September 24, 2018 • 61 mins
Noura Jackson was egregiously framed and wrongfully convicted of murdering her mother, Jennifer Jackson, in Memphis, TN in 2005. Amazingly, she spent over three years in jail awaiting trial before being sentenced to 20 years and nine months in prison. No physical evidence linked Noura to the murder, and DNA testing not only excluded her as a suspect, but it also suggested that two or three different people were present at the crime scene. The Supreme Court of Tennessee overturned her conviction unanimously in 2014, and in their 5-0 decision, they made strong statements about the misconduct that took place during her trial. The prosecutors threatened to retry Noura, and she was faced with little choice but to accept an Alford Plea in 2015. Noura Jackson was then sent back to prison for 15 months before she was finally released in 2016, after serving 11 years in prison. She is joined by one of her lawyers, Bryce Benjet, Senior Staff Attorney at the Innocence Project, in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Norah Jackson is an extraordinary person who has been through
an ordeal that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy,
as you know for listening to her episode that originally
aired in November of two thousand seventeen. Nora was wrongly
convicted of the murder of her mother. Both of her
parents were murdered and she was left an orphan with
(00:25):
no brothers and sisters when she was wrongfully convicted and
ended up serving eleven years in prison. Of course, the
Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously overturned her conviction and set in
there ruling that the prosecutors head lied and cheated and
broken so many rules there were too many to count,
too many examples of prosecutorial misconduct too good into in
(00:47):
one recording. Norah. The good news is since the episode aired,
she's moved from Tennessee to New York. She now lives
in Brooklyn, and she is a sophomore in college. The
thirty two. Her freshman year, she achieved at three point
six seven g p A. I know she's going to
improve on it. This year. She started in an organization
(01:10):
called Meet Your Mentor, and she is working with some
other incredible dynamic women Um, Sarah Raphold, Stacy Ryan, and others,
and Meet Your Mentor is an organization that is dedicated
to helping AX Honorees formally incarcerated people get back on
their feet and get a fresh start. Nora is a
(01:31):
hero of mine and I'm super proud of everything she's doing.
I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was
naive enough to believe that I would be able to
just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that
(01:52):
they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be
going to prison because I was a good person. I
hadn't do anything wrong. In the back of your mind,
you say, well, when we go to a hearing, we
go to court, the truth will come out the prosecution
from day one, kneo I was innocent, and let forth
testimony go uncorrected from the lower courts all the way
up to United States Supreme Court. You have someone with
(02:17):
a badge with ultimate and really, in that moment unchecked authority.
Don't presume that people are guilty when you see him
on TV, because it may just be a dirty d
eight that is trying to rise upward. Welcome back to
wrong for conviction. I am particularly honored actually today to
(02:39):
have in the studio Nora Jackson. Nora Jackson was convicted
in two thousand nine of killing her mother. Jackson was
eighteen when her mother, Jennifer Jackson, was found murdered stabbed
at least fifty times in the bedroom over East Memphis home.
In two thousand nine, a jury convicted Jackson of second
degree murder. Nora Jackson has maintained her in a sit
(03:00):
In two thousand fourteen, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the
conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct and ordered a new trial,
claiming the lead prosecutor, now District Attorney Amy Wyree withheld
a witness statement from the defense. Stephen Jones, is facing
missconduct charges for not turning over a key witness statement.
District Attorney Amy Wyrick also is facing misconduct charges connected
(03:24):
to the case. In Jackson's attorneys accepted a plea deal
of voluntary manslaughter from prosecutors, avoiding a potentially lengthy new trial.
She could have fought for another ten years on principle,
I don't know anybody who would give up their thirties
for principle. Nora Jackson is officially a free woman today. Nora,
(03:46):
welcome to the show. Thank you, and we have with
you Bryce ben Jet, your lawyer from the Innocens Project,
and Bryce, welcome to you too. Glad to be here.
This story just really shocked my conscience and you lived
through it unfortunately. Yeah, there were times when I didn't
know if I would make it to the other side,
but here I am. No, or let's go back too.
(04:10):
Was there really not that long ago? I mean two
thousand and five you were you were still a teenager. Yeah,
I turned eighteen in March of two thousand and five,
so I was just at the age where you know,
there was no issue with them charging me as an adult, right,
Just another terrible circumstance of your case. And it started
with one of the worst things that anyone can experience,
(04:30):
which is the murder of your mother. And you had
already been through so much because your father was murdered
sixteen months earlier, correct, in January of two thousand and four.
But they weren't together, No, no, no, no, they weren't.
They weren't together. My parents had spiled up when I
was like eighteen months old, and they shared custody for
about eight years and then there was an eight year
period where I didn't see my father, and that's another
(04:53):
interesting story. Actually walked into a convenient store about a
year before he was killed and found him. So I've
lived with my mom on my entire life. So the
death of my father, it did really rock me, especially
since there was like that newfound relationship there with him.
But my mom was my rock. The death of my
mother's mother, my grandmother, was the first one that happened
(05:13):
in the summer of two thousand and three than the
death of my father in two thousand and four. And
then my best friend was actually killed in a car
wreck on the way to my house in January of
two thousand and five. So that was a really really
rough year for me, a really rough time, and my
mom was the one that was actually able to get
me through all that I had pulled back from a
(05:33):
lot of my friends. Anybody that has a single parent
will know that that relationship is kind of sacred. It's
totally different than if you're raised in a two parent
household and you were an only child as well. So yeah,
I can imagine that would create even a stronger bond
because there's there's no one else there's no buffer, right,
it's just you and your mom. And your mom Jennifer
Jackson was a successful banker as well, right investment. Yeah,
(05:56):
she was actually a broker. She worked in the stock market.
She was a bondsman, and she was very successful. And
she had actually just wanted a word about three months
before she was killed, and it was a really big deal.
They gave her like a gold bat for like a
heavy hitter because of all the money that she had
brought in. And I was her date for that. Actually.
So you have all of these successful bondsman's there with
their trophy wives and or their girlfriends, and you know,
(06:19):
my mom is like kind of like the star of
the evening and here she comes with her eighteen year
old daughters. So it was it was really really fun. Yeah,
it sounds like an awesome event, and she sounds like
an awesome woman. Um, it's worth noting that the murder
of your father went unsolved and still unsolved. Correct, It's
only worth noting and as it relates to this particular
case about your mom, because of the fact that there
(06:41):
could be some correlation. But let's go back to the
terrible night when this happened. So at that time. I
came home and retrospectively, I can look back and see
that there were signs that something bad had gone on
in my house that night. I walked into the kitchen
and I saw some broken glass on the floor, so
(07:01):
I looked up at the window. My mom had actually
broken into that same door once before when she had
lost her keys. There's a way to enter into our
garage from the backyard. We had a gate that went
into our backyard. Then you could go down the hallway
which led to our garage, and you could enter into
the kitchen through a side door in the garage. There
was no key to that door because there was a
(07:24):
latch actually in the middle pane. It would slide up
and slide over, and that's how you would enter into
the house, was through that latch. I remember having friends
over like all the time, and they kept like trying
to open the door because we had a fridge outside,
and like everybody was like, what is going on with
this door? And there's this like tiny little piece of
metal that would hinder you from going outside. So that's
what makes me feel like anybody that was involved in
(07:46):
anything that took place that night and killing my mom,
they had intimate knowledge of our house, but at the time,
it still didn't alarm me. What alarmed me was when
I got ready to go to my room, which was
across from my mom room, and the light was on
in the bedroom. The door was halfway open, so that's
what caused me to go into the bedroom and UM,
(08:07):
I saw my mom and UM, I'm sorry, take your time,
and UM, you know, I'm not really even sure of
what I remember. First is what I've heard along the way,
especially like from trial and transcripts and things like that.
(08:28):
But I do remember walking in and seeing her neckd
body on the floor and my first reaction was to
just pick her up, and she was so heavy, and
I'm looking and I don't even know if I registered
at the time. I must have. I mean, somebody gets shot,
you know, there's like a pool of blood. I don't
(08:48):
even remember there being a pool of blood. I remember
they're being blood everywhere, like on the sheets and even
on the walls, and I'm just like screaming, and then
I know I'm I wanted help, So I run across
the street and I go get a neighbor. And at
that point, I'm thinking about the broken glass and I'm like,
somebody broke into my house, and so he comes with me,
(09:09):
and I guess I run in the house in front
of him. That's what he said at trial, which they
inadvertently made a huge deal about. I didn't give a
funk who was in there. I knew a man was
behind me with a gun, and I knew my mom
was in there on the floor. That was like my life,
that was my cheerleader, that was my coach, and I
needed to get to her. And so I went back
in there, and Um, the neighbor across the street, I
(09:31):
think his girlfriend actually pulled me away from her and
told me to call it nine with one. So I
called nine one one, and I'm just I'm screaming. And
at one point they asked me if she had been shot,
and I said no. Um, but I just remember standing
out on that curb. You know, I watched plenty of
TV and I know that. You know, the evens he
(09:52):
goes inside and they bring the body out on the
gurney if it's going to go to the hospital, And
the gurney came out and nobody was on it, and
that's just when I lost it. They actually put me.
It's so ironic because it was like foreshadowing what was
going to happen. I was so uncontrollable trying to run
in the house. They put me in the back of
a cop car. One point, I don't even know what
(10:16):
to say. It's one thing that I say. I have
represent a number of people who have been convicted of
of a murder of a family member, and just to
have that trauma of of what you're talking about, and
then to be sort of re traumatized by being convicted
for it is is just unimaginable. And I think that police,
(10:40):
when they're faced with a situation where they don't know
who did it, rather than looking at the evidence, they
start looking at suspects, and they do these suspect driven
investigations where they look at the person and try to
make a case against the person, rather than looking at
the evidence and trying to follow where the evidence leads.
(11:01):
And the interesting and disgusting thing is that the day
of my mom's funeral, they had two detectives waiting on me.
My mom was killed on June five. June six, I
stayed with a family friend. June seven, my aunts came
into town and they tried to take me. I wouldn't
go with him. So June eighth, they came and got
me and they were like, you're coming with us. We
(11:21):
stayed downtown in a hotel room and they left me there.
They went somewhere and they left me there, and so
one of the people that attended our church came to
pick me up and she was like, why are you
by yourself? I was sitting on the curb. She was like,
you need help, Like, I'm gonna take you to see somebody.
So she takes me to a child psychologist and he's
talking to me and he was like, this girl is
in shock. She needs to be surrounded by people that
(11:45):
can pay attention to her and give her what she
needs and love, and they need to give her some
type of security. So my aunt's solution to that was
to take me to Lake Side, which is a behavioral
health center. So we go to Lakeside. I don't think
at the time I was really aware of the fact
that I was eighteen, so they couldn't put me in there.
(12:05):
So what they did was they told me we will
involuntarily commit you and it'll be a seventy two hour
mandatory minimum and you will miss your mom's funeral, so
they knew that I signed whatever they put in front
of me to go inside. So when I went inside,
I was there for two days, and then they were
supposed to pick me up for my mom's funeral. My
best friend that was killed. Her mom actually came up
there and brought me closed the night before. So I
(12:26):
just remember, like I'm sitting up there waiting on my
aunts to pick me up to what I know is
my mom's funeral. It's kind of morbid, like in my
dead best friend's clothes, and they're not there. So at
this point I began to like shred a whole box
of Kleenex, and then I began to freak out. We
didn't have access to phone, so my nurse starts to
call them. Nobody's answering, so then I really start to
(12:47):
freak out. So they give me a sedative, and when
my aunts get there, they're like, get in the car.
You know, it's not a big deal. You're not gonna
miss it. The show is not going to start without us,
like they referred to it as a show, and I
do remember of that. And so we're sitting at the
funeral and we leave. I don't even go to anything
that they have after the funeral, I'm I'm pretty sure
I heard that they had a reception. I didn't go.
(13:09):
They took me straight back to Lake Side. I walk
into the doors of Lake Side and I'll never forget.
My nurse's name was Chris, and I just really, really
really was clinging to her at that time because she
reminded me of my grandma, and she was like, baby,
She was like, I have to take you into the office.
You have some people here that want to talk to you.
I don't even know what I'm thinking, Like, maybe it's
(13:30):
like old friends, maybe it's a visit, maybe somebody's here
to see me. And I walk in and it's two
detectives with a camera and they hand over a piece
of paper and so at this point lake Side has
become very overprotective of me. They're reading the paper and
they were like, are you kidding me? Like you picked
this day of all days, and it's the Affidavid with
(13:51):
the warrant. It was very apparent that the attacker or
the killer was injured at the scene of the crime,
so they needed to photograph my body and its entirety
and get some or DNA, which I had already provided
the first day, and so they took my clothes off,
and I mean, if you look at these pictures, you
can tell whatever since that I had left at that
time left me. I just it was like out of body.
