Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #466 Lauren Bright Pacheco with Joe Giarratano

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#466 Lauren Bright Pacheco with Joe Giarratano · Wrongful Conviction

0:05
Speaker 1: Tens of thousands of people incarcerated in the US have
0:09
Speaker 1: been wrongfully convicted and are being held in captivity for crimes,
0:13
Speaker 1: even as they adamantly maintain their innocence. What's it like
0:17
Speaker 1: to be one of those imprisoned people, and what's it
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Speaker 1: like to be their ally, the one outside committed to
0:23
Speaker 1: fighting for their freedom. I'm Lauren Bride Pacheco, and this
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Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction. On February fourth, nineteen seventy nine, the
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Speaker 1: bodies of a mother and her teenage daughter were found
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Speaker 1: in an apartment in Norfolk, Virginia, known as a party
0:45
Speaker 1: house due to a steady flow of visitors. Twenty one
0:48
Speaker 1: year old Joe Giarretano lived there in the month before
0:51
Speaker 1: and the night of the murders. Waking up upon the
0:55
Speaker 1: scene with no recollection of the events due to excessive
0:58
Speaker 1: drug and alcohol use, Jerretano assumed that he was the
1:02
Speaker 1: one who'd committed the murders. Over time, he provided five
1:06
Speaker 1: different confessions to the police, each of which were inconsistent
1:10
Speaker 1: with the facts of the crime. Although no physical evidence
1:13
Speaker 1: indicated he'd committed the crimes, He was ultimately convicted and
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Speaker 1: sentenced to death for the murders. Which placed him in
1:21
Speaker 1: the path of our second guest. Joe Ingle, is a
1:25
Speaker 1: former death row minister, which is where he devoted his
1:28
Speaker 1: adult life. While the death penalty is an issue for many,
1:32
Speaker 1: for Joe Ingele, it is primarily about the people caught
1:36
Speaker 1: in the killing machinery. His work against mass incarceration and
1:41
Speaker 1: the death penalty, while with the Southern Coalition on Jails
1:44
Speaker 1: and Prisons, which he helped create, led him to visit
1:48
Speaker 1: every Southern death row. That experience created deep bonds with
1:51
Speaker 1: the men and women imprisoned there, and Ingle's effort to
1:54
Speaker 1: save their lives led him to meetings and churches, synagogues,
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Speaker 1: bishop on archbishop offices, as well as governor's offices, legislators
2:03
Speaker 1: and courtrooms. It also led him into the homes of
2:06
Speaker 1: the families of the condemned and victims. Realizing many of
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Speaker 1: the condemned lacked legal representation, he joined in the efforts
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Speaker 1: to create the Southern Center for Human Rights to represent them.
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Speaker 1: Joe Garretano and Joe Ingele, Welcome to wrongful connect you
2:22
Speaker 1: nice you have. Now in terms of simplicity, how shall
2:27
Speaker 1: we deal with the fact that you're both named Joe?
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Speaker 1: May we do Reverend Joe and Joe.
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Speaker 2: Well, I will never use the Reverend except when it's handy,
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Speaker 2: so it seems to be handy for you, so we'll
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Speaker 2: use it.
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Speaker 1: I appreciate it, sir. All right, Joe, I would love
2:44
Speaker 1: to start with you. You know, I usually begin these
2:47
Speaker 1: episodes asking people to tell me a little bit about
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Speaker 1: their childhoods, but having researched yours, I feel compelled to
2:55
Speaker 1: start with an article pull just for context. Born to
2:59
Speaker 1: a Bronx family involved with drug rings and organized crime,
3:03
Speaker 1: Gerretano started shooting demrol when he was eleven, under the
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Speaker 1: watchful eye of his junkie mother.
3:12
Speaker 3: That's a lot, it is. I mean at the time,
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Speaker 3: you know, I was a kid and just following my
3:19
Speaker 3: mother's leave. But she was a junkie herself. My mother
3:22
Speaker 3: was a paranoid, schizophrenic and a criminal genius.
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Speaker 4: Wow.
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Speaker 1: And I've read that she actually ran one of the
3:29
Speaker 1: largest drug smuggling operations on the East Coast.
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Speaker 3: She did. She worked with Carlos later Revus out of
3:37
Speaker 3: Columbia with the Medaine drug cartel.
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Speaker 1: Wow. Was your father involved in your upbringing? Was he
3:45
Speaker 1: part of your household?
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Speaker 3: No, my father left when I was a child. I
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Speaker 3: don't really have any memories of him. And then sometime
3:54
Speaker 3: in the nineties, People magazine did an article about me.
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Speaker 3: I was supposed to get cover the Sammy Davis Junior
4:01
Speaker 3: died that week, so they gave him the cover and
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Speaker 3: gave me the centerfold. So I've been at the centerfold.
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Speaker 3: No dat. My father apparently saw he was imprisoned in
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Speaker 3: Florida and reached out to me and contacted me.
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Speaker 1: How old were you then when you reconnected with him.
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Speaker 3: After the murders, so probably sometime the early nineties.
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Speaker 1: We mentioned that you were exposed to drug use at
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Speaker 1: a very very young age. How did that change the
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Speaker 1: way you saw yourself and the world in general?
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Speaker 3: Back then? The only thing I knew to do from
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Speaker 3: the way I was brought up with the followers. Whatever
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Speaker 3: my mother told me to do, that's what I did.
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Speaker 3: And everybody that I knew was a criminal. They were
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Speaker 3: either made ment for the mafia or street hoods, and
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Speaker 3: then the Columbians got involved. Thing I knew was criminal activity.
5:02
Speaker 3: That's how we survived.
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Speaker 1: I've also read that you were sent to a reform
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Speaker 1: school in Florida as a child, which later was known
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Speaker 1: for its ridiculously troubling abuse of the children in its care.
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Speaker 1: Is that description in keeping with what you experienced there?
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Speaker 3: Yes, And in fact that's very relevant now because Governor
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Speaker 3: DeSantis down in Florida should be signing an authorizing compensation
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Speaker 3: for the survivors from nineteen forty to nineteen seventy five
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Speaker 3: who were at the Dosia School for Boys, and I
5:37
Speaker 3: have been working all by affidavit for that. Wow.
5:42
Speaker 1: How long were you there? What age?
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Speaker 3: Oh? I was young. I was there twice. The last
5:48
Speaker 3: time was probably seventy five. I was raped there under
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Speaker 3: the watchful eyes of a cottage parent who stood there,
6:00
Speaker 3: laughed and did nothing, and then told me to clean
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Speaker 3: myself up and forget about it. If I knew what
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Speaker 3: was good for me.
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Speaker 1: Wow, Joe, I'm so sorry that you experienced what you experienced.
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Speaker 3: Oh, it was tough. I've been working on the Affidavid
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Speaker 3: now for almost two months. It's going back revisiting. That's hard.
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Speaker 1: So, given everything that you had on your plate, being
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Speaker 1: raised by somebody with mental illness and addiction illness on
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Speaker 1: top of surrounded by criminal activity, and then sexually and
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Speaker 1: physically abused at a school where you were supposed to
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Speaker 1: go to become a better person.
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Speaker 3: They're still finding bodies at that school. They're still digging
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Speaker 3: up bodies of people that were killed.
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Speaker 1: It's not surprising that you ended up dropping out of
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Speaker 1: school altogether.
