Latest / DA CREW Podcast / DA CREW PODCAST SEASON 1_ EPISODE #165_ HOST QUEEN ANGELA
Transcript
- 0:12Hey, and welcome to The Crew podcast. We are the hottest podcast rocking
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- 0:24family for season two that will keep off February the first, twenty twenty four.
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- 0:50Aspiring Authors Magazine is a founding sponsor for Doc Crew podcast. Get featured inside
- 0:56the magazine and allow your voice to be heard around the world. Aspiring Authors
- 1:00Magazine is an international magazine founded in May of twenty twenty by Queen Angela.
- 1:06Get featured. Hey, Hey, Hey, y'all, Hey, y'all,
- 2:00welcome, Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Group podcast. Tonight it
- 2:08is prison Wise and Girlfriends, y'all. I'm excited to be able to allow
- 2:15individuals to come on and share. Y'all know that I am a advocate for
- 2:20those that are incarcerated, and I hold this near and dear to my heart
- 2:28for those that do not know me. Before I jump in I am effectually
- 2:31known as the Queen of Collaborations. My name is Angela Thomas Smith. I
- 2:36am the visionary behind the Crew podcast as well as the visionary of Aspiring Authors
- 2:43magazine and aa LAC, which is the African American Author Literacy Awareness Campaign.
- 2:49And I just truly believe that in order to see change, we have to
- 2:53be that change that we want to see in this world. So that's our
- 2:58motto over here on the podcast. And I want to thank you guys for
- 3:01tuning in tonight for another episode. We are episode one hundred and sixty five,
- 3:07y'all, one hundred and sixty five. Again, I tell you,
- 3:12I have truly truly enjoyed this journey, y'all. People think we've been doing
- 3:17this forever, but we just started this in February, and I am excited
- 3:22about what God is doing in twenty twenty four. But tonight, I tell
- 3:27you I'm excited about this show. We have some individuals that are married to
- 3:34individuals that's incarcerated. They're gonna have an opportunity to share their perspective about being
- 3:40a prison wife and well how that works and anything that is laid on their
- 3:46heart tonight. So I want you guys to share this in your circle of
- 3:51influence, because you never know what the next person may be in need of.
- 3:55You never know what resources of what someone may need. So I'm going
- 4:00to move out the way and I'm going to allow my guests, Missus Johnson
- 4:05to introduce herself. Hello, Welcome, Welcome, How are you? I
- 4:15am Brave. My name is Shenette Johnson and I live in California. My
- 4:25husband is currently incarcerated in Denver, Colorado. He's been in prison for the
- 4:31last fourteen years. He was wrongfully convicted of a crime that he didn't commit.
- 4:40Wow. Wow, And I know that can be rough. I know
- 4:47that that can be rough. So what has this journey been like for you?
- 4:58Well, I actually we just got on a journey with him a year
- 5:02ago. We dated as teenagers and over the years we we went our separate
- 5:14ways, and last year we finally reconnected and we kind of hit it off,
- 5:18and then we just went on and just got married. And I've been
- 5:27on this journey, I learned a lot with about wrong for andcarcination. Fifty
- 5:34three percent of the population that's wrongfully convicted, our minority men, and it
- 5:45takes them almost like serving like thirty two years to to almost their life to
- 5:53get asonerated and compared to another ethnic group. So I'm I'm learning a lot
- 6:00on you know, just basically how the system is treating our men. Are
- 6:08also seeing a couple of women that was in prisoned on wrangfully convicted where they
- 6:14actually are not giving the right report represent like people to represent them, and
- 6:26it's just like they throw them up under the bus and they have to fight
- 6:30for their life to come out. And that's sad. I tell you.
- 6:39It wasn't until about I want to say about four or five years ago that
- 6:43I really realized that this was really happening. You know, we've been taught
- 6:49to trust the judicial process and to trust the system, the justice system,
- 6:57because it's supposed to work well. In recent years, I say, the
- 7:03last decade or so, we found out that that is not so true.
