Jason Flom + Maggie Freleng | The High Cost of Wrongful Convictions - DIE-ALOGUE

Episode Transcript
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(00:36):
Welcome to Dialogue Podcast. I'm yourhost, Rebecca Sebastian, and this is
the true crime interview podcast where Ispeak with the leading voices in crime culture
and justice every single week. Andboy do I have leading voices in crime
culture and justice today. I'm soexcited to introduce you to if you don't
know them already, my wonderful guests, Jason Flom and Maggie Freeling. Maggie,

(01:03):
for any diehard listeners, is ofcourse a returning guest. She's joining
us for the third time now.I think we call that a three peat.
And since she was last here,she won a little thing called a
Pulitzer Prize for her work on thepodcast Suave. She's recently teamed up with
the Lava for Good Network as oneof the hosts of the Wrongful Conviction podcast.
Speaking of Wrongful Conviction and Lava forGood, we have the creator of

(01:26):
the network and the show here withus as well, Jason Flumm. Jason
is a bit of a legend,not only in the criminal justice reform space
like Maggie, where he is anoutspoken activist and philanthropist and creator, but
also in the music industry, wherehe spent the majority of his career discovering
and developing some of the world's biggesttalent. I've been wanting to speak with

(01:47):
him for ages, so this wasa real treat getting him on the show
with my girl Maggie. These twoare just a force, and they're doing
great things in the world of WrongfulConvictions. So please sit back, but
pay attention because say hit us witha lot of good information, including statistics,
but also some really unbelievable stories,and you don't want to miss actually
a hot tub story at the end. All the wonderful books and resources that

(02:12):
they mentioned will be in the shownotes, so please refer to those and
check out Wrongful Conviction and all theother amazing podcasts on Lava for Good.
Jason and Maggie, thank you forkilling the small talk. Welcome to dialogue.
Maggie Freeling and Jason Flom. It'sa thrill to have you both here
today. Thank you. I'm sohappy to be here, especially with Maggie.

(02:36):
So now, yeah, with youtwo superheroes, it's great. It's
great to share the mite. Likewisetwo of my favorite people. Yeah,
so here you are with Jason atLava for Good, working exclusively on wrongful
conviction content. How has that beenamazing? It has been the best.
This is what I wanted to do. I never in my life trajectory did

(02:57):
I think that I would be herewith this insatiable passion for helping people in
prison, particularly those wrongfully convicted.And I think Jason did cultivate that a
lot. When I entered this space. He reached out to me, and
he reached out and was just like, hello, welcome. I like what
you're doing. Let's work together.It's really been a dream. I think
we're like a power couple. Iwould say, so a dynamic duo.

(03:21):
And you know, what you're bothreally shining examples of is like doing what
you're already doing and applying it tothe space you're in. And it's great
when people do have an epiphany andthey go to law school or change their
career path entirely, But it's like, what are you already good at?
How are you wired? I'm hopingyou can keep us moving in this conversation
on wrongful convictions that we've been havinghere on Dialogue for a few weeks.
What are people still getting wrong?What are people still surprised to find out?

(03:44):
Well? I think one of themost surprising things to everyone is the
phenomena of false confessions. False confessions. Just to give you an idea,
the first one hundred and fifty dnasonerations, twenty nine percent of them involved false
confessions. Now we know the numbersare even higher believe it or not today.
So there are many people who thinkthat it's about forty percent of wrongful
convictions of false confessions as a keyfactor, not as a factor, but

(04:05):
a key factor, because there's nothingmore powerful than a confession. And the
thing is why I think your questionis so on point and why I think
this phenomena is such a powerful thingfor people to wrap themselves around, is
because if you go out now andask the first hundred or thousand people you
meet, or anyone in your audienceis listening now, they're going, I

(04:25):
would never confess to a crimate incommit That's crazy. I'm not crazy.
And also I'm smart and I'm strong, and I'm not going to give in.
I'm not going to do that.That's like, who would do that?
But the fact is that everybody hasa breaking point, and we know
that because of the unique and reallyterrifying ways that our system operates in the
United States where police are allowed tolie, and they're allowed to lie about

(04:45):
lying, and they do in theinterrogation room, and because there's a protocol
that they've developed over the years,over the decades, fifty years old now
or more, where they have it'salmost like a rehearsed scenario where they basically
room gets smaller and smaller. It'salready so small, and it's windowless and
there's you have no way out right, they box you in the corner.

