November 16, 2021 • 26 mins
John Fetterman, Lt. Governor of PA, joins Jason to talk about using compassion, mercy, and second chances to reform our criminal justice system.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason flam This is the
podcast where I interview folks who see the wrong in
the world and are driven to make it right. Today's
guests had a fairly normal life plan before a few
chance occurrences set him on a path to revitalize a
struggling Pennsylvania town and in turn begin a burgeoning political
career in which he champions equitable outcomes and criminal legal
(00:21):
system reform. I do not believe in perpetual punishment for
the vast majority of charges, convictions, and other things, because
it's not making us any safer, it's not making us
anymore just. It's only racing our resources. It's not in
anyone's best interest to have people that shouldn't be dying
in prison dying in prison. It's just not justice, and
(00:42):
it's not even smart on crime. His larger than life
personality and common sense politics may one day bring him
to the United States Senate Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania. John
Fetterman right now on Righteous Convictions. Welcome back to Righteous Convictions.
(01:15):
This is the show where I have the privilege, honor
of joy whatever it is, of interviewing some of the
people I most admire people who are making profound changes
happen for no reason other than that because it's the
right thing to do it because they can. And I
can think of no better example than the guy I'm
about to interview now. He's a larger than life guy
(01:37):
who's lived a larger than life life, and he's got
some larger than life goals that we're going to talk
about now. So John Fetterman, welcome to Righteous Convictions. Hey,
thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, and
you're the Jesus you're at the Lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania.
Not bad for a kid. I grew up the very
humble beginnings in New York, Pennsylvania. I mean, what a
(02:00):
life man. We have so much to talk about, but
we we got We can't get there without getting here first.
How did you come from such humble beginnings and go
on to Harvard Kennedy School of Government, college football may
or this that? Like, what's the sure? Yeah? For those
that followed me on social media this past Labor Day,
(02:21):
I posted a picture of my dad holding me in
July of nine, a wedding that was facilitated by my arrival.
If you will, you know I was born to two
teenage parents that wouldn't have necessarily ended up together. It
was more of a casual dating situation. And they got
married and my dad was a Union grocery worker at
the shop right in Reading, Pennsylvania, went to college part time,
(02:44):
got his degree. We ended up moving, and he ended
up working in the insurance industry. And you know how
I got to where I was at. I got very fortunate.
You know, my my parents stayed together, and my father
was able to achieve some level of financial independence from
a I that was, you know, working as at a
grocery store to where I was able to have opportunities
(03:05):
and go to college and go to graduate school. And
and I've really made my career about kind of paying
that forward, so to speak, because my life trajectory could
have gone in a much different direction. And and a
lot of that informed my take on on the criminal
justice system and and why I try and advocate for
a lot of these things where it's it's just it's
(03:26):
not because I'm so smart, it's not because i'm special,
it's not because i'm anything other than you know, I
had the fortune of the random lottery of birth where
things worked out and I just wanted to pay that
forward because there's a lot of other people that weren't
quite so fortunate, And there are a couple defining moments.
I would say, from what I've read about you and
I've been getting to know you this year, it's been
(03:47):
great because we're in lockstep on criminal justice or PARM.
I can think of no government official at any level,
in any place across the country who is more simpatico
with the cause that I care so deeply about. But
you had a couple of profile own moments right here,
brush with mortality, when your best friend died, and then
of course your your experience with big brothers and big sisters.
And I was finishing up business school and it just
(04:10):
kind of like gonna, you know, head out to the
real world, and wasn't really thinking much about anything else.
And then my best friend was killed in a car
accident on his way over to my home. You know,
I've had people died, but not nothing so proximate, and
no one's so young and so jarring, And it really
created a break for me where it's just like, how
do how do you know that tomorrow morning when you
(04:31):
wake up, you don't know you have fifteen minutes left
before you leave in the world as we know it,
and uh, I wanted something good to come from that.
And then that led me to my second kind of
fork in the road was I joined big brothers and
big sisters and the little boy that I was paired with,
who was eight years old at the time, his father
(04:52):
had had just died from AIDS and his mother was
in final and stage of AIDS. I came to his
house and you haven and I had never seen anything
like that before in my life. I had never seen
someone at the end of stage and it was so
jarring and I couldn't reconcile. You know, how did I
end up so lucky? And this little boy is going
(05:13):
to be an AIDS orphan before his next birthday, And
I knew at that point, I'm like, look, I don't
want to do what I was going to do anymore.
So I ended up joining AmeriCorps placed in Pittsburgh. That's
how I ended up in western Pennsylvania, teaching g D
classes and setting up the first computer labs in Pittsburgh'
Hill District. So that's how I ended up going on
(05:35):
a much different path. Those two kind of forks in
the road and a lot of it was just steeped
in my I don't know, the gratitude that you know,
I got lucky and if I can use my professional
career to push for greater equality and more even outcomes,
you know, because the outcomes were so divergent here, and
that's what I wanted to do. I knew what you did,
(05:57):
how you channeled this these trans number of experiences basically
reads like how to of what we should be doing
with the money that we're currently spending on policing and
corrections and all this other stuff that we know is
the actual opposite of what we should be doing in
the actual opposite of public safety. And so just going
through it quickly, you launched youth and art programs, created
(06:19):
a community centered, initiated development of dilapidated buildings. You even
purchased a church before it was demolished and a nearby warehouse.
Is with your own money, right, No, we just set
out to create a really balanced approach to community revitalization.