(14:14):
I couldn't. I could not cope with reality at that point,
and I had no choice but to go with it
because at this point I had nobody left. So I'm
taking off my clothes and they're photographing me, and I'm thinking, like,
I just wanted to lay down and die at that point,
I just I didn't. I didn't want to have the
(14:34):
wherewithal to continue. I'm just trying to process. Well, you
just told me, um, you were still, as you said,
a child. I mean, the idea that they would strip
you at that point, I mean, you're never even stripped
of everything except your dignity, and then they took that
away too. How how that's even possible? Is um hard
(14:56):
for me to process. You've no have been through everything
that a human being can possibly adore. You're not even
twenty years old yet, right, You're all alone in the world,
and how the fuck did you find the strength to persevere? Oh? Well,
my mom told me when my best friend a and
(15:16):
ide that grief is like Sarah, you know, that's the
name that she wanted to name me. And she was like,
you go through sadness, and then you go through anger,
and then you go through resentment, and then you go
through acceptance, and then you go through healing. And I
wanted to go through those things. So the anger is
what drove me. When I was first arrested, I remember
(15:38):
being in the jail, sitting on my bunk and watching
like everybody else in the pod of the jail, watched
the television where they were talking about eighteen year old
girl arrested for killing her mother who was stabbed over
fifty seven times. Prosecutors have not announced that they will
be seeking the death penalty. She has been charged with
first degree murder, which carries us and stuff life without parole,
(16:02):
life with parole, and even the death. But you know,
and it just was like going on and on, and
I remember sitting there thinking like, I wonder if they
will try to give me the death penalty. The constitution,
they guarantee the right to a speedy and fair trial.
That's what it says in black and white. But the
reality of the situation is you will sit there for
as long as they deemed necessary. Amy Wyrick was determined
(16:23):
to be my prosecutor. She was a death penalty lawyer,
and she was on what they used to refer to
as the death squad, which means that she was qualified
to trial death penalty cases. Amy went on on maternity leave.
Do you think that she handed the case over to
somebody else. No. I sat there and waited for her
to go on maternity leave, to have her child and
come back. Amy was determined to try that case. I
(16:47):
wasn't there, but it's pretty clear that she saw you
as a real stepping stone to where she wanted to
get to in her career. Correct. This was the biggest
and longest running case, with the most evidence in the
most exhibits and shelby counting history at the time. It
was very clear to her that this could be like
a career making case, especially if she got a conviction.
So she played like a win at all costs came
(17:08):
and you know, one of the things that Amy Wyrick
likes to hold onto and like she steadfast on, is
that we had forty witnesses. Okay, you did, but let's
look at what those forty witnesses presented. You had tb I,
the Tennessee Bear of Investigation, that testifies that the DNA
that they analyzed belonged to somebody else. You have Kirby McDonald,
(17:32):
Sophie Cooley, Perry Brassfield, Andrew Hammock, Joey McGough. You have
all of these children, because they're still children at the time,
testifying that I smoked pot and that I drank at
a party. But they were doing the same thing and
they're not on trial for killing anybody. That does not
make you a murderer. They made a big deal out
(17:52):
of the idea that you were this crazy druggie, right
when in fact you were a typical eighteen year old.
You're having, you know, some beer as you're smoking some pot.
That's what eighteen year olds do. You were no drug addict.
I'm a diabolical killer, and then I'm a pothead. I'm
someone that can totally get rid of any trace evidence
that made blood disappear off of clothes that they pulled
(18:12):
out the back of my car, Clothes that they had
that I had on that night that was able to
overtake a woman that was five eleven. I don't know,
like without she was on five three. She was an
avid runner, she worked out at the time. I was
a chubby, little pothead. Like, there's no my mom would
have kicked my ass any day of the week, you know,
And they said this, I mean, she fought for her life.
(18:33):
I mean, if you look at the pictures like she
she went down swinging, there's no way that anybody walked
away from their unscathed. And you know it's crazy, is that.
I know I remember like in situations where like I
was in danger and I know my mom. There's no
way my mom left this world willingly. You know, she
(18:54):
she took something from those people, whoever it was. So
that is what they use for the warrant for my body.
They you know, there would have been evidence of some
type of attacks, some type of fight. Of course there
would have been, and we know that your nails were
perfectly manicured, and there's just no way. And we know
this from dreams of evidence of cases throughout the years
(19:16):
that when somebody stabs somebody else numerous times, you always
leave blood because the thing gets slippery and you get
you know, and you cut yourself. So, Nora, there's a
very unique aspect to your prosecution, persecution, etcetera. Which I've
never heard before, which is the fact that the prosecution
(19:37):
made a big deal out of the fact that you
were wearing long sleeves. What difference did it make that
you were wearing or not wearing long sleeves, right, So
I think the theory that they adopted was that I
had on long sleeves because they said I was trying
to have the cut on my hand. I kind of
touched on the fact that I was a little bit
different with this single mother. But I was also different
because my father was Lebanese. I'm I racial, So that
(20:02):
was a really difficult thing for me, and it was
made even more difficult at a young age by my
mom's sisters because they constantly pointed it out. Growing up,
I always wanted to look like my mom because she
was like, she was so beautiful, and I just like
idolized her. I could never do that figure wise, Like
I said, you know, she was tall and very fit,
and I was shut and I was always kind of chubby.
(20:24):
But I would damn my hair, Like if you look
back at the pictures, all throughout my high school and
junior high, I died my hair blonde, because I felt
like if I died my hair blond, I would look
like more like my mom. I have really, really really
hairy arms, and that is my heritage, that is from
being Lebanese. So at that point in my life, I
thought different was bad, so I didn't want to be different,
(20:44):
So I tried to hide those differences, and it became
just kind of a thing. I mean, I was called natured,
but I think subconsciously it started off as being more
of like trying to mask the difference in me versus
other people. But let's also just examine the fact of
how ridiculous it is that you were wearing law sleeves
to hide the cuts on your hands. You would have
needed a mittens, right, That's what you needed, right. And
(21:06):
so all of this comes down to seeing every fact
through the prism of Norah's guilt. And once these investigators
decide who they think did it, they make everything fall
in line. And when they do that, they miss the
obvious evidence that shows that there was somebody else there.
(21:26):
There's somebody else's blood on the bed. Instead they're looking
at shirt sleeves, and that person is still free. All
of this goes back to the idea that they had
no evidence against you. There never was any evidence against you,
and the exculpatory evidence, I want to touch on that
for a second. To Stephen Jones, the assistant prosecutor in
the case, this motherfucker took evidence that he clearly knew
(21:52):
would have blown the case against you, right, which means
in English that he knew you were in sent But
this was an inconvenient truth. He somehow or other managed
to forget that there was a note which would have
totally blown to think to Smith means and then magically,
five days after the trial he remembers it, which leads
(22:15):
me to think that he started thinking after the trial
was over, well, I probably did something really wrong here.
If my attorney value quarter is nothing else. She is very,
very thorough. They knew that it would be found because
she was thorough, Valerie, she knew head on going into
(22:36):
this that these people were unethical. The prosecutor, Amy Wyrick,
had been censured numerous times for behavior not dissimilar to
what she did to you. She was promoted after the trial, right,
She's she's moved up in the world and brought some
of the detectives that were on the case up with her.
This woman sat there and said that DNA analysis was
(22:58):
not important. It is important in some cases, she said,
but it wasn't important in mind. But if you go
back to the very beginning, they use DNA as a
way to gain access to my body. They used all
of this stuff to get what they wanted, and when
the results came back then it wasn't relevant anymore. That
(23:19):
never really made sense to me. You have a warrant
that was issued in two thousand and five for a
person's body because you say an arrest cannot be made
in the case that's in June of two thousand and five.
An arrest cannot be made in this case without some
type of DNA or physical evidence. September twenty ninth, two
thousand and five, you arrest me. December of two thousand
(23:41):
and five, the Tennessee Beer of Investigations releases their findings
with the DNA analysis and it comes back as a
profile that it excludes me and excludes my mother. Do
you think that at any point they revisited the case,
they revisited the theory, They said, maybe we got this wrong.
We should let her go. Let's go back to the
drawing board, let's start over. No, it's I can't. I mean,
(24:04):
and I'm trying to. I can't obviously put myself in
your shoes. Nobody can. But the nightmare it's total. I mean,
the people who are supposed to be protecting you and
are supposed to be, you know, protecting society, are are
going so rogue. I really really have to point this out.
You have to have motive, means, and opportunity. That's the
three requirements when you're trying somebody for a case. So
(24:25):
their motive became money. There was no money. My father
ran a business that relied on cash, and some will
say that he ran an escort service. If anybody knows
anything about when you're doing legal activity, you don't put
that money in a bank account. It's not rain on books,
it's rain off books. Whatever was there. We saw a
(24:46):
person on video lifting cash out of a floor safe
that I didn't even know existed. By the time the
cops had released the keys to his house, it had
been ransacked. My father had ten thousand dollars in a
bank account, and my mom allowed me to make the
choice of what to do with that, and we used
that money and she ended up having to put like
another thousand dollars with it to send his body back
(25:08):
to Beiruts so he could be buried with my grandparents.
So there was no money. There was this big idea
that there was a fight over control of an estate
that did not exist, the idea that he had an
estate or he didn't even have a will, I mean,
there was there was nothing. So the whole theory of
the case was built around there was money that my
(25:30):
mom had that I could not have. Well, okay, let's
look at that too. I'm eighteen, so anything that existed
that she had by right would have gone to me.
Then they said that she wanted to send me away.
I'm eighteen. She can't send me away unless I choosed
to go. She could kick me out, but she can't
send me away. So this whole theory that I was
(25:51):
an out of control teenager that wanted some money that
didn't exist. I mean, it was like and what was
so frustrating to me, and I didn't know the time,
is that all of this could have been easily disproven,
but it wasn't. You didn't testify in your own case,
and this became a very important factor. Your attorney was
concerned that in your fragile state, which, by the way,
(26:13):
you're now an orphan. You've been in jail for three
and a half years. Your attorney made and what could
be deemed a rational decision to not have you testify
because on cross examination you could have broken down or
who knows. I mean, it turned out to be the
wrong decision, but you could sort of see where that
came from, right right. It's always a tough call because
you have this dynamic where the state has all the power.
(26:36):
They are the ones who create this narrative, and they've
got you on the stand. The judge is going to
let them ask all kinds of horrible questions, and there
is always a very delicate question about whether your client's
going to testify. And certainly nobody should ever think about
somebody not testifying, and that's an admission of guilt. Juries
(26:59):
are instructed about it. And in this case, the state
took that right that Nora has and reasonable decision. Every
single person has the right to say to the state,
I didn't do this crime, and there's no proof that
I did this crime, and I don't have to subject
myself to being attacked because of it. I mean, think
(27:21):
nor is they're sitting accused of the murder of her
own mother, traumatized for a second time, and is it
a reasonable decision to not allow yourself to be traumastized
for a third time where you're being accused of that murder.
On the stand that that's a reasonable decision under the circumstances,
(27:43):
So you have these rights. But here in the closing argument,
the prosecutor takes that and really comments on that and
invites the jury to and for guilt in ways that
is unconstitutional. Well, the prosecutor chose to basically excoriate and
more or less scream at you, demanding that you tell
(28:05):
her what had happened, which is not only wildly inappropriate,
but also patently illegal. Right, that's illegal behavior. You can't
do it. But she did it anyway. She had this goal, right,
she was gonna make it to where she had to
go by stepping on your neck. And that's exactly what
she did. And she was willing to not only bend
the rules, but break the rules and break the law.
(28:28):
And it's actually mind blowing in your case. I mean,
before she was able to finish it. Valerie Quarter, my
first attorney, she jumped up and you know at this point,
I'm I'm still like I just turned twenty one, and
I really didn't know a whole lot, but I knew
what she did right then and there, Like I was
about to jump out my seat and I was about
(28:48):
to say but you know, and my lawyer like put
my hand like this, and she jumped up and she
was like, you're all like, you know, I object and
all of that. The thing is is that her intention
was met. It was very, very very calculating what she did.