(05:06):
People don't realize, Hey, firstof all, they shouldn't say a word.
They're in that situation. They shouldsay, my name's Rebecca, and
I want a lawyer, and that'sit. Stopped talking. Do not say
another freaking word, because everything yousay, everyone knows it can be held
against you. It will be heldagainst you, and they can talk you
in a circle. That ends upwith many people actually believing that they committed

(05:28):
the crime that they didn't commit becausethey've been so brainwashed. Charles Ericson,
Charles ericson thank you, Yeah,and Max, I mean take over here.
I don't know if this is myopinion does have to be yours,
but I mean our false confession isthe most maddening thing. Yeah, and
people say that's me all the time, like why would you do that?
And then as soon as I say, imagine being interrogated for sixteen hours.
One of the cases I'm going totalk about, she had literally gone to

(05:51):
the bathroom in her pants. Theywould not let her leave. She was
so desperate. It was a sixteenhour interrogation, sitting there in her own
urine, just being like I wantto go. I'll say whatever, just
to get out of here. Couldyou imagine I cannot imagine even being interrogated
for an hour, let alone sixteenhours, not being able to change my

(06:12):
clothes and not having food or anything. It's a nightmare. Yeah. And
there's a threshold of vulnerability too amongpeople who find themselves in that room.
And I only notice say what Jasonsaid, which is I'm Rebecca and I
want a lawyer. I'm not sayinganything because of the work I do and
this podcast in True crime, Iknow that. I think five ten years
ago, I would have been like, I didn't do it. Look,
I will happily help you. I'minnocent, so sure I'll talk. I

(06:33):
didn't do it. And I thinkthat's a really vulnerable and dangerous place to
be in, especially for someone lawenforcement might not respect straight out of the
gate as it is, who maybeyou have a little bit of a record
or got in trouble for something else, and all these things they use against
you and leverage. Those might notbe in my scenario, but there are
in a lot of people who endup in that situation scenario, and it

(06:55):
really comes back to hurt them ultimately. I think a lot of people don't
know also that it is completely legal, yeah, for law enforcement to lie
during the interrogation, and that's uniqueto the States, right like most other
countries, that's not the case.Yeah, makeup evidence, say oh your
friend said this, Oh we havethis police report. Literally with Charles Erkson,

(07:16):
they handed him a written confession fromhis friends that was not actually his
friend's written confession. I mean,that is completely legal. And imagine that
you're a vulnerable person. The personin the next room they're saying, hey,
look they're saying this, and lookthey wrote this confession. You're backed
into a corner. Well that's theCentral Park five phenomena as well, now
known as exonerated five. And yeah, I think in Charles Erkson's case,

(07:36):
if I'm not mistaken, that's thecase in which they falsified actual scientific documents,
and they put they literally put papersin front of him that we're from
like the State Forensic Department of whatever, and it said that your DNA was
found or whatever it is. Andso they use all these different dirty tricks,
and you're right, Rebecca. Sometimesthey go into it thinking that it's
somebody who's a bad dude anyway,so to speak. But other times it's

(07:59):
Peter Rile right, who just foundhis beloved mother, an only child with
a single mother, just found herbrutally, just butchered, And here he
is in the police station, andthey just decide they're gonna make him the
fall guy, because a lot oftimes it's the person who finds the body
is the easiest person depended on.But here's a grieving son, right who
doesn't know what the hell is goingon and starts to believe that his captors,

(08:22):
he starts to believe that he actuallyasked one of them, will you
adopt me if I confessed? Willyou? Because he has nowhere to go.
He's an orphan now, right,and he's literally just seen the most
traumatic thing probably that a person cansee, which is his own mother,
that he came home and he hada witness that was a cop put him
on the other side of town.Right. And so as you've introduced,
you've interviewed Jeffrey Deskovic. Right,I was just going to say, that's

(08:43):
who's coming to mind, completely traumatized. Of course, they told him he
could go home if you just confessed, right. And so this phenomena is
so terrifying. And I want tosay too that eighty five percent of people
wave their miranda right. Do notwave your miranda right. Don't do that.
And a lot of times people say, oh, you're just a witness.
We don't really think you did anything. We just want to ask you
some questions. Oh, most peoplethey will go in they want to help,

(09:05):
right, we all want to help. No, you won't, you
don't. That's nice that you wantto help. You can help after your
lawyer shows up. Do not saya freaking word. You may not be
just a witness. You may theymay think you're a suspect, So don't
say anything. Is once they getyou as a witness, then all of
a sudden, oh so you werethere, Oh so you were touching,
Well, you must have been closerthan and it's like the next thing you
know, you're saying stuff that youcan't unsay. So nothing you say in

(09:30):
that room is going to help you. Nothing whatsoever doesn't matter. Because we've
seen people again who had witnesses.We have cases of people who were in
a different state or even a differentcountry and we're wrongfully convicted. So do
not think that just because you havean alibi, and not everybody does,
right, Some people were just athome sleeping or watching a movie and they
don't have an alibi. So thebest thing to do is say your name

(09:52):
and I want a lawyer, andstop talking, and please serve on juries.
I beg people all the time,and when you do, if you
see a confession case but there's noother corroborating evidence or shaky corroborating evidence,
I always say, there's that famousquote from the English jurist named Blackstone who
said it's better than ten guilty mengo free than that one innocent should suffer.

