In this episode, I sit down with my good friend and former criminal defense attorney, Robert Kountz, who was released from prison in 2016 after serving almost 25 years in prison for a crime he didn t commit. We talk about his story, his journey, and how he was exonerated from the murder of a woman in the French Quarter of New Orleans. We also talk about how he became a civil rights advocate and advocate for the defense of other exonerated prisoners. And, of course, we talk about The Joe Rogan Experience. This episode is sponsored by the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to exonerating innocent men and women who have been wrongly imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/sponsorships/TheJoeRogansExperience Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Theme by Mavus White. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed here are our own, not those of our companies, unless otherwise specified. We do not own the rights to any music used in this episode. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen to this podcast. Thank you for supporting the podcast. It helps us grow. Thank you so much for listening and share the podcast with your fellow podcaster friends! Timestamps: 0:00:00 - 1:30 - 3:15 - What's your favorite artist? 5:00 6:00 | 7: 8:40 - What do you think of this episode? 9:30 | 11:30 12:15 13:40 14:40 | What is your favorite piece of music? 15:00 -- How do you would you like it? 16:30 -- What s your favorite part? 17:40 -- How did you think it's a good one? 18:20 -- What would you want to hear it's better than that's a little bit more? 19:00 // 15:30 & 16:00 & 17:20 21:10 -- What do I think it would be a good thing? 22:30 // 17:10 16 :30 -- How would you put it in a movie?
00:00:51.000I was asked to speak at this conference of like hundreds of criminal defense attorneys with Barry Sheck, who founded the Innocence Project.
00:00:59.000And we were teaching a class essentially from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Barry and I were giving a presentation in front of hundreds of lawyers about Things that they could do to ensure that during jury selection and a trial that you can expose prosecutorial misconduct,
00:01:22.000how you can make stronger legal pleas to get what we call exculpatory evidence or evidence that would tend to show someone's innocence.
00:01:34.000So, it was an hour-long speech, and Barry and I were, like, going in 15-minute blocks, and at some point while we're on the stage, and I feel like we're killing it, you know?
00:01:44.000Like, they're really loving this stuff.
00:01:47.000And at some point on stage, Barry goes to me, by the way, you know, we just had an exoneration here in New Orleans and this guy might show up.
00:02:39.000So everybody is looking at this guy, and I see this very well-dressed man.
00:02:44.000And Barry, you know, says, oh, and, you know, we have a very special treat for you.
00:02:49.000This man, just a few weeks ago, was walked out of Angola, one of the most violent penitentiaries in the country.
00:02:57.000And I feel like, you know, something bad is about to happen because I know what that's like to, at least, I don't know what it's like, but I know what it's like to see somebody in the throes of just getting out, and they're usually shell-shocked in a way that is not conducive to public speaking.
00:03:18.000So this guy just strides up on the stage, grabs the mic, And gives this galvanizing speech where, you know, like you could see the jaws dropping open about how important it is to fight while you're in court and to not back down from judges that aren't letting you,
00:03:40.000you know, protect your client's constitutional rights.
00:03:43.000And I'm sitting there watching him and I'm thinking to myself, I've never seen anything like this.
00:03:52.000So, Robert and I met right there on the stage, and we got to talking, and then we went across the street to a bar, and we had more than a few cocktails, and he told me his whole story about the crime,
00:04:17.000A set of prosecutors and detectives that covered up evidence and lied and were responsible for his incarceration.
00:04:26.000And I've said this to you before, if you've never been in the presence of an exoneree, you don't really know the true strength and the triumph of the human spirit in a way that is very hard to describe.
00:04:42.00025 minutes in, we're at a very crowded bar in the French Quarter, and I'm weeping.
00:04:51.000So this woman is sitting at the bar, and Robert puts his arm on me, and he's like, it's alright, I'm gonna be alright.
00:04:57.000And we had one of those conversations where it was like, we just connected in a way that was really extraordinary.
00:05:06.000And then I went on to help represent him in his civil rights case, but that's how we met.
00:05:16.000I don't want to give away too much of his story because I'd rather him tell it, but that's how we met and then have kept in close contact over the last five years or so.
00:05:30.000I say this with full confidence that none of it is hyperbole.
00:08:13.000And it's like she's crossing the streets, but these cars kind of like moving kind of fast and a lot of traffic, you know, and people blowing homes and different things of that nature.
00:08:22.000And I'm looking at everybody like, ain't nobody going to help this old lady?
00:09:29.000Maybe not those particular instances, but just that level and that mindset of having that level of respect, you know?
00:09:37.000If you're in your own space, a guy's not going to invade your space, and if you invade your space, that's consequences for that, right?
00:09:43.000So it's just having that level of respect.
00:09:45.000So, you know, what I said is, Coming into society and making that transition, it was difficult in that aspect, amongst a lot of other things.
00:09:56.000So you were 20 years old when they arrested you?
00:10:02.00019. 19. And could you explain the circumstances, like what happened, how you found out about it?
00:10:13.000How did you find out you were being accused of something that you didn't do?
00:10:17.000Well, actually, they came to my mom's house, knocking on the door, banging on the door.
00:10:28.000The police raided the house, pulled out guns, and said they were looking for me for some crimes.
00:10:36.000I mean, knowing I committed no crimes, right?
00:10:41.000You had never been in trouble before that?
00:11:29.000So I left out the house and went down to the station when they went to telling me about this murder I was told with, these armed robbers and raping.
00:11:38.000I'm like, man, y'all people have lost y'all mind.
00:12:09.000So I was under that presumption of assuming that, well, eventually they'll get their shit right once they go to talking to folks and different things of that nature.
00:12:19.000And so, yeah, it was mind-blowing just to be known I was charged with aggravated rape, first-degree murder at the time, and a whole slew of armed robberies, you know?
00:12:31.000And what did they try to say they had on you as far as evidence?
00:12:42.000Well, a lot of that stuff kind of came out in the proceedings thereafter.
00:12:48.000I mean, initially during the arrest, they don't really tell you all that.
00:12:52.000You don't find these things out until eventually you're arrested and...
00:12:58.000I mean, because it was a British tourist that was involved in the—I mean, that was a part of the crime, so shit made national news.
00:13:07.000So I was on television, like, internationally.
00:13:11.000This case was, like, really huge because of publicity.
00:13:16.000So, I mean, half of the stuff, technically— I didn't even understand as to what was the evidence and what they had against me or what have you until I started going through the court proceedings.
00:13:32.000They say they had eyewitnesses and then they say they didn't have eyewitnesses.