I ended up in Braddock twenty years ago to teach
g D programs and help kids get jobs. And Braddock
(06:40):
was devastated community. It was black and you know, one
of the most challenged and distressed communities in the state,
and that's really what I ended up wanting to do.
You know, politics was never part of it. But then
a few years into as a program director, it was
really successful and we were cranking. Two of my students
were down killed and that really summoned me. That was
(07:04):
kind of like the third thing that kind of propelled
me into running for public office, because I was like, well, jeez,
I can help a kid get a job or their
g D and these are noble and important pursuits, but
I can't make anyone safer or address this, and so
I ran for mayor and that's how I ended up
on this trajectory. And during that time too, it also
(07:25):
further informed you know, my students that I want to
be clear, they were the only reason why I won
that first election is because they registered to vote. The
issues that they had and the uneven outcomes, the divergent
outcomes that they've experienced in their lives really further re
emphasized to me that we need to make our society
(07:46):
more equitable in outcomes, and that's really been at the
heart of the criminal justice reforms. I can't say how
many young people had some stupid weed charge on their record,
or some of these other things that just kept holding
them back. Or they got a driving violation and then
they had thousands in fines. And you can't get a
good job without a driver's license, but you can't get
your driver's license because you don't have any money to
(08:07):
pay all these stupid fines, and it just creates a trap.
And that experience was instrumental in informing me on how
the criminal justice system can often punish well beyond, you know,
the original infraction and create a very sticky and toxic
situation for people ever getting able to get ahead in life.
(08:44):
So you started off building relationships with the young people
of Braddock, Pennsylvania, only to wind up becoming their mayor
and oversee the town's revitalization. And eventually we ran for
the tenant governor in one which brought you and I
into close contact. And for those who don't, oh, this
lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania overseas the Pardon and Parole Board,
and of course i'm you know, always lobbying on behalf
(09:07):
of the wrongly convicted and the over sentenced. And unfortunately
Pennsylvania seems to have seen some of the very worst
in terms of the problems that our system has to offer.
From a criminal justice standpoint, yes, we are not where
we should be and where we need to be, but
we do have some good people in place. Our outgoing
Secretary of Corrections I always quote him, he said that
(09:30):
we could reduce our inmate population by a third not
make anyone less safe. And think of the money we
would say that would free up maybe close to a
billion dollars to invest in our schools, to invest in
the environment, to invest in our infrastructure, you name it,
and it wouldn't make anyone less safe. And this is
the guy whose job is to make sure that he's
running a tight ship in terms of corrections. So we
(09:53):
have so much that we could do. But in my
role as the Board of Pardons, I realized that it
is think one of the most powerful and transformative things
available because it's the only mechanism in Pennsylvania that can
free you from a past conviction. And that's an enormous power.
And I wanted to reinvent this process in Pennsylvania, and
(10:16):
I wanted to begin to change the conversation on the
power of a second chance. And I was lucky enough
that my running mate. Governor Wolf feels as I do.
So I have his support and all this, and we
set out to transform second chances in Pennsylvania, which is
broken down into two parts. The general pardons for crimes
(10:36):
that are less than murder, and then there are commutations.
Those individuals that were otherwise condemned to die in prison
would be given a chance to re enter society and
be free for the remainder of their lives if granted
a commutation. And that's that's where we started. When I
took office in twenty nine. You know, I first became
aware of your work while advocating for a man we
(10:58):
both um and of course I'll talking about Pedro Rena
so and we have not yet been successful there. We're
going to link to the carbage that I did on
his case with now this in the episode bio. But
this is a guy Pedro and also convicted of a
double murder in Pennsylvania that happened while he was in
the Dominican Republic. You can't get around that, right, but
(11:22):
somehow they did. He had passport stamps, photographic and video
evidence of his whereabouts on the day of the crime.
A priest was one of his alibi witnesses. Yet the
soul witness for the state gave her a testimony blaming
Pedro in exchange for leniency in her own charges, testimony,
by the way, that she later recanted. The victims family
(11:43):
says it wasn't Pedro, he didn't do it. They've repeatedly
pointed to other people as the actual killers. You know,
and Pedro, much to his credit, also in his thirty
years he's spent in prison now has a literal spotless
record spot was You know, you don't graduate from enforcing
double murderer and not so much as get a single
(12:06):
violation in nearly three decades. It's just not compatible. Based
on what you've just explained to your audience is also
what he's demonstrated since his conviction, and it's astonishing. And
also tragically, he also was confronted with cancer, so he
had to overcome that. So, you know, I always tell
people like people like Pedro didn't get None of them
(12:28):
got away with murder. You know, spending almost thirty years
in prison isn't getting away with anything. But as you
pointed out, there's ample evidence of his innocence, and there's
profound evidence of the kind of character that he's displayed
as an inmate for the last nearly thirty years, right,
and here's a guy who's going to be deported even
(12:48):
after he gets and has no bones with that. He's fine,
he wants to go back. I guess yeah. If I
was in I wouldn't want to stay here either. But really,
he is the poster child for someone who would be
granted clemency on the first go around with a unanimous vote.
Robert Stamp, get this guy out of here, let's go.
But meanwhile he still sits behind bars. And I think,
(13:12):
in fact, I read that you were the only yes
vote at least one of the times that he came up.