- 7:09And we can go all the way back and sit all the way back to
- 7:13when slavery ended, and I keep telling people, you know, a lot
- 7:17of us were setting our ways and we believe what we've been taught, but
- 7:23a lot of us need to unlearn a lot of the stuff that we have
- 7:27learned throughout these years. Because we've learned a lot of incorrect stuff and we
- 7:34become educated about the law. And it's not hard, like we just got
- 7:42to read because they put a lot of stuff in these books, and then
- 7:45they write stuff a certain way just so we won't get involved, because they
- 7:49think that we don't like to read. But I'm here to tell them this
- 7:54is a new horizon because it got some years and some writers over here.
- 7:58We love to read and we love to write. But it just disheartens me
- 8:03of a lot of the things that's going on. I'm not familiar with Oklahoma,
- 8:11Colorado. I'm not familiar with Colorado, but I know that and in
- 8:20Texas, in California or two other the top states for wrongfully incarcerated and incinery
- 8:31and and exoneration. I say Texas in California before you connect to see who
- 8:37gonna win. Yeah, So that just lets me know who's the most corrupt
- 8:41states it is and make me want to stay away from them. But if
- 8:48you would, would you like to share a little bit about your husband's story
- 8:52to bring some light to it so that those that are tuned in can really
- 8:58get an idea of what is really happening in the judicial system. And maybe
- 9:03if there's someone out there that have some legal expertise or know of some different
- 9:11ways that they may can assist, please share with us so that we can
- 9:16help how we can. Well, he was his first trial ended in a
- 9:24mistrial because they didn't have no evidence. In his second trial, the day
- 9:31they went to pick the the jury, it was a protest out in front
- 9:37of the courthouse. The DA had put on a protest for murdered victims and
- 9:48they released doves and the families came and they did impact stories. So everyone
- 9:54that went to court that week was convicted of whatever they went the court for,
- 10:01if it was murder or whatever they went, they got convicted. Up
- 10:03my husband when doing his trial, he he was, oh, okay,
- 10:18let me get it. I'm I'm a lirivous and I told he was found
- 10:24guilty of first degree felony murder. But he was acquitted of first degree murder.
- 10:33And with that the how to run for conviction came in was they did
- 10:37not charge him with a felony. Under Colorado law, in order to get
- 10:43a felony murder case, you have to have an underlying condition, which is
- 10:56breath kidnapping. Anything felony has to tizing that murder and he was never tried,
- 11:05he was never charged with underlying felony. So that's where the wrong for
- 11:15conviction come in. And throughout all his appeals, they keep telling him,
- 11:18you know, use the law, you know, use the law. So
- 11:22he's giving them back the law, what the law states, and they keep
- 11:28saying, they keep denigning, denigning, denigning, and you know it's just
- 11:33like he's getting starting to get frustrated, like what what am I supposed to
- 11:37do? They telling me to use the law, and I'm giving them back
- 11:39the law and well, no, it's not written like that. Well it
- 11:43is written like that if you if you're writing it right out the book is
- 11:50it's a mess. How they treating him over there? Wow? And and
- 12:01they doing they're doing it to a lot of people. When I tell you
- 12:07a lot of people, I'm telling you I have a list of about fifty
- 12:11almost sixty individuals in Texas, and how they have done those individuals you talk
- 12:18about all white jurors, you talk about all Hispanic juror you talking about those
- 12:24are not my peers. My peers look like me. If I am a
- 12:31black female, then my peers would be black females or other white females that
- 12:39may be in my age group. You know, if you're gonna do diverse,
- 12:41but you have to have someone that look like me. How can you
- 12:46say a representation of me if they don't even look like me. So,
- 12:52if they don't look like me, then how could they even begin to even
- 12:56put themselves in my place to even think like me? You know, if
- 13:01you're not ending anything that I've been doing, how can you even relate to
- 13:07me? You know, that's one of the things that I have an issue
- 13:09with about. You know, these all white juries, these are Hispanish.
- 13:16First thing is, you know a lot of them, they look at us
- 13:18and they already they've already stereotyped us. They they've already stigmatized us. They've
- 13:26already placed these different things on us, and they've already counted us out.