Jurors are your everyday people. The human condition is to
be curious. These people walked out of the jury box
(29:10):
with the last thing in their mind being just tell
us where you were, Nora. That's all we're asking. She
simplified it in a way like if you would have
just told us where you were, none of this would
be happening. So that's the last thing that these twelve
people hard when they walked out of that box. And
I'll tell you, as a as a lawyer, you know
(29:31):
that you're not allowed to do that. You are not
allowed to comment on a person testifying or not testifying
in that manner. And if a defense lawyer had done that,
they'd be in jail. It's their world. You're in it,
and they make the rules and they move the lines
when they want to do. And if you're a defense
attorney and you do something wrong, they'll have no fury.
(29:52):
If you're a prosecutor and you do something wrong, it
was a mistake, it was an inverted mistake. They didn't
mean to They're sorry. It won't happening in it. And
nor let me point out that the Fair Punishment Project
at Harvard, which is as blue chip of a panel
as you can have, there are literally legal luminaries on
that panel, and they just this year singled out Amy Wyrick,
(30:15):
the prosecutor in your case, for numerous allegations of misconduct
over the last several years. And yet there she is
serving an eight year term victimizing other people the same
way she did to you, and getting away with it. Yeah,
it's crazy. And she actually gave a statement when that
came out. She gave a statement, and she dismissed that
as easily as she dismissed the d n A m
(30:36):
AT case. Nor when you were at trial, obviously you
knew you were innocent, But now you've been incarcerated in
a horrendous jail situation for three and a half years,
(30:56):
which let's not forget at that point that's a big
percentage of your life. Was there a point during the
trial at which you said, WHOA, they may actually convict me, Like,
did you just expect that finally justice would be done
and that jury would rule in your favor going into trial.
I looked forward to it and I was looking for
(31:19):
my day in court, and I thought that justice would prevail,
and I believed all that during trial. It was like,
so when my mom was killed, it was a shock,
it was a trauma, but it's like it had the
advantage of like I didn't see it coming and I
was totally blindsided. Going to trial, I was reliving all
of that. I knew how horrible it was. I knew
(31:40):
how horrendous it was. I knew what it looked like,
I knew what she looked like, and I was faced
with all that again. So I think, like there were
points during the trial where I would literally like bite
the inside of my cheek at one point in bled
just because there were so many times I wanted to
open up my mouth and say something, whether it was
during testimony or at one point I wanted them to
just take the fucking pictures down, Like I didn't want
(32:02):
to see that. There my mom is neked and she
has been murdered, and it's just like there's a thousand
people in the courtroom, and I just I didn't want
to see it, and I didn't want anyone else to
see it. So I think subconsciously the first week, I
just was so focused on like trying to get up
and like make it through the next day. I'll never
forget this Saturday, because we went to trial on a Saturday.
(32:23):
It lasted like fourteen days, and that Saturday it was
Valentine's Day. And the only way I knew that is
because when they took me to the holding cell, no
one else was obviously going to court. It was Saturday,
so I was in the whole jail by myself, and
so they kept me in this little tiny holding cell
that normally they would have the men in during the week,
and one of the jailers had put a heart shaped
(32:45):
butterfinger in there for me to like acknowledge that it
was Valentine's Day, and I remember like getting that piece
of candy and realizing that it was Valentine's Day and
that that was a day that people recognized and like
that I wasn't even aware of what was going on,
you know, and that the only thing that I could
figure out was that today might be the day that
(33:07):
I found out what was going to happen with the
rest of my life. I think that not knowing was
the worst. And then we get to the point where
the prosecutor Wyrick violates your constitutional rights flagrantly by totally
disregarding her responsibility to not highlight or make an issue
(33:28):
out of the fact that you chose or your lawyer
actually advised you, and you chose not to testify your
own defense. And the jury goes out and then they
come back in, and that moment you knew when they
came back in, n you know, I almost feel like
I knew when Amy did that as they walked back in.
There was periods throughout that trial it was like a
fourteen day trial where when things are being discussed and
(33:51):
things were being said, the jury would look at me.
I mean, who wouldn't you know you're talking about this
person like they're not in the room, but the person
is in the room and they're just sitting there. So
periodically I would look even though my journeys kept telling
me not to. I would look at the jury and
there was this one guy with like reddish hair, and
he constantly, along with the woman next to him, made
(34:12):
eye contact with me throughout the trial. And when they
walked in his nose because he had red hair and
he was paler, I could tell that either he was
angry or he had been crying. And I looked at
him and he looked down. He wouldn't look at me,
and I knew right then. So you're convicted and sentenced
to twenty years and nine months in prison. You've already
(34:33):
been now in jail for three and a half years.
You go to prison, How did you deal with that?
You know? Prison? I talked about Sarah with you, and
prison was where I did like my anger, and then
I did my resentment and then my acceptance, and it
kind of armored me to go back out and fight again.
(34:54):
I was really broken when I got to prison. I
had totally lost faith in the justice system. That that's
when I really realized that the world was not fair,
that my mother's killer was walking around free, and that
people that said that they loved her didn't care. Because
to love my mother was to love me because I
was my mother, like we were a package deal, and
(35:16):
so I just I really couldn't believe when it happened,
Like I was really in a daze. So I go
to prison, and I'm very very very much to myself,
and I get involved in a lot of different activities.
So I go to this one seminar in the prison,
and they had assigned you to tables by stickers. While
(35:37):
I decided I didn't like the sticker that I had,
and I didn't like the table I had, and I
wanted to set at a different table. So I took
it upon myself to switch my sticker with somebody else
and moved myself. I'm not thinking anybody's paying attention. There's
like a hundred inmates in there. So the lady that's
the director of this program, she just keeps picking at me,
like the whole time that I'm in there, saying something
(35:57):
to me about changing my sticker, putting me by at
my table, and there was like another thing that she
did to me. So at the end of the seminar,
she's asking questions to give away prizes, and she has
something that was relevant to what one of the speakers said,
and she called on me. I guess she thought I
didn't know the answer, and I stood up and I
gave her the answer, probably in like the nicest, nastiest
way that you could. And at the end of the seminar,
(36:18):
she was like, I'm gonna be her on Wednesday to
talk to you, and I was just looking at her like,
and I'm not going to talk to you, Like I've
had so many people, I just at that point I
didn't want to talk to anyone. And her name was
pat Colp and she is the reason that I still
have my sanity. She runs an organization called Women Empowered
to Become Self Sufficient shortened its webs, and what she
(36:42):
does is she comes into the prison and she nurtures
the people that have longer sentences. So many of the
programs inside the prison are geared towards people that are
fast tracked for release. You know, they want to reduce
the rate of her cidivism theoretically, and they want to
provide entry for people that are closer to getting out.
(37:02):
So then you have someone like me with almost a
twenty one year sentence and I'm just at the back
of the bus because they're not worried about people like us.
Or my friends that have life, because they'll get to us.
When they get to us, we're gonna be there a while.
But then you have an amazing situation like might happen
where the Supreme Court overturns on my stuff and I
have the possibility of being thrown back out into society.
(37:22):
But I have no tools and no help because I've
been put at the back of the bus because of
my sentence. So Miss pat comes in, and she's so
important because she offers computer classes, how to write a resume,
thinking for a change, like things that people like me need,
(37:43):
but the prison doesn't, like they don't have anything for that.
She also does something called Winner Wonderland where it's like
for a whole week, I felt like I wasn't in prison.
I don't have any children. But what they do is
they turn the whole gym into the prison. They allow
people to go down there. If you don't have any children,
you get thirty dollars you're able to go down there.
(38:04):
And it's just something about being able to get like
something from the free world, a nice, real gift to
send to people that are on the outside, that are
taking care of you, that are coming to see you.
That are accepting your phone calls, that are sending you pictures.
To be able to be in prison and to give
something to somebody else, you know, when you're so locked
away from the world is the most amazing thing. And
(38:25):
then if you do have children on Saturday, your children
come in and you give your children Christmas. So it's
not in a visitation setting. It's not where you can't
hold your child, you can't feed your child, you can't
do any of that. These mothers get to have their
children from eight to three, open gifts with them, do
arts and crafts with them, hold them, if they need
(38:46):
to change their diaper, they can. You know, all of
the things that mothers want and need to do for
their children, and she enables that opportunity. So to be
a part of that was like the most amazing experience ever.
There was so much joy and at the same time,
like you open up the day and it's the most
beautiful thing you've ever seen for these women in prison
(39:09):
to be able to hold and have Christmas with their children.
And then it's the most heart wrenching thing you've seen
when these children have to walk out of the prison
away from their mothers. It will destroy your soul nour
then a miracle happens, literally a miracle, right, I mean,
because we know how rare it is for wrongful convictions
(39:31):
to be overturned, very rare in Tennessee, for the Supreme
Court of Tennessee to overturn a wrongful conviction. It's it's
it's a miracle, right. What was that day? Like it
was I'm actually on the toilet, going to the bathroom
watching TV and it just like so happens that my
roommates TV is on the lower stand and she had
(39:52):
it on mute. I think it was something good to
eat for dinner that night, So everybody else has like
gone to the chow ha and I eat what I
think is my name flash across the bottom of the screen,
Like you know how they have like the little title
at the bottom of whatever the news story is about. Well,
you get in trouble if you listen to your TV
without headphones in it. So we always have the close
(40:13):
caption on. So even if the mute is on, the
close caption is running, so the close caption is always
a little bit behind that. So I'm like, did I
just see my name? So I'm waiting for the close
caption to come on, and all I see is Nora
Jackson and I don't know if I saw reverse or
Supreme Court. So I was like, holy shit. So I
jump up and I changed the channel because we have
(40:33):
something called three dash two, which is like it just
runs the news over and over and over again. So
I'm sitting there and I'm like, you know what, Like
I get impatient. I'm like, I'm gonna go to news
channel five. I got a news Channel five. I wait
about two or three minutes it's on there, so I'm
screaming out. At the time, I lived around the corner
on the upper level of D South, which is like, um,
it's a pod that's away from the rest of the
(40:55):
prison because they have a dog program there, so I
think the officer was outside with the dog program, like
and I'm like screaming. I'm like, somebody let me out
of here. And I'm just so excited and I want
to tell my friends and they're they're gone to eat,
so I'm like waiting for them on the breezeway. I'm like,
guess what, and they're like what. I'm like, what would
be like the best thing that could ever happen to me?
(41:16):
And they were like, you know, you walk away and
you do this, and you do that, and I was like,
the Supreme Court just overturned my stuff, and we all
just started crying because the victory for me was a
victory for them, because it's hope. We haven't seen that
done before. I'm just gonna say that I don't remember
ever having a visual quite like you sitting on the
(41:36):
toilet while watching your own name scrolled across the screen
and then jumping around. I mean, you know, I know,
it's like I almost wanted to change the narrative just
because I'm like, I'm sitting on the toilet, but I
mean that's what happened. There's something symbolic about that. It
really is. I mean, the toilet is is perfect analogy
(41:58):
for this a lot of what's gone on here so
far as something else really dramatic about you having to
wait to be able to tell your friends. So the
Tennessee Supreme Court in a unanimous decision. I want to
emphasize that unanimous decision reverses your conviction and in the
strongest terms, condemns the conduct of the prosecutors, and anybody
(42:18):
listening is probably going okay, well, that's uh, that's a wrap, right,
Kase closed or is out. But that's not the end
of the story. And what we learned in these cases
is that having your conviction overturn doesn't mean that your indictment.
You know, your indictment still stands right, and the prosecutor
still has power to inflict harm on the person that's
(42:39):
in the cross hairs. Here in many cases they'll drop
the charges at that point because the conviction has been overturned,
and in this case by the Supreme Court, I mean
the highest court in Tennessee five zero, right, incredible. When
you got that news, did you think you were going
home that day? You know, if I was anyone else,
I probably would have thought that that meant that I
was going to be free. A lot of people, you
(42:59):
know that we're not really really totally aware of the
workings of the justice. Um we're like waiting for me
to pack myself that night. But the way my life
and my world works, I knew that there was still
an uphilp at all. For there to be no real
consequence of that is insane. It is It's nuts that
this can go on, that a court can identify, yes,
(43:21):
a flagrant violation of her rights, and and that ultimately
is a condemnation of this conviction. It's it's as close
as can be to a finding by this court that
she really didn't do it. And for that then to
go back to the county and for them to just
go right back to work on the same railroad that
(43:43):
they were doing before is unimaginable from this perspective, but
unfortunately pretty routine. So in a claim like a Brady claim,
you cannot say no more. All they can do is
put you back in the same position that you were
for the government cheated, which is one of the real
problems with these Brady claims, because the government can cheat
(44:07):
and cheat and cheat, and the worst possible consequence for
them is that they just get to do it over
as if they weren't caught cheating. So the Supreme Court
returns your conviction and then you end up back in
(44:28):
court because they can put you back in court, and
that's another outrageous thing about all of this. But nonetheless
they put you back in court, and now you are
faced with a momentous decision, which is that the government
gives you the option to go back to trial or
to take what's called it Alfred play, and I know
(44:50):
that had to be really the hardest decision of your life.
