A conversation with exoneree Jeffrey Deskovic: Tik Tok Live Feed

Jeffrey Deskovic is an American attorney, advocate, and exoneree who was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder at the age of 17. He spent 16 years in prison before DNA evidence led to his exoneration. Since then, he has dedicated his life to criminal justice reform and the exoneration of the wrongfully convicted.

In 2006, with support from the Innocence Project, post-conviction DNA testing identified Steven Cunningham as the actual perpetrator. Cunningham, who was already serving a life sentence for a similar crime, confessed to Correa's murder. Deskovic was released after serving 16 years for a crime he did not commit. He later sued the authorities responsible for his wrongful conviction and was awarded $41.6 million, of which $10 million was paid due to a pretrial settlement. Following his release, Deskovic pursued higher education, earning a bachelor's degree in behavioral science from Mercy College, a master's degree in criminal justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a law degree from Pace University School of Law.

https://www.deskovicfoundation.org/about

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Well, I'm happy to be on the show. I'm glad
you do cover some moronical conviction, and there's other topics
which you and I consider to be important as well.
So I'm an attorney and I'm a founder of the
Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, which is a nonprofitable which
is a nonprofit organization which I founded, and it we
have was our mission fraeme people who are in prison

(00:37):
for crimes that they're innocent of it, as well as
pursuing policy changes aimed at preventing those in the first place.
And you know, I started the organization after I was
exonerated by DNA testing myself after being in prisoned for
sixteen years. So I was sixteen in Preekskill, New York

(00:58):
for a commit I was arrested based upon a course
false confession. Ultimately, I was wrongfully convicted even though the
DNA didn't match me based on that course false confession,
prosecutory and his conduct fraud by the medical examiner. I
lost seven appeals, I got turned down for parole. Ultimately

(01:21):
I was exonerated to further DNA testing, which not only
established by innocence but also identified the actual perpetrator, whose
DNA was only in the data bank because left free
while I was doing time for his crime. He killed
the second victim three and a half years later. It
was a school teacher who had children.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Wow, so sixteen years old?

Speaker 1 (01:48):
That Wow? Yeah, I was Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Who were the victims?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
So was one victim? It's a murder and rape of
a high school classmate. Her name was Angela Correa. She
was an immigrant from Columbia. She had been in the
country for about a year and a half, living a
very sheltered life, as I later came to learn, and
she never went anywhere unless she was accompanied by her parents.

(02:22):
She was in two of my classes as a fresh
and one as a sophomore. I knew her name, she
knew mine. That was really the full extent of it.
We were not even really on a high vibe. So
she One of her classes was a photographygraphy class, and
the professor gave the assignment for the students in that

(02:43):
class to take pictures of foliage. He had instituted a
buddy system, pairing the male male students with the female students,
and so after school, Angela walked home with her sister.
Her sister went to the restroom. When she came back,
Angela was on. She left to go to the park
and take the pictures, and the male student that was

(03:06):
assigned to her played hooky on the assignment. You never
showed up. She was on the South Wood and there
was a wooden path which connected some condominiums to a school.
It was kind of deep woods there, and she was
on that path taking pictures where she had the misfortune
of coming across The actual perpetrator, who was at the

(03:29):
time was Stephen Cunningham, was a twenty nine year old
drug addict who was high. He saw her, and you
know the rest rest his history. I got on the
police radar for two things. So firstly, I was quiet
to myself and I didn't participate a lot in a

(03:50):
lot of organized sports, and that made me seem strange
to the kids in the high school. In the course
of the police investigation, the police interviewed many students for
the school. Some of them told the police that they
might want to speak with me because I didn't quite
fit in. In addition, I was I was a sensitive teenager.

(04:11):
This was my first brush with death and I had
an emotional reaction to that, and you know, the police
thought that that was suspicious that you know that my
emotional reaction was disproportionate to the actual relationship with the
victim that I had, which is to say, no, no
relationship at all. As I mentioned. So those two factors

(04:31):
got me on their radar, and that was reinforced by
a psychological profile which the Peak Skill police got from
the nypre League, which purported to have the actual characteristics
of the perpetrator. I had the misfortunate of matching that,
so a reinforcing factor. So for the next six weeks,
the police played this cat and mouse game with me

(04:53):
in which half the time they would speak to me
like I was a suspect. And when they would push
too hard and I'd get frightened and I'd want to
get away from them, you know, they would switch it
up and Jeff is this junior detective helper theme was developed.
You know, they would say things like, the kids won't
talk freely around us, but they will around you. Let
us know if you hear anything, stop stop in from

(05:17):
time to time. You know, prior to being a teenager,
the career I wanted to have when I grew up
was to be a cop. So this unexpected early opportunity
to do this posi police work along at my age
sixteen was how the police were able to pull the
wool over my eyes as to the absurdity the sixteen
year old would be able to help in an active

(05:38):
homicide investigation. I came from a single parent household. My
father was never involved in my life in any aspect,
and that also intersected with the police tactics. You know,
they would play the good cop, bad cop routine, and
in time I would look at the I began to
look at the officer was pretending to be my friend

(05:58):
as a father figure. So eventually they told me that
they had some new information they wanted to do. It
was in the file that they wanted to share that
with me, and that would allow me to be more
helpful to them. First, though, I would have to take
and past the polygraph. So the next day, rather than
reporting to the high school, I instead went to the

