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#054 Jason Flom with Rodney Roberts · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: America has two point two million people in prison. If
0:05
Speaker 1: just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people.
0:08
Speaker 1: That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.
0:13
Speaker 2: If the system want to take you out of society,
0:18
Speaker 2: they will do it no matter what laws they have
0:21
Speaker 2: to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but
0:24
Speaker 2: they're breaking the lord.
0:27
Speaker 1: Having to hear those people say that I was guilty
0:30
Speaker 1: of a crime that I did not commit, and then
0:32
Speaker 1: hear my family break down behind me and not be
0:34
Speaker 1: able to do anything about it. I can't describe the
0:37
Speaker 1: crushing weight that was.
0:39
Speaker 3: I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.
0:44
Speaker 2: A lot of times we look and we see something
0:46
Speaker 2: happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said.
0:49
Speaker 3: That could never happen to me, but they can.
0:57
Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction.
1:13
Speaker 5: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm. Today's guest
1:17
Speaker 5: is the one and only Rodney Roberts.
1:20
Speaker 6: Rodney Roberts was held for seventeen years for the crime
1:24
Speaker 6: of raping a seventeen year old girl he had never met.
1:28
Speaker 6: Rodney was advised by his public defender to plead guilty.
1:32
Speaker 6: He was told that the seventeen year old girl who
1:35
Speaker 6: was right outside the courtroom had identified him, and if
1:39
Speaker 6: he did not plead guilty, he was going to spend
1:41
Speaker 6: the rest of his life in jail.
1:42
Speaker 7: Rodney Roberts story a guilty plead, born a fear, a
1:46
Speaker 7: maxed out sentence of seven years, and on the day
1:49
Speaker 7: of release, not a ride home, but a surprise transfer
1:53
Speaker 7: to civil commitment. It's a kind of imprisonment reserved for
1:56
Speaker 7: just one type of offender. It has no set sentence,
2:00
Speaker 7: no guarantee of release because the state deems them too
2:03
Speaker 7: dangerous to release. And the state says it's a treatment program,
2:08
Speaker 7: but the residents call it prison. He would be held
2:11
Speaker 7: there as an encouragible violent sex offender for a full decade,
2:14
Speaker 7: although it would later be proven that he had been
2:17
Speaker 7: innocent from the start.
2:18
Speaker 6: Rodney was finally released after seventeen years because he got
2:22
Speaker 6: a lawyer who had DNA evidence.
2:25
Speaker 4: Rodney, Welcome to the show. I'm glad you're here, Thank you.
2:28
Speaker 3: I'm glad to be here.
2:29
Speaker 5: So Rodney, this whole crazy saga of your life started
2:34
Speaker 5: when you were seventeen, really right, yes, And up until
2:37
Speaker 5: then your life had been what she's full, good, troubled,
2:42
Speaker 5: what was your background.
2:44
Speaker 3: Actually up into them. My life was very well. I
2:46
Speaker 3: had both parents, mother and father, and the household work.
2:49
Speaker 3: My mother she was hands on. She has a master's
2:52
Speaker 3: degree in education. She believed in education in US learning.
2:57
Speaker 3: I have six sisters and four brothers, so we had
2:59
Speaker 3: a house that's a whole football team. I mean, yeah,
3:02
Speaker 3: I was never alone. I was always well supervised. I
3:05
Speaker 3: had no trouble as juvenile, no juvenile castration, or no
3:09
Speaker 3: trouble in that level. I was a very good student.
3:12
Speaker 3: You know. We went to private school from first to
3:15
Speaker 3: eighth grade. So my life then was very positive, very
3:20
Speaker 3: If I was poor, I didn't have no I wasn't
3:23
Speaker 3: even aware of it because I was so well cared
3:25
Speaker 3: for by my parents and my older brothers and sisters,
3:28
Speaker 3: and my aunts and my uncles and the people in
3:30
Speaker 3: the community. You know back then at that time, you know,
3:34
Speaker 3: you had like five six mothers in the neighborhood. You
3:37
Speaker 3: were watched by so many others that you could be
3:39
Speaker 3: disciplined by the lady down the street and and she'd
3:42
Speaker 3: bring you to your mother and you and then get
3:44
Speaker 3: disciplined right in front of her and by your mother.
3:46
Speaker 3: So it was a different time than us, and the
3:48
Speaker 3: love in the community and the household was very strong.
3:51
Speaker 4: And which neighborhood was this well.
3:53
Speaker 3: Originally we grew up in the Project area on Montgomery Street,
3:57
Speaker 3: which again was different at that time. And then we
4:00
Speaker 3: moved to a one family house up in the Wellsburg
4:02
Speaker 3: area that's in North New Jersey, right across the street
4:05
Speaker 3: from Valsburg Park. So I can run off my front
4:07
Speaker 3: porch right into a park.
4:09
Speaker 4: Up in Newark, New Jersey.
4:11
Speaker 5: And it sounds really very sort of beautiful in a
4:15
Speaker 5: certain way, very community oriented, nice, Like you said, a
4:19
Speaker 5: huge family, had a huge extended family. And this is
4:22
Speaker 5: why when I tell people, if you don't think this
4:24
Speaker 5: can happen to you, this can happen to you, because
4:27
Speaker 5: you didn't just paint a likely scenario for someone who's
4:29
Speaker 5: going to end up really getting wrongly convicted twice and
4:32
Speaker 5: serving over two decades in prison for crimes you didn't commit.
4:36
Speaker 5: So let's get into that part of the story. Because
4:38
Speaker 5: when you were a kid, you were kind of hanging
4:40
Speaker 5: out with older guys, right, and then you kind of
4:43
Speaker 5: got blindsided because you weren't really aware of what these
4:46
Speaker 5: guys were up to.
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Speaker 3: I mean, the blind side particularly came from the fact
4:51
Speaker 3: that I grew up in so much of a people
4:55
Speaker 3: calling out a sheltered household sheltered life, that a lot
4:58
Speaker 3: of things go on the streets I really wasn't exposed to,
5:01
Speaker 3: so me growing up, I would have to come in
5:05
Speaker 3: the house early and things that natures. I thought I
5:07
Speaker 3: was missing out on a lot of things. So I
5:09
Speaker 3: would find little ways to sneak out the house, not
5:11
Speaker 3: really knowing what I would getting myself into. And because
5:14
Speaker 3: of that, I wasn't aware of what was out there.
5:17
Speaker 3: I was more easy to be manipulated in that environment.
5:20
Speaker 3: I'm smart, but I was stupid at the same time.
5:23
Speaker 8: Well, I wouldn't say stupid, naive that's a good word.
5:26
Speaker 8: Naive is a much better word. I like that word
5:28
Speaker 8: better than stupid too. So like the older guys in
5:30
Speaker 8: the community who so much like see young guys, they
5:33
Speaker 8: see potentially in but they seen the potential in a
5:36
Speaker 8: different way. They seen a potential in like a more
5:38
Speaker 8: negative way. How could I sharpen this guy to help
5:41
Speaker 8: me commit my crimes and help me get over And
5:44
Speaker 8: I became under that radar.
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Speaker 3: And when they approached me that they approached me like hey, man,
5:49
Speaker 3: we like the where you're.
5:50
Speaker 4: Blend right in.
5:51
Speaker 3: We just want you to do this. Just look be
5:53
Speaker 3: a scout, be a lookout, just do this and do
5:56
Speaker 3: minimum things things that I thought was really cool. You know, hey,
5:59
Speaker 3: I'm in now, you know I'm part of the streets now,
6:02
Speaker 3: thinking that I was going to earn the street cred.
6:04
Speaker 3: All the time I was being played because of my naiveness,
6:08
Speaker 3: of my naivete, I wasn't able to see what was
6:11
Speaker 3: really going on with me.
6:12
Speaker 5: But when you're a kid with that kind of flattery,
6:14
Speaker 5: when an older person shows your respect and treats you
6:17
Speaker 5: as they're equal, that can be very intoxicating and can
6:20
Speaker 5: lead you down the road that you don't really know
6:22
Speaker 5: you're going because you're blinded, right because you're thinking that
6:24
Speaker 5: you're in with the cool squad or whatever.
6:26
Speaker 3: So what happened, Well, what happened was, first I hid
6:29
Speaker 3: this from my family. I wanted to add that part.
6:31
Speaker 3: They didn't know what was going on. So I separated
6:34
Speaker 3: myself from my protection and that was a key point.
