The Presumption of Innocence - Episode 71

Episode 71 Necessary Narratives: Storytelling That Moves Lives Forward Harnessing his personal experience as an incarcerated individual and his writing talents as a storyteller, Brad Rouse is focused on helping defendants accelerate their path to redemption and healing. A former on- and off-Broadway director who spent time in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) on a federal drug charge, Brad is currently a Senior Writer and Mitigation Consultant for WhiteCollarAdvice.com, a business that helps white-collar defendants through all stages of the judicial process. Brad shares with host Matt Adams how his life unraveled in a 14-month span, taking him from New York’s theater district into a drug addiction that landed him in the MDC. Today, he’s crafting written narratives for defendants to present to judges at their sentencing hearings. Brad approaches each storytelling exercise as a holistic form of healing for his clients. Through a series of conversations with each defendant, he works to convey to judges a contextual understanding of the person they are about to sentence, showing each as more than the crime to which they have pleaded guilty.