Alford Plea

Phil and his team tackle the controversial debate around a legal tool allowing people to plead guilty without admitting guilt.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
If you're going to place your left hand on the
Bible and raise your right hand, and please repeat after
me and I do solemnly swear the jury theven titled
action find the defendant guilty of the time. It makes
no sense, it doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you
must aquit. We all took the same of the office.
We're all bound by that common commitment to support and

(00:25):
defend the Constitution, to bear true faith in allegiance to
the Saint, that you faithfully discharge the duties of our office.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're
about to give will be the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I
Heart Radio, this is Sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway.

(00:57):
I'm sure you've seen over the course of your career
as I have, that over the decades, the sentences have
gotten so much longer, that the risks have gotten a
lot higher, and so now it becomes not like, well,
if you go to trial, you're probably looking at nine years.
They're offering you four years. Now you get into these
crazy numbers where it's too risky to go to trial

(01:18):
and It's very hard for defense attorneys to advise their
clients on police bargaining. It's very difficult conversation to have.
I remember saying in a one client once who wanted
to go to trial, and the case was absolutely horrible.
I mean, the evidence they had on him was indisputable
that he was guilty. I remember saying to this guy,
I said, well, picture this, how do you think the
trial will go if I'm so lucky as I get

(01:41):
on the jury? Your mom, both your grandparents, your cousins,
your uncle's, your aunts, I get an entire jury of
just your relatives. Do you think I could convince them
that you're innocent? And it came to the conclusion that
I couldn't convince his family he was innocent. I said, well,
how do you think I'm gonna do its? Well? Strangers?

(02:01):
And that was the sobering moment for him. It's tough
because it's their decision. You don't want to pressure them
into making it, but you want to give them a
realistic assessment of their chances because that's what they're looking
at you for The voice at the beginning of the

(02:25):
episode with Justin Brooks, the current director of the California
Innocence Project. Last week we started looking into the high
costs and the extreme risk associated with taking a criminal
case to trial, and how because of that risk, people
sometimes will plead guilty to things that they have not done.
Chief among this extreme risk is the risk of a

(02:47):
higher prison sentence that often comes after someone refuses to
accept a plea bargain. There are many factors that can
affect the ultimate sentence imposed in any given case. These
actors frequently include shotgun charging and high mandatory minimum sentences.
So we asked Kevin Ring about this trial tax. Kevin

(03:10):
is the head of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. While Kevin
himself was on trial, he had to make this agonizing
choice about whether or not to plead guilty to crimes
that he didn't believe he committed or faced an extended
prison sentence following trial. Kevin gives us his firsthand account
of his experience with the hidden costs of trial, including

(03:32):
the trial tax and the more straightforward costs that come
with taking a case to trial. I think the trial
tax is something that's not well understood. I think they've
been brainwashed into thinking that if you're found guilty, then
you should have taken whatever deal was offered. Put aside
the fact that you might have thought you were in
this send put aside the fact that you have a

(03:54):
constitutional right to go to trial, even if you think
you're dead guilty. You have a constitutional right to put
the government to its proof by going to trial. But
there has developed in our culture this sense that if
you don't do what the prosecutor decides, and you don't
plead guilty and you use the resources of a trial,

(04:15):
that you're just going to open yourself to a longer penalty.
I think when people are confronted with individual examples of it,
they see it, but it's not something they think about
because unless you're involved in the system, it's just not
something you think of. Kevin had to deal with this
firsthand when he went to trial. They brought me in
and they said, you know, after two years of cooperating

(04:35):
and other other evidence gathering, here's what we have against you.
And if you plead and cooperate, will charge you with
these things. And if you don't and you go to trial,
will charge you with all of these different crimes. It
gets the point where it's not even your conduct, it's
what they decide to charge as your conduct that can

(04:56):
determine the outcome of your sentence. Just like mandatory minimum
sentense and guidelines, which are not statutory they're usually created
by commission, are just as malleable by prosecutors. They can,
you know, sometimes implicate certain enhancements for use of a
computer or being the leader of a conspiracy. They can

(05:17):
use and manipulate the sentence and guidelines just like they
do mandatory minimums, so that even two similar defendants get
much different sentences. Kevin points out that prosecutors will sometimes
incentivize a defendant to take a plea deal rather than
have him or her exercise their right to a trial.

(05:37):
A normal plea bargain is the defendant will come in
and if he or she is guilty and the government
um wants to dispose of the case without having to
go to trial, they'll say, look, this crime carries up
to five year penalty. We will tell the judge that
you cooperated and so you should get a shorter sentence.