Is that, Am I wrong? That's true? And I want
to emphasize the vote to get someone out, it has
to be unanimous. That has to be five to nothing,
and if it's four to one, it fails, just as
if it was zero to five. That's how punishing the
gauntlet is to get a commutation, unfortunately, and that's in
(13:32):
our constitution now. Unfortunately, I'm still optimistic that there may
be a chance. I'm not giving up. I'm Lieutenant governor
for about another fifteen months, and you know, having pedro
get a second chances, something that's very near and dear
to me, because again, you know, I fundamentally believe not
only is innocent, but it could also be a situation
(13:53):
where it's like, let's err on the side of mercy
and compassion and have him be repatriated in his home country.
I can think a few things more tragic than an
innocent man spending his life in prison for something he
didn't commit. I mean, that's anti victim too, because the
real perpetrator is still out there and he's far from
the only one. I mean the cases in Pennsylvania, Tony Wright,
(14:17):
or Terrence Lewis, or Walter Ogrod or nick Yarris or
Lorenzo Johnson, oh Eric Riddick, and Troy Coleman. Of course
Troy Coleman. You and I have spent a lot of
time talking about Troy Coleman. You know, he's another one
of those guys like it just disturbs me because he
was in Atlantic City when the murder happened in Pennsylvania,
and it was known by everyone before he was convicted,
(14:40):
but they went ahead with it anyway because it was
expedient and they just wanted somebody, and they got somebody
and that was it and always been in for thirty
two years. He's a highly evolved guy who's a gentle
and kind spirit. I love our conversations. I always learned
something when I talked to him, and we got to
get him the hell out of there's thirty two years.
I mean, it's a lifetime for many of our listeners
are even thirty two years old. They can't even imagine.
(15:02):
But there he sits as we're talking now. But the
good news is, as you said, you have a good
governor there who I think has a big heart and
a strong interest in justice. And we have you, and
we have an Attorney general to General Shapi and I
have have clashed at times, but I will say that
more than any other Attorney General in the history of Pennsylvania,
(15:22):
Josh has demonstrated a belief in a second chance. So
it's my hope that you know, he and I can
continue to work together and lead the board to getting
as many of these folks out as we possibly can.
And I know you know Leon Dennis Horton, but that
case is another astonishing one. Yeah, Leon Dennis Horton. These
are two brothers who served thirty years for crimes they
(15:45):
didn't commit. Imagine what they did to their family, their mom,
their dad. I mean, could lose two kids like that
and totally innocent. They were freed. I think it was
last year. Yeah, we got them out. And I always
said that if my career ends and I have done
nothing other than to facilitate their release, that I'm like that.
Anything else after that is just gravy to me, because
(16:05):
there are so many deserving people that should not die
in prison in Pennsylvania. And my dream job would be
to be able to do that for the rest of
my life, is make sure that those that don't belong
in Pennsylvania's prisons are given a second chance, because it's
not making us any safer, it's not making us anymore
just it's only racing our resources. It's keeping these folks
(16:29):
that are no longer or may never have been a
threat to public safety. And it's about freeing up resources
that we could spend on schools or on anything else
other than the prison complex. And I want to say
about Lee and Dennis just to give you some insight
into these guys as characters. They were the guys in
the prison that the guards or the warden would come
to or the commissioner whoever, and say we have a
(16:52):
fight breaking out, we have a gang situation, and they
would go and defuse those situations. They were their experts
in conflict resolution and their peaceful, beautiful, kind spirited guys
who are now out doing as well as they could
possibly be doing on the outside, just like they did
on the inside. These are guys who don't have a
shred of bitterness, even though they have every right to
(17:16):
be as bitter as anyone could ever be, and they
inspire all of us. I wouldn't have lasted six months
under their circumstances, and they endured nearly three decades behind
bars or something that they didn't do. And as you
point out, there not you know, the two of the
finest people I know, And uh, I just want people
to understand, this is the kind of people that are
(17:37):
being thrown away or being condemned to die in Pennsylvania.
I don't know why anybody would want that. That's not
justice for anyone, no matter how conservative you are or
how progressive you are. It's not in anyone's best interest
to have people that shouldn't be dying in prison dying
in prison. That's just that's just not justice and it's
not even smart on crime. Do you talk so passionately
(17:59):
about this and about clemency And it's crazy because clemency
is going back to Abraham Lincoln. You know, Lincoln granted
clemency to basically almost everybody, right, I mean, and everybody
except the most violent criminals. I agree. And if anyone
saw the two thousand twelve movie Lincoln, he's he's doing
just that. He's talking, He's like, what good one more corpse?
(18:21):
You know, And when he was going to partner a
sixteen year old for desertion, he pardoned him. What what
good one more corpse? And that's I've always had that philosophy,
like what good one more pine box? Getting carried out
of the prison win? It just doesn't serve anyone's interest,
you know, Like compassion is always the right side of
history in my opinion. You know, there are dangerous individuals
(18:41):
or they've done things that are beyond the pale, but
you know, I always try to tell people it's like
the average person that makes it front of the board
of Parts is just like Morgan Freeman in Shaw Shank.
They did something when they were young that they are
deeply ashamed and regretful for they are not that person
they were when they were eighteen years old. You know,
(19:01):
we had a gentleman who's fifty two years, fifty two
years and an exemplary record. I'm like, how much is enough?
You know? Is there some psychic value to the world
and having this guy carried out in a pine box?
Or do we err on the side of mercy and
compassion and just say, look, enough is enough. I just
(19:35):
think pardons and clemency is the second revolution in criminal
justice reform in this country. I do not believe in
perpetual punishment for the vast majority of charges, convictions, and
other things. I believe in redemption and in culcating second
chances and mercy and compassion into our criminal justice system
at a level that provides a way forward or a
(19:58):
way back for people that may have made a bad
choices or grew up in environments where it was exceedingly
difficult to make anything but bad choices. And that gets
back to my origin story where like I got lucky.