(06:20):
police station. Because it was a school day, my mother
and grandmother thought I was in school, so therefore they
did not call around looking for me, but they drove
me to the town of Brewster, which was in Putnam
County that was forty minutes away from Peakskill in Westchester County,
that I didn't know where I was. I had no money,

(06:42):
I had no independent means of escape, so that meant
that I was no longer able to leave on my own.
I was instead totally dependent upon the police. There were
three officers that came there with me from Peak Skill,
but then there was the Putnam County Sheriff's investigator, Daniel Stevens.
He was but he was dressed like a civilian. He
never identified himself as a law enforcement and he never

(07:06):
read me my rights. I didn't have an attorney present.
They didn't give me anything to eat the entire time
that I was there. They gave me a four page
brochure which explained how the polygraph worked, but I had
a lot of big words in it that I didn't understand.
But then I figured, well, because I'm there to help
the police, I thought, what does it matter, Let's just

(07:27):
get on with it. From there, they put me in
a small room and the polygraphist gave me countless cups
of coffee. I think the purpose of the coffee was
to get me nervous, and then he wired me up
to the machine and he launched into his third degree tactic,

(07:48):
so he invaded my personal space. He raised his voice
at me. He kept asking me the same questions over
and over again, and as each hour passed, my fear
increased in proportion to the time, and he kept that
up for six and a half to seven hours. Towards
the end, he said, what do you mean you didn't
do it? You just told me do the polygraph test

(08:09):
that you did. We just want you to verbally confirm it.
And when he said that to me, that really shot
my fear to the roof. And at that point, the
officer i'd been pretending to be my friend, he came
in the room and told me that the other officers
were going to harm me, that he was holding them off,
that he could not do so indefinitely, that I had

(08:30):
to help myself, and then he said, just tell them
what they want to hear. You can go home afterwards.
You're not going to be arrested. Being young, naive, frightened
sixteen years old, I wasn't thinking about the long term.
I was just concerned my own safety in the moment.
So I took the out which he offered, and I

(08:53):
made up a story based on the information that they
had given me. That day. In the six weeks run
up to it, you know, I was in fear in
my life. The fact that I didn't know where I
was and nobody else knew where I was either loomed
rather large. By the time it was all said and done,
I had collapsed on the floor in a fetal position,
crying uncontrollably. Obviously, I was arrested. I was charged with

(09:16):
the murder and rape. Last thing I'll say is that
the interrogation was not videotaped, it was not audio taped.
There was no signed confession. It was just the cops
word for it. And when they came to court, they
left the threatened false promise out of their story.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Wow. So how has that experience? Because you do you
help people who are wrongly convicted? Now, is that correct?

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, that is correct. But I mean that's just the
story of how I got arrested. Before we get into that,
I mean, I would like to just share briefly how
I was wrongfully convicted and you know how I wasner.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Oh, no, that's fine. I was just gonna ask you
something about the interrogation part. So with the interrogation, by
the way I teach you all, So with the interrogation
aspect of it. How does that affect the things that
you look for when you're taking on a client. I

(10:22):
have a lot of my students that are listening, so
this is one of the things that they're interested in
because they didn't they didn't believe like they can lie to.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
You and it's okay, you know, it's it's it kind
of gets like pushed aside, and that's how we end
up getting a lot of wrongful convictions or wrongful like
you know, confessions and stuff, and you know, other tactics
that they use.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
So I'm just curious as to like how that affects
what you look for now in clients cases.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
Sure, and I want to add that you know a
lot of people think that in this in person would
never falsely confess, but it's actually caused wrongful convictions in
twenty nine percent of the DNA proven wrongful convictions. I
want to reinforce your point and mention that while adults
have given coerce false confessions, I mean that youth and
people with mental health issues are particularly vulnerable. So in

(11:17):
terms of how what happened with me influences which cases
that I that I select. So we uh so I
know what tactics to look for, So I mean when
you look at not just my own case, but I mean,
obviously I have that in mind. But then I also,
you know, I know what the red flags are that
a confession might be forced false. So you know, I've

(11:40):
read several hundred summaries of exonerations that have that have
happened through through DNA. So there's, you know, an unassailable
pile of data, and there are certain common patterns in
the false confession cases. So when we analyze the case,
we ask ourselves two questions. Number one, you know, do

(12:02):
we believe the innocence claim? You know, is it at
least plausible? And part of that analysis is looking at
what was used as evidence of guilt, So we look
for cop common patterns that a confession might be false,
or common patterns which indicate an identification might be mistaking
or that and informant might be lying. So asking ourselves

(12:23):
that question is one key, and the second key is
you know we we we ask ourselves is there a
potential route to exoneration? So we look at is there
something that could be subjected to DNA testing? Is their hair?
Is there saliva? Is there blood? Is there a seminal fluid,
Is there a piece of clothing that a perpetrator sweated into.