(10:13):
And I totally agree with that.So yeah, go on beyond that
jury. We have that again.We have that whole season Wrongful Conviction,
False Confessions, hosted by the incredibleLaura and I writer and Steve Drisen,
who any of your listeners know fromMaking a Murderer and listen to that and
learn you'll hear the Charles ericson caseand so many others, and I think
it'll really change everybody's perspective on thiscrazy phenomenon. Okay, so get a

(10:39):
lawyer beyond a jury. So thoseare the takeaways from the first half of
the episode. We'll have more,I'm sure, but let's just want to
bookmark those. And I want totalk about women. A lot of men's
names are naturally coming up, andI have to say, I hear more
stories of men and wrongful convictions,and I'm wondering if it has to do
with DNA evidence, If that's more, is it more difficult with women for

(11:00):
lack of DNA? Is that completelywrong? Talk to me about women and
how maybe the stats compare to menwho are wrongfully convicted. Do we have
any sense of how big an issueit is among women, and maybe why
we're not hearing the women's stories asmuch. Yeah, So the population of
women in prison, not just wrongfullyconvicted, but in prison is growing at

(11:20):
twice the rate of men. Sothat's a crazy stat that we are incarcerating
women at an insane percentage. Itwas something like from nineteen eighty to currently
it was like eight hundred percent.You'll have to look up that stat but
it was very close to eight hundredpercent incarcerated women. It is a phenomenon
that is happening. And the thingis with wrongful convictions with women many times,

(11:43):
most of the time, actually they'reincarcerated for crimes that did not happen,
so a suicide, an accident.Most of my cases that I do
involve children, and it's something assimple as sounded infant death, syndrome,
shaken baby syndrome, or SIDS orshaken baby. Yeah, oh, that
are not crimes that happened, andthese women are convicted for it. So

(12:05):
those are really incredible stats that mendon't have. And it's a lot of
times the homicides, but with thewomen, it's like babies and families and
accidents. And I think I'm thinkingof Rosa Jimenez, who is a good
friend of mine. She was atwenty something year old immigrant nanny babysitting this
child who choked on a paper towel, and she did eighteen years in prison

(12:28):
because they said she shoved the papertowels on this baby's throat to kill it.
So that's what we see in alot of women's cases. Yeah,
I'm obsessed with the subject of shakenbaby syndrome. We did an episode on
that on Wrongful Conviction Junk Science,which is another season. We did a
season on Junk Science, which ishosted by the incredible Josh Dubin, where
each week we dived into a differentjunk science arson, blood spatter analysis,

(12:50):
shaken baby syndrome, all these differentthings, including fingerprints, by the way,
which is a whole another topic becausethat wasn't gonna surprise, but bullet
let analysis, bootprint analysis, tiredtrack evidence, like crazy stuff, everything
unvotually. Yeah, there's that's verylittle other than DNA that's actually reliable.
But you know, the shaken babything, to me is so deeply troubling
because it's almost always a person whowas a loving caregiver who has just experienced

(13:15):
the most terrible, the most unbelievabletrauma that you could imagine, which is
to lose, often their own baby, and it's often a woman, although
most shaken baby cases, strangely enough, are men. A little more than
half but often it's a woman andshaken baby syndrome is something. There was
a term that was originally coined bya doctor in England named guth Kelch who

(13:35):
I think it was in the sixtiesor seventies, and his only idea was
that kids were coming in with thingsthat he couldn't diagnose because they didn't have
any physical injuries and he wasn't surewhat was going on. So he thought,
maybe if I name this thing andI encourage parents to be more gently
with their kids if they're shaking themawake or something, that maybe that could
be something that but it was justa hypothesis. He spent the rest of
his life. He lived into hishundreds. He was one hundred and something

(13:58):
years old when he died. Hespent the rest of his life trying to
get to put this genie back inthe bottle because he always said, I
never meant for it to be weaponizedby prosecutors. That's not what this is.
And what happened was prosecutors found thisto be a convenient way to prosecute
unfortunately grieving parents or even sisters,brothers, caregivers or whatever it is.

