Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, good morning, this is gonna be something a
(00:01):
little bit different.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I saw a very interesting piece over at the Denver
Post a couple of days ago, and it had been
working on getting my next guest to join me in studio,
and he's here today. The headline at the Denver Post
an act of mercy freed Josh Rosales from life in
a Colorado prison. Now he's returning to the outside world.
(00:24):
I'm not even gonna read more of that right now.
I'm just gonna jump into to the conversation with Josh, who,
as I said, joins me in studio.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Appreciate your time and making the effort to get over
to the studio. So tell us a little about your story,
tell us a little bit about what you got you
in trouble to begin with, and then we'll say you
have a much longer conversation about where you are now
and how that all happened.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
All right, well, thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.
So what got me to where I was at was
the lifestyle I was living. I was selling drugs. I
was living that life, and we went to go do
a drug deal. It turned into a a murder occurred.
I did not commit the homicidal act. However, since I
was part of that initial felony, I was charged with
(01:07):
falony murder. At the time, founding murder was a mandatory
life sentence life without parole. They offered me p deals
to write savements. I would have got less time. I
didn't take out, went to trial, I got found guilty.
I was the only one in my case. He had
life without parole. Two people were deceased and the rest
rope statements, and I was giving a life without parole and.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
I did nineteen a half years on a life sentence.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Did you have a gun? I did not know.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Okay, so you didn't. You didn't have a gun. You
didn't shoot the gun that killed the guy who died.
But the way the felony murdered law works is if
you are part of committing a felony and somebody does,
then they and then they can charge you as if
you had committed the murder and they did that to you.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
That's correct. I go back for a second.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
You said there were some people who wrote statements and
therefore didn't get life. What was that?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
What's that?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And so those other Cody fans involved in the crime
leading up to it and part of it, and at
the time of trial, instead of going to trial, they
wrote statements on what they believe happened.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Why didn't you write a statement? I chose not to.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
The way I was taught, the way I was grow
up is is you don't write statements. You go by
what you lived, by what you did, right, And that's
what I lived by.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
So, and was this sort of gang related or or
was it just some guys got together to go do
a thing.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah? I know.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
It wasn't gang relate at all. It was just a
drug deal gone wrong at the time.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Okay. And how old were you at the time.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I was twenty one, Okay, so you were not in
the juvenile system, was it?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I don't know if you can put yourself in your
you know, in the mindset of twenty one year old Josh,
But what.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Do you what do you recall was.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
In your head as you were going out that evening
to do that, to do that deal.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, it's crazy you bring that up because at the
time I was a twenty one year old boy. Right,
legally we're a man, but in my mind I was
a kid. I was a man trying to be the man,
and I didn't think about consequences.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
I thought I was invincible. I didn't care about nothing
at that time.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
So it was just like business and I'm in a
risky business, but I'm going to do a deal in
this business that we're in.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
And it was and it was whatever happens happens right.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
And during this process, prior to this, I've been in
a couple of activities where I was also I got
shot in my stomach getting robbed doing similar activities.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
So I knew the consequences. I just didn't care of them.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
What was your childhood like as far as having or
not having parents around? And you know what was that like?
And how do you think that played into some of
these choices that you made.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
We grew up in poverty, a single mom.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
My dad was a carswriter at first and he came
back in our lives. But my mom did the best
she could right And at the time, I tell people
like it was our normal. Looking back as a grown man,
I wouldn't win my kids the experience what I've experienced.
There was time we snapped on the kitchen froe with
the oven open because we didn't have no heat or
had a boil hot water to put in a bathic
of bathtub. But at the time we didn't think nothing
(04:12):
of it. That was our normal. You grew up in Denver,
I grew up Montbello, Montbello.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
One other thing, talking about sort of that life.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
At the time, when you're.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Growing up and the people who were kind of influencing
you in that direction, I'm wondering whether they train teach
brainwash people out of valuing life. Do you think at
that moment, at that moment, did twenty one year old
Josh put value on life? Clearly you do now and
(04:48):
we're going to get to where you are now in
a second. But at that time, how did it even
matter other than the potential for punishment for yourself if
somebody got.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Hurt or dead, it didn't matter.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
But there's no value in growing up Like I'll just say, like,
we had idols, not role models, and to me, hm,
my idols aren't present, right, role models are.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
That's a that's a great line and an important point.