I if I had grown up in a lot of
these circumstances, I wouldn't have ended up any differently. So
you know, this idea of who are we really condemning
to die in prison. It's not compatible with justice, it's
(20:20):
not compatible with mercy, it's not compatible with public safety.
I don't know what it's compatible with other than just vengeance.
And as a society, we should not be in the
vengeance department. We should be in the public safety department,
and we should be in the mercy department, because ultimately
that gets us all to a better place. Right to
quote the Brian Stevenson, he said, I believe everyone's better
(20:43):
than the worst thing they've ever done. And you know,
we have the innocent, that's one side of the coin,
and then there's people who may have done things that
are could even be abhorrent. But people age out of crime,
and people do change, and they are deserving of a
second chance, and and other countries in the Western well
they give them that second chance, and for some reason
here we don't give our own people the same sort
(21:05):
of benefit of the doubt or whatever you might call it,
even though the overwhelming body of evidence shows that they
are no longer a threat to public safety once they're
of a certain age. So, now, before we get to
the final two questions of the show, John, the big
news is February eighth of this year, you announced that
you're running for the United States Senate. This sea is
being vacated by Pat Toomey. I couldn't be happier about that.
(21:29):
What do you want people to know about your run
for Senate? It's an important, critical race. And if you
care about second chances and you care about someone that
has a perspective on criminal justice reform that's always been
consistent and has always pointed in the side of mercy
and injustice, that's the kind of campaign that I'm running on.
I know that people like Lee and Dennis exist, and
(21:50):
I'm never going to stop pushing to make sure that
our criminal justice system reflects the appropriate level of mercy
and justice. Also, again, if you're not moved by those
two concepts, just the nickels and dimes that we spend
on permanently warehousing people and burying them alive, it's a travesty.
So you know, as somebody that's made that the centerpiece.
And I gotta be honest with you, like, if I
(22:11):
could design the last thirty years of my life, I
would spend it just giving second chances and getting people out.
I mean, it's that it means that much to me,
but that's just not the way it's structured in Pennsylvania.
But I will take that passion and that that enthusiasm
and that conviction to the United States Senate. If you
trust me with your vote, I'm gonna be very upfront.
I maxed out to your campaign. I'm very proud of that.
I'm proud to support you and all your work. And
(22:33):
for people who want to join me in contributing, we're
gonna put a link in the bile John Fetterman dot
com and our campaign just announced yesterday that our dollars
are small dollar donors. They're just folks that say, hey,
I don't have a lot of money, but I got
twenty five bucks because I believe in what you believe in.
Quickly an anecdote, I was at the National Cannabis Convention
(22:54):
in Washington, d C. And a woman came up to
me and she thanked me, and she started crying, and
I wasn't sure what was going on. And she's like,
I just got one of your expedited marijuana pardons. And
she's like, I was in dental school at penn best
dental program in America, and I caught a weed charge
and I had to drop out because once you have
that charge, you can never get a medical license in Pennsylvania.
(23:16):
And she's like, twenty years later. It was the first
time in my life that I didn't have to check
that box. And you know, that to me is everything.
And that's the kind of things that I have fought
for during my time as Lieutenant governor. And that's the
kind of things that if you believe in that and
you've got twenty five dollars, you know, those are the
people that have built this campaign or fifty um it's
John Fetterman, John uh F E, T T E R
(23:38):
M A N dot com, John Peerman dot com. Please
join me in supporting this great man as he goes
to the United States Senate and tries to make our
system a little fair and better for everyone. So now
we have two questions that we closed the show with
each week. So first of all, I'll thank you again
for being here. And then I'm going to ask you
(23:59):
if you had a mad jikwand and you could wave
it and fix one thing, what would it be life
without parole in Pennsylvania. We could save billions in revenue.
Long term, we could say thousands of lives and not
make anyone less safe, and also expunges many permanent records
of people that have been living their best lives and
(24:20):
have been paying well beyond when they should have for
a charge that they caught, you know, ten fifty years ago.
Good answer, And before we go to our closing, make
sure you joined us next week when we speak with
a British attorney who has dedicated his life to spreading
legal education and defending justice in the many broken legal
systems that have plagued the African continent since colonialism. And
(24:42):
that attorney is Alexander mcclan. His story and his life's
work will leave you in awe. And now back to you, John,
for what we call words of wisdom, where I first
thank you for being here, and then of course I
kicked back in my chair, turned my microphone off and
just listen to any words of wisdom you have left
(25:03):
that you want to share with our audience. I don't
consider myself a person that has wisdom to impart, but
I would just always say that I've I've always believed
that compassion and mercy is the right side of history,
and I've always tried to lead with that whether as
a mayor, whether it's that as lieutenant governor, and if
I'm fortunate enough to be your next United States Senator,
(25:26):
take that same perspective to Washington, d C. So, Jason,
thank you so much for having me on your podcast,
and we're just going to keep it up for the
next fifteen months and try to get as many deserving
and or innocent folks a second chance. Thank you for
(25:50):
listening to Righteous Confessions with Jason Plom. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Claver, and Kevin Wards,
with research by Lalla Robinson. The music in this production
was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.
