In this special episode, Jason Flom talks to Amanda Knox, Jarrett Adams and Jeff Deskovic about what it's like for an innocent person who is forced to spend the holidays in prison. Amanda Knox was convicted of the murder of a 21-year-old British exchange student, Meredith Kercher, who died from knife wounds in the apartment she shared with Amanda in Perugia, Italy in 2007. Amanda and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were both found guilty of killing Kercher, receiving 26- and 25-year prison sentences, respectively. Their convictions were subsequently overturned in 2011 and Amanda was released from prison after serving four years. In early 2014, the Italian Supreme Court ruled that they should both stand trial again and she and Sollecito were re-convicted. Finally, in March 2015, the Italian Supreme Court overturned both murder convictions, ending their eight-year ordeal. Jarrett Adams was 17 years old when he was wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting a young woman at UW-Whitewater in 1998. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison and spent close to a decade incarcerated before his conviction was reversed with the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project on the basis that trial counsel had been ineffective for failing to present the testimony of a critical witness. Jarrett graduated from Loyola Law School in May 2015 and is currently practicing law in New York and advocating for criminal justice reform. Jeffrey Deskovic was a 16-year-old high school sophomore when he was wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a high school classmate in 1991. Although hair and semen samples taken from the scene did not match Jeff’s DNA, he aroused the suspicion of detectives by weeping openly at the victim’s funeral. After six hours of intense interrogation, Jeff confessed to the crime, though he later contended in a lawsuit that police investigators had fed him the details of the killing and promised him that if he admitted guilt, he would not go to prison but would instead get psychiatric treatment. With the help of The Innocence Project, Jeff Deskovic was exonerated and released in 2006 after DNA analysis linked convict Stephen Cunningham to the crime and Cunningham confessed.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I came from a beautiful neighborhood, had a beautiful life.
I went to sleep because September seven was the first
day of my high school year. I was gonna be
a senior. At twenty two, I was set to start college.
I woke up and my life was never the same again.
Cops came out with guns drawn, and I never saw
(00:22):
freedom ever ever since after that. It's like roach motaw.
Once you get in, you're not getting out. This is
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome to another episode of
(00:51):
Wrongful Conviction. This is our holiday episode, which we are
calling a very special Wrongful Christmas. Um it's Amanda Knox laughing.
I would like to introduce our guests. Each one has
a very unique story, but they all have one terrible
thing in common, which is that they spent years upon
(01:12):
years in prison and holiday after holiday in prison for
crimes that they didn't commit. Jared Adams, Alex Honoree from Wisconsin. Jared,
Welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you for having
me on the show. I really appreciate being here and
having a platform to talk about anything involving over prediction
and criminals. ESSs for form Yes and you are. Certainly
you certainly have a unique perspective on it. I'm looking
(01:33):
forward to talking more about that. Jeff Dyskovic, an axonoree
from New York who served almost seventeen years in prison
for a crime he didn't commit. Jeff, Welcome to the show,
and happy holidays to you too. Thanks for having me.
Happy holidays, Jason. And last, but not least, we have
(01:54):
someone who you'll recognize. I'd like to introduce my friend,
Amanda Knox. Amanda, Welcome to the show, Thank you, and
happy holidays. Happy holidays. So before we get into talking
about what holidays are like in prison for someone who
is innocent, I want to talk a little bit about
each of your cases so we can begin to understand
the psyche, the psychology that was going on when you
(02:16):
were when you were stuck there. Jared, let's start with you.
I'm from Chicago, and I made my way to Wisconsin
by making a stupid decision as a kid. Um I
told my parents I was going to spend a night
over a frand's house, and we got in the car
and we made a trip up to Wisconsin, which board
of Chicago. About our fifteen minutes out and went to
a college party. And we went to the college party,
(02:38):
and we did what college kids do, we you know,
experiencement with with with drinking, with smoking, and sex. And
we were ultimately accused of a sexual assault that never happened.
You know. The allegations were made up out of embarrassment
by this girl. And the thing about it was the
police knew from the very beginning. We were accused of
sneaking up a flight of stairs, gating up and the
(03:00):
girl and fleeing the building. But there were witnesses, you know,
from students who saw us and saw us from a
timeline from basically like eight nineteen eleven twelve o'clock, one o'clock,
so the allegations were false. The police knew about these witnesses,
and we didn't have all of the information and the
statements from these witnesses to be able to prove that,
(03:21):
you know, it was it was impossible time wise for
us to be participating in the game rape and fleeing
the building. So ultimately two of us ended up being
found guilty. And the difference between the two out of
the three was I, along with my co defended Dmitri Helling.
We weren't able to afford an attorney. We were giving
public defenders. My other co defendant, he had an attorney,
(03:43):
and his attorney was litigating and fighting it all the way,
following appeals and saying, look, there's not enough evidence to
charge these boys with a rape. There's nothing but an allegation,
and they shouldn't be able to bring this in court.
Our attorneys were like, well, no, you know what, Look
we don't think they did it. There's no evidence, let's
go to trial. It was a anangeous decision which was
motivated by them because as public defenders, they don't get
(04:04):
paid unless the case is closed. So when they're incentive
for Russian and go on the court unprepared was let
me get this case closed and let me get paid.
While was the other attorney who was a paid attorney,
he was a retainer and he was in no rush
to serve us up on a platter. Basically, we ended
up being found gets being found guilty and sent us
to serve twenty and twenty eight years respectively. I had
(04:26):
an additional eight years add onto my my sentence because
at the cents in here, and you know, I refused
to to to be sympathetic and admit to a rape
that I didn't commit, and the judge told me that
I was being um not not being remorseful, and she
gave me an additional eight years in prison. This eight
years and the significance of it sent me to do
(04:47):
time in a maximum slash super maximum UH correctional facility.
And I got there and and in the first year
it was just like a out of body of experience.
I'm you know, got to the point where it was like, look,
I wasn't mad or angry anymore for the fact that
they didn't believe me, right, I was more so angry
and upset to the fact that I'm sitting in this prison.
(05:08):
I have a mother aunts that raised me. I'm gonna
choose of a ridiculous crime that has no evidence. And
the only reason I'm here is because I couldn't afford
an attorney, and more importantly, because my accuser was white
and we were black. But eventually you were exonerated. Yes,
with the help of the Wisconsin Inscence Project, I was
exonerated and released, but after over serving close to ten
(05:30):
years in prison. UM. The last bit of the story
is my co defendant. Although he was released, his record
wasn't expunged because he missed the deadline. So here it is,
the code defending my case is released, but he still
has it on his record for him missing a deadline
to file at the same motion that I filed with
an Innocence Project to get me out. And it absolutely
(05:52):
makes no sense at all. And of course, one more
thing I can't I can never tell your story without
talking about the incredible turn of event that led to
you clerking in the same courtroom where you were exonerated.
But now I'm very proud brag about you for a
second year. And now Jared has just started his job
as an attorney with the Innocence Project in New York.
So we'll give you a little roundable place then, all right, UM,
(06:13):
so let's go to you, Amanda Sure. A month into
my study abroad program, one of my roommates was found
UM raped and murdered in her bedroom in the apartment
that she shared with me and two other Italian roommates.
