in so much of a people call out a sheltered household sheltered life, that a lot of things go on the streets I really wasn't exposed to, so me growing up, I would have to come in the house early and things that natures. I thought I was missing out on a lot of things. So I would find a little ways to sneak out the house, not really knowing what I would get myself into. And because of that, I wasn't aware of what was out there. I was more easy to be manipulated in that environment. I'm smart, but I was stupid at the same time. 00:05:23 Speaker 4: Well, I wouldn't say stupid, naive. That's a good word, naive. 00:05:26 Speaker 3: It was a much better world. I like that word better than stupid too. So like the older guys in the community who so much like see young guys, they see potentially in but they seen a potential in a different way. They seen a potential in like a more negative way. How could I sharpen this guy to help me commit my crimes and help me get over And I became under that radar, and when they approached me, that they approached me like, hey man, we like the where you're blend right in. 00:05:51 Speaker 4: We just want you to do this. 00:05:53 Speaker 3: Just look be a scout, be a lookout, just do this and do minimum things things that I thought was really cool. You know, hey, I'm in now, you know I'm part of the streets now, thinking that I was going to earn the street creed all the time I was being played because of my naiveness, of my naivete, I wasn't able to see what was really going on with me. 00:06:12 Speaker 5: But when you're a kid with that kind of flattery, when an older person shows your respect and treats you as they're equal, that can be very intoxicating and can lead you down the road that you don't really know you're going because you're blinded, right because you're thinking that you're in with the cool squad or whatever. 00:06:26 Speaker 3: So what happened, Well, what happened was, first I hid this from my family. I wanted to add that part. They didn't know what was going on. So I separated myself from my protection. And that was a key point in that point where this particular day they we were out and they were saying, well, what was going on out here on the avenue, which just Hakwon's Avenue, and it was a busy street, very crime oriented, and I came back and said, well, this person's doing this, and this person's doing that, and that person is stopping picking up this, and so in that course, they took action from there and they went into and committed the crimes that they committed in detail, which was robbery's, chicknapped, and sexual related offenses. And me, because I played my role, I was charged as a conspirator, not that I committed any offenses, but because I acted in the capacity I acted at. 00:07:16 Speaker 4: That age, I was also charged. 00:07:18 Speaker 3: I went to trial with these individuals and was found guilty with these individuals and had to serve five years alongside these individuals as a conspirator, and my record reflected the same as their, even though I did not participate. But as a conspirator, I was charged the same way, and in that five years because of my age, I was sent to like a youth facility, which is board in town at that time, and once I got a certain size and they transferred me to a larger facility which was always stay prison, who in turn released me. Once they released me in the early nineties ninety three, I was home. At that point in my life, I had decided that my whole life was changed. I was never going back. I had got a good job. I was looking at Quellsmen's Wear up in Woolbrook Mall. I was an excellent salesman for them, paying me pretty good money. Got a nice apartment up in Mountclear, New Jersey. Got custody of my son, who I felt was the change in my life as well, who had left before I was inconcentrated. His mother was pregnant, so I wasn't even there to witness his birth. So that was a big part of me coming home as a change man to take responsibility of my son. Got me a nice car and everything, and I was. 00:08:34 Speaker 4: Doing pretty well. 00:08:35 Speaker 3: And as a result of doing that, I was picked up and identified as someone who committed another offense, saying I was a warrant was out for my arrest, saying that you've been identified as a person who committed a sexual related offense and a kidnapped, and against my adamant denial, like, listen, it's not me. I didn't do this. I didn't even do that before, but now they had me custody. Once they arrested me and put me in custody. The threat we can hold you and keep you here for the rest of your life was real to me. They had showed me that they had the power to do that already. 00:09:10 Speaker 5: Oh yeah, you were in a very precarious situation. I mean, seven years had gone by, your life was, as you said, your life was on track. Things are looking good, and then this crazy thing happens. And then a lot of a lot of weird stuff goes on, I mean, a lot of lying, a lot of cheating the system because they really wanted to convict you. In your case, it doesn't seem like they were really that interested in finding out who raped this woman. They were interested in pending it on you, right, just because they had you and we've seen that part of this scenario happened before. That's not the craziest thing about your story. It's crazy because it happened to you, but it's not uncommon, unfortunately. But things get really crazy as we go along. Well, we'll take us through this, right. 00:09:52 Speaker 4: Well, once I. 00:09:53 Speaker 3: Was in custody, it was really my public defender, as they say in jail house turner and my public pretender who came and said to me in this theatrical way, that he had convinced me that the state had this over women evidence, that the witness was outside by the way, this is my third turned public defender within a four month period, and that the witness seeing my photo and start crying uncontrollably, and they had pinpointed me in that if I was going to go to trial and be in jail for the rest of my life. Now at that point, I felt so overwhelmed backtracking, which just happened to me earlier at seventeen. They said that, well, look and we'll offer you a plea agreement. We're gonna give you a seven year term and you're gonna do two years and you'll come home. If you just plead guilty, you were gonna dismiss the sexual lady defense and you were downgrade the kidnapped to a second degree and put on record no one got hurt. And so in my mind I thought I would saved my life because I had just left my son out