- 13:31You know, a lot of us. We got to go back. We
- 13:33got to go back to when slavery ended, supposedly, when it ended supposedly
- 13:39publicly. You know, they now have slavery in private through our prison system
- 13:46because if you look at the amount of prisons that do not pay their workers,
- 13:54and then some of these people are holding jobs like the job that we
- 13:56hold on the outside. They packing these people up on these buses and transporting
- 14:03them to plants, transporting them to different places, and they going in clocking
- 14:07in just like regular people. So who's getting the money? Yeah, we
- 14:11having to send money put here, a little putting money on their book,
- 14:16putting money on this on that, you know, So what is the money
- 14:20from the labor that they it is going into. And then they have mm
- 14:28hmm. And then they are not a million dollar industry, but it's a
- 14:37big dollar They say it's a big dollar moving into a trillion dollar industry.
- 14:41Now, yes it is, Yes it is. And you know they also
- 14:50what I have seen is that they they're medicating them, They offering on medicine,
- 15:01you know, giving them medicated just oh you need something to numb the
- 15:05pain or you know, if you if you get a life without possibility,
- 15:13they automatically think that you need to be on psych medicine or you know,
- 15:18and and I'm asking him what word you know, how do you know this
- 15:24man is you know he have a mental problem. Why do you know every
- 15:28black man that goes in there need to be medicated. That's their way to
- 15:37control, that's their way you know, and then they do a lot of
- 15:43testing. You know, that's the easy way to do scientific testing on our
- 15:48people. You know, you look at I'm telling people, you've got to
- 15:52follow the trail of a lot of things. You follow the money trail,
- 15:58and you can follow where a lot of this stuff is going and who's getting
- 16:03the keepbacks, Who's who's head of all of this because somebody getting keeps back?
- 16:11You know. I often, since I'm working with a lot of the
- 16:14in Texas, I often google corruption in Texas, and every single day it's
- 16:22like something new pops up. But my whole thing is, if we know
- 16:27that all these things are going on, why have we not been doing something
- 16:33about it? Now that I know? And and once you know, you
- 16:37you you just can't sit still and not do anything at all. But now
- 16:41that I know, I have to speak out. I have to speak up,
- 16:45you know, and I have to let people know that this is happening
- 16:48and we cannot be quiet. We cannot be quiet. I would love to
- 16:55know how can we how can we support your husband? Do he have emotions
- 17:07up before the court? Is there anything that you know? I know a
- 17:11lot of people talk about writing the legislating and writing I know here in January.
- 17:18Coming up in January, we're gonna be doing some rallies down in Texas.
- 17:23We're gonna start in San Antonio, and we're gonna be doing a couple
- 17:29of different rallies where we're hoping we're gonna march to the city hall and then
- 17:36we're gonna have a rally in front of the city hall, and we're gonna
- 17:37have like a little community event where we're gonna just be bringing people together and
- 17:42different organizations that you know, that work on the behalf of justice for people
- 17:49that are wrongfully and overly incarcerated. Hopefully they will come out and be able
- 17:56to, you know, shed some light on different things. But most importantly,
- 18:00I want to address those people that are in authority, starting with the
- 18:06government. All these people need to be held accountable. It's too many people
- 18:11that they have said that if this is this, then this shouldn't be and
- 18:17you shouldn't be inc that this is this and this is that, and that
- 18:22this person should be incarcerated. Why can't you walk over, Why can't you
- 18:26walk over and tell the person that has the power to to make this happen,
- 18:33And why can't y'all make it happen. Why must we continually go back
- 18:37and forth? I got I got four And then you listen at these lawyers.
- 18:47They want one hundred thousand dollars for what. You're not even guaranteed that
- 18:49you're gonna get your loved one out. You just want my money. And
- 18:52then I listened to all these people like and what they've done to these Mexicans.
