#079 Jason Flom with Timothy Tyler

Tim Tyler was sentenced to a mandatory life sentence in federal prison for selling LSD while traveling around the country following the Grateful Dead. He was 25 years old when he was sentenced and spent nearly half of his life behind bars. In 1991, Tim was arrested twice for selling LSD and received probation both times. Then, in May 1992, Tim sold marijuana and LSD to a confidential informant. He was arrested in August and charged along with three codefendants, including his father. Tim pled guilty to possession with intent to deliver LSD and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute LSD. In March 1994, Tim was sentenced to mandatory life without parole in federal prison. Tim’s codefendants received five- and 10-year sentences. Timothy’s father died in prison while serving his 10-year prison term. Tim’s life sentence was determined by two factors: his two prior drug offenses and the amount of LSD he was convicted of selling, which included the “carrier” weight of the paper the LSD was placed on. Ten grams or more of LSD (including the weight of the carrier) on a third offense triggers a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison. Without the mandatory minimum, Timothy would have received a sentence of 262-327 months under the federal sentencing guidelines.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I've never been to trouble in my life. I didn't
even have a parking ticket, and you know what I mean.
I was brought up like cops are the good guys.
I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
do know that everything was stacked against me. Everything like
everything this isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent.

(00:22):
I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to
do with this. How is this possible? I grew up
trusting the systems. I grew up believing that every human
thing should do the right thing. And that's why, even
though I was dealing with corrupt people, I wasn't going
to brave anyone to get me out of prison because
I wouldn't live with the fact that I braved my
way out of my wife's death. I'm not innocent to

(00:45):
proven guilty. I'm guilty until I proved my innocence. And
that's absolutely what happened to me. Our system. Since I've
been out ten years, it's come a little ways, but
it's still broken, a totally little trust in humanity after
what happened to me. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back

(01:19):
to rongful Conviction with Jason flam That's me. And today
we have a very special and unique episode of the show.
Today we have Tim Tyler with us. Tim, Welcome to
RNL Conviction. Thank you and Tim. One of the reasons
why I say it's unique is because Tim was actually
convicted of a crime that he was guilty of, which

(01:43):
was an LSD crime, non violent and sentenced to double
life in prison. No guns, no weapons, no violence, no
no nothing. Actually, and when I tell you, when you
learned the story, your head is going to explode. So
stay two wound, get comfortable, because this is this is

(02:03):
really madness. So Tim, let's turn this to you. Um
this case, I mean, you were in prison for twenty
six years. So this case happened a long time ago, Yes,
in August three, and you were on the road with
the Grateful Dead, right, Yeah. I was a dead head

(02:23):
going to um you know, like I loved the Grateful
Dead and the band of families. It was like a
big family that went around and it was a sense
of freedom, it felt like. And I was following him
around and um, I was arrested. I mailed some meloste

(02:44):
to Florida and I was arrested. And Uh, I ended
up doing like like you know, his twenty six years
in twenty seven days, right, And then I'm lucky because UM,
President Obama end up giving me a clemency. So without
that or without support, I would still be in there,
and I wouldn't just be like another number, or I

(03:05):
couldn't get a message out. And your case has so
many horrible aspects to it, and for me, UM, it's
very personal because UM listeners of the show know that
I'm the founding board member of the Innocence Project, but
I actually joined the Board of Families Against Mandatory Minimums

(03:27):
before I even knew about the Innocence Project. So I've
been with FAMS since almost since the beginning of the organization. UM.
It's a wonderful organization f a MM dot org. It
was founded by Julie Stewart. She was sort of my
mentor as I got started on this. You know, lifetime
in criminal justice reform and UM, you are a person

(03:52):
that we've spent a lot of time talking about. You
are a rallying cry I think for people in this movement,
you're someone who all of us respect so much, and
and you're someone who were really proud to have played
a part in helping to win your freedom. Um, but

(04:12):
the the length that the government went to two convict
you of this crime and sends you to life in prison,
which again life. And I've heard your sister talk about
this on videos. There's a video free Tim Tyler on Younternet.
People want to watch. It's so horrible because it, as
we say it, fam Let, the punishment fit the crime, right,

(04:35):
but your punishment didn't match anything to do with the crime.
Yours was a non violent crime. How did this happen? Right?
How could this have gone so wrong? And we know
also that they ended up implicating your father in it,
which is which is so disgusting that it actually just
and I think people need to know that part of
the story. I'm sure it's tough to talk about it,

(04:55):
but anyway, can you take us back to this. So
you're on the road with a grateful dead you get
approached by it who turned out to be a government informant. Right. Um. Actually,
I had friends in Florida and St. Pete, Florida that
I sold you know, I wanted to do LSD and
I sold some to my friends want to do it.
So I saw it to my friends. Well, one of

(05:16):
them was arrested for I believe a sheet or announced
a weed, I'm not sure which. And he told me
he was arrested. He's like, I was arrested last night.
And he he said, he posted a bond and you know,
and I told him, well, your first offense in Florida
probably give you a probation. But um, he was recording

(05:41):
me at that time, and then he recorded me like
audio tapes after that, and like, I sold him like
a thousand hits of LSD, you know, and then I
sold him three more times another thousand, and all of
those were recorded where they could have arrested me. And
then I said, well, I was actually in Florida when

(06:02):
I did these sales of in person to them, and
they could have arrested me, but they didn't arrest me.
I told him, I said, I'm leaving Saturday to go
on tour, you know, because there was no shows at
this particular time, and um, they could arrested me before
I left, but they didn't. They let me go, so
I went on to the shows. Actually I went to UH,

(06:23):
California first and I bought um, like twelve thousand, five
hundred hits of LSD. Now it was like the price
for that, what I paid was like four thousand dollars.
So you're talking about four thousand dollars of LSD total conspiracy.
And I went and I sent I they wired me money,

(06:48):
like eight of their money, and I sent it all
in an envelope. But I had sent envelopes that never
that never arrived, and I took the loss myself before
before this. So this particular envelope, I sent nine thousand
hits in this envelope, and I put several different envelopes

(07:14):
in it, and one was for a friend of mine,
one was for somebody that somebody else that just was
with a blank person. One was for two thousand hits,
which was for my father. But my father was he
didn't look at it like he was doing anything. It
was like an envelope. You know. He never did all
of Steve, So he was just getting some for a

(07:36):
friend of his. So um, but he knew it was coming,
you know. I but I sent it all in one
big envelope with more with envelopes inside it, and I
sent it to this guy's business. Well, when it was delivered,
the d A or whoever the officers delivered it and

(07:57):
at this guy's business. And he knew me since I
was a kid, and my father knew him since he
was a kid. And um, he basically cooperated right on
the spot. So he called my father and said, hey,
come down here, So my father did, and he basically
threw the envelope in my father's car, and then he
convinced my father to walk around with him at um