(12:46):
That's in a DNA case, which is only available in
ten percent, approximately ten percent of all serious fell in
the cases. But in the non DNA cases, we look
for things like an alternative suspect similar crime in the
nearby area. You know, we if we think any of
the witnesses were lying, then we might reinterview them. We

(13:07):
file feedom of information requests and sometimes convinced that were
supposed to have been turned over, and those documents could
furnish a new investigative, a new investigative lead some witnesses
that bubble to the stress that that we didn't know
about the conduct on the part law enforcement as bubbled

(13:28):
to the surface in some other unrelated case. So all
those things, you know, constitute like a direction to go
in because you might convinced that someone's innocent based that's
not the court's not that's not how you're going. The
court is not going to allow you to reli to
come up with find some new evidence that probably would

(13:50):
have led to a different outcome. Okay, so before the
before the trial, a DNA test road that seminal flow
had found and the victim didn't match me, but rather
than acknowledged that they made a mistake, they continued to
full speed ahead in order to explain away the DNA evidence.
The prosecutor got the medical exevanator to commit fraud, to

(14:12):
commit burgery when there's an autopsy audience, which are taken
as the findings are made. So it was only after
the DNA that matched me, which was six months later,
hundreds of autopsies later. Cool examiner said he remembered that
he forgotten god to medical evidence, which he claimed should

(14:37):
The victim had been promiscuous, which is opened the door
for the prosecutor argue that that was how the DNA
didn't I was guilty. He claimed she was sleeping around
and then he could have stepped further and mentioned another

(14:57):
youth by name, but he claimed but he didn't try
to prove that he didn't like get a DNA test performed.
He didn't even call him as a witness to give
testimony to that effect. He simply made the supported argument
to the jury at the same time, I essentially didn't
defend me. He never interviewed all what was the witness

(15:21):
My alibi. I was actually playing with football when the
crime happened. He rarely met with me. When he would
meet with me and try to explain to him that
I was innocent on what happened in interrogation me up
one time he told me he didn't care if I
was guilty or innocent. He never crossed, examined the metal examiner,

(15:44):
he never made use of the DNA, argue to the
jury that the confession never happened, other times to argue
that it did happen, but it was coerced. And at
still other times he a false confession. So he took
an approach of just throwing things against the wall and
hoping that something stuck, you know, which, as you might imagine,

(16:06):
didn't you know, the jury. I don't see how jury
could have viewed him as having any credibility at all. Lastly,
the trial judge allowed the polygraphers to repeatedly tell the
jury that I failed the polygraph. You know, that was
you know, very prejudicial. At the same time, my lawyer

(16:26):
was banned from asking him questions about how he arrived
at his opinion. And another thing is that the victims
close including her bra, had been entered in evidence that
intersected with one of the statements that was coerced out
of me, in which I said that I had ripped
her bra off. But the jury asked to see the bra,

(16:48):
which was important because there's some bras the way that
they are made, you can't rip them off. And when
the day jury asked to see that, that's when the
judge said that the bra had been left in the
courtroom over the week, and that the janitors apparently thought
that it was garbage, and so it was thrown out,
and so it wasn't available any longer. So the judge

(17:13):
refused to grant the mistrial refused to strike testimony about
the bra. And lastly, the jury sent out a note
on the third day asking if they couldn't come up
with a verdict, would they be kept sequestered over the
holiday of the Christmas holiday, and the judge told them
that they would. I learned many years later that at

(17:35):
that point the vote was eleven to one for a conviction,
but there was a hole that jur that thought I
was innocent, but they were all pressing that juror. And
then when they answer to that note came back that
ratcheted a pressure up and nobody wanted to be there
over the holidays, so he switched his vote and I

(17:55):
was wrongfully convicted. I was given a fifteenth to life sentence.
I'd been charged, argist and tried as an adult. That
was sentenced as an adult, and the judge gave me
that sentence despite saying, maybe you are innocent. And I
was sent to a men's maximum security prison where you know,
I remained for the next sixteen years. I mean along
the way I got turned down for parole. I lost

(18:19):
seven appeals before that. I got blocked by former form
Orscestern County District Attorney Jeanine Piroh. She was a DA
by the time my first appeal was decided, and she
blocked DNA testing several times. She got me a band
thrown out of a federal court, once because the court
clerk had given my lawyer the wrong information pertaining to

(18:40):
the filing procedures, and that resulted in my petitioner my
habeas petition arriving four days late, which she argued, the
court is simply rule I was late and not look
at my arguments, and that's what the court did. Several
courts upheld that ruling, including where several proceedings were Future

(19:03):
US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Soto Mayor upheld that roling
in Supreme Court declined to give me permission to appeal
to them. I was out of appeals at that point,
so I wrote letters for four years looking to find
somebody who would take my case for free, because I
had no money to hire an attorney or an investigator.
And the hope, of course, was to find some new

(19:25):
evidence of innocence, which would have probably resulted in a
different outcome. And so after writing letters for four years,
one of those letters reached an investigator and she connected
me with the Unists project and they took my case.
So that was the first key, and the second key
was that Piro left office and her successor was willing

(19:47):
to let me get the testing. And the third thing
as we got lucky that the actual perpetrator's DNA was
in the data bank, because because as I mentioned, left
free while I was doing time for his crime, he
killed a second victim half years later, so the DNA
matched him. Confronted with the evidence, he admitted he was
the one who committed the crime. So my charges were

(20:10):
ultimately dismissed on actual innocence grounds, and he was subsequently
arrested and convicted.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
Wow did you ever, like God, I would have so
many words to say them, I.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Can't even I did have a lot of words to say.
I mean when I was, you know, conviction was overturned.
I was at the press conference. I mean I I
spoke for like two two and a half hours off
the cuff, I mean, in front of the press, the media.
Everything I had ever wanted to say but could never
get anybody to hear me came out. And just when

(20:47):
I thought I was finishing up, another topic dawned on
me and it continued on that way.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, but you literally, I mean you said it's sixteen.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Years, right, Yes, sixteen years from me seventeen to thirty two.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yes, So literally had your own life at that point
had been spent in the system?