It was okay. The Supreme Court overturned my conviction in
in August of and I didn't even go back to
the county jail. I had my first hearing in February
of so there was like a long waiting period in
(45:13):
between there. My first court appearance in February often was
for a bond hearing. And the mentality of people that
are incarcerated in anybody that knows, is it's easier to
fight your case from the street if you're out there
and you're in the free world and you're doing good
things you can and also just mentally you're more prepared
(45:34):
and you're not all broken down. There's a big advantage
to that. So our thoughts were I would have a
bond hearing and we would work really hard on getting
me out in that way, because this case theoretically could
drag on for a really long time. In a very
calculating move, the Shelby County District Attorney's office recused themselves
(45:56):
the day of my bond hearing, which therefore forfeited me
the opportunity to have a bond and Jason, that's like
really important because if that just goes to show that
they they were so underhanded and all of the stuff
that they did to me. I mean a bond hearing.
People have bond hearings every day. People get bond set
(46:16):
before they ever have a court appearance. A special prosecutor
does not need to be familiar with the facts of
the case in order for a defendant to have a bond.
But this is the judge saying that it was all
just a ploy because the ultimate goal for them was
for me to take a plea. Of course, they had
no case. There was so much public scrutiny. The Supreme
(46:37):
Court had slapped them down very very heavily in that opinion,
and they had lost all their witnesses. A lot of
them didn't want to testify, and a lot of them
were now in material. So they just kept pressuring, putting off,
pressuring and putting off. And the day before I took
my plea, we had actually subpoena thirty assistant district attorneys
(46:58):
and they had filed injunctions to block him, and then
they were getting ready to go through. Their ultimate goal
was to keep Amy Wywrick off the stand. She had
already been in the stand earlier in that year about
hiding evidence in a totally different case, and if you
put Amy on that stand, she was going to have
to be held accountable. And I guess the solution to
all that was to get me off their case and
(47:18):
just to dispose of all of this was a plea.
So my lawyers came to me the night before I
took the plea with the offer. There was a lot
of confusion. I kept asking, like, you know, how much
is it? What is it? And they just kept reiterating,
you will walk out of here tomorrow. You can go home,
you can be free. And my lawyer the first thing
(47:39):
I asked them, I started crying and I was like,
do you know what this means? And she was like,
what I said. For them to offer me this plea,
I said, this means that they know I didn't do it.
They went to my mom's two sisters that were against me,
and they agreed to this. Police. If they really thought
that I killed their sister, do you think that they
would be willing to offer freedom? I said, I don't
(48:02):
know what's more awful the fact that I've been here,
the fact that these people know or have a doubt
in their mind and still went through with all of
this that I could be free. Like I was crying,
and she was like, Nora, listen, you want five things.
You want your mom back, It's not gonna happen. You
want your aims to acknowledge the fact that you didn't
(48:22):
do this, and you want them to love you. That's
not gonna happen. You want people to think you didn't
do it. The people that believe you and that they
know you, they're going to be behind you. They've always
been behind you. The people that have made up their
mind that you did do this and that are opinionated.
Nothing a trial, an overturnal like your conviction being overturned,
an acquittal, that's not going to change their mind. She said,
(48:44):
you want to get out and help people. You can
do that. You want to get out and have a baby.
You will be young enough to do that now. She said,
hold on to the things that you can do and
let go all the things that you can't and sign
the paper. And you did. I think any reasonable person
in your situation would have signed that paper because you
(49:05):
had seen the worst of what American justice system can
dish out At that point you knew that they were
going to go to any lanes they had to to
reconvict you and send you back to hell, basically for
as long as they could write. I'm not in prison anymore.
So I'm back logged down with a totally group of people.
(49:28):
I'm restricted from all of my friends. You make friends
in prison. We have Joe House lawyers in prison called
law clerks, So all of the people that can understand
and empathize and actually like talk about what the court
proceedings and what's going on and fully understand them and
give me advice. I'm not even allowed to communicate with
these people. Were not allowed to write, We're not allowed
(49:48):
to talk, We're not allowed to do anything. So I
once again was back at square one, and I was
all alone, and I was tired, and I was going
to court, and I was just sitting there and watching
them do the same thing to me that they had
done all over again, and acting like the Supreme Court
decision had never happened. And so when they offered me
(50:09):
a piece of paper to sign, it was unreal. They
told me I would walk out that day. You're sort
of signing your life away, right, because once you signed
that Alfred plea, you're not able to sue them, they're
not liable for anything. On top of that, you're living
as a convicted felon, even though the Tennessee Supreme Court
(50:30):
has said in five to nothing that basically that's not true.
So it's really a Sophie's choice kind of situation, right,
and you took the logical choice, but you took it
under false pretenses, thinking that you were going to be
freed that day, and instead you're sent back to prison
for fifteen months, which is I don't know, it's really
(50:52):
just it's just hard, like it's it's hard for me
to just wrap my head around. That was my lowest point.
So when I get it there, T d o C
is like, we did not tell your lawyers that you
will go home. We told your lawyers that you would
be eligible for parole. And when I was sitting there
taking the plea that day, that's what Chris Craft, the judge,
was saying, you'll go back and you'll be eligible for parole.
(51:14):
But one of the things that my attorney has told
me before I took the standards, look, don't listen to
anything he says. Okay, he doesn't know you're getting out.
We've arranged this with T. D O C. They just
know you're taking the plea. They don't understand how much
good time you have. So if he says something that
makes you, like, you know, uncomfortable, ignore it. Don't listen
to anything he's saying. So I get understand. And he's
(51:35):
saying that I'm going to go back to prison at
this point, like I'm not even acknowledging my lawyers in
the core room, I'm looking at miss pat and she
is willing me like a mother because I feel like
she became my adoptive mother. I'm looking at her and
my ex boyfriend's mother, Ainslie, and these two women are
a force of nature, like their eye contact is trying
to pull me off the stand. They are looking like,
(51:57):
oh ship, like something has gone terrible wrong. They just knew,
you know, because they weren't back there when my lawyers
were telling me all this, and they're thinking that I'm
signing this plea and I'm getting out that day. They've
gone out and they bought me root beer, they bought
me close, they bought me a toothbrush, and they're gonna
be waiting on me when I get out. And they're
sitting there listening to the judge saying I'm gonna go
(52:18):
up for parole, and everybody we're all really confused. So
I get off the stand and I go back to
the back room with my attorneys, and they're like, but
you're not even smiling, like this is so exciting, You're
about to walk out of here, and I said, I don't.
I don't think I'm gonna believe it until it actually happens.
(52:38):
So I go back to the jail. I give away
all my stuff. I checked the computer. It says disposed,
so then it's real to me. I'm getting out of here.
My case is disposed of. So they say, nor you
have a visit. I go up to the top of
the steps. It's one of my friends, Jennifer, my mom's
name that was actually for million car started with me
(53:00):
her and her girlfriend and they're like, Nora. We asked
them what time you were getting out, because we were
just going to wait on you and surprise you, and
they said, you have a fifteen year old for the
penitentiary in the computer. And I just left my visit
and I walked downstairs to the officer and I was like,
I want you to check that computer again. She was like, nor,
are we already checked it? And I said no, I
(53:21):
want I want you to check it again, and she
did and it said fifteen years because that's what I
had signed for, so it said fifteen years hold t
d o C, which is Department of Corrections. So that
meant that I had to go back to t d
o C and they needed to calculate my time. I
went back to t d o C. In that was
(53:44):
in May of When I got there, my expiration day,
which is the day that I would get out, was
sitting in July of I was past my parole eligibility day.
So I get there and they're like, Nora, you're on
the pearl docket. And I just looked at the counselor
and I don't think anyone has ever said this before.
(54:05):
And I looked at her and I said, fuck parole.
And she was like what. And I was like, I
don't trust you. I don't trust t d o C.
And I don't trust the State of Tennessee. And I'm
refusing to go out for a parole and she was like, no,
you cannot refuse to go out for a pearl. I said,
I am not gonna go up and say I'm sorry
for a crime I didn't commit. Please let me out,
(54:27):
and then I'm under state supervision for two years. I said.
I don't have anybody waiting on me out there, I said,
and I don't trust anybody out there, and I'm going
to flatten my sentence. So let me explain. Flattened means
that I would sit there and earn my good time
and meet my date. So I could have gone up
for parole. I might have gotten it, I might not have.
But if I would have gone out on Pearl, then
(54:47):
that means I would have been under the Tennessee state
supervision for two more years, which means Amy wy Wreck
would have been like over me for two more years.
And I was isn't about to release what little control
I had back to them at this point, to be
quite honest, nothing personal. I didn't trust my lawyers, I
(55:08):
didn't trust t DC, I didn't trust anyone. So I
had to trust myself. So I sat there for fifteen
more months so I could walk out of there and
never look back. Yeah, and and think about this. She
gets a decision from the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimous that
puts her in the position of she's innocent, no more
(55:30):
guilty than you or me of this crime, and she
waits months and months and months to even get a
hearing about whether she can get bond. There is no
daylight but this one option that is put in front
of her, and then the rugg is pulled right underneath her,
and it's just all of this to prevent her from
(55:55):
just bringing the light of the day to what happened. Here.
We see this over and over again, where you've got
innocent people who are stuck behind bars with no legal justification,
and they're given this forced choice because the government holds
all the cards. Nora, Then what was it like for
(56:17):
you the day you got out, you finally got out?
How do you feel it was unreal? Up until the
moment that I walked out this sally port the gates,
I didn't think I would really get out. They had
played with They would release me at twelve o'clock midnight,
then they would release me at four o'clock the next day.
And then I ended up leaving in eight thirty and
(56:39):
the warden actually came told me if I told anyone
when I was leaving, they wouldn't release me at all,
but I knew I was expirating, and I knew I
would get out, and I signed the piece of paper,
but I didn't believe it, just because of everything that
had happened on my journey, that it would really really happen.
And I got out and Annesley was there, and I
was so lucky and so happy to have her. But
(57:02):
I honestly think being out, I knew that my mom
was gone, and I knew that someone had killed her.
People talk all the time in prison about going home
because they have this idea of home, and I don't
really know what a home is for me right now,
and so I think getting out has been such a
(57:24):
blessing and I'm so grateful. And I used to always
think that getting out was the hard part, getting released,
getting free, but life after something like this is the
hard part. I took that plea because I thought I
would get out that day and that didn't happen. And
(57:44):
so there are times that I think I wonder that
if I made a really big mistake, because being a
felon in today's world is really hard. A lot of
people aren't like you. They don't understand that the justice
system is flawed and unfair. Getting a job is hard.
Finding a play to live as hard. But I'm still lucky.
I find myself. When I talk to my friends in prison,
(58:07):
it's like, I don't even want to tell them these things,
because who am I a complain when they're still sitting
in there? You know, but these are the things they
don't tell you when you're in there. Um, I think,
I guess I'm just gonna say. Everyone who's listening out there,
(58:28):
get involved. Donate to your local innocence project, go online,
read about these issues right to someone in prison. Support
organizations like Women Empowered to Become Self Sufficient that meant
so much to Nora when she was in Check them
out and vote. Nora can't, but you can, and so
get out there and make a difference, because you know
(58:51):
it's time. It's time for us to turn this whole
tied around. We have a tradition here Nora at Wrongful Conviction,
which is that to close the show, I like to
just turn the microphone over to you for any closing
thoughts that you want to share. I don't know, Um
I would. I just I'm just I'm just one. I'm
(59:15):
one of many. There are Michelle's and Shane's and Joscelyn's
and Octavia's, and so many people like me that are
sitting inside that haven't gotten the opportunity or the chances
that I've gotten, that are just waiting on someone like
the Innocence Project to accept their case. So I guess
what I would say is I just hope that the
(59:37):
people are listening, ros that like any little bit counts,
and I just hope that people are able to look
at this with an objectivity that maybe they didn't have.
I want to thank you both for being on the show,
Bryce for sharing your your wisdom of all these years,
and Norah, of course you. I can't even put into
(01:00:01):
words how much it means to have you here, and
I know the best is yet to come for you.