And UM four days later, I was arrested for having
(06:38):
participated in her murder. UM. I was led through a
very coercive interrogation that UM led me to believe that
I had witnessed the murder and had suffered amnesia and
knew who the killer was, and presumably that person would
(07:00):
have been my boss, who I was supposed to meet
that night for work. What ended up happening was a
when DNA came back at UM showing what had happened
at the scene. It came back having nothing to do
with me or my boyfriend who was my alibi, or
my boss, who had his alibi as well. It had
(07:22):
to do with a local burglar who was known to
break in enter carrying a knife. And instead of the
police saying, oh, we made a mistake by arresting this
girl and her boyfriend and her boss, what they did
was they took my boss out of the equation and
put this burglar into the equation, saying that I had
(07:48):
manipulated these two young men, my boyfriend and this local
burglar who I didn't know, into raping Meredith, my roommate,
and then allowing me to murder her. And uh. It
took four years for UM for me to get out
(08:09):
of prison, and another four years for the case to
finally be resolved and for me to be exonerated. I
was convicted, then acquitted, then reconvicted, and then finally the
Supreme Court overturned that conviction and definitively found me innocent. Yeah,
and it's quite stunning, um watching the documentary, which I
(08:30):
thought was so brilliantly done, to see just how, um,
how the evidence was so badly mishandled, how the whole
procedure was so badly mishandled. Then of course your case
became such an international um story, tabloid headlines everywhere, and
(08:52):
I that's you know, I think that in a very
real way precluded you from getting justice. Because I'm in
theory they could have still done what was right. But
we know that in smaller communities, especially when a case
gets a lot of attention from the press and there's
you know, there's a spotlight shown on it, it makes
(09:16):
prosecutors and others actors in the system less inclined to
uh accept evidence of innocence and basically admit that they
were wrong. Now we'll turn to Jeff Deskovic. Sure, at
age sixteen, I was arrested for a murderer rape which
(09:36):
I did not commit, uh, and the arrest was based
upon a course false confession which they obtained after interrogating me.
For six and a half to seven hours. This was
in Westchester County here in New York. I turned seventeen
before the trial started, and despite a pre trial negative
DNA exclusion which showed that semen found the victim did
(09:59):
not come from a nonetheless, was wrongfully convicted based upon
that coorce, false confession, prosecutorial misconduct, fraud by the medical examiner.
Terrible public defender. UM. I was imprisoned from ages aged
seventeen to thirty two. I lost all seven of my appeals.
I got turned down for parole because I stood on
(10:20):
my innocence. Ultimately, I was exonerated through further DNA testing
with the assistance of the Innocence Project via the DNA
Data Bank. And not only was I exonerated, but the
actual perpetrator was identified and subsequently arrested and convicted. You
speak of it so eloquently but almost matter of factly.
And the idea that you were interrogated without a lawyer,
(10:42):
without a parent, without a guardian. You're sixteen years old, Um,
you were threatened with physical violence, and it was the
false promise. Also, you know that they promised me that
if I did as they wanted, that they would stop
the interrogation process and that I was not going to
be arrested. That is a dynamic also. And the other
thing I want to share Jason with the audience is
(11:03):
that they drove me from Peak Skill, which is in
Westchester County. They drove me out of county to Putnam
County to deliver me into the hands of a polygraphist
who conducted this procedure which he himself referred to as GtC.
You know, get the confession right, and and they promised
you that if you signed the confession, you would go
(11:24):
home and be able to stay in your in your
own bed with your mother. Well they promised me, Yeah,
if I confess, they stopped. But just so everybody understands
the outrageousness though, just even beyond what we've already said,
that the interrogation was not videotaped, It was an audio tape,
and there was no signed confession. It was just the
officer's word, which allowed them at the trial to omit
the threat and false promise from their testimony. What is
(11:47):
also really important for us to highlight is the idea
that because of this false confession, you were convicted in
spite of the fact that you had DNA evidence. In
cases involving juveniles, false confessions are amazingly common, disturbingly common,
and the idea that a jury would disregard scientific evidence
(12:13):
that you could not have been at the crime scene
because of a of a confession is something that you know,
I just want everybody to reflect upon for a second,
because that is you know that that can never happen again.
To kind of jump ahead in terms of what I'm
doing now, I use some of the money that I
want from the law stuit and I started a nonprofit
organization named after me Um, Jeffrey Dscoby Foundation for Justice,
(12:37):
whose goal is to exonerate other innocent people. And our
four years of existence, we exonerated two people, William Lopez,
who was rumfully imprisoned for twenty three and a half years. Recently,
we exonerated William Houghey, who served eight years and four months.
Currently trying to raise funds through a website called Patrion
in order to hire more staff to assist more insocent people. UH.
(12:59):
The last quick thing I'll mention is um following in
the UH footsteps, an example of Jared Adams is here
with us today. I'm also in I'm in law school
one year. I'm in my first year at the Elizabeth
Hop School law in my planes and you know, when
I saw Jared walk across the stage, you know, getting
his law degree. Um, all doubts in my mind because
(13:22):
I was going back and for what do I really
want to become a lawyer? Do I just want to
remain an advocate and just have lawyers work for me
and work with me. While that disappeared, it was a
clear cut decision. And Jeff, it's um, let's give you
a round of applause as well, because it's fantastic. You know,
(13:51):
we have three different people here, different backgrounds, different faiths.
You know, people don't think about as they're going about
their holiday business, right and of course New York is
no different than anywhere else in the country. There's you know,
sales coming up, and then there's all the things you
do to get busy around the holidays and buy ugly
sweaters for your friends, and different traditions that people participate in,
(14:14):
whether you're you know, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, whatever, everybody has
their things, Um, atheists, I mean even they celebrate the holidays, right, Um,
thank you. The fact is that there's a whole different
holiday going on for the two point three million people
who are locked up and will be locked up this
(14:36):
holiday season. I want to give some insight to the
audience about what that's like being behind bars. Amanda. Let's
start with you. I mean, here, you were in Italy,
right in prison. Um, how long had you been in
by the time the holidays came around the first time.
So I was arrested on November six and um, and
(14:57):
so I was in prison for you know, about a month,
a month and a half before you know, the Christmas
season came around, and um, I mean all all the
Christmas is um were largely the same. That first one
was particularly fraught with confusion and fear and uncertainty because
(15:21):
by that time I was still hoping that all of
this was just a big mistake and then I was
going to get to go home with my mom. Um
that ended up not being the case. It's um, My
experience of the holidays in prison is that it just
serves as a reminder of how much life is passing
(15:41):
without you, and how you know, every year I would
call back home for my ten minute phone call and
um My, you know, I had cousins who were one
years old when I left, and they were talking to
me by the time I was finally coming home, and
it's it's a reminder of how how much your family
(16:06):
is sacrificing for you. My family had to cross an
ocean to get to me, and they it was a
tremendous sacrifice to them. They my mom had to come
during the winter holidays because she's a teacher, and she
didn't she didn't have to go to work. My sisters
could come to finally visit me during the winter holidays,
(16:28):
and and we would spend those trying two trying to
feel like we were celebrating something, usually by my stepdad
making you know, turkey and bringing into the prison for me. UM,
so I could at least take part separately in the
family meal. UM. How how long were they allowed to
(16:52):
visit you along what we're talking specifically about Christmas Day? Um? Well,
and not necessarily in Christmas Day depended on what day
visit and was allowed, So it was usually the day
nearest to Christmas, um, that they were allowed to come.
You weren't necessarily allowed that given day. I was only
allowed to see my family for six hours a month,
(17:13):
and UM, visitation periods were an hour at a time.