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Correct? Yes? Yes? And as an awful as a result
of that, I mean, when you know, it made the
reintegration process, which would have been tough under any circumstances,
I think, even more challenging. So let me share a
little bit about you know, reintegration difficulties. I mean the

(21:31):
world was much differ technologically than what it was before
cell phone, GPS, internet hadn't been created. Culture was different,
the cities looked different. You know. I had long since
lost contact with friends. The overwhelming majority of my extended

(21:54):
family never came to see me. The few people that
did it was very sporadic. I saw my younger three
times in sixteen years, not at all in the last
in the last decades. So when I would meet up
with members of my extended family, it was awkward because
I knew who they were intellectually, but you know, because

(22:16):
I had memories of them when I was younger. But
I was a different person then, and so were they.
I saw a mental health professional four times a week
for six years and overcoming the psychological after effects of
the experience. There was the social stigma aspect of it.
I was in prison for sixteen years, Yes, but you know,

(22:37):
I was in prison for sixteen years, So how much
of that rubbed off on me? Is you know, is
it safe to be alone someplace with me? So for
many years that posed a significant obstacle in terms of
personal relationships. I was always passed over for gainful employment.
It seemed like all the would be employers, you know,
they wanted somebody who could hit the ground running. I

(23:00):
had a work history rather than having some patients for
on the job training, so I was always passed over
for that. I did catch on as a weekly columnist,
but you know, it was only a weekly newspaper, so
they only wanted one article a week. I was making
money doing speaking engagements, but that's you only get paid
if you get books, so that's not a consistent form

(23:21):
of income. So as a result of that, I, you know,
lacked stability of housing. I bounced around from place to place,
at one point coming a couple of weeks within a
homeless shelter, and it was just lonely. But I think
that those are just challenges in general that exannery's face.
But I think I had some particular challenges, you know,

(23:42):
because I was in prison for my formative years from
seventeen to thirty two. So just putting that in perspective,
I mean, I didn't I didn't graduate high school. I
didn't go to the prom. I you know I did.
I had never before had a driver's license, I hadn't
lived alone. I hadn't uh lived alone before. You know,

(24:07):
I'm ass birth, death's weddings, various rights of passage, uh
finishing my education at a more traditional age, being well
on my way in a you know, in a in
a in a career. So all those things made made
for a challenging time. It was a difficult five years.
It took five years before I got financially compensated. But

(24:30):
in that but in those five difficult years, I mean
I simultaneously I was doing advocacy work. So as I
mentioned I was writing, I was speaking. Aside from that,
I was regularly meeting with elect with elected officials and
urging the past wrong for conviction prevention oriented legislation. I

(24:50):
was meeting with the media, so I figured out how
to keep the media coverage. Uh, you know, continuing on,
I got a scholarship from Mercy College, which is university,
and they upped the anne and allowed me to live
on campus and gave me the meal plan, which is
how I have waited the homeless shelter. I finally got compensated.

(25:12):
I wanted to bring my advocacy work to the next level,
hence dedicating a significant portion of the money to the
Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, which is freed To this point,
we freed fifteen people since opening our doors in twenty
eleven and we've helped pass nine laws aimed at preventing
wrongful conviction. I didn't get into law school, so I

(25:35):
went to grad school and got a master's degree. My
thesis is written on a wrongful conviction cause and reform.
So I figured that the additional credential would make me
a more effective advocate. And at some point I got
tired of sitting in the front row of the courtroom.
I wanted to sit at the defense table. I wanted
to represent some of the clients, make some of the arguments.

(26:01):
Hence a second foray uh At something to get into
law school. This time I got in and graduated law school.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
That's amazing. That awesome. That is awesome. It's a good
aspiring story.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Well, I do hope to inspire people that are in
this I think position that I was in, you know,
not to quit, not to give up, to do the
things that I did in order to make it out.
I mean, I used to go to the law library
all the time. I would read books and articles about
other people that were that were that that were exonerated,

(26:41):
you know, for inspiration and to you know, learn you
know how and what route did they take you know,
I oriented all them to have some kind of potential usage,
you know, for when I regained freedom, rather than you know,
taking programs that were were a waste of time, I
avoided the avoid the prison politics. I used to read
nonfiction books from I read nonfiction books from nineteen ninety

(27:04):
eight to two thousand and six. I read like three
or four three or four non fiction books a week.
So that was how I you know, And then I
had to keep fighting off feeling for I had to
keep fighting and fighting off feelings so hopeless. Up you
have to fight off suicidal ideation. But I mean I

(27:28):
did it. I knew that nobody was coming to my rescue,
and nobody was coming to my rescue, and I was
going to recruit somebody to help build the bridge between
league help that I needed. As I'd read it happened
in other places. So to do that, I knew that,
you know, I was going to you know, I have
to keep my sanity to do that. So hence, you know,