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Speaker 3: No, I dropped out of school, and does you're really
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Speaker 3: set the course After that was released from Doser, the
7:01
Speaker 3: only place they would allow me to go was back
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Speaker 3: to my mother, back into criminal activity. And then in
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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy eight, seventy late seventy eight, early seventy nine,
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Speaker 3: my mother wanted to expand her criminal activity into virgin
7:17
Speaker 3: She had two friends. She said, you're going with them
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Speaker 3: to Virginia. You're going to work on the fishing boats
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Speaker 3: up there, and we're going to use the boats to
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Speaker 3: smuggle cocaine into virgin.
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Speaker 1: So I was going to ask you how you ended
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Speaker 1: up being a scallop fisherman in Norfolk, Virginia. But it
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Speaker 1: was just a front for your mother's drug smuggling operations exactly.
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Speaker 3: So actually enjoyed being on the boats. I loved the work,
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Speaker 3: but the main focus was smuggling cocaine into this state.
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Speaker 1: Wow, And that takes us pretty much up to the
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Speaker 1: time when this tragedy unfolded. You're twenty one years old. Honestly,
7:55
Speaker 1: all of this makes much more sense to me now
7:57
Speaker 1: that I know that cartels were in the landscape of
8:02
Speaker 1: how this unfolded too. But just the facts of the
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Speaker 1: case were that on February fourth of nineteen seventy nine
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Speaker 1: in Norfolk, Virginia, a forty four year old named Barbara Ann,
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Speaker 1: also known as Tony Klein, and her fifteen year old
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Speaker 1: daughter Michelle were murdered, and that you had arrived at
8:23
Speaker 1: the apartment at six o'clock, nobody was there. You come
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Speaker 1: back at eight. You're under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
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Speaker 3: I was wasted. I was injecting de lawds, which is
8:35
Speaker 3: a major painkiller for cancer patients. I was probably using
8:40
Speaker 3: five to six lawns a day as well as drinking.
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Speaker 1: So you wake up on the couch, wake up.
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Speaker 3: On the couch and didn't see anybody. Initially went to
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Speaker 3: the bathroom and that's when I saw Barbara before and
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Speaker 3: the bathroom face one of the bedrooms, and when I
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Speaker 3: turned I saw Michelle lane on. I panicked. My criminal
9:07
Speaker 3: instincts kicked in and I said I need to get
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Speaker 3: back to my mother.
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Speaker 1: But it must have been like waking up into a
9:15
Speaker 1: scene from a horror movie.
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Speaker 3: It was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. I still
9:19
Speaker 3: see it through this day sometimes in my head.
9:22
Speaker 1: In that moment of complete blackout, brain fog. You just
9:27
Speaker 1: assumed you had something to do.
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Speaker 3: With it exactly. I was there. I don't remember anybody
9:33
Speaker 3: else being there. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And I mean not to get into too much detail
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Speaker 1: or gore, but was there any physical sign that you
9:43
Speaker 1: had been involved in two bloody murders?
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Speaker 3: No?
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Speaker 1: On you?
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Speaker 3: No?
9:48
Speaker 2: No.
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Speaker 3: There was one little speck of blood on my boot,
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Speaker 3: a little tiny speck of blood, and they sent it
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Speaker 3: off to lab to be analyzed. But at blood's convinced me.
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Speaker 3: At that point, I didn't know where the blood came from.
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Speaker 3: I couldn't remember. I must have done it. We found
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Speaker 3: out years later that the blood on shoe didn't company
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Speaker 3: the one of the victims, and I had been in
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Speaker 3: a fight at some point at one of the bars.
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Speaker 3: That's how the blood got off the sheet.
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Speaker 1: You panicked initially and fled to Florida, Yes, only to
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Speaker 1: then turn yourself in at a greyhound bus station at
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Speaker 1: three am to a uniformed police officer who was just
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Speaker 1: sitting minding his own business and we were sitting.
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Speaker 3: There eating breakfast. All I could see was dead body.
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Speaker 3: All I could see was Barbara and Michelle laying here.
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Speaker 3: And I just walked up to the cop and sat
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Speaker 3: down and said, hey, I think I killed two people
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Speaker 3: in Aufolk.
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Speaker 1: And you thought you did, but had no idea of
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Speaker 1: how it was done. So you end up waving your
11:00
Speaker 1: miranda right.
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Speaker 3: Well, I waved my Miranda rights. I gave the Jacksonville
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Speaker 3: police officers what amounted to a full confession. They said, well,
11:10
Speaker 3: how'd you do it? I said, I don't know, and
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Speaker 3: they started suggesting to me, did you do it like this?
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Speaker 3: Did you do it like that? And I just said yes.
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Speaker 3: Then the contacted the No off Of Police Department, and
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Speaker 3: two detectives from an off came to Florida, brought me
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Speaker 3: back to Virginia, and that's where the series of other
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Speaker 3: five confessions came in. They said, no, it couldn't have
11:30
Speaker 3: happened like this. It had to have happened like this,
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Speaker 3: and I just followed their lead. And these were police
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Speaker 3: certain confessions. I didn't write these confessions they wrote, but
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Speaker 3: they started doing it before they had actually investigated the
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Speaker 3: crime scene. They hadn't been to the crime scene.
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Speaker 1: Yet I know that this was ten years before DNA
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Speaker 1: evidence was of value, truly, but a proper investigation at
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Speaker 1: the time would have uncovered all of the things you
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Speaker 1: ended up uncovering a decade later exactly.
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Speaker 3: And what they did because they hadn't seen the crime scene,
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Speaker 3: they had to keep coming back and revising the confessions and.
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Speaker 1: The autopsy afterwards just to keep this clear. So you
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Speaker 1: end up giving five different versions of the confession, and
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Speaker 1: basically you're playing charades and they're feeding you what to say,
12:31
Speaker 1: so by the time you come up with your fifth confession,
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Speaker 1: you're just parroting back what they have told you are
12:38
Speaker 1: the crime scene exactly.
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Speaker 3: Then I get a quarter pointer to Turney had just
12:43
Speaker 3: gone to trial, had a head a decent atturning because
12:47
Speaker 3: it was physical evidence which we didn't find till later.
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Speaker 3: And none of that physical evidence bloody footprints, headhairs, pupa hairs,
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Speaker 3: and sperm, none of it matched me. And they hid
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Speaker 3: that promise.
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Speaker 1: So before we even get to that shamble of a
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Speaker 1: half day trial, on February sixth of nineteen seventy nine,
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Speaker 1: at the age of twenty one, you're indicted for rape
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Speaker 1: of the daughter statutory burglary, capital, murder of the daughter
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Speaker 1: and murder of the mother. You're twenty one. Who was
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Speaker 1: your support person at that time? Who did you reach
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Speaker 1: out to?
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Speaker 3: Didn't have any except my mother. I reached out to
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Speaker 3: my mother, and my mother's response was let him kill you.
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Speaker 3: She was worried that I would run my mouth about
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Speaker 3: her business. She hadn't been under the radar at that time.
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Speaker 1: Your mother's first response is your dispensable. She wants to
13:50
Speaker 1: protect herself and her business structure. So exactly your life
13:56
Speaker 1: is insignificant as far as she's concerned. Exactly that is
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Speaker 1: a lot. Okay, So now we get to that shamble
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Speaker 1: of a trial. How long did that trial last and
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Speaker 1: was there a jury involved?
