October 27, 2021 • 35 mins
On January 6th, 1990, a 21 year old woman was working at a convenience store in Covington, Georgia. At around 4am, this woman, who we'll refer to as "BT," was abducted, forced into a truck, and sexually assaulted until she managed to escape 90 minutes later. Despite BT’s insistence that she hadn’t known the perpetrator, police ultimately persuaded her to believe a story that her ex-boyfriend Ronald Jacobsen was her attacker. There was no physical or forensic evidence pointing to Ron who was out of the state at the time with his pregnant fiancee and her family. Nevertheless, Ronald was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 2017, the Innocence Project used DNA evidence to exclude him from the possible list of assailants, and it took until 2021 for the state to finally acknowledge it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On January six, twenty one year old woman who will
refer to as BT, was working at a convenience store
in Covington, Georgia. Went around four am. She was abducted,
forced into a truck, and repeatedly sexually assaulted until she
finally escaped ninety minutes later. At the time of the assault,
her ex boyfriend, Ron Jacobson was a hundred and fifty
(00:22):
miles away in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with his pregnant fiancee and
her mother. Over the course of several detailed statements, BT
maintained that she did not know her attack her and
that at one point during the abduction, she thought of
fleeing to the home of her friend Ron Jacobson when
they were close by. Despite these statements and the lack
of any physical or forensic evidence inculpating Ron, police ultimately
(00:46):
persuaded Bat that she had just repressed the memory of
her friend Ron being her actual attacker. At trial, Ron's
defense failed to bring up the inconsistencies between Batt's many
earlier statements to Lease and the story of Ron being
the perpetrator, and with DNA testing only in its infancy.
Ron was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In
(01:10):
two thousand three, Georgia enacted a law that allowed for
post conviction DNA testing, but the Rape Shield Law, the
law that has meant to protect rape survivors from irrelevant
character assassinations, was first used to bar the DNA testing
in this case, and then the introduction of the results
when they clearly excluded Ron as BT's attacker. Finally, the
(01:31):
newly elected district attorney took one look at Ron's case
and dismissed all charges. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
(01:55):
to wrongful conviction. I'm your host, Jason Flam and today's
story is terrifying for a number of reasons. First because
of all the things that should have pointed investigators away
from Ron Jacobson, not Adam, but even more so because,
once DNA testing was available to exonerate him, the d
at tooth and nail both to block that testing and
(02:18):
then to maintain a conviction that they knew was unjust.
So first of all, Ron, I'm sorry you're here because
of the circumstances that brought you here, but I'm happy
and honored to have you on the show. Thank you,
thank you. And with Ron is one of my favorite
human beings. Ron's incredible attorney and champion who is a
(02:40):
driving force not just in the Innocence Project, but also
in the movement for justice across the board. And of
course I'm talking about a voice you'll recognize, Vanessa Podkins
of Vanessa Welcome back the Rawful Conviction. It's fantastic to
be here. Okay, So before all this happened, Ron, you
were engaged and Navy veteran and father to be, living
(03:02):
and working between Georgia and Tennessee. Can you tell us
a little bit about your life before this terrible series
of events took place. I was working as an ortu
men mechanic and I was doing real good, making good money.
My girlfriend was pregnant with our son, and we were
planning on getting married. Rant a nice house in Georgia,
you know, very middle class, comfortable life. My life was
(03:25):
really really come together at that point when this happened.
You know, everything I worked for was gone. Right, So
you were renting a place in Georgia, but you were
kind of spending part of your time in Chattanooka, Tennessee
with your pregnant fiance. So things are sailing along smoothly.
For now. Have you had any previous run ins with
the law? Yes, that was one of the reasons I
(03:45):
was in Georgia. I had an auto depth charge back
in the eighties, and I was on parole and I
was doing good, you know, no violations, and I wanted
to put everything behind me and change get all my life.
And before we get to the crime, a very important
fact in this case is that you and the victim,
this woman who were referring to as BT, you two
(04:06):
had dated at some point prior to the incident, right, Yes,
I met her one time. Then about a couple of
months later, her mother was dating my roommate and a
mother mentioned BT. She's working down here at a golden pantry.
I'll fight twenty She would like to see you, talk
to you, so you know, I drove on down. We
(04:27):
talked and who could aff work. We drove back to Atlanta,
went out to a little five Points for Irish pub
and we started seeing each other. I want to say
over October. So you dated her for approximately how long run?
I want to say, four weeks? Three? Four weeks? All right?
So Vanessa, take us back to the incident itself. On
the night of January six, it's an awful, unspeakable crime,
(04:52):
but just walk us through it, okay. So Bt was
working overnight at the Golden Pantry convenience store and was
abducted into a white, grayish truck and driven up the interstate,
where the assailant beat her, forced her to perform oral
sex at some point pulled over and vaginally and anally
(05:13):
raped her. The assailant kept driving and actually ran out
of gas, and so they were pulled over on the
side of the road, and somebody stopped seeing the car
in distress on the side of the road, and the
assailant got into the car with this good samaritan and
drove off, presumably to get gas. And so Bat saw
(05:34):
this as her opportunity to escape. She ran to a
nearby house and ultimately knocked on the door. The person
who lived there, you know, opened it up and saw Bat,
who was bloody and shaken up, and called police. At
this point, the Sheriff's office actually had already arrived at
the Golden Pantry because the customer had come in noticed
(05:54):
that nobody was in the store, saw blood and the
store and disarray, and so had called the sheriff office,
and somebody from a convenience store across the way had
said that they saw BT getting into this truck, and
so she was immediately taken to the hospital. They performed
a sexual assault kit and recovered male DNA. Yeah, and
(06:16):
they found more evidence as well, write a bloody handprint
on the wall, folding knife outside on the ground, and
the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the gb I performed blood
tests on the knife and the handprint, so they had
tons of evidence, I imagine. They also had a description
of the truck. Now, was the assailant wearing a mask
B any chance? No, But it's hard to know actually
(06:40):
what really happened because BT gave different stories to the police.
So in the week right after the crime, she talked
to the police on three different occasions, and the first
time she did she gave a really detailed statement, and
she said that she was working at the convenience store
and that a group had come in of two gods
(07:00):
and two girls earlier in the evening, and that one
of the men returned several hours later and that was
the person who came behind the counter and ultimately abducted her.
And in this statement, she was extremely detailed and very
specific about the assailant being a stranger. She told police
(07:24):
that she said to him, I'm quoting. I said, what
did I ever do to you? I don't even know you,
she said, I just knew my own personal opinion. He
had come by the store, saw me earlier, got the
idea that I might be there alone, come in there.
Sure enough, I wasn't so busy. So he took off
young girl alone three o'clock in the morning. Why not.
(07:45):
So she's very detailed about this being a stranger, and
she even says it's this person who was with a
group earlier in the evening, and then she goes on
to give other statements. Two days after the attack, she
gives a description of her assailant. She talks about him
being five or ten. She wasn't clear if he had tattoos.