We had idols not role models. That's a that's a
fabulous that's a fabulous point.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Did you put value on your own life?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I didn't. I didn't like I said. I got shot
in my stomach. I was in the hospital like over
six months, the building all the way through me. Yeah again,
robed in his drug deal. I didn't care. I got
hit with the baseball bat, I got TBI from that.
I got stabbed, photons in my back, I got hit
by a card, and things didn't change my life.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
I had no value on life, sadly, so.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
In your own mind, if you would have thought about
it at all, but maybe you didn't, you might have thought,
it doesn't really matter if I live or die.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I didn't. I didn't have them thoughts.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
But that would have been it if I did.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, let's let's move let's move on now.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So you're in pro is in life without parole because
you were part of a crime where somebody died, but
not only didn't you kill him, but you didn't have
a gun. So then there are some changes that start
to happen in Colorado and you're part of these changes
in the law. So can you talk about what some
(06:20):
of these changes are and how you tried to help
them happen.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, So I follow a founding murder in other states
for a couple of years and I was seeing him
making changes and differences. They were making their class two families,
they were abolishing it, and I was writing. And during
that process I started writing senators, legislators, governors, mayors, district attorneys, judges.
I wrote hundreds of letters trying to pass this law.
(06:46):
Nobody really responded. Beth mckenne Vensser responded, I'll get to
that later, but I was trying to fight to pass
the law. During this process, a good friend of mine,
Misty Ruby, came into my life and she was one
of the first persons to.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Believe in me.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
And I told her what I was doing, and I'm like, come,
doing life without parole. Everybody else looked like, dam he's
never getting out, and I was sad I'm getting out
one day. And they thought it was crazy, you know,
but they thought that was my coping mechanism.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
But not Misty.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I'll give a shout out to her because if talk,
she said, what.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Do we got to do?
Speaker 4 (07:15):
That same one conversation, I told her, I'm doing life,
but I'm get out soon.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
What do we got to do?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
So my letters from a prisoner became emails from a civilian,
and that's what eventually changed teams.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So Misty helped you communicate with the politicians.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Is that what you're saying, absolutely right?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So in that so what you're saying is, whereas a
politician might have said, well, this is just a prisoner
wants to get out of prisoner early, now suddenly I
have someone on the outside supporting this message and saying
this isn't right. That's someone who didn't actually kill somebody
is in prison for life without parole exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
So we went from like you just said, a letter
from a prisoner, yeah, to emails, petitions to such as
things like that.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So we'll get to the Beth McCann thing in a second,
because you were telling me before we went on the
air that your story is not exactly part of changing
the law in Colorado because of retrospective versus prospective or retroactive.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Right, So did the law change in Colorado that you
were fighting to change. So the law did change.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
And founding murder is a class two founding now which
carries sixteen to forty eight I believe.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Sixteen to forty eight with the possibility of parole. Yes,
And normally, folks, if you in state crimes, if you
have a sentence that has the possibility of parole normally
you do about half could even be less depending on
your behavior.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Your behavior in prison.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So you know, if you were to serve, you served
over nineteen years, right, correct, nineteen years. So if if
that same thing happened now, you know, depending on the circumstances,
you probably would have gotten a sentence that would have
let you out sooner than you got out than you
got out this time. Does that all sound about right?
All that stuff? Okay, So they changed the law, but
(09:04):
it wasn't retroactive, so it didn't get you out.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So how did you get out?
Speaker 3 (09:08):
It didn't give me out. So when they changed the
law on what we did is me and Missy. We
started trying to contact attorneys and most of them were saying, like,
why are you hiring attorney that's not retroactive, It won't
affect him and the noble law firm. My attorney, Heidi Trip,
We eventually hired her and she went to bat for me,
(09:29):
and during our first motion we filed Beth McCann acshally
said well, this unit, the cr Union is coming out soon.
If you want to wait for that, nothing's promised. You
could wait and still get denied or you can just
file the motion and see what happens. And my lawyer
asked me what I want to do, and I decided
to wait on that CRU and that's conviction review unit.