And we're all on your side, and we're we're fucking
test too, so we're gonna we're all gonna have to
practice Sarah together. And I also want to give special
thanks to Emily Basilon, who first brought so much attention
to your case. Extraordinary writer for The New York Times,
(01:00:22):
a scholar at Yale Law School, she doesn't funk around,
and another badass. A lot of badass women on your
side now, which is great. So this has been a
very special episode of Wrongful Conviction. Thanks to you, Nora,
and what else can they say? Thanks for being here,
thank you for having me, don't forget to give us
(01:00:53):
a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps.
And I'm a proud donor into the Innocence Project and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate
and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show
(01:01:16):
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
Norah Jackson is an extraordinary person who has been through
an ordeal that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy,
as you know for listening to her episode that originally
aired in November of two thousand seventeen. Nora was wrongly
convicted of the murder of her mother. Both of her
parents were murdered and she was left an orphan with
(00:25):
no brothers and sisters when she was wrongfully convicted and
ended up serving eleven years in prison. Of course, the
Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously overturned her conviction and set in
there ruling that the prosecutors head lied and cheated and
broken so many rules there were too many to count,
too many examples of prosecutorial misconduct too good into in
(00:47):
one recording. Norah. The good news is since the episode aired,
she's moved from Tennessee to New York. She now lives
in Brooklyn, and she is a sophomore in college. The
thirty two. Her freshman year, she achieved at three point
six seven g p A. I know she's going to
improve on it. This year. She started in an organization
(01:10):
called Meet Your Mentor, and she is working with some
other incredible dynamic women Um, Sarah Raphold, Stacy Ryan, and others,
and Meet Your Mentor is an organization that is dedicated
to helping AX Honorees formally incarcerated people get back on
their feet and get a fresh start. Nora is a
(01:31):
hero of mine and I'm super proud of everything she's doing.
I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was
naive enough to believe that I would be able to
just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that
(01:52):
they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be
going to prison because I was a good person. I
hadn't do anything wrong. In the back of your mind,
you say, well, when we go to a hearing, we
go to court, the truth will come out the prosecution
from day one, kneo I was innocent, and let forth
testimony go uncorrected from the lower courts all the way
up to United States Supreme Court. You have someone with
(02:17):
a badge with ultimate and really, in that moment unchecked authority.
Don't presume that people are guilty when you see him
on TV, because it may just be a dirty d
eight that is trying to rise upward. Welcome back to
wrong for conviction. I am particularly honored actually today to
(02:39):
have in the studio Nora Jackson. Nora Jackson was convicted
in two thousand nine of killing her mother. Jackson was
eighteen when her mother, Jennifer Jackson, was found murdered stabbed
at least fifty times in the bedroom over East Memphis home.
In two thousand nine, a jury convicted Jackson of second
degree murder. Nora Jackson has maintained her in a sit
(03:00):
In two thousand fourteen, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the
conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct and ordered a new trial,
claiming the lead prosecutor, now District Attorney Amy Wyree withheld
a witness statement from the defense. Stephen Jones, is facing
missconduct charges for not turning over a key witness statement.
District Attorney Amy Wyrick also is facing misconduct charges connected
(03:24):
to the case. In Jackson's attorneys accepted a plea deal
of voluntary manslaughter from prosecutors, avoiding a potentially lengthy new trial.
She could have fought for another ten years on principle,
I don't know anybody who would give up their thirties
for principle. Nora Jackson is officially a free woman today. Nora,
(03:46):
welcome to the show. Thank you, and we have with
you Bryce ben Jet, your lawyer from the Innocens Project,
and Bryce, welcome to you too. Glad to be here.
This story just really shocked my conscience and you lived
through it unfortunately. Yeah, there were times when I didn't
know if I would make it to the other side,
but here I am. No, or let's go back too.
(04:10):
Was there really not that long ago? I mean two
thousand and five you were you were still a teenager. Yeah,
I turned eighteen in March of two thousand and five,
so I was just at the age where you know,
there was no issue with them charging me as an adult, right,
Just another terrible circumstance of your case. And it started
with one of the worst things that anyone can experience,
(04:30):
which is the murder of your mother. And you had
already been through so much because your father was murdered
sixteen months earlier, correct, in January of two thousand and four.
But they weren't together, No, no, no, no, they weren't.
They weren't together. My parents had spiled up when I
was like eighteen months old, and they shared custody for
about eight years and then there was an eight year
period where I didn't see my father, and that's another
(04:53):
interesting story. Actually walked into a convenient store about a
year before he was killed and found him. So I've
lived with my mom on my entire life. So the
death of my father, it did really rock me, especially
since there was like that newfound relationship there with him.
But my mom was my rock. The death of my
mother's mother, my grandmother, was the first one that happened
(05:13):
in the summer of two thousand and three than the
death of my father in two thousand and four. And
then my best friend was actually killed in a car
wreck on the way to my house in January of
two thousand and five. So that was a really really
rough year for me, a really rough time, and my
mom was the one that was actually able to get
me through all that I had pulled back from a
(05:33):
lot of my friends. Anybody that has a single parent
will know that that relationship is kind of sacred. It's
totally different than if you're raised in a two parent
household and you were an only child as well. So yeah,
I can imagine that would create even a stronger bond
because there's there's no one else there's no buffer, right,
it's just you and your mom. And your mom Jennifer
Jackson was a successful banker as well, right investment. Yeah,
(05:56):
she was actually a broker. She worked in the stock market.
She was a bondsman, and she was very successful. And
she had actually just wanted a word about three months
before she was killed, and it was a really big deal.
They gave her like a gold bat for like a
heavy hitter because of all the money that she had
brought in. And I was her date for that. Actually.
So you have all of these successful bondsman's there with
their trophy wives and or their girlfriends, and you know,
(06:19):
my mom is like kind of like the star of
the evening and here she comes with her eighteen year
old daughters. So it was it was really really fun. Yeah,
it sounds like an awesome event, and she sounds like
an awesome woman. Um, it's worth noting that the murder
of your father went unsolved and still unsolved. Correct, It's
only worth noting and as it relates to this particular
case about your mom, because of the fact that there
(06:41):
could be some correlation. But let's go back to the
terrible night when this happened. So at that time. I
came home and retrospectively, I can look back and see
that there were signs that something bad had gone on
in my house that night. I walked into the kitchen
and I saw some broken glass on the floor, so
(07:01):
I looked up at the window. My mom had actually
broken into that same door once before when she had
lost her keys. There's a way to enter into our
garage from the backyard. We had a gate that went
into our backyard. Then you could go down the hallway
which led to our garage, and you could enter into
the kitchen through a side door in the garage. There
was no key to that door because there was a
(07:24):
latch actually in the middle pane. It would slide up
and slide over, and that's how you would enter into
the house, was through that latch. I remember having friends
over like all the time, and they kept like trying
to open the door because we had a fridge outside,
and like everybody was like, what is going on with
this door? And there's this like tiny little piece of
metal that would hinder you from going outside. So that's
what makes me feel like anybody that was involved in
(07:46):
anything that took place that night and killing my mom,
they had intimate knowledge of our house, but at the time,
it still didn't alarm me. What alarmed me was when
I got ready to go to my room, which was
across from my mom room, and the light was on
in the bedroom. The door was halfway open, so that's
what caused me to go into the bedroom and UM,
(08:07):
I saw my mom and UM, I'm sorry, take your time,
and UM, you know, I'm not really even sure of
what I remember. First is what I've heard along the way,
especially like from trial and transcripts and things like that.
(08:28):
But I do remember walking in and seeing her neckd
body on the floor and my first reaction was to
just pick her up, and she was so heavy, and
I'm looking and I don't even know if I registered
at the time. I must have. I mean, somebody gets shot,
you know, there's like a pool of blood. I don't
(08:48):
even remember there being a pool of blood. I remember
they're being blood everywhere, like on the sheets and even
on the walls, and I'm just like screaming, and then
I know I'm I wanted help, So I run across
the street and I go get a neighbor. And at
that point, I'm thinking about the broken glass and I'm like,
somebody broke into my house, and so he comes with me,
(09:09):
and I guess I run in the house in front
of him. That's what he said at trial, which they
inadvertently made a huge deal about. I didn't give a
funk who was in there. I knew a man was
behind me with a gun, and I knew my mom
was in there on the floor. That was like my life,
that was my cheerleader, that was my coach, and I
needed to get to her. And so I went back
in there, and Um, the neighbor across the street, I
(09:31):
think his girlfriend actually pulled me away from her and
told me to call it nine with one. So I
called nine one one, and I'm just I'm screaming. And
at one point they asked me if she had been shot,
and I said no. Um, but I just remember standing
out on that curb. You know, I watched plenty of
TV and I know that. You know, the evens he
(09:52):
goes inside and they bring the body out on the
gurney if it's going to go to the hospital, And
the gurney came out and nobody was on it, and
that's just when I lost it. They actually put me.
It's so ironic because it was like foreshadowing what was
going to happen. I was so uncontrollable trying to run
in the house. They put me in the back of
a cop car. One point, I don't even know what
(10:16):
to say. It's one thing that I say. I have
represent a number of people who have been convicted of
of a murder of a family member, and just to
have that trauma of of what you're talking about, and
then to be sort of re traumatized by being convicted
for it is is just unimaginable. And I think that police,
(10:40):
when they're faced with a situation where they don't know
who did it, rather than looking at the evidence, they
start looking at suspects, and they do these suspect driven
investigations where they look at the person and try to
make a case against the person, rather than looking at
the evidence and trying to follow where the evidence leads.
(11:01):
And the interesting and disgusting thing is that the day
of my mom's funeral, they had two detectives waiting on me.
My mom was killed on June five. June six, I
stayed with a family friend. June seven, my aunts came
into town and they tried to take me. I wouldn't
go with him. So June eighth, they came and got
me and they were like, you're coming with us. We
(11:21):
stayed downtown in a hotel room and they left me there.
They went somewhere and they left me there, and so
one of the people that attended our church came to
pick me up and she was like, why are you
by yourself? I was sitting on the curb. She was like,
you need help, Like, I'm gonna take you to see somebody.
So she takes me to a child psychologist and he's
talking to me and he was like, this girl is
in shock. She needs to be surrounded by people that
(11:45):
can pay attention to her and give her what she
needs and love, and they need to give her some
type of security. So my aunt's solution to that was
to take me to Lake Side, which is a behavioral
health center. So we go to Lakeside. I don't think
at the time I was really aware of the fact
that I was eighteen, so they couldn't put me in there.
(12:05):
So what they did was they told me we will
involuntarily commit you and it'll be a seventy two hour
mandatory minimum and you will miss your mom's funeral, so
they knew that I signed whatever they put in front
of me to go inside. So when I went inside,
I was there for two days, and then they were
supposed to pick me up for my mom's funeral. My
best friend that was killed. Her mom actually came up
there and brought me closed the night before. So I
(12:26):
just remember, like I'm sitting up there waiting on my
aunts to pick me up to what I know is
my mom's funeral. It's kind of morbid, like in my
dead best friend's clothes, and they're not there. So at
this point I began to like shred a whole box
of Kleenex, and then I began to freak out. We
didn't have access to phone, so my nurse starts to
call them. Nobody's answering, so then I really start to
(12:47):
freak out. So they give me a sedative, and when
my aunts get there, they're like, get in the car.
You know, it's not a big deal. You're not gonna
miss it. The show is not going to start without us,
like they referred to it as a show, and I
do remember of that. And so we're sitting at the
funeral and we leave. I don't even go to anything
that they have after the funeral, I'm I'm pretty sure
I heard that they had a reception. I didn't go.
(13:09):
They took me straight back to Lake Side. I walk
into the doors of Lake Side and I'll never forget.
My nurse's name was Chris, and I just really, really
really was clinging to her at that time because she
reminded me of my grandma, and she was like, baby,
She was like, I have to take you into the office.
You have some people here that want to talk to you.
I don't even know what I'm thinking, Like, maybe it's
(13:30):
like old friends, maybe it's a visit, maybe somebody's here
to see me. And I walk in and it's two
detectives with a camera and they hand over a piece
of paper and so at this point lake Side has
become very overprotective of me. They're reading the paper and
they were like, are you kidding me? Like you picked
this day of all days, and it's the Affidavid with
(13:51):
the warrant. It was very apparent that the attacker or
the killer was injured at the scene of the crime,
so they needed to photograph my body and its entirety
and get some or DNA, which I had already provided
the first day, and so they took my clothes off,
and I mean, if you look at these pictures, you
can tell whatever since that I had left at that
time left me. I just it was like out of body.