You can also follow me on TikTok and Instagram at
(26:12):
It's Jason Blom. Righteous Convictions with Jason Blom is a
production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Sabot
Company Number one
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason flam This is the
podcast where I interview folks who see the wrong in
the world and are driven to make it right. Today's
guests had a fairly normal life plan before a few
chance occurrences set him on a path to revitalize a
struggling Pennsylvania town and in turn begin a burgeoning political
career in which he champions equitable outcomes and criminal legal
(00:21):
system reform. I do not believe in perpetual punishment for
the vast majority of charges, convictions, and other things, because
it's not making us any safer, it's not making us
anymore just. It's only racing our resources. It's not in
anyone's best interest to have people that shouldn't be dying
in prison dying in prison. It's just not justice, and
(00:42):
it's not even smart on crime. His larger than life
personality and common sense politics may one day bring him
to the United States Senate Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania. John
Fetterman right now on Righteous Convictions. Welcome back to Righteous Convictions.
(01:15):
This is the show where I have the privilege, honor
of joy whatever it is, of interviewing some of the
people I most admire people who are making profound changes
happen for no reason other than that because it's the
right thing to do it because they can. And I
can think of no better example than the guy I'm
about to interview now. He's a larger than life guy
(01:37):
who's lived a larger than life life, and he's got
some larger than life goals that we're going to talk
about now. So John Fetterman, welcome to Righteous Convictions. Hey,
thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, and
you're the Jesus you're at the Lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania.
Not bad for a kid. I grew up the very
humble beginnings in New York, Pennsylvania. I mean, what a
(02:00):
life man. We have so much to talk about, but
we we got We can't get there without getting here first.
How did you come from such humble beginnings and go
on to Harvard Kennedy School of Government, college football may
or this that? Like, what's the sure? Yeah? For those
that followed me on social media this past Labor Day,
(02:21):
I posted a picture of my dad holding me in
July of nine, a wedding that was facilitated by my arrival.
If you will, you know I was born to two
teenage parents that wouldn't have necessarily ended up together. It
was more of a casual dating situation. And they got
married and my dad was a Union grocery worker at
the shop right in Reading, Pennsylvania, went to college part time,
(02:44):
got his degree. We ended up moving, and he ended
up working in the insurance industry. And you know how
I got to where I was at. I got very fortunate.
You know, my my parents stayed together, and my father
was able to achieve some level of financial independence from
a I that was, you know, working as at a
grocery store to where I was able to have opportunities
(03:05):
and go to college and go to graduate school. And
and I've really made my career about kind of paying
that forward, so to speak, because my life trajectory could
have gone in a much different direction. And and a
lot of that informed my take on on the criminal
justice system and and why I try and advocate for
a lot of these things where it's it's just it's
(03:26):
not because I'm so smart, it's not because i'm special,
it's not because i'm anything other than you know, I
had the fortune of the random lottery of birth where
things worked out and I just wanted to pay that
forward because there's a lot of other people that weren't
quite so fortunate, And there are a couple defining moments.
I would say, from what I've read about you and
I've been getting to know you this year, it's been
(03:47):
great because we're in lockstep on criminal justice or PARM.
I can think of no government official at any level,
in any place across the country who is more simpatico
with the cause that I care so deeply about. But
you had a couple of profile own moments right here,
brush with mortality, when your best friend died, and then
of course your your experience with big brothers and big sisters.
And I was finishing up business school and it just
(04:10):
kind of like gonna, you know, head out to the
real world, and wasn't really thinking much about anything else.
And then my best friend was killed in a car
accident on his way over to my home. You know,
I've had people died, but not nothing so proximate, and
no one's so young and so jarring, And it really
created a break for me where it's just like, how
do how do you know that tomorrow morning when you
(04:31):
wake up, you don't know you have fifteen minutes left
before you leave in the world as we know it,
and uh, I wanted something good to come from that.
And then that led me to my second kind of
fork in the road was I joined big brothers and
big sisters and the little boy that I was paired with,
who was eight years old at the time, his father
(04:52):
had had just died from AIDS and his mother was
in final and stage of AIDS. I came to his
house and you haven and I had never seen anything
like that before in my life. I had never seen
someone at the end of stage and it was so
jarring and I couldn't reconcile. You know, how did I
end up so lucky? And this little boy is going
(05:13):
to be an AIDS orphan before his next birthday, And
I knew at that point, I'm like, look, I don't
want to do what I was going to do anymore.
So I ended up joining AmeriCorps placed in Pittsburgh. That's
how I ended up in western Pennsylvania, teaching g D
classes and setting up the first computer labs in Pittsburgh'
Hill District. So that's how I ended up going on
(05:35):
a much different path. Those two kind of forks in
the road and a lot of it was just steeped
in my I don't know, the gratitude that you know,
I got lucky and if I can use my professional
career to push for greater equality and more even outcomes,
you know, because the outcomes were so divergent here, and
that's what I wanted to do. I knew what you did,
(05:57):
how you channeled this these trans number of experiences basically
reads like how to of what we should be doing
with the money that we're currently spending on policing and
corrections and all this other stuff that we know is
the actual opposite of what we should be doing in
the actual opposite of public safety. And so just going
through it quickly, you launched youth and art programs, created
(06:19):
a community centered, initiated development of dilapidated buildings. You even
purchased a church before it was demolished and a nearby warehouse.
Is with your own money, right, No, we just set
out to create a really balanced approach to community revitalization.