(08:21):
their business, trying to get him to um incriminate, I
think that's the word himself. So my father said something, Yeah,
I'm just getting It's just an envelope I'm bringing to
a friend. That's something. That's all my father really said,
and that's all he was really doing. So um they
arrested him as soon as he said that, they came
and arrested him. Right. They were there hidden and they

(08:43):
arrested my father and I had a good friend of mine.
They arrested him. There was only five hits was for him.
He ended up doing five years himself, this guy and
my father was ended up being sentenced to ten years
for this charge. And he um, he had about a
year and a have to go home, and he died
in prison of a heart attack at the age of
fifty three and uh April seventeen, two thousand one. So, um,

(09:10):
when I when I sent all this stuff, then I
had warrants for sending that. You know, now it's a
federal crime because you sent it through the mail, well
actually sent it ups so it wasn't a federal fence.
But I was traveling the country and they couldn't catch me,
so I guess it was originally going to be a
state crime. And my father was arrested and posted his
bond as a state crime, but they wouldn't release him

(09:34):
because they decided to let the federal take over. So
my so eventually my father was able to get a bond.
And when I was arrested, I had no bond, none,
not a million, ten million whatever, zero bond. And um,
I also knew that once I was arrested that I

(09:57):
was I was gonna go away for a long time. Um.
This time, see, I had two prior sales of LST
and when I went to court, they offered me eighteen
months in prison or three years robation. So I took
the three years frobation. I played guilty, took three years robation,
and then they took me to the other one and
they actually wanted to give me three years in prison,

(10:21):
and I told him I was never even in their town,
which they can verify, and I'd like to have a
speedy trial and go to trial. And then, um, several
months later, I told him I would be willing to
plead guilty if you ran a concurrent probation with the
one in in Panel's county. Even even though I was
not the person that would drove up there, they arrested.

(10:42):
It was a friend of mine and drove up there
and they arrested him and he played guilty in the
whole nine yeards. So after it was like a week
before we were going to go to trial, they said, okay, um,
you can plead guilty today. A matter of fact, the
judge was upset that I was going to plead guilty.
It was a female judge, and she says, you could
plead no contest and I will give you a judication

(11:04):
of guilt withheld and give you three years probation concurrent
to your other three years probation. So I played no contest, okay.
So then within six months at that time, I ended
up going to some shows again, and I was really
only had a couple of guys. This guy uh named
Jeff Rhodes that I sold to on this charge that

(11:26):
ended up setting me up, and I had like one
or two other guys that I sold to. It. That
was it. I mean, it was just my friends. It
wasn't like this big big thing. I wasn't this big
person that they seemed like to make me out to be.
But um, and I want to just jump in here
for a second, because you know, the the cynic out

(11:47):
there will be listening, go wow, this guy who's selling
LSD and against the law, this and that, blah blah blah.
That we have people all kinds of people that listen
to the show, and they all have their own unique
viewpoints on these issues. But for those people, I would
ask them to consider the fact that there was a

(12:08):
total of four thousand dollars involved, right, and we spent
as a country to keep you locked up for twenty
six years. We spent probably close to a million and
a half taxpayer dollars, not to mention the lost income
that we might have gotten from your being being out

(12:32):
and getting a job and working paying taxes. Um, you know,
not to mention your dad's ten years in prison. I
mean the implications of this across the board are it's
you know, I guess when you add it all up,
it's probably more than a couple of million bucks that
we spent to lock up a guy who probably needed

(12:54):
to go to rehab, which was you. You know, I mean,
I don't want to. I can't go back and judge
you from back then, but you know, it sounds like
you had to you know, you had a drug issue,
and um at some point you probably would have had
to get some help for that. But I think that's
my personal feeling is that that's how we should approach drugs.
You should approach them as a medical problem, not a

(13:15):
criminal justice problem. And they do that in certain parts
of the world, like Portugal, and they have no issues
whatsoever right that all drugs are legal there. Nobody cares.
There's no there's no increase in crime, there's no increase
in in overdoses, there's no Every social sciences that has
studied it has found that when they decriminalize it, which
was in two thousand, um, all those things actually were

(13:38):
affected positively. It's crime rate went down. Uh, you know,
drug use went down, overdoses went down, and it went
down not only for for small countries that compared it
to European countries and world countries like it's just there.
All the evidence shows that this is the only sane
strategy is to treat drugs as a medical problem. Anted,

(14:00):
if you get behind the wheel and your high as
a kite and you hurt somebody, then I believed then
you have to be punished in some way, right Or
if you do anything to hurt somebody, and if you
act in a way that's irresponsible to anyone other than yourself,
then you know, we have to as a society look
at that. But for someone who is not harming anybody else, um,
not you know, selling it to little school children or

(14:22):
doing anything. You know, don't get me started. But anyway,
your experience is a is an extreme example of what's
wrong with our sentencing laws and with our approach to
drugs in general. And it is also an example of

(14:44):
something that it's such a strange dichotomy because here you
were someone who is sort of a free spirit music lover.
I'm a music lover. I never liked The Grateful Dead personally.
I was a whole bit more into the hard rock stuff.
But whatever, and then you end up being put in
going from this sort of hippie dippie lifestyle, you know,

(15:05):
flour power whatever, into literally some of the most harsh
conditions that any human being can or ever would endure.
And I want to talk about that because it's important
for people to understand what's that, what that's like, and
the concept of putting non violent offenders like yourself into
maximum security prisons, which is so wrong on so many levels.

(15:28):
But before we get to that, tim so there's another
problem with your case that we find over and over
again in wrongful conviction cases, which is the lack of
adequate counsel. And your attorney actually sold you down the
river in a very meaningful way. And can you talk
about that? Because you did you have a public defender. Yeah,
he was a public defender, but he was also a

(15:49):
private attorney that the government hired. It's kind of a
strange situation because my father hired a very good attorney
in um Florida named Frank Usada. And as soon as
we played guilty, you know I was gonna plead guilty anyway,
I knew I was going to be in prison until

(16:12):
at least two thousand twelve, which because I happened to
believe in some of the stuff that Jerry Garcia and
um Terence McKenna had spoke about that date, So I
knew I was going to be in prison until then,
at least anyways. But um, I so I listened to
my father in some levels. In one level and his

(16:33):
attorney and his attorney basically said we should plead guilty,
and my father was looking at it through another another
way too. I wanted I didn't want to go to
trial because I actually believed ls T to be a sacrament,
you know, which is something that I'm sure there's a
lot of argument to go on both ways on that.