6:37
Speaker 3: And that point where this particular day, they we were
6:40
Speaker 3: out and they were saying, well, what was going on
6:42
Speaker 3: out here on the avenue, which just Hakwon's avenue was
6:45
Speaker 3: a busy street, very crime orientated, and I came back
6:49
Speaker 3: and said, well, this person's doing this, and this person's
6:51
Speaker 3: doing that, and that person is stopping picking up this,
6:54
Speaker 3: and so in that course, they took action from there
6:58
Speaker 3: and they went into and committed the crimes that they
7:01
Speaker 3: committed in detail, which was robbery's, chicknapped, and sexual related offenses.
7:07
Speaker 3: And me, because I played my role, I was charged
7:09
Speaker 3: as a conspirator, not that I committed any defenses, but
7:13
Speaker 3: because I acted in the capacity to acting at that age,
7:16
Speaker 3: I was also charged. I went to trial with these
7:20
Speaker 3: individuals and was found guilty with these individuals and had
7:24
Speaker 3: to serve five years alongside these individuals as a conspirator,
7:29
Speaker 3: and my record reflected the same as this, even though
7:32
Speaker 3: I did not participate, but as a conspirator, I was
7:35
Speaker 3: charged the same way, and in that five years, because
7:39
Speaker 3: of my age, I was sent to like a youth facility,
7:41
Speaker 3: which is board in town at that time, and once
7:44
Speaker 3: I got a certain size and they transferred me to
7:47
Speaker 3: a larger facility, which was always the prison, who in
7:50
Speaker 3: turn released me. Once they released me in the early
7:54
Speaker 3: nineties ninety three, I was home at that point in
7:57
Speaker 3: my life. I had decided that my whole life was changed.
8:01
Speaker 3: I was never going back. I had got a good job.
8:05
Speaker 3: I was working at Quellsmen's war up in Woolbrook Mall.
8:08
Speaker 3: I was excellent salesman for them, paying me pretty good money.
8:11
Speaker 3: Got a nice apartment up in Mount Clear, New Jersey.
8:14
Speaker 3: Got custody of my son, who I felt was the
8:17
Speaker 3: change in my life as well, who had left before
8:20
Speaker 3: I was inconcentrated. His mother was pregnant, so I wasn't
8:24
Speaker 3: even there to witness his birth. So that was a
8:27
Speaker 3: big part of me coming home as a change man
8:30
Speaker 3: to take responsibility of my son. Got me a nice
8:32
Speaker 3: car and everything, and I was doing pretty well. And
8:36
Speaker 3: as a result of doing that, I was picked up
8:39
Speaker 3: and identified as someone who committed another offense, saying I
8:44
Speaker 3: was a warrant was out for my arrest, saying that
8:47
Speaker 3: you've been identified as a person who committed a sexual
8:51
Speaker 3: related offense and a kidnapped and against my adamant de
8:54
Speaker 3: not like, listen, it's not me. I didn't do this.
8:57
Speaker 3: I'm I didn't even do that before, but now they
8:59
Speaker 3: had me custody. Whilst they arrested me and put me
9:02
Speaker 3: in custody. The threat we can hold you and keep
9:05
Speaker 3: you here for the rest of your life was real
9:08
Speaker 3: to me. They had showed me that they had the
9:09
Speaker 3: power to do that already.
9:10
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, you were in a very precarious situation. I mean,
9:13
Speaker 5: seven years had gone by, your life was, as you said,
9:15
Speaker 5: your life was on track. Things are looking good, and
9:18
Speaker 5: then this crazy thing happens. And then a lot of
9:22
Speaker 5: a lot of weird stuff goes on, I mean, a
9:24
Speaker 5: lot of lying, a lot of cheating the system because
9:29
Speaker 5: they really wanted to convict you. In your case, it
9:31
Speaker 5: doesn't seem like they were really that interested in finding
9:34
Speaker 5: out who raped this woman. They were interested in pending
9:37
Speaker 5: it on you, right, just because they had you And
9:39
Speaker 5: we've seen that part of this scenario happened before. That's
9:43
Speaker 5: not the craziest thing about your story is crazy because
9:45
Speaker 5: it happened to you, But it's not uncommon, unfortunately, Right,
9:48
Speaker 5: But things get really crazy as we go along.
9:51
Speaker 4: Well, we'll take us through this, right.
9:52
Speaker 3: Well, once I was in custody, it was really my
9:55
Speaker 3: public defender, as they say in jail house turn my
9:59
Speaker 3: public pretender who came and said to me in this
10:02
Speaker 3: theatrical way that he had convinced me that the state
10:06
Speaker 3: had this over whom evidence, that the witness was outside
10:09
Speaker 3: by the way, this is my third at turned public
10:10
Speaker 3: defender within a four month period, and that the witness
10:14
Speaker 3: seen my photo and start crying uncontrollably, and they had
10:18
Speaker 3: pinpointed me in that if I was gonna go to
10:20
Speaker 3: trial and be in jail for the rest of my life.
10:23
Speaker 3: Now at that point, I felt so overwhelmed backtracking, which
10:26
Speaker 3: just happened to me earlier at seventeen. They said that, well,
10:29
Speaker 3: look and we offer you a plea agreement. We're gonna
10:32
Speaker 3: give you a seven year term and you're gonna do
10:34
Speaker 3: two years and you'll come home. If you just plead guilty,
10:37
Speaker 3: we're gonna dismiss the sexual lated defense and you were
10:40
Speaker 3: downgrade the kidnapped a second degree and put on a record.
10:43
Speaker 3: No one got hurt, And so in my mind I
10:45
Speaker 3: thought I would saving my life because I had just
10:47
Speaker 3: left my son out there and I didn't know what
10:50
Speaker 3: was going on. I was separated from my family. So
10:54
Speaker 3: I took the plea agreement and I answered a plea
10:57
Speaker 3: to a crime I didn't commit, and doing that, I
11:00
Speaker 3: felt like I portrayed myself in a way that it
11:02
Speaker 3: took me years to get over. And the process of that,
11:05
Speaker 3: I was sent down to state prison to do the
11:07
Speaker 3: seven year term because I went to parole, and parole
11:12
Speaker 3: actually was saying that, oh, listen, you're here not just
11:15
Speaker 3: for the kidnap, but we're here for what the police
11:18
Speaker 3: reports are saying, for the sexual offense. And I'm like, no,
11:20
Speaker 3: I didn't do any of that. I actually I didn't
11:23
Speaker 3: do any of it. At this point, I'm like, I'm
11:25
Speaker 3: I didn't do any I just played guilty, thinking trying
11:27
Speaker 3: to save my life. Well, that sent them in a
11:30
Speaker 3: spiral like I was in denial, and then I showed
11:33
Speaker 3: no remorse, which you know, I could show remorse for
11:36
Speaker 3: something I said not do, and that's what I was
11:37
Speaker 3: trying to explain to them. But as a result of that,
11:40
Speaker 3: I was denied parole maybe three times, and then I
11:43
Speaker 3: was maxed out. And in being maxed out at me,
11:46
Speaker 3: I served a full seven year terms as opposed to
11:48
Speaker 3: two year term. But before you are released from prison,
11:52
Speaker 3: you were sent to these parole classes. So I went
11:55
Speaker 3: to the parole classes and the pre release classes, which
11:58
Speaker 3: I was did stellar and because I'm thinking I'm going home,
12:01
Speaker 3: and so on the day of my release, I was
12:05
Speaker 3: brought out to the front like every other prisoner who
12:07
Speaker 3: was schedul to be released that day lined up, but
12:11
Speaker 3: instead when they called everyone name, they didn't call minds.
12:15
Speaker 3: So they had released all of them and left me
12:17
Speaker 3: standing there in the day of the day, I had
12:20
Speaker 3: maxed out, means that I had no more time left
12:22
Speaker 3: to do.
12:22
Speaker 4: But so you're there.
12:23
Speaker 5: You have your possessions, whatever your possessions were that you
12:26
Speaker 5: had in prison, whether you had them with you, right,
12:28
Speaker 5: You're ready to go home, start your life again, see
12:31
Speaker 5: your son, re establish your relationships with your family, the
12:35
Speaker 5: whole thing.
12:35
Speaker 3: They were actually in the parking lot waiting to take
12:38
Speaker 3: me home and go get something.
12:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, we had all.
12:40
Speaker 3: Arranged, and I mean I had, you know, grown until
12:44
Speaker 3: more after seven years from this experience in a degree
12:47
Speaker 3: where I felt like, now my life is really going
12:50
Speaker 3: to be taken throl of my life and really do
12:53
Speaker 3: it right. But as opposed to being released, I was
12:57
Speaker 3: held and transferred to with New Jersey call to a
13:00
Speaker 3: special treatment on this because I refused to pleat acknowledgeable
13:04
Speaker 3: guilty or admit my role in the sexual related offense.
13:09
Speaker 3: New Jersey had passed a law called the Sexual Fund
13:11
Speaker 3: Predat Act, which said that if they felt like a
13:14
Speaker 3: person was still dangerous, that they could not be released.