there and I didn't know what was going on. I was separated from my family. So I took the plea agreement and I answered the plead to a crime I didn't commit, and doing that, I felt like I portrayed myself in a way that it took me years to get over. And the process of that, I was sent down to state prison to do the seven year term because I went to parole, and parole actually was saying that, oh, listen, you're here not just for the kidnap, but we're here for what the police reports are saying, for the sexual offense. And I was like, no, I didn't do any of that. I actually I didn't do any of it. At this point, I'm like, I'm I didn't do any I just played guilty thinking trying to save my life. Well, that sent them in a spiral like I was in denial, and then I showed no remorse, which you know, I could show remorse for something I did not do, and that's what I was trying to explain to them. But as a result of that, I was denied parole maybe three times, and then I. 00:11:43 Speaker 4: Was maxed out. 00:11:44 Speaker 3: And in being maxed out at me, I served a full seven year terms as opposed to two year term. But before you are released from prison, you were sent to these parole classes. So I went to the parole classes and the pre release classes, which I was did stellar and because I'm thinking I'm going home. And so on the day of my release, I was brought out to the front like every other prisoner who was schedul to be released that day lined up, but instead when they called everyone name, they didn't call minds. So they had released all of them and left me standing there in the day of the day, I had maxed out, means that I had no more time left to do. 00:12:22 Speaker 4: But so you're there. 00:12:23 Speaker 5: You have your possessions, whatever your possessions were that you had in prison with you, you had them with you. Right, You're ready to go home, start your life again, see your son, re establish your relationships with your family, the whole thing. 00:12:35 Speaker 4: They were actually in the parking lot waiting to take me home and go get something. 00:12:39 Speaker 3: Yeah, we had all ranged, and I mean I had, you know, grown until more after seven years from this experience in a degree where I felt like, now my life is really going to be take control of my life and really do it right. But as opposed to being released, I was held and transferred to what New Jersey call to a special treatment on this because I refused to pleat acknowledgeablete guilty or admit my role in the sexual related offense. New Jersey had passed a law called the Sexually Found Predat Act, which said that if they felt like a person was still dangerous, that they could not be released. So they civilly committed me under that pretense. So I was taking to a facility civil commitment facility which is like a civil commitment like traditional However, this was like a new hybrid facility that New Jersey had came up with where they combined the Apartment Correction and Apartment Human Service to their Department in Service there would provide treatment to those that were committed. And I was held there for ten years. 00:13:41 Speaker 4: It's not real. I mean ten years on top. It's like it. 00:13:45 Speaker 5: I think most people are listening and going, wait, wait, but that doesn't make sense. You can't serve your sentence and then serve another sentence that you didn't even have, which is longer by fifty percent than your original sentence was in the first place. And you know it's so crazy, right, you plead innocent, they send you to prison, and you play guilty to send you home. 00:14:01 Speaker 4: Right, It's so backwards. 00:14:02 Speaker 5: It's like Alice in Wonderland, but in your case, that's literally what happened. They wanted you to acknowledge your guilt. I mean, they pulled the rug out from under you so many different times, in so many different ways. By now, right, they had lied to you about the witness who actually had not identified you and never did identify you, right, and they told you that she did. You know, when you talk about three public defenders in four months, I mean, it's not hard for anyone to imagine how little your public defender must have known about your case when they keep switching them out like this. I mean, there's just not that much time to get to understand what's going on. And to be fair, these people are, even the best ones of them, are juggling a lot of cases because that's just the way the system works. He or she might have been working one hundred cases at that. 00:14:46 Speaker 3: Time, and that came out that down the line to try and admit it that when he had like forty cases clients in a bullpen, which is a holding area for prisoners, he had an old woman case a little and like forty were there, and by the time he got the. 00:15:00 Speaker 4: He was in a cilly lawn mode. 00:15:01 Speaker 3: But in the process of being civilly committed that that whole experience within itself was a crazy experience because it is a experience that you could be civilly committed without a conviction. Now you're not convicted. Everything is done through medical terms. What I'm saying, you have a psychiatrist and a psychologist who come in and say I read the record and we think his person is guilty, and you know, and then that becomes you're guilty, and that becomes the reason they hold you. 00:15:27 Speaker 4: There's no justice there whatsoever. There's no trial. 00:15:30 Speaker 3: There's no way they give you a hearing that the attorney general totally dictates, so there's no way to challenge the whole process of it. Because the psychiatrists work for the state. They come in and write whatever the attorney general wants them to say. In my particular case, that was one beneficial point feature that I always like to add was the state centers psychiatrists and. 00:15:50 Speaker 4: To interview me. 00:15:51 Speaker 3: And as a result of his interview, he changed his mind, became my witness and testified that I should have been released. As a result, they diminished He was later released, but he jumped ship. But in that process where they still saw me an attorney. Another public defender named John Dewar, who I aw utmost respectful in their office. And I explained to him, I said, listen. This was in two thousand and four. I said, listen, I played guilty to a crime I commit. I listen, I shouldn't be here. And I explained to him what happened. I said, listen, I played guilty because I was far my life as been addressing my life in jail. I wanted to be home with my family. He said, listen, I'm gonna take a chance with you. So what he did was him and his investigator they went and found the victim, and they went interview her, and they showed her my photo and she asked, well, did you know this guy. I never seen this guy there in my life. They were like, wait a minute, this guy's locked up for a crime against you. She didn't even know anyone was locked up, particularly me. She said, I didn't never identify him. That sent my case into a spiral. As a result of that, she gave a sworn statement. We thought that that was gonna be enough to have me release from civil. 