(09:52):
They already had them in other counties which I was following,
and so they're basic. Their main thing for the CRU,
which is understandable, is innocence. That's what they're there for
for the most part. That's the priority period. And then
following that is people that have excessive sentences that have
been rebuilitated and might get looked at again, which I
(10:12):
fell under that.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I have so many questions for you.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
What what punishment do you think you should have faced?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Man, That's a good question, because honestly, I was part
of a crime. A man lost his life. I didn't
pull the trigger. However, I was part of that crime,
and for that I'm I'm always in grief, and I
like I apologize to his family every time we get
the chance to clud it right now, like, I'm sorry
for that role I played.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Man, I can't answer that question honestly, prison for.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Sure, right yeah, because I do deserve to pay for
what I did in the role I paid. I don't
believe that life without prole was the right sentence, but
it eventually saved my life though.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
How so, because I tell people this, if I would
have got a sixteen.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
And forty eight year deal, yeah, and I did the
same amount of time, but I wasn't doing life. I
wouldn't be the man I am today. When I got
that life without parole, it took something inside of me,
like once I started changing, and it took me like
some real self reflecting to say, damn, he was part
of a man losing his life and you're never getting
(11:17):
out of prison. It did something to me inside where
I wanted to be a different person. So doing that
much time with a life sentence again and out, my
whole perception is different.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Now, Okay, that raises an interesting question for me. So
do you think that, Well, I guess you weren't deterred
from doing the crime at the time because of the
existence of the fellay murder law. I don't even know
if you knew that a fellay murder law existed when
(11:48):
you were twenty one?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Did you know?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
I didn't, But when my attorney's told me about it,
and this sounds all like dumb and but as twenty one,
I'm like, I don't care. I didn't kill nobody. I
don't care what the law says. I didn't do nothing,
And I'd just show everything out of my mind. Yeah,
like eight or nine years, I just said I didn't
do it. I don't belong in prison.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
That's it. And I mentioned this before.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Once I started taking accountability and stuff affecting and thing
like damn, this is what you did was a part
of this, That's when things started happening for me, internal
and external.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Right, Okay, So this is the point I want to make.
On the one hand, I see an argument for life
without parole being too harsh a sentence for somebody who
didn't kill somebody and wasn't even holding a gun. The
other hand, and I only thought of this because of
(12:39):
what you just said. You said that if you had
gotten a sentence of known duration, where you got a
thirty year sentence and you knew you were going to
get out at in fifteen ish, if you behaved well
while you were in prison, it might not have changed
you as a person. You might have just you know,
gotten involved with a prison and had that protection and
(13:01):
then gotten out and gone back.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
To the life.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Do you think there's an argument that keeping it as
life without parole might be a thing to deter people
from being involved with this kind of thing to begin with.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
I don't because the life without pro that this just
and that's just some of us, Like everybody in prison,
we're all different. We have different back stories obviously. Yeah,
but that was me personally, like I took advantage of
things and programs in there. As hard as hell to
change the environments. It's hard to become a better person
because on one end you've got to say, look, I'm
(13:38):
gonna become a better person. I'm trying to trade the
way I think, the way I do things. But you're
still in there. So with that same conversation, you've got
to say, however, if you want to be disrespectful towards me,
we can still handle this. So it's contradicting, right, But
that's that's a lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Was there a moment that you can recall, what was
it that you think flipped that switch for you saying,
you know what, I did that thing and I need
to take responsibility for it, and then and I need
to be a better person whether I get out or not.
I realized you had this sense that you might get out.
But what was it that flipped that switch for you?
Speaker 1 (14:17):
My daughters. I was in a visit in men A Vista.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
I still remember. I was about ten years into my
sentence and they was asking me. They don't even remember
they started asking things and saying certain things, and not immediately,
but then it's soaked in, and I was like, man,
I want to be a better person, Like even if
I'm in prison and I never get out, like, I
want my daughters to respect me, be proud of me,
have conversations with them, because and there you get it
with that life sentence and your your old day, every
(14:41):
day is revolved around that. So your conversations, even with
your kids, your parents is prison. Everything's prison. And I
wanted better for that. I wanted to be a better
dad from in there. So I started changing.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
How old were your daughters when you went into prison?