13:17
Speaker 3: So they civilly committed me under that pretense. So I
13:20
Speaker 3: was taken to a facility civil commitment facility, which is
13:23
Speaker 3: like a civil commitment like traditional However, this was like
13:27
Speaker 3: a new hybrid facility that New Jersey had came up
13:29
Speaker 3: with where they combined the Apartment Correction and Department Human
13:32
Speaker 3: Service to their department who service there would provide treatment
13:37
Speaker 3: to those that were committed. And I was held there
13:39
Speaker 3: for ten years.
13:41
Speaker 4: It's not real. I mean ten years on top. It's
13:44
Speaker 4: like it.
13:45
Speaker 5: I think most people are listening and going, wait, wait,
13:47
Speaker 5: but that doesn't make sense. You can't serve your sentence
13:49
Speaker 5: and then serve another sentence that you didn't even have,
13:51
Speaker 5: which is longer a by fifty percent than your original
13:54
Speaker 5: sentence was in the first place. And you know it's
13:56
Speaker 5: so crazy, right, you plead innocent, they send you to prison,
13:59
Speaker 5: and you played guilty to send you home.
14:01
Speaker 4: It's so backwards.
14:02
Speaker 5: It's like Alice in Wonderland, but in your case, that's
14:05
Speaker 5: literally what happened. They wanted you to acknowledge your guilt.
14:09
Speaker 5: I mean, they pulled the rug out from under you
14:11
Speaker 5: so many different times, in so many different ways. By
14:13
Speaker 5: now right, they had lied to you about the witness
14:16
Speaker 5: who actually had not identified you and never did identify you, right,
14:20
Speaker 5: and they told you that she did. You know, when
14:22
Speaker 5: you talk about three public defenders in four months, I mean,
14:25
Speaker 5: it's not hard for anyone to imagine how little your
14:29
Speaker 5: public defender must have known about your case when they
14:32
Speaker 5: keep switching them out like this. I mean, there's just
14:35
Speaker 5: not that much time to get to understand what's going on.
14:38
Speaker 5: And to be fair, these people are, even the best
14:40
Speaker 5: ones of them, are juggling a lot of cases because
14:43
Speaker 5: that's just the way the system works. He or she
14:45
Speaker 5: might be working one hundred cases at that time.
14:46
Speaker 3: And that came out that down the line to try
14:49
Speaker 3: and admit it that when he had like forty cases
14:52
Speaker 3: of clients in a bullpen, which is the holding area
14:54
Speaker 3: for prison, he had an old woman case a little
14:57
Speaker 3: and like forty were there, and by the time he
14:59
Speaker 3: got the he was in a cilly lawn mode. But
15:01
Speaker 3: in the process of being civilly committed that that whole
15:04
Speaker 3: experience within itself was a crazy experience because it is
15:08
Speaker 3: experience that you could be civilly committed without a conviction.
15:12
Speaker 3: Now you're not convicted. Everything is done through medical terms.
15:17
Speaker 3: What I'm saying, you have a psychiatrist and a psychologist
15:19
Speaker 3: who come in and say I read the record and
15:21
Speaker 3: we think his person is guilty, and you know, and
15:24
Speaker 3: then that becomes you're guilty, and that becomes the reason
15:26
Speaker 3: they hold you. There's no justice there whatsoever. There's no trial,
15:30
Speaker 3: there's no way they give you a hearing that the
15:32
Speaker 3: attorney general totally dictates, So there's no way to challenge
15:36
Speaker 3: the whole process of it. Because the psychiatrists work for
15:39
Speaker 3: the state. They come in and write whatever the attorney
15:42
Speaker 3: general wants them to say. In my particular case, that
15:44
Speaker 3: was one beneficial point feature that I always like to
15:47
Speaker 3: add was the state centers psychiatrists and to interview me.
15:51
Speaker 3: And as a result of his interview, he changed his mind,
15:54
Speaker 3: became my witness and testified that I should have been released.
15:58
Speaker 3: As a result, they diminished him. He was later released,
16:01
Speaker 3: but he jumped ship. But in that process where they
16:05
Speaker 3: still saw me. An attorney for another public defender named
16:08
Speaker 3: John Dewar, who I aw utmost respectful in their office,
16:12
Speaker 3: and I explained to him, I said, listen. This was
16:14
Speaker 3: in two thousand and four. I said, listen, I played
16:17
Speaker 3: guilty to a crime I commit. I listen, I shouldn't
16:19
Speaker 3: be here. And I explained to him what happened. I said, listen,
16:22
Speaker 3: I played guilty because I was my life's been addressed,
16:25
Speaker 3: my life in jail. I wanted to be home with
16:27
Speaker 3: my family. He said, listen, I'm gonna take a chance
16:30
Speaker 3: with you. So what he did was him and investigator
16:33
Speaker 3: they went and found the victim, and they went interviewed her,
16:37
Speaker 3: and they showed her my photo and she asked, well,
16:39
Speaker 3: did you know this guy. I've never seen this guy
16:41
Speaker 3: dire in my life. They were like, wait a minute,
16:43
Speaker 3: this guy's locked up for a crime against you. She
16:46
Speaker 3: didn't even know anyone was locked up, particularly me. She said,
16:49
Speaker 3: I didn't never identify him. That sent my CASI to
16:52
Speaker 3: a spiral. As a result of that, she gave a
16:55
Speaker 3: sworn statement. We thought that that was going to be
16:57
Speaker 3: enough to have me released from civil.
17:00
Speaker 5: It would seem like that would be a novel. I'm
17:02
Speaker 5: sure again everyone listening is going, okay, well that's it,
17:05
Speaker 5: Go home. You're done now, But that's not the way
17:07
Speaker 5: it works. But I want to make one more point
17:08
Speaker 5: before we get into the next part of the story,
17:10
Speaker 5: which is that ninety five percent of state felony convictions
17:14
Speaker 5: are a result of guilty. Please right, because almost anyone
17:18
Speaker 5: faced with your situation, especially someone who'd already had experience
17:22
Speaker 5: of how heavy the criminal justice system can come down
17:24
Speaker 5: on you, given a choice between what they were telling
17:28
Speaker 5: you was going to be two years or twenty eight
17:29
Speaker 5: months or whatever it was, or the rest of your life.
17:33
Speaker 5: I mean, try to walk a mile of those shoes, right.
17:36
Speaker 4: I mean, that's a horrible statistic.
17:37
Speaker 5: It's a horrible statistic. And like I said, it may
17:40
Speaker 5: not seem like it affects you, but someday it could.
17:42
Speaker 5: I mean, it could affect you or someone you love.
17:44
Speaker 5: Anyone who's listening right now, you know your chance with
17:46
Speaker 5: the public defender who I mean, the ODJIT two stacked.
17:50
Speaker 3: They formed would be a trifecta judge to prosecuted and
17:54
Speaker 3: public defender. In my mind, a collaboration to to hurse
17:59
Speaker 3: me into this plea agreement to make it as if
18:02
Speaker 3: that was my only result to save my life.
18:18
Speaker 5: But here's what's so crazy about your case, Rannie, is
18:20
Speaker 5: that first of all, start with you were innocent. Second
18:24
Speaker 5: of all, the idea that your own attorney says, we're
18:27
Speaker 5: going to get two years, but you end up getting
18:30
Speaker 5: seven years, but then they turned that into seventeen years.
18:34
Speaker 5: How can that be that your own people let you
18:38
Speaker 5: down to that extent. The system too, but your own people.
18:41
Speaker 5: And then the other thing, like I said that, I
18:42
Speaker 5: really want to highlight because we haven't covered this on
18:44
Speaker 5: the show yet, but it's a reality, and it's a
18:46
Speaker 5: crazy reality that most people don't focus on. It's this
18:48
Speaker 5: idea of civil commitment and that sounds civil commitment, sounds
18:52
Speaker 5: like a relatively benign term.
18:53
Speaker 4: But it was hell in there, and I heard you
18:55
Speaker 4: talk about it. It was horrible in it.
18:57
Speaker 3: I mean it was horrible in the fact that I
19:00
Speaker 3: was exposed to an element that I had never had
19:03
Speaker 3: been exposed to before. A mindset. The danger is real.
19:08
Speaker 3: There's a need to protect the most warmable members of
19:10
Speaker 3: our society. That's real. However, the process of selection is flawed.