00:17:00 Speaker 5: It would seem like that would be a novel. I'm sure again everyone listening is going, okay, well that's it go home. You're done now, But that's not the way it works. But I want to make one more point before we get into the next part of the story, which is that ninety five percent of state felony convictions are a result of guilty. Please right, because almost anyone faced with your situation, especially someone who'd already had experience of how heavy the criminal justice system can come down on you, given a choice between what they were telling you was going to be two years or twenty eight months or whatever it was, or the rest of your life. I mean, try to walk a mile of those shoes, right. 00:17:36 Speaker 4: I mean, that's a horrible statistic. 00:17:37 Speaker 5: It's a horrible statistic. And like I said, it may not seem like it affects you, but someday it could. I mean, it could affect you or someone you love. Anyone who's listening right now, you know your chance with the public defender who I mean, the ODJIT two stacked. 00:17:50 Speaker 3: They formed would be a trifecta judge to prosecutor and public defender. In my mind, a collaboration to hurse me into this plea agreement to make it as if that was my only result to save my life. 00:18:18 Speaker 5: But here's what's so crazy about your case, Rannie, is that, first of all, start with you were innocent. Second of all, the idea that your own attorney says, we're going to get two years, but you end up getting seven years, but then they turned that into seventeen years. How can that be that your own people let you down to that extent. The system too, but your own people. And then the other thing, Like I said that, I really want to highlight because we haven't covered this on the show yet, but it's a reality, and it's a crazy reality that most people don't focus on. It's this idea of civil commitment and that sounds civil commitment, sounds like a relatively benign term. 00:18:53 Speaker 4: But it was hell in there, and I heard you talk about it. It was horrible in it. 00:18:57 Speaker 3: I mean it was horrible in the fact that I was exposed to an element that I had never had been exposed to before a mindset. 00:19:06 Speaker 4: The danger is real. 00:19:08 Speaker 3: There's a need to protect the most warlomable members of our society. 00:19:11 Speaker 4: That's real. 00:19:12 Speaker 3: However, the process of selection is flawed. Now when I say the flaw, if they see that you don't fit that criteria, you don't have what they call a present danger. You don't have the mental incapacity or the repetiti or compulsive personality, you should not be there now in that environment, you hear things that stories is so hard. 00:19:32 Speaker 4: What that makes you like? 00:19:33 Speaker 3: I used to cry in some of the groups because I didn't fit in any mold. I had no diagnosis because I wasn't able to be put in the group. So I was separated from the population and put in isolation. I spent most of my time, maybe nine years in isolation, away from population. But the big part of that case was for years we asked to state for the particular the kits what they said that they had to show the d evidence. So they said they lost it. 00:20:02 Speaker 4: And let's go back to that. 00:20:03 Speaker 5: And before we even do, I want to make that point too, because I think you and I are on the same page, because I often say that I'm not soft on crime, I'm tough on injustice right and I think too anybody who you know who hurts another human being, we have to have a society of laws. We have to protect the general population. I do believe that Brian Stevenson says, which is that everybody's better than the worst thing they've ever done. But that being said, we have to hold people accountable, we have to be safe as a society, but we also have to be fair. And everyone's entitled to a fair shake and to a fair trial and to fair treatment by the system. And you are the poster the poster child, for lack of a better word, of everything that's wrong and everything that can go wrong. 00:20:43 Speaker 4: And I want to get back to the rape kits. 00:20:44 Speaker 5: Because, as you said, as your lawyers were trying to get the rape kits, they were saying, and that we've seen this. 00:20:49 Speaker 4: Before, that they lost them. 00:20:51 Speaker 5: They didn't lose them, but they said they lost them either they were too lazy to look for them, whether they didn't look very hard or whatever it was, whether they were hiding them, who knows, But one way another, that's one of the things that kept you on as long as it did, because if they found those rape kits, you would have been freed because it would have proven that you could not have been the source of the semen that was found inside this woman. But talk a little bit about this isolation, right, What was that like? The isolation? I mean, does that mean you were in like solitary confinement type of sound? 00:21:17 Speaker 4: Yeah, I was in. 00:21:18 Speaker 3: It had a special unit called a B unit, where these particular individuals either they were treatment refused, either they refused to even participate in any programming, or like myself, had no diagnosis. And one other feature was they felt that I had too much influence on the population in regards. 00:21:37 Speaker 4: To my legal skill, my ability to advocate. 00:21:40 Speaker 3: When I was standing up and say this is injustice, this is not right, I had no idea how many people was behind me saying yeah, well he said so. I was always looked at as someone's citing rise or creating gatherings because all I was doing was standing up for what I thought was my rights. So as a result, the administration decided to isolate me and put me in isolation so I could not I was only able to go to visits with the rest of populais. I wasn't able to go grooves programs events. I couldn't participate in anything because of my stance and because I would not admit guilt. At this point, I stood firmly that I'm innocent, and that also set me apart from the population because the only way you could get therapy and treatment you have to admit guilt and in this isolation you'll put on this unit, and this unit is I mean, one of the most miserable places you could be because there's. 00:22:30 Speaker 4: A unit of hopelessness. 