With the police banging on the door, open up.
The choice to be in that lineup was the last choice I made as a free man.
A year later, I ended up writing the system.
I'm going to be one of those people who everyone in the world is going to think as a monster or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life, and I'm just going to have to come to peace with that. Somebody was able to look at my picture in the database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they might have to play in my hanging.
They had been told that.
Two prison officers would have to participate in my execution.
Now I walked back inside that prison for the last time. Man, all help broke loose.
But this is Wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today we have a very special Valentine's Day edition featuring two extraordinary people, Cedric Courtney and his beautiful wife, Tina.
Cedric Tina, Welcome to the show. Thank you, Thank you so.
Cedric and Tina have a very unusual and beautiful love story, which is that they met in prison, and as you're probably now spitting out your coffee listening to this, I can tell you that Cedric was wrongfully convicted of armed robbery and he was incarcerated in Oklahoma and met Tina when she was working in the prison as a guard.
Cedric Courtney was exonerated after he had already served his time in prison fifteen years. He sued Tulsa Police o for testimony given by a lab technician that helped to convict him a DNA test. The evidence much later showed it was not connected to Courtney.
Today, DNA is the gold standard for prosecutors and defense attorneys.
The lack of it helped Courtney's attorneys get his conviction set aside. It's a great thing to see now they have a family. But I want to go back to sort of the beginning, Cedric, where were you from?
Originally?
I'm really from Tosa, Oklahoma, and Tina.
How about you?
We'ren and raised in the same place, dunk And, Oklahoma.
So you start off there and you grew up. Did you have a happy childhood?
Cedric?
For most part? Yes, and you.
Too, yes? Nice?
So everything was going pretty good, I guess, I mean, you know, life's not easy, and I know your life wasn't easy, Cedric, But then things took a really terrible turn back in nineteen ninety five, and to paint a picture, on April sixth, nineteen ninety five, what happened was two men with pistols and wearing ski masks kicked in the door of an apartment of a woman named Shmida Greer and they forced heart of the floor, pistol whipped her and duct taped her eyes and mouth, and during the robbery,
which lasted less than ten minutes, they kicked her in the head and she played dead and they left with three hundred and ninety seven dollars in cash, four tires, and four wheel rims.
Right.
She then went on to mistakenly identify you. And we see mistaken I with its identification all the time. It's the number one leading cause of wrongful convictions. But in this case it was unusual because you actually knew her and she thought it was you for reasons that still nobody understands. Right, So how did this happen? I mean you had an alibi?
Right?
Well, they also said in the trial that the person who does the lab work, girl Cox, Carol Cox is the one who does the DNA testing, and she came back and said it was inconclusive that the matching red hair did not match his red hair, which, as you cannot see him, he is African American, he definitely does not have red hair. He is black headed. And so they have found out, now all these years later, that she falsified evidence.
Yeah, and when you say that, it's so strange, and just to paint a picture for you, Cedric is a very handsome African American man with a beard and black hair, and so it's so bizarre that there would be anything to do with any red hair.
It just doesn't make any sense.
Every week we have another case, and every one of them is crazy because you sit there and go, how could this happen? But in this case it takes another level of disbelief, almost or suspending this belief because you say, okay, so she said that she identified you because one of the two guys pulled up his mask a little bit, and so maybe she saw the chin or something of the guy. And then also she claimed to be able
to identify your hands, which is nuts. I mean, is there anything particularly I mean, I'm looking at your hands and you could be a hand model.
It's a regular hands.
There's nothing particularly unique or identifying, no scars, you're not missing a finger, right, So how would somebody possibly be able? And again we know that in times of stress, extreme stress, people are even less likely to be able to identify someone even if they see their whole face, because the brain does not work like a tape recorder, even though a lot of people think that it does. Must have been very convincing a trial when you have a victim
who says I recognized him, I knew the guy. You had her testifying that she knew you and could identify you, and then you had this forensic analyst lying yes, basically just lying. But let's not sugarcoat it.
She completely lied and has been proven that she has lied on other cases as well, and has gotten in no trouble whatsoever for falsifying evidence.
Which never ceases to amaze me, Tina, I mean how And this is.
Also an odd case because once I found him completely innocent, obviously, all the lawsuits and everything I went through, most cases and most situations in most states, they say, Okay, now we have the DNA, We're going to run it through the data bank.
We want to know who actually did this.