19:16
Speaker 3: Now when I say the flaw, if they see that
19:17
Speaker 3: you don't fit that criteria, you don't have what they
19:20
Speaker 3: call a present danger. You don't have the mental incapacity
19:23
Speaker 3: or the repetitive or compulsive personality, you should not be
19:27
Speaker 3: there now in that environment, you hear things that stories
19:30
Speaker 3: is so hard. What that makes you like? I used
19:33
Speaker 3: to cry in some of the groups because I didn't
19:35
Speaker 3: fit in any mold. I had no diagnosis because I
19:39
Speaker 3: wasn't able to be put in the group. So I
19:42
Speaker 3: was separated from the population and put in isolation. I
19:45
Speaker 3: spent most of my time, maybe nine years in isolation,
19:48
Speaker 3: away from population. But the big part of that case
19:51
Speaker 3: was for years we asked to state for the particular
19:55
Speaker 3: the kits what they said that they had to show
19:59
Speaker 3: the d evidence. So they said they lost.
20:01
Speaker 4: It and let's go back to that.
20:03
Speaker 5: And before we even do, I want to make that
20:05
Speaker 5: point too, because I think you and I are on
20:07
Speaker 5: the same page, because I often say that I'm not
20:09
Speaker 5: soft on crime, I'm tough on injustice right and I
20:12
Speaker 5: think too anybody who you know who hurts another human being,
20:15
Speaker 5: we have to have a society of laws, we have
20:18
Speaker 5: to protect the general population. I do believe that Brian
20:20
Speaker 5: Stevenson says, which is that everybody's better than the worst
20:23
Speaker 5: thing they've ever done. But that being said, we have
20:26
Speaker 5: to hold people accountable, we have to be safe as
20:29
Speaker 5: a society, but we also have to be fair. And
20:31
Speaker 5: everyone's entitled to a fair shake and to a fair trial,
20:34
Speaker 5: and to fair treatment by the system. And you are
20:36
Speaker 5: the poster the poster child, for lack of a better word,
20:39
Speaker 5: of everything that's wrong, everything that can go wrong. And
20:43
Speaker 5: I want to get back to the rape kits because,
20:44
Speaker 5: as you said, as your lawyers were trying to get
20:47
Speaker 5: the rape kits, they were saying, and we've seen this.
20:49
Speaker 4: Before, that they lost them.
20:51
Speaker 5: They didn't lose them, but they said they lost them
20:53
Speaker 5: either they were too lazy to look for him, whether
20:55
Speaker 5: they didn't look very hard or whatever it was, whether
20:56
Speaker 5: they were hiding them.
20:57
Speaker 4: Who knows.
20:58
Speaker 5: But one way another, that's one of the things that
21:00
Speaker 5: kept you in as long as it did, because if
21:01
Speaker 5: they found those rape kits, you would have been freed
21:04
Speaker 5: because it would have proven that you could not have
21:05
Speaker 5: been the source of the semen that was found right
21:08
Speaker 5: inside this woman. But talk a little bit about this isolation, right,
21:13
Speaker 5: What was that like? The isolation? I mean, does that
21:15
Speaker 5: mean you were in like solitary confinement type of sound.
21:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was in. It had a special unit called
21:20
Speaker 3: a B unit, where these particular individuals either they were
21:24
Speaker 3: treatment refused, either they refused to even participate in any programming,
21:28
Speaker 3: or like myself, had no diagnosis. And one other feature
21:33
Speaker 3: was they felt that I had too much influence on
21:35
Speaker 3: their population. And in regards to my legal skill, my
21:39
Speaker 3: ability to advocate. When I was standing up and say
21:41
Speaker 3: this is injustice, this is not right, I had no
21:44
Speaker 3: idea how many people was behind me saying yeah, well
21:46
Speaker 3: he said so. I was always looked at as someone's
21:49
Speaker 3: citing rise or creating gatherings because all I was doing
21:53
Speaker 3: was standing up for what I thought was my rights.
21:55
Speaker 3: So as a result, the administration decided to isolate me
21:59
Speaker 3: and put me in isolation so I could not I
22:02
Speaker 3: was only able to go to visits with the rest
22:03
Speaker 3: of populais. I wasn't able to go grooves programs events,
22:07
Speaker 3: I couldn't participate in anything because of my stance and
22:10
Speaker 3: because I would not admit guilt. At this point, I
22:14
Speaker 3: stood firmly that I'm innocent, and that also set me
22:18
Speaker 3: apart from the population because the only way you could
22:19
Speaker 3: get therapy and treatment you have to admit guilt. And
22:22
Speaker 3: in this isolation, you'll put on this unit. And this
22:25
Speaker 3: unit is I mean, one of the most miserable places
22:28
Speaker 3: you could be because there's a unit of hopelessness. You
22:31
Speaker 3: feel like you forgot about left there. You feel like
22:35
Speaker 3: everything at this point in your life is over, that
22:37
Speaker 3: no one believes you, and that the fight is so
22:40
Speaker 3: uphill it's like ice skating uphill. I mean, And in
22:44
Speaker 3: that moment, you know, I grew to a point where
22:48
Speaker 3: was though, I said to myself, because they would constantly say,
22:52
Speaker 3: fortunately had SiO. They had correction officers there, and they
22:55
Speaker 3: have correction officer there, who who's you know. He was
22:59
Speaker 3: very underst so he would say lock in, you know,
23:02
Speaker 3: you gotta lock in yourself, which no one wants to
23:04
Speaker 3: go lock be locked in themself. But he was cordial
23:07
Speaker 3: about it, and he did his job, but he wasn't really
23:10
Speaker 3: arrogant about or aggressive. He would say lock in, guys,
23:14
Speaker 3: so everybody would feel more easy about doing it. But
23:17
Speaker 3: this particular day he wasn't there and they had this
23:21
Speaker 3: also on and he was just being extra unnecessary that day,
23:25
Speaker 3: all that day, and so when time came for us
23:29
Speaker 3: a locking, he said lock in, And the way he
23:33
Speaker 3: said it resonated in me so deeply. He said, lock in.
23:40
Speaker 3: I said to myself, no, no, I'm not locking it.
23:43
Speaker 3: No I'm not I'm innocent. I'm not going in her room.
23:46
Speaker 3: I'm not supposed to be here today. So he says,
23:49
Speaker 3: if you don't lock in, I'm gonna have to call
23:51
Speaker 3: the boys. It's gonna be trouble. I said, it's gonna
23:53
Speaker 3: be some trouble today. The day is that day. We're
23:56
Speaker 3: gonna have some trouble up here. It's gonna be some trouble.
23:58
Speaker 3: So he called the boy. So I'm up there, back
24:01
Speaker 3: and forth. I'm ready. I'm positioning to myself, yes, going
24:04
Speaker 3: down today. I'm tired of this. I'm not locking in
24:06
Speaker 3: no more time. I'm innocent. So they ran up the
24:09
Speaker 3: stairs and I'm ready for them. They come running like
24:11
Speaker 3: eight nine up. They really get me. So when they
24:14
Speaker 3: got to the top of the stairs, I rushed them.
24:17
Speaker 3: I grabbed them, and like for three seconds, I was
24:21
Speaker 3: the mad three seconds, I was that guy. After that
24:25
Speaker 3: three seconds, I felt my feet come off the ground,
24:28
Speaker 3: I felt my arm being pulled back around me. But
24:31
Speaker 3: then they felt they threw me, grabbed me and threw
24:33
Speaker 3: me in myself.
24:34
Speaker 4: For you what I was in my cell.
24:36
Speaker 3: I was standing in my cl I freshed myself off,
24:38
Speaker 3: and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, at least I
24:41
Speaker 3: stood up for three seconds. And I lived in that
24:44
Speaker 3: three second moment for years. But as a result of
24:48
Speaker 3: standing up and feeling that in that three seconds, they
24:52
Speaker 3: looked at me different in the population. They said, well,
24:54
Speaker 3: why was someone put theyself through that? Why was someone's
24:56
Speaker 3: stand up against eight nine different people just to say
24:59
Speaker 3: they innocent? And that's made him take a step back
25:02
Speaker 3: and say, let's look at this guy again. And as
25:05
Speaker 3: a result, they became more leaning against me. Allowed me
25:08
Speaker 3: to more access to the law library, allowed me to
25:10
Speaker 3: move around a little bit more quietly. They would say, listen,
25:14
Speaker 3: we like you, we like how you move, but don't
25:16
Speaker 3: make us choose you and our job. Because I'm gonna
25:19
Speaker 3: choose my job, and if I gotta knock your head,
25:21
Speaker 3: I'm knocking your head. So I had to learn how
25:23
Speaker 3: to maneuver within in that philosophy, and that gave me
25:26
Speaker 3: the room I needed to litigate harder, fight harder for
25:31
Speaker 3: my freedom, and that three seconds. I live in this
25:34
Speaker 3: very moment because and that three seconds, I was the champion.
