#057 Jason Flom with Andre Hatchett

America has two point two million people in prison. If just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people. That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.

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

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

I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.

A lot of times we look and we see something happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said, that could never happen to me, but.

They can.

This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm today. I'm very excited to have an amazing group of guests, and I'm going to save our star for the last introduction, But first of all, I want to introduce Sema Safey, who is an attorney with the Innocence Project in New York. Sema, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me Jason.

And today we have a first on wrongful conviction. We have the brother of the exonery here to help tell the story and to keep an eye on his little brother as well. Right, so, Jerry Hatchett, welcome to Wrongful Conviction.

Thanks for having me here.

And like I said, the best for last. So the star of our show is Andre Hatchett, who served twenty five years in prison, not including a year in jail waiting for trial for a crime he did not commit. When you hear Andre, Sikiel noticed that his voice is very low, and that's because of the fact that he had been shot in the neck prior to even having any of this stuff happen in the first place.

Andre Hatchett enjoying his first real taste of freedom after more than two decades in prison. A judge overturned his nineteen ninety two murder conviction and the beating death of a woman whose body was found in a Bedford Stuyvesant park. The only evidence in the case the eyewitness testimony of a man who first told police someone else killed the victim, and who fingered hatchet when comps found out that first suspect was in jail at the time of the killing

Andre, Welcome to Wrong for Conviction. Thank you, Andre. Let's go back. This was early nineties we're talking about, but even before that, Where did you grow up? How did you grow up? How was your family life? Tell me a little back.

All right, First, we came from down South. We moved in Wrong Island, fergust in early seventy five, me and my mother and my three brothers and my stepfather.

So you moved up here when you were a kid.

Basically I was young. I was young.

My mother used to work in the buiicycle shop. I'm talking about my mother. First, I missed because she passed away while I was in jail. I missed.

I got ps PETE TSD.

Yeah, I got that right now.

And so so we grew up and my mother used to we should make money trying to help my mother. Cause my mother used to she was single parents because she came up here, bringing us up here. So she always tell us, you ever get in trouble, son, you and you know I don't go to jail. I don't the job. She got clothes folks, she don't have no money, and she for five for us. You know, don't do that. So I never did nothing get in trouble. I used to listen to my mother. You know, I always been

On the tree. So growing up, I mean, it sounds like you had a pretty happy child that obviously you had some some learning disabilities I still do right, and some difficulties, but the fact is you were doing okay. Things were all right. You have your family and your brother.

And then we moved to Brooklyn.

As I got big, we used to pack bag at key food shovel snow anything to help my mother.

So you've grown up, you're getting along making.

I used to pack bags at Key Food. As I got bigger, I went to the ice company. I was so strong, right, I was so strong that ice. They used to call me animal there.

You remember these times, Yeah, we we was kids like summer jobs. We would go there and help at the ice company because my stepfather drove the truck for the ice company. So we used to go there in the summertime and help out around there and work with them, you know, work on the truck and helping everything. And I left, but Andre stayed around because I moved to Long Island and we got a real job, you know. But he stayed on the ice cruck working with my stepfathering him.

So before this crime ever even happened, you were a victim of a terrible crime yourself.

Right.

I got shot. I don't know who something today with the brother I was going through the store. I don't know who something. I got hit in the neck and growing in the leg, in the throat.

And that's an important point. And Seema, jump in here for a second, because this is what's so crazy about your case. Right, We're talking about a crime that was committed on February eighteenth, nineteen ninety one. The victim was a woman named Meta make Carter. And it is really a gruesome crime. It's like something off of a True

So the victim was, like you said, a thirty eight year old woman. Her body was found in a park in Brooklyn, and it was eleven o'clock at night. It was a drizzly, rainy scene, and it was this is going to be pretty graphic. But her body was found, her skull was exposed because of how badly bludgeoned she was in the head. Her teeth were knocked out of her gums. Her body had been dragged across a distance.

They never did.

Well.