(27:51):
you know, I think belief in God was a big factor.
And you know, I didn't think about that. I had
a fifteen to life set and so I just figured, I, look,
I have to have to hold on for just for
a year or two to the next appeal would be decided.
You know, I was going to win because I was
because I was innocent, and I still naively believed that

(28:13):
the system worked. So I think handling things from an
incremental point of view was a big help. There was
another prison there named Frank Stirla, also was innocent, and
we used to get together once every six weeks, and
we would half the conversation would be trying to keep
each other going morale wise, and the other would be

(28:34):
like a brainstorm session event what the next letter was
to write, what the next tacic was. Frank was ultimately
exonerated through DNA and so a couple of years after me.
So it wasn't that I was naively believing that he
was innocent and to be he actually was innocent. And

(28:55):
then my adjustment. I was kind of at the end
of my rope. You know. A letter I add for
a pen pal was answered, and I was asking the
stranger that I didn't know from anywhere, you commit suicide
and be done. I'm never going to make it out
of here, and you know, he encouraged me to keep going.

(29:16):
So all those things were factors in how I survived
my prisoner.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Do you still talk to that person?

Speaker 1 (29:27):
I do. I do. Yep. His name's Scott. He lives
in uh northern California, and I always tell him whenever
I'm coming. I mean, we do. I mentioned earlier, the
Foundation does policy work to our partners. It could happen
to you coalition, and we're active foundation and I are
active in the coalition in New York, Pennsylvania, California. Whenever

(29:47):
I come to California, I tell him, Hey, Scott, I'm
going to be in town from this date to this date.
And you know, he meets me and just shadows me
the entire time that I'm out there, and so we
catch up that way, and you know, he comes a
long while doing my advocacy work, and during my downtime there,
you know, we socialize. So that's you know, my way

(30:08):
of just you know, trying to be appreciative and grateful
you know.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
To him, that's amazing. I love that. So do you
currently only do post conviction correct?

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yes, I currently only do amazing post conviction Yeah, yes,
the other part of my well, that is true, but
I do. I do get involved in the compensation process.
So once people are exonerated, I do work on a
compensation casis in collaboration with more experienced lawyers. So I
do have a law firm. I mean it's just me

(30:44):
and you know, we partner. I partner with more experienced lawyers.
So I only use my Maybe the better way to
put it is, I only use my law degree on
room for conviction related matters. So mostly primarily trying to
exonerate people, but also helping them get calm and stated
on the on the back end, do you.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Happen to also help people who didn't quite make it
to trial and might also maybe need assistance.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
With that, Yeah, we don't. We don't rule out. I mean,
we're looking for innocent people that where there's a way
to potentially win the case. So so so even though
somebody might not have went to trial. I mean, we
actually have two cases that we're working on where you know,
people have applied guilty to you know, we believe crimes
that they didn't commit, and we we are we're at

(31:36):
different points in time trying to you know, trying to
exonerate them, and one of the cases we're still working
in the field, and then the other we have a
habeas corpus petition. Uh, that's awaiting a decision right now.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Nice, Well, if you ever happened to make it to Georgia,
just might know.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
So okay, listen, I'm a people person, so you know,
I got to know where my travels might might might
bring me and up definitely.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Oh my gosh, we met over we met We met
some uh some interesting people over this. But this guy
was held in jail for over three hundred and thirty
days with no bond, no indictment, and there was no
crime seeing, no body, no nothing. But yet he was

(32:29):
being held for murder the.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Word of a crackhead. Wow.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yes, and he just happened to be a black man
in a very race. Zero proof, zero proof. They just
took her word, yeah, no proof and held him.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
So so that was all just pre It was all
pre trial detention, all.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Pre trial detention. They gave him a They gave him
a when they went to the last bond here when
they went because he packed him a bond. Hearing for
months after he had gone, after he had gotten arrested,
and they said it's a conspiracy because you won't reveal
who the other people are. Just like because I wasn't
involved in anything. I don't know who you're wanting. The

(33:13):
judge said, you have to reveal it or it's a
conspiracy every single day, so you don't actually have a
ninety day clop. Well, then he finally got that was
in November. Then the following June he finally got another
bond hearing and the DA said, yeah, we're never going
to indict this. And the judge says, I don't think
y'all ever even have probable cause to begin with. And

(33:33):
I'm like, well, that's a big shift from your last
position of it's a conspiracy. But now he's sitting here
like they won't dismiss the charges. It's been two years
since he's gotten out. He's having trouble even getting like
gainful employment because people will google him and you know,
they're like, oh, yeah, he's got like murder charges pending.