Of course, at that time, Ron is a half a
(08:05):
foot taller. He's six three. He has multiple tattoos. So
she's describing somebody who's not Ron. And then she gives
a third statement, right, which is a written statement, and
the police take her on a drive through of the
route that the assailant had taken her, and she points
several locations where she was sexually assaulted and walks through
(08:27):
a lot of details. She says in this statement that
at one of the stops during the attack that she
thought this could be an opportunity to escape, and that
she had a friend, Ronald Jacobson, who lived nearby, and
she said, you know, maybe I could escape if I
have the chance, and I could get help from him.
I mean, it's all craziness. The victim grant that she's
(08:48):
traumatized for sure, but she said she was hoping to
escape to the home of none other than ron Jacobsen.
How do we square that with the idea that run Jacobson,
she later says, was the guy who was attacking her.
I mean, how did they eventually convinced her to identify him?
And they interviewed her father as well, I mean, how
(09:12):
does that play into this? So she told police that
at the time that the assailant came into the store,
that there was somebody else with her and she couldn't
really remember who it was, but she thought it was
Bob Knight, who was an older man who had worked
at the store previously but was friends with her father.
(09:32):
In the days following her attack, Bob Knight and the
father are talking and the father says, well, you know,
she was having some issues with this guy she dated,
Ron Jacobson. Maybe he did it. So Bob Knight takes
Ron Jacobson's name to the police and says, I think
I know who the assaylant is, Ron Jacobson. Bob Knight
(09:53):
had never met Ron Jacobson. He's just going off of
the statement that the dad said. So police pull a
picture of Ron Jacobson, his d m V photograph and
show it to Bob Knight, who then says, that's the
person I saw in the store. But I mean that
line up or photo show up procedure is just bonkers
(10:16):
and of itself, because they give him Ron Jacobson's driver's license,
which presumably has his name on it, and he says, yeah,
that's the guy. And so based on that, the police
go back to Bet and say we think we know
who didn't it's Ron Jacobson and she says, no, it wasn't.
So she's adamant that it's not Ron, and then the
(10:37):
police want to polygraph her. So you have BT saying no,
it's not Ron, and the police saying we don't believe you,
and we're going to polygraph you. I've never even seen
this circumstance in any case that I've worked on, where
the police seek to polygraph the victim because the victim
is not identifying the person who they believe as the suspect.
(10:58):
But that's what was happening here. It turns out that BT,
at the time of her attack was newly pregnant, and
so the polligrapher refused to administer the polygraph, and instead
the police consult with a behavioral analyst at the Georgia
Bureau of Investigation that says to them, go back to her,
(11:19):
talk to her. Sometimes victims repress things. Tell her you
know what happened, and eventually she'll remember and she'll come
forward with the information. And so that's what happens. They
go back to her, and then she eventually says it
was wrong. And then six days later, January twelve, Ron
they brought you in. How did that go? I mean,
(11:41):
you must have been shocked to even find yourself in
that situation in the first place. Well, how was at
work in Atlanta? And the phone ring it was my prouser.
He said, look, I need to come into the office
as fast as possible, So okay, I'll be there so
I'm thinking myself, okay, it's a random your analysis in
and out. So I told my Boston, I said, look,
(12:02):
I gotta go. I'll be back an hour. So I'll
walk into the Pro office. Another Pro officer walks in
behind me, pushed me against the wall, put me in handcuffs,
says I'm under arrest. So now I'm wondering, you know,
for what. I didn't violate parole and they said no,
for a suchual saut of the victim BT, And so
I explained, IL said, BT nah, I was in Tennessee
(12:25):
with Janey, my girlfriend, and they called the Sheriff's department
and the g b I agents Sheriff's department come up,
picked me up, drove me back to the county jail.
So it was a total shock to me. So police
didn't record the interrogation, but nonetheless they went I had
an issue a police report that was written in the
first person, as if Ron had written it right. And then,
of course, to double down on this obvious mouthfeasance, they
(12:48):
also never showed a copy of the report to Ron
or his team to determine whether it was accurate or not.
And Ron was arrested the same day, charged with aggravated
side of me kidnapping with bodily injury and a bit
of assault. And then six months later Ron went to
trial in Newton County Superior Court and in the opening
state with the prosecutor now get this, okay, The prosecutor
(13:10):
acknowledged that the case was problematic. He said that the
police quote went back to Bat and kind of told
her who it was, and at that point in time
she said, yes, it was him, and she went and
told the whole same story again, but just supplied his
name at this point in time unquote. So from what
we already know of the investigation, that summary is misleading
(13:32):
at best. There was, of course, zero physical or forensic
evidence tying Ron to the crime. So it comes down
to the problematic testimony to Bob Knight and Bat, to
which the jury was simply not aware of how these
pieces of evidence were gathered. Now, Night testified that he
recognized Ron as the man who came into the store
(13:53):
that night as he was leaving, and then Bat went
ahead and identified you Ron as her attacker. And she
said she didn't immediately it ify you because you had
threatened to kill her if she did. No Vanessa go ahead,
tell us about the defense here, BT is never really
confronted with the detailed statements that she gave implicating somebody else.
It is mentioned at trial that she initially didn't say
(14:16):
it was wrong, and she says it was because you know,
she was scared of her life. But just not saying
it was wrong at the beginning could mean you didn't
say it in the first hour or two. It doesn't
mean you know. And the jury never was told you
gave these really detailed statements. Right, You've talked about even
going to Ron for help. You talked about this group
of people coming in and one of the guys coming back,
(14:38):
and you saying to him, I don't even know you.
I mean, none of that came out to the jury.
So there's two possibilities, right, it wasn't turned over and
either the police buried it or the prosecution buried it,
or it was turned over and his defense attorney just
failed to use it. I don't have the answer to that,
as the records aren't perfect, and because Ron's lawyer was
(15:00):
so bad that it is possible that he didn't use it,
and the witnesses that Ron had in his favor to
say that he was a hundred and fifty miles away
when this happened. It was his girlfriend at the time,
it was pregnant, her mother. They were watching TV at
two thirty three in the morning. He's hours away from
where this crime happened at shortly probably after four am.
(15:24):
And there's reason that they would remember this night. It
was just within days of his girlfriend's birthday. He had
got up there that weekend. He brought her car as
a president. So it's just none of that really came
out at trial to really add credibility and show why
these people who were testifying and had been with Ron,
you know, why they were so believable and credible, and
(15:45):
that just didn't come out. It was just like five
questions and you're done. The defense that Ron had. I mean,
this is where you feel like you're in a movie,
like this is a horror movie. You're from Brooklyn, you're
stuck basically in Georgia, You're now facing trial, and your
lawyer is scared of his own shadow or just doesn't care.
(16:06):
And I think one just being an outsider in this place,
which is you know, close to Atlanta, but whirled away
right Even on his booking sheet there was a line
for deformities, and the deformity listed is Brooklyn accent Ron.
What are your recollections of the trial? Stranger in a
(16:27):
Strange Land. My trial attorney came to see me, I
believe maybe twice at the most prepare. He never talked
to none of my witnesses till the day to trial.