Going back to his first attorney, me and my mother was in a Supreme court downtown Brooklyn, and like I said, we never been in trouble before, so we didn't know what lawyer to get for no case. Me being the oldest, I'm trying to do anything to help my mother because she.

High blood pressure help proproblems.

So you see a guy in the Supreme Court and he say he's a lawyer. I'm like, how much I paid for his first lawyer, right, mister Panzer. I paid him I think a couple of thousand dollars down to try to help my mother out. We get in court, like he said, the judges just I'm in court me saying he didn't do it. Check his medical records.

I'm telling me.

His brother's telling the judge this, check his medical records.

It isn't impossible.

And they didn't even listen to me. They was like, oh, you got to go to the boss association to get your money back. And I told the judge I paid this guy, and the judge like, you paid him.

He was a legal aid.

But I didn't even know that the first lawyer was a legal aid, that he wasn't supposed to charge me. I'm trying to do anything to help my brother and my mother, you know, out, So I didn't know.

Let me go back a minute, So when were you shot?

Hundred I was shot at nineteen ninety it was going into the wintertime.

So you were shot not long before this terrible crime happened. And this crime is as terrible as it gets.

And when he was shot, he got shot in his leg and he had to take a bone out of his hip and put in his leg, and he had screws in his.

Leg timrod like a table.

So when the cops questioned him, he actually had to cast on his leg.

What was the circumstances? Where were you going? It just came out of nowhere.

I was going to the store, just going to the store, passer like a block and they just start shooting somebody, dogs got killed, all the people got shot.

I don't know who shot me back to the day.

And that's one of the things with this case that troubled me so much from the first time I became aware of it, is the idea that it's unusual that you have a case that's seemingly so totally open and shot that literally a sixth grader could have represented you and said, your honor, this can't be. This is not possible. Right, You cannot drag somebody as his body was dragged. You could not have committed this crime in any of the things that were said. As we'll find out later, the

I don't know.

She lived in my aunt building. She lived in my aunt building because I go there because my aunt lived there. She passed away to my aunt named Angie Angie Atchie.

I mean, this is my head is spinning every time I think I've heard it all, I hear a story like Andrea's and I'm like, okay, this is just I mean, as you described that crime, and it's as gruesome of a crime as there could be. And the idea that they would willfully prosecute somebody who they knew were innocent because anybody would have known he was innocent, and leave that guy who's a true monster on the streets to potentially do this type of thing to another innocent person.

So Andre and the victim were acquaintances. As Andre mentioned, she lived in the same rooming house as Andrea's aunt. When Andre would visit his aunt, he would sometimes talk to or watch TV with the victim, and he was with the victim earlier in the evening that night, and the victim asked Andre to borrow a couple dollars, so he gave her three dollars. She went, she bought some drugs. She came back smoked in the house. She borrowed a few more dollars, left again, never came back.

Andre didn't see her.

Andre waited for her with her mother, and then after about half an hour, Andre left again. And then he had gone home, spent some time with his cousin, watched some TV. He remembered the TV show he watched, went to bed, and then her body was found later that night. Now, the mother was interviewed by police. She said, the last person I saw my daughter with was Andre Hatchett. Police interviewed him the next day. He had a solid, detailed alibi.

They let him go.

Eight days later, a man named Jerry Williams gets arrested for an unrelated burglary. Now, Jerry Williams is in the bullpen at the precinct and he tells cops, hey, I have some information about that high profile murder that took place in the park in Brooklyn, and he described the person. He said, I knew him from the neighborhood. I knew him from soup kitchens. Now, Andrea had never been to a soup kitchen because he was on SSI he didn't need to go to soup kitchens. And then he starts

I think he was a suspect. He has crutches.

So he knew that Andrea had already been cleared by police, and he started to describe this person as in a way that was very consistent with Andre, because Andre had crutches.