(14:14):
I couldn't. I could not cope with reality at that point,
and I had no choice but to go with it
because at this point I had nobody left. So I'm
taking off my clothes and they're photographing me, and I'm thinking, like,
I just wanted to lay down and die at that point,
I just I didn't. I didn't want to have the
(14:34):
wherewithal to continue. I'm just trying to process. Well, you
just told me, um, you were still, as you said,
a child. I mean, the idea that they would strip
you at that point, I mean, you're never even stripped
of everything except your dignity, and then they took that
away too. How how that's even possible? Is um hard
(14:56):
for me to process. You've no have been through everything
that a human being can possibly adore. You're not even
twenty years old yet, right, You're all alone in the world,
and how the fuck did you find the strength to persevere? Oh? Well,
my mom told me when my best friend a and
(15:16):
ide that grief is like Sarah, you know, that's the
name that she wanted to name me. And she was like,
you go through sadness, and then you go through anger,
and then you go through resentment, and then you go
through acceptance, and then you go through healing. And I
wanted to go through those things. So the anger is
what drove me. When I was first arrested, I remember
(15:38):
being in the jail, sitting on my bunk and watching
like everybody else in the pod of the jail, watched
the television where they were talking about eighteen year old
girl arrested for killing her mother who was stabbed over
fifty seven times. Prosecutors have not announced that they will
be seeking the death penalty. She has been charged with
first degree murder, which carries us and stuff life without parole,
(16:02):
life with parole, and even the death. But you know,
and it just was like going on and on, and
I remember sitting there thinking like, I wonder if they
will try to give me the death penalty. The constitution,
they guarantee the right to a speedy and fair trial.
That's what it says in black and white. But the
reality of the situation is you will sit there for
as long as they deemed necessary. Amy Wyrick was determined
(16:23):
to be my prosecutor. She was a death penalty lawyer,
and she was on what they used to refer to
as the death squad, which means that she was qualified
to trial death penalty cases. Amy went on on maternity leave.
Do you think that she handed the case over to
somebody else. No. I sat there and waited for her
to go on maternity leave, to have her child and
come back. Amy was determined to try that case. I
(16:47):
wasn't there, but it's pretty clear that she saw you
as a real stepping stone to where she wanted to
get to in her career. Correct. This was the biggest
and longest running case, with the most evidence in the
most exhibits and shelby counting history at the time. It
was very clear to her that this could be like
a career making case, especially if she got a conviction.
So she played like a win at all costs came
(17:08):
and you know, one of the things that Amy Wyrick
likes to hold onto and like she steadfast on, is
that we had forty witnesses. Okay, you did, but let's
look at what those forty witnesses presented. You had tb I,
the Tennessee Bear of Investigation, that testifies that the DNA
that they analyzed belonged to somebody else. You have Kirby McDonald,
(17:32):
Sophie Cooley, Perry Brassfield, Andrew Hammock, Joey McGough. You have
all of these children, because they're still children at the time,
testifying that I smoked pot and that I drank at
a party. But they were doing the same thing and
they're not on trial for killing anybody. That does not
make you a murderer. They made a big deal out
(17:52):
of the idea that you were this crazy druggie, right
when in fact you were a typical eighteen year old.
You're having, you know, some beer as you're smoking some pot.
That's what eighteen year olds do. You were no drug addict.
I'm a diabolical killer, and then I'm a pothead. I'm
someone that can totally get rid of any trace evidence
that made blood disappear off of clothes that they pulled
(18:12):
out the back of my car, Clothes that they had
that I had on that night that was able to
overtake a woman that was five eleven. I don't know,
like without she was on five three. She was an
avid runner, she worked out at the time. I was
a chubby, little pothead. Like, there's no my mom would
have kicked my ass any day of the week, you know,
And they said this, I mean, she fought for her life.
(18:33):
I mean, if you look at the pictures like she
she went down swinging, there's no way that anybody walked
away from their unscathed. And you know it's crazy, is that.
I know I remember like in situations where like I
was in danger and I know my mom. There's no
way my mom left this world willingly. You know, she
(18:54):
she took something from those people, whoever it was. So
that is what they use for the warrant for my body.
They you know, there would have been evidence of some
type of attacks, some type of fight. Of course there
would have been, and we know that your nails were
perfectly manicured, and there's just no way. And we know
this from dreams of evidence of cases throughout the years
(19:16):
that when somebody stabs somebody else numerous times, you always
leave blood because the thing gets slippery and you get
you know, and you cut yourself. So, Nora, there's a
very unique aspect to your prosecution, persecution, etcetera. Which I've
never heard before, which is the fact that the prosecution
(19:37):
made a big deal out of the fact that you
were wearing long sleeves. What difference did it make that
you were wearing or not wearing long sleeves, right, So
I think the theory that they adopted was that I
had on long sleeves because they said I was trying
to have the cut on my hand. I kind of
touched on the fact that I was a little bit
different with this single mother. But I was also different
because my father was Lebanese. I'm I racial, So that
(20:02):
was a really difficult thing for me, and it was
made even more difficult at a young age by my
mom's sisters because they constantly pointed it out. Growing up,
I always wanted to look like my mom because she
was like, she was so beautiful, and I just like
idolized her. I could never do that figure wise, Like
I said, you know, she was tall and very fit,
and I was shut and I was always kind of chubby.
(20:24):
But I would damn my hair, Like if you look
back at the pictures, all throughout my high school and
junior high, I died my hair blonde, because I felt
like if I died my hair blond, I would look
like more like my mom. I have really, really really
hairy arms, and that is my heritage, that is from
being Lebanese. So at that point in my life, I
thought different was bad, so I didn't want to be different,
(20:44):
So I tried to hide those differences, and it became
just kind of a thing. I mean, I was called natured,
but I think subconsciously it started off as being more
of like trying to mask the difference in me versus
other people. But let's also just examine the fact of
how ridiculous it is that you were wearing law sleeves
to hide the cuts on your hands. You would have
needed a mittens, right, That's what you needed, right. And
(21:06):
so all of this comes down to seeing every fact
through the prism of Norah's guilt. And once these investigators
decide who they think did it, they make everything fall
in line. And when they do that, they miss the
obvious evidence that shows that there was somebody else there.
(21:26):
There's somebody else's blood on the bed. Instead they're looking
at shirt sleeves, and that person is still free. All
of this goes back to the idea that they had
no evidence against you. There never was any evidence against you,
and the exculpatory evidence, I want to touch on that
for a second. To Stephen Jones, the assistant prosecutor in
the case, this motherfucker took evidence that he clearly knew
(21:52):
would have blown the case against you, right, which means
in English that he knew you were in sent But
this was an inconvenient truth. He somehow or other managed
to forget that there was a note which would have
totally blown to think to Smith means and then magically,
five days after the trial he remembers it, which leads
(22:15):
me to think that he started thinking after the trial
was over, well, I probably did something really wrong here.
If my attorney value quarter is nothing else. She is very,
very thorough. They knew that it would be found because
she was thorough, Valerie, she knew head on going into
(22:36):
this that these people were unethical. The prosecutor, Amy Wyrick,
had been censured numerous times for behavior not dissimilar to
what she did to you. She was promoted after the trial, right,
She's she's moved up in the world and brought some
of the detectives that were on the case up with her.
This woman sat there and said that DNA analysis was
(22:58):
not important. It is important in some cases, she said,
but it wasn't important in mind. But if you go
back to the very beginning, they use DNA as a
way to gain access to my body. They used all
of this stuff to get what they wanted, and when
the results came back then it wasn't relevant anymore. That
(23:19):
never really made sense to me. You have a warrant
that was issued in two thousand and five for a
person's body because you say an arrest cannot be made
in the case that's in June of two thousand and five.
An arrest cannot be made in this case without some
type of DNA or physical evidence. September twenty ninth, two
thousand and five, you arrest me. December of two thousand
(23:41):
and five, the Tennessee Beer of Investigations releases their findings
with the DNA analysis and it comes back as a
profile that it excludes me and excludes my mother. Do
you think that at any point they revisited the case,
they revisited the theory, They said, maybe we got this wrong.
We should let her go. Let's go back to the
drawing board, let's start over. No, it's I can't. I mean,
(24:04):
and I'm trying to. I can't obviously put myself in
your shoes. Nobody can. But the nightmare it's total. I mean,
the people who are supposed to be protecting you and
are supposed to be, you know, protecting society, are are
going so rogue. I really really have to point this out.
You have to have motive, means, and opportunity. That's the
three requirements when you're trying somebody for a case. So
(24:25):
their motive became money. There was no money. My father
ran a business that relied on cash, and some will
say that he ran an escort service. If anybody knows
anything about when you're doing legal activity, you don't put
that money in a bank account. It's not rain on books,
it's rain off books. Whatever was there. We saw a
(24:46):
person on video lifting cash out of a floor safe
that I didn't even know existed. By the time the
cops had released the keys to his house, it had
been ransacked. My father had ten thousand dollars in a
bank account, and my mom allowed me to make the
choice of what to do with that, and we used
that money and she ended up having to put like
another thousand dollars with it to send his body back
(25:08):
to Beiruts so he could be buried with my grandparents.
So there was no money. There was this big idea
that there was a fight over control of an estate
that did not exist, the idea that he had an
estate or he didn't even have a will, I mean,
there was there was nothing. So the whole theory of
the case was built around there was money that my
(25:30):
mom had that I could not have. Well, okay, let's
look at that too. I'm eighteen, so anything that existed
that she had by right would have gone to me.
Then they said that she wanted to send me away.
I'm eighteen. She can't send me away unless I choosed
to go. She could kick me out, but she can't
send me away. So this whole theory that I was
(25:51):
an out of control teenager that wanted some money that
didn't exist. I mean, it was like and what was
so frustrating to me, and I didn't know the time,
is that all of this could have been easily disproven,
but it wasn't. You didn't testify in your own case,
and this became a very important factor. Your attorney was
concerned that in your fragile state, which, by the way,
(26:13):
you're now an orphan. You've been in jail for three
and a half years. Your attorney made and what could
be deemed a rational decision to not have you testify
because on cross examination you could have broken down or
who knows. I mean, it turned out to be the
wrong decision, but you could sort of see where that
came from, right right. It's always a tough call because
you have this dynamic where the state has all the power.
(26:36):
They are the ones who create this narrative, and they've
got you on the stand. The judge is going to
let them ask all kinds of horrible questions, and there
is always a very delicate question about whether your client's
going to testify. And certainly nobody should ever think about
somebody not testifying, and that's an admission of guilt. Juries
(26:59):
are instructed about it. And in this case, the state
took that right that Nora has and reasonable decision. Every
single person has the right to say to the state,
I didn't do this crime, and there's no proof that
I did this crime, and I don't have to subject
myself to being attacked because of it. I mean, think
(27:21):
nor is they're sitting accused of the murder of her
own mother, traumatized for a second time, and is it
a reasonable decision to not allow yourself to be traumastized
for a third time where you're being accused of that murder.
On the stand that that's a reasonable decision under the circumstances,
(27:43):
So you have these rights. But here in the closing argument,
the prosecutor takes that and really comments on that and
invites the jury to and for guilt in ways that
is unconstitutional. Well, the prosecutor chose to basically excoriate and
more or less scream at you, demanding that you tell
(28:05):
her what had happened, which is not only wildly inappropriate,
but also patently illegal. Right, that's illegal behavior. You can't
do it. But she did it anyway. She had this goal, right,
she was gonna make it to where she had to
go by stepping on your neck. And that's exactly what
she did. And she was willing to not only bend
the rules, but break the rules and break the law.
(28:28):
And it's actually mind blowing in your case. I mean,
before she was able to finish it. Valerie Quarter, my
first attorney, she jumped up and you know at this point,
I'm I'm still like I just turned twenty one, and
I really didn't know a whole lot, but I knew
what she did right then and there, Like I was
about to jump out my seat and I was about
(28:48):
to say but you know, and my lawyer like put
my hand like this, and she jumped up and she
was like, you're all like, you know, I object and
all of that. The thing is is that her intention
was met. It was very, very very calculating what she did.
Jurors are your everyday people. The human condition is to
be curious. These people walked out of the jury box
(29:10):
with the last thing in their mind being just tell
us where you were, Nora. That's all we're asking. She
simplified it in a way like if you would have
just told us where you were, none of this would
be happening. So that's the last thing that these twelve
people hard when they walked out of that box. And
I'll tell you, as a as a lawyer, you know
(29:31):
that you're not allowed to do that. You are not
allowed to comment on a person testifying or not testifying
in that manner. And if a defense lawyer had done that,
they'd be in jail. It's their world. You're in it,
and they make the rules and they move the lines
when they want to do. And if you're a defense
attorney and you do something wrong, they'll have no fury.
