#561 Jason Flom with Rodney Roberts

Rodney Roberts was arrested in 1996 in Newark, NJ, after an altercation with a friend. After several days in custody, he found himself charged with the kidnapping and rape of a 17-year-old girl. His court appointed attorney advised him to plead guilty or spend the rest of his life in prison. Rodney had a good job and had recently moved with his young son into a new apartment. Hoping to get back to his son as soon as possible, Rodney pleaded guilty to the crime in exchange for a seven-year sentence. He would end up spending 18 years in custody before DNA evidence excluded him as a perpetrator and he was exonerated and released in 2014.

Wrongful Conviction  is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

​​We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
America has two point two million people in prison. If
just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people.
That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
If the system want to take you out of society,
they will do it no matter what laws they have
to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but
they're breaking the lord.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Having to hear those people say that I was guilty
of a crime that I did not commit, and then
hear my family break down behind me and not be
able to do anything about it. I can't describe the
crushing weight that was.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
A lot of times we look and we see something
happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said.
That could never happen to me, but.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
They can. This is wrongful conviction.

Speaker 5 (01:13):
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm. Today's guest
is the one and only Rodney Roberts.

Speaker 6 (01:20):
Rodney Roberts was held for seventeen years for the crime
of raping a seventeen year old girl he had never met.
Rodney was advised by his public.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
Defender to plead guilty.

Speaker 6 (01:32):
He was told that the seventeen year old girl who
was right outside the courtroom had identified him, and if
he did not plead guilty, he was going to spend
the rest of his life in jail.

Speaker 7 (01:42):
Rodney Roberts story a guilty plead, born a fear, a
maxed out sentence of seven years, and on the day
of release, not a ride home, but a surprise transfer
to civil commitment. It's a kind of imprisonment reserve for
just one type of offender. It has no set sentence,
no guarantee of release because the state deems them too

(02:03):
dangerous to release, and the state says it's a treatment program,
but the residents call it prison. He would be held
there as an encouragible violent sex offender for a full decade,
although it would later be proven that he had been
innocent from the start.

Speaker 6 (02:18):
Rodney was finally released after seventeen years because he got
a lawyer who had DNA evidence.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
Rodney, Welcome to the show. I'm glad you're here, Thank you.
I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 5 (02:29):
So Rodney, this whole crazy saga of your life started
when you were seventeen, really right, yes, And up until
then your life had been what she's full, good, troubled,
what was your background.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Actually up in today. My life was very well. I
had both parents, mother and father, and the household work.
My mother she was hands on. She has a master's
degree in education. She believed in education in US learning.
I have six sisters and four brothers, so we had
a house.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
That's a whole football team.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
I mean, yeah, I was never alone. I was always
well supervised. I had no trouble as a juvenile, no
juvenile cross ration or no trouble in that level.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
I was a very good student. You know.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
We went to private school from first to eighth grade.
So my life then was very positive, very If I
was poor, I didn't have no I wasn't even aware
of it because I was so well cared for by
my parents and my older brothers and sisters, and my
aunts and my uncles.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
And the people in the community.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
You know back then at that time, you know, you
had like five six mothers in the neighborhood. You were
watched by so many others that you could be disciplined
by the lady down the street and she'd bring you
to your mother and you and then get disciplined right
in front of her and by your mother. So it
was a different time than us, and the love in
the community and the household.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Was very strong, and which neighborhood was this well.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Originally we grew up in the Project area on Montgomery Street,
which again was different at that time. And then we
moved to a one family house up in Wealsburg area
that's in North New Jersey, right across the street from
Walsburg Park, so I can run off my front porch right.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Upto a park up in Newark, New Jersey.

Speaker 5 (04:11):
And it sounds really very sort of beautiful in a
certain way, very community oriented, nice, Like you said, a
huge family, had a huge extended family. And this is
why when I tell people, if you don't think this
can happen to you, this can happen to you, because
you didn't just paint a likely scenario for someone who's
going to end up really getting wrongly convicted twice and

(04:32):
serving over two decades in prison for crimes you didn't commit.
So let's get into that part of the story. Because
when you were a kid, you were kind of hanging
out with older guys, right, and then you kind of
got blindsided because you weren't really aware of what these
guys were up to.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
I mean, the blind side particularly came from the fact
that I grew up in so much of a people
call out a sheltered household sheltered life, that a lot
of things go on the streets I really wasn't exposed to,
so me growing up, I would have to come in
the house early and things that natures. I thought I
was missing out on a lot of things. So I

(05:09):
would find a little ways to sneak out the house,
not really knowing what I would get myself into. And
because of that, I wasn't aware of what was out there.
I was more easy to be manipulated in that environment.
I'm smart, but I was stupid at the same time.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
Well, I wouldn't say stupid, naive. That's a good word, naive.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
It was a much better world. I like that word
better than stupid too. So like the older guys in
the community who so much like see young guys, they
see potentially in but they seen a potential in a
different way. They seen a potential in like a more
negative way. How could I sharpen this guy to help
me commit my crimes and help me get over And
I became under that radar, and when they approached me,

(05:48):
that they approached me like, hey man, we like the
where you're blend right in.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
We just want you to do this.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
Just look be a scout, be a lookout, just do
this and do minimum things things that I thought was
really cool. You know, hey, I'm in now, you know
I'm part of the streets now, thinking that I was
going to earn the street creed all the time I
was being played because of my naiveness, of my naivete,
I wasn't able to see what was really going on
with me.