Occasionally they would allow us an extra hour. Did it
provide you any sort of peace or any sort of
an escape. Were you able to detach for even that
brief period of time. No, Um, It did remind me
(17:35):
that there was a whole world outside waiting for me,
and that the people who cared about me were still
there as much as they possibly could be. But we
were still in the you know, the visitation room, and
I was still not allowed to you know, uh, we
weren't allowed to like touch too much. Like we were
(17:56):
allowed to hold hands, but we you know, we couldn't
just stand there hugging the whole time if we wanted to, like,
it wasn't allowed. You had to sit down in your chair,
You had to sit down and talk because it was visitation.
And then when it was time to go, we were
allowed to hug and we they left. So it's hard
to even hear this. You were basically not far removed
(18:18):
from being a child at this point in time. We
were just out of high school. I was twenty years old, Jeff.
For you, you were even younger, I mean, sixteen years old.
My first holiday inside was spent that at seventeen so on.
So on Thanksgiving, I mean they served the meal that
was supposed to replicate a traditional Um Thanksgiving meal, except
(18:39):
that you know, the stuff it was extremely it was
so salty it wasn't palatable, and the turkey was processed um.
The guards knew that it was a halfway decent meal,
you know, compared to the other there, and so they
rushed us out of the mess whole, barely giving us
ten minutes to eat. It was a very stressful time.
Everybody wanted to used the telephones to come home, but
(19:01):
there was nowhere near enough telephone, so it was almost
impossible to get on the phone and make a phone call.
I would say the same thing was true on uh
on Christmas, um one of the bright spots there, because
it wasn't I mean, it was horrible, but there were
a few bright spots here and there, relatively speaking. So
there was a volunteer that used to come into the
(19:23):
prison every Christmas, and and there was a staff person
who also would come in on what was obviously an
off day for them. So those two would pair with
the guard and they would have a bugle and they
would actually play Christmas carols at the at the bottom
of the that the first floor of each tier, and
so everybody could uh could hear it, and as you
might imagine it, you drew a mixed reaction. Um, some
(19:47):
of the prisoners, like myself, we we enjoyed listening to it.
It brought back some uh you know, good memories. While
other people didn't appreciate it, and so they would start
yelling obscenities, trying to get them to stop, but they
would ignore and and uh and keep going. Sort of
a surreal, uh picture that you're painting, right. It definitely
(20:09):
was the only other thing I'll just want to add
is you know, in my my experience, you know, I
I didn't have any visitors on the on the holidays
themselves because they were they were all getting together and
doing a family thing, so they didn't end that tradition
to instead for a couple of them to come drive
the four hours each way to come and see me
(20:30):
in the prison. Yeah. I'm still stuck on this idea
of this contrast, right of the Christmas music with people
alternately either humming or singing along or yelling curses and epithets.
It was what it was. It was a madhouse. It
was it was it was a madhouse. Were the guards?
(20:52):
I mean, they must not have been particularly thrilled to
be in uh in prison on the holidays. Did it
affect their behavior in any way? You know, they rushed
us instead of giving us the normal time we would
normally be allotted, you know, to eat, they would rush
this out. And then the last half of my sentence,
I think that some kind of policy was changed, and
(21:13):
so instead of them allowing us to have recreation at night,
they took that away. They gave us an hour recreation
so they could hurry up and lock the facility down
so that they could engage in the Christmas party, a
Thanksgiving party, of uh New Year's party while we were
all just you know, locked in the cage. That's another
thing that you really wouldn't think of, but you could
(21:35):
tell by the look on their faces that many of
them were not happy to be there despite that. And
so for me personally, I know a lot of the
other prisoners too. We used to walk on eggshells on
those days. The best thing to do was to try
to somehow avoid being noticed at all, because you don't
want to be the target of their frustration. Jared, what
(21:56):
was it like for you. I mean, first, among other things,
you're in a particularly called climate is brutal cold. Well,
my first actual holiday incarcerated was when I was first
arrested because I couldn't afford it to get a bill,
like my family didn't have enough money to get a
bail and stuff like that, and so not enough money
to get a bill, and I don't money to get
(22:17):
a lawyer. So I sat there and basically I turned
uh eighteen and spent my first Christmas and Thanksgiving and
stuff like that while I was in the jail, and
it was it was, you know, one of these things
where it was like I couldn't afford to to get out,
and so what they did was I lived in Chicago,
(22:38):
so they arrested me in Chicago and they were just
extraditing me to Wisconsin. So I spent those days in
the Cook County Jail, which I don't know if many
of your listeners may know, they can do some research,
but Cook County Jail is one of the most violent
jails there is in the United States. And so that's
where I spent my first um, you know, Birthday, thanks
(22:58):
Giving and stuff like that, waiting be extradited. And it's
just horrible. It's really no different than than a prison.
Besides it's it's in many ways can be more violent
because like everyone is on right on top of each
other in the county jail, and there's so many people,
and it's lack of bed space and you have bunk beds,
you know, all out in the day room, and you know,
(23:19):
it's just it's just a different climate. And so what
they did in Cook County Jail was they would they
would push, um, they will put your card in, you know,
into the the pot, and they would have someone in
there who would pass it out and stuff like that.
But there was nothing to look forward to. I mean,
all of it was a rendition of what you would
(23:40):
normally get when you with your with your family, right,
you're here to push the cart in the cart with
what with nothing but food, with your food inside of it,
and then it would be on a tray and you know,
everyone would come by and they would get a tray
and you know, much like what Jeff was was explaining
that it would be a rendition of what stuffing was
supposed to be. It would be a hard slap ab
(24:00):
of what turkey what was supposed to supposed to look like,
but it's like it's so processed you don't know what
it is. Right, So that alone with the phone's being busy,
But me personally, I just didn't I didn't even want
to make a phone call, you know, I just didn't,
you know, I wanted to block out the fact that
you know, I was in there for for the holidays. Man,
(24:20):
I mean, I'm turning eighteen, you know there. Um, And
everyone kept back to me like maybe what you're doing
it here, right, because I've never been arrested before or
anything like that. So it's just like, you know, you're
going a place like that, and you stand out immediately
if you don't know your way around or if people
haven't seen you around in a place like that. So
I didn't know anyone in there. Um. I pretty much
(24:41):
was kept kept to myself. Read you know, watch whatever
it was on TV. And what I tried to do
each holiday was I tried to stay up all day
the day before the holiday so that way I could
sleep the entire holiday. Don't get it over with as
fast possible. Collectively, Um, you served nine. We did the
(25:16):
math before we got on the air. You serve twenty nine.
Christmas is thanksgivings Monica's in prison? Um, were there any
bright spots uh? In any of those others? Was there
anyone who, you know, sort of gave you a reason
to feel anything other than lonely, sad, isolated? I mean,
(25:40):
besides my family, which I can't say enough, they were
there for me. Um. One memory that I wanted to
share with you, UM is uh So there was a
priest in my prison who was like my best friend
because we would get into so many great, warm, intellectual
arguments about about fundamental human rights and why women couldn't
(26:03):
be in the clergy if they didn't want to, and
why gay people couldn't get married if they if they
want to, and we had so many great arguments about that,
and I loved him and he allowed me to play
guitar during Mass, which was so it was so great
for me. And we learned this Um, I think you'll
appreciate this. We learned this um Jewish song in Italian
(26:28):
for Christmas, Um which which goes is c lapacheck conoi
is c lapacheck conoi la pachick conoi Vinu Shalmschalm Shalom Malakim.