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Speaker 3: There was no jury. It was a half day trial,
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Speaker 3: including the launch break. They appointed an attorney who decided
14:19
Speaker 3: to plead me not guilty by reason of insanity, even
14:22
Speaker 3: though all the experts said he's not insane. So a
14:27
Speaker 3: trial the facts never occurred. There was no discovery when
14:32
Speaker 3: you plead not guilty, there were reasons insanity. The only
14:35
Speaker 3: thing that gets tried is whether or not you're insane.
14:40
Speaker 3: And the psychiatrist come in and said, this man has
14:42
Speaker 3: no memory of the crime. His memory shot. He actually
14:46
Speaker 3: said that when they did the blood work at twenty
14:48
Speaker 3: one years old, I had the liver of a seventy
14:50
Speaker 3: eight year old man. I shouldn't have been alive.
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Speaker 1: Wow, I just so there's no one in that courtroom
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Speaker 1: supporting you. No, you must have felt so alone.
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Speaker 3: No, they had me drugged and fact to judge stopped
15:08
Speaker 3: the trial at one point and instructed to sharef to
15:13
Speaker 3: find out where I was getting the illegal drugs from.
15:16
Speaker 3: I was literally drooling out the side of my mouth
15:19
Speaker 3: and falling to sleep, and my attorney stood up and said, no,
15:22
Speaker 3: he's under psychiatric care. They had him on high doses
15:25
Speaker 3: of thors.
15:28
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, which is just basically your body, mind, everything
15:32
Speaker 1: is just frozen.
15:33
Speaker 3: It's a horse tranquilizer, it's an animalizer. So I was
15:37
Speaker 3: just sitting there and a drug and do stupor.
15:42
Speaker 1: We're going to get into this, but very much, Reverend Joe,
15:46
Speaker 1: after reading your book Too Close to the Flame, it's
15:51
Speaker 1: very obvious that at that point Joe was already caught
15:54
Speaker 1: up in the machinery of the legal system and on
15:56
Speaker 1: his way to the belly of the killing machine beast
16:00
Speaker 1: because you were in no shape really to probably even
16:04
Speaker 1: absorb what had happened during the trial or your sentence.
16:09
Speaker 1: But you're convicted and in nineteen seventy nine for thirty
16:15
Speaker 1: years confinement for the rape of the daughter, life imprisonment
16:19
Speaker 1: for the murder of the mother, and death for the
16:23
Speaker 1: capital murder of the exactly, so you're sentenced to death.
16:27
Speaker 3: I went straight from the core group now of you're
16:30
Speaker 3: back to the jail. They took me straight the death house.
16:52
Speaker 1: You had a date with execution five times over the years.
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Speaker 1: I mean, how do you what is that like psychologically
17:03
Speaker 1: to feel like it's just there, could happen at any time.
17:08
Speaker 3: Well, for several years, nothing registered in my head because
17:13
Speaker 3: they kept me on thwarsen for most of the years
17:16
Speaker 3: I was in prison, I was walking around like a sam.
17:20
Speaker 1: While you were incarcerated, Joe, you at some point woke
17:25
Speaker 1: up from your drug stupor.
17:27
Speaker 3: It took a court order to get me off the drugs.
17:30
Speaker 3: The prison was injecting me with the drugs whether I
17:34
Speaker 3: wanted them or not. If I refused, and I often
17:37
Speaker 3: did refuse, they would dress up and riote here, open
17:41
Speaker 3: my cell door, come in, beat me down, chain to
17:45
Speaker 3: the bed and hit me in the hill.
17:51
Speaker 1: It's just the cruelty of it seems to be the point.
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Speaker 3: At one point I just said enough kill, I'm ready
18:02
Speaker 3: to go. And that's when Joe Angle and Redanes got involved.
18:10
Speaker 1: Enter Reverend Joe. Reverend Joe, can you just tell me
18:15
Speaker 1: a little bit about the path that took you to
18:19
Speaker 1: where your path ended up crossing with Joe? In other words,
18:24
Speaker 1: how did you choose to make Death Row your congregation.
18:28
Speaker 4: I sort of backed into it.
18:31
Speaker 2: Native of North Carolina and went to Sanders Presbyterian College
18:35
Speaker 2: and then said I want to do more studying. So
18:38
Speaker 2: I went to Union Theological Seminary in New York and
18:41
Speaker 2: there was a program there where you could live and
18:43
Speaker 2: work in East Harlem, which really attracted me. So here
18:48
Speaker 2: I am a white boy moving up from North Carolina
18:52
Speaker 2: to East Harlem, which was a class ghetto when I
18:56
Speaker 2: arrived in nineteen seventy. So you had forty five five
19:00
Speaker 2: percent African American, forty five percent Puerto Rican, ten percent
19:03
Speaker 2: everything else. And as part of that, you worked in
19:07
Speaker 2: the community, You took your classes at Union Seminary, and
19:10
Speaker 2: the idea was your theology would emerge from your interaction
19:13
Speaker 2: with people in the community and also your theological studies,
19:17
Speaker 2: and it certainly.
19:18
Speaker 4: Did for me.
19:19
Speaker 2: My senior year of seminary, I visited men at the
19:22
Speaker 2: Bronx House of Detention because my neighbors were dealing with
19:25
Speaker 2: cops and das all the time, and I'd never even
19:28
Speaker 2: been in a jail or a prison, and Attica happened
19:31
Speaker 2: that fall in seventy one, and watching that all my
19:34
Speaker 2: fuzzy black and white TV. Because the prisoners gave press
19:37
Speaker 2: conferences every day they were in control of the prison,
19:41
Speaker 2: I thought, if ten percent of what these guys are
19:43
Speaker 2: saying is true, I would be upset too. So all
19:46
Speaker 2: that motivated me to go visit prisoners at the Bronx
19:49
Speaker 2: House of Detention, and that's where I had my revelation
19:53
Speaker 2: about what the machinery we have created in this country
19:58
Speaker 2: we call criminal justice system, which it is not. It's
20:02
Speaker 2: a criminal legal system. There's no justice in it. Justice
20:06
Speaker 2: is almost totally absent. It's criminal, it's legal, and it's
20:10
Speaker 2: a system. And these guys were all, as I learned,
20:14
Speaker 2: awaiting trial, average length of time eighteen months.
20:19
Speaker 4: No one's convicted.
20:20
Speaker 2: They're just there because they're poor and they're charged with
20:24
Speaker 2: the crime, and when I walked in there for the
20:27
Speaker 2: first time, I was a nause seminary student. I got
20:31
Speaker 2: up to the sixth floor and guard saw my little
20:33
Speaker 2: badge that the chaplain had given me, and he opened
20:37
Speaker 2: the door to this enormous cage there with human beings
20:40
Speaker 2: in it. And he walks along and I follow him.
20:44
Speaker 2: He says, lawyers and clergy visiting this room, and he
20:48
Speaker 2: gestured to the left.
20:49
Speaker 4: There.
20:50
Speaker 2: I'm a naive seminary student, so I said, why don't
20:52
Speaker 2: you let me in.
20:53
Speaker 4: Here with these guys.
20:55
Speaker 2: That guard looked at me and shrugged, opened the door,
20:59
Speaker 2: asked up to cross a threshold. Now, as i'd casually
21:03
Speaker 2: glanced into the cell block, I'd assumed everybody's in a cell,
21:07
Speaker 2: they're locked, and I'll just visit through the cell doors
21:10
Speaker 2: of each cell. But when I walked across the threshold,
21:14
Speaker 2: I realized all these cell doors are open, and he
21:17
Speaker 2: slams that door behind me. I'll never forget this. My
21:21
Speaker 2: first thought was, oh my god, he's locked me in
21:23
Speaker 2: here with these animals, because that's what we're taught to
21:25
Speaker 2: think by virtue of someone being in a prison or
21:29
Speaker 2: a jail, they're less than us. So Once you reach
21:32
Speaker 2: that point in your understanding of who you are versus
21:36
Speaker 2: everybody else, you realized how lost you are. Because those
21:41
Speaker 2: guys taught me a lot that year. I didn't do
21:44
Speaker 2: much for them. I showed up. I gave him my
21:46
Speaker 2: twenty hours a week.