(16:55):
But um they did take Ayahaska to the Supreme Court
in two thousand six and recognized it as a sacrament
to certain people, which is very similar. So I just
so that's not considered a religious ceremony, right, Yeah, it's
really it's considered religious ceremony. It's spelled a y A
h u A s c A, and it's went to

(17:16):
the Supreme Court and it's legal in this country as
a sacrament. To use the same argument that the Native
Americans used for peyote, and they took it in. The
guy that owned Seagram's bottle company. Jeff Brownman I think,
I think his name is. He took it to the
Supreme Court and he won. So it's regulated. But they're
doing a good job. They said, they don't want to

(17:36):
the same thing that happened with LSD. They don't want
it to happen with Ayahascar. So it's very controlled. You
have to really go through a ceremony and prepare yourself
for it, you know. But it's very similar, probably more
potent in an experience than than LSD. And it's legal. Right.
What a's strange psychotomy, right, I mean? And what a
weird society we are when you look at the fact

(17:59):
that ALCOH hall causes you know, tens of thousands of
deaths every year, if not hundreds of thousands. I don't
even know the numbers, but it's a lot, and it
causes violence, and it causes people to misbehave in all
sorts of ways, all of which are negative for society
and their own families and their health and everything else.
And yet it's totally legal, right, And yet we have

(18:20):
other drugs like marijuana which are still which is you know,
obviously we're making a lot of progress, and this is
something I've been working on for a long time and
advocating for. But you know, there's still people serving life
in prison in America for marijuana, Like, and the funk
is going on with that. I mean people, I say
that to people and they're like, huh No, that doesn't
make any sense. Yet we have more than six Americans

(18:42):
now live in a community where at least some form
of medical or or recreational marijuana is legal, and yet
we have people who are serving life in prison and
getting arrested every day. Tens of thousands of people every week,
every month get arrested for marijuana. It's nuts um and
goes back to what you were talking about before. So
so you came him a place of believing that what
you were doing really wasn't wrong because of the fact

(19:06):
that you looked at this and granted, you know, okay,
you know, people will have I'm sure very different opinions
on that, but I I can understand where you're coming from.
But I want to fast forward a little bit to
the trial itself, because didn't your attorney give you literally
the worst advice that any attorney has ever given anybody,

(19:27):
which was the police guilty. Yeah, Actually he gave me
worse advice than that. He wanted me to cooperate go
against my father and they would give me ten years,
you know. So that was his first conversation ever had
with him. And I'm like, I called my father as
soon as I was done with that conversation. My father
was had a bond and he was home, and I

(19:48):
went and called him and says, yeah, this is what
this attorney just told me. You know, they offered me
ten years to go against you. And I'm like, of course,
I'm just telling you. Of course, I'm not gonna do
nothing like that. And um, yeah, he gave he gave
me bad advice. And I was his last case that
he was taken out as for the government. He started

(20:11):
private practice after my case. So he's pretty conflicted. I mean,
I mean, it's it's a sad story. At the laws
of this country are made to hand somebody a life
sentence for this small amount. Well maybe it's a large amountain.
It just all depends on the way you look at it. Well,
if you look at it in terms of monetary value,

(20:33):
it's a small amount. If you look at it in
terms of the sheer numbers, it's a large amount. Um.
But you know, it's an amount that most people will
never ever see or come close to in their lifetimes.
But at the same time, you know, again, I'm of
the opinion that drugs should be regulated. They should be
taxed just like alcohol, and they shouldn't be sold to miners.
And we should have safe spaces for people who are

(20:55):
heroinatics to to, you know, to do what they need
to do and not be in the streets. Um And
and you know, it's been shown that these type of
safe injection facilities reduced the spread of AIDS and hepatitis drastically,
clean needle exchanges, things like that. UM, I don't do drugs.
I wish, you know, I could wave a magic wand
and and help every drug addict off of drugs that

(21:17):
that you know that they could. I believe we should
have rehab facilities available to every American who needs it
and wants it, um like a hospital is um and
we would be a much better society if that were
the case. But instead we lock people like you up
for crazy amounts of time. UM. But in your case,
your attorney told you that you could plead guilty. First

(21:39):
of all, the idea that you wanted to testify against
your father is something I really have to just process
for a little while. I guess he had to offer
you that option, if it was an option that was
available to you. You know, he probably had a legal
duty to tell you about it. He didn't have to
advise you to do it, but I'm sure you did
have some sort of a a responsibility to tell you
that that was on the table. Um, you did the

(22:00):
only right thing that you could do, of course, and
that's the only honorable thing. And then but then he
still told you that if you pleaded guilty, you would
get what not life seven years. I thought, so, which
is a long time, you know, when you're just getting
arrested and you're coming in. But I also I just

(22:20):
had to adapt to my environment and and think about, Okay,
I'm gonna be in pressed for a long time. So regardless,
and I really thought about December twelve had on the
back of my mind. Um, I believed something was going
to happen, and maybe I would that date would change,
you know, um, like Jerry mentioned, or Terrence McKenna, an author,

(22:44):
he mentioned, like a global shift of consciousness on that date.
So I figured, Okay, I'm gonna be in until that anyway.
So it doesn't matter if they say twenty years to
life sentences thirty years. It just didn't matter to me
at the time. I I I just scepted my fate,
you know. Like I had a couple of friends also,
and I called them up and I said, um, you're

(23:06):
never gonna hear from me again. I'm if anybody ever
comes to you ask you any questions or anything, just
tell him you'll cooperate against me. That's what I told
some of the people, because I know I was basically
the taking it. I was going to jail, you know,
I was doing the time. So you're trying to send
a lifeline out to some of your friends that might

(23:26):
have gotten in trouble. That's actually I've never heard that
story before. That's a very uh it's extreme, I mean thoughtful.
It's not the right word, is not a strong enough
word for it, but it's a it's a very grace
graceful thing that you did. Um and uh, I tipped
my hat to you for that. So your attorney, I
told you, if you pleaded guilty, this is what you
would get. You were operating under this mistaken assumption that

(23:49):
this prophecy was real, and that you would that that
some magical thing was going to happen on on that
particularly date in two thousand twelve. Obviously that's not how
it worked out. So when you when you were sentenced, UM,
I mean that moment, I guess it didn't really hit
me when I was sentenced, when he actually said, uh,
you know, I'm I sent you to life and then

(24:10):
another life, it didn't really hit me. My sister was
in the courtroom though, and the officers involved were in
the courtroom, and as I was walking out of the courtroom,
you know, I was it was. It didn't hit me
until I looked at my sister and the two guys
they were officers, they stood up and high fived each
other in the middle of the courtroom. And my sister

(24:32):
saw that, and I'm looking at my sister and I
basically started. I broke down right then. I was like, man,
this is sad, sad for my sister. It's sad to
see my sister here right now like that. And um,
I walked in, you know, with the marshes, into the elevator,
and I had some tears going because I've seeing my sister.
What it was more to do with her and it