And um so we sang this song in in mass
(26:50):
and UM. One of the things about my prison was
it's a woman's prison and there were mothers there with
small children. They were kept in a separate ward UM,
and they were allowed to keep their children up to
three years old with them. UM. But we saw them
in um in mass and there was this one little
girl who never ever ever talked ever, UM, but she
(27:13):
always made eye contact with me. We we played UM
and I caught her UM singing that song in the
yard once you have a little girl. She never spoke,
so like the yard was split off and there were
bars between the yard where people like me were versus
where the mothers with their children were, and this little
(27:35):
girl was just like swinging on a little swing, singing
like it was really cute. So that was that was
a really great moment for me that she had just
heard that song and felt really involved with it. I mean,
imagine the day before the kid turns three, and what
that must be like for them to be to know
(27:55):
that they're going to be separated from the child. Tried
to commit suicide it a lot of the time when
their kids were taken away. Yeah, I mean, it's that's
I can't even process that um, and and then the
other thing that the musical part of my brain is
about to explode from the my mind is going to
a mix of your Jewish Italian Christmas song and the
(28:19):
other bugle with the curses, and you can't forget like
the clanging of the bars and the sounds of the
keys churning in the lock, and like all of that
just superimposed on everything, the echo of the corridors. Jeff,
what about you? Were there anything uplifting at all that
happened on any of the holidays? A birthday even, Yeah,
later on in my sentence, I think it was from
(28:41):
two forward. So last five or six years. Um, I
got a different uh counselor in the prison, Carol Hellman,
and she believed in my She's one of the rare
people that believed to my innocence, and so we would uh.
She would typically call me to her office near near
the Christmas holiday and you know, just doing the quarterly
(29:04):
and she would always end the conversation by saying, UM,
you know, uh, look, have have happy holidays. That'ska vic,
you know. So in her own way, she was trying
to be empathetic and you know, a human to me.
So that was that was a bright spot. Uh. I
used to enjoy talking to her. I mean, we would
get the prison stuff out of the way quickly that
(29:24):
she had to do, but then we would talk a
little bit just as people and it was nice to
those refreshing to have a conversation with somebody, you know,
other than just another prisoner. And so that was that
was a bright spot. And Jared turned to you, look,
in in the United States, they purposely seclude prisons as
far away from the population and normal you know, not
(29:47):
not I don't want to say normal, but the inner
city society or where most of the people who they
house families come from. So because I'm all the way
in Wisconsin, um, they pushed me like three or four
hours deeper in to Wisconsin for a drive coming from Chicago.
So it made the drive almost like four or five hours.
So that way, if if my family was gonna come,
(30:08):
they were gonna they were gonna have to, you know,
get a hotel or you know, you're talking about people
who were reaching the age of being senior citizens, were
very low income, and so it was hard for me
to to ever see them on the holidays, except for um,
this one holiday when I got the chance to get
you know, my my aunt's um and and and my
(30:29):
uncle who was my godfather who just recently you know,
passed away, um about a couple of years ago. And
they came on a bus and they took a Greyhound
because at this point, I mean, driving five hours was
just ridiculous to ask of them coming from Chicago and
bad weather that they know we're coming in. So they
came from Chicago on the bus and they visited with
me that day and that and at that time, they
(30:50):
had a program inside the prisoner I was in where
you were allowed to order some things and just for
the purpose of it being a holiday Christmas, they would
let you and stuff in and and and the things
that they we let you get in were food items.
And so in prison, uh, those summer sausages are like gold, right,
you know. So you get this this this Christmas pack
(31:11):
and it has all the flavors you can think of,
Jayson Pepperoni flavors, smoked turkey flavor, and it has the
different cheeses, the different spreads. So I got that before
I knew I had a visit. So I got it,
and I was just so thankful, And I'm calling the
house and no one is picking up, and I'm like, man,
where are they at? You know, I'm trying to get
(31:32):
in touch with them. And so I'm laying, you know,
on my bunking and I'm going through all these summer
sausages with different crackers and stuff like that, and they're like,
you you gotta visit. And so, uh, I sat there
because I was in the sale with someone else and
I thought they were talking to him, right, and so
they ain't left, and um, they came back about five
minutes like Adams, if you don't take your visit, then
(31:54):
we're gonna cancel your visit. And so I was like
all right, So I got up like a fireman. I jumped.
I jumped off the bed fully clothing into my shoes
all at one time. Right. Um. I went upstairs and
I got a chance to see my my two onto
my uncle who came to see me in you know,
I sat with him and I enjoyed that time because
at that at that time, I hadn't had a visit,
I want to say, in like a year year and
(32:15):
a half. And you know, it was becoming extremely difficult
for me because um, appeal after appeal was being denied,
and they weren't answering any of the evidence. They just
kept saying, well, your lawyers chose to call no witnesses
and chosing no defense theory, so we're not gonna go
into that question their strategy, and it kept rubber stemping
my appeal. So it got to the point where I
(32:35):
became desponding. I didn't want to interact so much, you know,
on the phone and uh and and on visits and
look at the reach, the wrinkles, increases of anguish lyned
on my mother's forehead. That stuff takes a toll on them.
And that's so crazy to Jack because the idea that
they would willfully push you further away from your family,
(32:55):
when as a society, we we know that every is
coming back from prison, almost everyone's going to get out,
and you want that bond to remain intact so that
people have a community to come back to, because ultimately,
everybody that's in prison that comes out is going to
be somebody's neighbor someday. And that's the approach that they
take in European prisons, where they focus on rehabilitation and
(33:16):
they treat the prisoners, not in Italy. But I'm talking
about I should say in the Scandinavian countries particularly right,
they have an approach where, in fact, there's one where
I've seen a video where the warden uh talks about
that when the prisoners coming, he says, you're gonna be
my neighbors someday when you get out, so I'm going
to treat you as I would want to be treated myself.
And they actually sing, the guards sing a song. I mean,
(33:37):
it's crazy, but it's such a different and it works
much better. But that's another story. And some people may
think they take it too far, but that's the debate
we can have on some of that. It is true,
like it's just a very practical measure. I mean one thing,
just in response to something that you were saying that
like the way that we imprison people. Now there's this
dichotomy where you, you, as like a social animal, want
(33:59):
you to be close to your family so badly, and
you want to stay in touch with the real world
so badly. But that's exactly what is taken away from you.
And the longer, like as the as the holidays add
up and as the as the time adds up, you
see how your life has gone on a radically divergent
path and the lives of all the people that you love,
(34:21):
and you you feel like your experience of the world
and of reality is so different and so incompatible with
what the rest of us take for granted out on
the outside world. Like, how then do you expect people
to get out of that situation and re engage with
the real world. I mean, it's hard enough for people
(34:42):
to re engage with their families even when they first
get out, not to mention the rest of the world.
It's devastating, It's it's almost perfectly designed to drive people
crazy and quite literally. But what I'd like to do
the audience that's listening now, let's say they want to
get involved, and let's say they want to bring a
ray of light into a prison. I'll throw one idea
(35:04):
out there. I'm pen pals with a couple of people now,
and I know just from the letters how much it
means for them to have interaction, even though I'm a
stranger with somebody who's in prison, and I think feel
invested in the world and know that people are invested
in you. That makes a big difference. You'd be surprised
how how far a car will go to lift a
person spiritA like I mean, you'd be surprised and just
(35:27):
you know what, Like like Amanda was saying, Look, we
can't cage people up like animals, feed them like animals,
and then release them and tell them to be human.