(05:59):
When Amanda Tory minimum attaches to some of these crimes,
the prosecutor will say, will charge you with this lesser
offense that doesn't carry a mandatory minimum. If you plead
and then recommend a shorter sentence. But if you decide
to go to trial and put us through the hassle
of having to prove our case and win a conviction,
we're going to bring all these charges against you, and

(06:21):
some of those charges carry mandatory sentences, and when they
do that, it doesn't matter what the judge thinks. At
that point. If you're convicted, you're going to face a
much higher penalty. It's just become too much of a
game where once the prosecutor decides you're guilty, your options
are very limited. I had friends of mine who were
law and order types who said, look, I don't think

(06:42):
you're guilty, but you have to plead guilty just to
make this go away. There's something wrong when that's happening.
Once again, Kevin saw this play out in his own
case when he went to the sentencing. Phaise, the ringleader
of this lobby and conspiracy, had been sentenced to four years.
The government asked for seventeen and a half to twenty
two years for me, and the judge said, how can

(07:05):
this be possible. You know that he was an underling.
How can he deserve this much time? You're currently punishing
him for going to trial, and the prosecutors said, no,
we're not punishing if we're going to trial. But he's
just not getting the reward of pleading guilty and cooperating.
And she said, isn't that just the different side of
the same coin. I don't think there's any philosophical issue

(07:29):
with giving somebody some credit for pleading guilty and cooperating.
I think if somebody is guilty and they are willing
to spare the government and taxpayers the cost of a trial,
and they're willing to accept a shorter sentence, which they're
going to get if they accept responsibility, I think the
fact that they might get a shorter sentence is okay.

(07:51):
And I think that incentive by it existing, will, you know,
cause some people to plead guilty, and that's okay. The
problem that happens is they not only get a shorter sentence,
but those who don't don't just get the sentence that
the other person would have got. They get a much
longer sentence because once you decide then to go to trial,

(08:13):
they usually add charges and penalties. The delta is not
just if a was the utopian perfect punishment and the
person who pled got two years less than a and
now you get a for going to trial. No, you
get a plus five. If I had pled guilty and cooperated,

(08:34):
the government was all but offering me and no jail deal.
But when I went to trial and lost, they were
now asking with a straight face for seventeen and a
half to twenty two years. And so luckily I had
a judge who was a former criminal defense lawyer and
a senior judge who wasn't just accepting the government's arguments
at face value and really pushed back. Kevin says this

(08:57):
sort of thing happens in courtrooms all across America every
single day. In Florida, for example, there are cases where
people have used a gun to fire what's called a
warning shot. For example, during an altercation, somebody might fire
the weapon up into the air as a warning, and
they would argue this is a form of self defense

(09:18):
to deter an attacker. You're not supposed to use a
gun that way, but these people felt threatened, and the
prosecutor said, well, that's aggravated assault. You've threatened people by
shooting a gun. And the person will say, no, I
was acting in self defense. I felt threatened. The prosecutor
may say okay, well, listen, just plead guilty to this
crime and I'll let you go with three years, and

(09:40):
the person said, no, I think I'm I acted in
self defense. I'll go to trial. Well, once they go
to trial, that aggravated assault and the firing of a weapon,
if they're found guilty, carries a fifteen year mandatory minimum.
So we have cases in Florida where people are serving
fifteen year sentences even after the prosecutor offered them a
deal that would have had them serve three years. That

(10:01):
twelve years has nothing to do with public safety. It
just has to do with the fact that the defendant,
for reasons good or bad, wanted to go to trial
and try to approve his or her innocence, and so
mandatory minimums can make the difference between pleading and not
pleading so great it coerces people into pleading guilty, whether
they're innocent or not. Kevin recognizes that judges are sometimes

(10:25):
in a tough position. Judges understand that plea deals are
a necessary and important part of the system, and that
there just aren't enough resources for every case to go
to trial. I think a bad habit has developed where
they're not scrutinizing the plea deals as carefully as they should.
They should make sure that plea deals aren't being used

(10:46):
by prosecutors to go after the small fish and let
the sharks get out with a shorter sentence. The thing
I I try to emphasize is that I'm relatively privileged.
I have, you know, a great deal of education. I
was relatively um well off. But what people don't understand