00:22:31 Speaker 3: You feel like you forgot about left there. You feel like everything at this point in your life is over, that no one believes you, and that the fight is so uphill it's like ice skating uphill. 00:22:43 Speaker 4: I mean. 00:22:43 Speaker 3: And in that moment, you know, I grew to a point where was though, I said to myself, because they would constantly say, fortunately had CIO. They had correction alice there, and they have correction officer there, who who's you know. He was very underst so he would say lock in, you know, you gotta lock in yourself, which no one wants to go lock be locking themself. 00:23:06 Speaker 4: But he was cordial about it. 00:23:08 Speaker 3: And he did his job, but he wasn't really arrogant about or aggressive. He would say lock in, guys, so everybody would feel more easy about doing it. But this particular day he wasn't there and they had this also on and he was just being extra unnecessary that day all that day, and so. 00:23:27 Speaker 4: When time came for us a locking, he said lock in. 00:23:32 Speaker 3: And the way he said it resonated in me so deeply. He said, lock in. I said to myself, no, no, I'm not locking it. No, I'm not I'm innocent. I'm not going in her room. I'm not supposed to be here today. So he says, if you don't lock in, I'm gonna have to call the boys. It's gonna be trouble. I said, it's gonna be some trouble today. The day is that day. We're gonna have some trouble up here. It's gonna be some trouble. So he called the boy. So I'm up there, back and forth. 00:24:01 Speaker 4: Am ready. 00:24:02 Speaker 3: I'm positioning myself years going down today. I'm tired of this. I'm not locking in no more time. I'm innocent. So they ran up the stairs and I'm ready for them. They come running like eight nine up. They really get me. So when they got to the top of the stairs, I rushed them. I grabbed them, and like for three seconds, I was the mad three seconds, I was that guy. After that three seconds, I felt my feet come off the ground, I felt my. 00:24:29 Speaker 4: Arm being pulled back around me. 00:24:31 Speaker 3: But then they felt they threw me, grabbed me and threw me in myself. 00:24:34 Speaker 4: For you what I was in my cell, I was standing in myself. 00:24:37 Speaker 3: I flushed myself off and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, at least I stood up for three seconds. And I lived in that three second moment for years. But as a result of standing up and feeling that in that three seconds, they looked at me different in the population. They said, well, why was someone put theyself through that? Why was someone stand up against eight nine different people just to say they innocent? And that made him take a step back and say, let's look at this guy again. And as a result, they became more leaning against me. Allowed me to more access to the law library, allowed me to move around a little. 00:25:11 Speaker 4: Bit more quietly. 00:25:12 Speaker 3: They would say, listen, we like you, we like how you move, but don't make us choose between you and our job. Because I'm gonna choose my job, and if I gotta knock your head, I'm knocking your head. So I had to learn how to maneuver within in that philosophy, and that gave me the room I needed to litigate harder, fight harder for my freedom. 00:25:31 Speaker 4: And that three seconds. 00:25:33 Speaker 3: I live in this very moment because and that three seconds, I was the champion. 00:25:37 Speaker 4: I needed to be it liberated me. It was only three seconds. 00:25:40 Speaker 3: It took him for my whole life in that moment to liberate me to be the man I am today and grow and feel strong. Now I had the rest of my life. Three seconds turned into the rest of my life. Then that changed everything for me. 00:25:52 Speaker 5: You literally risk your life and here comes these guys with the shields and the helmets, and they might have killed you, and nobody would have prosecuted him. 00:26:00 Speaker 4: If they did exactly. 00:26:01 Speaker 5: They would have said he rushed us, it was dangerous, blah blah blah. So you became the man in that moment, which was really a spontaneous reaction, right because. 00:26:11 Speaker 4: For me, that moment right there reflected in my mom I had enough. 00:26:15 Speaker 5: Well, because the thing is, and I keep coming back to this, right on top of the wrongful conviction, on top of the rug being pulled out from under you, with the two years, you know what you had to pleat gill you something you didn't do, then the seven years, and then really the terrifying idea of you not being able to go home and everybody else going home, and then the idea that you're in there for ten years and it's an indefinite sentence. It's not even like if they sentenced you, well, we're going to put you in this confinement thing for ten years, at least you would know at the end of ten years you're going. But you had no idea they could have kept you there forever. 00:26:47 Speaker 3: And because I was saying I'm innocent, that totally took me out to run it. That made me did disqualify any opportunity for my release. If it wasn't for the fact that do you pelor court finally got tired reverse in my case three times and a third time they finally was so frustrated they re assigned me a new attorney, a new judge, and then mysteriously the evidence that we were looking for up here is that we were asking for maybe ten years and nine to half ten years. They say with los pops, I don't know what we mislabeled. 00:27:17 Speaker 4: Here we go, and it was mislabeled this exactly. 00:27:23 Speaker 5: But this is another thing that's it still strikes me as nutty that and that's not strong enough word. The idea that your conviction was overturned three times, right, and these are pro sae emotions that you were filing in a pro say motion for people who haven't heard that term before means emotion filed by an inmate on their own behalf, without the benefit of a lawyer. So how does it happen that you get these convictions? And it could again talk about more rugs being pulled out from under you? Right here you are like they're going dangling you like around like a marionette. Right so you're you get this overturned and then they don't free you anyway, and then they do it again, and then they don't free you anyway, and then finally it takes a judge to go, I'm tired of this shit, right I'm tired. 