I mean that goes against everything that they you know,
you've been putting them through for all those years. So
I just think that that that what you just said
at the communication and close interaction with with society, and
that will go a long way. Jay, Trust me, they
have people who search every day for pen pals. They
(35:48):
go in and look at newspapers to see people to write, Look,
they are in me. They would love that. One idea
I had is what if everyone was listening or a
lot of people are listening with to write a letter
to somebody who's an innocent person who's suffering through the
holidays on the inside, who maybe doesn't have family, doesn't
have any really reason to celebrate. A letter could make
such a big difference. So here's what you do. Go
(36:11):
to Instagram at Wrongful Conviction or go to our Facebook
page which is facebook dot com slash Wrongful Conviction Podcast
and you'll get some details and you'll be able to
share some some strength and some hope and hopefully even
a little bit of joy with somebody on the inside
who can really use your help. Don't forget to give
(36:36):
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 helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Go to Inniscence 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
(36:59):
is by three time OSCAR nominate composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
association with Signal Company Number one
I came from a beautiful neighborhood, had a beautiful life.
I went to sleep because September seven was the first
day of my high school year. I was gonna be
a senior. At twenty two, I was set to start college.
I woke up and my life was never the same again.
Cops came out with guns drawn, and I never saw
(00:22):
freedom ever ever since after that. It's like roach motaw.
Once you get in, you're not getting out. This is
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome to another episode of
(00:51):
Wrongful Conviction. This is our holiday episode, which we are
calling a very special Wrongful Christmas. Um it's Amanda Knox laughing.
I would like to introduce our guests. Each one has
a very unique story, but they all have one terrible
thing in common, which is that they spent years upon
(01:12):
years in prison and holiday after holiday in prison for
crimes that they didn't commit. Jared Adams, Alex Honoree from Wisconsin. Jared,
Welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you for having
me on the show. I really appreciate being here and
having a platform to talk about anything involving over prediction
and criminals. ESSs for form Yes and you are. Certainly
you certainly have a unique perspective on it. I'm looking
(01:33):
forward to talking more about that. Jeff Dyskovic, an axonoree
from New York who served almost seventeen years in prison
for a crime he didn't commit. Jeff, Welcome to the show,
and happy holidays to you too. Thanks for having me.
Happy holidays, Jason. And last, but not least, we have
(01:54):
someone who you'll recognize. I'd like to introduce my friend,
Amanda Knox. Amanda, Welcome to the show, Thank you, and
happy holidays. Happy holidays. So before we get into talking
about what holidays are like in prison for someone who
is innocent, I want to talk a little bit about
each of your cases so we can begin to understand
the psyche, the psychology that was going on when you
(02:16):
were when you were stuck there. Jared, let's start with you.
I'm from Chicago, and I made my way to Wisconsin
by making a stupid decision as a kid. Um I
told my parents I was going to spend a night
over a frand's house, and we got in the car
and we made a trip up to Wisconsin, which board
of Chicago. About our fifteen minutes out and went to
a college party. And we went to the college party,
(02:38):
and we did what college kids do, we you know,
experiencement with with with drinking, with smoking, and sex. And
we were ultimately accused of a sexual assault that never happened.
You know. The allegations were made up out of embarrassment
by this girl. And the thing about it was the
police knew from the very beginning. We were accused of
sneaking up a flight of stairs, gating up and the
(03:00):
girl and fleeing the building. But there were witnesses, you know,
from students who saw us and saw us from a
timeline from basically like eight nineteen eleven twelve o'clock, one o'clock,
so the allegations were false. The police knew about these witnesses,
and we didn't have all of the information and the
statements from these witnesses to be able to prove that,
(03:21):
you know, it was it was impossible time wise for
us to be participating in the game rape and fleeing
the building. So ultimately two of us ended up being
found guilty. And the difference between the two out of
the three was I, along with my co defended Dmitri Helling.
We weren't able to afford an attorney. We were giving
public defenders. My other co defendant, he had an attorney,
(03:43):
and his attorney was litigating and fighting it all the way,
following appeals and saying, look, there's not enough evidence to
charge these boys with a rape. There's nothing but an allegation,
and they shouldn't be able to bring this in court.
Our attorneys were like, well, no, you know what, Look
we don't think they did it. There's no evidence, let's
go to trial. It was a anangeous decision which was
motivated by them because as public defenders, they don't get
(04:04):
paid unless the case is closed. So when they're incentive
for Russian and go on the court unprepared was let
me get this case closed and let me get paid.
While was the other attorney who was a paid attorney,
he was a retainer and he was in no rush
to serve us up on a platter. Basically, we ended
up being found gets being found guilty and sent us
to serve twenty and twenty eight years respectively. I had
(04:26):
an additional eight years add onto my my sentence because
at the cents in here, and you know, I refused
to to to be sympathetic and admit to a rape
that I didn't commit, and the judge told me that
I was being um not not being remorseful, and she
gave me an additional eight years in prison. This eight
years and the significance of it sent me to do
(04:47):
time in a maximum slash super maximum UH correctional facility.
And I got there and and in the first year
it was just like a out of body of experience.
I'm you know, got to the point where it was like, look,
I wasn't mad or angry anymore for the fact that
they didn't believe me, right, I was more so angry
and upset to the fact that I'm sitting in this prison.
(05:08):
I have a mother aunts that raised me. I'm gonna
choose of a ridiculous crime that has no evidence. And
the only reason I'm here is because I couldn't afford
an attorney, and more importantly, because my accuser was white
and we were black. But eventually you were exonerated. Yes,
with the help of the Wisconsin Inscence Project, I was
exonerated and released, but after over serving close to ten
(05:30):
years in prison. UM. The last bit of the story
is my co defendant. Although he was released, his record
wasn't expunged because he missed the deadline. So here it is,
the code defending my case is released, but he still
has it on his record for him missing a deadline
to file at the same motion that I filed with
an Innocence Project to get me out. And it absolutely
(05:52):
makes no sense at all. And of course, one more
thing I can't I can never tell your story without
talking about the incredible turn of event that led to
you clerking in the same courtroom where you were exonerated.
But now I'm very proud brag about you for a
second year. And now Jared has just started his job
as an attorney with the Innocence Project in New York.
So we'll give you a little roundable place then, all right, UM,
(06:13):
so let's go to you, Amanda Sure. A month into
my study abroad program, one of my roommates was found
UM raped and murdered in her bedroom in the apartment
that she shared with me and two other Italian roommates.
And UM four days later, I was arrested for having
(06:38):
participated in her murder. UM. I was led through a
very coercive interrogation that UM led me to believe that
I had witnessed the murder and had suffered amnesia and
knew who the killer was, and presumably that person would
(07:00):
have been my boss, who I was supposed to meet
that night for work. What ended up happening was a
when DNA came back at UM showing what had happened
at the scene. It came back having nothing to do
with me or my boyfriend who was my alibi, or
my boss, who had his alibi as well. It had
(07:22):
to do with a local burglar who was known to
break in enter carrying a knife. And instead of the
police saying, oh, we made a mistake by arresting this
girl and her boyfriend and her boss, what they did
was they took my boss out of the equation and
put this burglar into the equation, saying that I had
(07:48):
manipulated these two young men, my boyfriend and this local
burglar who I didn't know, into raping Meredith, my roommate,
and then allowing me to murder her. And uh. It
took four years for UM for me to get out
(08:09):
of prison, and another four years for the case to
finally be resolved and for me to be exonerated. I
was convicted, then acquitted, then reconvicted, and then finally the
Supreme Court overturned that conviction and definitively found me innocent. Yeah,
and it's quite stunning, um watching the documentary, which I
(08:30):
thought was so brilliantly done, to see just how, um,
how the evidence was so badly mishandled, how the whole
procedure was so badly mishandled. Then of course your case
became such an international um story, tabloid headlines everywhere, and
(08:52):
I that's you know, I think that in a very
real way precluded you from getting justice. Because I'm in
theory they could have still done what was right. But
we know that in smaller communities, especially when a case
gets a lot of attention from the press and there's
you know, there's a spotlight shown on it, it makes
(09:16):
prosecutors and others actors in the system less inclined to
uh accept evidence of innocence and basically admit that they
were wrong. Now we'll turn to Jeff Deskovic. Sure, at
age sixteen, I was arrested for a murderer rape which
(09:36):
I did not commit, uh, and the arrest was based
upon a course false confession which they obtained after interrogating me.