There were one and two? Okay, so they are twenty
and twenty one when you get out. Yeah, how long.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
You've been out? Seven months?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
And I've been out the halfway house approximately six weeks?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Wow? Are you so?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Are you at a halfway house now or you find
a place to live now? I got my own apartment, okay,
and you okay. And then the only things I want
to make sure we talk about this is that you're
working now and you're doing something to try to help people.
And I hate using the term give back or something
like that, but tell us what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
So I'm a peer recovery coach with Creating Connections. I
shot out to them. They took a chance on me.
One of my supervisors, actually, John Doubleday, was doing Life
without Parole. We met in prison, and then about eight
months ago, I was in prison still and I was
a recent getting out soon, and he came to a
job there and we spoke a little bit and he's like, well,
when you get out, come, we'll see what we can
do for you.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
And they gave me a chance. So I appreciate them for.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Believing in me.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Tell me the group name again? What do they both?
Creating Connections? And the website it's create Connections, Yeah, creating
Connections maybe CS.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Or something like ES. What is it?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, creating Connections CS, like for Colorado Springs. So if
you look up Creating Connections you can find it. And
what exactly do you do? You told me the title,
but what does that mean what do you do?
Speaker 3 (16:18):
So we're mentors, we're resource brokers, we're allies.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
We have the recovery community, audition community.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
We help people get to sober living houses, we help
people get food support, all kinds of services. Like That's
why I say we're like a resource broker as well.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And what do you personally? What is your What do
you do on a normal work day.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
On a normal work day, I wake up in the morning,
I usually text or call my clients good morning.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I have a good date do I mean know what's
going on?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
And I look on my calendar on my schedule, and
I usually have appointments. If I have, like tomorrow I'm
taking a client to court, I go with them. I
should say I'm a support system to people. I'm definitely
need to talk or go places to maybe mediate things
with them, stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
You must have a sense of satisfaction from this job.
That I shouldn't say you must because I don't really
know you. I would think you have a sense of
satisfaction from this job that exceeds any kind of feeling
that you would have had any other time in your life.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
It's the best feeling ever, Like when you get a
text from somebody or a voicemail saying, man, thanks so
much for that session today.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
It meant lots so much to me. Are these feelings
I came up?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
I forgot about they were buried, But now I'm looking
at things different. Our Dame, thanks so much for putting
me in this ober living house, because now I got
a visit with my kids next week.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
We haven't seen in two years. It's the best feeling ever.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
We got about a minute left, and I'd like to
try to end on a particular high note. Tell Us
and I hope this is a high note. But how
are things between you and your daughters now?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Other? They're great, we built things. We're learning each other
out here, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
It was different to see them in there and having
them visits and phone calls to be out here. So
we're learning each other. We went to the China Zoo yesterday,
as a matter of fact, all day together. And then
we went to my apartment and I cooked for them
my first time, my second Ti'm cooking first time for them,
cut my finger in the process, but I finished vandam
Hammer's in France Fries's.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Look I am obviously you are in a bad path
as a young person and were involved with something bad.
My gut instinct is nineteen plus years in prison is
a lot when you didn't actually kill somebody. I understand
the felony murdered law, but to me, somewhere around what you.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Did is justice that I don't think life would be justice.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And more important, you're out there helping people and making
a difference.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Not everybody turns.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Their life around that way. And I'm you know, I'm
proud of you. I'm proud of you for if we're
doing that. I'll give you the last few seconds to
say anything you want to say.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Now, I just want to say, like my mom, I
lost her. I probably got out, but she believed in
me no matter what. She always like you'll be homes
on and she didn't live to see me give my
time back, but I feel her presence all the time.
(19:17):
So my Mama, I love you, and I hope I'm
making you proud.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
I'm sure you are. Josh I'm sure you are. Joshuasales
joining me in studio. We spent nineteen years in prison Denver, DA.
Beth McCann, who's not in that job anymore. The criminal
the conviction Review Unit decided that his sentence was more
than it should be and more than it would be
(19:42):
right now for the same crime.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
So he's out and.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
He's making the best of his life and helping people
back with his daughters in this remarkable story, and I
really wanted to share it with you.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I'm glad I did.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I hope you enjoyed it as well and found it
as edifying as I did. Thanks again, Josh, thanks for
being here and thanks for doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
What you're doing now really appreciate it. Thanks for the
opportunity
All right, good morning, this is gonna be something a
(00:01):
little bit different.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I saw a very interesting piece over at the Denver
Post a couple of days ago, and it had been
working on getting my next guest to join me in studio,
and he's here today. The headline at the Denver Post
an act of mercy freed Josh Rosales from life in
a Colorado prison. Now he's returning to the outside world.