(24:53):
was for myself. You know, that's that's that's a crazy thing.
But we've heard that before on the show, with people
at this moment of utter despair still thinking more about

(25:17):
the people they loved than about their own predicament, which
is sort of it's really an interesting, uh phenomenon, psychological
and emotional phenomena that happens. But but then, you know,
then comes another terrible aspect of your case, which is
something that I know you talk about in your speeches
and I know you want to talk about today, um,

(25:39):
and I want to talk about today, which is the
fact that you were sent to some of the most
dangerous prisons in America as a non violent hippie. Right,
you still look like a hippie. You got you can't
hear you can't see him on the radio, but he's
got long hair in a braid, and uh, you know,
just sort of has the mannerisms of somebody who is
just a gentle musical sort of a soul, which I

(26:01):
recognized from my day job in the music business. Um,
so how did you deal with this? And me what
was it like when you first went and how did
you manage to survive? I mean, these are places where
people are getting stabbed, people are getting beaten, people are
getting killed, right and here you are not not I
mean you're not a small guy, but you're not the
big bodybuilder type of guy, a tough guy whatever that

(26:23):
you can grow up in a violent you know, back
with the background like it started off, I guess it
just depends on who you befriend when you first go
into prison. You know, I went there was a guy
from actually from Hell's Kitchen in New York named Pauli Shartier.
He passed away since then, but he took me as

(26:46):
a roommate um right off, you know, right off the
bus basically, you know. And I came in there with
long here. So he's like, look, you gotta shut your
you gotta cut your hair first. And he he schooled me.
But he did more than school me. He had without
me realizing the amount of stuff that he did for me,

(27:06):
he had like power within the prison system. Let's say,
you know, if you're a serious violent person or whatever
and you've done some serious violent acts, then you gained
some kind of uh power more more like people are
afraid of you. I guess it boils down to and
he took me in as a roommate, and he schooled me.

(27:27):
And he also had explained to other people where I
came from. You know, I'm I'm this deadhead. I'm you know.
He's like, yeah, you're you know. He used to he
used to be funny to him in a way as
far as seeing me because I'm like this non He's like,
you don't belong in here in this prison system. And

(27:49):
he personally told people that other people that had power
like to look out for me, you know, to to
like make sure that I don't get anything I wasn't.
I didn't do drugs in there. I didn't do uh.
I didn't borrow things from people and not return them.
There's a lot of things they say when you get

(28:09):
to prison out to do gamble um and Um, Well, Tim,
why do you think that he took such an interest
in your well being because it sounds like he, at
least for a period of time, say it may have
saved your life. Well, he wasn't the first person. I mean,
he was the first person, but he wasn't the last.
Um an Italian guy that's very well known from New

(28:33):
York also and he's he's um. He took a liking
to me too, and I started playing tennis with him
and three days a week and tennis and tennis and
a maxill security prison. They did in Atlanta. It took
a few years, but um, they had tennis in us
P Atlanta when I when I arrived there, you know,
they actually had tennis courts in there. No longer they

(28:56):
have no more tennis than any of the prisons, but
they had there and handball, and one of the things
I started doing was playing handball. And um, these guys,
you know, had a lot of power on the street
in the free world, so in prison they some of
them retained some of that power where nobody would mess

(29:18):
with them or maybe they're friends. So they by me
playing at daily doing exercise with some people that had
it was that had a little power in the free world,
let's say, or even in prison, so many other people
would think, well they better not you know, approached me

(29:41):
in negative ways based on only because I'd be friended
some people and not everybody is able to be friend
you know, some people like that. It's just like they
kind of like came to me. It's I don't really
know how it all happened. It was more like they
they saw somebody. They saw somebody didn't feel like that

(30:03):
was a real that was like a UM I don't know,
I like to say the word convict, but in some
levels like a criminal. They didn't look at me as
like a criminal, and they looked at me like and
I had a life sentence. So there they they had
some compassion for me. I guess yeah, it sounds like it.

(30:25):
It upset their own sense of right and wrong to
an extent that they felt that they could use that
UM influenced power, you know, they had in that situation
to be able to UM protect you. And and that's
a sort of a little miracle, right, It's sort of

(30:48):
hope in a hopeless place, I suppose. But you were
transferred to I mean, you were in a dozen different
prisons over the time you were locked up, and so
you know, you couldn't have had a dozen different protectors,
right and and and even then, like for you, I
know that from having read about you UM at various times,

(31:09):
you were the winemaker or whatever in the prison and
that managed to help you, uh, because he's making a
prison hooch or whatever, uh to keep you in the
good graces of some of the other guys. Who might
have uh, you know, been predators UM or tormentors of
yours UM. And that does lead to a good point
that I want to make, which is that my friend

(31:30):
Tony popa Um, who was in prison in maximum curity
prison in New York for twelve years for a non
violent first offense UM, he talks a lot about how,
you know, there was so much there was so much
drugs in the prisons that he was in. There were
so many drugs, and as he says, if you can't
control the flow of drugs and a maximum security prison,

(31:50):
how can you expect to control it in a free society?
And I think that really says a lot about the
work that we do, because just think about that, right,
there's I don't think there's I mean, for everything, everybody
I've spoken to, and as you know, hundreds of people
by now that I know who have served time and
different prisons around and nobody says that it was hard
to get access to drugs, which I find remarkable, but

(32:12):
it's true. And yet we labor under this assumption that
if we devote enough resources to trying to stop the
flow of drugs or trying to you know, uh, legislate
our way out of it, or incarcerate our way out
of it, that somehow other's going to reduce the amount
of drugs and society. It's never worked, it never will work,
it never can work. So and your your experience is

(32:32):
just another example of that. But back to your experience. So,
so you went from prison to prison. You were placed
in solitary confinement at various times for either things that
you did or did not do right and and how
did I mean? You were deprived of basically all almost
all the things that a human being needs to survive,
aside the fact that I mean were you you were

(32:54):
vegetarian the whole time you were in there too, Yeah,
I mean necessarily impossible to do, but yes, it's it's um,
I starved at times literally. Um. That's something that I'd
like to bring awareness to. Like, there is some other
vegetarians in there, vegans in there there. There actually are
a few, like a lot of Rastafarians are vegans, and

(33:16):
they have very limited food choices in there, you know. Um. Um.
Towards the last couple of years I was in there,
they started letting people get like tofu and uh gar
bonsa beans and stuff like that that are vegans are vegetarians. Um,
But for the most part, for the most of those years,

(33:38):
they served like soy just so you know, throw some
water and some soy and that would be food, you know.
But for me, I was fortunate where I would I
ate um, oatmeal and apples mostly every single day for lunch.
That was my lunch, you know. I would eat that
in my room because you can buy oatmeal in the
commissary and apples sometimes you can get them from the kitchen,