So Jerry Williams had a very distinct reason to want to be helpful to the police, right because he was a suspect in a Berkeley had been arrested for a Bergley, right, So he's sitting there going, hey, I got an idea. This is a crime everybody's talking about in the neighborhood. If I can be helpful to them, they'll be helpful

And what's interesting is right after that description, police go and get Andre to conduct a lineup. Andre voluntarily goes back to the police station. They do a lineup, Jerry Williams identifies Andre. Andre wasn't arrested, And what we later found out, which was presented a trial, was that the DA directed the cops not to arrest Andre even though he had just been identified in a lineup, and the document that we retrieved said, according to the DA's office,

Now, what is again not.

Addressed a trial is the fact that Popeye had initially chosen someone else out of the lineup, not Andre. Now, Popeye never testifies at Andre's first trial, never testifies at his second trial. The only person who testifies is Jerry Williams.

Who's the guy who has the motivation to want to lie because he walked out on his thirty first arrest. Yeah, Jerry, you obviously remember this like it was yesterday.

Yeah, because they didn't arrest him. He was going back and forth to the precinct. But by the time he did go to trial, they made sure that he didn't have a cash on his leg so in front of jury, like this guy was never shot or never heard anything. And when the guy said he screamed, he got shot in his neck and his voice box. He couldn't even he couldn't even barely talk. So it was impossible for him to scream.

It's impossible for him. The scream was impossible for him to commit. The murder, was impossible for to drag the body. All of it was impossible.

So Fergus the police name. He kept going, I'm gonna give you a lot of tech detests. I'm gonna give you a lot of tech detests. He never gave it to me. He talked about don't skip town. He asked me, don't skip Tom Judge. Study, going back to the precinct study, going back then. He said to one me, look at a muck shop book. Right said, you know him, I'll let you go. But he never did. He never did show me a work. He tried to make me pick somebody of the muck shop but trying to do the

So I kept on.

Going there, go on there, don't skip time, mister acher. They came, came, got me. Did I come back from from my friend from a walk to my mother house? From Shirley House?

Right?

So the corse ran up on me, locked me up again. He said, you're on the rest. You about to shoot me from in the back, Furgus said, And I said for what for the same case. They let me go, and then they came back and gave me thirty days lady for son n ain't do now.

One of the main questions at trial was what happened to Jerry Williams's burglary charge exactly? Now. Jerry Williams was, by any sane estimate, a clearly unreliable witness. He had thirty prior arrests, He had twenty prior convictions. He went through every single disposition of every prior conviction he had from the seventies up until the day he testified. He remembered the disposition of every single prior arrest except that burglary.

He never got a deal.

What was uncovered by one of our Cardozo law students after the Innocence Project took on Andre's case is that that arrest for that burglary was what's called three forty three. Now we don't really know what three forty three means, but there was some decision made by somebody not to go forward with that arrest. And so when we went to the conviction Review Unit at the Brooklyn DIA's office, that was one of the things we wanted them to look up. What they ultimately ended up finding was something

These are things that you would think you would hear about in a third world country, and this is New York City.

It is frightening how easy it is to convict an innocent person in the United States.

I mean, it doesn't get much worse than this. So let's go to the trial because this is, first of all, it's so troubling because your entire life is at stake in this trial, and the government's entire case rests on one witness because there is no other evidence, there's no physical evidence connecting you to the crime. Tell me about that.

I love the Sworders, God form my life.

I didn't even know he knew how he said he used our lookout, he'd do girls in the Dulstein all that.

Jerry Williams is who Andre's talking about. And Jerry Williams even at the he testified that he had all these prior convictions and one of them included throwing a girl in the dumpster.

This guy, Jerry Williams, is a terrible, terrible character. He's a blight on society, right, I mean, thirty arrests. It's almost comical to think of somebody being arrested that in twenty convictions, and here he was on number thirty one and one of them included throwing a woman in a dumpster.

And he also claimed to have seen Andre, a man that he admitted he just knew from the neighborhood. But he did not recognize that the woman on the ground was his friend who he had used in five prior burglaries as a lookout. So how is that conceivable?

Yeah, Andre, dad, have you seen you will go speak to the police.

And say asinom yeah, And once.