00:13:40.000So in the Orleans Parish Jail, I stayed in the Orleans Parish Jail four years Four years before I was actually convicted.
00:13:52.000And that because the The state's case had a lot of difficulties as it relates to the identification procedures that happened.
00:14:05.000And eventually, I ended up convicted because a lot of things was withheld that showed that someone else actually committed a crime.
00:14:20.000And they knew about this evidence that would have exonerated you.
00:14:49.000Wanting to put someone in jail for a crime that they're innocent of is almost as horrific as the crime you're charging the person with because you're ruining a life and you know better.
00:15:35.000I think that they've become so focused on winning and believing their own hunches And that's what happened in Robert's case, that they go down a path.
00:15:44.000And you'll never really know what their motivation is unless you could climb into their mind and they tell you.
00:15:50.000But I know in Robert's case, because I know the case really well, that they took the...
00:15:58.000I mean, I want you to explain it, but they took the word of people that claimed they could identify him.
00:16:26.000It's infuriating, and I think that the only answer—we could talk about this probably later about the reform work that Robert's doing, that we're doing—the only answer is that we need to change laws to make people more accountable as law enforcement officers and prosecutors to make sure that— They can't just do this shit with impunity.
00:16:46.000It should be a crime of the highest order.
00:16:48.000If you want to imprison someone for something that you absolutely know they didn't commit, if you have the evidence that shows that that person's innocent and you withhold that evidence and still prosecute and convict them, that should be a horrific crime.
00:17:00.000You should never work in the criminal justice system again and you should lose your freedom.
00:17:05.000If anything will motivate you Motivate your listeners to believe what you're saying and to feel the same way.
00:17:13.000I can think of no other way than to take you through this man's journey.
00:17:17.000Because even over dinner last night, I had to turn away and not get emotional because I don't know how he did it.
00:17:28.000I don't know how these people can have the mental stability and find the wherewithal To not only survive in prison, but to play such an instrumental role in their own release.
00:18:02.000How I became an initial suspect is they had a...
00:18:07.000Well, allegedly, they had a false tip.
00:18:12.000It was a false tip that led the police to arrest me for these particular crimes, saying that they knew that I was involved in these crimes or what have you.
00:18:57.000You know, and a lot of these things, it didn't, and one way you look at it a lot of times that, I mean, growing up in distressed neighborhoods and growing up in poor neighborhoods, you're young, you're black, a crime happened to a tourist,
00:19:15.000white tourist, the A lot of people is looking at the city because tourism, as I learned, I didn't know these things now, but as I learned while I was incarcerated, you know, tourism is a big attraction for the city of New Orleans.
00:19:30.000There was a British tourist and a lot of news covering nationally.
00:19:41.000And so, you know, when you take all those things into account, And somebody allegedly called and said that I had something to do with a crime, I get arrested.
00:19:54.000I mean, when I got arrested, as I said, you know, I grew up, and I can go off into this, you know, I grew up in poor neighbors and poor environments.
00:20:07.000I come from a single parent household.
00:20:09.000I was the elder of five other siblings, which is one is deceased now.
00:20:17.000Because I essentially became a product of my environment in the sense of maybe, you know, killing drugs and doing things that normal teens do in those kind of environments.
00:21:15.000It was really horrific in a sense because in more terms of I went through that system and I tell folks all the time it's like standing before a system And they speak in a whole other language to me.
00:21:34.000It's a legal jargon and terminologies that totally didn't understand.
00:21:38.000Didn't understand that word, period, right?
00:21:41.000So, going from that and being in a parish prison, have to use my courage and my strength from growing up in poor environments to survive inside this institution or jail to It was horrific.
00:21:59.000Did you still have hope that they were going to figure out that you were innocent because you were innocent?
00:22:05.000I still had a lot of hope because I didn't know, as I said, Innocent people wasn't, to my knowledge, until the world's knowledge, in 1992, it wasn't really nothing prevalent that innocent people get found guilty,
00:22:22.000So I still had a smidgen of hope, even in the parish, like, they're going to eventually get this shit right.
00:22:29.000Or if I go to trial, nobody's going to find me guilty because I know I'm innocent.
00:22:33.000Just living off, just holding on to that, right?
00:22:36.000But as the time went on, me being in the parish, I started seeing guys that was getting convicted, and they actually were saying that it was innocent.
00:22:45.000I'm like, he lying, because that shit don't happen.
00:23:50.000You needed a serious group of actual excellent defenders who could go through all this information with a lot of work to find out that you were innocent.
00:24:01.000But did you get a public defender eventually?
00:24:07.000When you had conversations with him initially and you were trying to explain that you had nothing to do with this, what was his initial reaction and what was his plan?
00:25:03.000And it's weird because a lot of the things that he was requesting for him, Eventually, years later, a lot of years later after I was found guilty, me litigating my own case and working with the Innocent Project of New Orleans,
00:25:22.000where I was able to provide the resources to the investigators, some of these same documents that this guy was looking for were some of the documents that has exculpatory evidence withheld inside these documents.
00:25:40.000And other documents as well, but for the most part.
00:25:43.000So I understood why he was looking for those things.
00:25:46.000But he's always telling me, like, man, we can do this and we maybe can do this if this happened and this happened.
00:27:13.000And they explained to me why those things happened.
00:27:15.000They've been there so long, they lose, you know, they get out of touch with a lot of their family members and different things of that nature.
00:27:21.000And they don't worry about educating themselves because they're worried about how they had to defend themselves all those years.
00:27:27.000So all those things kind of like put them in that situation.
00:27:29.000And a lot of them, not all of them, but most of them was always angry guys.
00:28:27.000And I can laugh about it now, but I used to cry all the time when I talk about it.
00:28:30.000I can laugh about it now because I sort of understand it and I'm able to accept it, right?
00:28:36.000But I felt kind of responsible for his debt, in a sense, even though I was incarcerated and he was free.
00:28:46.000But the reason why he was killed, because he was selling drugs, not to justify his means, because that's all he knew because the environment he grew up in, He was selling drugs to raise money, the higher it turned to get me out of prison.
00:29:04.000And I felt really horrible and bad about that, man, you know?
00:29:09.000So, you know, through months and weeks or what have you, I felt so depressed.
00:29:17.000I actually wanted to kill myself because I couldn't even go to the funeral.
00:29:22.000You know, so all these things I was really, I was thinking about committing suicide and everything.
00:29:29.000But what happened was, interestingly, what happened was, a guy who I met when I first got there, one of the guys who I got very close with, in the sense of, because me and them had a subject matter that we can relate to.