I ended up in Braddock twenty years ago to teach
g D programs and help kids get jobs. And Braddock
(06:40):
was devastated community. It was black and you know, one
of the most challenged and distressed communities in the state,
and that's really what I ended up wanting to do.
You know, politics was never part of it. But then
a few years into as a program director, it was
really successful and we were cranking. Two of my students
were down killed and that really summoned me. That was
(07:04):
kind of like the third thing that kind of propelled
me into running for public office, because I was like, well, jeez,
I can help a kid get a job or their
g D and these are noble and important pursuits, but
I can't make anyone safer or address this, and so
I ran for mayor and that's how I ended up
on this trajectory. And during that time too, it also
(07:25):
further informed you know, my students that I want to
be clear, they were the only reason why I won
that first election is because they registered to vote. The
issues that they had and the uneven outcomes, the divergent
outcomes that they've experienced in their lives really further re
emphasized to me that we need to make our society
(07:46):
more equitable in outcomes, and that's really been at the
heart of the criminal justice reforms. I can't say how
many young people had some stupid weed charge on their record,
or some of these other things that just kept holding
them back. Or they got a driving violation and then
they had thousands in fines. And you can't get a
good job without a driver's license, but you can't get
your driver's license because you don't have any money to
(08:07):
pay all these stupid fines, and it just creates a trap.
And that experience was instrumental in informing me on how
the criminal justice system can often punish well beyond, you know,
the original infraction and create a very sticky and toxic
situation for people ever getting able to get ahead in life.
(08:44):
So you started off building relationships with the young people
of Braddock, Pennsylvania, only to wind up becoming their mayor
and oversee the town's revitalization. And eventually we ran for
the tenant governor in one which brought you and I
into close contact. And for those who don't, oh, this
lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania overseas the Pardon and Parole Board,
and of course i'm you know, always lobbying on behalf
(09:07):
of the wrongly convicted and the over sentenced. And unfortunately
Pennsylvania seems to have seen some of the very worst
in terms of the problems that our system has to offer.
From a criminal justice standpoint, yes, we are not where
we should be and where we need to be, but
we do have some good people in place. Our outgoing
Secretary of Corrections I always quote him, he said that
(09:30):
we could reduce our inmate population by a third not
make anyone less safe. And think of the money we
would say that would free up maybe close to a
billion dollars to invest in our schools, to invest in
the environment, to invest in our infrastructure, you name it,
and it wouldn't make anyone less safe. And this is
the guy whose job is to make sure that he's
running a tight ship in terms of corrections. So we
(09:53):
have so much that we could do. But in my
role as the Board of Pardons, I realized that it
is think one of the most powerful and transformative things
available because it's the only mechanism in Pennsylvania that can
free you from a past conviction. And that's an enormous power.
And I wanted to reinvent this process in Pennsylvania, and
(10:16):
I wanted to begin to change the conversation on the
power of a second chance. And I was lucky enough
that my running mate. Governor Wolf feels as I do.
So I have his support and all this, and we
set out to transform second chances in Pennsylvania, which is
broken down into two parts. The general pardons for crimes
(10:36):
that are less than murder, and then there are commutations.
Those individuals that were otherwise condemned to die in prison
would be given a chance to re enter society and
be free for the remainder of their lives if granted
a commutation. And that's that's where we started. When I
took office in twenty nine. You know, I first became
aware of your work while advocating for a man we
(10:58):
both um and of course I'll talking about Pedro Rena
so and we have not yet been successful there. We're
going to link to the carbage that I did on
his case with now this in the episode bio. But
this is a guy Pedro and also convicted of a
double murder in Pennsylvania that happened while he was in
the Dominican Republic. You can't get around that, right, but
(11:22):
somehow they did. He had passport stamps, photographic and video
evidence of his whereabouts on the day of the crime.
A priest was one of his alibi witnesses. Yet the
soul witness for the state gave her a testimony blaming
Pedro in exchange for leniency in her own charges, testimony,
by the way, that she later recanted. The victims family
(11:43):
says it wasn't Pedro, he didn't do it. They've repeatedly
pointed to other people as the actual killers. You know,
and Pedro, much to his credit, also in his thirty
years he's spent in prison now has a literal spotless
record spot was You know, you don't graduate from enforcing
double murderer and not so much as get a single
(12:06):
violation in nearly three decades. It's just not compatible. Based
on what you've just explained to your audience is also
what he's demonstrated since his conviction, and it's astonishing. And
also tragically, he also was confronted with cancer, so he
had to overcome that. So, you know, I always tell
people like people like Pedro didn't get None of them
(12:28):
got away with murder. You know, spending almost thirty years
in prison isn't getting away with anything. But as you
pointed out, there's ample evidence of his innocence, and there's
profound evidence of the kind of character that he's displayed
as an inmate for the last nearly thirty years, right,
and here's a guy who's going to be deported even
(12:48):
after he gets and has no bones with that. He's fine,
he wants to go back. I guess yeah. If I
was in I wouldn't want to stay here either. But really,
he is the poster child for someone who would be
granted clemency on the first go around with a unanimous vote.
Robert Stamp, get this guy out of here, let's go.
But meanwhile he still sits behind bars. And I think,
(13:12):
in fact, I read that you were the only yes
vote at least one of the times that he came up.