(00:24):
I'm not even gonna read more of that right now.
I'm just gonna jump into to the conversation with Josh, who,
as I said, joins me in studio.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Appreciate your time and making the effort to get over
to the studio. So tell us a little about your story,
tell us a little bit about what you got you
in trouble to begin with, and then we'll say you
have a much longer conversation about where you are now
and how that all happened.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
All right, well, thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.
So what got me to where I was at was
the lifestyle I was living. I was selling drugs. I
was living that life, and we went to go do
a drug deal. It turned into a a murder occurred.
I did not commit the homicidal act. However, since I
was part of that initial felony, I was charged with
(01:07):
falony murder. At the time, founding murder was a mandatory
life sentence life without parole. They offered me p deals
to write savements. I would have got less time. I
didn't take out, went to trial, I got found guilty.
I was the only one in my case. He had
life without parole. Two people were deceased and the rest
rope statements, and I was giving a life without parole and.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
I did nineteen a half years on a life sentence.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Did you have a gun? I did not know.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Okay, so you didn't. You didn't have a gun. You
didn't shoot the gun that killed the guy who died.
But the way the felony murdered law works is if
you are part of committing a felony and somebody does,
then they and then they can charge you as if
you had committed the murder and they did that to you.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
That's correct. I go back for a second.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
You said there were some people who wrote statements and
therefore didn't get life. What was that?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
What's that?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And so those other Cody fans involved in the crime
leading up to it and part of it, and at
the time of trial, instead of going to trial, they
wrote statements on what they believe happened.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Why didn't you write a statement? I chose not to.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
The way I was taught, the way I was grow
up is is you don't write statements. You go by
what you lived, by what you did, right, And that's
what I lived by.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
So, and was this sort of gang related or or
was it just some guys got together to go do
a thing.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah? I know.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
It wasn't gang relate at all. It was just a
drug deal gone wrong at the time.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Okay. And how old were you at the time.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I was twenty one, Okay, so you were not in
the juvenile system, was it?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I don't know if you can put yourself in your
you know, in the mindset of twenty one year old Josh,
But what.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Do you what do you recall was.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
In your head as you were going out that evening
to do that, to do that deal.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, it's crazy you bring that up because at the
time I was a twenty one year old boy. Right,
legally we're a man, but in my mind I was
a kid. I was a man trying to be the man,
and I didn't think about consequences.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
I thought I was invincible. I didn't care about nothing
at that time.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
So it was just like business and I'm in a
risky business, but I'm going to do a deal in
this business that we're in.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
And it was and it was whatever happens happens right.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
And during this process, prior to this, I've been in
a couple of activities where I was also I got
shot in my stomach getting robbed doing similar activities.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
So I knew the consequences. I just didn't care of them.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
What was your childhood like as far as having or
not having parents around? And you know what was that like?
And how do you think that played into some of
these choices that you made.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
We grew up in poverty, a single mom.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
My dad was a carswriter at first and he came
back in our lives. But my mom did the best
she could right And at the time, I tell people
like it was our normal. Looking back as a grown man,
I wouldn't win my kids the experience what I've experienced.
There was time we snapped on the kitchen froe with
the oven open because we didn't have no heat or
had a boil hot water to put in a bathic
of bathtub. But at the time we didn't think nothing
(04:12):
of it. That was our normal. You grew up in Denver,
I grew up Montbello, Montbello.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
One other thing, talking about sort of that life.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
At the time, when you're.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Growing up and the people who were kind of influencing
you in that direction, I'm wondering whether they train teach
brainwash people out of valuing life. Do you think at
that moment, at that moment, did twenty one year old
Josh put value on life? Clearly you do now and
(04:48):
we're going to get to where you are now in
a second. But at that time, how did it even
matter other than the potential for punishment for yourself if
somebody got.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Hurt or dead, it didn't matter.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
But there's no value in growing up Like I'll just say, like,
we had idols, not role models, and to me, hm,
my idols aren't present, right, role models are.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
That's a that's a great line and an important point.