For six and a half to seven hours. This was
in Westchester County here in New York. I turned seventeen
before the trial started, and despite a pre trial negative
DNA exclusion which showed that semen found the victim did
(09:59):
not come from a nonetheless, was wrongfully convicted based upon
that coorce, false confession, prosecutorial misconduct, fraud by the medical examiner.
Terrible public defender. UM. I was imprisoned from ages aged
seventeen to thirty two. I lost all seven of my appeals.
I got turned down for parole because I stood on
(10:20):
my innocence. Ultimately, I was exonerated through further DNA testing
with the assistance of the Innocence Project via the DNA
Data Bank. And not only was I exonerated, but the
actual perpetrator was identified and subsequently arrested and convicted. You
speak of it so eloquently but almost matter of factly.
And the idea that you were interrogated without a lawyer,
(10:42):
without a parent, without a guardian. You're sixteen years old, Um,
you were threatened with physical violence, and it was the
false promise. Also, you know that they promised me that
if I did as they wanted, that they would stop
the interrogation process and that I was not going to
be arrested. That is a dynamic also. And the other
thing I want to share Jason with the audience is
(11:03):
that they drove me from Peak Skill, which is in
Westchester County. They drove me out of county to Putnam
County to deliver me into the hands of a polygraphist
who conducted this procedure which he himself referred to as GtC.
You know, get the confession right, and and they promised
you that if you signed the confession, you would go
(11:24):
home and be able to stay in your in your
own bed with your mother. Well they promised me, Yeah,
if I confess, they stopped. But just so everybody understands
the outrageousness though, just even beyond what we've already said,
that the interrogation was not videotaped, It was an audio tape,
and there was no signed confession. It was just the
officer's word, which allowed them at the trial to omit
the threat and false promise from their testimony. What is
(11:47):
also really important for us to highlight is the idea
that because of this false confession, you were convicted in
spite of the fact that you had DNA evidence. In
cases involving juveniles, false confessions are amazingly common, disturbingly common,
and the idea that a jury would disregard scientific evidence
(12:13):
that you could not have been at the crime scene
because of a of a confession is something that you know,
I just want everybody to reflect upon for a second,
because that is you know that that can never happen again.
To kind of jump ahead in terms of what I'm
doing now, I use some of the money that I
want from the law stuit and I started a nonprofit
organization named after me Um, Jeffrey Dscoby Foundation for Justice,
(12:37):
whose goal is to exonerate other innocent people. And our
four years of existence, we exonerated two people, William Lopez,
who was rumfully imprisoned for twenty three and a half years. Recently,
we exonerated William Houghey, who served eight years and four months.
Currently trying to raise funds through a website called Patrion
in order to hire more staff to assist more insocent people. UH.
(12:59):
The last quick thing I'll mention is um following in
the UH footsteps, an example of Jared Adams is here
with us today. I'm also in I'm in law school
one year. I'm in my first year at the Elizabeth
Hop School law in my planes and you know, when
I saw Jared walk across the stage, you know, getting
his law degree. Um, all doubts in my mind because
(13:22):
I was going back and for what do I really
want to become a lawyer? Do I just want to
remain an advocate and just have lawyers work for me
and work with me. While that disappeared, it was a
clear cut decision. And Jeff, it's um, let's give you
a round of applause as well, because it's fantastic. You know,
(13:51):
we have three different people here, different backgrounds, different faiths.
You know, people don't think about as they're going about
their holiday business, right and of course New York is
no different than anywhere else in the country. There's you know,
sales coming up, and then there's all the things you
do to get busy around the holidays and buy ugly
sweaters for your friends, and different traditions that people participate in,
(14:14):
whether you're you know, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, whatever, everybody has
their things, Um, atheists, I mean even they celebrate the holidays, right, Um,
thank you. The fact is that there's a whole different
holiday going on for the two point three million people
who are locked up and will be locked up this
(14:36):
holiday season. I want to give some insight to the
audience about what that's like being behind bars. Amanda. Let's
start with you. I mean, here, you were in Italy,
right in prison. Um, how long had you been in
by the time the holidays came around the first time.
So I was arrested on November six and um, and
(14:57):
so I was in prison for you know, about a month,
a month and a half before you know, the Christmas
season came around, and um, I mean all all the
Christmas is um were largely the same. That first one
was particularly fraught with confusion and fear and uncertainty because
(15:21):
by that time I was still hoping that all of
this was just a big mistake and then I was
going to get to go home with my mom. Um
that ended up not being the case. It's um, My
experience of the holidays in prison is that it just
serves as a reminder of how much life is passing
(15:41):
without you, and how you know, every year I would
call back home for my ten minute phone call and
um My, you know, I had cousins who were one
years old when I left, and they were talking to
me by the time I was finally coming home, and
it's it's a reminder of how how much your family
(16:06):
is sacrificing for you. My family had to cross an
ocean to get to me, and they it was a
tremendous sacrifice to them. They my mom had to come
during the winter holidays because she's a teacher, and she
didn't she didn't have to go to work. My sisters
could come to finally visit me during the winter holidays,
(16:28):
and and we would spend those trying two trying to
feel like we were celebrating something, usually by my stepdad
making you know, turkey and bringing into the prison for me. UM,
so I could at least take part separately in the
family meal. UM. How how long were they allowed to
(16:52):
visit you along what we're talking specifically about Christmas Day? Um? Well,
and not necessarily in Christmas Day depended on what day
visit and was allowed, So it was usually the day
nearest to Christmas, um, that they were allowed to come.
You weren't necessarily allowed that given day. I was only
allowed to see my family for six hours a month,
(17:13):
and UM, visitation periods were an hour at a time.
Occasionally they would allow us an extra hour. Did it
provide you any sort of peace or any sort of
an escape. Were you able to detach for even that
brief period of time. No, Um, It did remind me
(17:35):
that there was a whole world outside waiting for me,
and that the people who cared about me were still
there as much as they possibly could be. But we
were still in the you know, the visitation room, and
I was still not allowed to you know, uh, we
weren't allowed to like touch too much. Like we were
(17:56):
allowed to hold hands, but we you know, we couldn't
just stand there hugging the whole time if we wanted to, like,
it wasn't allowed. You had to sit down in your chair,
You had to sit down and talk because it was visitation.
And then when it was time to go, we were
allowed to hug and we they left. So it's hard
to even hear this. You were basically not far removed
(18:18):
from being a child at this point in time. We
were just out of high school. I was twenty years old, Jeff.
For you, you were even younger, I mean, sixteen years old.
My first holiday inside was spent that at seventeen so on.