(29:52):
If you're a prosecutor and you do something wrong, it
was a mistake, it was an inverted mistake. They didn't
mean to They're sorry. It won't happening in it. And
nor let me point out that the Fair Punishment Project
at Harvard, which is as blue chip of a panel
as you can have, there are literally legal luminaries on
that panel, and they just this year singled out Amy Wyrick,
(30:15):
the prosecutor in your case, for numerous allegations of misconduct
over the last several years. And yet there she is
serving an eight year term victimizing other people the same
way she did to you, and getting away with it. Yeah,
it's crazy. And she actually gave a statement when that
came out. She gave a statement, and she dismissed that
as easily as she dismissed the d n A m
(30:36):
AT case. Nor when you were at trial, obviously you
knew you were innocent, But now you've been incarcerated in
a horrendous jail situation for three and a half years,
(30:56):
which let's not forget at that point that's a big
percentage of your life. Was there a point during the
trial at which you said, WHOA, they may actually convict me, Like,
did you just expect that finally justice would be done
and that jury would rule in your favor going into trial.
I looked forward to it and I was looking for
(31:19):
my day in court, and I thought that justice would prevail,
and I believed all that during trial. It was like,
so when my mom was killed, it was a shock,
it was a trauma, but it's like it had the
advantage of like I didn't see it coming and I
was totally blindsided. Going to trial, I was reliving all
of that. I knew how horrible it was. I knew
(31:40):
how horrendous it was. I knew what it looked like,
I knew what she looked like, and I was faced
with all that again. So I think, like there were
points during the trial where I would literally like bite
the inside of my cheek at one point in bled
just because there were so many times I wanted to
open up my mouth and say something, whether it was
during testimony or at one point I wanted them to
just take the fucking pictures down, Like I didn't want
(32:02):
to see that. There my mom is neked and she
has been murdered, and it's just like there's a thousand
people in the courtroom, and I just I didn't want
to see it, and I didn't want anyone else to
see it. So I think subconsciously the first week, I
just was so focused on like trying to get up
and like make it through the next day. I'll never
forget this Saturday, because we went to trial on a Saturday.
(32:23):
It lasted like fourteen days, and that Saturday it was
Valentine's Day. And the only way I knew that is
because when they took me to the holding cell, no
one else was obviously going to court. It was Saturday,
so I was in the whole jail by myself, and
so they kept me in this little tiny holding cell
that normally they would have the men in during the week,
and one of the jailers had put a heart shaped
(32:45):
butterfinger in there for me to like acknowledge that it
was Valentine's Day, and I remember like getting that piece
of candy and realizing that it was Valentine's Day and
that that was a day that people recognized and like
that I wasn't even aware of what was going on,
you know, and that the only thing that I could
figure out was that today might be the day that
(33:07):
I found out what was going to happen with the
rest of my life. I think that not knowing was
the worst. And then we get to the point where
the prosecutor Wyrick violates your constitutional rights flagrantly by totally
disregarding her responsibility to not highlight or make an issue
(33:28):
out of the fact that you chose or your lawyer
actually advised you, and you chose not to testify your
own defense. And the jury goes out and then they
come back in, and that moment you knew when they
came back in, n you know, I almost feel like
I knew when Amy did that as they walked back in.
There was periods throughout that trial it was like a
fourteen day trial where when things are being discussed and
(33:51):
things were being said, the jury would look at me.
I mean, who wouldn't you know you're talking about this
person like they're not in the room, but the person
is in the room and they're just sitting there. So
periodically I would look even though my journeys kept telling
me not to. I would look at the jury and
there was this one guy with like reddish hair, and
he constantly, along with the woman next to him, made
(34:12):
eye contact with me throughout the trial. And when they
walked in his nose because he had red hair and
he was paler, I could tell that either he was
angry or he had been crying. And I looked at
him and he looked down. He wouldn't look at me,
and I knew right then. So you're convicted and sentenced
to twenty years and nine months in prison. You've already
(34:33):
been now in jail for three and a half years.
You go to prison, How did you deal with that?
You know? Prison? I talked about Sarah with you, and
prison was where I did like my anger, and then
I did my resentment and then my acceptance, and it
kind of armored me to go back out and fight again.
(34:54):
I was really broken when I got to prison. I
had totally lost faith in the justice system. That that's
when I really realized that the world was not fair,
that my mother's killer was walking around free, and that
people that said that they loved her didn't care. Because
to love my mother was to love me because I
was my mother, like we were a package deal, and
(35:16):
so I just I really couldn't believe when it happened,
Like I was really in a daze. So I go
to prison, and I'm very very very much to myself,
and I get involved in a lot of different activities.
So I go to this one seminar in the prison,
and they had assigned you to tables by stickers. While
(35:37):
I decided I didn't like the sticker that I had,
and I didn't like the table I had, and I
wanted to set at a different table. So I took
it upon myself to switch my sticker with somebody else
and moved myself. I'm not thinking anybody's paying attention. There's
like a hundred inmates in there. So the lady that's
the director of this program, she just keeps picking at me,
like the whole time that I'm in there, saying something
(35:57):
to me about changing my sticker, putting me by at
my table, and there was like another thing that she
did to me. So at the end of the seminar,
she's asking questions to give away prizes, and she has
something that was relevant to what one of the speakers said,
and she called on me. I guess she thought I
didn't know the answer, and I stood up and I
gave her the answer, probably in like the nicest, nastiest
way that you could. And at the end of the seminar,
(36:18):
she was like, I'm gonna be her on Wednesday to
talk to you, and I was just looking at her like,
and I'm not going to talk to you, Like I've
had so many people, I just at that point I
didn't want to talk to anyone. And her name was
pat Colp and she is the reason that I still
have my sanity. She runs an organization called Women Empowered
to Become Self Sufficient shortened its webs, and what she
(36:42):
does is she comes into the prison and she nurtures
the people that have longer sentences. So many of the
programs inside the prison are geared towards people that are
fast tracked for release. You know, they want to reduce
the rate of her cidivism theoretically, and they want to
provide entry for people that are closer to getting out.
(37:02):
So then you have someone like me with almost a
twenty one year sentence and I'm just at the back
of the bus because they're not worried about people like us.
Or my friends that have life, because they'll get to us.
When they get to us, we're gonna be there a while.
But then you have an amazing situation like might happen
where the Supreme Court overturns on my stuff and I
have the possibility of being thrown back out into society.
(37:22):
But I have no tools and no help because I've
been put at the back of the bus because of
my sentence. So Miss pat comes in, and she's so
important because she offers computer classes, how to write a resume,
thinking for a change, like things that people like me need,
(37:43):
but the prison doesn't, like they don't have anything for that.
She also does something called Winner Wonderland where it's like
for a whole week, I felt like I wasn't in prison.
I don't have any children. But what they do is
they turn the whole gym into the prison. They allow
people to go down there. If you don't have any children,
you get thirty dollars you're able to go down there.
(38:04):
And it's just something about being able to get like
something from the free world, a nice, real gift to
send to people that are on the outside, that are
taking care of you, that are coming to see you.
That are accepting your phone calls, that are sending you pictures.
To be able to be in prison and to give
something to somebody else, you know, when you're so locked
away from the world is the most amazing thing. And
(38:25):
then if you do have children on Saturday, your children
come in and you give your children Christmas. So it's
not in a visitation setting. It's not where you can't
hold your child, you can't feed your child, you can't
do any of that. These mothers get to have their
children from eight to three, open gifts with them, do
arts and crafts with them, hold them, if they need
(38:46):
to change their diaper, they can. You know, all of
the things that mothers want and need to do for
their children, and she enables that opportunity. So to be
a part of that was like the most amazing experience ever.
There was so much joy and at the same time,
like you open up the day and it's the most
beautiful thing you've ever seen for these women in prison
(39:09):
to be able to hold and have Christmas with their children.
And then it's the most heart wrenching thing you've seen
when these children have to walk out of the prison
away from their mothers. It will destroy your soul nour
then a miracle happens, literally a miracle, right, I mean,
because we know how rare it is for wrongful convictions
(39:31):
to be overturned, very rare in Tennessee, for the Supreme
Court of Tennessee to overturn a wrongful conviction. It's it's
it's a miracle, right. What was that day? Like it
was I'm actually on the toilet, going to the bathroom
watching TV and it just like so happens that my
roommates TV is on the lower stand and she had
(39:52):
it on mute. I think it was something good to
eat for dinner that night, So everybody else has like
gone to the chow ha and I eat what I
think is my name flash across the bottom of the screen,
Like you know how they have like the little title
at the bottom of whatever the news story is about. Well,
you get in trouble if you listen to your TV
without headphones in it. So we always have the close
(40:13):
caption on. So even if the mute is on, the
close caption is running, so the close caption is always
a little bit behind that. So I'm like, did I
just see my name? So I'm waiting for the close
caption to come on, and all I see is Nora
Jackson and I don't know if I saw reverse or
Supreme Court. So I was like, holy shit. So I
jump up and I changed the channel because we have
(40:33):
something called three dash two, which is like it just
runs the news over and over and over again. So
I'm sitting there and I'm like, you know what, Like
I get impatient. I'm like, I'm gonna go to news
channel five. I got a news Channel five. I wait
about two or three minutes it's on there, so I'm
screaming out. At the time, I lived around the corner
on the upper level of D South, which is like, um,
it's a pod that's away from the rest of the
(40:55):
prison because they have a dog program there, so I
think the officer was outside with the dog program, like
and I'm like screaming. I'm like, somebody let me out
of here. And I'm just so excited and I want
to tell my friends and they're they're gone to eat,
so I'm like waiting for them on the breezeway. I'm like,
guess what, and they're like what. I'm like, what would
be like the best thing that could ever happen to me?
(41:16):
And they were like, you know, you walk away and
you do this, and you do that, and I was like,
the Supreme Court just overturned my stuff, and we all
just started crying because the victory for me was a
victory for them, because it's hope. We haven't seen that
done before. I'm just gonna say that I don't remember
ever having a visual quite like you sitting on the
(41:36):
toilet while watching your own name scrolled across the screen
and then jumping around. I mean, you know, I know,
it's like I almost wanted to change the narrative just
because I'm like, I'm sitting on the toilet, but I
mean that's what happened. There's something symbolic about that. It
really is. I mean, the toilet is is perfect analogy
(41:58):
for this a lot of what's gone on here so
far as something else really dramatic about you having to
wait to be able to tell your friends. So the
Tennessee Supreme Court in a unanimous decision. I want to
emphasize that unanimous decision reverses your conviction and in the
strongest terms, condemns the conduct of the prosecutors, and anybody
(42:18):
listening is probably going okay, well, that's uh, that's a wrap, right,
Kase closed or is out. But that's not the end
of the story. And what we learned in these cases
is that having your conviction overturn doesn't mean that your indictment.
You know, your indictment still stands right, and the prosecutor
still has power to inflict harm on the person that's
(42:39):
in the cross hairs. Here in many cases they'll drop
the charges at that point because the conviction has been overturned,
and in this case by the Supreme Court, I mean
the highest court in Tennessee five zero, right, incredible. When
you got that news, did you think you were going
home that day? You know, if I was anyone else,
I probably would have thought that that meant that I
was going to be free. A lot of people, you
(42:59):
know that we're not really really totally aware of the
workings of the justice. Um we're like waiting for me
to pack myself that night. But the way my life
and my world works, I knew that there was still
an uphilp at all. For there to be no real
consequence of that is insane. It is It's nuts that
this can go on, that a court can identify, yes,
(43:21):
a flagrant violation of her rights, and and that ultimately
is a condemnation of this conviction. It's it's as close
as can be to a finding by this court that
she really didn't do it. And for that then to
go back to the county and for them to just
go right back to work on the same railroad that
(43:43):
they were doing before is unimaginable from this perspective, but
unfortunately pretty routine. So in a claim like a Brady claim,
you cannot say no more. All they can do is
put you back in the same position that you were
for the government cheated, which is one of the real
problems with these Brady claims, because the government can cheat
(44:07):
and cheat and cheat, and the worst possible consequence for
them is that they just get to do it over
as if they weren't caught cheating. So the Supreme Court
returns your conviction and then you end up back in
(44:28):
court because they can put you back in court, and
that's another outrageous thing about all of this. But nonetheless
they put you back in court, and now you are
faced with a momentous decision, which is that the government
gives you the option to go back to trial or
to take what's called it Alfred play, and I know
(44:50):
that had to be really the hardest decision of your life.