So the night before my attorney comes walking down to
jail and he said, we got to trial on the morning.
Try to get a haircut and cut your beard. I
(16:48):
got an old, rusty razor. I trimmed my beard off.
So the day to trial, I go in. Now you've
got this prosecutor to jury looking at him, he tried
to change his appearance. He shaved his beard off. Basically,
everything my trial attorney did was negative. When he had
bat on the witness stand, he popped the question off
(17:09):
as well, what's your relationship tonight? The district attorney john
I you know, he jumped up, So whoa, whoa, whoa?
You told the judge get the juriority here, and they
displayed my attorney. They brought up the rape shield. You're
not supposed toy asked, no kind of sexual relationships, past relationships,
but you know it was too late. The jury already
heard this question, so they bring it back. And from
(17:31):
that point on, my attorney sat there and drew little
sailboats on his pad, so it was a foregone conclusion
though I was gonna get convicted. He drew little sailboats
on his pass, and you're sitting there watching him do this.
So you've got like a split screen horror show. You've
got these people up there telling all kinds of lies
about you, and you've got the one person who's there
(17:54):
that's supposed to be your last line of defense. Really,
John fucking sailboats on a path. It's really nut. And
then of course it gets worse because in June twelve,
the jury convicted you of aggravated psotomy can have a
bodily injury and aggravated a sawt in sense your life
in prison. It was a hards show. Then I took
the stand in my own defense. My trial attorney you
(18:15):
never really asked me any questions, but then the prosecutor
he told a jury everything I said. I'm pathological liar,
viitual liar. I brought up a valley the police, you know,
with the statements, and oh, so you're accusing the police
being liars when you're the liar, but you know small
town politics. And here I am, you know, from Brooklyn,
(18:36):
outsider New Yorker, and this is what happens. A gross miscaracter.
Justice cost me thirty years, eight months, and thirteen days
of my life. This episode is underwritten by a i G,
(18:58):
a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture, a global
professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security.
Working to reform the criminal justice system is a key
pillar of the ai G pro Bono Program, which provides
free legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations
and individuals most in need as part of Accenture's commitment
(19:20):
to racial and civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access Program provides
pro bono legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations,
bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide. When I
first went to prison, it's basically like a wild dog pack.
(19:43):
Everybody wants being l fa mail, so you don't trust nobody.
You gotta watch your back, you gotta watch what you say.
And the guards, you know, they don't care. People getting
killed there every week, no prosecution on because you've got
twenty year old kids, with life sentences. No whole begin now,
so they're gonna do what they want. When you first
get convicted, you go through the stage, is a lot
(20:06):
of anger, anger at the world. Then it's acceptance. You
say to yourself, Okay, this happened to me, what are
you gonna do about it? So now you educate yourself,
go to law library, you start reading and start researching.
And I happened to be watching j trial and I've
seen Baryscheck talking about d NA. I talked to my mom.
I said, look that DNA is gonna clear me one day.
(20:27):
So I started researching, and I've seen Barrischeck wrote a book,
Actual Innocence, So my mom sent it to me. I
read this book like sixteen times. And at the time,
around two thousand, Free Georgia passed the law for post
conviction DNA test. So I sat down, wrote thirteen fifteen
page letter to Georgia Innocent Project and the Innocent Project
(20:49):
in New York and Georgia. People wrote me right back,
said okay, we'll help you. We'll take your case, send
it to transcripts and everything. So I did. About a
year goes by. They send everything back says at this time.
We can't do nothing for you, but your case is
still open. Ten years go by, it was in ateen.
Out of the blue, I get a letter, go up
(21:10):
to the mail room, get legal mail, and here it
is a letter from the INDUS project says we're going
to accept your case. And it was just like a
lot of load off my back. So I'll run over
to the low Library get everything not US gets straight
into mail. And I've been working with Vanessa seven eight
years now. It's been an uphill battle. Yeah, uphill sounds
(21:32):
about right, because from what I understand is that this
d A who's now, by the way, a judge, her
name is La Lazan, she fought both to disallow the
DNA testing to begin with and then to disallow the
admission of results that they knew would have cleared you,
which is just freaking nuts. So Vanessa, can you tell
us about the fight against this da Laylazan, who was
(21:54):
just how bent on maintaining this awful injustice. The DNA
test results that we obtained clearing ron came back in
two thousand and seventeen, and when we got those results,
the d A opposed relief fought against a new trial
and her primary argument was Ron could not use these
(22:16):
test results to prove his innocence because the rape shield
law prevented him from using the DNA to secure his exoneration.
So the rape shield law is a law that has
been enacted to protect victims of sexual assault from defense
attorneys going in and trying to say, oh, well, you
know you slept with twenty other people and so you
(22:39):
weren't really sexually assaulted, or you consented, or try to
use victims past sexual history to somehow undermine the veracity
of his or her claim. And it has nothing to
do with if you have scientific evidence that goes to
the heart of who committed the crime. Right, But this
is how twin that the state was in this case.
(23:01):
Their position was, we know Ron was the assailant, so
if there's some male DNA in her rape kit, that,
by the way, we know couldn't come from a prior
act of consensual sex because she told hospital personnel she
hadn't had sex in a week before the attack, so
we know it couldn't have come from anyone else. But
their position was, since it excluded Ron, it had to
(23:22):
come from somebody else. She must be lying. She must
have not been honest about another encounter and therefore Ron
can't use it. And it's like that was crazy, and
even ultimately the d A recognized it was crazy because
of some cases that were going on in the Georgia
Supreme Court at the time. So she tried to use
the rape shield law as a rape shield sword against Ron.
(23:44):
Then when that didn't prevail and his conviction was vacated,
he was being held in the county jail with no bail.
He was in on a sexual assault for which he
had already served thirty years, and the court declined to
set fail and so he was in jail for over
a year with no activity. The state had made no
real attempt to bring this case to retrial, but wouldn't
(24:07):
dismiss the charges. And then, of course the COVID nineteen
pandemic hits, and so in April we make this emergency
motion to set bail in Ron's case. This is when
the pandemic is taking off. It starts to spread like
wildfire in jail's. People in jails are sitting ducks, right.
They don't have access to mass and purel and all
(24:29):
of the things that people were clamoring for out in society.
And so it's at this point that we finally are
approaching a hearing date. And by the way, in this jurisdiction,
if you file emotion, the only way you can get
on the court's calendar is if the d A sets
it down. So for a while she wouldn't even set this,
We couldn't even get the motion set. And finally we
(24:50):
get an opportunity that the court is going to hear it,
and she makes this offer to Ron, you know, if
you just plead guilty, you can get out tomorrow. She
even offers him an Alfred plea, which means that he
could have maintained his innocence but still pledged guilty would
have the same effect as a conviction. But he could
have gotten out, you know, the next day, if he
(25:10):
had just said I did it. But by saying no,
Ron wasn't just taking this stance, he was also risking
his life. You know, we didn't know what was going
to go on with COVID. He didn't have access to
even protect himself, so it was even more dangerous than usual,
this thought that, you know, by saying no, Ron could
have died in prison and just never had the opportunity
(25:31):
to even walk out. And then, of course, after he
turns down the deal, the state goes into court and
argues that Ron shouldn't get bailed because he's too dangerous.