00:29:49.000When I was seven years old, I lost my father.
00:30:53.000So me and this guy who I'm speaking of had this kind of relationship as it relates to, because he was a boxing trainer inside the institution.
00:31:02.000And me and them had a discussion about certain things, about how you train guys.
00:31:07.000It's like, you know, if you train a guy to be aggressive, in a sense...
00:31:14.000Don't hit him too much with the mid gloves because you're going to make him a defensive.
00:31:19.000Just different things like that, right?
00:31:21.000So we had to have these kind of discussions.
00:31:23.000And so he was the one that kind of came to my aid when I was going through the dramatic process with my brother being killed.
00:31:37.000I was walking to y'all, I was crying one day, and he just walked up to me like, man, what's going on?
00:31:41.000I'm like, man, I don't really want to talk about it.
00:34:13.000So inside the institution after, you know, I studied the law for years and I went in from the Constitution all the way up to, man, I studied everything about the law to the point is I started taking corresponding courses.
00:34:33.000In various aspects of laws on different branches, criminal, civil.
00:34:44.000And one of the reasons why I didn't want to be the smartest person inside Angola Prison, but I didn't want to be that same 19-year-old kid that stood before the courtroom and didn't understand shit that was going on in front of me, right?
00:34:57.000And I wanted to be educated enough to help myself Get out of prison and stay out of prison and change the system.
00:35:08.000So that's what brought on that level of education.
00:35:15.000So for many years, and one of the things I maintained a lot of my resources, I got a lot of resources is A lot of people used to spend a lot of their money in the commissary, in which I used to spend money in the commissary as well.
00:35:31.000But a lot of my money I used to sacrifice.
00:35:33.000I told you I'm a very strategic person.
00:35:36.000I used to invest in 100 stamps a month.
00:35:43.000And I said if I, and I think stamp was maybe 25 cents, 29 cents during the time.
00:35:52.000So it was less than $30 a month, right, for to get me 100 stamps.
00:35:57.000So if I can write 100 people in a month, and if three people respond from the 100 people I wrote and bring me help, that's a $30 investment,
00:38:03.000Because some guards just got animosity towards you, they don't like you, or whatever, they might get you to do something that you don't want to do.
00:38:17.000And I was getting all these help for these guys, getting reversible for guys, and Some guys was getting lesser sentencing and getting out of prison.
00:38:33.000As a matter of fact, some of the very same issues that I eventually got out on when I had the resources, some of the very same issues that I was litigating myself years before I got out.
00:38:50.000Well, I just didn't have the resources.
00:38:52.000So, yeah, that's all I explained, you know, my level of educating myself to the extent of learning all these things, man, you know?
00:39:06.000You know, I was, Joe, last night, you know, I know Robert now for five years and I told him last night, I was like, I almost feel ashamed to ask you this.
00:39:24.000Because I got this reputation as this real aggressive, hard-charging attorney when it comes to these innocence cases, and that I'll say things that other people may be a little bit more reluctant to say to a judge, and I'm not the traditional attorney.
00:39:42.000And I said to Robert last night, you know, but...
00:39:48.000I don't kid myself that when it comes to toughness, I can't even wrap my head around trying to get it in your mind space where you have a ninth grade education, you're put in prison for something you didn't do,
00:40:05.000and I know myself and know that I would have been a puddle And I don't know how I would have survived, let alone had the wherewithal to overcome what he overcame.
00:40:19.000So he was telling me a story last night about how, because I said, I know Angola is one of the most dangerous penitentiaries in the country.
00:40:28.000It's a very violent place, full of very violent people.
00:40:32.000It has a long, sordid past of not having oversight.
00:40:41.000There's everything that you think about when you think of nightmares in a penitentiary happens there, maybe twofold.
00:40:47.000That's a guess, but it's a very violent place, suffice to say.
00:40:51.000So I said, well, how did you navigate that?
00:40:57.000And, you know, I'm not going to put you on the spot to explain it.
00:41:01.000I mean, I love to hear that shit because, you know, he very early on, he said, I got that out of the way right away so that I could focus on...
00:41:10.000I identified these three things and wanted to do the opposite of what people lacked.
00:41:17.000In other words, he said the people that weren't getting out of there had no education, didn't know the law, and had no support.
00:41:25.000I was gonna get those three things and I made that decision early and I realized if I don't get respect to be able to focus on those three things then I'm gonna have to worry about violence the whole time and protecting myself.
00:41:38.000So just The contours, you could hear these words about people getting out, and that's why I think this is so important, that people understand the contours of the suffering and the practical considerations of survival that he had to go through.
00:41:58.000I mean, if you feel comfortable telling some of those stories, you should, because I think it helps people understand, like, what you have to deal with just to stay alive.
00:46:44.000I was able to manage to take care of my business in the sense of challenging one of the guys.
00:46:55.000And Eventually, it got to a level where guys had respected me from doing that because I was a newcomer that was coming into that, and I took it upon myself to actually challenge these guys and confront one of these guys and dominate the situation to the extent where everybody started giving me a level of respect,
00:47:17.000you know, to the extent, like, you know, he's a newcomer, but he ain't not the...
00:47:21.000So I kind of, like, mimicked that same...
00:48:23.000And people can tell you this as much as, strongest as people say I am and other people are, that come from a wrongful conviction inside of an institution.
00:48:38.000And I think that's like one of the most too feared things that they say, and I will agree with it, that scientists and other people say, man, it's too worst as fears of dying and being terminally ill.
00:49:55.000Well, it's hard to, you know, and the reason why I think that this is so important is because you have to transport yourself and allow yourself to go.
00:50:03.000You know, he gave the story short shrift.
00:50:06.000What happens is the second day he's in there...
00:50:10.000You know, the guys that are there for a long time, they call him a new Jack.
00:51:02.000And to protect the details, you know, Robert put him on the floor.
00:51:11.000As a way to say, okay, if you kick me to the back of the line, I'm not going to have words with you.
00:51:16.000I'm going to make you feel it so that no one's sending me to the back of the line because I'm going to eat like everybody else.
00:51:22.000And that takes a level of ballsiness, I think.
00:51:25.000And to also interject into the story, yeah, and When he told me to get to the back of the line, actually I didn't go to the back of the line.
00:51:37.000Another guy allowed me to get, like, maybe three spots behind him because he was like, that's bull crap.
00:51:44.000But I already had in my mind, like, I'm going to kick his ass.
00:52:00.000To care of my business, I put his ass on the ground and pulled the blood.
00:52:04.000And I let everybody know on both sides, the tears of tears, there was maybe 56 people.