Is that, Am I wrong? That's true? And I want
to emphasize the vote to get someone out, it has
to be unanimous. That has to be five to nothing,
and if it's four to one, it fails, just as
if it was zero to five. That's how punishing the
gauntlet is to get a commutation, unfortunately, and that's in
(13:32):
our constitution now. Unfortunately, I'm still optimistic that there may
be a chance. I'm not giving up. I'm Lieutenant governor
for about another fifteen months, and you know, having pedro
get a second chances, something that's very near and dear
to me, because again, you know, I fundamentally believe not
only is innocent, but it could also be a situation
(13:53):
where it's like, let's err on the side of mercy
and compassion and have him be repatriated in his home country.
I can think a few things more tragic than an
innocent man spending his life in prison for something he
didn't commit. I mean, that's anti victim too, because the
real perpetrator is still out there and he's far from
the only one. I mean the cases in Pennsylvania, Tony Wright,
(14:17):
or Terrence Lewis, or Walter Ogrod or nick Yarris or
Lorenzo Johnson, oh Eric Riddick, and Troy Coleman. Of course
Troy Coleman. You and I have spent a lot of
time talking about Troy Coleman. You know, he's another one
of those guys like it just disturbs me because he
was in Atlantic City when the murder happened in Pennsylvania,
and it was known by everyone before he was convicted,
(14:40):
but they went ahead with it anyway because it was
expedient and they just wanted somebody, and they got somebody
and that was it and always been in for thirty
two years. He's a highly evolved guy who's a gentle
and kind spirit. I love our conversations. I always learned
something when I talked to him, and we got to
get him the hell out of there's thirty two years.
I mean, it's a lifetime for many of our listeners
are even thirty two years old. They can't even imagine.
(15:02):
But there he sits as we're talking now. But the
good news is, as you said, you have a good
governor there who I think has a big heart and
a strong interest in justice. And we have you, and
we have an Attorney general to General Shapi and I
have have clashed at times, but I will say that
more than any other Attorney General in the history of Pennsylvania,
(15:22):
Josh has demonstrated a belief in a second chance. So
it's my hope that you know, he and I can
continue to work together and lead the board to getting
as many of these folks out as we possibly can.
And I know you know Leon Dennis Horton, but that
case is another astonishing one. Yeah, Leon Dennis Horton. These
are two brothers who served thirty years for crimes they
(15:45):
didn't commit. Imagine what they did to their family, their mom,
their dad. I mean, could lose two kids like that
and totally innocent. They were freed. I think it was
last year. Yeah, we got them out. And I always
said that if my career ends and I have done
nothing other than to facilitate their release, that I'm like that.
Anything else after that is just gravy to me, because
(16:05):
there are so many deserving people that should not die
in prison in Pennsylvania. And my dream job would be
to be able to do that for the rest of
my life, is make sure that those that don't belong
in Pennsylvania's prisons are given a second chance, because it's
not making us any safer, it's not making us anymore
just it's only racing our resources. It's keeping these folks
(16:29):
that are no longer or may never have been a
threat to public safety. And it's about freeing up resources
that we could spend on schools or on anything else
other than the prison complex. And I want to say
about Lee and Dennis just to give you some insight
into these guys as characters. They were the guys in
the prison that the guards or the warden would come
to or the commissioner whoever, and say we have a
(16:52):
fight breaking out, we have a gang situation, and they
would go and defuse those situations. They were their experts
in conflict resolution and their peaceful, beautiful, kind spirited guys
who are now out doing as well as they could
possibly be doing on the outside, just like they did
on the inside. These are guys who don't have a
shred of bitterness, even though they have every right to
(17:16):
be as bitter as anyone could ever be, and they
inspire all of us. I wouldn't have lasted six months
under their circumstances, and they endured nearly three decades behind
bars or something that they didn't do. And as you
point out, there not you know, the two of the
finest people I know, And uh, I just want people
to understand, this is the kind of people that are
(17:37):
being thrown away or being condemned to die in Pennsylvania.
I don't know why anybody would want that. That's not
justice for anyone, no matter how conservative you are or
how progressive you are. It's not in anyone's best interest
to have people that shouldn't be dying in prison dying
in prison. That's just that's just not justice and it's
not even smart on crime. Do you talk so passionately
(17:59):
about this and about clemency And it's crazy because clemency
is going back to Abraham Lincoln. You know, Lincoln granted
clemency to basically almost everybody, right, I mean, and everybody
except the most violent criminals. I agree. And if anyone
saw the two thousand twelve movie Lincoln, he's he's doing
just that. He's talking, He's like, what good one more corpse?
(18:21):
You know, And when he was going to partner a
sixteen year old for desertion, he pardoned him. What what
good one more corpse? And that's I've always had that philosophy,
like what good one more pine box? Getting carried out
of the prison win? It just doesn't serve anyone's interest,
you know, Like compassion is always the right side of
history in my opinion. You know, there are dangerous individuals
(18:41):
or they've done things that are beyond the pale, but
you know, I always try to tell people it's like
the average person that makes it front of the board
of Parts is just like Morgan Freeman in Shaw Shank.
They did something when they were young that they are
deeply ashamed and regretful for they are not that person
they were when they were eighteen years old. You know,
(19:01):
we had a gentleman who's fifty two years, fifty two
years and an exemplary record. I'm like, how much is enough?
You know? Is there some psychic value to the world
and having this guy carried out in a pine box?
Or do we err on the side of mercy and
compassion and just say, look, enough is enough. I just
(19:35):
think pardons and clemency is the second revolution in criminal
justice reform in this country. I do not believe in
perpetual punishment for the vast majority of charges, convictions, and
other things. I believe in redemption and in culcating second
chances and mercy and compassion into our criminal justice system
at a level that provides a way forward or a
(19:58):
way back for people that may have made a bad
choices or grew up in environments where it was exceedingly
difficult to make anything but bad choices. And that gets
back to my origin story where like I got lucky.