(14:20):
Nanny's daycare workers Melissa Kaliazinski's still inprisons to this day in Illinois, though
I hope she's going to come homesoon for a similar case like that.
And they have these people have noidea what they're talking about. It's been
debunked by the overwhelming majority of actualqualified medical professionals who now recognize that it's
almost impossible to shake a baby todeath without breaking its neck or causing other

(14:43):
And sorry to be so gross,but and it also is not logical,
right, I mean, I justthink of it in layman's terms, like
how hard do you have to shakea child? And it's not always a
baby could be a toddler, rightto rattle its brains, And how strong
are you? Exactly right? Youwould have to hold the child at arms
length in order to generate any typeof leverage. You can't do it if

(15:03):
you hold it up close. That'scalled rocking, right, that's called that's
not going to generate. So who'sstrong enough? Like that's like, can't
even hold your arms out at thatlength and shake them for too long.
It's like yoga, you're if he'stired. And I encourage people to try
it at home. Try holding afifteen pound weight out at arms length and
shaking it. It's not You're notgonna last very long. They actually did
this experiment with Penn State football playerswhere they couldn't do it. They took

(15:24):
a doll that was a life sizedthing and they tried to see it and
they couldn't do it. So it'snot a realistic thing. Not to mention
the fact that as human beings,and this is again this is me as
a layman. I haven't seen anymedical papers on this, but when you
think about it, when we getangry as human beings, shaking is not
what we do, right. Wethrow things, we hit them, or

(15:48):
we kick them. When you getangry at your tennis racket, do you
see a guy shaking it or awoman shaking it and the us open note
they slam it on the crowd,right, Or if you're angry at something,
you might kick it, right,Or if you're angry at somebody,
you might punch them. Nobody shakesanything in anger except like it doesn't.
It's cartoon almost now that I thinkabout it. When you yeah, if

(16:08):
I've ever seen it, it's likeit's cartoonish and it doesn't seem as realistic.
I have the case I wanted totalk about it segues exactly into this.
So the preview to this case forseason two is Tasha Shelby. She
was a young mother. She hadgiven birth to I believe three children,

(16:29):
and then the child that died washer stepchild, but she basically raised it
as her own. She had justgiven birth and got out of the hospital.
And she's a little person, she'sunder five feet tall and she's very
tiny, had just given birth,very complicated birth. Like I said,
it was either her second or third, and because she was a little person,
they you know, the complications werecrazy. So she's like, Okay,

(16:49):
I'm going to tie my tubes.So not only did she have a
cesarean section, she had her tubestied, she had all this surgery down
there. She physically couldn't move,let alone shake a baby, a toddler.
Actually, he was about eighteen monthshalf her size, half her size,
and she's convicted for his death.Turns out he had just fallen out

(17:10):
of bed, hit his head,and he had been having seizures before,
so there were underlying medical conditions andshe is now convicted. She's still in
prison for the murder of her sonwhen she physically could not have picked him
up physically. She was in remissionfrom giving birth and incredibly traumatic and complicated

(17:30):
procedures in the hospital. And she'sa little person. She can't lift this
baby when she can barely, whichis stitches in her stomach. So you
know that case, I really wantpeople to hear and just see how egregious
this can be. And she's theone who also had urinated her pants and
they were basically torturing her in thisroom after she had given birth. It

(17:51):
was a nightmare. Okay, Sothere's obviously chronic abuse, physical abuse of
children. Is this like an overreachto correct that wrong? And I would
imagine because something so tragic and terrible, and when something incomprehensible happens, we
really want to blame someone. Wereally want someone to pay. The easiest
person is going to be the parent, the caregiver, most likely the woman

(18:12):
that's doing the caregiving. Is thatwhat you mean, Jason, by a
convenient narrative on the prosecutor's part toapply Is it a misapplication of a desire
for an answer to something that maybeis something else? Rebecca, You're absolutely
right to point that out. Thenotion of child abuse is so abhorrent to
anyone, especially someone I have kidson my own, But it doesn't matter
who you are. No one canabide by that, and we should take

(18:34):
the strongest views possible of people thatdo that are beyond reproach. Nobody is
coming anywhere near doing anything other thancondemning that in the strongest possible terms.
But when there are no visible signsof it, that's when things get weird.
And you are one hundred percent right, Rebecca, And it extends out
to jurors, right. So theseare easy cases for prosecutors to make because

(18:59):
jurors, most of whom have kidsof their own, cannot fathom that this
tragedy could have just happened by nature. Right. But sometimes kids die,
right, Sometimes they just die.Sometimes they have pre existing conditions. I'm
working on a case now on theWest Coast where we haven't gone to trial
yet. I'm hoping they'll never goto trial. But that's exactly what happened.