We had idols not role models. That's a that's a
fabulous that's a fabulous point.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Did you put value on your own life?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I didn't. I didn't like I said. I got shot
in my stomach. I was in the hospital like over
six months, the building all the way through me. Yeah again,
robed in his drug deal. I didn't care. I got
hit with the baseball bat, I got TBI from that.
I got stabbed, photons in my back, I got hit
by a card, and things didn't change my life.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
I had no value on life, sadly, so.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
In your own mind, if you would have thought about
it at all, but maybe you didn't, you might have thought,
it doesn't really matter if I live or die.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I didn't. I didn't have them thoughts.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
But that would have been it if I did.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, let's let's move let's move on now.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So you're in pro is in life without parole because
you were part of a crime where somebody died, but
not only didn't you kill him, but you didn't have
a gun. So then there are some changes that start
to happen in Colorado and you're part of these changes
in the law. So can you talk about what some
(06:20):
of these changes are and how you tried to help
them happen.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, So I follow a founding murder in other states
for a couple of years and I was seeing him
making changes and differences. They were making their class two families,
they were abolishing it, and I was writing. And during
that process I started writing senators, legislators, governors, mayors, district attorneys, judges.
I wrote hundreds of letters trying to pass this law.
(06:46):
Nobody really responded. Beth mckenne Vensser responded, I'll get to
that later, but I was trying to fight to pass
the law. During this process, a good friend of mine,
Misty Ruby, came into my life and she was one
of the first persons to.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Believe in me.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
And I told her what I was doing, and I'm like, come,
doing life without parole. Everybody else looked like, dam he's
never getting out, and I was sad I'm getting out
one day. And they thought it was crazy, you know,
but they thought that was my coping mechanism.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
But not Misty.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I'll give a shout out to her because if talk,
she said, what.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Do we got to do?
Speaker 4 (07:15):
That same one conversation, I told her, I'm doing life,
but I'm get out soon.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
What do we got to do?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
So my letters from a prisoner became emails from a civilian,
and that's what eventually changed teams.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So Misty helped you communicate with the politicians.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Is that what you're saying, absolutely right?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So in that so what you're saying is, whereas a
politician might have said, well, this is just a prisoner
wants to get out of prisoner early, now suddenly I
have someone on the outside supporting this message and saying
this isn't right. That's someone who didn't actually kill somebody
is in prison for life without parole exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
So we went from like you just said, a letter
from a prisoner, yeah, to emails, petitions to such as
things like that.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So we'll get to the Beth McCann thing in a second,
because you were telling me before we went on the
air that your story is not exactly part of changing
the law in Colorado because of retrospective versus prospective or retroactive.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Right, So did the law change in Colorado that you
were fighting to change. So the law did change.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
And founding murder is a class two founding now which
carries sixteen to forty eight I believe.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Sixteen to forty eight with the possibility of parole. Yes,
And normally, folks, if you in state crimes, if you
have a sentence that has the possibility of parole normally
you do about half could even be less depending on
your behavior.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Your behavior in prison.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So you know, if you were to serve, you served
over nineteen years, right, correct, nineteen years. So if if
that same thing happened now, you know, depending on the circumstances,
you probably would have gotten a sentence that would have
let you out sooner than you got out than you
got out this time. Does that all sound about right?
All that stuff? Okay, So they changed the law, but
(09:04):
it wasn't retroactive, so it didn't get you out.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So how did you get out?
Speaker 3 (09:08):
It didn't give me out. So when they changed the
law on what we did is me and Missy. We
started trying to contact attorneys and most of them were saying, like,
why are you hiring attorney that's not retroactive, It won't
affect him and the noble law firm. My attorney, Heidi Trip,
We eventually hired her and she went to bat for me,
(09:29):
and during our first motion we filed Beth McCann acshally
said well, this unit, the cr Union is coming out soon.
If you want to wait for that, nothing's promised. You
could wait and still get denied or you can just
file the motion and see what happens. And my lawyer
asked me what I want to do, and I decided
to wait on that CRU and that's conviction review unit.