Speaker 5 (06:12):
But when you're a kid with that kind of flattery,
when an older person shows your respect and treats you
as they're equal, that can be very intoxicating and can
lead you down the road that you don't really know
you're going because you're blinded, right because you're thinking that
you're in with the cool squad or whatever.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
So what happened, Well, what happened was, first I hid
this from my family. I wanted to add that part.
They didn't know what was going on. So I separated
myself from my protection. And that was a key point
in that point where this particular day they we were
out and they were saying, well, what was going on
out here on the avenue, which just Hakwon's Avenue, and
it was a busy street, very crime oriented, and I

(06:49):
came back and said, well, this person's doing this, and
this person's doing that, and that person is stopping picking
up this, and so in that course, they took action
from there and they went into and committed the crimes
that they committed in detail, which was robbery's, chicknapped, and
sexual related offenses. And me, because I played my role,

(07:09):
I was charged as a conspirator, not that I committed
any offenses, but because I acted in the capacity I
acted at.

Speaker 4 (07:16):
That age, I was also charged.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
I went to trial with these individuals and was found
guilty with these individuals and had to serve five years
alongside these individuals as a conspirator, and my record reflected
the same as their, even though I did not participate.
But as a conspirator, I was charged the same way,
and in that five years because of my age, I

(07:39):
was sent to like a youth facility, which is board
in town at that time, and once I got a
certain size and they transferred me to a larger facility
which was always stay prison, who in turn released me.
Once they released me in the early nineties ninety three,
I was home. At that point in my life, I
had decided that my whole life was changed. I was

(08:01):
never going back. I had got a good job. I
was looking at Quellsmen's Wear up in Woolbrook Mall. I
was an excellent salesman for them, paying me pretty good money.
Got a nice apartment up in Mountclear, New Jersey. Got
custody of my son, who I felt was the change
in my life as well, who had left before I
was inconcentrated. His mother was pregnant, so I wasn't even

(08:24):
there to witness his birth. So that was a big
part of me coming home as a change man to
take responsibility of my son. Got me a nice car
and everything, and I was.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
Doing pretty well.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
And as a result of doing that, I was picked
up and identified as someone who committed another offense, saying
I was a warrant was out for my arrest, saying
that you've been identified as a person who committed a
sexual related offense and a kidnapped, and against my adamant denial, like, listen,

(08:55):
it's not me. I didn't do this. I didn't even
do that before, but now they had me custody. Once
they arrested me and put me in custody. The threat
we can hold you and keep you here for the
rest of your life was real to me. They had
showed me that they had the power to do that already.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Oh yeah, you were in a very precarious situation. I mean,
seven years had gone by, your life was, as you said,
your life was on track. Things are looking good, and
then this crazy thing happens. And then a lot of
a lot of weird stuff goes on, I mean, a
lot of lying, a lot of cheating the system because
they really wanted to convict you. In your case, it

(09:31):
doesn't seem like they were really that interested in finding
out who raped this woman. They were interested in pending
it on you, right, just because they had you and
we've seen that part of this scenario happened before. That's
not the craziest thing about your story. It's crazy because
it happened to you, but it's not uncommon, unfortunately. But
things get really crazy as we go along. Well, we'll

(09:51):
take us through this, right.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
Well, once I.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Was in custody, it was really my public defender, as
they say in jail house turner and my public pretender
who came and said to me in this theatrical way,
that he had convinced me that the state had this
over women evidence, that the witness was outside by the way,
this is my third turned public defender within a four
month period, and that the witness seeing my photo and

(10:15):
start crying uncontrollably, and they had pinpointed me in that
if I was going to go to trial and be
in jail for the rest of my life. Now at
that point, I felt so overwhelmed backtracking, which just happened
to me earlier at seventeen. They said that, well, look
and we'll offer you a plea agreement. We're gonna give
you a seven year term and you're gonna do two
years and you'll come home. If you just plead guilty,

(10:36):
you were gonna dismiss the sexual lady defense and you
were downgrade the kidnapped to a second degree and put
on record no one got hurt. And so in my
mind I thought I would saved my life because I
had just left my son out there and I didn't
know what was going on. I was separated from my family.
So I took the plea agreement and I answered the
plead to a crime I didn't commit, and doing that,

(10:59):
I felt like I portrayed myself in a way that
it took me years to get over. And the process
of that, I was sent down to state prison to
do the seven year term because I went to parole,
and parole actually was saying that, oh, listen, you're here
not just for the kidnap, but we're here for what
the police reports are saying, for the sexual offense. And

(11:19):
I was like, no, I didn't do any of that.
I actually I didn't do any of it. At this point,
I'm like, I'm I didn't do any I just played
guilty thinking trying to save my life. Well, that sent
them in a spiral like I was in denial, and
then I showed no remorse, which you know, I could
show remorse for something I did not do, and that's
what I was trying to explain to them. But as
a result of that, I was denied parole maybe three times,

(11:42):
and then I.

Speaker 4 (11:43):
Was maxed out.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
And in being maxed out at me, I served a
full seven year terms as opposed to two year term.
But before you are released from prison, you were sent
to these parole classes. So I went to the parole
classes and the pre release classes, which I was did
stellar and because I'm thinking I'm going home. And so
on the day of my release, I was brought out

(12:05):
to the front like every other prisoner who was schedul
to be released that day lined up, but instead when
they called everyone name, they didn't call minds. So they
had released all of them and left me standing there
in the day of the day, I had maxed out,
means that I had no more time left to do.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
But so you're there.