So he's too dangerous to walk out of prison if
he's maintaining his innocence. But if he had just said
he was guilty, you were going to let him go, right.
And then to top it all off, the prosecutor says,
(25:53):
we oppose bail, but if you're going to set bail,
set it at fifty thousand, and the court said, I'm
going to send it at I mean, what master to
these people, sir, because it certainly isn't justice. And Ron,
can you take us back to that moment when they
offered you the plea, where if you just accepted it
(26:13):
and said you were guilty, that you could walk out
the door the next day, right the very next day,
after thirty years in prison. I mean, what went through
your mind in that moment. I thought about that for
a split second, and I said, well, if I give in,
I've been saying I'm minister for thirty years. Also now
I will change my story. I said, you know, the
(26:35):
worst they can do if they reconvict me is give
me another life sentence. They already took everything from me.
My mom died, my brother died while I was in prison.
I'm living up here with my sister now helping her.
She supported me for thirty years and it's my turn
to give back help her. So by not giving in,
(26:55):
if somebody hears about my case that's in the same
position and want to take a plea bargain, I'm not
holding it against them. You know, it's their personal choice.
But if they look at me and they take some
strength and say, hey, I'm innocent, let's prove it, I
don't give into these bastards. It's incredible to hear you
(27:24):
say that you thought about it for a split second.
It's like you've already seen the worst aspects of our system,
so you knew what they could do to you. It
took a lot of courage, and like you said, everybody
makes that choice differently. It's another sort of sick thing
about our system that people are put into that position,
(27:45):
having already been through the unbelievable trauma of drawing from
incarceration for a decade and then faced with possibly waiting
gears for another trial and then potentially being framed again,
but you stood by your guns and ultimately that was
clearly the right decision, and all of us are thrilled
(28:07):
that you've been vindicated, exonerated, and proven to have been
telling the truth all along. Vanessa helped me out here
because this is really it's evil. I mean, what they
did to him is evil, right, I mean that's not
too strong of a word. Well, I guess it's not
when you consider that the district attorney Layla's On who
was handling his case, had been exposed for having a
(28:31):
little toy electric chair on her desk. I think you
definitely identified the mentality that's going on here. And Ron,
I want to highlight the fact that you ended up
with a literal dream team here, right, I mean you
have Vanessa and the Innocence Projects. I want to also
shout out the other good guys here, Donald Samuel and
Amanda Clark Palmer from the Atlanta law firm of Garland
(28:53):
Samuel and Loebe. My understanding is that they played a
really significant role in this. Am I right, yes, yes,
When first came on board, that was such a relief
over the years talking on the phone, getting the information
about my case and learning more and seeing how the
process works. It's amazing, especially Vanessa, and now that the
(29:16):
I'm out have access to needed that so I could
see the scope of the units of project now how
many people they helped and affected their lives in a
positive way. Don An, Amanda and Georgia, Vanessa, all the paralegals,
the law students, I can name them all. I'm in
their debt. And we did ultimately work with the Georgia
Insens project as well. They were really instrumental when we
(29:39):
were fighting to get the DNA testing and have been
a great partner with us. So ultimately, justice was delayed
by three decades, but not denied. In June, District Attorney
Layla's on one of the major villains in this case,
and an ironic twist of fate, her good fortune was
the best thing that could have happened for Ron, because
(30:00):
when she was appointed to a Superior Court judge ship
and her chief deputy, Randy McGinley was sworn in as
the new d A then also elected that November, he
promised a review of Ron's case. At this point, Ron
was already out on bail, but still not free until
on August d A. McGinley had reviewed Ron's case and
(30:21):
dismissed all the charges, and that days called me. She
cried and said, you're free. They dropped the charges like
it stunned me. I said, nah, it took a couple
of days of walking around and letting the sink in.
Finally free. Then you know, you start thinking about how
many more people still in prison that I have no chance,
(30:43):
have no help, And it hurts, you know, bothers you
because after so many years of prison, my psyche, you know,
is still there with them people. It's something that I
can't let it go. And there's no telling how many
countless people that are still innocent, still in prison with
no help, never go, get no help. So I feel blessed.
Don't take nothing for granted, no more, just one day
(31:06):
at a time. Yeah, And it's really incredible to have
you here today, just weeks since you were fully exonerated.
So for those of you who are moved by Ron's
story and who would like to help him as he
begins this next chapter of his life, there's an Amazon
wish list as well as a Mighty cause dot com story.
(31:29):
We're gonna put links to both of these in the
bio where you can donate to help Ron, So please
go click on the link and the bio do it.
Now we're going to join you in doing so here
at Wrongful Conviction as well. So now this is a
part of the show called Closing Arguments, and it works
like this. First of all, I thank you again Ron
Jacobson for having the courage to come here and share
(31:51):
your incredible story, and of course Vanessa Potkin for just
being such a you know, super woman, freedom fighter, all
around just awesome human. And so thanks to both of
you for being here on the show. And now closing
Arguments works like this. I turned my mic off, kicked
(32:11):
back in my chair and leave my headphones on, and
just leave your microphones on so you can share any
other thoughts that we may have left out or anything
that's on your mind of any kind. So Vanessa, with
all due respect to you, will say the best for last,
and of course Ron, that's you. You're the featured guest here,
(32:31):
So Vanessa, once you go first and then just hand
it off to Ron, and that's how we'll close out
the show. You know, being here today and listening to
Ron's speak, it's just hitting me, particularly now his incredible
strength and forwarded to to have turned down that offer,
and we just know how coercive the legal system is.
(32:52):
Pre trial, the state tries to extort guilty please to
resolve cases. The stakes are so high that you're incentivized
to just take can leave and when you're innocent, or
just give up your constitutional rights to a trial. So
I am respecting the amount of courage and strength that
took you, Ron, to make that decision and stand up
to the system. And I'm so proud that you prevailed
(33:15):
to making me think about the judges again, that the
person really dragged this out through so many years is
now on the bench. We need to get progressive prosecutors
in place, but we also need to make sure that
they're judges on the bench who are going to also
be in line with change. And so I think those
(33:35):
are the takeaways I'm experiencing. In addition to Ron, you're
just an all around such an incredible person. And you know,
when Ron got out, while he was still fighting to
get the charges dismissed, he started going on social media
and he was on Facebook. And when you're representing someone
who could face a retrial, it's a real stressor to
have them out there making all these comments. So I
(33:56):
thought about reaching out to Ron and saying, hey, fall
back a little bit nice reading what he was saying
and his perspective on the legal system and change, and
it was just so right on that I was like,
I'm not saying anything keep going wrong. Well, you know,
my heart and soul bleeds for all my brother's sisters
still behind the walls with no hope, and if I
(34:17):
could be a voice in the wilderness to help them,
you know, that's my goal life right now? Do you
use my exoneration to help the next person pay forward,
whatever it takes. And the Innocent Project and the Innocent Network,
they do incredible work and I thanked them every day.