They won't run it, so they're not actually out to catch who really did this. Say their evidence say this person has committed another crime and their DNA is in the DNA data bank Oklahoma. Won't run it to find out who really robbed this person. So there's no intention on catching who really did it. It's just at the time they wanted a conviction.
They want to save the case. Yes, and justice be damned, Cedric. Let's go back to you. So all of a sudden, you find yourself in sort of like a vortex like this, everything's going crazy. Actually, your alibi, let's talk about that, because you had a very very strong alibi.
Right, where were you on the day of the crime, at the time.
Of the crime, the morning of the crime, island and put flowers on my mother's grave. And after that, I went to the unemployment office. Was there like three or four hour was filling out paperwork for unemployment.
So there were multiple people who saw you because you didn't go to your mother's grave alone, right, you went with family members and then you were at the unemployment office. It's not like your alibi was I was out walking in the park by myself all day, which would be okay, well that doesn't really work, you know, I mean, and that could be an ALBI. But you were at the uneployment office where dozens of people saw you.
I signed in and I even received two chicks, but nobody could find traces of my paperwork. So when I got out, I went to the building and it was closed down. So I called the unemployment office head office, and they said after ten years they destroyed their records, so they had no record of me receiving or even being in there that day.
But this is when you were appealing, right, this is.
When I was home.
I just wanted to know. But I mean, at the time of the trial though they had no they couldn't find the evidence that he was there. Everything was just stacking against him.
I'm assuming because you weren't a wealthy guy. You were represented by a public defender.
No, I retained an attorney.
He did, and was he competent?
Was it he or she was a family attorney, and family attorney had never done criminal law, criminal felony.
He had never done any of that.
So here's another typical situation that we find in wrongful convictions, which is that you have an attorney who is a nice way to put it, would be underqualified and vastly overmatched, because you're up there, you've got a witness testifying that she knows you and can identify you and pointing at you in the court really as soon, and then you've got a forensic analyst who's probably talking about her fancy degrees that she's gotten all this stuff right, and the
jury would be sitting there going obviously the guy did it? What can you say? Do you recall did he do any work? Did he go to the unemployment office? Did he interview people? Did he did he interview the witness the victim?
I mean he interviewed the victim. I don't think he went to the unemployment office. If he did, he was turned down for some reason. My family went to the unemployment office, they would turn down. They wouldn't don't get any paperwork.
That's bizarre, Like why wouldn't they allow them to have your paperwork?
Were you bailed out? Were you held in jail?
Funding the trial held in pitting trail.
The bail, I'm assuming it was pretty high because it was a violent crime.
Like one hundred and twenty thousand.
Right, and your family wasn't a wealthy family, you had no ability to post that bail. So yeah, so you otherwise you could have gone down there yourself. I'm probably reckoning. People were recognizing you said, oh yeah, there's a guy who was Yeah. So that's another big drawback, and we see that again and again where your ability to defend yourself is really badly.
Hampered when you're stuck.
In jail, not only because of things like that, but also because it's much more difficult for your lawyer to visit you. And many people don't even get a visit from their lawyer when in jail. They have to go through the whole process, they have to go to the jail, they have to sign in. They don't make it easy for people to visit. I know from going to jails myself. So yeah, the odds were totally stacked against you. You didn't have a snowball chance in hell in this situation.
So let's go to the trial. First of all, there were two assailants, but they only caught one, not the wrong one. So in fact we know that they never caught anybody career that was you know, and that these guys who were very scary guys are still out there, probably victimizing other people. I mean, it's logical. It's not the type of crime as like an isolated incident. If you're doing that, that's probably way you're making your living.
So who knows how many other victims fell prey because of the fact that, unfortunately the authorities didn't do their job correctly.
And again that's being polite.
So your go to trial and the arguments are made, jury goes out, how long are they.
Delivered for not Lome?
It wasn't long, open and shut case as far as they were concerned.
Yeah, and they come back in. Did you think that they were going to find you guilty?
I thought I was going home, I asked my attorney, So what do you think you said, we got a fifty to fifty chance. After that, I figured it I wouldn't going home.
I can't imagine the pressure of what that's like. I mean, I've only been in a civil trial myself, and even that's like when you're waiting for the jury verdict and all this is take his money in that case, right, not freedom, not your life. You're facing two thirty year sentences here. I don't understand how you could even like not collapse. In a situation like that, you have to be a strong person.
And I've ever been in that situation before. How would you know?