Speaker 5 (12:23):
You have your possessions, whatever your possessions were that you
had in prison with you, you had them with you. Right,
You're ready to go home, start your life again, see
your son, re establish your relationships with your family, the
whole thing.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
They were actually in the parking lot waiting to take
me home and go get something.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, we had all ranged, and I mean I had,
you know, grown until more after seven years from this
experience in a degree where I felt like, now my
life is really going to be take control of my
life and really do it right. But as opposed to
being released, I was held and transferred to what New
Jersey call to a special treatment on this because I

(13:02):
refused to pleat acknowledgeablete guilty or admit my role in
the sexual related offense. New Jersey had passed a law
called the Sexually Found Predat Act, which said that if
they felt like a person was still dangerous, that they
could not be released. So they civilly committed me under
that pretense. So I was taking to a facility civil
commitment facility which is like a civil commitment like traditional However,

(13:26):
this was like a new hybrid facility that New Jersey
had came up with where they combined the Apartment Correction
and Apartment Human Service to their Department in Service there
would provide treatment to those that were committed. And I
was held there for ten years.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
It's not real. I mean ten years on top. It's
like it.

Speaker 5 (13:45):
I think most people are listening and going, wait, wait,
but that doesn't make sense. You can't serve your sentence
and then serve another sentence that you didn't even have,
which is longer by fifty percent than your original sentence
was in the first place. And you know it's so crazy, right,
you plead innocent, they send you to prison, and you
play guilty to send you home.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
Right, It's so backwards.

Speaker 5 (14:02):
It's like Alice in Wonderland, but in your case, that's
literally what happened. They wanted you to acknowledge your guilt.
I mean, they pulled the rug out from under you
so many different times, in so many different ways. By now, right,
they had lied to you about the witness who actually
had not identified you and never did identify you, right,
and they told you that she did. You know, when
you talk about three public defenders in four months, I mean,

(14:25):
it's not hard for anyone to imagine how little your
public defender must have known about your case when they
keep switching them out like this. I mean, there's just
not that much time to get to understand what's going on.
And to be fair, these people are, even the best
ones of them, are juggling a lot of cases because
that's just the way the system works. He or she
might have been working one hundred cases at that.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Time, and that came out that down the line to
try and admit it that when he had like forty
cases clients in a bullpen, which is a holding area
for prisoners, he had an old woman case a little
and like forty were there, and by the time he
got the.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
He was in a cilly lawn mode.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
But in the process of being civilly committed that that
whole experience within itself was a crazy experience because it
is a experience that you could be civilly committed without
a conviction. Now you're not convicted. Everything is done through
medical terms. What I'm saying, you have a psychiatrist and
a psychologist who come in and say I read the
record and we think his person is guilty, and you know,

(15:23):
and then that becomes you're guilty, and that becomes the
reason they hold you.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
There's no justice there whatsoever. There's no trial.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
There's no way they give you a hearing that the
attorney general totally dictates, so there's no way to challenge
the whole process of it. Because the psychiatrists work for
the state. They come in and write whatever the attorney
general wants them to say. In my particular case, that
was one beneficial point feature that I always like to
add was the state centers psychiatrists and.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
To interview me.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
And as a result of his interview, he changed his mind,
became my witness and testified that I should have been released.
As a result, they diminished He was later released, but
he jumped ship. But in that process where they still
saw me an attorney. Another public defender named John Dewar,
who I aw utmost respectful in their office. And I

(16:13):
explained to him, I said, listen. This was in two
thousand and four. I said, listen, I played guilty to
a crime I commit. I listen, I shouldn't be here.
And I explained to him what happened. I said, listen,
I played guilty because I was far my life as
been addressing my life in jail. I wanted to be
home with my family. He said, listen, I'm gonna take
a chance with you. So what he did was him
and his investigator they went and found the victim, and

(16:35):
they went interview her, and they showed her my photo
and she asked, well, did you know this guy. I
never seen this guy there in my life. They were like,
wait a minute, this guy's locked up for a crime
against you. She didn't even know anyone was locked up,
particularly me. She said, I didn't never identify him. That
sent my case into a spiral. As a result of that,
she gave a sworn statement. We thought that that was

(16:57):
gonna be enough to have me release from civil.

Speaker 5 (17:00):
It would seem like that would be a novel. I'm
sure again everyone listening is going, okay, well that's it
go home. You're done now, But that's not the way
it works. But I want to make one more point
before we get into the next part of the story,
which is that ninety five percent of state felony convictions
are a result of guilty. Please right, because almost anyone
faced with your situation, especially someone who'd already had experience

(17:22):
of how heavy the criminal justice system can come down
on you, given a choice between what they were telling
you was going to be two years or twenty eight
months or whatever it was, or the rest of your life.
I mean, try to walk a mile of those shoes, right.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
I mean, that's a horrible statistic.

Speaker 5 (17:37):
It's a horrible statistic. And like I said, it may
not seem like it affects you, but someday it could.
I mean, it could affect you or someone you love.
Anyone who's listening right now, you know your chance with
the public defender who I mean, the ODJIT two stacked.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
They formed would be a trifecta judge to prosecutor and
public defender. In my mind, a collaboration to hurse me
into this plea agreement to make it as if that
was my only result to save my life.

Speaker 5 (18:18):
But here's what's so crazy about your case, Rannie, is that,
first of all, start with you were innocent. Second of all,
the idea that your own attorney says, we're going to
get two years, but you end up getting seven years,
but then they turned that into seventeen years. How can
that be that your own people let you down to

(18:38):
that extent. The system too, but your own people. And
then the other thing, Like I said that, I really
want to highlight because we haven't covered this on the
show yet, but it's a reality, and it's a crazy
reality that most people don't focus on. It's this idea
of civil commitment and that sounds civil commitment, sounds like
a relatively benign term.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
But it was hell in there, and I heard you
talk about it. It was horrible in it.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
I mean it was horrible in the fact that I
was exposed to an element that I had never had
been exposed to before a mindset.

Speaker 4 (19:06):
The danger is real.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
There's a need to protect the most warlomable members of
our society.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
That's real.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
However, the process of selection is flawed. Now when I
say the flaw, if they see that you don't fit
that criteria, you don't have what they call a present danger.
You don't have the mental incapacity or the repetiti or
compulsive personality, you should not be there now in that environment,
you hear things that stories is so hard.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
What that makes you like?