(11:08):
is when the government comes after you, you can't fight it.
You can't afford to fight it. People will say things like, oh, yeah,
going to trials expensive, it's not expensive, in a sort
of throwaway line that like, you know, a new vacuum
cleaner is expensive. My two trials and appeals cost two
million dollars, and I didn't have two million dollars. I

(11:31):
had to. I mean, my brother took out a mortgage
on one of his houses. I spent all of my
family savings to try to prove my innocence. I lost
all of that money. Then my em lawyers were pointed
as public defenders to finish the second trial and appeals.
You just can't do it. That's why of all federal
cases now and in plea deals, trials have vanished because

(11:55):
no one can do it. And so that's the thing
when somebody says, what do you think about indigent defense
and the idea that you know, we should pay for
somebody having a defense, I don't like that term because
I don't think only the indigence can't afford a defense.
No one can. M not only is going to trial

(12:27):
a risky proposition and that you no longer have control
over the result. Kevin is very right here. Going to
trial is extremely expensive financially. We've talked throughout this season
about all of the financial barriers that indigent defendants face
in trying to win their trial. These things range from
overworked public defenders to the costs associated with paying for

(12:51):
forensic testing and expert testimony. But like Kevin said, those
costs add up for everyone. Many people who are not
indigent can become indigent just by being accused of a crime.
If a defendant wants their day in court, they will
have to consider a lot of things, including the trial
tax as well as the financial costs, both of which

(13:13):
are less costly if they decide to take a plea deal.
To take a plea deal, defendants normally have to admit
guilt under oath. This can present a huge problem for
people who are actually innocent. There is, though a way
around this dilemma. If an innocent person wants to take
advantage of a more or less favorable plea deal rather

(13:35):
than risk getting hit with the trial tax or perhaps
a mandatory minimum sentencing following a jury trial, they can
enter a special type of plea known as an Alfred plea.
In the States system, I see Alfred please quite regularly.
Many of my own clients have opted to enter Alfred
please rather than risk going to trial. They felt it

(13:56):
was just in their best interests to do so. But
while working on this topic for the show, I had
a surprising conversation with Judge Jed Raikoff, the federal judge
from New York, who, as you'll hear, is not a
huge fan of this type of plea. The federal law
and the law in some states allows theoretically a person

(14:22):
to come into court a defendant and say, even though
I'm innocent, I don't want to take the risks, and
I think the government is probably likely to convict me,
but I'm prepared to accept that. So I may pay
my innocence, but I will take the consequences of a

(14:42):
guilty place. This has been approved by the Supreme Court
in case called Alfred. But you know, almost never see it.
You never see it in the federal system and very
very rarely in the state system. And here's why our
criminal justice system is not an administrative law system. It
is ultimately based on, or attempts to be based on,

(15:06):
an application of basic moral precipents. And no judge wants
to accept a guilty plea from someone who says he's citizen,
and no prosecutor, for that matter, feels comfortable accepting a
play from someone who says he's innocent. So while ironically
and Alfred plea may be closer to the truth of

(15:28):
what's really going on in some circumstances, you have almost
never seen. What if I told you that I practiced
in an area where alfred please are in fact routine,
I guess my question that is to you why our
prosecutors going along with that? Well, I can tell you

(15:49):
just based on my own experience, and I've done a
handful of Alfred Please myself just this year in and
I think the short answer is that they are aware
of how powerful mandatory minimum sentencing is they are aware
that they can use this leverage to avoid having to
go through the halsehol and expensive a trial, and judges

(16:13):
are happy to take in Alfred plea because it takes
one less case off of a crowded docket and move
the business. So to speak, Well, you've just identify, which
makes sense from a efficiency standpoint, is to my mind,
totally repugnant from any moral standpoint. The prosecutor is saying, Judge,

(16:37):
he claims he said it, and we don't believe him
for one minute. But rather than have to go to
trial and prove it, we don't have the resources, we'll
just take the plea. The dependent and the fence lawyer says, oh, Judge,
my guy is really innocent. He's never did this at all.
But my gosh, we're not prepared to take the risk

(16:58):
going the trial. That's that's too dangerous. So rather than
trying to prove our innocence, we will take the plague.
And the judge is saying, it all sounds fine to
me because I've got twenty cases. I've got it here
today and just at least get it down to nineteen.
What you're saying is a total disregard for finding out

(17:22):
the ultimate truth, a total disregard or putting the government
to its proof, a total disregard for a judge's obligation
to ascertain his best he or she can whether a
person is really guilty or not. It becomes instead of justice,
it just becomes convenient. Having said that, the reason this