And especially back then that was say, twenty years ago. It's not like you could just get on Google and all of a sudden start researching best attorneys. That's that they just had to go by what they knew, what attorney, they knew, what family friend for this person, which they should have at that time. You know, looking back, probably should have just went with a public defender, somebody that had any idea.
You know that there were no good answers here, right the public defenders.
The odds were stacked against them.
If I could just wave a magic wand I would put a law in that you have to be represented by a criminal defense lawyer, that would seem logical to me. If you have to go get surgery on your heart, they don't say, well, we don't have a guy available for that, but we do have a pediatrist, right, but you know we haven't. That doesn't This is the only
profession where that kind of stuff goes on. There's a lot of things that are unique about the legal profession in this country, but the system is not designed right. It's literally life or death in many cases, and your case is not far from it. You know, it wasn't a murder, and you weren't facing the death penalty. But even in death penalty cases we see crazy things go on. But in your case, they were literally playing with your life.
The stakes were total because you're facing two thirty years sentence. So the jury comes back in and can you paint a picture like what was the site? Sound smells with the courtorn fold? Was your family there?
The quote womb was full, My family was there. They came back and read a verdict. I drop my head and I heard my family screaming, Yes, that's all I can remember.
I can't nobody, as I think Tina was saying, nobody that hasn't been there could ever imagine what that's like. And then they take you away and now you're sentenced to two thirty year terms.
Correct.
What prison were you sent to? Was the maximum security.
Cotton County Jail is where they sent me because the prisons were so full and they would rent out small jails for doc inmates. Actually, the place where I started at is where I actually went home from.
Just four hours away from where I live now. Yeah, the crime.
Happened, So you get sent to this jail, and people, I think a lot of people think that jails are more benign than prisons, but a lot of them are extremely dangerous. And they also lack the facilities that prisons have, right, because they're only just designed to basically warehouse people. There's no there's no I mean a lot of jails you don't get to go outside. There's no recreation of any sort, even the most rudimentary. So you were there, and then eventually you got transferred.
To Granted, which is a high, medium security facility.
During this time, you were seeking appeals, you were trying to find evidence that would exonerate you. Right, how did that process take shape? And then we're going to get to what I really want to talk about, how you met Tina and how this beautiful love story started. But first, how did this thing start to turn your way? Unlike most of the people we've had on the show, you were not able to prove your innocence while you were in prison because they claimed to have lost the evidence, right,
which we now know that was not the case. They just really weren't looking for it. But okay, let's leave that alone. For a second. You ended up serving how much time?
I did eight on the first thirty in parole to the second one did eight on the second thirty in parode Home.
He contacted the Innocence Project back in nineteen ninety six, and they had contacted Tulsa County, which is the county was out of and they had said they had lost his evidence.
Right, so you contacted us almost immediately.
I actually contacted the Oklahoma the FITST system, and they.
Sent me to you guys, right.
What happens when someone like yourself contacts against this project is we review the letter. We try to find out whether, as best we can, whether there's some veracity to the claim of innocence, because not everybody that writes to us is innocent.
Some people just like to.
Waste our time because if you're guilty, the DNA is just going to prove that you're guilty. But anyway, so we review that, and then of course our next job is to find out if there is DNA that exists in the case. And as happens, unfortunately, in about thirty two percent of the cases, we look for the evidence and we get told that it's lost or destroyed or whatever. It is, and that's what happened in your case.
Yeah, first I was told it was destroyed. Then they told me it was lost.
Right, so they changed their story. That's a little bit of a red flag there.
You serve out your sense, but before you're finished, an interesting thing happens. Right, you're in the last year of your sentence, and you guys end up crossing paths.
We did.
Now Tina, if you meet her, she looks more like a pops are a movie star that a prison guard. You know, it's sort of disarming. You were working as a daycare worker and then you switch careers.
Yes, because the early retirement, I could retire after twenty years and then I can do my own job. My son would have the stability at home. We have just had all the perks, a better pay and a better health plan and entrance for one ks. All of our retirement. Had everything that I needed at that time in my life.
Such an interesting transition to go from taking care of little children working in a prison, right, sort of almost an opposite.
I really didn't enjoy it.
After you get in and you realize it's not what people tell you, you start meeting individuals and hearing their stories. And you just get a little bit more compassionate towards people and realizing everybody's story is different.
They're not just a number.
Let's go back to how did you meet Cedric? Which part of the prison were you in?