(09:52):
They already had them in other counties which I was following,
and so they're basic. Their main thing for the CRU,
which is understandable, is innocence. That's what they're there for
for the most part. That's the priority period. And then
following that is people that have excessive sentences that have
been rebuilitated and might get looked at again, which I
(10:12):
fell under that.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I have so many questions for you.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
What what punishment do you think you should have faced?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Man, That's a good question, because honestly, I was part
of a crime. A man lost his life. I didn't
pull the trigger. However, I was part of that crime,
and for that I'm I'm always in grief, and I
like I apologize to his family every time we get
the chance to clud it right now, like, I'm sorry
for that role I played.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Man, I can't answer that question honestly, prison for.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Sure, right yeah, because I do deserve to pay for
what I did in the role I paid. I don't
believe that life without prole was the right sentence, but
it eventually saved my life though.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
How so, because I tell people this, if I would
have got a sixteen.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
And forty eight year deal, yeah, and I did the
same amount of time, but I wasn't doing life. I
wouldn't be the man I am today. When I got
that life without parole, it took something inside of me,
like once I started changing, and it took me like
some real self reflecting to say, damn, he was part
of a man losing his life and you're never getting
(11:17):
out of prison. It did something to me inside where
I wanted to be a different person. So doing that
much time with a life sentence again and out, my
whole perception is different.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Now, Okay, that raises an interesting question for me. So
do you think that, Well, I guess you weren't deterred
from doing the crime at the time because of the
existence of the fellay murder law. I don't even know
if you knew that a fellay murder law existed when
(11:48):
you were twenty one?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Did you know?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
I didn't, But when my attorney's told me about it,
and this sounds all like dumb and but as twenty one,
I'm like, I don't care. I didn't kill nobody. I
don't care what the law says. I didn't do nothing,
And I'd just show everything out of my mind. Yeah,
like eight or nine years, I just said I didn't
do it. I don't belong in prison.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
That's it. And I mentioned this before.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Once I started taking accountability and stuff affecting and thing
like damn, this is what you did was a part
of this, That's when things started happening for me, internal
and external.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Right, Okay, So this is the point I want to make.
On the one hand, I see an argument for life
without parole being too harsh a sentence for somebody who
didn't kill somebody and wasn't even holding a gun. The
other hand, and I only thought of this because of
(12:39):
what you just said. You said that if you had
gotten a sentence of known duration, where you got a
thirty year sentence and you knew you were going to
get out at in fifteen ish, if you behaved well
while you were in prison, it might not have changed
you as a person. You might have just you know,
gotten involved with a prison and had that protection and
(13:01):
then gotten out and gone back.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
To the life.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Do you think there's an argument that keeping it as
life without parole might be a thing to deter people
from being involved with this kind of thing to begin with.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
I don't because the life without pro that this just
and that's just some of us, Like everybody in prison,
we're all different. We have different back stories obviously. Yeah,
but that was me personally, like I took advantage of
things and programs in there. As hard as hell to
change the environments. It's hard to become a better person
because on one end you've got to say, look, I'm
(13:38):
gonna become a better person. I'm trying to trade the
way I think, the way I do things. But you're
still in there. So with that same conversation, you've got
to say, however, if you want to be disrespectful towards me,
we can still handle this. So it's contradicting, right, But
that's that's a lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Was there a moment that you can recall, what was
it that you think flipped that switch for you saying,
you know what, I did that thing and I need
to take responsibility for it, and then and I need
to be a better person whether I get out or not.
I realized you had this sense that you might get out.
But what was it that flipped that switch for you?
Speaker 1 (14:17):
My daughters. I was in a visit in men A Vista.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
I still remember. I was about ten years into my
sentence and they was asking me. They don't even remember
they started asking things and saying certain things, and not immediately,
but then it's soaked in, and I was like, man,
I want to be a better person, Like even if
I'm in prison and I never get out, like, I
want my daughters to respect me, be proud of me,
have conversations with them, because and there you get it
with that life sentence and your your old day, every
(14:41):
day is revolved around that. So your conversations, even with
your kids, your parents is prison. Everything's prison. And I
wanted better for that. I wanted to be a better
dad from in there. So I started changing.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
How old were your daughters when you went into prison?