00:52:12.000I let everybody know on the pod that I ain't the one.
00:52:17.000And if you think I'm just talking or I'm just verbally just saying these things, if you just give me a fair chance with each one of y'all that feel that way, and I kick everybody, I kick all y'all ass.
00:52:31.000And I wasn't, I mean, I know I can't beat everybody in the world, but I damn try, right?
00:52:37.000So me, doing that, that's what kind of like, hold up, man, this...
00:52:42.000This little guy, you're something else, right?
00:52:45.000So eventually, I started getting my little respect.
00:52:47.000I ate just like everybody else ate, the ones who was doing what they was doing.
00:52:52.000And eventually, over the period of time, a lot of that stuff I got upset with because it wasn't right.
00:54:48.000And maybe two pans of rice or a pan and a half of rice in order to feed that, in order to give people an amount of food that's going to make them full.
00:54:58.000Now, it might be enough for somebody else to serve and skim guys on the trade, not giving them a lot of food, but I'm not going to accept that to feed them guys.
00:56:30.000And in the year 2000, I received the evidentiary hearing, which is a hearing without no attorney.
00:56:43.000And my issue was mainly was about the DNA testing.
00:56:49.000I was asking the courts to preserve the testing if there's any testing that's available to preserve the DNA testing so I can test it and prove my innocence.
00:57:08.000And I got granted an evidential hearing from a motion I did.
00:57:15.000Well, unbeknownst to me, years later, that was the first Ever of a motion that was granted on that capacity because they end up creating a law for the preserved DNA testing.
00:57:30.000That's way after I did this in 2000, in the year 2000, right?
00:57:35.000I was like so ahead of time with this filing.
00:58:21.000And I tell people all the time, it's like, you know, throughout the course of 23 years and 7 months, I had 16 denials from every court, from the lower courts to the middle courts to the highest courts.
00:58:38.000And let's think about what's happening here, by the way.
00:58:40.000What's happening here, just to put this into context, is that Robert is asking...
00:58:48.000The court to order the prosecutors preserve the biological evidence from the crime scene.
00:59:29.000I mean, this seems to me to be a fundamental human right of somebody that's accused of a crime that on the strength of snitch testimony and hidden evidence, which we're going to get to what was hidden from him and his legal team in a minute.
00:59:46.000That he is fighting a seven-year battle, excuse me, a 14-year battle just to try to get somebody to help him get an order from the court to preserve the DNA. I would like to say that this is an anomaly and that this only happened in Robert's case.
01:00:03.000It happens in way too many cases that I've handled and that the Innocence Project handles and the criminal justice reform organizations handle all over the country.
01:00:13.000So a lot of what I get as a result of speaking out is, how can I help?
01:00:20.000One of the ways you can help You know, your voice matters when you are voting for elected officials.
01:00:28.000Your voice matters when you are writing a letter to a governor.
01:00:33.000Your voice matters if you show up at a town hall meeting.
01:00:37.000And we have to keep on pounding, beating the drum to make sure that fundamental rights like this, laws to protect these rights, are enacted.
01:00:47.000But I just wanted to make sure I mentioned that before I lost the thought.
01:00:51.000Because by the time the Innocence Project of New Orleans comes along, And eventually, Barry Sheck and my dear friend Nina Morrison, who are, you know, Barry is, but Nina is one of the leaders at the Innocence Project in New York.
01:01:08.000She just got, you know, put forth as a potential federal judge pick.
01:02:09.000But Well, eventually, they became numb to, like, this shit, it's all the same, right?
01:02:21.000Like, one denial feels like the same, you know, even though it hurt because you've been to build yourself up to the extent, like, all right, I'm doing all this amazing shit, I re-educated myself, I'm doing all this great shit, but what the hell?
01:03:05.000And something that you dread, you know, that's one of the worst things for any person incarcerated, but especially, like, when you're innocent.
01:03:12.000Like, there's a reasonable probability that I might die here.
01:03:17.000How many guys do you think you met in jail that were innocent that were probably going to die there?
01:03:26.000I met a lot of innocent guys in there, but I also met a lot of guys who actually died, right?
01:03:36.000In some instance, when I was in prison, I used to work for this hospice program.
01:03:42.000We deal with a lot of the elderly, the terminally ill prisoners over there on the hospital wall, in the hospital wall.
01:03:53.000You go over there and you care for them and you do these things for these guys.
01:03:58.000And a lot of those guys who Right before they die, like, you know, because I shared my story and let them know I was innocent, you know?
01:04:07.000And they're like, they was in their right mind.
01:04:49.000The death penalty kills innocent people because I think there's a lot of people that have this sort of hard-nosed idea that the death penalty is a good thing because it kills people who do bad things and it's very simplistic.
01:05:04.000But the problem with that is the legal system is very, very, very flawed.
01:05:11.000So this idea that the death penalty kills innocent people is a very important idea and people need to understand that For your, in your case, your situation, it's not unusual.
01:05:26.000This story that you're telling, it's unique and it's amazing that you went through it and that you figured out a way to educate yourself and to get yourself out.
01:05:36.000But you're not an unusual case in that there's a lot of innocent people that get locked up.
01:06:01.000And, you know, we're going to talk a little bit later about some cases of people that are still on death row right now, that there are strong, strong cases for innocence for them.
01:06:17.000And, you know, you touched on something really important, which is that when you hear about a horrific crime, I think it's human nature.
01:06:40.000And it's this phase where you are there to gauge people's feelings about the death penalty.
01:06:49.000And having gone through jury selection and death penalty cases, it's a rather fascinating sort of human experiment, if you think about it, because what the Supreme Court of the United States, not of any particular state,
01:07:05.000has said is that if a state is going to put someone to death...
01:07:10.000You have to have this process by which you cannot have people on the jury.
01:07:15.000This is a bit of an oversimplification, but you cannot have people on the jury that feel that if somebody is convicted of a capital case and a capital crime, that you will automatically vote for the death penalty.
01:07:29.000And you also can't have people on the jury that are so against the death penalty that they'll never vote for it.
01:07:37.000Now, during this process of gauging people's feelings about the death penalty, you get to have a conversation with them.
01:07:46.000And you can see the conflict, the emotional tumult in their words, in their body language, in wrestling with, well, if somebody would, you know,
01:08:02.000murder a child, or, you know, they deserve to die.
01:08:06.000But then you also, you know, see, but how, but unless I know 100% they did it, I don't know if it makes sense to hold that.
01:08:16.000And you see this wrestling, this existential wrestling going on.
01:08:20.000Then there are some people that come in and say, that's right.