21:47
Speaker 4: We talked.
21:48
Speaker 2: If I could afford it, I'd buy stamps for him.
21:51
Speaker 2: I had no contacts to lawyers, but boy did they
21:54
Speaker 2: ever educate me. So when I came back south and
21:57
Speaker 2: to Nashville, Tennessee, I was involved the fellow named Will
22:01
Speaker 2: Campbell and Tony Dunbar, and we started something called Southern
22:04
Speaker 2: Prison Ministry, then the Southern Coalitional Jails and Prisons in
22:08
Speaker 2: the spring of six, nineteen seventy four.
22:11
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that moment of walking through
22:15
Speaker 1: that threshold figuratively as well, because reading your book, I
22:23
Speaker 1: so clearly understand the power of compassion and empathy to
22:30
Speaker 1: alter one's mindset. Because you stopped seeing the individuals behind
22:37
Speaker 1: those bars as less than you saw them actually as human.
22:43
Speaker 1: And that is a mind shift that negates the US
22:47
Speaker 1: versus them mentality.
22:48
Speaker 2: Well, it does completely. And what it's all about is
22:51
Speaker 2: judgment and Jesus. In the Gospel of John the eighth chapter,
22:55
Speaker 2: there is this great little story of this woman who's
22:58
Speaker 2: guilty of adult at the time, which means she gets stoned.
23:02
Speaker 2: Of course, a man would not get the death penalty
23:04
Speaker 2: at that time, but she's guilty, she's going to get stoned.
23:07
Speaker 2: These people brought her to Jesus and they basically want
23:10
Speaker 2: her to say, oh yeah, do away with her. And
23:14
Speaker 2: he looks at him and looks at her and says,
23:17
Speaker 2: let he is without sin, throw the first stone. Well,
23:20
Speaker 2: they realize they're not without sin, so they walked away,
23:24
Speaker 2: and Jesus looks at her and says, woman, has no
23:27
Speaker 2: one condemned you? And she says no, Rabbi, no one.
23:30
Speaker 2: He says, neither do I condemn you? Go and sin
23:33
Speaker 2: no more. Now a lot of folks think that is
23:36
Speaker 2: against the death penalty, it is against the deathenally, but
23:39
Speaker 2: it's a greater statement than that. It's a whole judgment issue.
23:43
Speaker 2: Who are we to judge, like for Joe Garontano and
23:47
Speaker 2: say this guy, well, he's not fit to live, We're
23:51
Speaker 2: going to kill him.
23:52
Speaker 4: Who are we to do that?
23:54
Speaker 2: And once you realize that this whole system we have built,
23:58
Speaker 2: this adversary system, the so called retributive justice model, where
24:04
Speaker 2: you have a defense lawyer and a prosecutor and the
24:07
Speaker 2: truth comes out of this. The truth hardly ever comes
24:09
Speaker 2: out of this because it's a stag.
24:12
Speaker 1: Deck and a lucrative one for the ones who have
24:16
Speaker 1: the game.
24:17
Speaker 2: Exactly, And Steve Bright says, who's a great anti death
24:20
Speaker 2: only lawyer? It's not the people who commit. The worst
24:24
Speaker 2: murderer go to death row, So people have the worst lawyers.
24:27
Speaker 2: He's exactly right. And that's all based on poverty and race.
24:33
Speaker 1: Now back to when your pads first cross. Tell me
24:36
Speaker 1: how you two met and what your initial thoughts were
24:40
Speaker 1: of one another. Joe, why don't you go first?
24:43
Speaker 3: Well, initially, Joe got involved in Virginia because of another gentleman,
24:48
Speaker 3: a volunteer to be executed named Frank, a former Newport
24:53
Speaker 3: News police officer who volunteered to be executed. Frank and
24:56
Speaker 3: I were very good friends, and after he was executed,
25:01
Speaker 3: I was the next volunteer. And that's when Joe came
25:06
Speaker 3: into the picture and sent redeems to.
25:08
Speaker 1: Me, explain what you mean by volunteer, volunteer.
25:12
Speaker 3: To be executed? Wave all appeals, set a date, let's
25:16
Speaker 3: do this.
25:19
Speaker 1: What led you were. You just so exhausted at that point.
25:23
Speaker 3: Exhausted and they had just executed by best friend. Right,
25:28
Speaker 3: just lack of bother you to me.
25:32
Speaker 1: And that was something that was sorely lacking in your life.
25:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was hard hitting guards keeping hear me. I
25:42
Speaker 3: would attack him every day, getting beat down, getting shot
25:47
Speaker 3: up with Thorsen, and Frank pulled me to decide, said
25:51
Speaker 3: you can't win that way. He said you have to fight,
25:55
Speaker 3: and then he gave up.
25:59
Speaker 4: Well.
25:59
Speaker 2: I spent that weekend with Frank prior to his execution,
26:02
Speaker 2: and Joe at that point was in Mecklenburg, where death
26:06
Speaker 2: row was. Frank had been moved up to the Virginia
26:09
Speaker 2: State Penitentiary in Richmond, and so I'm visiting with him,
26:13
Speaker 2: trying to hopefully get him to persuade him to change
26:18
Speaker 2: his mind. If you can image a very intense situation.
26:23
Speaker 2: His ex wife is there, o lovely woman, and she's
26:27
Speaker 2: just torn up by this whole thing.
26:30
Speaker 4: He has two children.
26:31
Speaker 2: Of course, when you're on death row, you get a notoriety.
26:34
Speaker 2: It's in the newspapers. People read about it and talk
26:36
Speaker 2: about it. And part of the thing that had driven
26:39
Speaker 2: Frank to this extreme was in one of the kids' classes.
26:44
Speaker 2: One of the classmates had made a little paper electric
26:47
Speaker 2: chair and put it on his son's chair, and when
26:52
Speaker 2: Frank found out about that, he realized the cruelty his
26:55
Speaker 2: family was being submitted to. I think that was one
26:59
Speaker 2: of the key reasons. I just can't keep going like this.
27:02
Speaker 2: I can't keep having my family having to deal with
27:04
Speaker 2: what I'm facing. So ultimately I was not able to
27:09
Speaker 2: persuade him. It was a horrifically painful time, and he
27:13
Speaker 2: was executed.
27:15
Speaker 4: And then there was Joe.
27:17
Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time you met Joe and
27:20
Speaker 1: what your thoughts were.
27:22
Speaker 2: So I went to Mecklenburg, which was a hell hole, violent,
27:27
Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff going on there. Look fine on
27:31
Speaker 2: the outside, you know, it's pretty, got flowers and everything,
27:35
Speaker 2: but inside it's the abyss.
27:39
Speaker 4: So that's where death Row is.
27:40
Speaker 2: When I meet people in prison for the first time,
27:43
Speaker 2: I try to be just totally open. So that was
27:45
Speaker 2: my approach with Joe. And although clearly he had some issues,
27:52
Speaker 2: he was also a very bright guy. I really felt like,
27:56
Speaker 2: here's a guy who could help us. We got a
27:59
Speaker 2: ways to go before we get there, that this guy
28:02
Speaker 2: can actually really help us, and after Frank's execution, I
28:07
Speaker 2: looked around the state of Virginia. Then you've got virtually
28:11
Speaker 2: no organized opposition in the entire state of the death penalty.