(19:21):
And I was able to hire thetop forensic analysts in the country who
was able to prove that the baby'sbrain was twice as big as it was
supposed to be, and that combinedwith sickle cell trade and other pre existing
conditions caused what was mistakenly diagnosed atthe hospital as abuse. But the mother
had no history of abuse, hadnever been in trouble, was a loving

(19:41):
mother of four children. There wasno issues whatsoever. As jurors and as
judgers of our peers, we needto resist the temptation to accept what it
is a less awful explanation and insteadlook at it as objectively as we can
and recognize that just because there's somebodyon the stand who's testifying beyond any reasonable

(20:07):
doubt or beyond medical scientific certainty,blah blah blah, that this is what
happened, it doesn't mean they're correct. That's not the way it's supposed to
be. It's supposed to be innocentuntil proven guilty and beyond a reasonable doubt,
and these cases do not meet thatstandard. And yet person after person
gets convicted and sentenced to prison forsomething that was never a crime in the

(20:29):
first place. It was just anaccidental death. And I think it becomes
a battle of the story, rightmade the best story when we see that
time and time again in trials,and I think humans prefer an ending where
someone pays, and that is humannature, and we do have to work
really hard to fight against it.Seventy one percent of women exonerated in the
last three decades were wrongfully convicted ofcrimes that never took place. Seventy one

(20:52):
percent. That is insanity, thatis crazy conviction is what you called that,
right. The stat was the numberof women in jails and prisons in
the US increased more than seven hundredand fifty percent between nineteen eighty and twenty
seventeen, twice the rate of men. That's absolutely correct, Maggie. And
the fact is that in America wehave twenty five percent of the world's prison

(21:15):
population, even though we only havefour point four percent of the world's overall
population, but we reserve the worsttreatment for women. So we have thirty
three percent of the world's female prisonpopulation. I said it before, but
I'm saying it again because it's thathorrifying. I'd want to put a pin
in a question on each of thecases you both mentioned. So, Maggie,

(21:37):
the one that you mentioned Tasha Shelby. Tasha Shelby, what is the
strategy going to be with her?In terms of Jason mentioned in the one
he talked about he had a topforensic investigator be able to testify and dispute
some of the evidence. What hopedoes a person have if they don't have
that, can the average public defenderor lawyer that's hired a hearty defense say

(21:59):
show otherwise and disproving what the stateis laying out. So fortunately, in
a case like Tasha's, you know, like Jason said, we have come
so far with science and disproving shakenbaby syndrome that it's actually not a thing.
So fortunately she has science on herside. She has a great team
of attorneys. I believe she doeshave the innocence projects. Let me just

(22:21):
make sure. But she has agreat team, she has science on her
side. I think she's in avery good position right now, as are
you know a lot of Arson cases. I have Arson this season, women
whose entire families died in a fireand just because they were the sole survivor,
they're convicted of these crimes. Soin those cases too, we have
the junk science and the new scienceon their side as well. So Tasha's

(22:42):
in a pretty good place. You'llhave to listen to see where she's at
that she does have science on herside. I'm glad you brought that up
to Maggie because we did the episodeone that Haunts Will Haunt Me Forever.
Christine Bunch and Indiana case with theworld. I know her story, Yes,
unbelievable. Yeah, thanks for Beccas. Christine was a twenty one year
old single mother a four year oldboy. Again, no issues of any

(23:03):
kind, no interaction with law enforcement, never had a parking ticket in their
life, working, going to college, raising her four year old, loving
family. One night her house burneddown an electrical fire, and she lost
everything she owned, including her boy, and she had no insurance, so
she literally had nothing but her pajamaswhen this was all said and done,
and the prosecutor even got up incourt and said, Wilson, I don't

(23:25):
got to admit there is no motivehere, but doesn't mean you shouldn't convict.
And sure enough they got her onthis junk Arson science. She ended
up doing seventeen years in prison.How can I, and by the way,
think about this too, like,how do those jurors feel now that
it's been proven beyond any reasonable doubtand she's been indicated, she's been vindicated,
she's been exonerated. She was alwaysinnocent? How do you live with

(23:47):
yourself if you fell for this nonsense. So I encourage people again serve on
juries, but bring a healthy doseof skepticism. Listen to wrongful conviction with
Maggie, with me, with whoeveryou want to listen to junk science.
Get educated because you have the powerto make a difference. And when you
go in that jury room, it'ssomebody's brother, sister, mother, father,
son, daughter, whatef or nephew, niece that you're going to be

(24:11):
judging, and you need to bedamn sure that you've got the right person.
But tragedy, I'm hun tragedy whenI think of wrongful convictions. That's
what I think, because, likeyou said, the juror is left then
with this having gotten it wrong.That's a huge burden to bear. And
also I think it's pretty obvious,but I think people do forget this that
wrongful convictions affect everybody the families.More than sixty percent of women in prison

(24:37):
have children under the age of eighteen. Women are usually primary caregivers two children.
When you incarcerate women, when youput them in jail, when they're
waiting for trial, their families arewithout them. And also not to mention
how expensive it is. So forNew York this last fiscal year, it
costs five hundred fifty six, fivehundred and thirty nine dollars a year to