01:08:23.000I'm definitely voting for death if I think they did it.
01:08:29.000And you know, it's fraught with so many problems because of the finality of it, right?
01:08:36.000And you know, people have different philosophical beliefs.
01:08:41.000But if you knew the sheer number of people that, you know, Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations, it would have put 30 people to death that were actually innocent that have been exonerated from Florida's death row.
01:09:28.000And, you know, I think human existence is far more complicated, and there are too many layers of gray areas that...
01:09:37.000You know, everybody should really stop and pump the brakes in their thought process and not be so wedded to how they were brought up or what their parents believe or what they think their friends believe and really take stock of, you know, what am I really about and what do I stand for?
01:09:55.000I say often that I stand in awe of these exonerees, and even as I'm listening to it today, I'm hearing it, and I know the story.
01:10:05.000But to know what Robert had to endure, it's just hard to imagine how a human being could get past it.
01:10:14.000I mean, he told me about the first time he saw people go for food in jail, and he said it was like a bunch of fucking savages.
01:11:01.000They would have held that First of all, maybe I can explain the crimes, right?
01:11:14.000There was a spree of crime that happened in the French Quarter in New Orleans.
01:11:22.000I think three armed robbers, a rape and a kidnapping, and a murder was tied to that.
01:11:30.000So they took all these crimes and said it was a part of a spree.
01:11:36.000They had a car that was involved in the crime and They eventually, over a couple of weeks after the crime happened maybe,
01:11:53.000they found out who the car that was involved and During the time when they was doing the investigation, my name came up as the anonymous tip came in, right?
01:12:06.000So what they did was they eventually arrested me and connected me to the car that was actually used in all these sprees of crime, including the murder, the robbery, the kidnappings,
01:13:19.000How they connected me with the car, the prosecutor theory was that when they arrested this guy, they got him to say that me and him was friends and he allowed me to use the car.
01:15:27.000So after I get convicted, I'm still charged with the murder of a British tourist, right?
01:15:35.000I'm still actually charged with it, even though I haven't been going back and forth to court with it at this time.
01:15:41.000After I get convicted, and I know I was going to get a life sentence for the rape, the kidnapping, the three armed robbers, I So the district attorney made an offer to my defense attorney and eventually brought it to me on the day of my sentence and said,
01:16:02.000okay, we can give him 25 years, 21 years for the murder, give him a manslaughter, right?
01:16:12.000And I don't know what type of stuff that happens out of my presence between my attorney and district attorney, but I was scared as shit.
01:16:35.000So I took the 21-year plea, but I never admitted to anything, right?
01:16:41.000And a part of the evidence was That the guy who we're talking about that was initially trying to involve me, he was found guilty of the murder already.
01:17:15.000There's something called the felony murder rule.
01:17:17.000And the felony murder rule is that if you're in the commission of a crime and somebody dies, so if you and I went and robbed the bank, And I go in and start, you know, shooting up the tellers and kill two tellers, you're responsible for the murder also.
01:17:32.000So the theory of Robert's prosecution was that they were friends, they were on this crime spree together, and that even though he was convicted of the murder, you know, He was still responsible and guilty of murder.
01:17:47.000It's no different than the James Daly case, which I've talked about before.
01:17:51.000They convicted one guy, Jack Piercy, and then they betrayed my client after that.
01:17:56.000One guy got sentenced to life, one guy got sentenced to death.
01:18:00.000It's crazy that they don't have to have any evidence whatsoever that you're even friends with that guy.
01:18:08.000And the piece of evidence, another article of evidence that was held is a report that...
01:18:16.000That when he made a statement, like, demonic on my trial, as I said, that I didn't have anything to do with the murder, he never knew me, and different things of that nature.
01:18:32.000And that was very important to change the outcome of my trial because...
01:18:36.000They took me to trial on the theory that we were friends and that I knew him and that I had connection to him through the car.
01:18:42.000But had I would have had that piece of information, the interject in my trial, I would have never probably got found guilty to that extent.
01:18:50.000And they also would have held various different statements and evidence as it relates to the witnesses that was very inconsistent, that was very favorable to me.
01:19:04.000And that could have actually printed back to the guy who was actually convicted of the murder and attached to all those other spree of crimes.
01:19:18.000Yeah, so it just was a lot of stuff, man, that they would have held that almost made it impossible For me to unravel and to obtain my freedom.
01:19:33.000And you know, I'd like to say that that's uncommon too, but it's not.
01:19:36.000So in other words, when prosecutors are working on one theory, full steam ahead, right?
01:19:43.000And they then are met with, you might be wrong, we might have been wrong all along.
01:19:51.000The instinct, 99 times out of 100, is to plow ahead and rationalize why the true perpetrator in Robert's case, why did he all of a sudden say Robert had nothing to do with it?
01:20:06.000Oh, well, maybe he is making this up because he feels guilty that he implicated his friend who really wasn't his friend.
01:20:15.000In Clemente Aguirre's case, which we've talked about and your listeners know about, The true killer confessed.
01:20:22.000She confessed over and over again to friends, to neighbors, drunk, not drunk, to police.
01:20:29.000In denying him post-conviction relief, now this is a judge, the judge chalked it up as survivor's guilt.
01:20:37.000So, in other words, whether it's a prosecutor's, judges, they'll make an excuse to protect the prosecution because it's all about winning or losing.
01:20:49.000Is it, like, do people just want to confirm their initial suspicions and they rationalize all sorts of reasons why what they initially thought was right and this new evidence that shows that it's not right is wrong?
01:21:22.000But I... I'm stubborn, but I think as I see this time and time again in watching juries deliberate because I do mock trials and focus groups or speaking to people post verdict, but you can apply it to politics.
01:23:20.000If you have a quota where you have to arrest a hundred people for speeding, what the fuck do you do if everybody makes an agreement, we all get on Facebook and we say, hey...
01:23:28.000Let's everybody drive the fucking speed limit for the next 60 days and let's crush the legal system because these cops have to make a certain amount of pullovers.
01:23:39.000They have to pull a certain amount of people over and write a certain amount of tickets.
01:24:08.000And you just have, like, a flawlessness in a variety of different systems.
01:24:14.000They got people that work for companies, they got a lot of flawlessness, and they don't really understand that you're employed in a system that treats people unfair, calls people home, and you can't even see it.
01:24:29.000And some people can be a part of a system, a part of a program, or a part of an organization that Have that win mentality, right?
01:24:40.000That win, win, win by all cause mentality.
01:24:43.000And they lose their empathy for people.