It was a.
Minimum security, was work release. He worked for the county, and my lieutenant had asked me to work late one evening, and I of course.
Eager to do that.
I worked late and he came in from working at that facility you could walk in walk out, and he walked in the front door, and he was dirty and him and working all day and he was really just polite and shy. I couldn't get him to talk to me at that time. He was trying to avoid me at all costs because well, you.
Get in trouble that way. Yeah, well, and you're on your way out.
You're not say the officers and his you know, for sixteen years, officers had not been trustworthy people, not but not trustworthy. It's just as an inmate, as an officer, you don't become friends. You keep that distance.
So well, it would also have been you know, you would have lost your job or worse, had anything.
Yeah, and I was not my plan in any way, shape or form to go in there and form any friendships with anyone. I still remember it, but we really didn't start talking until after that.
They told me they would do everything they can to send me back to where I came from the work release and then see comes through the door.
Hey, how you doing? Oh I'm fine.
Wait wait when you said they told you they want to sit back we came from? What do you can you elaborate on that?
The warden of the facility told me that they was gonna try to send me back to where I came from, back to high security.
Why just it was just a mean, just a bit.
Yeah, so you weren't trying to break any rules, as you can almost see freedom at this point in time, right, you you talked about how that was instant chemistry right for you, and what about you said, I mean.
Were you trying to go home?
You're just trying to go home, so you weren't even you weren't even picking up on those vibes yet. Oh wow, that's interesting. And of course you've been disconnected from you know, this this life for sixteen years at this point, right, he.
Still doesn't get my hints or my flirt, so I'm used to it.
Well, something could happen. You got kids, I mean, like you must have picked up on it on some point.
I mean, I'm not a specialist in family planning, but it seems to me something good with Right, he.
Was out smoking a cigar in the dark, and I made myself over there and told him to scoot over.
I wanted to sit down and have a conversation.
This is after he got out.
Oh, this was daring.
Wait wait wait, wait, you're smoking a cigar in the prison outside outside Oh, because you're on work release. Yes, right, so you see him and now you're on work release, which means are you out? Not really, not really, but you went up to him anyway, I did and said, what.
Just try to make conversation with everybody that was sitting around, just trying to, you know, like try to learn something about him, because obviously see that he lifts weights, he's in shape, he plays basketball.
He just seemed like a really friendly person.
And I'm the type of person like I had never even had a speeding ticket. I had never even known anybody that had been to prison before, so this.
Was all very new, and so this is out of character.
Yeah, this was definitely audacuate because.
You didn't know if he was innocent.
You had no idea, right for all, you knew this, this is a daterous guy.
And I asked him a bazillion questions.
I went through chart Actually, I would ask him questions, and he was honest on everything, every single thing down to when his last visit was, who it was with, Everything was all very honest, and at that point I was I was willing to get to know him a little more.
So now comes the good stuff, etc. You're released, and then how long did it take for you, guys to go on your first date?
Two weeks?
He called me immediately as soon as he was released, he called me immediately and it was yes, it was that weekend, and.
Was it was? It was just like it just clicked.
Like that or yeah, yeah, so definitely amazing.
That's so great.
And then a romance bloomed and you start dating and then almost like you're his lucky charm or guardian need, whatever the hell it might be. Right, then things get more interesting again because in an amazing twist of fate, it was a student, right, a law student correct, who was working at the Innocence Project, who decided for reasons we can't even speculate on one day to just call the Tulsa Police Department again. What we'd already been shut
down several times on trying to find the evidence. Because now you're out, but you still got a very tough road ahead as a guy with a record a FELA work experience last sixteen years, nothing tough to put that on your resumes. So this law student, who emerges as a real hero in this story, right, decides to knock on the door one more time, which would seem crazy, like, why goes You've already been told it's gone.
They told us it's lost, they told us it's destroyed.
But this kid, Chris the law student, if you're out there, Chris the law student. So he calls up and lo and behold, the evidence is.
Found in Texas.
In Texas? What the fuck was it doing in Texas?
Nobody has any idea.
How did they find it in Texas? That's a miracle. Okay, So somebody steers them in the right direction. Somehow the dots connect, the evidence gets found, the evidence gets tested, and how did you find out the results?
Who called you? You must have freaked out?
Well, I was at work and I was on parole leg monitor for six months and my parole officer called and said, some people from New York wants your phone number.