Speaker 3 (19:33):
I used to cry in some of the groups because
I didn't fit in any mold. I had no diagnosis
because I wasn't able to be put in the group.
So I was separated from the population and put in isolation.
I spent most of my time, maybe nine years in isolation,
away from population. But the big part of that case
was for years we asked to state for the particular

(19:55):
the kits what they said that they had to show
the d evidence. So they said they lost it.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
And let's go back to that.

Speaker 5 (20:03):
And before we even do, I want to make that
point too, because I think you and I are on
the same page, because I often say that I'm not
soft on crime, I'm tough on injustice right and I
think too anybody who you know who hurts another human being,
we have to have a society of laws. We have
to protect the general population. I do believe that Brian
Stevenson says, which is that everybody's better than the worst
thing they've ever done. But that being said, we have

(20:26):
to hold people accountable, we have to be safe as
a society, but we also have to be fair. And
everyone's entitled to a fair shake and to a fair
trial and to fair treatment by the system. And you
are the poster the poster child, for lack of a
better word, of everything that's wrong and everything that can
go wrong.

Speaker 4 (20:43):
And I want to get back to the rape kits.

Speaker 5 (20:44):
Because, as you said, as your lawyers were trying to
get the rape kits, they were saying, and that we've
seen this.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
Before, that they lost them.

Speaker 5 (20:51):
They didn't lose them, but they said they lost them
either they were too lazy to look for them, whether
they didn't look very hard or whatever it was, whether
they were hiding them, who knows, But one way another,
that's one of the things that kept you on as
long as it did, because if they found those rape kits,
you would have been freed because it would have proven
that you could not have been the source of the
semen that was found inside this woman. But talk a
little bit about this isolation, right, What was that like?

(21:14):
The isolation? I mean, does that mean you were in
like solitary confinement type of sound?

Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah, I was in.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
It had a special unit called a B unit, where
these particular individuals either they were treatment refused, either they
refused to even participate in any programming, or like myself,
had no diagnosis. And one other feature was they felt
that I had too much influence on the population in regards.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
To my legal skill, my ability to advocate.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
When I was standing up and say this is injustice,
this is not right, I had no idea how many
people was behind me saying yeah, well he said so.
I was always looked at as someone's citing rise or
creating gatherings because all I was doing was standing up
for what I thought was my rights. So as a result,
the administration decided to isolate me and put me in
isolation so I could not I was only able to

(22:02):
go to visits with the rest of populais. I wasn't
able to go grooves programs events. I couldn't participate in
anything because of my stance and because I would not
admit guilt. At this point, I stood firmly that I'm innocent,
and that also set me apart from the population because
the only way you could get therapy and treatment you
have to admit guilt and in this isolation you'll put

(22:24):
on this unit, and this unit is I mean, one
of the most miserable places you could be because there's.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
A unit of hopelessness.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
You feel like you forgot about left there. You feel
like everything at this point in your life is over,
that no one believes you, and that the fight is
so uphill it's like ice skating uphill.

Speaker 4 (22:43):
I mean.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
And in that moment, you know, I grew to a
point where was though, I said to myself, because they
would constantly say, fortunately had CIO. They had correction alice there,
and they have correction officer there, who who's you know.
He was very underst so he would say lock in,
you know, you gotta lock in yourself, which no one

(23:04):
wants to go lock be locking themself.

Speaker 4 (23:06):
But he was cordial about it.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
And he did his job, but he wasn't really arrogant
about or aggressive. He would say lock in, guys, so
everybody would feel more easy about doing it. But this
particular day he wasn't there and they had this also
on and he was just being extra unnecessary that day
all that day, and so.

Speaker 4 (23:27):
When time came for us a locking, he said lock in.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
And the way he said it resonated in me so deeply.
He said, lock in. I said to myself, no, no,
I'm not locking it. No, I'm not I'm innocent. I'm
not going in her room. I'm not supposed to be
here today. So he says, if you don't lock in,
I'm gonna have to call the boys. It's gonna be trouble.

(23:53):
I said, it's gonna be some trouble today. The day
is that day. We're gonna have some trouble up here.
It's gonna be some trouble. So he called the boy.
So I'm up there, back and forth.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
Am ready.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
I'm positioning myself years going down today. I'm tired of this.
I'm not locking in no more time. I'm innocent. So
they ran up the stairs and I'm ready for them.
They come running like eight nine up. They really get me.
So when they got to the top of the stairs,
I rushed them. I grabbed them, and like for three seconds,
I was the mad three seconds, I was that guy.

(24:25):
After that three seconds, I felt my feet come off
the ground, I felt my.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
Arm being pulled back around me.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
But then they felt they threw me, grabbed me and
threw me in myself.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
For you what I was in my cell, I was
standing in myself.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
I flushed myself off and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
at least I stood up for three seconds. And I
lived in that three second moment for years. But as
a result of standing up and feeling that in that
three seconds, they looked at me different in the population.
They said, well, why was someone put theyself through that?
Why was someone stand up against eight nine different people

(24:59):
just to say they innocent? And that made him take
a step back and say, let's look at this guy again.
And as a result, they became more leaning against me.
Allowed me to more access to the law library, allowed
me to move around a little.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
Bit more quietly.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
They would say, listen, we like you, we like how
you move, but don't make us choose between you and
our job. Because I'm gonna choose my job, and if
I gotta knock your head, I'm knocking your head. So
I had to learn how to maneuver within in that philosophy,
and that gave me the room I needed to litigate harder,
fight harder for my freedom.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
And that three seconds.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
I live in this very moment because and that three seconds,
I was the champion.