(34:03):
you know, or you can have somebody to bring them
to you, I guess, um, and I would just go
out and play handball for a lot of years, for
like the past twenty years, probably I would skip going
to the real lunch because there's mostly nothing there that
I would eat. Um. But yeah, and then in the

(34:24):
commissary they have a commis series where inmates can buy food,
but there's nothing or definitely nothing organic in there. But
there's very little that's even healthy, you know, Like they
might sell bags of beans, but even though it contain
like canola oil and other stuff that I don't that
I noticed unhealthy for you. So, like I said, it's

(34:47):
very very difficult to eat the way I did. But
I I've been a vegan for a long time, mostly
for um because karma, like, I don't like to promote death,
even of animals, you know, like and so you know,
that's just my choice. And it was a hard choice.
But luckily I was given another chance. And when I

(35:09):
come out to the free world here, I cannot believe.
They have vegan restaurants now, everywhere they have. It's amazing.
They have vegan they have whole foods with vegan food,
vegan salad bards, I mean, organic food everywhere. It's unbelievable.
I'm telling you, I eat all that stuff now. I
eat to be on burgers. I eat that. They they
have these things called fruffalo wings. That's my addiction. Now.

(35:31):
Is it cauliflower? I think it's made out of coliflower.
It's got a bunch of different stuff in it, but
none of it's meat. And uh, you know, I'm gonna
I'm gonna be opening uh a vegan restaurant eventually, and
I'm very excited about that too. I mean I'm not
I'm I'm almost there, but I'm not quite there. I
still slip once in a while with a little bit
of fish or something. But I'm on the same page

(35:52):
as you. I don't want to hurt animals or um
or anything like that. So UM, you know I'm getting there,
you know. But I have a lot of respect for
people like You've been able to do it for so long,
and the fact that you're able to do it under
those conditions is insane. But I'm not perfect, um, but
I'm I'm trying to minimize, you know, my impact on
on the on the animals and the oceans and the

(36:13):
rest of it. So UM, so I look up to
you for that. But how did I mean? You know,
We're going back to what I was saying before, Tim,
You know, the deprivation to someone like you who was
really yours addicted, more addicted to music than drugs, right,
I mean, and you weren't able to have that experience
in prison except on a very limited basis at certain times. Um.

(36:35):
You obviously are someone who is a you know, a
kind and gentle and loving person, and here it is,
everything is the opposite. Right. You're not able to have
appropriate forms of physical contact with UM. With with and
by that I mean whether hugs or you know, romantic relationships. Um,

(36:58):
You're not able to have of any of the things
that sustained you and sustain you now on the outside,
how does a person like you go into an environment
like that and with with actually no prospects of ever
getting out and maintain sanity, hope any of it? Like
what what you know? You're in this like the darkest

(37:21):
hole that even in solitary confinement, Like, how did you
do that? Well, the first time I went in the
hole in south they called solitary confinement is known as
the whole in prison. You know when you're in prison,
they stay it's the whole. The first time I went
in arrow is in there for thirty seven days. I
didn't do anything wrong, But um, there's there's different reasons

(37:43):
why you would go to the whole. They call it
special housing unit, it's called the shoe. Um, there's different
reasons why. I Like, at this particular time, there was
a guy that was in the same living quarters that
I lived at and he actually put a knife in
not only our room, but like four other people's rooms
because he didn't like my roommate and he didn't like

(38:06):
you know in the nineties, and um, so they locked
if if you if they find something in your room,
and nobody says it's there's my roommate would have said
it was his if it was his, And if I
have something that's wrong that I shouldn't have, I will
say it's mine too. So it wasn't either one of ours.
And it so it took us to the whole. I

(38:27):
was there for thirty seven days, um, and then they
let me out. And then another time I went for
over two months because somebody else was trying to leave
that prison. So he used my name to say that
I was like extorting him for to make wine or something.
You know, it was extorting. I don't. I wouldn't never

(38:47):
extort anybody for anything, you know what I'm thinking. Wow,
And they shipped the guy that I was in the
hole for two months and two days. And it's just
a coincidence that, Um, it was around August nine. This
was right when Jerry Garcia died. I was in a
hole when he died. And they used to never play music,
you know, on you could maybe hear one of their

(39:09):
songs every so often, out of music, But when he died,
they started playing all day for the whole day. I
was able to listen. You know, I'm listening to music
on the radio. You know, and that started a Grateful
Dead Hour and they started to have one hour a
week you know where I can listen to it where
that helped me really help me. But um, at times

(39:29):
when I could not listen to it, I actually used
to use the telephone and call my sister and she
would play me the song called Days Between It's a
Grateful Dead song over the phone, and I would it
would help me. It was like, oh, it would help me.
Like maybe someday somehow somebody will help me and I

(39:50):
can go back to a show where I can be
able to listen to him on my own, whatever the
case may be. Um, So I I was, like I said,
I was in the hole for two months and two
days over somebody saying that I was something to do it.
Why but they shipped that guy. He wanted to get shipped,
and they did. They shipped him. They let me back
out and then I was there for seven years. And

(40:12):
at the very end, um, they just tried to say
I was. They didn't know for sure, but they was saying,
just in case they're gonna put me in the hole
because they thought I was friends with these guys that
we're trying to escape. I would never try to leave
because it's there's no sense of trying to leave because

(40:32):
you're you can't stay away. It's like it's where I
would never try to try to go anywhere. But um,
I had a friend of mine that was actually trying
to leave, and he had some friends and they all
they were trying and and they locked them all up.
And then a month later they came and said, well,
we're locking you up just in case, and they locked
me up and I was in over five months. Over

(40:54):
five months because your friends were trying to escape, because
I had one friend that was or whatever, they just
thought that just in case, they're locking me up, just
in case. So they they locked you up back. Then
they can ship you if they had a good enough reasons.
So they they just said, all right, you've been here
long enough or sending you somewhere else. So they send
me to USP Beaumont, which is um another one of

(41:15):
the most serious prisons in the country. Still is well now.
It's really limited control in there, like there's um fences
everywhere inside there. You're never together with the whole prison
at one time, so it's very it's still violent. Even
even with that. I have a friend of mine there.

(41:36):
It actually um named Ronald ad Cox. That Um was
arrested in nineteen eighty and he had a release date
in and a guy came to him and heard that
he was gay on the street or and he got

(41:57):
arrested at seventeen years old. In seventeen years old, this
guy came and slapped him and said, sha, if you're
going to be my girl. Basically in prison, so he
basically killed the guy. You know, I would have thought
he could have used self defense. But there's people in
prison that will go to court or trial against you.