You get caught with a burglary and put it on.

Now, what's weird about this too, is that it would seem like this crime would be solvable, right when you have a crime of this extreme violent nature. This is a crime that's so personal and so vicious that it's not on alow likely that the perpetrator knew the victim, because otherwise who would do something like this? I mean, this is a very rare situation.

And the question as to who would do something like this, There is a viable claim that Jerry Williams was the real perpetrator. The victim was actually known to exchange sex for drugs that was presented at trial. Jerry Williams was a crack addict and he could be as good for this crime as anyone else.

And they say he knew people in the dumpster, that would be a tip off. I mean, as an American, as a human being, all I can do is apologize to you, Andre and to your family for what was done to you, because it just defies the imagination how people who we're paying with our tax dollars to do their jobs could fail you so totally on every level, and fail society too, because this guy was allowed to remain free to prey on somebody else's sister, mother, daughter, brother, what anybody right, Jerry?

Yeah, And then I think when they off you fourty seven, they offered me a forty nine year, they offer him a forty nine for a murder case. And I remember my mother in court was like, because he had spent that year, he actually did twenty six years in jail, because he had spent one year on Rackets Island with two trials, and he did twenty five.

Years up north.

And I remember my mother was like, orangre, you've been in here almost a year. Just take the four to nine, she said, because I'm not gonna be living in twenty five years when you get home. He looked at my mother, he said, Ma, I did not do it.

And see, let's talk about that for a second too, because there's no prosecutor that's gonna look at this case, which is so violent and so vile, what was done to this for a woman, and say, you know what, we let this guy out in a few years, we're gonna give you a good deal. Nobody's giving you a good deal if they think you actually did it. That's offensive as well.

Yeah, I said, mom, I hate to say the K door and I think that's why I got PTSD today because I think about one. My mother told me and she wasn't living when I came home. But I wasn't no take, I said, Mom, Sally, you doing that bothered me reck to the day.

So the trial finally comes. E've been in Riker's Island, which is hell on earth for a year and finally your day in court. And how long did the trial last?

Did the second one? It didn't last?

Wrong, It was just a couple of days.

A couple of days and a speedy Trialevernue courtland. I think I don't know speak.

I never been to jail.

The witnesses were the prosecutions one and only claimed witness, Jerry Williams, the detective, the victim's mother who wasn't there, didn't witness the crime. And you have his defense attorneys who even the Brooklyn DA's office, the chief of the Conviction Review Unit got up in open court on the day of exoneration and said the fact that they did not order and present his medical records was unconscionable.

It is unconscionable. And so Andre when the jury went out, right, and were you thinking at that time, well, they're going to see the obvious truth, and they're going to know I'm innocent, and they're going to come back in and call me innocent and declare me innocent.

I mean, I always knew I was coming home. I never give up. I never give up.

The police try to get me sign a statement, Ferguson, I never did.

My mother said, boy, I don'tkay what you do. You don't sign that. You don't know how to read it.

Right. When every system and every agency that you come into contact with fails you, which is the prosecution, the police, and your own defense attorneys, who you put your life in their hands, how do you expect the jury to quit.

So the jury convicted you, and you were sentenced to life twenty five years of life, which is really a life sentence because unless you admit guilt, you're not coming home anyway. That's a crazy thing in our system. You plead innocent, they send you prison, you put guilty, they send you home, right. I mean that's an oversimplification, but it's kind of a crazy paradox. So you got convicted. I mean that moment must have been the worst moment of your life.

Oh man, yes, it was, you know, I just can hardly cry. I couldn't cry because I couldn't bleed.

It lied to me.

I told him the judge, I'll be back because I didn'tdure it. They said you got any things to say? I said, I'll be back. I didn't do it. At the end of the court.

And the judge was actually trying to assist at the trial because his own defense attorneys were doing such a shitty job.

I was in court when the judge said twenty five years of life. My brother said I didn't do it, and it judge looked at him and said.

I didn't do it neither. The judge said.

Judge said I didn't do it neither.