(34:45):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. Please support your
local innocence organizations and go to the links in our
bio to see how you can help. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburne,
and Kevin wardas The music on this show, as always,
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
(35:06):
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on
Twitter at wrong Conviction, and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good podcasts
in association with Signal Company Number one
On January six, twenty one year old woman who will
refer to as BT, was working at a convenience store
in Covington, Georgia. Went around four am. She was abducted,
forced into a truck, and repeatedly sexually assaulted until she
finally escaped ninety minutes later. At the time of the assault,
her ex boyfriend, Ron Jacobson was a hundred and fifty
(00:22):
miles away in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with his pregnant fiancee and
her mother. Over the course of several detailed statements, BT
maintained that she did not know her attack her and
that at one point during the abduction, she thought of
fleeing to the home of her friend Ron Jacobson when
they were close by. Despite these statements and the lack
of any physical or forensic evidence inculpating Ron, police ultimately
(00:46):
persuaded Bat that she had just repressed the memory of
her friend Ron being her actual attacker. At trial, Ron's
defense failed to bring up the inconsistencies between Batt's many
earlier statements to Lease and the story of Ron being
the perpetrator, and with DNA testing only in its infancy.
Ron was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In
(01:10):
two thousand three, Georgia enacted a law that allowed for
post conviction DNA testing, but the Rape Shield Law, the
law that has meant to protect rape survivors from irrelevant
character assassinations, was first used to bar the DNA testing
in this case, and then the introduction of the results
when they clearly excluded Ron as BT's attacker. Finally, the
(01:31):
newly elected district attorney took one look at Ron's case
and dismissed all charges. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
(01:55):
to wrongful conviction. I'm your host, Jason Flam and today's
story is terrifying for a number of reasons. First because
of all the things that should have pointed investigators away
from Ron Jacobson, not Adam, but even more so because,
once DNA testing was available to exonerate him, the d
at tooth and nail both to block that testing and
(02:18):
then to maintain a conviction that they knew was unjust.
So first of all, Ron, I'm sorry you're here because
of the circumstances that brought you here, but I'm happy
and honored to have you on the show. Thank you,
thank you. And with Ron is one of my favorite
human beings. Ron's incredible attorney and champion who is a
(02:40):
driving force not just in the Innocence Project, but also
in the movement for justice across the board. And of
course I'm talking about a voice you'll recognize, Vanessa Podkins
of Vanessa Welcome back the Rawful Conviction. It's fantastic to
be here. Okay, So before all this happened, Ron, you
were engaged and Navy veteran and father to be, living
(03:02):
and working between Georgia and Tennessee. Can you tell us
a little bit about your life before this terrible series
of events took place. I was working as an ortu
men mechanic and I was doing real good, making good money.
My girlfriend was pregnant with our son, and we were
planning on getting married. Rant a nice house in Georgia,
you know, very middle class, comfortable life. My life was
(03:25):
really really come together at that point when this happened.
You know, everything I worked for was gone. Right, So
you were renting a place in Georgia, but you were
kind of spending part of your time in Chattanooka, Tennessee
with your pregnant fiance. So things are sailing along smoothly.
For now. Have you had any previous run ins with
the law? Yes, that was one of the reasons I
(03:45):
was in Georgia. I had an auto depth charge back
in the eighties, and I was on parole and I
was doing good, you know, no violations, and I wanted
to put everything behind me and change get all my life.
And before we get to the crime, a very important
fact in this case is that you and the victim,
this woman who were referring to as BT, you two
(04:06):
had dated at some point prior to the incident, right, Yes,
I met her one time. Then about a couple of
months later, her mother was dating my roommate and a
mother mentioned BT. She's working down here at a golden pantry.
I'll fight twenty She would like to see you, talk
to you, so you know, I drove on down. We
(04:27):
talked and who could aff work. We drove back to Atlanta,
went out to a little five Points for Irish pub
and we started seeing each other. I want to say
over October. So you dated her for approximately how long run?
I want to say, four weeks? Three? Four weeks? All right?
So Vanessa, take us back to the incident itself. On
the night of January six, it's an awful, unspeakable crime,
(04:52):
but just walk us through it, okay. So Bt was
working overnight at the Golden Pantry convenience store and was
abducted into a white, grayish truck and driven up the interstate,
where the assailant beat her, forced her to perform oral
sex at some point pulled over and vaginally and anally
(05:13):
raped her. The assailant kept driving and actually ran out
of gas, and so they were pulled over on the
side of the road, and somebody stopped seeing the car
in distress on the side of the road, and the
assailant got into the car with this good samaritan and
drove off, presumably to get gas. And so Bat saw
(05:34):
this as her opportunity to escape. She ran to a
nearby house and ultimately knocked on the door. The person
who lived there, you know, opened it up and saw Bat,
who was bloody and shaken up, and called police. At
this point, the Sheriff's office actually had already arrived at
the Golden Pantry because the customer had come in noticed
(05:54):
that nobody was in the store, saw blood and the
store and disarray, and so had called the sheriff office,
and somebody from a convenience store across the way had
said that they saw BT getting into this truck, and
so she was immediately taken to the hospital. They performed
a sexual assault kit and recovered male DNA. Yeah, and
(06:16):
they found more evidence as well, write a bloody handprint
on the wall, folding knife outside on the ground, and
the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the gb I performed blood
tests on the knife and the handprint, so they had
tons of evidence, I imagine. They also had a description
of the truck. Now, was the assailant wearing a mask
B any chance? No, But it's hard to know actually
(06:40):
what really happened because BT gave different stories to the police.
So in the week right after the crime, she talked
to the police on three different occasions, and the first
time she did she gave a really detailed statement, and
she said that she was working at the convenience store
and that a group had come in of two gods
(07:00):
and two girls earlier in the evening, and that one
of the men returned several hours later and that was
the person who came behind the counter and ultimately abducted her.
And in this statement, she was extremely detailed and very
specific about the assailant being a stranger. She told police
(07:24):
that she said to him, I'm quoting. I said, what
did I ever do to you? I don't even know you,
she said, I just knew my own personal opinion. He
had come by the store, saw me earlier, got the
idea that I might be there alone, come in there.
Sure enough, I wasn't so busy. So he took off
young girl alone three o'clock in the morning. Why not.
(07:45):
So she's very detailed about this being a stranger, and
she even says it's this person who was with a
group earlier in the evening, and then she goes on
to give other statements. Two days after the attack, she
gives a description of her assailant. She talks about him
being five or ten. She wasn't clear if he had tattoos.
Of course, at that time, Ron is a half a
(08:05):
foot taller. He's six three. He has multiple tattoos. So
she's describing somebody who's not Ron. And then she gives
a third statement, right, which is a written statement, and
the police take her on a drive through of the
route that the assailant had taken her, and she points
several locations where she was sexually assaulted and walks through
(08:27):
a lot of details. She says in this statement that
at one of the stops during the attack that she
thought this could be an opportunity to escape, and that
she had a friend, Ronald Jacobson, who lived nearby, and
she said, you know, maybe I could escape if I
have the chance, and I could get help from him.