Can I give it to him? She said? They said they from the Innocence Project. I said, will you please give it to him?
So Chris called me and told me that he was the last one and if he wouldn't have found it, I'd probably be lost.
So what was your reaction when you heard the news?
I was about astonished as I was that I went to prison, DNA tested.
Let's go and then how long did it take for them to test it and came back to you.
With the results?
Not long? Not long?
A couple of weeks, A couple week and they came back And then this is the moment I really want to get into. So when you got the call, did Chris call you again? Yes, so Chris talk about a guardian angel. So Chris calls you. Where were you? Were you at work?
Were you at home?
I think I was at work.
He was at work because I was at work. I was driving. I can remember the phone.
Call because you probably got the first phone call after he got the.
Phone call to me, and he's like, okay, well, I need to tell you something.
I was actually innocent and they have my evidence, and he just kind of finally went into the story.
I never asked, really, did.
You break down? Did you jump for joy? Like? Did you just kind of just keep it moving? What was your reaction?
Can't it moving like I did when I went to prison.
I don't know what you were like before.
I didn't tell you back then, but it almost seems like this experience sort of made you have a very almost by necessity, have a very even tempered approach to life, Like you're not prone to highs and lows like it might have been. I think prison can take that out of you sometimes too. For people to survive, they find they have to not react to situations the way people
do on the outside. And that's one thing I pick up from hanging around and being with guys like yourself, is you know, you really learn to process information differently.
And then not let the little things in life get to you.
And I try to take that aproadly because I mean, if someone like you can go through what you've been through and then sit here and be calm and be positive and be moving on with your life, then what right does do we on the outside who haven't been through anything like this have to react or overreact to situations that are just everyday situation.
I appreciate that.
And it's one of the things I always get gratitude in my attitude from being around you and the other ax hoonaies. So I appreciate that. So you called Tina, What was your reaction.
I was a static. I wanted to call my mother. Did you Yes, I did.
She was excited.
She didn't know either that he was. It didn't matter if he was in a center, if he was guilty. It was just at that point I was in love with him for you know, I was just love with them. It was the first straight and it was amazing. I was like, oh my, he's going to get his name cleared.
I was.
I was really excited, and I was on the road. I was on the ball.
I was like, let's get this thing going. I want to meet everybody and talk to everybody and let's find out.
I mean I was. I had as much information.
I had PaperWorks and PaperWorks of just looking up his history, like things that had happened during the trial, as much information on present people that had just gotten out on wrongful convictions, you know what to expect.
I was trying to just do as much research as possible on.
So it was mitochondrial DNA testing, which is the field that applies to hair, that solved this right, and that put things back in the right light and proved what you had been saying all along, which was that he was actually innocent. I'm sure working in the prison you heard a lot of people's stories that they were innocent,
and some are and some aren't. Yeah, And that's interesting too, because we talked about how this forensic analyst falsely testified about the connection with the hairs to you, which of course sounds ridiculous when you talk about red hairs, but it happened, and it led to a very tragic outcome. And it's interesting because a study was conducted recently and.
The reports were published widely.
They studied hundreds of cases in which FBI analysts had testified on the basis of hair analysis, and they found that in ninety six percent of those cases they had lied or been mistaken. And what's really terrifying is that in every one of those cases they were mistaken in favor of the prosecution. And I say mistaken, I mean we don't know whether they were lying or they were mistaken. And that evidence is so powerful, and I hope that people are out there listening. When you serve on a jury,
if you end up on a criminal trial. Many people may not end up on a criminal trials long as they live, but some people will. And it's easy to fall for that, right when you have somebody basically almost coming up in a lab coat, like, I'm a scientist.
You know, I went to this university, I went to that university.
I was credited by it. And they sit there and go, oh my god, you know, like, but they make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Doctors make mistakes, scientists make mistakes. People make mistakes.
The fact is you have to really dig deeper and not just take a sort of an incurious approach. You have to be aware somebody's life is at stake. Your life was at stake. They were saying something that seemed ridiculous, but they were saying it with authority and with certainty. And they came with this scientific background and people jurors who meant well, and nobody none of those jurors went on the jury hoping to convict an innocent guy I'm
sure they must feel terrible if they know. I believe that people when they serve on a jury, they're looking for the truth. They want to help solve a crime, they want to help society. Nobody goes in there thinking, oh, great, today I'm gonna get a chance to convict an innocent guy or a woman.