00:28:05 Speaker 4: He was tired. 00:28:05 Speaker 5: Imagine how tired you wants to be, see people, I'm tired for listening to the damn story. 00:28:09 Speaker 3: And you know a lot of people don't really take into account how something this match affects so especially I mean personally for me, how much all of this, even from seventeen all the way up to this point, what I had to deal with as a person, as a as a young man, and to deal with this environment and to deal with the pain and separation and on that was separate from my family and had the hostility and environment had to survive and and keep my head together and hold on to hope, because you know that was you know, it was times I had to do a lot of depression. It was are the times I had to fight off, you know, saying a feeling that this was never going to end. I was always going to be in this situation that I was never going to be able to prove to anyone that I'm worthy or value someone to value me. I mean, it was so hard, you know what I'm saying, and dealing with disappointment over and over again to I used to ask myself, am I addicted to disappointment? Because it started becoming to the point where I've started becoming desensitized, like I expected to be let down. It affected me in a way whereas though I know I felt that God has to be watching over me because the fact that you know, I'm not crazy at this point, because of the experience of having to fight off all these emotions of loneliness, the emotion of feeling powerless and just disenfranchised, and all these feelings you live with, I live with for years. 00:29:54 Speaker 5: Can you just give us some insight into what was the worst and the best experience you had during your seventeen years locked up in the miserable conditions that you were in. 00:30:06 Speaker 3: The worst experience was being placed in a position to have to plead guilty to a crime I didn't commit, along with being civilly committed in the facility where the stigma was horrible, and have to live under the stigma of that environment and survived, and that such hard stigma being looked at and as someone who has those characteristics even though I didn't. 00:30:35 Speaker 4: The happiest moment that I had that. 00:30:38 Speaker 3: Kind of nullified kind of took takes and put her all that in this perspective was in the courtroom when the judge finally judged Sherry hutchs Henderson, when she finally got the DNA evident she needed from the state lab and she said to me, mister Robertson, she's apologized. He apology was so heart felt of how she felt so bad that this happened to me. But when she said I'm reversing your conviction, my support so so it was like maybe thirteen people, my niece, my sister, a lady, my mother, my friends. They bust out and like jubilate, nah. It was so loud in the courtroom. You know, they was out there like they was having the Holy goes back there like church was going on. 00:31:23 Speaker 4: And a judge she. 00:31:25 Speaker 3: Loud them to have that moment because that was their moment of vindication as well as mine, because they believe me, they stood by all those years and they we knew it. 00:31:33 Speaker 4: And you know, I expected to turn around see them road on the floor. 00:31:36 Speaker 3: But in that moment, I cried, I felt vindicated. I felt now you know, I was happy. I felt like something in my life just turned around. And in that moment, you know, hearing them cheering and empowered me. And I think, I know changed my whole walk at that point because I went back and because I had to go back to the civil commitments to be released from there. But I had that George Jefferson walk. You know what I'm saying, I'm walking on like George Jefferson now, you know. 00:32:08 Speaker 4: So I was. 00:32:11 Speaker 3: So that I made that experience right there. It was the happiest moment in my life. You know, I'm that courtroom experience. I just cannot ever erase that from my mind and heart. How wrong that made me feel doing a judge said that, and hear my family and everyone that loved me. Just so happy to hear it and know they was right because they went through a lot of turmoil and kind of visit and being discriminated against and coming inside and look down upon, like you supporting this guy and this kind of with this kind of person. 00:32:41 Speaker 4: With this kind of charge, and they had to go. 00:32:43 Speaker 3: Through all that and do it and now to find and see that they were right and had that moment where they were like elate and such, that moment, like I said, gave me that George Jefferson consence. 00:32:55 Speaker 4: I was walking back, everybody looking at him like I was a new guy, Like look at this guy, who is this guy here? So, yeah, that's amazing. 00:33:02 Speaker 5: And obviously no one can understand that feeling that hasn't been through it, but you're painting a very vivid picture and making I'm sure everyone that's listening feel that the little piece of that joy that you had and that vindication and that feeling when you were enduring. And it's so crazy. I was just thinking about the timeline of your life, right, seventeen years, then five years in prison, then seven years out, then seventeen years. It's really a crazy roller coaster ride. That's impossible for anyone to understand who hasn't lived it. And it's sort of a miracle that you're here, and it's really inspiring just to hear you talk and see the way you are. So I want, I want to ask you when you were when you were locked up, was there any particular person that gave you hope, that gave you strength. 00:33:47 Speaker 3: Yeah, at that time I had a support system. Her name was Linda, Linda Roberts. At this point, she was very strong in my life. Then I have a strong support system analysis Hoppen Home with Her name is Tulita James, we call her. So there was an adjustment process. But the one person who kept me moving when I was seventeen, the judge asked me, and this is the Orange record, the judge said before he sentenced me, because I was schedul to be senting so higher a sentence. But he asked me, said, is there anything you want to say? 00:34:16 Speaker 4: Young man? 00:34:18 Speaker 3: So I turned to my mother, who was crying and who I was hurting so bad because I'm her youngest son, and she just knew that this was wrong. 00:34:25 Speaker 4: And I said to my mother. 