I mean, it's all craziness. The victim grant that she's
(08:48):
traumatized for sure, but she said she was hoping to
escape to the home of none other than ron Jacobsen.
How do we square that with the idea that run Jacobson,
she later says, was the guy who was attacking her.
I mean, how did they eventually convinced her to identify him?
And they interviewed her father as well, I mean, how
(09:12):
does that play into this? So she told police that
at the time that the assailant came into the store,
that there was somebody else with her and she couldn't
really remember who it was, but she thought it was
Bob Knight, who was an older man who had worked
at the store previously but was friends with her father.
(09:32):
In the days following her attack, Bob Knight and the
father are talking and the father says, well, you know,
she was having some issues with this guy she dated,
Ron Jacobson. Maybe he did it. So Bob Knight takes
Ron Jacobson's name to the police and says, I think
I know who the assaylant is, Ron Jacobson. Bob Knight
(09:53):
had never met Ron Jacobson. He's just going off of
the statement that the dad said. So police pull a
picture of Ron Jacobson, his d m V photograph and
show it to Bob Knight, who then says, that's the
person I saw in the store. But I mean that
line up or photo show up procedure is just bonkers
(10:16):
and of itself, because they give him Ron Jacobson's driver's license,
which presumably has his name on it, and he says, yeah,
that's the guy. And so based on that, the police
go back to Bet and say we think we know
who didn't it's Ron Jacobson and she says, no, it wasn't.
So she's adamant that it's not Ron, and then the
(10:37):
police want to polygraph her. So you have BT saying no,
it's not Ron, and the police saying we don't believe you,
and we're going to polygraph you. I've never even seen
this circumstance in any case that I've worked on, where
the police seek to polygraph the victim because the victim
is not identifying the person who they believe as the suspect.
(10:58):
But that's what was happening here. It turns out that BT,
at the time of her attack was newly pregnant, and
so the polligrapher refused to administer the polygraph, and instead
the police consult with a behavioral analyst at the Georgia
Bureau of Investigation that says to them, go back to her,
(11:19):
talk to her. Sometimes victims repress things. Tell her you
know what happened, and eventually she'll remember and she'll come
forward with the information. And so that's what happens. They
go back to her, and then she eventually says it
was wrong. And then six days later, January twelve, Ron
they brought you in. How did that go? I mean,
(11:41):
you must have been shocked to even find yourself in
that situation in the first place. Well, how was at
work in Atlanta? And the phone ring it was my prouser.
He said, look, I need to come into the office
as fast as possible, So okay, I'll be there so
I'm thinking myself, okay, it's a random your analysis in
and out. So I told my Boston, I said, look,
(12:02):
I gotta go. I'll be back an hour. So I'll
walk into the Pro office. Another Pro officer walks in
behind me, pushed me against the wall, put me in handcuffs,
says I'm under arrest. So now I'm wondering, you know,
for what. I didn't violate parole and they said no,
for a suchual saut of the victim BT, And so
I explained, IL said, BT nah, I was in Tennessee
(12:25):
with Janey, my girlfriend, and they called the Sheriff's department
and the g b I agents Sheriff's department come up,
picked me up, drove me back to the county jail.
So it was a total shock to me. So police
didn't record the interrogation, but nonetheless they went I had
an issue a police report that was written in the
first person, as if Ron had written it right. And then,
of course, to double down on this obvious mouthfeasance, they
(12:48):
also never showed a copy of the report to Ron
or his team to determine whether it was accurate or not.
And Ron was arrested the same day, charged with aggravated
side of me kidnapping with bodily injury and a bit
of assault. And then six months later Ron went to
trial in Newton County Superior Court and in the opening
state with the prosecutor now get this, okay, The prosecutor
(13:10):
acknowledged that the case was problematic. He said that the
police quote went back to Bat and kind of told
her who it was, and at that point in time
she said, yes, it was him, and she went and
told the whole same story again, but just supplied his
name at this point in time unquote. So from what
we already know of the investigation, that summary is misleading
(13:32):
at best. There was, of course, zero physical or forensic
evidence tying Ron to the crime. So it comes down
to the problematic testimony to Bob Knight and Bat, to
which the jury was simply not aware of how these
pieces of evidence were gathered. Now, Night testified that he
recognized Ron as the man who came into the store
(13:53):
that night as he was leaving, and then Bat went
ahead and identified you Ron as her attacker. And she
said she didn't immediately it ify you because you had
threatened to kill her if she did. No Vanessa go ahead,
tell us about the defense here, BT is never really
confronted with the detailed statements that she gave implicating somebody else.
It is mentioned at trial that she initially didn't say
(14:16):
it was wrong, and she says it was because you know,
she was scared of her life. But just not saying
it was wrong at the beginning could mean you didn't
say it in the first hour or two. It doesn't
mean you know. And the jury never was told you
gave these really detailed statements. Right, You've talked about even
going to Ron for help. You talked about this group
of people coming in and one of the guys coming back,
(14:38):
and you saying to him, I don't even know you.
I mean, none of that came out to the jury.
So there's two possibilities, right, it wasn't turned over and
either the police buried it or the prosecution buried it,
or it was turned over and his defense attorney just
failed to use it. I don't have the answer to that,
as the records aren't perfect, and because Ron's lawyer was
(15:00):
so bad that it is possible that he didn't use it,
and the witnesses that Ron had in his favor to
say that he was a hundred and fifty miles away
when this happened. It was his girlfriend at the time,
it was pregnant, her mother. They were watching TV at
two thirty three in the morning. He's hours away from
where this crime happened at shortly probably after four am.
(15:24):
And there's reason that they would remember this night. It
was just within days of his girlfriend's birthday. He had
got up there that weekend. He brought her car as
a president. So it's just none of that really came
out at trial to really add credibility and show why
these people who were testifying and had been with Ron,
you know, why they were so believable and credible, and
(15:45):
that just didn't come out. It was just like five
questions and you're done. The defense that Ron had. I mean,
this is where you feel like you're in a movie,
like this is a horror movie. You're from Brooklyn, you're
stuck basically in Georgia, You're now facing trial, and your
lawyer is scared of his own shadow or just doesn't care.
(16:06):
And I think one just being an outsider in this place,
which is you know, close to Atlanta, but whirled away
right Even on his booking sheet there was a line
for deformities, and the deformity listed is Brooklyn accent Ron.
What are your recollections of the trial? Stranger in a
(16:27):
Strange Land. My trial attorney came to see me, I
believe maybe twice at the most prepare. He never talked
to none of my witnesses till the day to trial.
So the night before my attorney comes walking down to
jail and he said, we got to trial on the morning.
Try to get a haircut and cut your beard. I
(16:48):
got an old, rusty razor. I trimmed my beard off.