So on Thanksgiving, I mean they served the meal that
was supposed to replicate a traditional Um Thanksgiving meal, except
(18:39):
that you know, the stuff it was extremely it was
so salty it wasn't palatable, and the turkey was processed um.
The guards knew that it was a halfway decent meal,
you know, compared to the other there, and so they
rushed us out of the mess whole, barely giving us
ten minutes to eat. It was a very stressful time.
Everybody wanted to used the telephones to come home, but
(19:01):
there was nowhere near enough telephone, so it was almost
impossible to get on the phone and make a phone call.
I would say the same thing was true on uh
on Christmas, um one of the bright spots there, because
it wasn't I mean, it was horrible, but there were
a few bright spots here and there, relatively speaking. So
there was a volunteer that used to come into the
(19:23):
prison every Christmas, and and there was a staff person
who also would come in on what was obviously an
off day for them. So those two would pair with
the guard and they would have a bugle and they
would actually play Christmas carols at the at the bottom
of the that the first floor of each tier, and
so everybody could uh could hear it, and as you
might imagine it, you drew a mixed reaction. Um, some
(19:47):
of the prisoners, like myself, we we enjoyed listening to it.
It brought back some uh you know, good memories. While
other people didn't appreciate it, and so they would start
yelling obscenities, trying to get them to stop, but they
would ignore and and uh and keep going. Sort of
a surreal, uh picture that you're painting, right. It definitely
(20:09):
was the only other thing I'll just want to add
is you know, in my my experience, you know, I
I didn't have any visitors on the on the holidays
themselves because they were they were all getting together and
doing a family thing, so they didn't end that tradition
to instead for a couple of them to come drive
the four hours each way to come and see me
(20:30):
in the prison. Yeah. I'm still stuck on this idea
of this contrast, right of the Christmas music with people
alternately either humming or singing along or yelling curses and epithets.
It was what it was. It was a madhouse. It
was it was it was a madhouse. Were the guards?
(20:52):
I mean, they must not have been particularly thrilled to
be in uh in prison on the holidays. Did it
affect their behavior in any way? You know, they rushed
us instead of giving us the normal time we would
normally be allotted, you know, to eat, they would rush
this out. And then the last half of my sentence,
I think that some kind of policy was changed, and
(21:13):
so instead of them allowing us to have recreation at night,
they took that away. They gave us an hour recreation
so they could hurry up and lock the facility down
so that they could engage in the Christmas party, a
Thanksgiving party, of uh New Year's party while we were
all just you know, locked in the cage. That's another
thing that you really wouldn't think of, but you could
(21:35):
tell by the look on their faces that many of
them were not happy to be there despite that. And
so for me personally, I know a lot of the
other prisoners too. We used to walk on eggshells on
those days. The best thing to do was to try
to somehow avoid being noticed at all, because you don't
want to be the target of their frustration. Jared, what
(21:56):
was it like for you. I mean, first, among other things,
you're in a particularly called climate is brutal cold. Well,
my first actual holiday incarcerated was when I was first
arrested because I couldn't afford it to get a bill,
like my family didn't have enough money to get a
bail and stuff like that, and so not enough money
to get a bill, and I don't money to get
(22:17):
a lawyer. So I sat there and basically I turned
uh eighteen and spent my first Christmas and Thanksgiving and
stuff like that while I was in the jail, and
it was it was, you know, one of these things
where it was like I couldn't afford to to get out,
and so what they did was I lived in Chicago,
(22:38):
so they arrested me in Chicago and they were just
extraditing me to Wisconsin. So I spent those days in
the Cook County Jail, which I don't know if many
of your listeners may know, they can do some research,
but Cook County Jail is one of the most violent
jails there is in the United States. And so that's
where I spent my first um, you know, Birthday, thanks
(22:58):
Giving and stuff like that, waiting be extradited. And it's
just horrible. It's really no different than than a prison.
Besides it's it's in many ways can be more violent
because like everyone is on right on top of each
other in the county jail, and there's so many people,
and it's lack of bed space and you have bunk beds,
you know, all out in the day room, and you know,
(23:19):
it's just it's just a different climate. And so what
they did in Cook County Jail was they would they
would push, um, they will put your card in, you know,
into the the pot, and they would have someone in
there who would pass it out and stuff like that.
But there was nothing to look forward to. I mean,
all of it was a rendition of what you would
(23:40):
normally get when you with your with your family, right,
you're here to push the cart in the cart with
what with nothing but food, with your food inside of it,
and then it would be on a tray and you know,
everyone would come by and they would get a tray
and you know, much like what Jeff was was explaining
that it would be a rendition of what stuffing was
supposed to be. It would be a hard slap ab
(24:00):
of what turkey what was supposed to supposed to look like,
but it's like it's so processed you don't know what
it is. Right, So that alone with the phone's being busy,
But me personally, I just didn't I didn't even want
to make a phone call, you know, I just didn't,
you know, I wanted to block out the fact that
you know, I was in there for for the holidays. Man,
(24:20):
I mean, I'm turning eighteen, you know there. Um, And
everyone kept back to me like maybe what you're doing
it here, right, because I've never been arrested before or
anything like that. So it's just like, you know, you're
going a place like that, and you stand out immediately
if you don't know your way around or if people
haven't seen you around in a place like that. So
I didn't know anyone in there. Um. I pretty much
(24:41):
was kept kept to myself. Read you know, watch whatever
it was on TV. And what I tried to do
each holiday was I tried to stay up all day
the day before the holiday so that way I could
sleep the entire holiday. Don't get it over with as
fast possible. Collectively, Um, you served nine. We did the
(25:16):
math before we got on the air. You serve twenty nine.
Christmas is thanksgivings Monica's in prison? Um, were there any
bright spots uh? In any of those others? Was there
anyone who, you know, sort of gave you a reason
to feel anything other than lonely, sad, isolated? I mean,
(25:40):
besides my family, which I can't say enough, they were
there for me. Um. One memory that I wanted to
share with you, UM is uh So there was a
priest in my prison who was like my best friend
because we would get into so many great, warm, intellectual
arguments about about fundamental human rights and why women couldn't
(26:03):
be in the clergy if they didn't want to, and
why gay people couldn't get married if they if they
want to, and we had so many great arguments about that,
and I loved him and he allowed me to play
guitar during Mass, which was so it was so great
for me. And we learned this Um, I think you'll
appreciate this. We learned this um Jewish song in Italian
(26:28):
for Christmas, Um which which goes is c lapacheck conoi
is c lapacheck conoi la pachick conoi Vinu Shalmschalm Shalom Malakim.
And um so we sang this song in in mass
(26:50):
and UM. One of the things about my prison was
it's a woman's prison and there were mothers there with
small children. They were kept in a separate ward UM,
and they were allowed to keep their children up to
three years old with them. UM. But we saw them
in um in mass and there was this one little
girl who never ever ever talked ever, UM, but she
(27:13):
always made eye contact with me. We we played UM
and I caught her UM singing that song in the
yard once you have a little girl. She never spoke,
so like the yard was split off and there were
bars between the yard where people like me were versus
where the mothers with their children were, and this little
(27:35):
girl was just like swinging on a little swing, singing
like it was really cute. So that was that was
a really great moment for me that she had just
heard that song and felt really involved with it. I mean,
imagine the day before the kid turns three, and what
that must be like for them to be to know
(27:55):
that they're going to be separated from the child. Tried
to commit suicide it a lot of the time when
their kids were taken away. Yeah, I mean, it's that's
I can't even process that um, and and then the
other thing that the musical part of my brain is
about to explode from the my mind is going to
a mix of your Jewish Italian Christmas song and the
(28:19):
other bugle with the curses, and you can't forget like
the clanging of the bars and the sounds of the
keys churning in the lock, and like all of that
just superimposed on everything, the echo of the corridors. Jeff,
what about you? Were there anything uplifting at all that
happened on any of the holidays? A birthday even, Yeah,
later on in my sentence, I think it was from
(28:41):
two forward. So last five or six years. Um, I
got a different uh counselor in the prison, Carol Hellman,
and she believed in my She's one of the rare
people that believed to my innocence, and so we would uh.