28:16
Speaker 2: There are no lawyers involved, and I'm just shaking my head.
28:20
Speaker 2: So I directed the Southern Coalitional Jails and Prisons. We're
28:23
Speaker 2: fighting mass incarceration in the death penalty, so I said,
28:26
Speaker 2: I think we need to expand in Virginia. It's a
28:29
Speaker 2: woman named Marie Deans who wants to do this. Let's
28:32
Speaker 2: hire and set up the Virginia Coalitional Jails and Prisons
28:35
Speaker 2: and hire Marie Deans to do that work. The decider
28:39
Speaker 2: was the total absence of help for guys like Joe Jarontana,
28:45
Speaker 2: I mean, zero help. So that's what Marie walked into
28:49
Speaker 2: and began her amazing work to help all these guys
28:53
Speaker 2: for you.
28:53
Speaker 1: At this point, Joe, at the point that your pads crossed,
28:57
Speaker 1: you had already given up.
29:00
Speaker 3: Well, Joe was a nice guy, but he couldn't convince
29:03
Speaker 3: me to pick up my peels. I was determined, but
29:05
Speaker 3: he had a secret weapon. He set readings and I
29:08
Speaker 3: was in the death house. They had moved me to
29:10
Speaker 3: the Open's ind and State penitentiary on Spring Street, an
29:13
Speaker 3: old Civil War prier was a little green from MI
29:16
Speaker 3: the top table and two chairs. Immediately to the right
29:20
Speaker 3: of that there was a big, huge oak door and
29:25
Speaker 3: behind that door was the chair. They had the entry
29:28
Speaker 3: on the other side. They'd walked the prisoner in strap
29:30
Speaker 3: and then execute them and then bring them out that
29:34
Speaker 3: door and set them on that table to cool off
29:37
Speaker 3: table and basically put sandbags on them to stretch them out.
29:40
Speaker 3: And that's where we and Marine met, but that's where
29:44
Speaker 3: we ate lunch. My first meeting with Marie was intense.
29:49
Speaker 3: I remember a woman came through some administrator in the
29:54
Speaker 3: prison and pardon me, we was saying this. She had
29:57
Speaker 3: a big butt and I commented on that, and Marie
30:01
Speaker 3: doubts me the hot cup of coffee. I looked at
30:04
Speaker 3: her and I said, woman, are you crazy? Don't you
30:06
Speaker 3: know them on death row I could kill you? And
30:09
Speaker 3: she just last she said, you're not gonna hurt anybody.
30:12
Speaker 3: We talked and she convinced me to pick up my pills.
30:16
Speaker 3: She found her in attorney to represent me Lloyd Snook
30:21
Speaker 3: fresh out of law school.
30:23
Speaker 1: Now you're in the process getting off of drugs and
30:26
Speaker 1: you're also opening up law books on your own.
30:29
Speaker 3: My mother introduced me to drugs. Marie got me off
30:32
Speaker 3: the drugs and introduced me to books, and I began reading,
30:36
Speaker 3: and I started picking up law books, and Virginia was
30:41
Speaker 3: getting ready to execute another man mentally challenged black gentleman
30:45
Speaker 3: named Earl Washington. Marie said, you know, we have no
30:49
Speaker 3: attorneys to represent these guys. They're setting execution dates. You
30:53
Speaker 3: need to figure out how to get them stays. You
30:55
Speaker 3: need to learn to teach yourself how to help these guys.
30:59
Speaker 3: And that's what I I was finally states of execution,
31:02
Speaker 3: not just in Earl's case, but several of the other guys.
31:06
Speaker 3: I'm brown.
31:08
Speaker 1: What was that awakening like for you? At what point
31:11
Speaker 1: did you start seeing beyond your own day to day
31:15
Speaker 1: to the point where you wanted to help others?
31:18
Speaker 3: Aside from Marie, there was one very memorable incident while
31:22
Speaker 3: I was in the death house. The head of the
31:25
Speaker 3: execution squad, Captain Parker, Anthony Parker, he asked that you
31:29
Speaker 3: could pray with I said, sure, go ahead, and I
31:32
Speaker 3: looked into his eyes and what I saw was my
31:35
Speaker 3: own reflection, and I realized at that point that Marie
31:43
Speaker 3: was right, this was wrong, and I began working to
31:49
Speaker 3: stop Earl's execution.
31:55
Speaker 1: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Lauren Bright Pitch Ecko.
31:58
Speaker 1: You can listen to this and all all the Lava
32:00
Speaker 1: for Good podcasts one week early and ad free by
32:04
Speaker 1: subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. In
32:18
Speaker 1: terms of law in general, you got to the point
32:21
Speaker 1: where you were noted as a legal scholar, to the
32:27
Speaker 1: point that you were actually published in the Yale Law Journal.
32:31
Speaker 3: Yes, I was invited to write an article for your help.
32:36
Speaker 3: It was their centennial edition, a special edition. But I
32:41
Speaker 3: was convinced that Earl, and by this time we had
32:44
Speaker 3: DNA and Earl's case was another interesting case. It was
32:48
Speaker 3: a police raper confession. They actually took him to the
32:51
Speaker 3: crime scene and pointed everything out to him, and Earl
32:55
Speaker 3: just said okay and landed on death roAP, falseley confession
33:01
Speaker 3: to crime.
33:01
Speaker 4: And remember Earle is mentally challenged, yes, and.
33:06
Speaker 1: Had mental illness on top of addiction as well. Ultimately,
33:11
Speaker 1: Washington would be exonerated a year after another man confessed
33:15
Speaker 1: to having committed the murder, but not before he served
33:18
Speaker 1: seventeen years and came within nine days of being executed
33:23
Speaker 1: and arguing with both of your help his case all
33:26
Speaker 1: the way up to the Supreme Court. Now back to
33:29
Speaker 1: Joe's legal situation. When you two first met, I was.
33:33
Speaker 2: Really disturbed at the mess of his case. I mean,
33:37
Speaker 2: his case was just one of the worst I'd ever seen,
33:42
Speaker 2: and so far off any map of proper judiciary conduct
33:49
Speaker 2: that it was abominable. So I felt like he could
33:52
Speaker 2: help us and we could help him.
33:58
Speaker 1: Joe, what for you was the moment where you had
34:01
Speaker 1: the aha shift that you actually were innocent.
34:08
Speaker 3: Well, we got the labor word from the forensic expert
34:12
Speaker 3: who tested the boots, and she gave us an affidavit
34:15
Speaker 3: and said the blood on the boot is not Jose.
34:19
Speaker 3: She said, if his boots had stepped in the blood,
34:23
Speaker 3: it couldn't have been washed off. She said, there would
34:26
Speaker 3: have been evidence of it. There's nothing there. That was
34:30
Speaker 3: the point for me that I said, Okay, I didn't
34:32
Speaker 3: do this. It was the blood that convinced me that
34:34
Speaker 3: I did it, And now I know it's not their blood.