(42:19):
There's some people that will, like if somebody gets thirved,
there's somebody else and you know, a whole another unit
that didn't see anything, but they will be willing to
testify that they saw everything. And apparently had enough people
that went against him and they gave him a life sentence,
and since then he ended up killing two more people.
There's a different reasons why that would happen. But if
somebody tried you in that manner, Um, you know, he

(42:44):
did what he did. And so he has three life
sentences now and he he's about six four. You know,
he was serious person, and I ended up befriending him
in around two thousand and six, and since then we
have been friends. You know, I've been We've been friends
ever since then. I actually still talk to him. He's

(43:06):
he's I mean, his story is interesting because he was
the arrested a seventeen years old. He's never been to
see a beach in his life, and I'm like, there's
anything I can do ever to help him out. You know,
I will, and I have been you know, you could
do whatever I could do for him. And I want
to talk about that too, Tim, because before we get

(43:26):
to it, though, UM, your nightmare came to a very
dramatic end, and that's an important thing for us to
talk about. UM. I have been for as long as
I've been in this movement UM an advocate for clemency

(43:46):
in cases like yours, UM in mandatory sense, in cases
and cases of actual innocence. Ironically, paradoxically, those are harder
to get clemency on, typically because governors and presidents will
often prefer to let the courts deal with those actual

(44:07):
innocence claims. It's sort of understandable, but it's easier for
them to look at a case like yours or so
many other mandatory sense in cases I've been involved with
where it's so obviously an affront to justice that someone
is serving a sentence that is so wildly mismatched with

(44:31):
the crime that they're convicted of, even if they are guilty.
And certainly there's a lot of people serving mandatory sentence
for climes they didn't do. But um, in cases where
someone like you actually pleads guilty, or even Lenny Singleton,
who I you know, was so thrilled to walk out
of prison and we become friends since in in um
several months ago in Virginia, UM, you know who is

(44:53):
serving double life for stealing and a handful of dash
and grab robberies in which no weapon was used and
no one was hurt. He's another one who pleaded guilty.
And uh, just judge was in a bad mood that day,
you know so. But in your case, the system it

(45:14):
took too long. Justice delayed, but justice wasn't denied because
ultimately there are a lot of people who came to
your you know, I guess in a certain way, your
prayers were answered right because you had a literally an
army of people, four hundred thousand of them signed petitions.
I was one of them, um asking the president. Yeah, sure,

(45:39):
asking him one of four. Um, it's a good it's
a good army to be a part of. So there
was an army of people, advocates, lawyers, families against mandatory minimums.

(46:02):
Again that's f a mm dot org and hope people
will go and visit the website. Um, who were literally
begging for your freedom and uh and those cries were
heard and you were granted clemency. But um, I want
to hear from your perspective what that moment was like

(46:24):
and how did you find out? Were you expecting it?
How did you because this is the flip side, right,
we know what the misery was of that that moment
in the courtroom where they were, you know, the high
fiving and your sister and now this was really the opposite, right,
So can you explain that scenario? Um? Yeah, they were
handing out, um clemencies every every I don't think there

(46:49):
was a set time. This is two President Obama. President
Obama was granted clemencies, you know. So I think he
started like forty five and then he in Then it
got to be like a hundred I think at one time,
or a hundred and eleven I think in the time
that the game that I was granted it um So
for me, I was every time they were have a

(47:13):
group of clemencies, you know, you want to be the
first to see if your name's on or you know,
because we didn't know how they would tell you if
you was going to have one. So I would go
and see, my note, my name is not on that one.
My name is not on it. So one day I'm
sitting in my room. I think I just came in
from recreation. I'm not sure, but it was that um.

(47:33):
It was like at one forty in the afternoon. And
normally when you're in prison, you can only move for
ten minute moves. Like it's like on the hour. I
believe it is some places on the hour, some on
a half hour. So if it's not on the right time,
you're not they're not gonna open the door, and you're
not gonna go anywhere. You're gonna have to wait until

(47:54):
the next move, you know. And the next move was
either at two or two thirty. So they come to
my door one forty they says you need to go
out right now and go to R and d um.
He didn't tell me why or anything. So that's all right.
I um walked out there. He opened the door, which
is not normal. So and then in the center of

(48:18):
the prison there's a it's called the hut where there's
a guard standing under there usually. So I walked and
he doesn't ask me where I'm going or nothing, so
apparently he's in on whatever this is too, so he
didn't say nothing to me. It's okay. I walk go
to R and D and they put me in this room. Um.
And you know, they locked the door and you're in

(48:38):
this room in R and D. So I don't really
know exactly what R and D is. Um receiving in um, oh,
receiving in this yard my back. So they called me
and there, so I'm sitting there for a few minutes.
And then they called to other guys that worked at
this place, and they have called unich or it's basically

(49:01):
a factory in prison. Um. That's another whole story. That's
interesting because it's more like the more people you lock
up that are non violent offenders, they can work in
these prisons. Like let's say you take a small time
dealer and put him in prison. Well, he doesn't have

(49:22):
an income, so for him to get by he might
go and work for average sixty nine cents an hour
in a factory they call unicorn. Anyways, so these two
guys were working in there and they came, uh in
the same room as me, so all three of us,
and I said, hey, can I ask you guys a question?
Are you guys did you happen to put in clemency petitions?

(49:46):
And both of them said yes. I said, oh my god,
this might be a clemency. So they called one of
them first and they called him into this room. He
went to an office and he came back by us
and gave a thumbs up like he just got a clemency.
And I'm like, this cannot be happened, No way, I can't.
I cannot believe this. And um they called me next,

(50:06):
and I went in there and uh it was there
was a female a w there, it's just Int Warden
and she says, I need to put you on this
phone on a speaker phone. So she puts so she
hits it and then Professor Ogilvie at Catholic University gets
on the phone. He says, Mr Tyler, He says, we
have some good news from you from the pardon attorney. Um,

(50:30):
President Obama has granted you a clemency. And I was
I couldn't believe. I couldn't. Almost just came back through
me again right now. I couldn't. I started, uh, like
I want to tear up. I said, I'm trying to
hold it together right now. I said, this is this
is unreal. Did you believe it? Yeah? I mean I

(50:52):
believe because it's his voice and he's talking to me.
But I couldn't. I couldn't really believe it. It was
like a dream. And and he in the woman which
she was looking at me like she wanted to hug me,
you know, which is improper. And I didn't cross that line,
but it was like it was genuine a great feeling
of energy that she was sharing towards me at that time.