00:34:27 Speaker 3: No matter what, I'm not gonna let this destroy me I'm gonna do the best I could. I'm sorry, and I'm gonna hold on. And I talked to my mother in the courtroom, and everyone was amazed to see me and my mother at this time having this back and forth discussion because she was saying, hold on, I'm just keep in prayer and in the courtroom, and that conversation has been my mantra for all these years to tell her, let my mother know that no matter what what she instilled in me as her son and my father, but my mother, what she put in me was nothing was never going to tear that down and moral complished that she instilled in me to find my way back to right, It's never going to be taken out. And that has been my rock, my mother. She's my she and she continues to be and she will always be that my moral confisence. 00:35:20 Speaker 4: She is my north star. She sounds like an extraordinary she's eighty five and she can't tell her she's not fifty. And I love her. 00:35:29 Speaker 3: She's my strength, and she knows what she is and I just cannot get enough of her. So I adore her and she knows it, you know. 00:35:36 Speaker 4: So it's so important. 00:35:38 Speaker 5: And you just heard from Rodney that that connection remains intact between families, so between loved ones and people who are incarcerated. And you know, in this country we have such a crazy system where inmates are charged. Incarcerated people are charged five to ten times as much for collect calls, which is insane. Now they're moving away from in person visits and certain states where they're changing it to where you're going to get an iPad and you get to talk to your family members on the iPad, and it's like, I mean, we're just we're going in the wrong direction. In a lot of ways. Criminal justice system is being reformed in good ways now, but in that way, it just doesn't make any sense. Because we just heard it directly from you. It's so important to maintain that to keep that hope alive and to keep that connection strong, not just for you, but for your children or your mother or whatever reletives are on the outside that I love you and care about you. So while you were locked up the second time, were you able to maintain a relationship with your son? 00:36:32 Speaker 4: And how is that now? Well, my son is an amazing young man. 00:36:36 Speaker 3: Even what he's been doing with me out his life, he's grown to be a very strong young man. He's maybe six five, maybe two ninety. You know, he's a big guy, you know what I'm saying, very mild man, a very religious, never been involved in the law. 00:36:53 Speaker 4: You know. It doesn't drink or hang out anything, works, goes to church. 00:36:58 Speaker 3: I love who he's become all my time his absence. One thing that we always had that kept us together was we had a passion for reading. I told him how to read, basically, and he would get on the phone and he would read to me. 00:37:11 Speaker 4: And actually, freaking we learned how to read together. 00:37:14 Speaker 3: Do comic books. I would buy comic books and I would buy him one. I'd buy me one and I would reading and he would read it, and we would talk about the comic books. And that's how we develop our relationship to reading. And to this day we still talk about comic books. Even we're both so amazed at the new Marvel movies. We run to see him together because we read about him all his life and me all my life. 00:37:36 Speaker 4: Really, and you have a lady in your life now, yes. 00:37:39 Speaker 3: I do, a beautiful young lady who has been patient with me even all my adjustment and Talada James Della James, who has dealt with ups and downs with myself and herself, and we struggled together, and I appreciate everything she's done for me and with me and to me. It helped me become a stronger man in my adjustment process. 00:37:59 Speaker 5: Friday is sharp dress. Guy was complimenting him before on his shoes. He's got a nice, beautiful Chris White shirt. And he told me, actually the credible laws to her right. 00:38:06 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean I don't even pick my own clothes. I go in the store and I picked something up and she ignores it. So then what you know, she even because I came home I was like two ninety myself and wait, she helped me even in my healthier eating, you know, working out. I mean, there has been an adjustment process with her there in my life, and I only pray that I contributed something strong to her life through my strength friends to her that makes her know that there's always in resilience and you could come back from anything, you know, saying nothing this overwhelming in life that you can't start all over and be strong through. So I'm hoping that my experiences and hussying me what I've been through and still being strong enough man to make her want to love me. 00:38:52 Speaker 4: Has contributed to her life as well. 00:38:54 Speaker 3: And with that, you know, I have six sisters to one path away, my younger sisters sharing. But there's oh and they they're like parole officers, you know. They I have to check in with them. And if I was checking with them, there's a so yeah. So I I have some strong, beautiful women in my life that really supervised me, so to speak, and take care of me and help me along the way. And I think this made me a much stronger man and much confident man as well. I came home this time, and I was blessed to come home this time, and I say to myself, I'm able to talk about these feelings, but feeling them at the moment was was like so sad for me. I used to have moments where I would be sad for like days. 00:39:38 Speaker 4: And I'd be like, pull myself. I we gonna come on, you gotta pull yourself out of this. 00:39:41 Speaker 3: I used to have to coach myself and give myself pep talk sober and come on, man, you got people was like you over there talking to yourself again. I'm like, listen, this is the best conversation I've had all day and you know, to pull myself out of stage of what I just felt like. 00:39:57 Speaker 4: It was so much overwhelming. 00:39:59 Speaker 3: And you know, can't begin to tell all the years because we're talking about since seventeen and then now and how much suffering it felt like. I mean, I feel that's why today I advocate because I can identify with suffering. You know, I don't like to see anything suffer, and that's from animals to people, to the plants to anything, because I know what it feels like to suffer. I know it feels like to be put in a position that you know, where you're just hurting inside emotionally and psychologically, that you just want some help from somewhere, you know. 00:40:36 Speaker 4: And that's why I stand today, because I just want to be. 00:40:39 Speaker 3: That for someone who may feel hopeless and feel like there's knowing. 