I if I had grown up in a lot of
these circumstances, I wouldn't have ended up any differently. So
you know, this idea of who are we really condemning
to die in prison. It's not compatible with justice, it's
(20:20):
not compatible with mercy, it's not compatible with public safety.
I don't know what it's compatible with other than just vengeance.
And as a society, we should not be in the
vengeance department. We should be in the public safety department,
and we should be in the mercy department, because ultimately
that gets us all to a better place. Right to
quote the Brian Stevenson, he said, I believe everyone's better
(20:43):
than the worst thing they've ever done. And you know,
we have the innocent, that's one side of the coin,
and then there's people who may have done things that
are could even be abhorrent. But people age out of crime,
and people do change, and they are deserving of a
second chance, and and other countries in the Western well
they give them that second chance, and for some reason
here we don't give our own people the same sort
(21:05):
of benefit of the doubt or whatever you might call it,
even though the overwhelming body of evidence shows that they
are no longer a threat to public safety once they're
of a certain age. So, now, before we get to
the final two questions of the show, John, the big
news is February eighth of this year, you announced that
you're running for the United States Senate. This sea is
being vacated by Pat Toomey. I couldn't be happier about that.
(21:29):
What do you want people to know about your run
for Senate? It's an important, critical race. And if you
care about second chances and you care about someone that
has a perspective on criminal justice reform that's always been
consistent and has always pointed in the side of mercy
and injustice, that's the kind of campaign that I'm running on.
I know that people like Lee and Dennis exist, and
(21:50):
I'm never going to stop pushing to make sure that
our criminal justice system reflects the appropriate level of mercy
and justice. Also, again, if you're not moved by those
two concepts, just the nickels and dimes that we spend
on permanently warehousing people and burying them alive, it's a travesty.
So you know, as somebody that's made that the centerpiece.
And I gotta be honest with you, like, if I
(22:11):
could design the last thirty years of my life, I
would spend it just giving second chances and getting people out.
I mean, it's that it means that much to me,
but that's just not the way it's structured in Pennsylvania.
But I will take that passion and that that enthusiasm
and that conviction to the United States Senate. If you
trust me with your vote, I'm gonna be very upfront.
I maxed out to your campaign. I'm very proud of that.
I'm proud to support you and all your work. And
(22:33):
for people who want to join me in contributing, we're
gonna put a link in the bile John Fetterman dot
com and our campaign just announced yesterday that our dollars
are small dollar donors. They're just folks that say, hey,
I don't have a lot of money, but I got
twenty five bucks because I believe in what you believe in.
Quickly an anecdote, I was at the National Cannabis Convention
(22:54):
in Washington, d C. And a woman came up to
me and she thanked me, and she started crying, and
I wasn't sure what was going on. And she's like,
I just got one of your expedited marijuana pardons. And
she's like, I was in dental school at penn best
dental program in America, and I caught a weed charge
and I had to drop out because once you have
that charge, you can never get a medical license in Pennsylvania.
(23:16):
And she's like, twenty years later. It was the first
time in my life that I didn't have to check
that box. And you know, that to me is everything.
And that's the kind of things that I have fought
for during my time as Lieutenant governor. And that's the
kind of things that if you believe in that and
you've got twenty five dollars, you know, those are the
people that have built this campaign or fifty um it's
John Fetterman, John uh F E, T T E R
(23:38):
M A N dot com, John Peerman dot com. Please
join me in supporting this great man as he goes
to the United States Senate and tries to make our
system a little fair and better for everyone. So now
we have two questions that we closed the show with
each week. So first of all, I'll thank you again
for being here. And then I'm going to ask you
(23:59):
if you had a mad jikwand and you could wave
it and fix one thing, what would it be life
without parole in Pennsylvania. We could save billions in revenue.
Long term, we could say thousands of lives and not
make anyone less safe, and also expunges many permanent records
of people that have been living their best lives and
(24:20):
have been paying well beyond when they should have for
a charge that they caught, you know, ten fifty years ago.
Good answer, And before we go to our closing, make
sure you joined us next week when we speak with
a British attorney who has dedicated his life to spreading
legal education and defending justice in the many broken legal
systems that have plagued the African continent since colonialism. And
(24:42):
that attorney is Alexander mcclan. His story and his life's
work will leave you in awe. And now back to you, John,
for what we call words of wisdom, where I first
thank you for being here, and then of course I
kicked back in my chair, turned my microphone off and
just listen to any words of wisdom you have left
(25:03):
that you want to share with our audience. I don't
consider myself a person that has wisdom to impart, but
I would just always say that I've I've always believed
that compassion and mercy is the right side of history,
and I've always tried to lead with that whether as
a mayor, whether it's that as lieutenant governor, and if
I'm fortunate enough to be your next United States Senator,
(25:26):
take that same perspective to Washington, d C. So, Jason,
thank you so much for having me on your podcast,
and we're just going to keep it up for the
next fifteen months and try to get as many deserving
and or innocent folks a second chance. Thank you for
(25:50):
listening to Righteous Confessions with Jason Plom. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Claver, and Kevin Wards,
with research by Lalla Robinson. The music in this production
was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.
You can also follow me on TikTok and Instagram at
(26:12):
It's Jason Blom. Righteous Convictions with Jason Blom is a
production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Sabot
Company Number one
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