(51:15):
And I just I was like, well, I'm trying to
hold together. Well, he gave me, and then he went
into the details where I was given a two year date,
which with the enrollment in um our DApp um to
your day, does that mean a two year date, a
two year release date, you know you had to serve
another two years. Yeah, he gave me. They gave me
a clemency. It was August two thousand sixteen, and he

(51:37):
gave me a release date, so a two year date,
which with the enrollment in our DApp, which is a
residential drug and alcohol program. So I ended up going
into that program. Um, but I lived all the way
up until that time without a release date. You know,

(51:58):
I never I didn't have released I was doing life.
So a lot of people coming into prison, they have
release dates like they're gonna go home someday. They know
on this day and this time, if they can not
hurt somebody, they're gonna go home, or if they can,
you know, stay out of mischief trouble, they'll go home. Well,

(52:18):
I never had that understanding or comprehension before. So he
gave me a two year date. I went back in
my room. I couldn't believe it. Actually, I went back
in and I tried to call my sister and she
didn't answer the phone. So I called my mother and
I caught my mom on the phone and I was like, Mom,

(52:40):
you ain't gonna believe this, but I just got a clemency.
And my mother was at first, She's like what and
and then all of a sudden she I felt like
all this um nervous, negative energy negative um depression that
she's had for all these years. I and I felt

(53:00):
it like come on her and she realized, oh my god,
I'm gonna come home. I'm not I'm not going to
die in prison. I'm gonna make it home. And UM,
it was just this feeling that I can I can't
even put it down the way it really was. So
I and then that conversation with my mom and changed

(53:23):
her whole life. Um in this book at what she
went through, right, losing you and your dad at the
same time. For I mean, yeah, I'm just for many
years my mother had says, I didn't raise you to
do all your life in prison. I didn't raise you
for that. I believed there's something more for you to

(53:46):
be doing here than serving all your life in prison.
She was right, as it turns out. And so a
few several hours later, I called my sister. And when
I called her, I know she already had heard a
new is because at a certain time, whenever they give
out clemcy two people, it goes all over the internet

(54:09):
and of who's going to get it and all that. So, UM,
I couldn't catch her until like eight pm that night
on the East Coast time, which is five her time.
And when she answered her phone, I said, Carrie, I
got the clemency in this, but she didn't have that
genuine feeling of knowing it that I just told it
to her, so I knew, but she did have I

(54:31):
think it was NBC at her house or Las Vegas.
NBC was at her house actually recording when I called her.
So I told her the story about my mom that
I just revealed to you. And they actually played that
thing over the internet or over the NBC, that news

(54:52):
when I was telling a story about my mom. Because
when I called my sister, she already knew. So they
recorded that all that. So that was interesting and UM
and then and what was the reaction of the other
guys in prison, because the word must have spread? Were
they were they angry? Were they bitter? Were they resentful?
Actually happy? When I went back into the unit and
I told a couple of guys and then they all

(55:12):
saw it later on the everybody gets these downloads from
the internet. We actually have internet and in federal prison
since um, not the internet, but email, you know, you
go to core links dot com and you can email
somebody that's in federal prison, and um, there's actually Can
Do Clemency Foundation that was mentioned in earlier with Amy

(55:35):
and there's and her East Coast affiliate is um this
guy named Ali King and he's in Atlanta and he
actually writes like four over four hundred people that are
in prison daily and he calls it lighten up our
blue there's a blue light you know when we when
you have a message, Like you can walk by these
computers in prison. There's like five of them in in

(55:57):
your unit where you live usually and if you go
buy any type in your number, it'll show it'll be
a blue light if you have messages from the free world.
So he would actually send messages and he still does
to over four hundred people every single day, and I
was one of them, and so he would actually send
us who who got the clemencies, what they were charged for,

(56:20):
the release dates, the whole nine yards. So, UM, I
see I saw my name there that day, you know,
that night there was my name and everybody could see that.
But when I walked into the unit, I couldn't help.
I was like, oh my god, I just I got
our clemency just now, and everybody was so happy. Oh
I'm so happy. Oh it wasn't like they hate. They

(56:40):
weren't hating on anybody to anybody that got they were
so happy. You know. That's that's good to hear. Um.
And by the way, I'm glad you mentioned that, because
I do get asked by people and I encourage people
to write to people who are on the inside. And
it sounds like a good time to talk about that.
Because what's the name of the foundation. It's can Do Foundation. Yeah,
I can do clemency, or it could be just can

(57:02):
Do Foundations c A N capital c A N d O.
You know, can Do Foundations. I want to put in
a plug for them because if you go to their site,
they that can give you some instructions as to how
to uh, how to reach out and and you know,
make somebody's day a little brighter on the inside, because
I know from the people that I'm in communication with,

(57:23):
it does make a big difference to know that someone
you know, there are people out there that care about
you and they're fighting for you. Um. And I'm hearing it,
of course from you now in such a powerful way. UM.
So okay, So it's and for anyone listening, please go

(57:46):
to can Do Clemency dot com. A't c A n
d O clemency, which is c L E M E
n c Y dot com. So it's can do clemency
dot com and get involved and you know, correspond with
some month and you'll be amazed how much of a
difference you can really make with a very simple act
like sending an email or as Tim is so eloquently

(58:08):
explaining right now. So, um so that's that's quite a
dramatic turn of events. Um I you know, I hope
that we're going to see many, many more clemencies, gubernatorial
and presidential. Um, we're gonna I'm looking forward to working
with can Do on some of these, because I've been

(58:29):
blabbing about this issue for so long that people that
know me are tired of hearing me talk about it.
I think clemencies are an absolute responsibility of people in power.
That's why they're given those those powers, is so that
they can right wrongs because the justice system. Whoever created
the clemency um uh you know protocol was obviously very

(58:54):
aware that the criminal justice system is not, cannot be,
and never will be perfect, and they're mistakes that are made,
and the person who is holding the high highest executive
office in the state or the country has a h
an opportunity and responsibility to correct those injustices, and that's
why they have that power. Unfortunately, that hasn't been used

(59:14):
nearly as much as it should. President Obama certainly went
farther than other presidents have uh in modern times, but
not nearly far enough. In my view, I think there
are just too many thousands and thousands of people in
the federal system and of course hundreds of thousands and
state systems that belong on the outside that deserve clemitency,

(59:36):
that that can be productive members of society as you
are now. And and that's you know, with the limited
time we have left him. Um. You know, I want
to ask you about that because we were speaking earlier
about some of the people you left behind. And if
there were you know, you know a couple two or three, uh,

(59:57):
you know, people that really stick in your heart that
um that you want to bring attention to their cases.
This would be a good time to do it because
you never know who's listening. Someone might be listening that
can make a difference. Yeah, there's one person off the
top of my head that I could think of. His
name is Frank Merrold. And he you know, he was

(01:00:18):
um in like a reverse thing, like the government was
going to sell him some cocaine, which is it was
going to be quite a bit of it, but he
and he had access to money at the time, and
he paid for it. And they he has no zero
priors and they gave him a life sentence. Um, this