(33:54):
Well that's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
What are the charges pending? Or they or they dismissed
the case.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Which of the two they did not They did not
dismiss the case. It is still sitting there.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
No, I mean yeah, well, I mean it's they said
on the record there's no probable cause. I mean his
lawyer should be finaling motions in court to dismiss the case.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Then, Yeah, Well, his lawyers on record in the transcript
saying that he didn't do his job either, and I
was lying. I mean I was reading it. I was dumbfounded.
I was like, that is insane.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
Well, well, I mean I think he should, you know,
try to get a different, different attorney. I mean, there
isn't any nonprofit entities down there that you know, that
you can get in touch with, because it sounds like
he's in need of some you know, competent representation.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
He is, he definitely is. They're trying to work with
his original attorney. He was right on the South Carolina
Georgia border, and so his original attorney was actually a
South Carolina attorney, and so he is, he's trying his
best to get that guy to you know, file for

(35:02):
it to be dismissed. But the guy wanted more phone calls.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
Yeah. Well, I mean that's kind of unfortunately, kind of typical.
I mean what happened. What happens is that they have
too many cases at once. I mean, it's not you
it's not unusual for one public defender to represent one
hundred people at the same time. So I know it's sad,
as very sad. That's that's very sad, But you know,
I mean, I feel like there's a number of deficient

(35:31):
things with the public defender system. I mean, I think
that there should be an even financial playing field between
the district Attorney's office and the public defender's office. I
think that there should be an equal budget so that
they can have you know, equal resources to you know,
manpower and experts, and have a limitation on the case loads,
and have equal pay for you know, for for for

(35:54):
both sides. And I think they should be a statewide
system so they could be oversight and quality control rather
than I'm just doing a county, you know, county by county.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
I would love to see that happen. When I was
going through law school, I.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Did.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
I started working with juveniles, and I learned what a
horrible system that is too, and it was completely different.
I had no idea that the structure and everything was
so like different. But I remember meeting with one of
the kids on my caseload. I met with his public
defender and she pulled out her drawer and I saw

(36:33):
her case. I said, is that all your current cases?
And she said, uh no, I've got some still up
here on my desk, and I was like, oh my god,
and she was like, yeah, it's a lot. And I
just felt so bad.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
Yeah, because a lot of people get you know, ground
up in the system just through you know, through deficient representation.
For sure, Yeah, it was really bad.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
But it was that was my first like real like
time of like advocacy where things were on the line.
And I had a fifteen year old who was facing
two like sentences and I was convinced he was completely
innocent of it, but nobody wanted to hear me out.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Wow. Well yeah, I mean I'm you know that, you know,
giving giving juvenile's life without parole. I mean, that was
that was an important decision, you know, Supreme Court decision
when they you know stopped you know, when they you
know stopped that you know, wrote rope versus Simmons. But
I just feel really strongly that you know, the developments

(37:41):
just developed, you know, just developmentally. I mean the brains
of you know, of kids are not the same as
an adult. So I mean an adult doing a criminal
act and a kid doing the same exact criminal act.
I don't look at that. It's the same moral culpability,
you know, I mean, you're much more, much more susceptible
to peer pressure, and you're not thinking, you know, long term,

(38:05):
which I think is another really good reason why you know,
juveniles shouldn't be shouldn't be housed in shouldn't be housing
adult and adult facilities also.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
And I was going to ask you about that because
here in Georgia, I know that he had told me
that if he got sentenced to life, that he would
be able to stay in the in the yd C
until he until he turned eighteen. But he said, then
they pick you up literally the morning of your eighteenth
birthday and they take you to the adult prison. And

(38:37):
I was just like, oh my god, eighteen, you're still
a freaking baby.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah, you're still very You're still very young at that point.
I mean, I think, you know, maybe maybe twenty three
or twenty four would be maybe like a good good
cutoff point there to just to separate it, to separate
you know, people out, but I don't but but I mean,
I mean, kids with adults is one thing, but you know,
I think another separation should be you know, people that

(39:06):
are you know, behaving violently while in prison shouldn't be
housed with those that are that are that are not
because you're going to put people in dangerous situations where
you know, they need to defend themselves. So I think
that that's another division. And I think that people that
are you know, whether mental health or on charges should

(39:28):
not be you know, should not be housed with regular
people in general population.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
I couldn't agree with that more too. So I did
have a question because I've talked to a lot of
people who have been you know, paroled at some point
in their in their sentences, but the one thing that
they all seem to kind of have in common is
they the one of the hardest transitions for them is

(39:58):
how they're sleep changed. Did you find that?

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, because they said that you made home my sleep
patterns after, I was yeah, well, definitely my sleep patterns
were affected. I mean I think for many years I
I kind of ran on adrenaline. I think I slept
maybe like three or four maybe like three or four hours,
you know a night. I do frequently get nightmares. I

(40:32):
mean I think as time went by, you know, that
started you know, reduced. I mean I've I've been home
now for like eighteen years, so I think very often
but once in a while I do have them, but
I know I recently, I mean often I would remember
or some sometimes I might wake myself up, you know,

(40:53):
just from talking, you know, talking in my talking in
my sleep, or anothering could be that my mind is
just racing thinking about what I experienced or that I,
you know, witnessed. Then so I you know, I couldn't
couldn't couldn't sleep And based on that way, so different

(41:14):
aspects of sleep being affected, and.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Sleep can affect so many things in our lives.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. But you know I feel like, yeah,
the more time, the more time that you know has
passed by, you know that things have become more like normal,
willform me out here. I guess it's a little bit
less strange to you know, to be to be outside here.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
That's well, I'm glad.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
I know.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
It has to be a huge transition.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Yeah, definitely, a big definitely a big definitely, definitely a
big trans transition from one place to you know, I
have found and I have found my purpose in the
world doing this advocacy work. I mean, that's how I
make sense of things in the kaleidoscopic of way. I know,
I'm doing work I'm supposed to do, and this is