(17:47):
is going on is because of most cases the very
high penalties that you faced if you go to trial.
So basically the way the plate coloque we works very
similar to the one you described in the federal court.
Where you sit, you get to the part of the
questioning where the court says to the defendant, are you
in fact guilty? It's a simple yes or no question

(18:10):
if the person is under oath, right, And I'm a
lawyer and I can't have some body under oath that's
knowingly committing perjury. So if I've got a client who
is wanting to take advantage of a plea deal basically
to avoid say a mandatory minimum, but at the same
time they maintain their innocence, we can't give it yes
or no answer. So we've got to telegraph to the

(18:31):
court ahead of time that this is going to be
plea made under under offer and Basically, all that the
judge does is say, you know, your lawyer has told
me that you want to enter a plea and that
you still maintain your innocence. In order for me to
accept your plea, Mr or misdefendant, you've got to satisfy me,
as the judge, that you think that the prosecution may

(18:53):
very well be able to convict you, and that because
of that it's in your best interest to take advantage
of this plea. Is that what you want to do?
And so then they bull it down to just a
different yes or no question, But it takes about five
minutes or less. Well that that is certainly streamline. Oh,
I was in court last week and I saw a
judge and we were one of the cases literally stand

(19:16):
I think it was twelve defendants in the well of
the courtroom and uh have them standing side by side
with their counsel just doing mass please, Uh, just going
through the questionnaire that you Mr. So and so, you
miss so and so, and then just yes or no
all the way down. And they were doing you know,
ten or twelve at the time. The blame in part

(19:38):
is on all of us because this would not be
occurring or not occurring in the extreme way that we're describing.
If there were more judges, more resources for criminal defense lawyers,
especially for indigence or in depth enquiries, lower penalties. Why

(20:02):
do we have all this? We have all this because
the legislature toughened up in their view in the nineties, seventies, eighties,
and nineties to combat what was an undeadly rising crime rates.
Crime rates have come way down since then, but the
laws remain on the books. Two plus million people are

(20:25):
the jail or prison, and we have these very superficial proceedings.
If you took the person in the street and showed
them what you just described the mass play, I think
most people would say, oh my gosh, I ever thought
of work like that. I mean, that's like what they
used to do in Soviet Russia. That's not that's not justice.

(20:46):
But they have no idea. Ashley Merchant and I see
very similar types of cases in our law practices. So

(21:08):
I wanted to get her thoughts on Alfred please, and
on Judge Rakoff's assessment of what he sees as the
problem with Alfred. Please. She brought up this new point,
and that is that Alfred is another area where prosecutors
can control the charges by refusing to even offer a
plea bargain unless the defendant admits guilt. I have another

(21:31):
case that I can give a parallel to where I
have a child who was fifteen years old at the time.
He was alleged to have abused his younger cousin and
he said he didn't do it. And he was fifteen,
I mean, he was a kid, but he was charged
as an adult. It's a twenty year mandatory prison sentence
on that. So he was offered ten years pre trial

(21:51):
and but a lifetime sex offender registrate and pre trial.
He just said, I can't agree that I did something
I didn't do. And in that case, the prosecut or
was not willing to accept this Alfred plea. Part of
the plea deal in order to reduce the charges from
the charges that carried that twenty year mandatory minimum, said
if you don't admit guilt, I'm not going to get
rid of that charge and let you get the ten

(22:13):
year sentence. He just said, I can't do it. I
can't admit that I did something I didn't do. So
he went to trial. He was convicted. Only was the
testimony of his cousin he testified that he didn't do it,
and we're now on appeal. I didn't represent him at
the trial, but I now represent him on appeal, and
we've gotten an offer to fifteen years, and he's told
me he wants to take it, but he cannot admit guild.

(22:34):
And I told the prosecutor, you know, I can't put
him up and have him under oath admit guilt because
I don't think he did it. And I can't put
him up there and have him commit perjury. And of
course they're saying, well, he's not committing perjury's lying to you.
But how do you know. He's asked me, do I
need to lie to get this deal? And you can't lie.
I can't have you lie on the stand. I can't
have you under oath lie about something. But at the

(22:55):
same time, I don't want to be the reason that
he can't get a lesser sentence and can't get out prison.
You know, he's a kid. I think a lot of
times criminal defendants get up there and they lie and
say they did something they didn't do just to get
the deal, and I cannot say I blame them. Said
that in the federal system, of course, where he works.
I think he used the phrase theoretically, this is possible,