You have, I don't want to go home feeling guilty that they made the wrong decision either.
Oh. I mean, that would be a terrible responsibility to have to live with. But it happens that.
One of the things that this show highlights is that it happens much more frequently than people realize, and you have to be aware, and everyone has to do their part and be strong in your conviction. You know, there's so many cases we've seen where there's a jury room, it's ten to two or it's eleven to one, and finally the pressure bills and somebody's like, I got to go home too. I mean, I can't sit here any longer.
And you're holding somebody's life in your hands. You got to dig deep, you got to look for the truth. The good news is they found the DNA, You're proven innocent. It was sort of a miracle that DNA magically went from Oklahoma to Texas. So now you are in a position to sue the state, but they ended up settling with you.
Is that right?
Yes, and then turns around and suit him for one hundred thousand dollars for back child support.
No one knowing the case and knowing I was innocent.
So they felt that you should have been paying child support while you were in prison making whatever it is, sixteen cents an hour.
It's something that he did not do.
They proved him innocent and then took him to court and said four one hundred thousand dollars in back child sport.
Since sane.
The good news is you've got your settlement, which gave you the ability to really start.
Your life again.
And there's no amount that's adequate, I don't think, no matter what you got or what any of the guys get, and unfortunately a lot of guys get terribly little, you know. I mean there's some states where the most you can get is twenty five thousand, some states where you get nothing, Tina. So ultimately this has taken now a miraculous turn. The evidence gets found, that state settles, and you start a family. You did so tell me about that.
My husband had wanted a daughter, actually wanted a child, He wanted a family whenever he got out of prison.
Obviously, once I get home, had girl.
We named her after Kobe Bryant because he's a Lakers fan. So her name's Jacobe. And she's three and about to be four. She's about to be four, and she's very spunky. We get asked often if she's adopted. She has a Briton accent. We don't know where it came from.
Wow, that's pretty odd. Fish out of water.
Yeah, she's smart. She picks up on everything.
Does she speak with an English accent all the time? Yes, all the time.
Yes.
Oh my gosh.
She has to get on television right away. And I mean, is that? Do people have trouble understanding her?
They laugh, mostly because they just can't believe what's coming out of her mouth. You know, when she starts talking, she drags out certain words and she just comes up with things that we have no idea where she's heard them from. And I just think she's going to grow into it, and she's going to have this amazing little personality, be spunky, And that's all I can hope for, because otherwise we're going to have to move in a therapist and a preacher.
I'm just picturing this three year old who is named after Kobe Bryant, who speaks with an English accent because she's beautiful.
To top it off, she is I don't doubt, I mean on beautiful. So she just smiled and you're like, oh, she's so precious.
And then.
As far as it gets.
That's incredible. And then you have your son, and how's he dealing with all of this?
He wants to be an officer when he grows up.
He laid back and he'll sit back in his room for hours and play his games and sit on the couch and he's laid back like me.
Yeah, that sounds like he sort of know where she came from.
He's got the chill factor and the other one's got the wow. So before we have to wrap up, it's extraordinary. I mean when I met you both, I was of course taken by the story. I've since met a number of other axonneries who ended up in relationships with women who worked in the prisons that they were in, So it's not unheard of, but it is unusual. And is there anything else that you'd like to share about this extraordinary journey that you're both on.
Everybody always says do not judge book by its cover, but it literally means do not judge book bytes cover. Get to know somebody, anybody, just get to know them a little bit, and it may turn into something a whole lot more. You may end up meeting the love of your life just by a simple conversation.
Cedric, I think they add to that. That's pretty good.
That's pretty good.
So I guess the message there really is, and it's something I think about a lot, is really to just keep your mind open.
So judge. There's too much of that.
Going on right now in this country. But I think there's you know, there's the other side as well. I think there we're in a time where there's going to be a reaction and there's going to be more, more understanding and more I'm hoping, more racial tolerance, more religious tolerance, more open mindedness, and you're certainly a great example of that.
And then look what happens right.
You know, again, just keep your eyes open. You never know, he may be not what you think.
You're mister perfect or missus perfect, because I definitely did not expect my future husband to be a tall, beautiful black man.
I was expecting a country boy. I got something different, and that's great.
I'm really thrilled for both of you. You know, I believe in miracles, and there's a lot of miracles in this story and I wish you all the best that I can't wait to hear what happens next. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts.
It really helps.
And I'm a proud donor to the Ennocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one