- 19:00It's just crazy. It is just crazy, like they will just use
- 19:04them because they figured they got money, because they know there are some hardworking
- 19:10people, and they extort them, extort them because I'm listening to a lot
- 19:15of these stories, I mean just listening to their story. First, it
- 19:18is the language barrier that gets a lot of them, and they just don't
- 19:25know the lot. So they're putting all their trusts in the judicial system and
- 19:30in the lawyers, and in the in the prosecution and then the judge,
- 19:34and then they let them down. Now you tell me this happened. This
- 19:41happened about three weeks ago in the Great State of Texas. So I have
- 19:47a client that I work with, and I've been talking to his brother because
- 19:52his brother got a case and it was a new case, and he kept
- 19:57saying he kept saying that he was like, man, these people took me.
- 20:03He said, these police stopped me. The county stopped me, and
- 20:07they took me out my car and they took me to a church by behind
- 20:12this church, it was some more police officers. It was about eight police
- 20:15officers out there. He said, these people threw me on the ground and
- 20:18they beat me and they tried to put drugs on me. Everybody said that
- 20:22man was lying. Everybody said he was lying. Everybody said he was not
- 20:27telling the truth. The judge, don't you know. The judge had tried
- 20:30to get that man. What do he try to get him? He said,
- 20:36if you take the plea, we'll give you ten to twenty five.
- 20:40If you go to trial, you can get twenty five of life. Now
- 20:47you know that these people lying, Yeah, and that's what they uh,
- 20:56that's what they did to my husband. He said that when he was getting
- 21:00out the when they he was setting up because he has his own business and
- 21:06he was setting up and they didn't have no no warrant for his arrests.
- 21:11Then they took him down there. They because he wouldn't say like implicate somebody,
- 21:21they gave him the charges and the man told him, Uh huh,
- 21:26you know, just laughed in his face. Oh we got you, we
- 21:30got you, and he said, what you got me for? I ain't
- 21:32did nothing. And so when he went to trial and they the first trial,
- 21:37like I said, was a mistrial. Then the second trial they found
- 21:41they acquitted him a murder after deliberation, but then they found him guilty of
- 21:47first degree felony murdered without a and they didn't have no felay to tie with
- 21:53the murder. So you know, how can that stand when they lost saying
- 21:59that they needed a felony to go with the murder. And the guy got
- 22:07on the stand said that the witness that the quote unquote the DA got they
- 22:14cut a deal with this guy. He was supposed to do fair time and
- 22:22they kicked he didn't serve no time. But the guy that they put on
- 22:29this said that Jyan Johnson did not rob me. And they still gave gave
- 22:37my husband what the deal was, ten years, but he turned it down.
- 22:41He said he wasn't taking nothing. He didn't do He wasn't He didn't
- 22:44want to say that, you know, he didn't want to take it because
- 22:47he didn't do it. So once they found him guilty of felony murdered.
- 22:52That's when they gave the judge handed down life without the possibility of parole.
- 23:00Wow, that's crazy. And we hear this, we hear this too often.
- 23:07We hear this too often. Like I'm working with somebody. Now,
- 23:11these people don't have no evidence. When I say no evidence, all the
- 23:18evidence has been destroyed. So how can you convict somebody un destroyed evidence?
- 23:23If you don't have evidence, how can you convict somebody? And then now
- 23:27the state of Texas is in hot water because you got all these jewels.
- 23:33So you got all these jewelers that have been a lot of them been locked
- 23:37up since they fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. Now it's time for
- 23:42a lot of these people to come up for parole. But they don't have
- 23:45none of their records. They don't have none of the juvenile records unless you
- 23:53just come in the system. If you are in your thirties, you and
- 23:57your forty you know, did twenty something years or more, They don't have
- 24:03your records. And then now they trying to get everybody to stay hush hush
- 24:07about it because they know if people complain and people bring it to the knowledge
- 24:14they're gonna have to open them all these cases again, and they're gonna bring
- 24:18these people back before court. They're gonna have to bring them back before jeury.
- 24:22They're gonna have to bring them back. They're gonna have a whole bunch
- 24:25of cases because guess what they've been putting these people in prison left and right.