(42:13):
what happens to me. You know it's I like doing
advocacy work and doing it's meaningful, it's cathartic, you know,
and it makes it makes my it makes my suffering
count for something, and you know it. At the same time,
you know it. I'm not an angry person. I want

(42:35):
to enjoy myself as much as I can, you know,
I want and I don't think I can do that
and be angry or bitter at the same time. You know,
I feel like I lost so much already as is.
Why would I want to in effect lose the rest
of my life? You know, if I was to be
angry or bitter, it's not like I would be impacting
the people how to handle what happened to me. You know,

(42:56):
I would really be the only loser in that scenario.
And you know, the vehicle that allows me to actualize
that as I take the energy that I feel and
I you know, channel it into my advocacy work. And
you know, I have a I have an enter piece with.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
That that I love. That is the best I brama.
I don't know how I could do it, But I
also I know that when you're put in a situation,
you respond differently than you how you would think you
would anyhow, It's just I know it's different.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah, yeah, it is. I mean sometimes when I share it,
like I tell it, you know, it's hard to believe
that I'm the person that they're talking about, because, you know,
when you just pay attention to what is your senses
are telling you. You know, you looking at you know,

(44:01):
I'm free looking at you know, houses and supermarkets and
restaurants and outdoors and fresh air and sunlight, and you know,
it's you know the opposite of what what what prisons
are like. So it's hard to believe sometimes that I'm
really talking about, you know, myself or something that I
that I experienced sometimes, but you know, I'm the same

(44:23):
at the same token. I mean I do. I do
like chatting with other with other dex houneries and even
just other people that we were, you know, incarcerated before,
and I feel like that's like a type of grounding,
you know, just to remember, you know, where where where
I came from, where things how things used to be,
and just trying to keep everything out here in in

(44:46):
in perspective, are you still ave in New York I am,
I am, I'm not. I'm not in peak skill anymore.
I mean that I live in the live in the
Bronx now, which is like fifty minutes south of Peak Skill.
But I still go back still semi frequently. Though, I
still go semi frequently.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
So there's a there's a guy that's in that area.
He's pretty well known in the Bronx who has a
podcast and a foundation that focuses on you know, prison
re entry and stuff like that, because that's you know,
he went through it. He was, he spent seventeen years
in prison. It's a pistol pete.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
I haven't heard of him or met him, but I
will wait a minute. Yeah, I think I think I
did his podcast. Yeah, yes, yes, did your Dog in
the yard? What's that? Yes, I did Dog in the Yard? Yes?

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yes, my character?

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Yeah he is quite a he is, Yes he is, Yeah,
he is quite a character.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
I enjoyed his podcast. And as as he might say,
how he keeps things real, Yeah he does. He keeps
it raw and you know, prison parlance and everything, and
you know he keep these shares things with you know,
the way that things actually actually were inside.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah, he's I was helping too. I was helping him.
I met him because I was helping the ghost write
his book.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Oh wow, and he has just he.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Has an amazing story too. All y'all out there and
y'all should get together and like get a whole documentary
made together.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
That would be that would be amazing. Speaking of documentaries,
there is a documentary short out about me that's available
on Amazon Prime. It's it's called Conviction. It's a short
it's twenty one minutes. There are several works by that title,
so obviously the one about the one about me is

(46:57):
going to have the He's going to have the picture
of me on it. There is a there is a
fuller version called sixteen Years, but you know, the the
producer and director is currently looking for a distribution dealing.
Once that happens, you know, it'll it'll be released to

(47:17):
the public. So I hope that she finds that within
the next year. And you know, I would like to
find a literary agent and it'll be able to you know,
publish a book. I mean, I do have a book
that's ninety written, you know, but I'm looking to get
it published by a major publishing house that you know,
could have a budget to put like marketing and public

(47:38):
relations behind, to set up you know, book signing tours,
things they don't get yet, a shelf space, things like that.
I mean, I don't want to try to take all
that stuff on my myself. You know, I already have
quite a bit I'm doing with my with my foundation.
But I would like to get the book done, and
I would love to love to have a movie out,

(48:01):
you know about about about my story. You know, I'd
love to somehow break into motivational speaking. I've done plenty
of other speaking engagements and including teaching cls and continue
legal education, but I would love to break into the
motivational speaking space. But you know, I know that not
having a book has been you know, a factor that's uh,

(48:25):
you know that that's helped me back in some ways.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
I totally understand that is it's a lot to accomplish.
I've been watching other people kind of navigate those watters,
and it is absolutely a lot. I've been fortunate to
get to meet some very cool people that are connected
to studios and stuff like that. I'm just waiting to

(48:54):
see some of the projects like to start actually happening.
There's so many stories that need to be told, and
it's just people don't realize just how bad it can be.
People think that, oh, well, they're probably guilty of something
else instead, so I mean it's okay, and you know,
they like blow it off because it's not them, and

(49:16):
it's like, no, that's not how they should be.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
No, it's definitely not how it definitely not how it
should be viewed. I mean I do think you know,
one of those things you mentioned, joh, they probably did
something else that is I think that that's part of
the rationale of you know why you know, some prosecutors
or some cops do do what they do. Well, he
didn't do that, but you did something else, so you know,
it all kind of evens out in the end. But