There were one and two? Okay, so they are twenty
and twenty one when you get out. Yeah, how long.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
You've been out? Seven months?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
And I've been out the halfway house approximately six weeks?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Wow? Are you so?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Are you at a halfway house now or you find
a place to live now? I got my own apartment, okay,
and you okay. And then the only things I want
to make sure we talk about this is that you're
working now and you're doing something to try to help people.
And I hate using the term give back or something
like that, but tell us what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
So I'm a peer recovery coach with Creating Connections. I
shot out to them. They took a chance on me.
One of my supervisors, actually, John Doubleday, was doing Life
without Parole. We met in prison, and then about eight
months ago, I was in prison still and I was
a recent getting out soon, and he came to a
job there and we spoke a little bit and he's like, well,
when you get out, come, we'll see what we can
do for you.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
And they gave me a chance. So I appreciate them for.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Believing in me.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Tell me the group name again? What do they both?
Creating Connections? And the website it's create Connections, Yeah, creating
Connections maybe CS.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Or something like ES. What is it?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, creating Connections CS, like for Colorado Springs. So if
you look up Creating Connections you can find it. And
what exactly do you do? You told me the title,
but what does that mean what do you do?
Speaker 3 (16:18):
So we're mentors, we're resource brokers, we're allies.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
We have the recovery community, audition community.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
We help people get to sober living houses, we help
people get food support, all kinds of services. Like That's
why I say we're like a resource broker as well.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And what do you personally? What is your What do
you do on a normal work day.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
On a normal work day, I wake up in the morning,
I usually text or call my clients good morning.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I have a good date do I mean know what's
going on?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
And I look on my calendar on my schedule, and
I usually have appointments. If I have, like tomorrow I'm
taking a client to court, I go with them. I
should say I'm a support system to people. I'm definitely
need to talk or go places to maybe mediate things
with them, stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
You must have a sense of satisfaction from this job.
That I shouldn't say you must because I don't really
know you. I would think you have a sense of
satisfaction from this job that exceeds any kind of feeling
that you would have had any other time in your life.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
It's the best feeling ever, Like when you get a
text from somebody or a voicemail saying, man, thanks so
much for that session today.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
It meant lots so much to me. Are these feelings
I came up?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
I forgot about they were buried, But now I'm looking
at things different. Our Dame, thanks so much for putting
me in this ober living house, because now I got
a visit with my kids next week.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
We haven't seen in two years. It's the best feeling ever.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
We got about a minute left, and I'd like to
try to end on a particular high note. Tell Us
and I hope this is a high note. But how
are things between you and your daughters now?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Other? They're great, we built things. We're learning each other
out here, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
It was different to see them in there and having
them visits and phone calls to be out here. So
we're learning each other. We went to the China Zoo yesterday,
as a matter of fact, all day together. And then
we went to my apartment and I cooked for them
my first time, my second Ti'm cooking first time for them,
cut my finger in the process, but I finished vandam
Hammer's in France Fries's.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Look I am obviously you are in a bad path
as a young person and were involved with something bad.
My gut instinct is nineteen plus years in prison is
a lot when you didn't actually kill somebody. I understand
the felony murdered law, but to me, somewhere around what you.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Did is justice that I don't think life would be justice.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And more important, you're out there helping people and making
a difference.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Not everybody turns.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Their life around that way. And I'm you know, I'm
proud of you. I'm proud of you for if we're
doing that. I'll give you the last few seconds to
say anything you want to say.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Now, I just want to say, like my mom, I
lost her. I probably got out, but she believed in
me no matter what. She always like you'll be homes
on and she didn't live to see me give my
time back, but I feel her presence all the time.
(19:17):
So my Mama, I love you, and I hope I'm
making you proud.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
I'm sure you are. Josh I'm sure you are. Joshuasales
joining me in studio. We spent nineteen years in prison Denver, DA.
Beth McCann, who's not in that job anymore. The criminal
the conviction Review Unit decided that his sentence was more
than it should be and more than it would be
(19:42):
right now for the same crime.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
So he's out and.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
He's making the best of his life and helping people
back with his daughters in this remarkable story, and I
really wanted to share it with you.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I'm glad I did.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I hope you enjoyed it as well and found it
as edifying as I did. Thanks again, Josh, thanks for
being here and thanks for doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
What you're doing now really appreciate it. Thanks for the
opportunity
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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