(01:00:40):
is twenty some mont years ago. He's been down twenty
some fot years. I just left him in justsup Georgia. Right,
So he was convicted of a hypothetical crime, right because
no drugs involved. I mean the government was actually selling
revers thing into him, trying to sell him cocaine, which
is I think it was fifty kilos a lot. It
was a lot, but it was intens his intention. He

(01:01:00):
thought he was doing a real deal, but it wasn't
even a real deal. And obviously then they fictitious drugs
and well there's nothing produced. He had people that went
to trial against him, but there's no evidence. There's no
drugs anywhere. So and he's not He's just somebody that
I personally know there's other ones inside prison that have
similar stories. You know what they call it ghost drugs

(01:01:24):
or stuff like that, where they didn't produce any drugs.
There's no drugs actually involved. Um, but that's the most Ah,
that's probably the worst case I've I've ran across that
I personally knew, you know, I played music with him
in there a couple of times, and um, you know,

(01:01:45):
that's somebody that could bring awareness to I had some
other friends that were doing life for marijuana, like Billy Deeko,
But he ended up getting a chemsy. Luckily I knew.
I knew him for to hold for twenty five years,
probably in prison, and he got a clemsy in two thousand,
I think fifteen before me. You know, he was in
there for marijuana, and he had life and and he

(01:02:10):
was into like sprouting food like I'm, you know, into
health like I was. He was in like sprouting beans
and stuff. He even tried to do some of that
in prison, which is nearly I actually did some in
prison like that, which is nearly impossible to do. Tim,
your story is a remarkable testament to the human spirit. Um.
The fact that you were able to you know, to

(01:02:34):
hang on as you did, and to to you know,
maintain hope and maintain your vegan and you're just sort
of gentle and kind spirit and throughout this over a
quarter century, um nightmare. And so you know, I'm obviously
thrilled that you're here. I hope people will hear your

(01:02:56):
words and want to get involved. Um if you do,
the most direct way to do that is by going
to f A M M dot org. That's Families Against
Mandatory min Um. So it's f A M M like
Mary Mary dot org and uh and and learn and
and uh and go ahead and what you say. I
just wanted to say something about FAM because Julie Stewart,

(01:03:16):
she had a brother. She started FAM twenty five years
ago because she had a brother that was I think
doing five years. It could have been more than that
for marijuana and for growing it at his own home.
It wasn't even a large quantity. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And
she and he had a minutum mandatory. I think it's
five years. And um, she heard of my case probably

(01:03:41):
twenty twenty plus years ago also, and for all this time,
whenever there's somewhere to talk about, she would talk about me.
So you know, I feel like I'm indebted to her,
and in some respects I went to visit her, and
you know, I have a lot of thankful this to
go to her, you know, specifically because she introduced me

(01:04:04):
to Catholic University that ended up doing my clemency petition,
and she has introduced me to many people throughout the years.
You know, that brought a light to my case. And
I'm actually very lucky to be free right now. And
that's a big tribute to her, you know, a big

(01:04:25):
much of that is attributed to her, because without her
and many other people of course, um and all the
people that sign a petition that change dot org. Without
all those people and her and and never mind President Obama,
I wouldn't even be able to be here right now
to speak to maybe help somebody else in the future.

(01:04:46):
So I appreciate that. So Julia, I know you're listening,
and UM, I'm gonna thank you from from my bottom
of my heart too for getting me involved in this
fight and for mentoring me and so many other people,
and for really starting a movement that is gaining momentum
every day, um, and which we're not going to stop

(01:05:07):
until you know, everyone who is who is in prison
that shouldn't be is out. And that's a huge, huge task.
But there's a lot of really good people working on
this now more than ever, and and the momentum is there,
so change is definitely in the air. So, Tim, this
is the part of the show that I like the best, Um,

(01:05:29):
because as we get towards the end, I get the opportunity,
since it's my show to do what I want, and
what I want to do at the end of each
show is to stop talking and listen. And so Um,
before we before I turn the microphone over to you
for final thoughts, I just want to thank you for

(01:05:49):
coming in here, taking your time, doing all the advocacy
work that you're doing, inspiring other people, including me, and
sharing your story with us and listeners. So, Um, Tim,
the mic is yours. Please feel free to talk about
whatever's on your mind for the last few minutes that
we have. Well, Um, I'm sitting here in New York City,

(01:06:15):
which in a in the free world, which is um.
Every single day, I like I wake up and I
still have this comprehension where I can't even believe that, Um,
I am free, you know, And I'm thankful every single
day that I am free, that I'm I'm able to

(01:06:35):
have something organic to eat or something vegan to eat.
That's you know that life has changed, technology has changed.
I do also feel at times that I just came
out of a like I was thrown in the future somehow.
You know, as soon as I walked like past that gate,

(01:06:56):
you know, I had to go through all these gates
and give your name and all this stuff. And soon
as I walked past that gate, I just broke down.
I could not believe it. Like the sunshine looking at
the sun, it looked so different from walking when I
walked through that gate than it does inside them gates.
The sun was like real again. And when I walked
out of there, you know, we recorded walking out of there.

(01:07:20):
And I have this friend of my name, Wes Brewer,
Well West Brewer decided to come. He's like a grateful
dead fan or a fish fan, or you know, similar
fans jam Ban music fan, and he decided to come
and take a bus with me. I was released from
jesseup Georgia, and I elected to take a bus ride

(01:07:40):
all the way to Las Vegas because it gives me
three days out of freedom before I had to go
to the halfway house. And if you would have went
on an airplane, then you would only have like eight
hours of freedom. So I was like, I I'd rather
see the country on a bus, and m West decided
to come, not only come, but to video record me

(01:08:02):
the whole way and interview me, you know, and asked
me different you know, coming right out of prison. So
one of the things that he did do was he
surprised me with a trip to the beach and recorded me.
And as soon as I just touched the sand, I
just broke down, like broke down, and he recorded all
this and recorded me going into this water. And I

(01:08:24):
mean I broke down, literally broke down, and um like
baptized and freedom. It was unreal. I just it was
just like tears of joy, massive, massive tears of joy. Really,
so um yeah, I would like to thank everybody that
has signed a petition for me or has supported me

(01:08:45):
in any way anyway, um and saying my sister too,
who has spent many years, um not giving up. I
guess that's that'll probably do it. Well. Once again, thank
you for coming. Everyone. Please go to f A m
M dot org, go to can do clemency dot com

(01:09:06):
and let's uh, let's not stop until we get every
Tim Tyler that there is out of prison. Thank you.
Jason don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever
you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a
proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope
you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and

(01:09:28):
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 on the show is by three
time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a

(01:09:51):
production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
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