01:24:47.000And when people lose their empathy, when we define those things, and a lot of people don't like to hear this type of shit.
01:24:56.000But when you lose your empathy for people, you become technically a sociopath.
01:25:02.000That's a real problem with corporations.
01:25:04.000That's like a thing that they say about corporations, that corporations technically, if you look at the actions, behavior of corporations, particularly ones that cause harm to the environment or to people or sell products they know are dangerous and harmful and hide the evidence, that they're acting like sociopaths.
01:25:20.000And there's a term called a diffusion of responsibility.
01:25:23.000And diffusion of responsibility happens if you have a large group of people The term applies to if you're standing around, there's a hundred people in this group and you watch some guy beating the shit out of somebody, you don't step in because you feel like it's not my fault,
01:25:39.000I'm not responsible, there's so many people here.
01:25:41.000But if it's just you and one guy beating the shit out of someone, then you feel responsible because no one else is there to help.
01:25:48.000But the large number of people you would think would stop someone from doing something, like a corporation.
01:25:54.000There's so many people, how could this corporation, how could they act in such an unethical way that they know is harmful to a community, polluting rivers, or harmful to the people that they're selling these products to?
01:26:05.000There's so many people, surely someone's going to tell.
01:26:08.000But it's actually easier for them to get away with it.
01:26:11.000Which is how pharmaceutical companies operate.
01:26:13.000It's easier for them to get away with it if it's an enormous amount of people because there's a diffusion of responsibility and there's an overall commitment to keep the profits going for the greater good of the corporation.
01:26:40.000My humble perspective on this is that when you're a prosecutor or a corporation, a case or a person, whether they're taking a drug or buying your product, is just a number on a sheet and a name on a spreadsheet or in a program.
01:26:58.000And what they lack, and when talking about lack of empathy, is that they lack the ability Partly because of how they're positioned.
01:27:09.000To be positioned practically, in other words, to be able to sit down with the person accused and hear from them.
01:27:18.000They're in a position where they are told they have to win or, in the case of a corporation, make money and increase profitability.
01:27:27.000But I think it's the same flavor, which is that the lack of human interaction and being able to understand with prosecutors the human toll that is left in the wake of these prosecutions.
01:27:44.000Former state prosecutors, federal prosecutors, federal judges who are now criminal defense attorneys have moments where they break down emotionally and go through years of regret about how callous they were and how much they lack sensitivity,
01:28:08.000and some of them And realize sort of, I don't know if it's so much the error of their ways, but, you know, I know, and he doesn't fall into any of those categories.
01:28:18.000I know a former federal judge, I don't even want to name him, who is doing, who is a former federal judge, who is a former prosecutor.
01:28:26.000I've become very, very close with him in New York.
01:28:29.000And he is doing unbelievable things now through a project where he is trying to get clemency for people that were disproportionately sentenced.
01:28:43.000And I think some of it is because he feels a sense of obligation.
01:28:47.000Because in some instances, he was forced to sentence people because of sentencing guidelines disproportionately.
01:28:53.000I think some of it is a change in perspective.
01:28:57.000And if we could figure out a way, like I have a theory that it's lack of training.
01:29:01.000It's the lack of, you know, a system whereby prosecutors can really sit down with a criminal defendant, the accused, and their attorneys and get to know them and understand how damaging this all is.
01:29:14.000Because just getting accused of a crime, even if you get acquitted, It's life-ruining.
01:29:21.000I've seen it happen in white-collar crimes, certainly in crimes where you're accused of some violent offense.
01:29:28.000So I think you've put your finger on something remarkably relevant, and if we could somehow get across to people in law enforcement, prosecutors, I have someone that's an expert in a civil rights case right now who was a former warden at a prison in Florida and at a place where they used to execute people.
01:29:51.000And he's come to the other side and cannot believe that he was ever, you know, in a position where he was taking lives and realizes how many mistakes are made.
01:30:02.000So oftentimes it takes them sort of coming to the other side Having interaction with someone like Robert and seeing the empathy because what he's been able to accomplish in the five short years since he's been out and reforming the system is nothing short of remarkable.
01:30:16.000To me, it's both a happy ending and it's terribly depressing because look what they wasted.
01:30:28.000And we were talking about on the way over here whether or not he ever would have become the force that he's become in criminal justice reform if this all didn't happen to him.
01:30:40.000Easy for me to say because I wasn't the one, you know, toiling in a terrible penitentiary for 23-plus years.
01:30:51.000It's a horrible thing that people get a thought in their head and then try to confirm it, right?
01:30:56.000Like, this guy's guilty, and then you do your best to try to confirm it instead of looking at it objectively and trying to figure out if you're right or wrong.
01:31:20.000I can tell you another ticker in this thing, another thing that they kind of would have, and this was very important, the detective that, the detective, Detective Stewart, and I can say that he's an honorable person,
01:31:43.000Because what ended up happening is Detective Stewart was the detective on the homicide.
01:31:52.000And his job when he did his investigation was for the murder.
01:31:59.000And he determined from his own investigation and investigation of teams that he worked with that The spree of crimes as well as the homicides were all tied into one person who committed the crime.
01:32:15.000And that was the person who was convicted of the murder.
01:32:21.000So in other words, he did that and he told the prosecutor that he had the wrong man.
01:32:26.000That was the first time he ever did it in over 20-something years of him being a police.
01:32:31.000He told the prosecutor that, because he was the one that made the arrest on me, and he felt so bad, When the Instant Project of New Orleans reached out to him and said, hey, do you remember the Robert Jones case?
01:32:46.000He said, yes, I do remember the Robert Jones case.
01:33:04.000When I met him at court, going through my hearing process, he brought his wife, he met me in court, because he went from New Orleans, detective in New Orleans, to working for the FBI, to working in various high-level places.
01:34:11.000He filed a federal civil rights claim, which is for monetary damages.
01:34:18.000Let me answer the first part of it first.
01:34:22.000The people that did this to Robert were not held accountable.
01:34:25.000Criminally, they were not held accountable in any way, and that's a huge problem.
01:34:30.000Robert just made headlines in our world quite a bit.
01:34:36.000He was compensated It wasn't nearly enough.
01:34:41.000In fact, it was an amount that I find tragic relative to his experience, but it took a lot of—it took a change in leadership in New Orleans.
01:34:53.000The new district attorney there is a gentleman by the name of— Jason Williams, who's a remarkable guy, former defense lawyer, who just became district attorney and knew that Robert needed to be compensated.
01:35:06.000But he wasn't compensated nearly enough.