(25:03):
incarcerate somebody, if that first body, somebody, one body, one body,
that is taxpayer dollars that are beingpaid half a million dollars a year
going to keep somebody in prison whoshould not be there, that could be
going to our subways, our roadsare parks. So I think everybody should
be mad about this because it affectsevery single person. And by the way,

(25:27):
on that note, as a wonderfulorganization in New York called Avenues for
Justice, and Avenues for Justice isan organization they interrupt this process. Right,
so they take a kid, juvenilespecifically, who is dealing with their
first serious interaction with the criminal legalsystem. Right so they are charged with
a flony and they will go andthen meet with that kid and their family,

(25:51):
and they will if they believe theycan intervene, they'll go meet with
the prosecutor and the judge. Andbecause the reputation of this organization, it's
so fantastic, because they're success rateis over ninety Often the judge and Proseco
will agree to table the charges forthree years, and if that kid stays
clean for three years, the chargeswill be dropped. And these kids end
up ninety one of them going tocollege, going on to great careers,

(26:12):
becoming nurses and professionals. And thatcost let me tell you what that costs.
I'm glad you asked you are aboutto I saw it, I saw
it. I know the way youactually, the way you work to see
you. The cost of this programis five thousand, seven hundred and fifty
dollars a year, or approximately oneone hundredth of what it costs to put

(26:33):
them in Rikers Island, where theyhave a very good chance of being brutalized,
assaulted, and the people have ofcourse lost their lives in Rikers Island
this year. It's hard to believethis is Manhattan, this is New York.
That is sobering. Yeah. Iwant to also tell you something that
you might know, but I thinklisteners will find surprising, is that when
women are pregnant and give birth inprison, they are often most of the

(26:57):
times shackled while giving birth. Theyare locked to their beds, and there
are horrific stories of this, andone of my cases from last season.
She gave birth in prison, injail, actually while she was in jail,
and her baby was taken from herand put in foster care, closed
adoption. She never saw her babyagain. That is also a consequence of

(27:17):
locking up women. She was wrongfullyincarcerated, she shouldn't have been there,
and she has never seen her childagain. So those are also really sobering
facts about women in prison, incredibly, and I'm so grateful to you both
for bringing them to our attention.The great work you guys are doing on
your shows, and there are others. I'm talking to so many people whose
podcasts are literally making a difference thatwe've seen a non Sayed's exoneration. Kim

(27:41):
Kardashian has a podcast about a manwhose story is now getting heard. Keep
Kevin Keith, what do each ofyou think about podcasting the medium as this
alternative to our criminal justice system doingits job? Obviously, I think it's
a positive, But how do youreconcile that we now have to go around
our system and find this other way. I'll go first. I think it's

(28:03):
tragic because there's only so many podcastsand there's only so many cases that can
be covered, and yes, pressurebreaks pipes, and often, especially in
smaller communities, the momentum that canbe built from a podcast. And I'm
proud to say that our podcast WrongfulConviction has helped to lead to the exoneration
of innocent people like Lamont McIntyre andRonnie Long and Vincent Simmons and others,

(28:26):
and Daniel Villegas. But it's justa tiny drop in a giant ocean of
wrongful convictions. And the problem isthat, and you so correctly identified this,
is that the system is so overloaded. There are eleven million people.
I know, we're throwing out alot of statistics. Eleven million people go

(28:47):
in and out of jails and prisonsin America each year. Eleven million.
What does that even look like?No one can even visualize. With eleven
million people, looks like that's morethan the population of anything other than maybe
a small handful of states. Andso with that jail churn, it also
leads to courthouse churn, right wherethere's no way that the system can possibly
process these people in any way thatis respectful of their dignity or their human

(29:11):
rights or their legal rights, sothey just churn them through that's why ninety
six ninety seven percent of foulonto convictionsare the result of guilty please, because
people they have no shot at trialand they recognize that in the prosecutors of
all the power. So at theend of the day, we need to
reduce the strain on the overall system. We need to end mass incarceration.
We need to return at least twolevels that were that we had experienced in

(29:33):
this country back in the seventies,right where we're two to three hundred thousand
people in prison. Now we havetwo million. No other country in the
history of the world has ever doneit the way we do it, and
nobody ever should again. And noteven stalinist Chu, not even China under
mouth. Nobody has ever incarcerated theirown citizens the way that we do.
Maggie, how about you, whatdo you think about this alternative method of

(29:55):
finding justice for people who didn't getit in their first go round. I
mean, obviously it's sad that thesystem doesn't work and is set up that
way, you know, I thinkit's I think it's beautiful and powerful,
and that's why I did. Idecided to do this when I was became
a journalist back in two thousand andeight. I started doing journalism soon as
the podcasting medium became a medium.Twenty ten, I was in a podcasting