Speaker 4 (25:37):
I needed to be it liberated me. It was only
three seconds.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
It took him for my whole life in that moment
to liberate me to be the man I am today
and grow and feel strong. Now I had the rest
of my life. Three seconds turned into the rest of
my life. Then that changed everything for me.

Speaker 5 (25:52):
You literally risk your life and here comes these guys
with the shields and the helmets, and they might have
killed you, and nobody would have prosecuted him.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
If they did exactly.

Speaker 5 (26:01):
They would have said he rushed us, it was dangerous,
blah blah blah. So you became the man in that moment,
which was really a spontaneous reaction, right because.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
For me, that moment right there reflected in my mom
I had enough.

Speaker 5 (26:15):
Well, because the thing is, and I keep coming back
to this, right on top of the wrongful conviction, on
top of the rug being pulled out from under you,
with the two years, you know what you had to
pleat gill you something you didn't do, then the seven years,
and then really the terrifying idea of you not being
able to go home and everybody else going home, and
then the idea that you're in there for ten years

(26:36):
and it's an indefinite sentence. It's not even like if
they sentenced you, well, we're going to put you in
this confinement thing for ten years, at least you would
know at the end of ten years you're going. But
you had no idea they could have kept you there forever.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
And because I was saying I'm innocent, that totally took
me out to run it. That made me did disqualify
any opportunity for my release. If it wasn't for the
fact that do you pelor court finally got tired reverse
in my case three times and a third time they
finally was so frustrated they re assigned me a new attorney,
a new judge, and then mysteriously the evidence that we

(27:09):
were looking for up here is that we were asking
for maybe ten years and nine to half ten years.
They say with los pops, I don't know what we mislabeled.

Speaker 4 (27:17):
Here we go, and it was mislabeled this exactly.

Speaker 5 (27:23):
But this is another thing that's it still strikes me
as nutty that and that's not strong enough word. The
idea that your conviction was overturned three times, right, and
these are pro sae emotions that you were filing in
a pro say motion for people who haven't heard that
term before means emotion filed by an inmate on their
own behalf, without the benefit of a lawyer. So how

(27:45):
does it happen that you get these convictions? And it
could again talk about more rugs being pulled out from
under you? Right here you are like they're going dangling
you like around like a marionette. Right so you're you
get this overturned and then they don't free you anyway,
and then they do it again, and then they don't
free you anyway, and then finally it takes a judge
to go, I'm tired of this shit, right I'm tired.

Speaker 4 (28:05):
He was tired.

Speaker 5 (28:05):
Imagine how tired you wants to be, see people, I'm
tired for listening to the damn story.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
And you know a lot of people don't really take
into account how something this match affects so especially I
mean personally for me, how much all of this, even
from seventeen all the way up to this point, what
I had to deal with as a person, as a
as a young man, and to deal with this environment
and to deal with the pain and separation and on

(28:31):
that was separate from my family and had the hostility
and environment had to survive and and keep my head
together and hold on to hope, because you know that
was you know, it was times I had to do
a lot of depression. It was are the times I
had to fight off, you know, saying a feeling that
this was never going to end. I was always going
to be in this situation that I was never going

(28:52):
to be able to prove to anyone that I'm worthy
or value someone to value me. I mean, it was
so hard, you know what I'm saying, and dealing with
disappointment over and over again to I used to ask myself,
am I addicted to disappointment? Because it started becoming to
the point where I've started becoming desensitized, like I expected

(29:13):
to be let down. It affected me in a way
whereas though I know I felt that God has to
be watching over me because the fact that you know,
I'm not crazy at this point, because of the experience
of having to fight off all these emotions of loneliness,
the emotion of feeling powerless and just disenfranchised, and all

(29:36):
these feelings you live with, I live with for years.

Speaker 5 (29:54):
Can you just give us some insight into what was
the worst and the best experience you had during your
seventeen years locked up in the miserable conditions that you
were in.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
The worst experience was being placed in a position to
have to plead guilty to a crime I didn't commit,
along with being civilly committed in the facility where the
stigma was horrible, and have to live under the stigma
of that environment and survived, and that such hard stigma

(30:28):
being looked at and as someone who has those characteristics
even though I didn't.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
The happiest moment that I had that.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Kind of nullified kind of took takes and put her
all that in this perspective was in the courtroom when
the judge finally judged Sherry hutchs Henderson, when she finally
got the DNA evident she needed from the state lab
and she said to me, mister Robertson, she's apologized. He

(30:59):
apology was so heart felt of how she felt so
bad that this happened to me. But when she said
I'm reversing your conviction, my support so so it was
like maybe thirteen people, my niece, my sister, a lady,
my mother, my friends. They bust out and like jubilate, nah.
It was so loud in the courtroom. You know, they

(31:20):
was out there like they was having the Holy goes
back there like church was going on.

Speaker 4 (31:23):
And a judge she.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Loud them to have that moment because that was their
moment of vindication as well as mine, because they believe me,
they stood by all those years and they we knew it.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
And you know, I expected to turn around see them
road on the floor.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
But in that moment, I cried, I felt vindicated. I
felt now you know, I was happy. I felt like
something in my life just turned around. And in that moment,
you know, hearing them cheering and empowered me. And I think,
I know changed my whole walk at that point because

(31:56):
I went back and because I had to go back
to the civil commitments to be released from there. But
I had that George Jefferson walk. You know what I'm saying,
I'm walking on like George Jefferson now, you know.