She would typically call me to her office near near
the Christmas holiday and you know, just doing the quarterly
(29:04):
and she would always end the conversation by saying, UM,
you know, uh, look, have have happy holidays. That'ska vic,
you know. So in her own way, she was trying
to be empathetic and you know, a human to me.
So that was that was a bright spot. Uh. I
used to enjoy talking to her. I mean, we would
get the prison stuff out of the way quickly that
(29:24):
she had to do, but then we would talk a
little bit just as people and it was nice to
those refreshing to have a conversation with somebody, you know,
other than just another prisoner. And so that was that
was a bright spot. And Jared turned to you, look,
in in the United States, they purposely seclude prisons as
far away from the population and normal you know, not
(29:47):
not I don't want to say normal, but the inner
city society or where most of the people who they
house families come from. So because I'm all the way
in Wisconsin, um, they pushed me like three or four
hours deeper in to Wisconsin for a drive coming from Chicago.
So it made the drive almost like four or five hours.
So that way, if if my family was gonna come,
(30:08):
they were gonna they were gonna have to, you know,
get a hotel or you know, you're talking about people
who were reaching the age of being senior citizens, were
very low income, and so it was hard for me
to to ever see them on the holidays, except for um,
this one holiday when I got the chance to get
you know, my my aunt's um and and and my
(30:29):
uncle who was my godfather who just recently you know,
passed away, um about a couple of years ago. And
they came on a bus and they took a Greyhound
because at this point, I mean, driving five hours was
just ridiculous to ask of them coming from Chicago and
bad weather that they know we're coming in. So they
came from Chicago on the bus and they visited with
me that day and that and at that time, they
(30:50):
had a program inside the prisoner I was in where
you were allowed to order some things and just for
the purpose of it being a holiday Christmas, they would
let you and stuff in and and and the things
that they we let you get in were food items.
And so in prison, uh, those summer sausages are like gold, right,
you know. So you get this this this Christmas pack
(31:11):
and it has all the flavors you can think of,
Jayson Pepperoni flavors, smoked turkey flavor, and it has the
different cheeses, the different spreads. So I got that before
I knew I had a visit. So I got it,
and I was just so thankful, And I'm calling the
house and no one is picking up, and I'm like, man,
where are they at? You know, I'm trying to get
(31:32):
in touch with them. And so I'm laying, you know,
on my bunking and I'm going through all these summer
sausages with different crackers and stuff like that, and they're like,
you you gotta visit. And so, uh, I sat there
because I was in the sale with someone else and
I thought they were talking to him, right, and so
they ain't left, and um, they came back about five
minutes like Adams, if you don't take your visit, then
(31:54):
we're gonna cancel your visit. And so I was like
all right, So I got up like a fireman. I jumped.
I jumped off the bed fully clothing into my shoes
all at one time. Right. Um. I went upstairs and
I got a chance to see my my two onto
my uncle who came to see me in you know,
I sat with him and I enjoyed that time because
at that at that time, I hadn't had a visit,
I want to say, in like a year year and
(32:15):
a half. And you know, it was becoming extremely difficult
for me because um, appeal after appeal was being denied,
and they weren't answering any of the evidence. They just
kept saying, well, your lawyers chose to call no witnesses
and chosing no defense theory, so we're not gonna go
into that question their strategy, and it kept rubber stemping
my appeal. So it got to the point where I
(32:35):
became desponding. I didn't want to interact so much, you know,
on the phone and uh and and on visits and
look at the reach, the wrinkles, increases of anguish lyned
on my mother's forehead. That stuff takes a toll on them.
And that's so crazy to Jack because the idea that
they would willfully push you further away from your family,
(32:55):
when as a society, we we know that every is
coming back from prison, almost everyone's going to get out,
and you want that bond to remain intact so that
people have a community to come back to, because ultimately,
everybody that's in prison that comes out is going to
be somebody's neighbor someday. And that's the approach that they
take in European prisons, where they focus on rehabilitation and
(33:16):
they treat the prisoners, not in Italy. But I'm talking
about I should say in the Scandinavian countries particularly right,
they have an approach where, in fact, there's one where
I've seen a video where the warden uh talks about
that when the prisoners coming, he says, you're gonna be
my neighbors someday when you get out, so I'm going
to treat you as I would want to be treated myself.
And they actually sing, the guards sing a song. I mean,
(33:37):
it's crazy, but it's such a different and it works
much better. But that's another story. And some people may
think they take it too far, but that's the debate
we can have on some of that. It is true,
like it's just a very practical measure. I mean one thing,
just in response to something that you were saying that
like the way that we imprison people. Now there's this
dichotomy where you, you, as like a social animal, want
(33:59):
you to be close to your family so badly, and
you want to stay in touch with the real world
so badly. But that's exactly what is taken away from you.
And the longer, like as the as the holidays add
up and as the as the time adds up, you
see how your life has gone on a radically divergent
path and the lives of all the people that you love,
(34:21):
and you you feel like your experience of the world
and of reality is so different and so incompatible with
what the rest of us take for granted out on
the outside world. Like, how then do you expect people
to get out of that situation and re engage with
the real world. I mean, it's hard enough for people
(34:42):
to re engage with their families even when they first
get out, not to mention the rest of the world.
It's devastating, It's it's almost perfectly designed to drive people
crazy and quite literally. But what I'd like to do
the audience that's listening now, let's say they want to
get involved, and let's say they want to bring a
ray of light into a prison. I'll throw one idea
(35:04):
out there. I'm pen pals with a couple of people now,
and I know just from the letters how much it
means for them to have interaction, even though I'm a
stranger with somebody who's in prison, and I think feel
invested in the world and know that people are invested
in you. That makes a big difference. You'd be surprised
how how far a car will go to lift a
person spiritA like I mean, you'd be surprised and just
(35:27):
you know what, Like like Amanda was saying, Look, we
can't cage people up like animals, feed them like animals,
and then release them and tell them to be human.
I mean that goes against everything that they you know,
you've been putting them through for all those years. So
I just think that that that what you just said
at the communication and close interaction with with society, and
that will go a long way. Jay, Trust me, they
have people who search every day for pen pals. They
(35:48):
go in and look at newspapers to see people to write, Look,
they are in me. They would love that. One idea
I had is what if everyone was listening or a
lot of people are listening with to write a letter
to somebody who's an innocent person who's suffering through the
holidays on the inside, who maybe doesn't have family, doesn't
have any really reason to celebrate. A letter could make
such a big difference. So here's what you do. Go
(36:11):
to Instagram at Wrongful Conviction or go to our Facebook
page which is facebook dot com slash Wrongful Conviction Podcast
and you'll get some details and you'll be able to
share some some strength and some hope and hopefully even
a little bit of joy with somebody on the inside
who can really use your help. Don't forget to give
(36:36):
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 helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Go to Inniscence 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
(36:59):
is by three time OSCAR nominate composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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