34:39
Speaker 3: And this was like the nineteen eighty five she was
34:42
Speaker 3: willing to testify in court. And this is where as
34:45
Speaker 3: Joe said, my case was a mess because of my
34:48
Speaker 3: quarter pointed tourney. He handled my direct appeal, but he
34:51
Speaker 3: didn't raise anything. And in Virginia at the time, if
34:55
Speaker 3: you didn't raise all your issues in your direct appeal,
34:59
Speaker 3: they were waiting raise them Habeus corpus. So my appeals
35:03
Speaker 3: were never hurt. Not my state, Havi, it's not my
35:05
Speaker 3: federal haters. They were never heard. The issues weren't hurt.
35:09
Speaker 3: So the facts of my case and the constitutional violations
35:13
Speaker 3: of my case were never considered.
35:15
Speaker 1: And then you open up that file and you realize
35:17
Speaker 1: that there's discrepancy as to whether or not the person
35:21
Speaker 1: who committed the murdered would have been right handed or
35:23
Speaker 1: left handed, and it's at odds with the reality.
35:26
Speaker 3: I'm left handed. I've got a neurological deficit on my
35:29
Speaker 3: right side from being beaten ahead so much as a kid. Yeah,
35:35
Speaker 3: if I used this hand, my right hand, and I
35:37
Speaker 3: dragged my right foot, so if I had a stepped
35:39
Speaker 3: in anything, it would have been smeared all over. And
35:43
Speaker 3: then we found out that none of the physical evidence
35:47
Speaker 3: actually matched me, So we tried raising that, but Virginia
35:51
Speaker 3: had what's called twenty one day would any new evidence
35:54
Speaker 3: in the case had to be raised within twenty one
35:57
Speaker 3: days of the final conviction. If you raise it on
36:01
Speaker 3: the twenty second day, it's forever bought.
36:05
Speaker 1: So it doesn't matter if you're innocent, doesn't matter.
36:07
Speaker 3: In fact, this is the exact quote from the state
36:11
Speaker 3: Attorney General at that time, MARYS. Terry. Evidence of innocence
36:16
Speaker 3: is they're relative under Virginia procedural law, and every court
36:22
Speaker 3: from that point on adhere to that. They said they
36:25
Speaker 3: could not intervene. Luckily we got that rule loose and
36:29
Speaker 3: later with Earl's case, took some years, but we got
36:32
Speaker 3: it done. But and then DNA comes about, so we
36:37
Speaker 3: check with the lab. We Marie digs to the records.
36:41
Speaker 3: She realized that the lab retained some of the evidence.
36:45
Speaker 3: So we go back to court to Norfolk. We put
36:47
Speaker 3: the medical examiner on the stand. He said, yes, we
36:50
Speaker 3: retain the evidence, but we can't find it. So the
36:54
Speaker 3: lawyer asked, have you lost it? He said, no, we
36:56
Speaker 3: haven't lost it, we just don't know where it's at.
36:59
Speaker 3: And the judge said, well, I'm going to have to
37:02
Speaker 3: dismiss this case without prejudice, and if y'all ever find
37:06
Speaker 3: the evidence, you can come back to this day. It's
37:10
Speaker 3: never been found.
37:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, which seems very convenient. Again, it's the murders happened
37:16
Speaker 1: in seventy nine, and it's a full decade before DNA
37:20
Speaker 1: is of true use in terms of how it can
37:24
Speaker 1: be used in these sort of cases. And they conveniently
37:29
Speaker 1: lose everything.
37:30
Speaker 3: They lose by they said they haven't lost, They just
37:33
Speaker 3: said they can't find it.
37:34
Speaker 1: They still haven't. Just breeks of corruption.
37:40
Speaker 2: We need to think about Joe's situation because it's not
37:44
Speaker 2: a one off. I mean, this happens again and again
37:48
Speaker 2: and again. I've seen it personally. It all makes sense
37:51
Speaker 2: if you look at the system as a killing machine.
37:54
Speaker 2: That's what it's about. It's not about helping Joe, Jorantano,
37:57
Speaker 2: it's not about grain in clemency in some cases, it's
38:00
Speaker 2: not about any of that. It's all about killing people.
38:04
Speaker 2: And so that's the context for this work and you
38:08
Speaker 2: have to understand that. And once you see that, it
38:11
Speaker 2: all kind of makes a sickening sense. And so that's
38:16
Speaker 2: the way Joe and I got to know each other.
38:18
Speaker 2: We're in a context of me visiting him at Mecklenburg,
38:22
Speaker 2: of a relationship growing. Then he gets in all his
38:28
Speaker 2: escapades with the Virginia Department of Corrections who fly him
38:31
Speaker 2: all over the freaking country because they don't know what
38:34
Speaker 2: to do with him. His his nonviolent witness and his
38:40
Speaker 2: legal effectiveness has freaked him out. So they're putting them
38:43
Speaker 2: on airplanes in the middle of the night and flying
38:45
Speaker 2: him into Utah.
38:47
Speaker 4: Not just an.
38:49
Speaker 3: Airplane, the Governor's personal of jet.
38:52
Speaker 2: So I mean it's like it's macab This whole thing
38:55
Speaker 2: is crazy.
38:56
Speaker 4: So through all of this.
38:58
Speaker 1: They're hoping, hoping you can get killed in the process
39:01
Speaker 1: or just die.
39:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
39:02
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, that's the whole point. It's killing machine.
39:07
Speaker 1: I kept thinking of the twenty third Psalm. Both of
39:09
Speaker 1: you really met in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
39:14
Speaker 3: We were trenches, that's what we call We were in
39:18
Speaker 3: the trenches. Yeah, and there I was. I'm going up
39:24
Speaker 3: against attorney general's system, attorney generals, judges, I'm going up
39:29
Speaker 3: against skilled the terms, and frankly, I was kicking the
39:36
Speaker 3: asses and every turn.
39:39
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, how what would that must have been
39:42
Speaker 1: like on the other end of it for you, Reverend Joe,
39:45
Speaker 1: You know, fighting for someone's life really and at the
39:50
Speaker 1: same time realizing that their life is in constant flux
39:55
Speaker 1: and jeopardy aside from the chair.
39:58
Speaker 2: Well, it's a battle. I think when you think of
40:02
Speaker 2: our fight against the death penalting those terms, that makes sense.
40:05
Speaker 2: Joe says, we're in the trenches. We're literally in the trenches.
40:08
Speaker 2: We're being shot at. They're trying to kill us, they're
40:11
Speaker 2: trying to kill him, They're trying to do whatever they
40:13
Speaker 2: can to deter me. You get death threats, you get
40:17
Speaker 2: all this stuff. That's just part of it. And I
40:20
Speaker 2: think the reality is the ancient Greeks they had people
40:25
Speaker 2: who would come from the battle and report back the
40:28
Speaker 2: results of the battle. They were called battle singers. That's
40:33
Speaker 2: what Joe and I are now. We are battle singers.
40:36
Speaker 2: We have been in the war and we are now
40:40
Speaker 2: singing about what is actually happening. And that's what I
40:43
Speaker 2: try to do in the book to let people know
40:46
Speaker 2: what is actually happening in the criminal legal system that
40:50
Speaker 2: we call the killing machine. And that's what's so important
40:56
Speaker 2: for people to understand that, by the great of God
41:00
Speaker 2: and a lot of effort, Joe Garontino is talking with
41:04
Speaker 2: us today. If you had asked me in nineteen eighty
41:08
Speaker 2: two what I thought the chances of that it were,
41:12
Speaker 2: I would have said slim and none, not only for today,
41:16
Speaker 2: but maybe the next year, because that's how bad it was.
41:21
Speaker 1: Can you tell me the story of at one point
41:24
Speaker 1: you gifted Joe with a replica of cross that you carry.