Speaker 4 (32:08):
So I was.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
So that I made that experience right there. It was
the happiest moment in my life. You know, I'm that
courtroom experience. I just cannot ever erase that from my
mind and heart. How wrong that made me feel doing
a judge said that, and hear my family and everyone
that loved me. Just so happy to hear it and
know they was right because they went through a lot
of turmoil and kind of visit and being discriminated against

(32:36):
and coming inside and look down upon, like you supporting
this guy and this kind of with this kind of person.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
With this kind of charge, and they had to go.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Through all that and do it and now to find
and see that they were right and had that moment
where they were like elate and such, that moment, like
I said, gave me that George Jefferson consence.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
I was walking back, everybody looking at him like I
was a new guy, Like look at this guy, who
is this guy here? So, yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 5 (33:02):
And obviously no one can understand that feeling that hasn't
been through it, but you're painting a very vivid picture
and making I'm sure everyone that's listening feel that the
little piece of that joy that you had and that
vindication and that feeling when you were enduring. And it's
so crazy. I was just thinking about the timeline of
your life, right, seventeen years, then five years in prison,

(33:24):
then seven years out, then seventeen years. It's really a
crazy roller coaster ride. That's impossible for anyone to understand
who hasn't lived it. And it's sort of a miracle
that you're here, and it's really inspiring just to hear
you talk and see the way you are. So I want,
I want to ask you when you were when you
were locked up, was there any particular person that gave

(33:45):
you hope, that gave you strength.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah, at that time I had a support system. Her
name was Linda, Linda Roberts. At this point, she was
very strong in my life. Then I have a strong
support system analysis Hoppen Home with Her name is Tulita James,
we call her. So there was an adjustment process. But
the one person who kept me moving when I was seventeen,

(34:07):
the judge asked me, and this is the Orange record,
the judge said before he sentenced me, because I was
schedul to be senting so higher a sentence. But he
asked me, said, is there anything you want to say?

Speaker 4 (34:16):
Young man?

Speaker 3 (34:18):
So I turned to my mother, who was crying and
who I was hurting so bad because I'm her youngest son,
and she just knew that this was wrong.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
And I said to my mother.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
No matter what, I'm not gonna let this destroy me
I'm gonna do the best I could. I'm sorry, and
I'm gonna hold on. And I talked to my mother
in the courtroom, and everyone was amazed to see me
and my mother at this time having this back and
forth discussion because she was saying, hold on, I'm just
keep in prayer and in the courtroom, and that conversation

(34:50):
has been my mantra for all these years to tell her,
let my mother know that no matter what what she
instilled in me as her son and my father, but
my mother, what she put in me was nothing was
never going to tear that down and moral complished that
she instilled in me to find my way back to right,
It's never going to be taken out. And that has

(35:12):
been my rock, my mother. She's my she and she
continues to be and she will always be that my
moral confisence.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
She is my north star. She sounds like an extraordinary
she's eighty five and she can't tell her she's not fifty.
And I love her.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
She's my strength, and she knows what she is and
I just cannot get enough of her. So I adore
her and she knows it, you know.

Speaker 4 (35:36):
So it's so important.

Speaker 5 (35:38):
And you just heard from Rodney that that connection remains
intact between families, so between loved ones and people who
are incarcerated. And you know, in this country we have
such a crazy system where inmates are charged. Incarcerated people
are charged five to ten times as much for collect calls,
which is insane. Now they're moving away from in person

(35:59):
visits and certain states where they're changing it to where
you're going to get an iPad and you get to
talk to your family members on the iPad, and it's like,
I mean, we're just we're going in the wrong direction.
In a lot of ways. Criminal justice system is being
reformed in good ways now, but in that way, it
just doesn't make any sense. Because we just heard it
directly from you. It's so important to maintain that to
keep that hope alive and to keep that connection strong,

(36:20):
not just for you, but for your children or your
mother or whatever reletives are on the outside that I
love you and care about you. So while you were
locked up the second time, were you able to maintain
a relationship with your son?

Speaker 4 (36:32):
And how is that now? Well, my son is an
amazing young man.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
Even what he's been doing with me out his life,
he's grown to be a very strong young man. He's
maybe six five, maybe two ninety. You know, he's a
big guy, you know what I'm saying, very mild man,
a very religious, never been involved in the law.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
You know. It doesn't drink or hang out anything, works,
goes to church.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
I love who he's become all my time his absence.
One thing that we always had that kept us together
was we had a passion for reading. I told him
how to read, basically, and he would get on the
phone and he would read to me.

Speaker 4 (37:11):
And actually, freaking we learned how to read together.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Do comic books. I would buy comic books and I
would buy him one. I'd buy me one and I
would reading and he would read it, and we would
talk about the comic books. And that's how we develop
our relationship to reading. And to this day we still
talk about comic books. Even we're both so amazed at
the new Marvel movies. We run to see him together
because we read about him all his life and me

(37:36):
all my life.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
Really, and you have a lady in your life now, yes.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
I do, a beautiful young lady who has been patient
with me even all my adjustment and Talada James Della James,
who has dealt with ups and downs with myself and herself,
and we struggled together, and I appreciate everything she's done
for me and with me and to me. It helped
me become a stronger man in my adjustment process.

Speaker 5 (37:59):
Friday is sharp dress. Guy was complimenting him before on
his shoes. He's got a nice, beautiful Chris White shirt.
And he told me, actually the credible laws to her right.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
Oh yeah, I mean I don't even pick my own clothes.
I go in the store and I picked something up
and she ignores it. So then what you know, she
even because I came home I was like two ninety
myself and wait, she helped me even in my healthier eating,
you know, working out. I mean, there has been an
adjustment process with her there in my life, and I

(38:28):
only pray that I contributed something strong to her life
through my strength friends to her that makes her know
that there's always in resilience and you could come back
from anything, you know, saying nothing this overwhelming in life
that you can't start all over and be strong through.
So I'm hoping that my experiences and hussying me what
I've been through and still being strong enough man to

(38:50):
make her want to love me.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
Has contributed to her life as well.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
And with that, you know, I have six sisters to
one path away, my younger sisters sharing. But there's oh
and they they're like parole officers, you know. They I
have to check in with them. And if I was
checking with them, there's a so yeah. So I I
have some strong, beautiful women in my life that really
supervised me, so to speak, and take care of me

(39:16):
and help me along the way. And I think this
made me a much stronger man and much confident man
as well. I came home this time, and I was
blessed to come home this time, and I say to myself,
I'm able to talk about these feelings, but feeling them
at the moment was was like so sad for me.
I used to have moments where I would be sad

(39:36):
for like days.