(23:16):
and he very not so suddenly indicated that's really the
exception rather than the rule, at least in the framework
of the cases that he sees in the federal system.
And I said, Judge, you know what if I told
you that it's really really common, and I've done several
already this year in the state system here alone. He

(23:37):
seemed to be a little bit surprised by that. But
it's really something that's used a lot, and it's used
as a way, I think, to permit people to take
advantage of plea offers because they think they're gonna get
hammered by a judge or by mandatory minimum sentence if
they don't take some kind of a plea deal, and
so they have this mechanism called an alpha plea and

(23:58):
they use it to get past that question when the
judge says, are you in fact guilty? And all you
gotta do is say, Jude, I'm pleading under Alfred versus
North Carolina, and we think that it's in our best
interest to take this plea. I think it's important to
parallel the two systems to sort of understand why he
would say that the federal government operates completely differently than
the state government in prosecutions. When the federal government comes knocking,

(24:20):
they have a solid case, they've got you. I do
federal work, but when I get it, I'm like, because
I just there's not a whole lot I can do
as a criminal defense attorney for the actual charges. What
we can do as a criminal defense attorneys, we can
work on sentencing. Once the federal government indicts or charges you,
they usually have significant evidence against you. And so the
state court has to have these alfred police because they

(24:43):
can't move cases otherwise. Where the federal system, the judges
they don't want to take a plea from someone that
didn't do it. They don't want to take that. That
to them is just it's awful. It's a miscarriage of justice.
Where in the state system they're just like, line them up,
we got to move them. The second thing is they
also have a couple rights built in that we don't

(25:03):
have in state court. They have a federal Speedy Trial Act,
and so you're not going to sit for three years
in jail on a federal case like you do in
state court. And that delay is one of the reasons
that people want to take Alfred please because they don't
want to sit in jail for three years. The other
thing is they tend to give folks bond. In federal cases,
they've got a Bond Act also a bail Bond Act,

(25:25):
where the judges have a very thoughtful bail hearing and
they don't InCAR strate pre trial like they do in
state court. In state court, if you're charged with a felony,
a serious felony, it's impossible to get bond in most cases.
When I was in Fulton County, for example, at the
public Defender, my clients couldn't afford bond. So maybe they'd
have a five bond, but they didn't have five hundred dollars.
They would be in a position where, unlike the federal

(25:47):
court where they've got a speedy trial and a right
to bail, there in the state court they've got no
bail and they've got no statutory automatic speedy trial right.
And they feel desperate. You know, they're arrested, they're in jail.
It's an awful, scary, violent place, and they just want
to go home. And they're offered probation and a fine,
and boom, they become a convicted felon because they've taken

(26:08):
a felony just to get a jail. And we saw
that a lot in Fulton County where they would make
a lot of like street level arrests where someone would
maybe have drug residue. They would arrest ten people for
the same crack pipe, you know, and all ten of
them couldn't make bond, and so they all put out
and boom, now they're all convicted felons out in Cobb County.
We see that here out in the suburbs, but it's
a little bit different here. They're scared of the jury.
They're scared that the jury is gonna not believe them

(26:31):
and they're going to convict, and they're scared of what
the judge is gonna do if they lose a trial.
So they're scared of that trial tax. And those are
really the two reasons to get out of jail, and
they're fearful of that trial tax. It's easy for a
client to admit at a burglarized somebody's house, but nobody

(26:55):
admits that they molist at a channel that was Ray Gary,
retired judge and defense attorney. So a lot of those
cases end up going to trial because you know, they'd
rather go to trial, lose the trowel gets sent to
prison for a long time, then to admit they did it.

(27:20):
And the same thing holds true with any crime, but
especially in you know, sex crimes, and Alfred Please saves
a lot of trials. So I think it's a valuable
tool because if you've got a case where the judge,
you know, I was wanting to take a plea burg
and along with the prosecutor and the defense lawyer and

(27:42):
the defendant, and the only problem is the guy I
won't admit it. Then on the Alfred play, you know,
then you say, well, we agree that when the prosecutor
puts the evidence, there is a significant chance a jury
might find me guilty even though I'm innocent. So I'll
go ahead and read of the punishment. I'm not admitting
I'm guilty, and so on paper you're guilty, but you

(28:06):
just don't have to say those embarrassing words in court.
So I like Alford Please. And they've saved a lot
of cases from going to trial, which saved a lot
of people from getting, you know, much longer sentences than
they would have gotten. Like so many things in the
legal system. Plea deals can be extremely complicated, like a