It was okay. The Supreme Court overturned my conviction in
in August of and I didn't even go back to
the county jail. I had my first hearing in February
of so there was like a long waiting period in
(45:13):
between there. My first court appearance in February often was
for a bond hearing. And the mentality of people that
are incarcerated in anybody that knows, is it's easier to
fight your case from the street if you're out there
and you're in the free world and you're doing good
things you can and also just mentally you're more prepared
(45:34):
and you're not all broken down. There's a big advantage
to that. So our thoughts were I would have a
bond hearing and we would work really hard on getting
me out in that way, because this case theoretically could
drag on for a really long time. In a very
calculating move, the Shelby County District Attorney's office recused themselves
(45:56):
the day of my bond hearing, which therefore forfeited me
the opportunity to have a bond and Jason, that's like
really important because if that just goes to show that
they they were so underhanded and all of the stuff
that they did to me. I mean a bond hearing.
People have bond hearings every day. People get bond set
(46:16):
before they ever have a court appearance. A special prosecutor
does not need to be familiar with the facts of
the case in order for a defendant to have a bond.
But this is the judge saying that it was all
just a ploy because the ultimate goal for them was
for me to take a plea. Of course, they had
no case. There was so much public scrutiny. The Supreme
(46:37):
Court had slapped them down very very heavily in that opinion,
and they had lost all their witnesses. A lot of
them didn't want to testify, and a lot of them
were now in material. So they just kept pressuring, putting off,
pressuring and putting off. And the day before I took
my plea, we had actually subpoena thirty assistant district attorneys
(46:58):
and they had filed injunctions to block him, and then
they were getting ready to go through. Their ultimate goal
was to keep Amy Wywrick off the stand. She had
already been in the stand earlier in that year about
hiding evidence in a totally different case, and if you
put Amy on that stand, she was going to have
to be held accountable. And I guess the solution to
all that was to get me off their case and
(47:18):
just to dispose of all of this was a plea.
So my lawyers came to me the night before I
took the plea with the offer. There was a lot
of confusion. I kept asking, like, you know, how much
is it? What is it? And they just kept reiterating,
you will walk out of here tomorrow. You can go home,
you can be free. And my lawyer the first thing
(47:39):
I asked them, I started crying and I was like,
do you know what this means? And she was like,
what I said. For them to offer me this plea,
I said, this means that they know I didn't do it.
They went to my mom's two sisters that were against me,
and they agreed to this. Police. If they really thought
that I killed their sister, do you think that they
would be willing to offer freedom? I said, I don't
(48:02):
know what's more awful the fact that I've been here,
the fact that these people know or have a doubt
in their mind and still went through with all of
this that I could be free. Like I was crying,
and she was like, Nora, listen, you want five things.
You want your mom back, It's not gonna happen. You
want your aims to acknowledge the fact that you didn't
(48:22):
do this, and you want them to love you. That's
not gonna happen. You want people to think you didn't
do it. The people that believe you and that they
know you, they're going to be behind you. They've always
been behind you. The people that have made up their
mind that you did do this and that are opinionated.
Nothing a trial, an overturnal like your conviction being overturned,
an acquittal, that's not going to change their mind. She said,
(48:44):
you want to get out and help people. You can
do that. You want to get out and have a baby.
You will be young enough to do that now. She said,
hold on to the things that you can do and
let go all the things that you can't and sign
the paper. And you did. I think any reasonable person
in your situation would have signed that paper because you
(49:05):
had seen the worst of what American justice system can
dish out At that point you knew that they were
going to go to any lanes they had to to
reconvict you and send you back to hell, basically for
as long as they could write. I'm not in prison anymore.
So I'm back logged down with a totally group of people.
(49:28):
I'm restricted from all of my friends. You make friends
in prison. We have Joe House lawyers in prison called
law clerks, So all of the people that can understand
and empathize and actually like talk about what the court
proceedings and what's going on and fully understand them and
give me advice. I'm not even allowed to communicate with
these people. Were not allowed to write, We're not allowed
(49:48):
to talk, We're not allowed to do anything. So I
once again was back at square one, and I was
all alone, and I was tired, and I was going
to court, and I was just sitting there and watching
them do the same thing to me that they had
done all over again, and acting like the Supreme Court
decision had never happened. And so when they offered me
(50:09):
a piece of paper to sign, it was unreal. They
told me I would walk out that day. You're sort
of signing your life away, right, because once you signed
that Alfred plea, you're not able to sue them, they're
not liable for anything. On top of that, you're living
as a convicted felon, even though the Tennessee Supreme Court
(50:30):
has said in five to nothing that basically that's not true.
So it's really a Sophie's choice kind of situation, right,
and you took the logical choice, but you took it
under false pretenses, thinking that you were going to be
freed that day, and instead you're sent back to prison
for fifteen months, which is I don't know, it's really
(50:52):
just it's just hard, like it's it's hard for me
to just wrap my head around. That was my lowest point.
So when I get it there, T d o C
is like, we did not tell your lawyers that you
will go home. We told your lawyers that you would
be eligible for parole. And when I was sitting there
taking the plea that day, that's what Chris Craft, the judge,
was saying, you'll go back and you'll be eligible for parole.
(51:14):
But one of the things that my attorney has told
me before I took the standards, look, don't listen to
anything he says. Okay, he doesn't know you're getting out.
We've arranged this with T. D O C. They just
know you're taking the plea. They don't understand how much
good time you have. So if he says something that
makes you, like, you know, uncomfortable, ignore it. Don't listen
to anything he's saying. So I get understand. And he's
(51:35):
saying that I'm going to go back to prison at
this point, like I'm not even acknowledging my lawyers in
the core room, I'm looking at miss pat and she
is willing me like a mother because I feel like
she became my adoptive mother. I'm looking at her and
my ex boyfriend's mother, Ainslie, and these two women are
a force of nature, like their eye contact is trying
to pull me off the stand. They are looking like,
(51:57):
oh ship, like something has gone terrible wrong. They just knew,
you know, because they weren't back there when my lawyers
were telling me all this, and they're thinking that I'm
signing this plea and I'm getting out that day. They've
gone out and they bought me root beer, they bought
me close, they bought me a toothbrush, and they're gonna
be waiting on me when I get out. And they're
sitting there listening to the judge saying I'm gonna go
(52:18):
up for parole, and everybody we're all really confused. So
I get off the stand and I go back to
the back room with my attorneys, and they're like, but
you're not even smiling, like this is so exciting, You're
about to walk out of here, and I said, I don't.
I don't think I'm gonna believe it until it actually happens.
(52:38):
So I go back to the jail. I give away
all my stuff. I checked the computer. It says disposed,
so then it's real to me. I'm getting out of here.
My case is disposed of. So they say, nor you
have a visit. I go up to the top of
the steps. It's one of my friends, Jennifer, my mom's
name that was actually for million car started with me
(53:00):
her and her girlfriend and they're like, Nora. We asked
them what time you were getting out, because we were
just going to wait on you and surprise you, and
they said, you have a fifteen year old for the
penitentiary in the computer. And I just left my visit
and I walked downstairs to the officer and I was like,
I want you to check that computer again. She was like, nor,
are we already checked it? And I said no, I
(53:21):
want I want you to check it again, and she
did and it said fifteen years because that's what I
had signed for, so it said fifteen years hold t
d o C, which is Department of Corrections. So that
meant that I had to go back to t d
o C and they needed to calculate my time. I
went back to t d o C. In that was
(53:44):
in May of When I got there, my expiration day,
which is the day that I would get out, was
sitting in July of I was past my parole eligibility day.
So I get there and they're like, Nora, you're on
the pearl docket. And I just looked at the counselor
and I don't think anyone has ever said this before.
(54:05):
And I looked at her and I said, fuck parole.
And she was like what. And I was like, I
don't trust you. I don't trust t d o C.
And I don't trust the State of Tennessee. And I'm
refusing to go out for a parole and she was like, no,
you cannot refuse to go out for a pearl. I said,
I am not gonna go up and say I'm sorry
for a crime I didn't commit. Please let me out,
(54:27):
and then I'm under state supervision for two years. I said.
I don't have anybody waiting on me out there, I said,
and I don't trust anybody out there, and I'm going
to flatten my sentence. So let me explain. Flattened means
that I would sit there and earn my good time
and meet my date. So I could have gone up
for parole. I might have gotten it, I might not have.
But if I would have gone out on Pearl, then
(54:47):
that means I would have been under the Tennessee state
supervision for two more years, which means Amy wy Wreck
would have been like over me for two more years.
And I was isn't about to release what little control
I had back to them at this point, to be
quite honest, nothing personal. I didn't trust my lawyers, I
(55:08):
didn't trust t DC, I didn't trust anyone. So I
had to trust myself. So I sat there for fifteen
more months so I could walk out of there and
never look back. Yeah, and and think about this. She
gets a decision from the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimous that
puts her in the position of she's innocent, no more
(55:30):
guilty than you or me of this crime, and she
waits months and months and months to even get a
hearing about whether she can get bond. There is no
daylight but this one option that is put in front
of her, and then the rugg is pulled right underneath her,
and it's just all of this to prevent her from
(55:55):
just bringing the light of the day to what happened. Here.
We see this over and over again, where you've got
innocent people who are stuck behind bars with no legal justification,
and they're given this forced choice because the government holds
all the cards. Nora, Then what was it like for
(56:17):
you the day you got out, you finally got out?
How do you feel it was unreal? Up until the
moment that I walked out this sally port the gates,
I didn't think I would really get out. They had
played with They would release me at twelve o'clock midnight,
then they would release me at four o'clock the next day.
And then I ended up leaving in eight thirty and
(56:39):
the warden actually came told me if I told anyone
when I was leaving, they wouldn't release me at all,
but I knew I was expirating, and I knew I
would get out, and I signed the piece of paper,
but I didn't believe it, just because of everything that
had happened on my journey, that it would really really happen.
And I got out and Annesley was there, and I
was so lucky and so happy to have her. But
(57:02):
I honestly think being out, I knew that my mom
was gone, and I knew that someone had killed her.
People talk all the time in prison about going home
because they have this idea of home, and I don't
really know what a home is for me right now,
and so I think getting out has been such a
(57:24):
blessing and I'm so grateful. And I used to always
think that getting out was the hard part, getting released,
getting free, but life after something like this is the
hard part. I took that plea because I thought I
would get out that day and that didn't happen. And
(57:44):
so there are times that I think I wonder that
if I made a really big mistake, because being a
felon in today's world is really hard. A lot of
people aren't like you. They don't understand that the justice
system is flawed and unfair. Getting a job is hard.
Finding a play to live as hard. But I'm still lucky.
I find myself. When I talk to my friends in prison,
(58:07):
it's like, I don't even want to tell them these things,
because who am I a complain when they're still sitting
in there? You know, but these are the things they
don't tell you when you're in there. Um, I think,
I guess I'm just gonna say. Everyone who's listening out there,
(58:28):
get involved. Donate to your local innocence project, go online,
read about these issues right to someone in prison. Support
organizations like Women Empowered to Become Self Sufficient that meant
so much to Nora when she was in Check them
out and vote. Nora can't, but you can, and so
get out there and make a difference, because you know
(58:51):
it's time. It's time for us to turn this whole
tied around. We have a tradition here Nora at Wrongful Conviction,
which is that to close the show, I like to
just turn the microphone over to you for any closing
thoughts that you want to share. I don't know, Um
I would. I just I'm just I'm just one. I'm
(59:15):
one of many. There are Michelle's and Shane's and Joscelyn's
and Octavia's, and so many people like me that are
sitting inside that haven't gotten the opportunity or the chances
that I've gotten, that are just waiting on someone like
the Innocence Project to accept their case. So I guess
what I would say is I just hope that the
(59:37):
people are listening, ros that like any little bit counts,
and I just hope that people are able to look
at this with an objectivity that maybe they didn't have.
I want to thank you both for being on the show,
Bryce for sharing your your wisdom of all these years,
and Norah, of course you. I can't even put into
(01:00:01):
words how much it means to have you here, and
I know the best is yet to come for you.
And we're all on your side, and we're we're fucking
test too, so we're gonna we're all gonna have to
practice Sarah together. And I also want to give special
thanks to Emily Basilon, who first brought so much attention
to your case. Extraordinary writer for The New York Times,
(01:00:22):
a scholar at Yale Law School, she doesn't funk around,
and another badass. A lot of badass women on your
side now, which is great. So this has been a
very special episode of Wrongful Conviction. Thanks to you, Nora,
and what else can they say? Thanks for being here,
thank you for having me, don't forget to give us
(01:00:53):
a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps.
And I'm a proud donor into the Innocence Project and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate
and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show
(01:01:16):
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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