00:40:43 Speaker 4: The Navy they. 00:40:44 Speaker 3: See me and they say, you know, this guy, you know is just someone out there that understands and cares because I felt there was knowing As a result. Now, I just started the Rodney Roberts Foundation. 00:40:54 Speaker 4: Oh tell me about that. 00:40:56 Speaker 3: What I offer is the one thing that most in the visuals who have been wrong for convicted, and not just wrong for convicted, but particularly the wrong for convicted, but individuals who've come home and feel as there's no one to connect with because in the wrong for convision community the one thing we don't have. No state has an agency that provides housing, work assistance, counseling. 00:41:20 Speaker 4: No state has that. 00:41:21 Speaker 3: So you would let come home and there's no way for you to turn because some states made me feel they don't want to make that answer. You have nowhere to go to, so you have no opportunities there. Myself, when I came home, I had to compete with my counterparts with gods on parole, probation for jobs and training and treatment. And I'm going in and saying, look, I'm innocent. I was just exonerated, and employees like, listen, hey man, that's a great story. 00:41:44 Speaker 4: And we did. 00:41:45 Speaker 3: But we're in the money making business and we would rather hire that God on parole because we could tax deductions. 00:41:50 Speaker 4: For hey. 00:41:52 Speaker 3: One playee told me that he's like, well, I can tax the duction behind Gods and parole. 00:41:55 Speaker 4: He was like, you a great guy. 00:41:56 Speaker 3: I'm sorry what happened to you, but I had to hire this guy plus you on seventeen years, so we don't know. So I was left in a void, and so I had to. 00:42:05 Speaker 4: Literally create a job for myself. 00:42:07 Speaker 3: I had to literally create an opportunity for myself by taking that frustration that being denied, have no place to fit in and taking the passion that I have to advocate against this injustice, prosecutory misconducting and ineffectious accounts of course play agreements. And I started talking about it on a basis where people started listening and saying, you know what, we like what he's saying because. 00:42:32 Speaker 4: He's relevant, it's right on time, and we think there needs to be heard. 00:42:37 Speaker 3: And I was brought into like an organization like the Innocent Project, who will give me assignments and say, Ronnie Gore, who you work with us and speak here. We can help you with a little conversation here. And that grew into me working closely with them, and me making the commercials with them, and me doing other work with them. And Jeffrey Desker had the Jeffrey Desker found brought me in and helped me school me in a way with you know, this is what you need to be saying, and this is how you should present and this is we're gonna give you this little space here. So the Rodney Robertson Foundation is a representation of all that experience. What I want to do is I want to give an opportunity for those who have been wrong, for the convicted to be able to reach out that's currently incarcerated to reach out, so in New Jersey because New Jersey is far behind and everything what comes from wrong for convicted, even currently saying legislation is being challenged now. But I want to be that help with with job placement, help fund housing, help with counseling, which is most important, which even myself after all these years, is an important feature, even for myself, to help with counseling, to help with reconnecting those with their families, because the one group that suffers the most and most is the family. 00:43:56 Speaker 4: They see the person locked up, but once. 00:43:58 Speaker 3: A family members locked up, the whole family's basically locked up and so a degree because they can't stop being connected with their love on so they suffer as well. And they the families have to also be educated on what's necessary to help this person reintegrate and what's to look for and what characteristics to look for when you see a person slipping leaves, the recidivism and when you see signs of depression or feeling and hopeless. So the Rodney Robins Foundation has multifacts in that level and also with the public speaking aspect as well. 00:44:32 Speaker 4: Right now, I have the Rottney Royis Foundation, I have what I'm doing. 00:44:35 Speaker 3: I have a go fund account that I'm trying to raise money now to create a platform to bring people in like get a staff. 00:44:42 Speaker 4: That's my goal is to have a staff. 00:44:44 Speaker 3: And a permanent location and office in New Jersey where and I'm growing from there and have my emails set up Rodney Roberts Foundation ninety six at gmail dot com and also the Rodney Roberts Foundation. What we're gonna do also, we're gonna collaborate with other organizations to fight against wrong who convictions, prosecutorium misconduct, ineffectual Accouncil. 00:45:04 Speaker 4: We're gonna try to grow in that degree. 00:45:06 Speaker 3: Right now, I don't want to put the bugget before the horse because I'm not elevated to that level. You have to be as prestigious as some of the organizations. 00:45:13 Speaker 4: That they're book cold on. 00:45:15 Speaker 3: Because I'm on my way, I'm headed in the right direction and with the passion and ideas and energy, and I'm headed there and I'm gonna build and have someone so when everyone New Jersey and worldwide can connect to also. 00:45:31 Speaker 5: And that's really exciting that you're doing that. I think you're gonna make a big difference in a lot of people's lives. 00:45:36 Speaker 4: What can people do? 00:45:37 Speaker 5: Obviously, I hope people will support join me in supporting because I'm going to support you in the Roddy Roberts Foundation. 00:45:43 Speaker 4: But what else can people do? Well? 00:45:46 Speaker 3: I think, particularly if their loved one is gold, how close they are, if it's a family member that you're directly related to, it close with The first thing you need to reach out to their attorney, find out who the attorney is, who's representing them, and get their discoveries, get whatever paperwork with those documents they have. Get familiar with what the record says yourself and try to understand that, because the first thing you had to do is educate yourself because most time we rely on hearsay what this attorney says or this person says, and that. 00:46:20 Speaker 4: Could be misleading. 