(28:29):
high stakes jigsaw puzzle with moving pieces that defendants simply
may not be prepared for. A big part of my
job as defense counsel is to provide clients with as
much information as possible so that they can make the best,
most informed decision possible when deciding whether or not to
accept a plea bargain. For example, we have to talk

(28:50):
about what happens if they enter a guilty plea or
a not guilty plea, what kind of risks are involved
in taking a case to trial. I have to let
them know everything that is happening and everything that foreseeably
might happen with their case. It gets tough sometimes to
give people the news that their case may not win,

(29:11):
or that it going to jail might be their best
or even their only option. But at the end of
the day, it's always the client's choice whether or not
they take any given plea deal, and my job is
to inform and support the role of a prosecutor is
not simply to get a conviction. A prosecutor's role is
to pursue justice, whatever that might look like. On the

(29:34):
other hand, my primary role as defense counsel is to
be a zealous advocate for my clients legal interests. I'm
looking for the best outcome for my client, whether it
be defending them at a trial or working to negotiate
the best possible sentence in a plea deal. The judge
then serves as the referee and is tasked with making

(29:55):
sure that everyone is following the rules. Judges and juries
alike and the case of a jury trial must remain
impartial when deciding guilt or handing down a sentence. The
justice system cannot function if any of those pieces are missing,
and it's everyone's job to keep checks and balances on
the other players. I completely understand where Judge Rakeoff is

(30:17):
coming from and thinking that Alfred Please, at least on paper,
may seem like a problem in the justice system that
only guilty people should be punished. But when someone is
facing the very real risk of getting an inflated sentence
by going to trial, sometimes the best decision they can
make in our imperfect system is to take a plea
deal and the punishment associated with it. In other words,

(30:39):
sometimes it's best to cut your losses and take the
better of two very bad situations. A person may not
have a family at home, or, like Kevin said, a
trial may not be something that they can afford financially.
In cases like that, there has to be a mechanism
in place for them to save themselves from the gamble

(31:00):
of a trial, even if they don't think they did
anything wrong. There's also the reality of the situation that
Jesse Evans brought up in the last episode. Our legal
system would simply collapse if we did away with plea
bargains the vast majority of cases and in some type
of negotiated deal, and there simply isn't enough room on
the court's dockets for it to be any other way.

(31:23):
Every person has the right to a trial, but if
every person exercised that right, the courts would be overloaded
in the extreme and the backlog would be unfathomable. Our
system is simply not built to handle every defendant having
their day in court, and that's an important reality to
keep in mind. Individuals can afford to always go to trial,

(31:45):
and neither can the system. In the end, the system
of plea bargaining saves time, saves money, and offers more certainty.
Put simply, plea bargain is necessary to keep the system
working for the next few episodes, we're going to cover
a case that hits very close to home with me.
It's a case that I worked on for many years.

(32:07):
The cases about a woman who hired me to defend
her after she was charged with murder in the wake
of the shocking death of her husband. There are a
lot of pieces to this case and there's much to unpack.
We're going to dive into everything that happened and all
of the impossible choices that had to be made next
time on Sworn. Sworn is a production of Tenderfoot TV

(32:34):
and I Heart Radio. Our lead producer is Christina Dana.
Executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright for Tenderfoot TV,
Matt Frederick and Alex Williams for I Heart Radio, and
myself Philip Holloway. Additional production by Trevor Young, Mason Lindsay,
Mike Rooney, Jamie Albright, and Hallie beat. All original music

(32:58):
and sound designed by Makeup and Vanity Set. Our theme
song is Blood in the Water by Layup. Show art
and design is by Trevor Eisler, Editing by Christina Dana,
mixing and mastering by Mike Rooney and Cooper Skinner. Special
thanks to the team at I Heart Radio from u
T a or In rosenbaumd and Grace Royer, Ryan Nord

(33:22):
and Matthew Papa from the Nord Group, Back Media and Marketing,
and Station sixteen. I'd also like to extend a very
personal and special thanks to all of our contributors and
guests who have helped to make all of these episodes possible.
You can find Sworn on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
Sworn podcast and follow me your host, Philip Holloway on

(33:46):
Twitter at phil Holloway e s Q. Our website is
sworn podcast dot com, and you can check out other
Tenderfoot TV podcasts at www dot tenderfoot dot tv. If
you have questions or comments, you can email us at
Sworn at tenderfoot dot tv or leave us a voicemail

(34:08):
at four zero four four one zero zero four four one.
As always, thanks for listening