01:35:48.000You know, I once heard a civil rights attorney ask for $36 million in a case where two guys both spent 18 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit.
01:36:02.000And he said it, and it brought me to tears.
01:36:05.000I was his co-counsel in the case, but I'll give him the credit because it was a remarkable line.
01:36:11.000He said, $36 million, a lot of money, ladies and gentlemen.
01:36:26.000Unless you sit in a prison cell and know what it's like for a day, a week, a month, and your lifetime starts passing by, It's hard to put a dollar value on it.
01:36:57.000It's not enough for 24 years in prison for a crime you didn't commit.
01:37:01.000And a lot of your listeners have reached out to me asking, what can I do?
01:37:07.000There's a lot of states in this country right now, and we can provide you with the information to put in the notes of the episode, that have limits or no compensation for people that were wrongfully incarcerated.
01:37:22.000And that's a big reform effort that not only the Innocence Project has undertaken, but people all over the country in criminal justice reform organizations that there should be minimum amounts set.
01:37:34.000And they jump through trap doors all the time.
01:37:42.000The state of Florida owes him a lot of money for his wrongful incarceration.
01:37:47.000And there is a statute in the state of Florida to show you how fraught this is.
01:37:52.000And so he applied for the compensation after his exoneration.
01:37:58.000And what the state of Florida did was they said, you know what?
01:38:03.000The statute of limitations has passed because when we overturned the verdict, when the state overturned the verdict in 2017, whatever it was, he went from being incarcerated to being in custody.
01:38:18.000And what the statute says is that you have to file within whatever the time frame was, two years from being released from incarceration.
01:38:28.000So the state's argument was that, well, when the Supreme Court threw out his conviction— The same day, the same day that the Supreme Court unanimously reversed his conviction, the state announced we are retrying him.
01:38:46.000Nobody came to Clemente Aguirre's cell and said, by the way, you're no longer incarcerated.
01:38:50.000You're just in custody now, just so you know.
01:38:54.000So what they would have you think is that or have the court think is that at that moment when his conviction is thrown out and they say, we're going to try you again and try to put you to death.
01:39:04.000That you should have filed the wrongful compensation claim when you're trying to save your own life and get out of this mess yet again.
01:39:12.000So they jumped through this trap door.
01:39:14.000And the judge, who is a magnificent man, his name is Judge John Galuzzo, who I credit with saving Clemente's life because in his retrial, he let the jury selection process play out like it should.
01:39:28.000And he at one point said to the prosecutors, you know, what you think is the truth may not be the truth after all.
01:39:34.000And he let me put the real killer on the stand because I was afraid she was going to leave town as a material witness to preserve her testimony.
01:39:40.000And she all but confessed on the stand and the state dropped the case.
01:39:45.000He wrote an opinion denying Clementi post-conviction relief and apologized essentially in the conviction.
01:39:52.000And he said that basically the Florida legislator wrote this statute in a way that ties my hands because he wasn't incarcerated anymore.
01:40:03.000So even when you get these laws on the books, it's like, you know, your mind starts to spin like where does the fuckery end?
01:40:11.000So that's why, you know, the way that Robert has not only—and he should tell the story of how he finally got out, but he, you know— Can you tell me what's happening with Clemente, though, before we do that?
01:41:46.000Right now, I'm currently the Director of Community Outreach and Lead Organizer and Client Advocate for Orleans Public Defender's Office.
01:42:02.000Public Defenders, as you know, is attorneys who represent people who can't afford attorneys, generally poor people.
01:42:10.000I work in that office and so I kind of like work in the same criminal justice system or the same court system that actually Sent me to prison.
01:43:22.000So, and I take that, I share that same level of inspiration and gratitude when I go back in the same courtrooms that I was actually prosecuted in, just a court building, and able to establish a working relationship,
01:43:41.000a respectful relationship with a lot of the judges, And now that we have a new district attorney and their district attorney, so we have a beautiful working relationship and understanding both aspects of the criminal justice system from a prosecutor perspective,
01:44:14.000I run a nonprofit organization that mentor the youth.
01:44:19.000So I like to help them make a transition from childhood to adulthood, which is a huge thing for a lot of the youth.
01:44:27.000I'm called Freedom Foundations and I'll give you information where people can actually go and check it out.
01:44:33.000Me and another guy who was formerly incarcerated who also is a zoneree.
01:44:39.000You know, I do some public speaking in different places and help change different laws and Because of the position I am, I have a lot of influence in the community, amongst a lot of our state representatives,
01:44:56.000city councilmen, and I sit on a lot of boards and committees for the city of New Orleans.
01:45:04.000So I have a lot of influence and a lot of respect in the city of New Orleans, not just because of my experience, but because of my skill set of bringing everybody on one accord Not being afraid to speak truth to power,
01:45:19.000which a lot of people don't like me for it, but they respect me for it as well.
01:45:28.000And, yeah, so that's what I'm doing, you know.
01:45:32.000And we can get off into it later, but it's another book that I'm writing that's kind of tied.
01:45:39.000And because of your platform and what you're doing to uplift the voice of people who have been in these type of situations and also to To effect change, and that's one of the reasons why I respect your podcast and what you do and people that's in your position,
01:45:59.000like people like, because I can go on and on about this guy, Josh and Jason, how they use their position to help people.
01:46:08.000And I'm going to be really asking for your help to push this book down that I'm about to do because I... I want to be on a platform, right?
01:46:18.000I want to create my own platform of fairness and using the influence I have to expand these type of things and to change the concept, you know, change the mindset of a lot of people, man, because they need more people like yourself,
01:46:34.000you know, using their platforms to change things, man, to break this system that we have that's destroying people.
01:46:46.000I think there's a problem in that a lot of people have no idea how the system works until they're getting trapped by it.
01:46:52.000So there's a lot of people that until they hear a story like yours or some of the other stories that Josh and Jason have brought to us and explained until you see the horrific details of it, there's a lot of people that just don't know how these things work and they assume like you assumed when you got arrested that innocent people don't go to jail for crimes they didn't commit.
01:47:11.000And then having a person like yourself who can explain what happened to you and all the horrific details, when we have a few of these conversations, then people realize like, oh, this system is fucked up.
01:47:23.000And then when Josh can explain just this human nature that's involved in this confirmation bias and then trying to Confirm your initial suspicions and ignore all evidence to the contrary and all that this is some sort of a weird flaw in human nature We'll get these conversations going and people can sort of have a different perspective So when they hear about someone getting convicted or they hear about someone getting arrested instead of just immediately assuming that they're guilty Instead it's gonna bring up a conversation
01:47:53.000like this is a flawed system a very flawed system in so many different ways And not only that, if I may interject, a lot of people look at the individual that have been impacted,
01:48:13.000But wrongful convictions of putting people through the system is beyond me.