(30:18):
class in college. I thought,this is the way to get people to
listen and care about things. Ohyeah, I was in garage bands.
I was like doing podcasting or likea pioneer. Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah. It was like really crazygarage band podcasting. But you know,
I just saw this a way toreally reach the masses. You're sitting in
your car, you pop on apodcast. You're sitting on the subway,
you pop on a podcast. Itis a really easy medium to do that,

(30:41):
and I think that's why it issuccessful, because it's accessible to mostly
everybody. And I think the publicpressure avenue is a great way to make
change, and podcasting has done thatfor sure. One last thing. At
the end of every show this season, I'm asking my guests how do you

(31:02):
define justice? And I feel likein a different way you've both answered it,
But just if you could both speakto that, I would love to
hear from me both. You know, justice, to me, it's fairness
and equity. So when parties inpower misuse their power and are responsible for
wrongdoing, they should be met withthe appropriate consequences, and we currently don't
have that. So justice for mewould be getting rid of those things and

(31:26):
treating everybody equally unfairly under the law. Wow, that's a hard act to
follow megs. Yeah, we didn'teven get into when prosecutors are challenged and
have consequent We didn't even get intothat though there are no concert Yeah there
really generally aren't. Yeah, yeah, there are no consequences. I'll just
pick up where Maggie left off ratherthan try to come up with a better

(31:48):
answer, because I can't. Sothe answer is, yeah, it's a
shame. People are people. They'realways going to be problems in the system.
And even if everybody was doing thelevel best, which of course that's
not the case. But and thisis why, Yes, we need proscue
accountability, and we need to banthe death penalty. And I know there
are listeners who are in favor ofthe death penalty. I respect that,
but I got to say I alwaysask people who are in favor of the

(32:13):
death penalty, what percentage of penicentpeople is it? Okay? For instance,
are you aware that in Florida inthe same period of time where they've
executed ninety nine people since the reinstate, but the death penalty the thirty two.
Now I think I've been exonerated fromdeath row, and we know that
they've executed a number of innocent peoplelike Jesse Tafaro. So they're not even
getting it right sixty five percent ofthe time down there. But even still,
let's say they were much better thanthey were, and let's say other

(32:35):
states are not as bad as Florida. Would five percent of inicent people being
executed be okay with you? Wouldit be one percent, twelve percent?
What number is it? Because noone can argue that there will always be
mistakes. Man, people say,what if there's a video. I hate
to tell you. We've had caseswhere there was a twin brother. There's
cases. I mean, there's thereis no such thing as a certainty that's

(33:00):
certain because there's always humans involved inthe decision making process. Why do we
kill people to prove they kill itpeople? Is wrong? I don't know.
But we're the only Western country thathas the death penalty. No other
Western country has had it for generations. We need to stop with that,
and we need to, as Maggiesaid, established prosecutorial accountability because I'll never
forget my friend, the late greatJohn Thompson, who came within a month

(33:20):
of being executed in Louisiana for theInnocence Project, was able to find the
DNA evidence that proved his innocence,and he was able to prove, after
he had been exonerated and free,that they prosecutors knew that he was innocent
before he proved it. Right courtacknowledged that he had proven that they knew
he was innocent, and they prosecutedhim and put him on death row anyway,
And he wrote an opt in TheNew York Times I'll never forget,

(33:44):
where he asked the question, whyaren't they being charged with attempted murder?
I've proven that they knew I wasinnocent, and they put me on death
row anyway. I'm gonna put ina plug that I'm surprised you haven't done
yet. And this is reminding meof Bone Valley, the new Lava for
good cast obsessed, obsessed. It'sjust like Leo, the prosecutor in that
case, a knew he was innocentand did everything he could to keep an

(34:10):
innocent man behind bars, even whenthe perpetrator was saying I did this I
killed her. John o'gurero decided hewas going to keep the innocent man behind
bars at all costs. That isdisgusting, That is disturbing, and unfortunately
John Agrew is not alive anymore tohave any sort of consequences or hear me

(34:31):
say that. He's a disgusting humanbeing. And that's unfortunate too. That
podcast has shaken me to my core. Like I alled, I laughed.
It's so excellent. Well done toyour team and to the network. For
Jason, I'd love to know alittle bit more about your story. I

(34:52):
know you were and maybe still artin the music industry, and then you've
made this transition into this new careerand path and you started for Good which
is where your shared podcast sits anda couple of others. Could you talk
a little bit about your work andwhat you do now. Yeah, it's
my work, it's my calling.My calling is getting as many people out

(35:12):
of prison as I possibly can,people who are wrongfully convicted, but also
people who are wrongfully sentenced. Whenwas your awakening around these themes in your
own life? My awaken It wasin nineteen ninety three, So this is
I'm approaching my thirtieth year. Ididn't know what I was talking about when
this started, right, it waslike people thought I was half crazy.
And now there's even some semblance ofa bipartisan cooperation, maybe the only issue

(35:38):
at all in which there's some bipartisancooperation. I was thirty two at the
time, and I read a storyin the newspaper of a kid named Stephen
Lennon who was serving fifteen years tolife for a non violent first defense cocaine
possession charge and a maximum security prisonin New York State. And in case
somebody's listening, it goes, waita minute, no, what doesn't even
make sense. You're right, itdoesn't make sense. But I didn't misspeak.