So the day to trial, I go in. Now you've
got this prosecutor to jury looking at him, he tried
to change his appearance. He shaved his beard off. Basically,
everything my trial attorney did was negative. When he had
bat on the witness stand, he popped the question off
(17:09):
as well, what's your relationship tonight? The district attorney john
I you know, he jumped up, So whoa, whoa, whoa?
You told the judge get the juriority here, and they
displayed my attorney. They brought up the rape shield. You're
not supposed toy asked, no kind of sexual relationships, past relationships,
but you know it was too late. The jury already
heard this question, so they bring it back. And from
(17:31):
that point on, my attorney sat there and drew little
sailboats on his pad, so it was a foregone conclusion
though I was gonna get convicted. He drew little sailboats
on his pass, and you're sitting there watching him do this.
So you've got like a split screen horror show. You've
got these people up there telling all kinds of lies
about you, and you've got the one person who's there
(17:54):
that's supposed to be your last line of defense. Really,
John fucking sailboats on a path. It's really nut. And
then of course it gets worse because in June twelve,
the jury convicted you of aggravated psotomy can have a
bodily injury and aggravated a sawt in sense your life
in prison. It was a hards show. Then I took
the stand in my own defense. My trial attorney you
(18:15):
never really asked me any questions, but then the prosecutor
he told a jury everything I said. I'm pathological liar,
viitual liar. I brought up a valley the police, you know,
with the statements, and oh, so you're accusing the police
being liars when you're the liar, but you know small
town politics. And here I am, you know, from Brooklyn,
(18:36):
outsider New Yorker, and this is what happens. A gross miscaracter.
Justice cost me thirty years, eight months, and thirteen days
of my life. This episode is underwritten by a i G,
(18:58):
a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture, a global
professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security.
Working to reform the criminal justice system is a key
pillar of the ai G pro Bono Program, which provides
free legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations
and individuals most in need as part of Accenture's commitment
(19:20):
to racial and civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access Program provides
pro bono legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations,
bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide. When I
first went to prison, it's basically like a wild dog pack.
(19:43):
Everybody wants being l fa mail, so you don't trust nobody.
You gotta watch your back, you gotta watch what you say.
And the guards, you know, they don't care. People getting
killed there every week, no prosecution on because you've got
twenty year old kids, with life sentences. No whole begin now,
so they're gonna do what they want. When you first
get convicted, you go through the stage, is a lot
(20:06):
of anger, anger at the world. Then it's acceptance. You
say to yourself, Okay, this happened to me, what are
you gonna do about it? So now you educate yourself,
go to law library, you start reading and start researching.
And I happened to be watching j trial and I've
seen Baryscheck talking about d NA. I talked to my mom.
I said, look that DNA is gonna clear me one day.
(20:27):
So I started researching, and I've seen Barrischeck wrote a book,
Actual Innocence, So my mom sent it to me. I
read this book like sixteen times. And at the time,
around two thousand, Free Georgia passed the law for post
conviction DNA test. So I sat down, wrote thirteen fifteen
page letter to Georgia Innocent Project and the Innocent Project
(20:49):
in New York and Georgia. People wrote me right back,
said okay, we'll help you. We'll take your case, send
it to transcripts and everything. So I did. About a
year goes by. They send everything back says at this time.
We can't do nothing for you, but your case is
still open. Ten years go by, it was in ateen.
Out of the blue, I get a letter, go up
(21:10):
to the mail room, get legal mail, and here it
is a letter from the INDUS project says we're going
to accept your case. And it was just like a
lot of load off my back. So I'll run over
to the low Library get everything not US gets straight
into mail. And I've been working with Vanessa seven eight
years now. It's been an uphill battle. Yeah, uphill sounds
(21:32):
about right, because from what I understand is that this
d A who's now, by the way, a judge, her
name is La Lazan, she fought both to disallow the
DNA testing to begin with and then to disallow the
admission of results that they knew would have cleared you,
which is just freaking nuts. So Vanessa, can you tell
us about the fight against this da Laylazan, who was
(21:54):
just how bent on maintaining this awful injustice. The DNA
test results that we obtained clearing ron came back in
two thousand and seventeen, and when we got those results,
the d A opposed relief fought against a new trial
and her primary argument was Ron could not use these
(22:16):
test results to prove his innocence because the rape shield
law prevented him from using the DNA to secure his exoneration.
So the rape shield law is a law that has
been enacted to protect victims of sexual assault from defense
attorneys going in and trying to say, oh, well, you
know you slept with twenty other people and so you
(22:39):
weren't really sexually assaulted, or you consented, or try to
use victims past sexual history to somehow undermine the veracity
of his or her claim. And it has nothing to
do with if you have scientific evidence that goes to
the heart of who committed the crime. Right, But this
is how twin that the state was in this case.
(23:01):
Their position was, we know Ron was the assailant, so
if there's some male DNA in her rape kit, that,
by the way, we know couldn't come from a prior
act of consensual sex because she told hospital personnel she
hadn't had sex in a week before the attack, so
we know it couldn't have come from anyone else. But
their position was, since it excluded Ron, it had to
(23:22):
come from somebody else. She must be lying. She must
have not been honest about another encounter and therefore Ron
can't use it. And it's like that was crazy, and
even ultimately the d A recognized it was crazy because
of some cases that were going on in the Georgia
Supreme Court at the time. So she tried to use
the rape shield law as a rape shield sword against Ron.
(23:44):
Then when that didn't prevail and his conviction was vacated,
he was being held in the county jail with no bail.
He was in on a sexual assault for which he
had already served thirty years, and the court declined to
set fail and so he was in jail for over
a year with no activity. The state had made no
real attempt to bring this case to retrial, but wouldn't
(24:07):
dismiss the charges. And then, of course the COVID nineteen
pandemic hits, and so in April we make this emergency
motion to set bail in Ron's case. This is when
the pandemic is taking off. It starts to spread like
wildfire in jail's. People in jails are sitting ducks, right.
They don't have access to mass and purel and all
(24:29):
of the things that people were clamoring for out in society.
And so it's at this point that we finally are
approaching a hearing date. And by the way, in this jurisdiction,
if you file emotion, the only way you can get
on the court's calendar is if the d A sets
it down. So for a while she wouldn't even set this,
We couldn't even get the motion set. And finally we
(24:50):
get an opportunity that the court is going to hear it,
and she makes this offer to Ron, you know, if
you just plead guilty, you can get out tomorrow. She
even offers him an Alfred plea, which means that he
could have maintained his innocence but still pledged guilty would
have the same effect as a conviction. But he could
have gotten out, you know, the next day, if he
(25:10):
had just said I did it. But by saying no,
Ron wasn't just taking this stance, he was also risking
his life. You know, we didn't know what was going
to go on with COVID. He didn't have access to
even protect himself, so it was even more dangerous than usual,
this thought that, you know, by saying no, Ron could
have died in prison and just never had the opportunity
(25:31):
to even walk out. And then, of course, after he
turns down the deal, the state goes into court and
argues that Ron shouldn't get bailed because he's too dangerous.
So he's too dangerous to walk out of prison if
he's maintaining his innocence. But if he had just said
he was guilty, you were going to let him go, right.