01:48:20.000This stuff impacts the lives of family members, your children.
01:48:24.000Your mother, it changes a lot of things.
01:48:26.000There's a lot of things that I experienced inside a prison of losing family members, losing relationships, losing connections with family members and have to be released out of prison to rebuild those relationships, right?
01:48:44.000Some relationships that just got lost and don't know how.
01:48:49.000And try to mend a lot of those things.
01:48:51.000But in my state, the state of Louisiana, as you said, yes, I have been, you know how many years it took for me to actually get to this point of being compensated to an extent?
01:49:40.000So, and we have been, and that's a part of my refund, working with the Instant Project New Orleans and a variety of other organizations and working with state legislators to keep on fighting for that change, right?
01:49:52.000That's some of the things that I also participate in.
01:49:57.000The thing is, even in that conversation, you still got to fight for that.
01:51:40.000And, I mean, to be real friends with these guys and allow me the opportunity And don't look at you like, you know, just because they may be at a certain level, that's what I respect about them,
01:51:55.000because they're going to see you equal.
01:51:59.000And I will not only assume, but just maybe doing my own research on y'all, I will presume you are the same way.
01:52:07.000You know, to have that type of humility, For people that maybe have been in bad circumstances, a situation that you may have been in, but to still be able to look a person in the eye and extend the opportunity for that person is huge to me.
01:52:29.000That's real humanity, you know what I mean?
01:52:31.000Because it's like, he don't have to do what he have to do.
01:52:34.000Jason Flum didn't have to do what he didn't do.
01:52:36.000I mean, you don't have to do what you have to do.
01:52:38.000You don't have to raise your voice about certain things, but to do that, it's huge to me.
01:53:01.000You know, when we and Robert and I have the opportunity to speak to lawmakers that have different political views, this type of conversation is extraordinarily rare.
01:53:14.000I spoke to the governor of Florida about the James Daly case.
01:53:20.000He literally has a snapshot view of it.
01:53:25.000Gave me less than 35 seconds after having me wait for several hours to meet with him.
01:53:33.000And there's a clemency mechanism in the state of Florida.
01:54:14.000And it becomes, you know, rather than just sitting and having the conversation and listen and being able to break through and saying, okay, I've heard you now hear me hear what I have to say about the reasons why you might want to, you know, did you hesitate at all if you hesitated a little bit?
01:54:31.000In the case of Robert and so many others, it took an army of people.
01:54:37.000It's really easy to throw someone in jail.
01:54:39.000It took a literal army of people fighting and clawing and kicking and scratching to get him out.
01:54:45.000And why I think he's such an extraordinary story is that to be able to get out and now basically create a position for himself at the Public Defender's Office It's a miracle to get out in the first place.
01:54:59.000It's more of a miracle to find the emotional, physical fortitude to want to stay in the system that imprisoned you.
01:55:12.000A lot of people that get exonerated Run.
01:55:22.000They don't want to see their lawyers again, send them a postcard.
01:55:26.000Robert, what you bring to this is you have a peace and composure about you that's very unusual.
01:55:33.000You know, because of the horrific thing that you went through, And to have to educate yourself about law and to try to figure out your case while you're locked up in a jail dealing with all the other stresses of that environment,
01:55:59.000Under horrible conditions and because of that you are uniquely qualified to discuss this and to have these kind of conversations and to open people's eyes because of who you are and how you've gone through it and what kind of man you are now and the way you can describe it so calmly and serenely which is so,
01:56:46.000And you've literally turned, I mean, there's no way to completely turn that negative into a positive, but you've made the most out of it for sure.
01:57:57.000And because of my experience and because of the education I have about the system, not just the criminal justice system, about the entire system, because that's what I studied, right?
01:58:09.000Me understanding that it's hard to stay inside.
01:58:13.000It's like, you know, it's like if you was a doctor that knew a cure or something that would bring someone relief from pain, and you see this person in pain, and you're just like, You know how to help them,
01:58:57.000And it's sort of like bringing me to the permanent is one of the things that, outside the things that I do and the relationships I build inside the community.
01:59:10.000Like I said, I'm working towards this book I'm working towards.
01:59:55.000You grew up in distressed neighborhoods all your life, poor, come from a single parent household, uneducated, to all this.
02:00:04.000How you do these things is still, now we're in the pandemic, you're not scared, you're not afraid.
02:00:10.000You know, like, man, how you keep a smile on your face?
02:00:13.000And I used to always joke, I'd say, one day I'm going to put it in the book, I'm going to show you how.
02:00:17.000And I created, like, well, it's four easy steps, and I actually tell them, like, through my own experiences, how I was able to maintain or build a tough mentality.
02:00:30.000And I mean, Josh was talking about it last night, and I think that what I want to do is sort of different from people that inspire people, like motivational speakers.
02:01:32.000There's a lot of people that are what you would call motivational speakers, but if you try to find the actual adversity that they had to overcome, like where...
02:02:15.000I know that I do this as much as I can.
02:02:19.000But I want to thank you for giving us this platform.
02:02:23.000You know, I'm eternally grateful to you for your...
02:02:27.000Humility, your empathy, your compassion, because if we don't get these stories told and make people realize that this is not a political thing, this is not anything but a human thing.
02:02:39.000And, you know, all it really takes is being able to sit down and realize that you're dealing with a person of mind, body and flesh.
02:02:48.000And that, you know, they're worthy of being listened to and certainly of redemption.
02:02:54.000And I think Robert's just a living, breathing example of the miracles that can happen when people come together to try to help.
02:03:02.000I think it's important to have as many of these people on as we can, whether it's as many cases that you could describe when you come on or have people like Robert come on and talk about this so people can get a more nuanced understanding of what's actually going on,
02:03:19.000that this isn't some fucking thing that may or may not exist.
02:03:30.000And there's DNA evidence, and there's evidence that the prosecutors withheld evidence, and there's evidence that you were innocent the entire time that they knew it.
02:04:52.000Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my story and hopefully to build from it, you know, to build from it and continue on to reach out to folks.
02:05:05.000And allow people to have that conversation and allow them to see different perspectives.
02:05:09.000Sometimes that we can grow up whether it's an ideology or perception that's passed down from our family and friends or just our own experiences and to keep our mind closed, right, to the real perspectives of life.
02:05:23.000So I just thank you for giving us this opportunity and I think that it's going to change some people's lives.