What the hell I swear if my brother told the judge he said, Yahn, I didn't do this.

He said, well, I didn't do it, just like that.

That sounds insane. So Andre, you're in prison for decades for a crime he didn't commit. Dealing with all the difficulties related to your physical issues and other things, you know, they haven't been shot, you have your your disabilities learning otherwise. I'm just trying to understand because I'm always amazed by people like yourself and how you manage to go through this unbelievable ordeal and still come out on top and

I got it sorted a lot by police because of my cads. I can't read it right. They put me the box for that. And one time they beat me so bad. I hate to say that. I never told her that. In Clinton, I doodo all on myself because I'm gonna call them daddy, the police daddy.

I wouldn't call them daddy. I said, you have to kill me. You know you have to kill me.

I'm not calling you daddy. They beat me so bad. I doodo all over myself in Clinton, Jesus, they gave me Greenhaven. They sought me everywhere and win. I got a sort by police because I couldn't. I ain't let them talk to me any kind of way, because they do respect me.

You know.

They beat me up so bad. Stat beat me up. And one day when son died, right Lord Andree twenty fourteen, Right, I was crying. You know what they did. They gave me a hound dog shot because I was crying. I wasn't violent in that and it almost paralyzed me.

What the hell is a hound dog shot?

A psyche madge, the strongest one they had a hound dog. I wanted to see all it some goods, you know, he said, once't you just take me back to hisself? He he what you do if your son died? Once he all stepped up on me, but the others overrule

You know, it was difficult for Andre to express himself in writing and write any.

Grievances in the prison.

I couldn't do.

It, and so it led to a lot of altercations with guards because he wasn't able to file grievances. He wasn't able to express himself in writing because of his limited abilities to write, and so it led to a lot of altercations with guards who were horrible to him.

I mean, it just is really, I mean, here you are, your son died. Probably the worst thing that anybody could experience, ever, would be to have your son die and you're in prison for a crime you didn't commit. I mean, that's

Then in nineteen ninety two he was in there for a couple of years. My younger brother he passed away and can't cool Mexico on vacation, he drowned undertow took him.

And then in two.

Thousand and one our father passed away, and then in two thousand and five our mother passed away, and in twenty fourteen he lost his son. So when he got out, all my father, brothers and sister passed on my father's side, all my mother sisters passed except one.

A lot of the family was born while.

He was in jail, right, so you had to get to know your own family exactly, all new people and everything else. But Andre, so the good part of the story is that you're here, right, and I want to talk about how that happened and the role that the Innocence Project played. It was as hopeless as it could be, and then things turned around. Can you explain to me how that happened?

My friend?

You know, I couldn't read the right He used to always write my letter. He said, he just fell out the application. He said, you always talked about I know you ain't doing it. I'll tell him whatever happened to me, And he did the applications, showed me how to get there to the end of the project. You know, I forgot his name.

His name is actually very ironic. His name was da Andre Williams, and de Andre Williams wrote a letter to the Innocence Project I believe it was two thousand and two, saying, on behalf of my fellow prisoner. He can't read, he can't write his family, and I would really appreciate if you would look into his case. There is DNA evidence that can prove his innocence. Will you please take his case?

Well, I'm actually looking at the letter right now and it's giving me chills to think that this guy came to your aid when you most needed it, and ultimately the Innson's Project did take your case. So Siman talk about the evidence that came out and how this led to what should have been a very obvious conclusion twenty five years earlier.

So when the Brooklyn DA's Office is Conviction and Review Unit undertook this reinvestigation. This was after we had searched for and I say we, but it was my predecessor, Jason Craig at the Nison's Project, who searched for DNA evidence. DNA was tested under the victim's fingernails. It didn't pan out because no mail DNA was found. Those metal pipes were for no one could find the metal pipes, and

Yeah, it's just the whole thing is unreal. And I've been doing this stuff. I mean, I've been involved in this fight for almost twenty five years. And like I said, when I think I've seen everything, I've run into somebody like Andre and hear this story and it's just my my heart hurts and it's uh, it's horrible. But Andrea, so how did the exoneration happen? And what was that like? Because like I said, I remember seeing your face and it.