- 24:30I got eight women over here right now that's been incarcerated since they was
- 24:36fifteen and sixteen years old for stuff like because they was in a car with
- 24:40their boyfriend. And you give them capital, you give them capital life.
- 24:47How can everybody, how can everybody kill one person and only one person?
- 24:52Patrick? How can you give everybody to say large? Think and you know
- 24:59what they're doing? And it takes me, It takes me back to I
- 25:03was in Washington a week ago and I had a chance to go to one
- 25:08of the museums and they had I'm trying to find it real quick so I
- 25:12can share with you back in let me see, let me see if I
- 25:21got it. Back in nineteen forty four, when they executed George Stanley Junior,
- 25:32the fourteen year old they executed him. They said that he that he
- 25:38killed two white girls and within eighty days of them being arrested, he was
- 25:48executed. He was the first He was the youngest black person to be executed
- 25:56at the age of fourteen. And that's what they do to us right all
- 26:06the time. Like it's so many people. The state of Texas ranked the
- 26:11highest in exoneration and execution. This is too. So many people have lost
- 26:18their life innocently that they've been innocent. But they're sitting on on on death
- 26:25row. And you got innocent people right now. That is sick right in
- 26:30prison that and in the court, the court has said in some cases that
- 26:36these people are innocent. They got it on paper. They're saying that they
- 26:41are innocent and that they should not be locked up. But then you go
- 26:45back and you present this to the state, you present this to whoever they
- 26:49want to say that this ain't in their jurisdiction. This is beyond their jurisdiction.
- 26:53Who jurisdiction is it? You know what I mean? If you want
- 26:59to be technical, everybody want technical, everybody really want to be technical.
- 27:03If you go back and you really read the US Constitution, it is illegal
- 27:07for them to even lock people up. We're not even supposed to be blocking
- 27:11people up in the state, but we don't push it because we don't know
- 27:17flow of us don't even know the US Constitution. But that is in the
- 27:19US Constitution. That is in the US Constitution. So a lot of this
- 27:25how these different states and these different judicial branches are operating and doing stuff should
- 27:32not be happening. And see a lot of people know now that we need
- 27:37and see they getting scared, and they consteatic trying to come up with different
- 27:41laws and different stuff. And see they keep putting distractions out here before us.
- 27:45So we get distracted by so much that we won't even be knowing what
- 27:48these people doing while they putting different laws in the place you talk. September
- 27:53the first, the state of Texas put seven hundred and forty four laws on
- 27:56their book. Now, how many people in the state of that seven hundred
- 28:02past not not one person can say that they knew that seven hundred dollars passed.
- 28:08I can guarantee you some of them affected them. You know, listen
- 28:14to people often to listen to people talk about they don't vote in their local
- 28:18election. Your local election is what get those people to their White House.
- 28:25They give those people to the state house. If you're not voting locally,
- 28:29then anybody getting in there, and then anybody can go and represent you in
- 28:34the state. Because I'm sitting there looking at I look at all these people.
- 28:37Know you want the right person to represent you at home, so that
- 28:41you know. And just because they look like us, don't mean that they
- 28:45are fucking you. Got a lot of them, they say they for us,
- 28:52and they vote the opposite direction. Mm. A lot of these congress
- 29:00me and pungless women. They are like share but when you write them about
- 29:04something and they hands is tied. If your hands is now, you can't
- 29:10do what we need you to do as the people. Then we need to
- 29:11vote. They butts out and we need to get somebody else in there.
- 29:15It's what need to be done because it's too many of us, too many
- 29:21of us. Because I had I had written and they they oh, they
- 29:29like kind of push it out, sweep, sweep it up under the rug.
- 29:32Well he needs to do this. Well he did that, you know.
- 29:34But do you guys keep saying use the law. And when we use
- 29:38the law, it it's not for us. I guess it's not for us.
- 29:42It's for everybody else, but it's not for for us. Colorado did
- 29:48re like re like write the felony murdered law, and they turned it into
- 29:53a a class two felony, so you have like they're not sentencing with life
- 30:04without the possibility, but the ones that's in there, they can't go back
- 30:10and use the new law. They said it's not rector actors for them.