25:37
Speaker 3: I needed to be it liberated me. It was only
25:39
Speaker 3: three seconds that took him for my whole life in
25:42
Speaker 3: that moment to liberate me to be the man I
25:44
Speaker 3: am today and grow and feel strong. Now I had
25:47
Speaker 3: the rest of my life. Three seconds turned into the
25:49
Speaker 3: rest of my life. Then that changed everything for me.
25:52
Speaker 5: You literally risk your life and here comes these guys
25:54
Speaker 5: with the shields and the helmets, and they.
25:58
Speaker 4: Might have killed you, and nobody would have.
26:00
Speaker 5: Prosecuted him if they did exactly they would have said,
26:02
Speaker 5: he rushed us, it was dangerous slave, blah blah blah.
26:06
Speaker 5: So you became the man in that moment, which was
26:09
Speaker 5: really a spontaneous reaction, right because for.
26:12
Speaker 3: Me, that moment right there reflected in my mind I
26:15
Speaker 3: had enough.
26:15
Speaker 5: Well, because the thing is that I keep coming back
26:17
Speaker 5: to this right on top of the wrongful conviction, on
26:21
Speaker 5: top of the rug being pulled out from under you,
26:23
Speaker 5: with the two years, you know what you had to
26:25
Speaker 5: pleat gill you something you didn't do, then the seven years,
26:28
Speaker 5: and then really the terrifying idea of you not being
26:31
Speaker 5: able to go home and everybody else going home, and
26:33
Speaker 5: then the idea that you're in there for ten years
26:36
Speaker 5: and it's an indefinite sentence. It's not even like if
26:39
Speaker 5: they sentenced you, well, we're going to put you in
26:40
Speaker 5: this confinement thing for ten years, at least you would
26:43
Speaker 5: know at the end of ten years you're going. But
26:45
Speaker 5: you had no idea what they could have kept you
26:47
Speaker 5: there forever.
26:47
Speaker 3: And because I was saying I'm innocent, that totally took
26:51
Speaker 3: me out to run it. That made me did disqualify
26:54
Speaker 3: any opportunity for my release. If it wasn't for the
26:56
Speaker 3: fact that do your coelor court finally got tired reverse
27:00
Speaker 3: in my case three times and a third time they
27:02
Speaker 3: finally was so frustrated they assigned me a new attorney,
27:05
Speaker 3: a new judge, and then mysteriously the evidence that we
27:09
Speaker 3: were looking for up here is that we were asking
27:11
Speaker 3: for maybe ten years and nine to half ten years.
27:14
Speaker 3: They say with los pops, I don't know what we mislabeled.
27:17
Speaker 3: Here we go, and it was.
27:20
Speaker 4: Mislabeled this exactly.
27:23
Speaker 5: But this is another thing that's it still strikes me
27:27
Speaker 5: as naughty. That and that's not strong enough word. The
27:31
Speaker 5: idea that your conviction was overturned three times, right, and
27:35
Speaker 5: these are pro say emotions that you were filing in
27:38
Speaker 5: a pro say, motion for people who haven't heard that
27:40
Speaker 5: term before, means emotion filed by an inmate on their
27:43
Speaker 5: own behalf, without the benefit of a lawyer. So how
27:45
Speaker 5: does it happen that you get these convictions? And it
27:48
Speaker 5: could again talk about more rugs being pulled out from
27:50
Speaker 5: under you? Right here you are like they're going dangling
27:52
Speaker 5: you like around like a marionette. Right so you're you
27:55
Speaker 5: get this overturned and then they don't free you anyway,
27:58
Speaker 5: and then they do it again, and then they don't
27:59
Speaker 5: fore you anyway, and then finally it takes a judge
28:01
Speaker 5: to go, I'm tired of this shit, right.
28:04
Speaker 4: I'm tired. He was tired. Imagine how tired you must
28:06
Speaker 4: to be. See people, I'm tired for listen to the
28:08
Speaker 4: damn story.
28:09
Speaker 3: And you know a lot of people don't really take
28:11
Speaker 3: into account how something this match affects so especially I
28:16
Speaker 3: mean personally for me, how much all of this, even
28:18
Speaker 3: from seventeen all the way up to this point, on
28:21
Speaker 3: what I had to deal with as a person, as
28:24
Speaker 3: a as a young man, and to deal with this
28:27
Speaker 3: environment and to deal with the pain and separation and
28:30
Speaker 3: on that was separate from my family and had the
28:33
Speaker 3: hostility and environment had to survive and and keep my
28:37
Speaker 3: head together and hold on to hope, because you know
28:41
Speaker 3: that was you know, it was times I had to
28:42
Speaker 3: do a lot of depression. It was are the times
28:45
Speaker 3: I had to fight off, you know, saying a feeling
28:47
Speaker 3: that this was never going to end. I was always
28:49
Speaker 3: going to be in this situation that I was never
28:51
Speaker 3: going to be able to prove to anyone that I'm
28:54
Speaker 3: worthy or value someone to value me. I mean, it
28:58
Speaker 3: was so hard, you know what I'm saying, and dealing
29:01
Speaker 3: with disappointment over and over again too. I used to
29:05
Speaker 3: ask myself, am I addicted to disappointment? Because it started
29:08
Speaker 3: becoming to the point where I've started becoming desensitized, like
29:12
Speaker 3: I expected to be let down. It affected me in
29:15
Speaker 3: a way whereas though I know I felt that God
29:19
Speaker 3: has to be watching over me because the fact that
29:22
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not crazy at this point, because of
29:25
Speaker 3: the experience of having to fight off all these emotions
29:29
Speaker 3: of loneliness, the emotion of feeling powerless and just disenfranchised,
29:35
Speaker 3: and all these feelings you live with live with for years.
29:54
Speaker 5: Can you just give us some insight into what was
29:57
Speaker 5: the worst and the best experience you had during your
30:00
Speaker 5: seventeen years locked up in the miserable conditions that you
30:03
Speaker 5: were in.
30:06
Speaker 3: The worst experience was being placed in a position to
30:11
Speaker 3: have to plead guilty to a crime I didn't commit,
30:14
Speaker 3: along with being civilly committed in the facility where the
30:19
Speaker 3: stigma was horrible, and have to live under the stigma
30:23
Speaker 3: of in that environment and survived, and that such hard
30:28
Speaker 3: stigma being looked at and as someone who has those
30:32
Speaker 3: characteristics even though I didn't. The happiest moment that I
30:37
Speaker 3: had that kind of nullified kind of took takes and
30:41
Speaker 3: put her all that in this perspective was in the
30:44
Speaker 3: courtroom when the judge finally judged Sherry hutchs Henderson, when
30:49
Speaker 3: she finally got the DNA evident she needed from the
30:52
Speaker 3: state lab and she said to me, mister Robertson, she's apologized.
30:58
Speaker 3: Her apology was so heart felt of how she felt
31:01
Speaker 3: so bad that this happened to me. But when she
31:04
Speaker 3: said I'm reversing your conviction, my support so so it
31:08
Speaker 3: was like maybe thirteen people, my niece, my sister, a lady,
31:12
Speaker 3: my mother, and my friends. They bust out and like jubilate. Nah,
31:18
Speaker 3: it was so loud in the courtroom. You know, they
31:20
Speaker 3: was out there like they was having the Holy goes
31:22
Speaker 3: back there, like church was going on. And a judge
31:25
Speaker 3: she loud them to have that moment because that was
31:27
Speaker 3: their moment of vindication as well as mine, because they
31:30
Speaker 3: believe me, they still by all those years and they
31:32
Speaker 3: we knew it. And you know, I expected to turn
31:34
Speaker 3: around and see them road on the floor. But in
31:37
Speaker 3: that moment, I cried, I felt vindicated. I felt now
31:43
Speaker 3: you know, I was happy. I felt like something in
31:45
Speaker 3: my life just turned around. And in that moment, you know,
31:50
Speaker 3: hearing them cheering and empowered me. And I think, I
31:53
Speaker 3: know changed my whole walk at that point because I
31:57
Speaker 3: went back and because I had to go back to
31:59
Speaker 3: the civil commitments be released from there. But I had
32:01
Speaker 3: that George Jefferson walk. You know what I'm saying, I'm
32:05
Speaker 3: walking on like George Jefferson. Now, you know. So I
32:11
Speaker 3: was so that I made that experience right there. It
32:14
Speaker 3: was the happiest moment in my life. You know, I'm
32:16
Speaker 3: that courtroom experience. I just cannot ever erase that from
32:20
Speaker 3: my mind and heart. How wrong that made me feel
32:23
Speaker 3: doing A judge said that and hear my family and
32:25
Speaker 3: everyone that loved me just so happy to hear it
32:29
Speaker 3: and know they was right because they went through a
32:31
Speaker 3: lot of turmoil and kind of visit and being discriminated
32:35
Speaker 3: against and coming inside and look down upon, like you
32:38
Speaker 3: supporting this guy and this kind of with this kind
32:41
Speaker 3: of person, with this kind of charge, and they had
32:43
Speaker 3: to go through all that and and do it and
32:46
Speaker 3: now to find and see that they were right and
32:48
Speaker 3: had that moment where they were like elate and such.