41:31
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the symbol of the Committee of Southern Churchmen,
41:34
Speaker 2: and it's the symbol of the world with an equal
41:37
Speaker 2: marks in it. And then the cross is on top
41:40
Speaker 2: of that, and it means we're all equal in the
41:43
Speaker 2: world under the cross.
41:44
Speaker 4: It's as simple as that.
41:46
Speaker 2: And we all are and that's what we need to
41:50
Speaker 2: act on the basis of. And it goes back to
41:54
Speaker 2: my first trip to the Bronx of Detention when I
41:56
Speaker 2: realized I'm all equal to these guys. You know, we're
42:01
Speaker 2: I come into prison to meet people, to get to
42:05
Speaker 2: know Jesus. That's who we're talking about here. That's what
42:09
Speaker 2: it's all about.
42:10
Speaker 3: The last time I was in the death House, I
42:12
Speaker 3: was wearing that cross.
42:14
Speaker 1: Now I read that you then eventually were robbed and
42:19
Speaker 1: someone took it from you.
42:20
Speaker 3: Yes, that was after I got off death row. I was.
42:26
Speaker 3: I left the death House. It brought me straight to
42:29
Speaker 3: Power Tech Wrexable Center h exactly what we call it
42:35
Speaker 3: the slaughter house. People died there every day. I was
42:39
Speaker 3: there two days, two guys came to my shell with
42:42
Speaker 3: nines and threatened to kill me. Took the cross, I
42:48
Speaker 3: took a few canteen tickets I had.
42:52
Speaker 1: It seems to be a strange coincidence too, that.
42:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, because some of the guards that worked that unit
43:01
Speaker 3: were alled the Desk Walk. The Desk Walk with volunteers.
43:06
Speaker 1: Now, I just want to clarify because you're talking about
43:09
Speaker 1: the fact that in nineteen ninety one, the then Governor
43:12
Speaker 1: Douglas Wilder commuted your sentence to life with a part
43:19
Speaker 1: in sentencing you to life imprisonment with a recommendation for
43:22
Speaker 1: a new trial and the possibility of parole after twenty.
43:26
Speaker 3: Five years, which was unhurt and given the.
43:29
Speaker 1: Time that you'd already served, it would have been parole
43:32
Speaker 1: in thirteen years. And that didn't sit well with.
43:35
Speaker 3: A lot of people. For some people didn't sit well
43:38
Speaker 3: with me. When Marie walked into death House, she had
43:43
Speaker 3: the draft of his order. She showed it to me.
43:46
Speaker 3: She said, you want I said, let me see the
43:48
Speaker 3: order and I read it and I said I'm not
43:51
Speaker 3: accepting it. I said, the new trial will never happen
43:56
Speaker 3: and it didn't. That's Marris you Terry's famous quote. And
44:03
Speaker 3: I said, they'll never parole, and marieka something she had
44:08
Speaker 3: never done. She'd never asked me for anything. She said, Joe,
44:13
Speaker 3: you have to do it for me. I accepted. Mary
44:18
Speaker 3: Terry came out with her evidence of entis Is it
44:20
Speaker 3: irrelevant everything I said what happened would happen. I'll get
44:25
Speaker 3: into the parole thing later, because that's a whole other
44:27
Speaker 3: interesting story.
44:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I was going to say that that. Okay,
44:32
Speaker 1: so you find out that you're not going to be
44:34
Speaker 1: put to death, but you still have life in prison,
44:38
Speaker 1: and you're sent to a place that in some ways
44:41
Speaker 1: is just as deadly.
44:42
Speaker 3: I was sent there to be killed.
44:45
Speaker 1: And so immediately you're robbed. You were stabbed at one point.
44:50
Speaker 3: I was stabbed the next prison.
44:53
Speaker 1: So you're robbed, you're stabbed, and then at one point
44:56
Speaker 1: you actually lose a leg because of the lack of
45:02
Speaker 1: medical treatment.
45:03
Speaker 3: They had me trying to remember where I was at
45:07
Speaker 3: at the time. I can't.
45:08
Speaker 2: So while you're thinking, let me just say, lack of
45:10
Speaker 2: medical treatment is a severe understatement here, Okay.
45:16
Speaker 3: I know.
45:17
Speaker 1: Absolutely, because it was intentional neglect and abuse.
45:22
Speaker 3: Really correct, heaven a cell. I've been on a hunger strike.
45:28
Speaker 3: Actually hunger struck my way all the way across the
45:30
Speaker 3: country to get back to Virginia. I went to stand up,
45:34
Speaker 3: fell flat on my face, and they just left me
45:37
Speaker 3: laying around for doctors came in and looked at me
45:39
Speaker 3: and said, just leave me. A psychiatrist came through. A
45:42
Speaker 3: visiting psychiatrist came through, saw me laying on the floor,
45:46
Speaker 3: came in and took one look at me and said,
45:48
Speaker 3: you need to get this man to the hospital now.
45:52
Speaker 3: The local hospital said we can't deal with it. It's too
45:55
Speaker 3: severe for us. You have to fly to MCB and Richard.
46:01
Speaker 3: They decided not to fly. They drove seven and a
46:06
Speaker 3: half hours to Richmond. I get to Richmond. One of
46:11
Speaker 3: the young guards I'll never forgetting his name was most
46:14
Speaker 3: really nice kid. He looked at me and he said, Joe,
46:17
Speaker 3: you know you're supposed to die and rout. They rolled
46:23
Speaker 3: me into the hospital. They made me sign paper stamp
46:25
Speaker 3: to take both my legs. They were able to shave
46:28
Speaker 3: my left leg at the last minute.
46:31
Speaker 1: So that seven hour that seven hour drive was basically
46:35
Speaker 1: supposed to kill you, supposed to which would have made
46:39
Speaker 1: your legal expertise and your fight for freedom miraculously disappear exactly.
46:48
Speaker 3: He told me, Joe, you were supposed to die and rot.
46:53
Speaker 1: How did you keep persevering? Where did you get the strength.
46:59
Speaker 4: Anger?
47:00
Speaker 3: Just looking at the system and seeing what was happening
47:03
Speaker 3: and recognizing How I got the skill? I don't know.
47:06
Speaker 3: I mean I took to the law like a fish
47:08
Speaker 3: takes to water, and I realized I had a talent
47:12
Speaker 3: that I never knew. I had readings and Joey, they
47:17
Speaker 3: were manners and they were my strength, and without them,
47:20
Speaker 3: it wouldn't have happened.
47:21
Speaker 4: You or my brother, Joe. It's as simple as that.
47:24
Speaker 3: Yes, we are.
47:26
Speaker 4: So.
47:27
Speaker 1: Finally, on November twentyth, in twenty seventeen, twenty six years
47:35
Speaker 1: after Governor Wilder had commuted your death sentence to life,
47:40
Speaker 1: the Virginia State Parole Board finally voted to grant you parole.
47:47
Speaker 1: Can you, gentlemen, take me to that moment and what
47:51
Speaker 1: that meant for both.
47:52
Speaker 3: Of you relief. I was at Deerfield Correctional Center where
48:00
Speaker 3: they send Jerry Actor prisoners in the dormitory style prison.
48:04
Speaker 3: It was a nightmare there as well. I was released
48:07
Speaker 3: five days before Christmas. Marie wasn't there to see it,
48:12
Speaker 3: but lawyers, a lot of folks there. I stepped out.