(49:43):
you know, I have a you know, the problem with
taking that kind of approach is number one, you don't
know that. Number number two, by doing that, you're really
denying justice to you know, the crime victims. I mean
they're not you know, the person who committed crime is
not is not being punished or leaving somebody for to
possibly strike again. And then you said the wrong person

(50:04):
a prison. You're not just sending them, but then you're
also uh sending music in effects, send their send their
family as well.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Wow, yeah, you know, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
But I do want to mention we recently, I do
want to mention, you know, the foundation. We recently had
our third annual GA galap you know, fundraising event, and
you know, an anonymous donor came forward and he offered
us a ten thousand dollars matching funds. You know, we
have we have we have to, you know, we have
to you know, it's a matching funds offer. So we

(50:39):
have to you know, raise ten thousand dollars in order
to get the ten thousand from him. So we're in
the you know, process of doing that. So people are listening.
Check out our website www dot Deskovic dot org, d
s k O v i C dot org. You know,
my ultimate goal is to have a chapter of the
Foundation in each state and ultimately in each country. I

(51:00):
really see this as a worldwide issue. And I think
countries where we don't hear about wrongful convictions not because
injustices aren't happening, it's just that you know, nobody's digging,
nobody's looking, nobody's getting exonerated. So that would be like
the legacy that I would like to be able to
you know, leave in the world one day, but of

(51:20):
course that's going to be when you know, that's possible
from uh you know, uh public public funding. I mean,
that's what a nonprofit organization is. I mean, we're going
to try to provide a service to people that can't
you know, population that can't they can't afford, they can't
afford to play, they can't afford to pay for it,

(51:42):
even raise money from a third party source. So that's
you know, always the bane of the nonprofit world, right.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Well, you know, one of the things I think people
don't also understand is there are limited ways to raise
funds period. If you have somebody who has a violent charge,
and even if there's innocent as can be, people don't
want to take that risk.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
Yeah, yeah, that is true. That's true as well.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
It's there's a lot of things that impact people when
they're going through the system, and it's just it's mind blowing.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Sorry, Julie Andrew, I was excited about talking because, yeah, no,
I figured out it's been it's been lagging for me
every once in a while. So I'm glad you were
able to, you know, pick up the slack because I'm like,
every once in a while it lags and I'm like,
oh crap, no, listen. I was glad to because this

(52:51):
is one of those topics that I'm very passionate about.
You know, when my students, I try very hard to
help encourage you know, advocacy and looking at things in
different ways and you know, changing their focus, like taking
them out of their moral compass into that legal lens

(53:12):
and you know, so you can view the case without
adding in those emotions as much as possible. And I
always want.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
Them to go and definitely important. That's definitely important, surely. Yeah.
I mean you can, well, when you chat with them
about our interview, I mean you can tell them, you
know that I was encouraging how do you take at
least one wrongful convicton in the course of their life.
They better do more than that, of course, but I mean, look,

(53:45):
if people don't even do that though a lot of
people don't even do.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
That, oh, I know, I know. It's I know, that's
one of the things that I would like to figure
out a way to help support those efforts, and you know,
figure out a way to bring together law clerks and
paralegals and stuff like that. Maybe you can help, you know,

(54:11):
on the back end, alleviate some of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
No, it is a big problem to do. It definitely
is a big, big problem. And you know, we need
as many people helping out as we can. I mean,
per National Register exoneration just from nineteen eighty ninety four
three six hundred and eighty one honeration seat. If you
do happen, you know which is you know, those are

(54:37):
those that's those of us that made it out.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
Yeah. There was a case that was just overturned in Louisiana,
I think last in April, and it was Jimmy Duncan.
And his case is really interesting because to you you
know what I'm talking about the bite marks.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, his his case is interesting, that's I mean, yeah, right.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah, his his got overturned.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
They wrong conviction, things that have been accepted. There's evidence
in the courtroom.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Not just junk science. He had a he had an
uncertified medical examiner too, who did the autopsy. And this
medical examiner who was only supposed to be doing like
it was like, oh, I'm sorry, I said. He also
had an uncertified medical examiner who did the autopsy and
this guy was not only uncertified, he wasn't just uncertified,

(55:44):
he was doing like twelve to eighteen hundred autopsies a year,
which is insane.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
Yeah, that is insane. So it's.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
I don't know, I'm just it's it's an exciting time though,
to start seeing you know, that kind of junk science
clearing people. It's just sad that people have had, you know,
the bulk of their lives being taken away.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Sure. Absolutely, yeah, you can never get the you can
never get any of that time back.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
No, well, this was amazing. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Absolutely, I appreciate you guys having me on send me
the link of when you know, send me the link
and I'm happy to share it around on social media.
And again if you love, if you're listening and you
know you like what you've heard. Again, I encourage people
to check out the documentary short. It's available on Amazon
Prime called Conviction. Follow us on social media Deskavic Foundation

(56:42):
on Instagram, the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation on Facebook. I have
a personal and private page as well, Jeffrey Deskovic on
both of those who can follow me on LinkedIn and
you know we have a TikTok account as well, so
you can keep up with the work of the foundation,
you know, legislation will working on upcoming events, uh in interviews,

(57:04):
media appearances, updates on cases. Okay, all right, thank you,
thank you very much, Thank you very much for having
me on and I look forward listening to the episode.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
Yes, thank you for being a right Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
We appreciate it. You're welcome, Thank you, bye, all right,
take care.