32:51
Speaker 3: That moment, like I said, gave me that George Jefferson consence.
32:55
Speaker 3: I was walking back, everybody looking at him like I
32:57
Speaker 3: was a new guy, Like look at this guy, who
32:59
Speaker 3: is this guy here?
33:00
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's amazing.
33:02
Speaker 5: And obviously no one can understand that feeling that hasn't
33:05
Speaker 5: been through it, but you're painting a very vivid picture
33:08
Speaker 5: and making I'm sure everyone that's listening feel that the
33:11
Speaker 5: little piece of that joy that you had and that
33:13
Speaker 5: indication and that feeling when you were enduring. And it's
33:18
Speaker 5: so crazy. I was just thinking about the timeline of
33:20
Speaker 5: your life, right, seventeen years, then five years in prison,
33:24
Speaker 5: then seven years out, then seventeen years. It's really a
33:28
Speaker 5: crazy roller coaster ride that's impossible for anyone to understand
33:32
Speaker 5: who hasn't lived it. And it's sort of a miracle
33:34
Speaker 5: that you're here, and it's really inspiring just to hear
33:36
Speaker 5: you talk and see the way you are. So I
33:39
Speaker 5: I want to ask you when you were when you
33:41
Speaker 5: were locked up, was there any particular person that gave
33:45
Speaker 5: you hope, that gave you strength.
33:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, at that time I had a support system. Her
33:50
Speaker 3: name was Linda, Linda Roberts. At this point, she was
33:52
Speaker 3: very strong in my life. Then I have a strong
33:55
Speaker 3: support system analysis hopen home with. Her name is Tulita James,
33:59
Speaker 3: we call her. So there was an adjustment process. But
34:03
Speaker 3: the one person who kept me moving when I was seventeen,
34:07
Speaker 3: the judge asked me, and this is the orange record,
34:09
Speaker 3: the judge said before he sentenced me, because I was
34:12
Speaker 3: schedule to be sentence so higher sentence. But he asked me, said,
34:15
Speaker 3: is there anything you want to say?
34:16
Speaker 4: Young man?
34:18
Speaker 3: So I turned to my mother, who was crying and
34:21
Speaker 3: who I was hurting so bad because I'm her youngest son,
34:24
Speaker 3: and she just knew that this was wrong. And I
34:26
Speaker 3: said to my mother, no matter what, I'm not gonna
34:29
Speaker 3: let this destroy me. I'm gonna do the best I could.
34:33
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, and that I'm gonna hold on. And I
34:36
Speaker 3: talked to my mother in the courtroom, and everyone was
34:39
Speaker 3: amazed to see me and my mother at this time
34:41
Speaker 3: having this back and forth discussion because she was saying,
34:44
Speaker 3: hold on, I'm just keep in prayer and in the courtroom,
34:48
Speaker 3: and that conversation has been my mantra for all these
34:52
Speaker 3: years to tell her, let my mother know that no
34:55
Speaker 3: matter what what she instilled in me as her son
34:59
Speaker 3: and my father, but my mother, what she put in
35:00
Speaker 3: me was nothing was never going to tear that down
35:04
Speaker 3: and moral compass that she instilled in me to find
35:07
Speaker 3: my way back to right. It's never going to be
35:10
Speaker 3: taken out. And that has been my rock. My mother,
35:15
Speaker 3: She's my she and she continues to be and she
35:17
Speaker 3: will always be that my moral conference. She is my
35:21
Speaker 3: north star.
35:22
Speaker 4: She sounds like an extraordinary.
35:23
Speaker 3: She's eighty five and she can't tell her she's not fifty.
35:28
Speaker 3: And I love her. She's my strength, and she knows
35:31
Speaker 3: what she is and I just cannot get enough of her.
35:34
Speaker 3: So I adore her and she knows it, you know.
35:36
Speaker 5: So it's so important and you just heard from Rodney
35:40
Speaker 5: that that connection remains intact between families, so between loved
35:43
Speaker 5: ones and people who are incarcerated. And you know, in
35:46
Speaker 5: this country we have such a crazy system where inmates
35:50
Speaker 5: are charged. Incarcerated people are charged five to ten times
35:53
Speaker 5: as much for collect calls, which is insane.
35:57
Speaker 4: Now they're moving away from in.
35:58
Speaker 5: Person visits and certain st where they're changing it to
36:01
Speaker 5: where you're going to get an iPad and you get
36:02
Speaker 5: to talk to your family members on the iPad, and
36:05
Speaker 5: it's like, I mean, we're just we're going in the
36:08
Speaker 5: wrong direction.
36:09
Speaker 4: In a lot of ways.
36:09
Speaker 5: Criminal justice system is being reformed in good ways now,
36:12
Speaker 5: but in that way, it just doesn't make any sense
36:14
Speaker 5: because we just heard it directly from you. It's so
36:16
Speaker 5: important to maintain that to keep that hope alive and
36:19
Speaker 5: to keep that connection strong, not just for you, but
36:21
Speaker 5: for your children or your mother or whatever relatives are
36:24
Speaker 5: on the outside that I love you and care about you.
36:26
Speaker 5: So while you were locked up the second time, were
36:29
Speaker 5: you able to maintain a relationship with your son?
36:32
Speaker 4: And how is that now?
36:34
Speaker 3: Well, my son is an amazing young man. Even what
36:37
Speaker 3: he's been doing with me out his life, he's growing
36:40
Speaker 3: to be a very strong young man. He's maybe six five,
36:44
Speaker 3: maybe two ninety. You know, he's a big guy, you
36:47
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, very mild man, a very religious,
36:52
Speaker 3: never been involved in the law. You know. It doesn't
36:54
Speaker 3: drink or hang out anything, works, goes to church. I
36:58
Speaker 3: love who he's become all my time his absence. One
37:01
Speaker 3: thing that we always had that kept us together was
37:04
Speaker 3: we had a passion for reading. I told him how
37:07
Speaker 3: to read, basically, and he would get on the phone
37:10
Speaker 3: and he would read to me and actually, freaking we
37:13
Speaker 3: learned how to read together, do comic books. I would
37:16
Speaker 3: buy comic books and I would buy him one. I'd
37:18
Speaker 3: buy me one and I would reading and he would
37:20
Speaker 3: read it, and we would talk about the comic books.
37:23
Speaker 3: And that's how we develop our relationship to reading. And
37:27
Speaker 3: to this day we still talk about comic books. Even
37:29
Speaker 3: we're both so amazed at the new Marvel movies. We
37:32
Speaker 3: run to see him together because we read about him
37:35
Speaker 3: all his life and me all my life.
37:36
Speaker 4: Really, and you have a lady in your life now, yes, I.
37:39
Speaker 3: Do, a beautiful young lady who has been patient with
37:42
Speaker 3: me even all my adjustment and Talada James Della James,
37:46
Speaker 3: who has dealt with ups and downs with myself and herself,
37:49
Speaker 3: and we struggled together, and I appreciate everything she's done
37:53
Speaker 3: for me and with me and to me. It helped
37:56
Speaker 3: me become a stronger man in my adjustment process.
37:59
Speaker 5: Friday's sharp dress guy was complimenting him before on his shoes.
38:02
Speaker 5: He's got a nice, beautiful Chris White shirt. And he
38:04
Speaker 5: told me, actually the credible laws to her.
38:06
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean, I don't even pick my own clothes.
38:10
Speaker 3: I go in the store and I picked something up
38:11
Speaker 3: and she ignores it. So then what you know, she
38:15
Speaker 3: even because I came home I was like two ninety
38:18
Speaker 3: myself and wait, she helped me even in my healthier eating,
38:22
Speaker 3: you know, working out. I mean, there has been an
38:25
Speaker 3: adjustment process with her there in my life, and I
38:28
Speaker 3: only pray that I contributed something strong to her life
38:31
Speaker 3: through my strength frame to her that makes her know
38:34
Speaker 3: that there's always in resilience and we could come back
38:38
Speaker 3: from anything, you know, saying nothing this overwhelming in life
38:41
Speaker 3: that you can't start all over and be strong through.
38:44
Speaker 3: So I'm hoping that my experiences and hussying me what
38:47
Speaker 3: I've been through and still being strong enough man to
38:50
Speaker 3: make her want to love me has contributed to her
38:53
Speaker 3: life as well. And with that, you know, I have
38:55
Speaker 3: six sisters to one path away, my younger sister sharing.