- 30:15And then one of the councilmen said that I forgot is his name. He
- 30:22said that he rewritten the law because the like the teenagers up to you thirty
- 30:30years old, they're redeemable. So if you older than thirty, you're not
- 30:34redeemable, redeemable, you just a lost cause. Like first they don't know
- 30:47you want to try these babies ass adults. You know, you know ahead
- 30:53of time that these kids before they reached twenty one, twenty five, whichever,
- 30:59one day to realize that they still babies, that they still thinking as
- 31:03children, that they not reached that adult mindset yet. But yet you charge
- 31:11them as adults. Then if you know that they have are rehabilitatable, if
- 31:15you know they can be rehabilitated, then put these programs in place and rehabilitate
- 31:21them. But in State of Texas don't even believe, they don't care how
- 31:26old you are. They don't believe that you can be rehabilitated, Greg Abbott,
- 31:30do not believe that you can be rehabilitated. They do not have programs.
- 31:37Most people that have been rehabilitated within the TDCJ have rehabilitated themselves. They
- 31:42have come up with their own programs and they have began to work on their
- 31:47own selves because they want to get back out and be productive citizens. You
- 31:52know a lot of these people have been fighting, fighting, fighting. You
- 31:56talking about twenty five thirty three years of being and wrongfully and overly incarcerated,
- 32:01and they're not gonna stamp into their home. Yeah. When they home,
- 32:07the state of Texas gonna have hell to pay, so they as well get
- 32:10ready. Yeah, and I think that's what it is. Well, repeat
- 32:20that, How can we support how can we support your husband? Is there
- 32:27anything that we can do from the outside to kind of help bring some light
- 32:31to what's going on with his Well, he has a chain dot org Juan
- 32:39Johnson change dot org. You know, he been pushing that, We've been
- 32:45pushing at this signature and he also we also have a Facebook page up where
- 32:51you can follow it and get more information on his case. I usually try
- 32:59to post keep everybody up to date on what's going on. But two weeks
- 33:07ago, I found my son non responsive in his room when I was leaving
- 33:13to go to Denver. So I'm in the midst of getting ready to lay
- 33:17him the rest and still working trying to bring light to my husband's situation to
- 33:24get him home because right now is the It's when I really need him here
- 33:30with me because I'm doing this all by myself. Wow. Well, I
- 33:38definitely want you to know that you were in our prayers. We're here the
- 33:44crew podcasts and we're praying for you. Thank you and your family, So
- 33:52know that you have you have us praying for you. But yeah, if
- 33:57you would, if you just me those links and stuff, I definitely would
- 34:01share them out and make sure that they'll post it on our social media site
- 34:07so that people can see them as well. But I definitely I want to
- 34:12thank you for pressing your way and coming on and and just sharing. You're
- 34:19welcome to come back anytime. I'm not gonna keep you going tonight, but
- 34:23know that you're welcome to come back anytime. I'm right here every fourth Monday
- 34:28other month, So if you want to come back by You're more than welcome
- 34:32to come back and share again. How can people follow you and stay connected
- 34:37to you? The number is uh I mean the group name is jan Johnson
- 34:49Wrongfully Convicted on Facebook or you can just follow me on Schennette white Side on
- 34:57a Facebook. All right, Well, again, I want to thank you
- 35:07for stopping by and sharing with us on tonight and know that you're going to
- 35:10stop by anytime. Thank you so much. I appreciate you and I want
- 35:17to yes, ma'am, thank you. Well. I want to thank you
- 35:23guys for tuning in tonight. Like always, I truly appreciate you because you
- 35:31never know the next person may be in need of you, never know what
- 35:37someone may be going through. So thank you guys for tuning in on tonight.
- 35:43I am the Queen of collaborations. We will be back on tomorrow night
- 35:49with another amazing host. Y'all. Every night we're trying to bring you some
- 35:52content with trying to keep you up today on what's happened and then in our
- 36:00society, in our community, and our world desire to see. I love
- 36:05you guys, Be blessed.