00:46:21 Speaker 3: If you are in a position to find out yourself, you could read through their paperwork, their discoveries and decipher what's being said, or do not help the family member understand exactly what's being. 00:46:32 Speaker 4: Charged and how to approach the situation. 00:46:36 Speaker 3: Secondly, just a visit, a card, a letter, at some point, take some time out to show that person that they're not forgotten and that strength. 00:46:47 Speaker 4: Is the person. 00:46:47 Speaker 3: You don't know how much it feels good to sit there and then hear when they do a mail call and you're waiting and you hear everybody else's name call and your name and not call over and over. 00:46:57 Speaker 4: Then one day you hear your name. 00:46:59 Speaker 3: Oh if I just you run to get this letter because now you know someone out there has reached back inside. So even that something simple as that is major or something. And understand that when a person is released and they come home, they're going through a sort of a culture shock or a reverse culture shock. They're going through a process where they released from one environment to another, and this change they have to unlearn what they just learned, you know, and to relearn what they already knew about how the interact and society. You're talking about people who are a person who just went through a prison experience and where they had to begin the controlled environment where they had to stand in line and eat and had eaten a certain period of time. 00:47:41 Speaker 4: And you know, these things are built into you. 00:47:43 Speaker 3: When you do the same repetitive thing over and over again, become institutionalized. Now you have to come home and to a new environment and the shock of that, which is you know, it's just culture shock because you really unlearn all this and then to readjust yourself back to being free. 00:48:00 Speaker 4: I understand that that process is not it's easy, even if the person makes it look easy. It's not easy. 00:48:06 Speaker 1: There. 00:48:06 Speaker 3: There's a pretend there because this affects anyone that's been locked up in a long period of time. 00:48:11 Speaker 4: So make sure to give them enough cushions so that they can have those moments. 00:48:16 Speaker 3: Well, but you may see like myself, you know, when I first came home, you know, because in the prison, you go to take a shower, you take a shower, you're underwear, and you watch it. When I went home, came home, I went to shout the money, and the lady like, what are you doing so? And I was like, I don't want to watch you like listen, you're not there, and so you know, so I so you look for a little sounds like that where they're sitting at the table and they take this poon and put it inside the cup, and. 00:48:44 Speaker 4: You're You're like, what are you doing? You know, it's a little jail house things that. 00:48:48 Speaker 3: People have to shed and little psychological things that people may do. Have a little more patience with the loved one. 00:48:56 Speaker 5: I want to I want to reinforce one point that you made which is so powerful and I'm glad you said it, which is that it's so important that people understand that just because your loved one or even you have a lawyer, doesn't mean that lawyer is doing a great job. Even the best intentions. Sometimes in the court system, which we know is not always the best attention, but mistakes are made. So even if you have a good defense lawyer, they might be going through something in their life. They might miss a detail. So if you have that opportunity to be able to read those papers and those transcripts, you might be able to find that piece of evidence or that legal principle that might help yourself or your loved one, and you can present that to your lawyer and they may have missed it. And so that's such a great point that you brought up. And now, Ronnie, we have a tradition on wrongful conviction, which is that I like to just sit here and listen and let you talk about anything you think you may have left out. You know, you got so much, so much knowledge. It's so much hard and so much to share. So I just want to give you a chance to just say anything at all that you want. 00:49:57 Speaker 4: Wow. 00:49:59 Speaker 3: I just, you know, even given that opportunity, I once read that it says that ammire a person who's been through hell and came out, but takes buckets of water back to those who are there. And even this moment, I still want to hold dear to my passion and try to reach out to others as well. And at this point, through the Rodney Roberts Foundation, I'm just trying to buy a bigger bucket because I went back, I took buckets there, and I found out that my buckets need to be a little bit bigger to provide more service to a larger group of people. And just that, just you know, I want to continue to stay close to the front line and stay close to you know, fighting alongside the champions such as yourself and others, and trying to expose something in this country that has becoming a phenomenon now is why it's wrong for convision and prostitutory in Wisconda and ineffects us accounsels and continue to be on a positive path and a productive path. And I can make myself and my mother and my loved ones proud to proud of me and proud to be associated with me. So that's it for me. 00:51:14 Speaker 5: Well, for anyone who's listening, you've now heard the extraordinary saga and the equally extraordinary spirit of Rodney Roberts. I hope you'll consider donating to the Rodney Roberts Foundation. For every dollar that anyone donates myself and Wrongful Conviction, we will match up to ten thousand dollars, so we'll get you off to a good start there, and we'll be very proud to continue to support you as you do this amazing life saving work. And I'm just really I'm just proud to know you and happy to call you a friend. And I appreciate you coming on and sharing your experienced strength and wisdom with our audience. And I want to thank you again, Rodney, and you've been listening to a very unique and tremendous episode of wrongful conviction. 00:52:00 Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you. 00:52:08 Speaker 5: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. 00:52:11 Speaker 1: It really helps. 00:52:13 Speaker 5: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one