Speaker 4 (39:38):
And I'd be like, pull myself. I we gonna come on,
you gotta pull yourself out of this.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
I used to have to coach myself and give myself
pep talk sober and come on, man, you got people
was like you over there talking to yourself again. I'm like, listen,
this is the best conversation I've had all day and
you know, to pull myself out of stage of what
I just felt like.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
It was so much overwhelming.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
And you know, can't begin to tell all the years
because we're talking about since seventeen and then now and
how much suffering it felt like. I mean, I feel
that's why today I advocate because I can identify with suffering.
You know, I don't like to see anything suffer, and

(40:20):
that's from animals to people, to the plants to anything,
because I know what it feels like to suffer. I
know it feels like to be put in a position
that you know, where you're just hurting inside emotionally and psychologically,
that you just want some help from somewhere, you know.

Speaker 4 (40:36):
And that's why I stand today, because I just want
to be.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
That for someone who may feel hopeless and feel like
there's knowing.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
The Navy they.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
See me and they say, you know, this guy, you
know is just someone out there that understands and cares
because I felt there was knowing As a result. Now,
I just started the Rodney Roberts Foundation.

Speaker 4 (40:54):
Oh tell me about that.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
What I offer is the one thing that most in
the visuals who have been wrong for convicted, and not
just wrong for convicted, but particularly the wrong for convicted,
but individuals who've come home and feel as there's no
one to connect with because in the wrong for convision
community the one thing we don't have. No state has
an agency that provides housing, work assistance, counseling.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
No state has that.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
So you would let come home and there's no way
for you to turn because some states made me feel
they don't want to make that answer. You have nowhere
to go to, so you have no opportunities there. Myself,
when I came home, I had to compete with my
counterparts with gods on parole, probation for jobs and training
and treatment. And I'm going in and saying, look, I'm innocent.
I was just exonerated, and employees like, listen, hey man,

(41:43):
that's a great story.

Speaker 4 (41:44):
And we did.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
But we're in the money making business and we would
rather hire that God on parole because we could tax deductions.

Speaker 4 (41:50):
For hey.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
One playee told me that he's like, well, I can
tax the duction behind Gods and parole.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
He was like, you a great guy.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
I'm sorry what happened to you, but I had to
hire this guy plus you on seventeen years, so we
don't know. So I was left in a void, and
so I had to.

Speaker 4 (42:05):
Literally create a job for myself.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
I had to literally create an opportunity for myself by
taking that frustration that being denied, have no place to
fit in and taking the passion that I have to
advocate against this injustice, prosecutory misconducting and ineffectious accounts of
course play agreements. And I started talking about it on

(42:27):
a basis where people started listening and saying, you know what,
we like what he's saying because.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
He's relevant, it's right on time, and we think there
needs to be heard.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
And I was brought into like an organization like the
Innocent Project, who will give me assignments and say, Ronnie Gore,
who you work with us and speak here. We can
help you with a little conversation here. And that grew
into me working closely with them, and me making the
commercials with them, and me doing other work with them.

(42:57):
And Jeffrey Desker had the Jeffrey Desker found brought me
in and helped me school me in a way with
you know, this is what you need to be saying,
and this is how you should present and this is
we're gonna give you this little space here. So the
Rodney Robertson Foundation is a representation of all that experience.
What I want to do is I want to give

(43:17):
an opportunity for those who have been wrong, for the
convicted to be able to reach out that's currently incarcerated
to reach out, so in New Jersey because New Jersey
is far behind and everything what comes from wrong for convicted,
even currently saying legislation is being challenged now. But I
want to be that help with with job placement, help

(43:37):
fund housing, help with counseling, which is most important, which
even myself after all these years, is an important feature,
even for myself, to help with counseling, to help with
reconnecting those with their families, because the one group that
suffers the most and most is the family.

Speaker 4 (43:56):
They see the person locked up, but once.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
A family members locked up, the whole family's basically locked
up and so a degree because they can't stop being
connected with their love on so they suffer as well.
And they the families have to also be educated on
what's necessary to help this person reintegrate and what's to
look for and what characteristics to look for when you
see a person slipping leaves, the recidivism and when you

(44:21):
see signs of depression or feeling and hopeless. So the
Rodney Robins Foundation has multifacts in that level and also
with the public speaking aspect as well.

Speaker 4 (44:32):
Right now, I have the Rottney Royis Foundation, I have
what I'm doing.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
I have a go fund account that I'm trying to
raise money now to create a platform to bring people
in like get a staff.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
That's my goal is to have a staff.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
And a permanent location and office in New Jersey where
and I'm growing from there and have my emails set
up Rodney Roberts Foundation ninety six at gmail dot com
and also the Rodney Roberts Foundation. What we're gonna do also,
we're gonna collaborate with other organizations to fight against wrong
who convictions, prosecutorium misconduct, ineffectual Accouncil.

Speaker 4 (45:04):
We're gonna try to grow in that degree.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
Right now, I don't want to put the bugget before
the horse because I'm not elevated to that level. You
have to be as prestigious as some of the organizations.

Speaker 4 (45:13):
That they're book cold on.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
Because I'm on my way, I'm headed in the right
direction and with the passion and ideas and energy, and
I'm headed there and I'm gonna build and have someone
so when everyone New Jersey and worldwide can connect to also.