And then to top it all off, the prosecutor says,
(25:53):
we oppose bail, but if you're going to set bail,
set it at fifty thousand, and the court said, I'm
going to send it at I mean, what master to
these people, sir, because it certainly isn't justice. And Ron,
can you take us back to that moment when they
offered you the plea, where if you just accepted it
(26:13):
and said you were guilty, that you could walk out
the door the next day, right the very next day,
after thirty years in prison. I mean, what went through
your mind in that moment. I thought about that for
a split second, and I said, well, if I give in,
I've been saying I'm minister for thirty years. Also now
I will change my story. I said, you know, the
(26:35):
worst they can do if they reconvict me is give
me another life sentence. They already took everything from me.
My mom died, my brother died while I was in prison.
I'm living up here with my sister now helping her.
She supported me for thirty years and it's my turn
to give back help her. So by not giving in,
(26:55):
if somebody hears about my case that's in the same
position and want to take a plea bargain, I'm not
holding it against them. You know, it's their personal choice.
But if they look at me and they take some
strength and say, hey, I'm innocent, let's prove it, I
don't give into these bastards. It's incredible to hear you
(27:24):
say that you thought about it for a split second.
It's like you've already seen the worst aspects of our system,
so you knew what they could do to you. It
took a lot of courage, and like you said, everybody
makes that choice differently. It's another sort of sick thing
about our system that people are put into that position,
(27:45):
having already been through the unbelievable trauma of drawing from
incarceration for a decade and then faced with possibly waiting
gears for another trial and then potentially being framed again,
but you stood by your guns and ultimately that was
clearly the right decision, and all of us are thrilled
(28:07):
that you've been vindicated, exonerated, and proven to have been
telling the truth all along. Vanessa helped me out here
because this is really it's evil. I mean, what they
did to him is evil, right, I mean that's not
too strong of a word. Well, I guess it's not
when you consider that the district attorney Layla's On who
was handling his case, had been exposed for having a
(28:31):
little toy electric chair on her desk. I think you
definitely identified the mentality that's going on here. And Ron,
I want to highlight the fact that you ended up
with a literal dream team here, right, I mean you
have Vanessa and the Innocence Projects. I want to also
shout out the other good guys here, Donald Samuel and
Amanda Clark Palmer from the Atlanta law firm of Garland
(28:53):
Samuel and Loebe. My understanding is that they played a
really significant role in this. Am I right, yes, yes,
When first came on board, that was such a relief
over the years talking on the phone, getting the information
about my case and learning more and seeing how the
process works. It's amazing, especially Vanessa, and now that the
(29:16):
I'm out have access to needed that so I could
see the scope of the units of project now how
many people they helped and affected their lives in a
positive way. Don An, Amanda and Georgia, Vanessa, all the paralegals,
the law students, I can name them all. I'm in
their debt. And we did ultimately work with the Georgia
Insens project as well. They were really instrumental when we
(29:39):
were fighting to get the DNA testing and have been
a great partner with us. So ultimately, justice was delayed
by three decades, but not denied. In June, District Attorney
Layla's on one of the major villains in this case,
and an ironic twist of fate, her good fortune was
the best thing that could have happened for Ron, because
(30:00):
when she was appointed to a Superior Court judge ship
and her chief deputy, Randy McGinley was sworn in as
the new d A then also elected that November, he
promised a review of Ron's case. At this point, Ron
was already out on bail, but still not free until
on August d A. McGinley had reviewed Ron's case and
(30:21):
dismissed all the charges, and that days called me. She
cried and said, you're free. They dropped the charges like
it stunned me. I said, nah, it took a couple
of days of walking around and letting the sink in.
Finally free. Then you know, you start thinking about how
many more people still in prison that I have no chance,
(30:43):
have no help, And it hurts, you know, bothers you
because after so many years of prison, my psyche, you know,
is still there with them people. It's something that I
can't let it go. And there's no telling how many
countless people that are still innocent, still in prison with
no help, never go, get no help. So I feel blessed.
Don't take nothing for granted, no more, just one day
(31:06):
at a time. Yeah, And it's really incredible to have
you here today, just weeks since you were fully exonerated.
So for those of you who are moved by Ron's
story and who would like to help him as he
begins this next chapter of his life, there's an Amazon
wish list as well as a Mighty cause dot com story.
(31:29):
We're gonna put links to both of these in the
bio where you can donate to help Ron, So please
go click on the link and the bio do it.
Now we're going to join you in doing so here
at Wrongful Conviction as well. So now this is a
part of the show called Closing Arguments, and it works
like this. First of all, I thank you again Ron
Jacobson for having the courage to come here and share
(31:51):
your incredible story, and of course Vanessa Potkin for just
being such a you know, super woman, freedom fighter, all
around just awesome human. And so thanks to both of
you for being here on the show. And now closing
Arguments works like this. I turned my mic off, kicked
(32:11):
back in my chair and leave my headphones on, and
just leave your microphones on so you can share any
other thoughts that we may have left out or anything
that's on your mind of any kind. So Vanessa, with
all due respect to you, will say the best for last,
and of course Ron, that's you. You're the featured guest here,
(32:31):
So Vanessa, once you go first and then just hand
it off to Ron, and that's how we'll close out
the show. You know, being here today and listening to
Ron's speak, it's just hitting me, particularly now his incredible
strength and forwarded to to have turned down that offer,
and we just know how coercive the legal system is.
(32:52):
Pre trial, the state tries to extort guilty please to
resolve cases. The stakes are so high that you're incentivized
to just take can leave and when you're innocent, or
just give up your constitutional rights to a trial. So
I am respecting the amount of courage and strength that
took you, Ron, to make that decision and stand up
to the system. And I'm so proud that you prevailed
(33:15):
to making me think about the judges again, that the
person really dragged this out through so many years is
now on the bench. We need to get progressive prosecutors
in place, but we also need to make sure that
they're judges on the bench who are going to also
be in line with change. And so I think those
(33:35):
are the takeaways I'm experiencing. In addition to Ron, you're
just an all around such an incredible person. And you know,
when Ron got out, while he was still fighting to
get the charges dismissed, he started going on social media
and he was on Facebook. And when you're representing someone
who could face a retrial, it's a real stressor to
have them out there making all these comments. So I
(33:56):
thought about reaching out to Ron and saying, hey, fall
back a little bit nice reading what he was saying
and his perspective on the legal system and change, and
it was just so right on that I was like,
I'm not saying anything keep going wrong. Well, you know,
my heart and soul bleeds for all my brother's sisters
still behind the walls with no hope, and if I
(34:17):
could be a voice in the wilderness to help them,
you know, that's my goal life right now? Do you
use my exoneration to help the next person pay forward,
whatever it takes. And the Innocent Project and the Innocent Network,
they do incredible work and I thanked them every day.
(34:45):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. Please support your
local innocence organizations and go to the links in our
bio to see how you can help. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburne,
and Kevin wardas The music on this show, as always,
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
(35:06):
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on
Twitter at wrong Conviction, and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Wrongful Conviction 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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