(35:58):
That was fifteen to life for anon violent first defense cocaine possession charge
in a maximum security prison in NewYork State. His kid was stuck in
prison. He was thirty two.I was thirty two. He had been
in for eight years. I'd beensober for almost seven at the time,
and I thought it could have beenme because I had substance abuse issues as
a kid. So I decided Ihad to do something about it. And

(36:19):
I didn't know anything, so Ididn't know what I couldn't do so I
just went blindly ahead and I hadthe unbelievable, tharctic experience of sitting in
a courtroom holding this kid's mother's hand. He's a kid to the same age
as I was. He's thirty two. But I sat there holding Missus Lennon's
hand. When the judge banged thegavel down and ruled in our favor and
sent him home. I'd gotten anattorney, I had him on speed down.

(36:42):
He took the case pro bono andhe won. And I sat there
and I would literally watch this happenand I was like, oh my god,
I have a superpower. I didn'tknow that this was possible. But
if I can do this, yeah, then not only I'm going to do
it, I have to do it. And Maggie looks like she wants to
chime in, like she's identified.I just working with him and seeing what
he does like he is. Hejust cares. He just cares, and

(37:06):
with that care is like such apassion, and he is persistent, like
just we were in LA recently andhe's just chatting everybody up, talking about
wrongful convictions, trying to get peopleto care. Like he's great at PR
and marketing himself. It's thrilling tohear, and I appreciate you both your
insight and you're both your points ofview on it. Maggie, you know
you've joined Jason on his network todo wrongful conviction work, which has really

(37:30):
become a lot of what you're knownfor. You've won a little prize since
we last talked. Yes, sincewe last talked, I did win a
Pulitzer and that was not for wrongfulconvictions. I was working in juvenile justice.
So it was about those who weresentenced mandatorily sentenced to life without parole
in prison. So it was abouta young man named Suave, and we

(37:51):
followed his story once the laws changedand he got out. And so it's
a story of him overcoming prison asa child's doing thirty one years, getting
out and trying to relive life afterhe expected to die in prison. By
way, can I tell a funnyMaggie story? Always, I don't know
what this could be. I haveno idea. So, Rebecca, you
brought up her little Pulletzer prize thatshe won. Um, And the funny

(38:15):
part of that story is that wewere in Nashville. UM. I was
actually, Maggie was kind enough tocome down. She was gonna give me
the Cleo award that I was gonnaWell that was that I won that particular
night. And in the afternoon,I get a call from her. I'm
like, hey, Maggie, what'sup? She goes? I don't know
if she goes. I'm over atmy hotel. I don't even know what
hotel she was staying yet. I'msitting in the hot time, I guess,

(38:37):
on the roof, drinking some whiskey. And I got a call it
I want a Pulletzer prize. I'mlike, cheeze. Way to take the
air out of Valle at it.And plus Maggie with all her tattoos and
her you know, her face,jewelry and everything else winning this thing,
and it's just a visual to me. It is so amazing, Maggie.
It's iconic. Yeah, casual asever. Yeah, yeah, she'll see

(38:58):
your Cleo and raise you a pull. Exactly what happened. She should win
a pulletzer for the way she wonthe pulletzer. How about that? I
think that's yeah, there would beI would have zero chill should it ever
happen. It won't. Should itever happen, you'll know and it won't
be I won't be chilling in ahot tub. Peel me off the ceiling.
I know it's crazy. Jason andMaggie, I can't thank you enough

(39:22):
for your time, for the workthat you do, and for taking the
time to share some of it withus. I'm so grateful. Thank you
so much for killing the small talktoday. Thank you for having us.
Rebecca, we need more like you. Thank you likewise, back at you
both, Thanks for killing the smalltalk. Dialogue is a yellow tape media

(39:49):
production edited by Jason Ussrie and producedand hosted by me, Rebecca Sebastian.
Please be sure to subscribe to Dialogue, a true crime Conversation wherever you listen
to podcasts, and follow us onsocial media. We are at dialog pod
across all platforms. You can alsodrop me a note or guest suggestion,
or sign up for my newsletter atRebecca sebastion dot com. Be sure to

(40:12):
join me every Wednesday for a newepisode and another killer conversation.

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Jason Flom + Maggie Freleng | The High Cost of Wrongful Convictions

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jason Flom + Maggie Freleng | The High Cost of Wrongful Convictions