Speaker 5 (45:31):
And that's really exciting that you're doing that. I think
you're gonna make a big difference in a lot of
people's lives.

Speaker 4 (45:36):
What can people do?

Speaker 5 (45:37):
Obviously, I hope people will support join me in supporting
because I'm going to support you in the Roddy Roberts Foundation.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
But what else can people do? Well?

Speaker 3 (45:46):
I think, particularly if their loved one is gold, how
close they are, if it's a family member that you're
directly related to, it close with The first thing you
need to reach out to their attorney, find out who
the attorney is, who's representing them, and get their discoveries,
get whatever paperwork with those documents they have. Get familiar
with what the record says yourself and try to understand that,

(46:10):
because the first thing you had to do is educate
yourself because most time we rely on hearsay what this
attorney says or this person says, and that.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
Could be misleading.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
If you are in a position to find out yourself,
you could read through their paperwork, their discoveries and decipher
what's being said, or do not help the family member
understand exactly what's being.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
Charged and how to approach the situation.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
Secondly, just a visit, a card, a letter, at some point,
take some time out to show that person that they're
not forgotten and that strength.

Speaker 4 (46:47):
Is the person.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
You don't know how much it feels good to sit
there and then hear when they do a mail call
and you're waiting and you hear everybody else's name call
and your name and not call over and over.

Speaker 4 (46:57):
Then one day you hear your name.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
Oh if I just you run to get this letter
because now you know someone out there has reached back inside.
So even that something simple as that is major or something.
And understand that when a person is released and they
come home, they're going through a sort of a culture
shock or a reverse culture shock. They're going through a
process where they released from one environment to another, and

(47:21):
this change they have to unlearn what they just learned,
you know, and to relearn what they already knew about
how the interact and society. You're talking about people who
are a person who just went through a prison experience
and where they had to begin the controlled environment where
they had to stand in line and eat and had
eaten a certain period of time.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
And you know, these things are built into you.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
When you do the same repetitive thing over and over again,
become institutionalized. Now you have to come home and to
a new environment and the shock of that, which is
you know, it's just culture shock because you really unlearn
all this and then to readjust yourself back to being free.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
I understand that that process is not it's easy, even
if the person makes it look easy. It's not easy.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
There.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
There's a pretend there because this affects anyone that's been
locked up in a long period of time.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
So make sure to give them enough cushions so that
they can have those moments.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
Well, but you may see like myself, you know, when
I first came home, you know, because in the prison,
you go to take a shower, you take a shower,
you're underwear, and you watch it. When I went home,
came home, I went to shout the money, and the
lady like, what are you doing so? And I was like,
I don't want to watch you like listen, you're not there,
and so you know, so I so you look for

(48:38):
a little sounds like that where they're sitting at the
table and they take this poon and put it inside
the cup, and.

Speaker 4 (48:44):
You're You're like, what are you doing? You know, it's
a little jail house things that.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
People have to shed and little psychological things that people
may do. Have a little more patience with the loved one.

Speaker 5 (48:56):
I want to I want to reinforce one point that
you made which is so powerful and I'm glad you
said it, which is that it's so important that people
understand that just because your loved one or even you
have a lawyer, doesn't mean that lawyer is doing a
great job. Even the best intentions. Sometimes in the court system,
which we know is not always the best attention, but
mistakes are made. So even if you have a good

(49:17):
defense lawyer, they might be going through something in their life.
They might miss a detail. So if you have that
opportunity to be able to read those papers and those transcripts,
you might be able to find that piece of evidence
or that legal principle that might help yourself or your
loved one, and you can present that to your lawyer
and they may have missed it. And so that's such
a great point that you brought up. And now, Ronnie,

(49:38):
we have a tradition on wrongful conviction, which is that
I like to just sit here and listen and let
you talk about anything you think you may have left out.
You know, you got so much, so much knowledge. It's
so much hard and so much to share. So I
just want to give you a chance to just say
anything at all that you want.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
I just, you know, even given that opportunity, I once
read that it says that ammire a person who's been
through hell and came out, but takes buckets of water
back to those who are there. And even this moment,
I still want to hold dear to my passion and
try to reach out to others as well. And at

(50:22):
this point, through the Rodney Roberts Foundation, I'm just trying
to buy a bigger bucket because I went back, I
took buckets there, and I found out that my buckets
need to be a little bit bigger to provide more
service to a larger group of people. And just that,
just you know, I want to continue to stay close
to the front line and stay close to you know,

(50:45):
fighting alongside the champions such as yourself and others, and
trying to expose something in this country that has becoming
a phenomenon now is why it's wrong for convision and
prostitutory in Wisconda and ineffects us accounsels and continue to
be on a positive path and a productive path. And

(51:05):
I can make myself and my mother and my loved
ones proud to proud of me and proud to be
associated with me. So that's it for me.

Speaker 5 (51:14):
Well, for anyone who's listening, you've now heard the extraordinary
saga and the equally extraordinary spirit of Rodney Roberts. I
hope you'll consider donating to the Rodney Roberts Foundation. For
every dollar that anyone donates myself and Wrongful Conviction, we
will match up to ten thousand dollars, so we'll get
you off to a good start there, and we'll be

(51:35):
very proud to continue to support you as you do
this amazing life saving work. And I'm just really I'm
just proud to know you and happy to call you
a friend. And I appreciate you coming on and sharing
your experienced strength and wisdom with our audience. And I
want to thank you again, Rodney, and you've been listening
to a very unique and tremendous episode of wrongful conviction.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 5 (52:08):
Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
It really helps.

Speaker 5 (52:13):
And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure

(52:35):
to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm
is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
with Signal Company Number one