38:59
Speaker 3: But there's oh and they they're like parole officers, you know.
39:03
Speaker 3: They I have checking with them, and if I was
39:05
Speaker 3: checking with them, there's a so yeah. So I I
39:09
Speaker 3: have some strong, beautiful women in my life that really
39:14
Speaker 3: supervised me, so to speak, and take care of me
39:16
Speaker 3: and help me along the way. And I think this
39:18
Speaker 3: made me a much stronger man and much confident man
39:21
Speaker 3: as well. I came home this time, and I was
39:24
Speaker 3: blessed to come home this time, and I say to myself,
39:27
Speaker 3: I'm able to talk about these feelings, but feeling them
39:30
Speaker 3: at the moment was was like so sad for me.
39:34
Speaker 3: I used to have moments where I would be sad
39:36
Speaker 3: for like days and I'd be like, pull myself. I
39:39
Speaker 3: we gonna come on, you gotta pull yourself out of this.
39:41
Speaker 3: I used to have to coach myself and give myself
39:45
Speaker 3: pep talk sober and come on, man, you people like
39:48
Speaker 3: you over there talking to yourself again. I'm like, listen,
39:50
Speaker 3: this is the best conversation I've had all day and
39:53
Speaker 3: you know, you pulled myself out of stage of what
39:56
Speaker 3: I just felt like. It was so much overwhelming. You know,
40:00
Speaker 3: really can't begin to tell all the years because we're
40:04
Speaker 3: talking about since seventeen and then now and how much
40:09
Speaker 3: suffering it felt like. I mean, I feel And that's
40:11
Speaker 3: why today I advocate because I can identify with suffering.
40:16
Speaker 3: You know, I don't like to see anything suffering, and
40:20
Speaker 3: that's from animals to people, to the plans to anything,
40:23
Speaker 3: because I know what it feels like to suffer. I
40:26
Speaker 3: know it feels like to be put in a position
40:28
Speaker 3: that you know, where you're just hurting inside emotionally and psychologically,
40:32
Speaker 3: that you just want some help from somewhere, you know.
40:36
Speaker 3: And that's why I stand today, because I just want
40:39
Speaker 3: to be that for someone who may feel hopeless and
40:42
Speaker 3: feel like there's knowing. The Navy they see me and
40:44
Speaker 3: they say, you know, this guy, you know's just just
40:47
Speaker 3: someone out there that understands and cares because I felt
40:50
Speaker 3: there was knowing. As a result. Now I just started
40:53
Speaker 3: the Rodney Robbers Foundation.
40:54
Speaker 4: Oh tell me about that.
40:56
Speaker 3: What I offer is the one thing that most in
40:59
Speaker 3: the viduals who have been wrong for convicted and not
41:02
Speaker 3: just wrong for convicted, but particularly the wrong for convicted,
41:05
Speaker 3: but individuals who've come home and feel as there's no
41:09
Speaker 3: one to connect with because in the wrong for convision
41:11
Speaker 3: community the one thing we don't have. No state has
41:14
Speaker 3: an agency that provides housing, work assistance, counseling. No state
41:21
Speaker 3: has that. So you would let come home and there's
41:23
Speaker 3: no way for you to turn because some states made
41:25
Speaker 3: me feel they don't make that answer. You have nowhere
41:27
Speaker 3: to go to, so you have no opportunities there. Myself,
41:31
Speaker 3: when I came home, I had to compete with my
41:34
Speaker 3: counterparts with gods on parole, probation for jobs and training
41:38
Speaker 3: and treatment. And I'm going in and saying, look, I'm innocent.
41:40
Speaker 3: I was just exonerated, and employees like, listen, hey man,
41:43
Speaker 3: that's a great story. We think, but we're in the
41:46
Speaker 3: money making business, and we would rather hire a god
41:48
Speaker 3: on parole because we could tax deductions for them. Hey.
41:52
Speaker 3: One playee told me, he's like, well, I could tax
41:54
Speaker 3: the duction behind guys and parole. He was like, you
41:56
Speaker 3: a great guy. I'm sorry what happened to you, but
41:58
Speaker 3: I had to hire this guy. Plus you can on
42:00
Speaker 3: seventeen years, so we don't know, so I was left
42:02
Speaker 3: in a void, and so I had to literally create
42:06
Speaker 3: a job for myself. I had to literally create an
42:08
Speaker 3: opportunity for myself by taking that frustration that of being denied,
42:13
Speaker 3: have no place to fit in, and taking the passion
42:17
Speaker 3: that I have to advocate against this injustice, prosecutory misconduct
42:22
Speaker 3: and inefectious accounts of course play agreements. And I started
42:26
Speaker 3: talking about it on a basis where people started listening
42:29
Speaker 3: and saying, you know what, we like what he's saying
42:32
Speaker 3: because he's is relevant, it's right on time, and we
42:35
Speaker 3: think there needs to be heard. And I was brought
42:38
Speaker 3: into like a organization like the Innocent Project, who will
42:41
Speaker 3: give me assignments and say, Ronnie Gore, who you work
42:44
Speaker 3: with us and speak here. We can help you with
42:47
Speaker 3: a little conversation here. And that grew into me working
42:51
Speaker 3: closely with them, and me making the commercials with them,
42:54
Speaker 3: and me doing other work with them. And Jeffrey Desker
42:58
Speaker 3: had the Jeffrey Desker found brought me in and helped
43:02
Speaker 3: me school me in a way with you know, this
43:04
Speaker 3: is what you need to be saying, and this is
43:06
Speaker 3: how you should present and this is we're gonna give
43:08
Speaker 3: you this little space here. So the Rodney Roberts Foundation
43:13
Speaker 3: is a representation of all that experience. What I want
43:16
Speaker 3: to do is I want to give an opportunity for
43:18
Speaker 3: those who have been wrong, for the convicted to be
43:21
Speaker 3: able to reach out that's currently incarcerated to reach out,
43:25
Speaker 3: so in New Jersey because New Jersey is far behind
43:28
Speaker 3: and everything what comes wrong for convicted, even currently saying
43:31
Speaker 3: legislation is being challenged now. But I want to be
43:34
Speaker 3: that help with with job placement, help fund housing, help
43:39
Speaker 3: with counseling, which is most important, which even myself after
43:43
Speaker 3: all these years, is an important feature, even for myself,
43:47
Speaker 3: to help with counseling, to help with reconnecting those with
43:50
Speaker 3: their families, because the one group that suffers the most
43:54
Speaker 3: and most is the family. They see the person locked up,
43:57
Speaker 3: but once a family members locked up, the whole family
44:00
Speaker 3: is basically locked up and so a degree because they
44:03
Speaker 3: can't stop being connected with their love one, so they
44:06
Speaker 3: suffer as well. And they the families have to also
44:09
Speaker 3: be educated on what's necessary to help this person reintegrate
44:13
Speaker 3: and what's to look for and what characteristics to look
44:16
Speaker 3: for when you see a person slipping leaves the recidivism
44:21
Speaker 3: and when you see signs of depression or feeling and hopeless.
44:24
Speaker 3: So the Rodney Robins Foundation has multifacts in that level
44:29
Speaker 3: and also with the public speaking aspect as well. Right now,
44:33
Speaker 3: I have the Rodney Roys Foundation, I have what I'm doing.
44:35
Speaker 3: I have a go fund account that I'm trying to
44:38
Speaker 3: raise money now to create a platform to bring people
44:41
Speaker 3: in like get a staff. That's my goal is to
44:43
Speaker 3: have a staff and a permanent location and office in
44:46
Speaker 3: New Jersey where and I'm growing from there and have
44:49
Speaker 3: my email set up Rodney Roberts Foundation ninety six at
44:52
Speaker 3: gmail dot com and also the Rodney Robins Foundation. What
44:56
Speaker 3: we're gonna do also, we're gonna collaborate with other organizations
44:59
Speaker 3: to fight against wrong who Convictions, Prosecutorium's conduct Ineffectual Accouncil.
45:04
Speaker 3: We're gonna try to grow in that degree. Right now,
45:07
Speaker 3: I don't want to put the bugget before the horse
45:08
Speaker 3: because I'm not elevated to that level. You have to
45:11
Speaker 3: be as prestigious as some of the organizations that they're
45:14
Speaker 3: book cold on because I'm on my way. I'm headed
45:18
Speaker 3: in the right direction and with the passion and ideas
45:21
Speaker 3: and energy and I'm headed there and I'm gonna build
45:26
Speaker 3: and have someone so when everyone New Jersey and worldwide
45:30
Speaker 3: can connect to also.