48:15
Speaker 3: I was using a walker. I had a different leg
48:18
Speaker 3: than the one I had, basically a peg leg, almost,
48:21
Speaker 3: and I wheeled myself out the door, and I couldn't
48:24
Speaker 3: believe it, like I felt lighter than there. But I
48:32
Speaker 3: immediately stepped out the door and went to work with
48:34
Speaker 3: the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia. I was
48:39
Speaker 3: hired to clean up their back lagger cases. When I
48:43
Speaker 3: finished with that, after about almost two years, I went
48:46
Speaker 3: to work for a small law firroom. I was in
48:48
Speaker 3: and out of courtrooms all over Virginia. I think I've
48:52
Speaker 3: been to every courthouse in Virginia.
48:55
Speaker 1: You've also lectured at University of Virginia, American University, Universe
49:00
Speaker 1: of Richmond.
49:02
Speaker 3: New York University Albany, probably a few about the death penalty.
49:09
Speaker 3: And I think I want over some people.
49:11
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
49:12
Speaker 3: I don't go. I don't go to preach to the choir.
49:15
Speaker 3: I don't have time to preach to the choir. Give
49:17
Speaker 3: me the people to.
49:18
Speaker 1: Believe in it, and you can change their minds.
49:22
Speaker 3: I gave a lot of talks like that.
49:25
Speaker 1: So, Reverend Joe, I haven't gotten your take on when
49:30
Speaker 1: you found out that he had been granted parole.
49:34
Speaker 2: Well, I was elated because, like Marie, you know, I
49:38
Speaker 2: can appreciate Joe not wanting a conditional pardon, but look,
49:44
Speaker 2: you grab whatever straw you can get and then you
49:47
Speaker 2: worry about the next problem.
49:48
Speaker 4: At least you've got that one. Uh.
49:52
Speaker 2: We're not in the perfection game here. We're taking what
49:55
Speaker 2: we can get. And when I heard that he had
49:59
Speaker 2: received the harden was walking was going to be walking out,
50:02
Speaker 2: that just really made my day. I was really elated
50:05
Speaker 2: that he.
50:05
Speaker 4: Was stepping out and experiencing freedom.
50:09
Speaker 1: What does your friendship look like today and what does
50:12
Speaker 1: it mean to you today?
50:14
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad to see his face because I haven't
50:16
Speaker 2: seen him in a while.
50:18
Speaker 3: It's great, it's been it's been a while.
50:20
Speaker 4: It's really great.
50:22
Speaker 1: I have to ask you a question that I had,
50:24
Speaker 1: Reverend Joe. In many ways, I see how you're religious
50:28
Speaker 1: calling dovetails with ending mass incarceration and the death penalty,
50:34
Speaker 1: But how do you factor in and process the additional
50:38
Speaker 1: layer of wrongful convictions into that? You know, it's not
50:43
Speaker 1: just a situation where the system is broken. It's that
50:48
Speaker 1: the system has gotten it completely wrong.
50:52
Speaker 2: It's going to happen repeatedly as long as we stick
50:56
Speaker 2: with this system. So we need to move from the
50:59
Speaker 2: retributive just system to the restorative justice system. Whole different model.
51:04
Speaker 2: You bring the victim and a fender together with a
51:07
Speaker 2: trained facilitator. I've done hundreds of these things and they talk.
51:11
Speaker 2: So after you met with each one of them individually
51:13
Speaker 2: and learn where they're coming from. It's a voluntary process
51:18
Speaker 2: and that whole process, that's a way to deal with
51:22
Speaker 2: the suffering and hurt, because that's what we're talking about.
51:25
Speaker 2: Our current system is all about punishment, creating more suffering,
51:29
Speaker 2: more hurt, more harm. It has nothing to do with
51:32
Speaker 2: restoring anyone. It does nothing for victims. So wrongful convictions now, God,
51:38
Speaker 2: we're going to be having wrong convictions as long as
51:40
Speaker 2: we keep doing the system. It's just baked into the
51:43
Speaker 2: cake because it's such a stack deck. There is no
51:47
Speaker 2: way it's going to be fair for anybody who's caught
51:50
Speaker 2: up in it. Without monetary resources.
51:54
Speaker 3: We're dealing with the system that does not like to
51:57
Speaker 3: admit mistakes, will bite you tooth and nail to the end.
52:02
Speaker 3: To this day, people in the system, including some people
52:05
Speaker 3: in the Attorney General's office, even after DNA cleared girl,
52:10
Speaker 3: still say it's guilty. They back the machine, and most
52:14
Speaker 3: of us are still looked out on.
52:16
Speaker 2: That's why I wrote that book. That's a key hole
52:19
Speaker 2: into the system so people can see how it's operating.
52:22
Speaker 2: And then once you see it and realize what's going on, hopefully,
52:27
Speaker 2: like Joe says, you're going to be moved to do
52:29
Speaker 2: something about it.
52:31
Speaker 1: I love the concept of empowering everyone to become not
52:37
Speaker 1: only their own hero, but the champion for someone who
52:41
Speaker 1: needs one.
52:42
Speaker 3: The truth is out there, people just have to see it.
52:47
Speaker 1: Is there anything else from your europe shared experience?
52:51
Speaker 2: When someone is killed by the state, as Joe described
52:55
Speaker 2: what happened to the body in Virginia, take it to
52:58
Speaker 2: the cooling table. After that, there's a doctor, It performs
53:05
Speaker 2: a medical examination and issues a death certificate. And on
53:09
Speaker 2: that death certificate it has cause of death. The cause
53:14
Speaker 2: of death is homicide.
53:17
Speaker 4: Even the state is clear what they're doing.
53:23
Speaker 2: This is a public murder, homicide documented by the state
53:29
Speaker 2: medical examiner. We use euphemisms like executions and death penalty etc.
53:35
Speaker 2: It's a cold blooded public murder, and this is being
53:39
Speaker 2: done in our names. These people are acting on our behalf.
53:42
Speaker 2: Welcome to the murder club. I mean, I don't think
53:45
Speaker 2: we really want to be a part of that.
53:47
Speaker 3: We no longer have capital punishment in Virginia. I don't
53:50
Speaker 3: think it's going to come back. And I can say
53:52
Speaker 3: I was somewhat instrumental in help bringing that about. I
53:57
Speaker 3: testify the Senate and the House here in the jail
54:03
Speaker 3: about capital punishment, and it was abolish and the governor
54:08
Speaker 3: signed and the law.
54:12
Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate your time, both of your time. I
54:16
Speaker 1: am very glad that you two are battle singers, and
54:20
Speaker 1: I very much appreciate you sharing your voices with.
54:24
Speaker 4: Me a pleasure.
54:26
Speaker 3: You're welcome, You're welcome.
54:41
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco.
54:45
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
54:48
Speaker 1: links in the episode description to see how you can help.
54:51
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
54:55
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis, as well as our producers Annie Chelsea,
55:00
Speaker 1: Athleen Fink, and Jackie Pauley. This series is produced, edited,
55:04
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Lauren Bright Pacheco. Our senior producer
55:07
Speaker 1: is Kara Krnhaber. Story editing by Hannah Bial, research by
55:12
Speaker 1: Shelby Sorels, mixing and sound design by Nick Massetti, with
55:16
Speaker 1: additional production by Jeff Clyborne. Our theme music is by
55:20
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social
55:23
Speaker 1: media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
55:27
Speaker 1: You can also follow me on all platforms at Lauren
55:30
Speaker 1: Bright Pacheco. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for
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Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one