45:31
Speaker 5: And that's really exciting that you're doing that. I think
45:33
Speaker 5: we're gonna make a big difference in a lot of
45:34
Speaker 5: people's lives. What can people do? Obviously, I hope people
45:39
Speaker 5: will support join me and support it, because I'm going
45:41
Speaker 5: to support you in the Roddy Roberts Foundation. But what
45:44
Speaker 5: else can people do?
45:46
Speaker 3: Well? I think particularly their loved one isn't gold how
45:49
Speaker 3: close they are. If it's a family member that you're
45:52
Speaker 3: directly related to close with the first thing you need
45:55
Speaker 3: to reach out to their attorney, find out who the
45:58
Speaker 3: attorney is, who's representing them, and get their discoveries, get
46:02
Speaker 3: whatever paperwork or those documents they have. Get familiar with
46:06
Speaker 3: what the record says yourself and try to understand that
46:10
Speaker 3: because the first thing you had to do is educate yourself,
46:13
Speaker 3: because most time we rely on hearsay what this attorney
46:18
Speaker 3: says or this person says, and that could be misleading.
46:21
Speaker 3: If you are in a position to find out yourself,
46:24
Speaker 3: you could read through their paperwork, their discoveries and decipher
46:28
Speaker 3: what's being said or do not help the family member
46:31
Speaker 3: understand exactly what's being charged and how to approach the situation. Secondly,
46:37
Speaker 3: just a visit, a card, a letter. At some point,
46:42
Speaker 3: take some time out to show that person that they're
46:45
Speaker 3: not forgotten and that strength is the person. You don't
46:48
Speaker 3: know how much it feels good to sit there and
46:51
Speaker 3: then hear when they do a mail call and you're
46:53
Speaker 3: waiting and you hear everybody else's name call, and your
46:56
Speaker 3: name and not call over and over. Then one day
46:58
Speaker 3: you hear your name. Oh if you run to get
47:01
Speaker 3: this letter, because now you know someone out there has
47:04
Speaker 3: reached back inside. So even that something as simple as
47:08
Speaker 3: that is major or something. And understand that when a
47:11
Speaker 3: person is released and they come home, they're going through
47:14
Speaker 3: a sort of a culture shock or a reverse culture shock.
47:17
Speaker 3: They're going through a process where they released from one
47:19
Speaker 3: environment to another, and this change they have to unlearn
47:24
Speaker 3: what they just learned, you know, and to relearn what
47:26
Speaker 3: they already knew about how the interact and society. You're
47:29
Speaker 3: talking about people who are a person who just went
47:32
Speaker 3: through a prison experience and where they had to begin
47:35
Speaker 3: a controlled environment where they had to stand in line
47:38
Speaker 3: and eat and had eaten a certain period of time,
47:41
Speaker 3: and you know, these things are built into you when
47:43
Speaker 3: they do the same repetitive thing over and over again.
47:46
Speaker 3: Become institutionalized. Now you have to come home into a
47:49
Speaker 3: new environment and the shock of that, which is you know,
47:52
Speaker 3: just culture shock because you really unlearn all this and
47:56
Speaker 3: then to readjust yourself back to being free. I understand
48:01
Speaker 3: that that process is not it's easy, even if the
48:03
Speaker 3: person makes it look easy. It's not easy. There. There's
48:07
Speaker 3: a pretend there because this affects anyone that's been locked
48:10
Speaker 3: up in a long period of time. So make sure
48:12
Speaker 3: to give them enough cushions so that they can have
48:15
Speaker 3: those moments. Well, but you may see, like like myself,
48:19
Speaker 3: you know, when I first came home, you know, because
48:22
Speaker 3: in the prison, you go to take a shower, you
48:24
Speaker 3: take a shower, you're underwear, and you watch it. When
48:27
Speaker 3: I went home, came home, I went to shot money
48:29
Speaker 3: and the lady like, what are you doing so? And
48:33
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't want to watch you like listen,
48:35
Speaker 3: you're not there, and so you know, so I know,
48:37
Speaker 3: So you look for little sounds like that where they're
48:40
Speaker 3: sitting at the table and they take this poon and
48:42
Speaker 3: put it inside the cup and you're You're like, what
48:44
Speaker 3: are you doing? You know, it's a little jail house
48:47
Speaker 3: things that people have to shed and little psychological things
48:51
Speaker 3: that people may do. Have a little more patience with
48:55
Speaker 3: the love one.
48:56
Speaker 5: I want to I want to reinforce one point that
48:58
Speaker 5: you made which is so powerful and I'm glad said it,
49:00
Speaker 5: which is that it's so important that people understand that
49:04
Speaker 5: just because your loved one or even you have a lawyer,
49:08
Speaker 5: doesn't mean that lawyer is doing a great job. Even
49:11
Speaker 5: the best intentions. Sometimes in the court system, which we
49:13
Speaker 5: know is not always the best attention, but mistakes are made.
49:16
Speaker 5: So even if you have a good defense lawyer, they
49:18
Speaker 5: might be going through something in their life. They might
49:20
Speaker 5: miss a detail. So if you have that opportunity to
49:23
Speaker 5: be able to read those papers and those transcripts, you
49:25
Speaker 5: might be able to find that piece of evidence or
49:28
Speaker 5: that legal principle that might help yourself or your loved one,
49:32
Speaker 5: and you can present that to your lawyer and they
49:34
Speaker 5: may have missed it. And so that's such a great
49:36
Speaker 5: point that you brought up. And now, Ronnie, we have
49:38
Speaker 5: a tradition on wrongful conviction, which is that I like
49:42
Speaker 5: to just sit here and listen and let you talk
49:46
Speaker 5: about anything you think you may have left out. You know,
49:48
Speaker 5: you got so much, so much knowledge. It's so much
49:51
Speaker 5: hard and so much to share. So I just want
49:52
Speaker 5: to give you a chance to just say anything at
49:55
Speaker 5: all that you want.
49:57
Speaker 3: Wow, ain't you know, even given that opportunity, I once
50:03
Speaker 3: read that it says that ammire a person who's been
50:07
Speaker 3: through hell and came out, but takes buckets of water
50:11
Speaker 3: back to those who are there. And even this moment,
50:14
Speaker 3: I still want to hold dear to my passion to
50:18
Speaker 3: try to reach out to others as well. And at
50:22
Speaker 3: this point, through the Rodney Roberts Foundation, I'm just trying
50:25
Speaker 3: to buy a bigger bucket because I went back, I
50:27
Speaker 3: took buckets there, and I found out that my buckets
50:29
Speaker 3: need to be a little bit bigger to provide more
50:32
Speaker 3: service to a larger group of people. And just that,
50:36
Speaker 3: just you know, I want to continue to stay close
50:40
Speaker 3: to the front line and stay close to you know,
50:45
Speaker 3: fighting alongside the champions such as yourself and others, and
50:50
Speaker 3: trying to expose something in this country that has becoming
50:53
Speaker 3: a phenomenon now is why it's wrong for convision and
50:57
Speaker 3: prostitutory in WISCONDA and ineffects us AC counsels and continue
51:01
Speaker 3: to be on a positive path and a productive path.
51:04
Speaker 3: And I can make myself and my mother and my
51:08
Speaker 3: loved ones proud to proud of me and proud to
51:11
Speaker 3: be associated with me. So that's it for me.
51:14
Speaker 5: Well, for anyone who's listening, you've now heard the extraordinary
51:18
Speaker 5: saga and the equally extraordinary spirit of Rodney Roberts. I
51:22
Speaker 5: hope you'll consider donating to the Rodney Roberts Foundation. For
51:25
Speaker 5: every dollar that anyone donates myself and Wrongful Conviction, we
51:29
Speaker 5: will match up to ten thousand dollars, so we'll get
51:33
Speaker 5: you off to a good start there, and we'll be
51:35
Speaker 5: very proud to continue to support you as you do
51:38
Speaker 5: this amazing life saving work. And I'm just really, I'm
51:42
Speaker 5: just proud to know you and happy to call you
51:44
Speaker 5: a friend. And I appreciate you coming on and sharing
51:47
Speaker 5: your experience, strength and wisdom with our audience. And I
51:51
Speaker 5: want to thank you again, Rodney, and you've been listening
51:54
Speaker 5: to a very unique and tremendous episode of wrongful Conviction.
52:00
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you.
52:08
Speaker 5: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
52:10
Speaker 5: get your podcasts.
52:11
Speaker 4: It really helps.
52:13
Speaker 5: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
52:16
Speaker 5: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
52:18
Speaker 5: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
52:22
Speaker 5: to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
52:26
Speaker 5: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
52:29
Speaker 5: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
52:31
Speaker 5: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
52:35
Speaker 5: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
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Speaker 5: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
52:43
Speaker 5: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
52:46
Speaker 5: with Signal Company Number one