Was like it was like it was like it was like it was like gold because I got out of hell.

I got out of hell for Sunday. A dude and this again that dude.

He passed away in the cell and green h avy DeAndre.

He passed away.

I used always criet to him and he said, man, I'm gonna get you on. He took all my paperwork my minutes. I gave all my paperwork I had because I went through all the pills. Well, Deloyd, they said no merit, so that means they raised no law. I do know that he rained that to me all my pills. I went through all of them, they said, with no merit on my pills, no merit.

No law.

Andre's release from this hell is the result of a collaboration of so many people who came together on his behalf, starting with Andre, who never gave up because he knew the truth would.

One day come out.

And his friend de Andre Williams, who is the one who wrote to us pleading for us to take his case on behalf of Andre, and then he himself dies in prison.

Yeah, that's that's that's a cruel irony. So let's fast forward Andre to the day when you were actually freed and released and declared innocent by the courts. And I mean it's twenty six years, as Jerry said, your year in jail. We can't forget that, but twenty five years in prison after your conviction. So to talk about that day you got your hearing and you were obviously there, I mean, you were its lawyer.

So yes, that day she kept on telling me, she kept on talking with any for sure, yet they knew the court, but they wentn't tell me though I knew I was coming home because I always told my brother no and my mother, no, and my daughter and my brother. I'll be home one day. Bro, I all nowhere, I'm coming home. I know how they't do it. I know I'm coming home one day, and I know I'm gonna be free. And I told them I'm gonna get z already one day. I always told they won't find not

We told Andre, please keep this quiet, because we were explicitly told by the Conviction Review Unit that they were very worried that this would leak. And we said, look, we have to tell Andre. Of course, we have to tell his family. And so we didn't have a particular day and we said, Andre, do not tell anyone in prison. Meanwhile, I get a call from a corrections officer and she said, Andre Hatchett is going around saying you can't touch me, you can't touch me. I'm getting out. I'm getting out,

And I couldn't say anything.

And then my colleague said, well, you may want to actually tell her because she probably thinks he's crazy, thinking he's gonna get out, and she doesn't actually know that he is. And so I said, Andre, didn't we discuss not to say anything? And he said, don't worry, I won't say anything no more. And I was like, what do you mean no more? You shouldn't have told it? He said, who was it? Is it that lady who's really nosy? Why is she all up in my business?

I think they were concerned.

So they ended up bringing him on a bus because they were worried what if he doesn't get on the plane, what if this doesn't happen? And so you know, the Brooklyn Conviction Review Units sent a couple of their star officers, I think someone they have nicknamed the Angel of Mercy, to go pick up Andre, bring him on a bus and finally be on freedom's doorstep.

Yeah, because about a week and a half before he was getting ready to get out, I knew, and he called me every night what day it is? What days I couldn't tell him.

I don't even think he slept the last week he was in jail. I still can't sleep. That still good to be free.

Because you can't get that smile off your face.

I always smile at every picture I went to because I always told him I'll be home one day. And you see my mug shopping on picture. I smile since the day one I've been there. The police beat me up. You get my own d I report. I smiled him every dingy.

They could never rob him of his smile. You saw the.

Smile and the bloody, and I was bloody.

My sister got pictures of me, meant to the day at a house that I'll sit home when they beat me up, sought me, I was smiling.

So the day in the court twenty sixteen is not that long ago, right, And even from your perspective, like what did that mean to you? You'd worked on this case for years, right, And obviously you got to know Andre. He's such a lovely guy. His spirit is unbroken in spite of the fact that he's been through everything human being can go through, like a Greek tragedy or something. So what was that day, like you, the exoneration day?

I mean, the courtroom was packed, and what I loved about it is that the judge when he looked at Andre, Andre stood up and you can see pictures being taken where people are sort of smiling, and then as Andre's speaking, there's bigger smiles, and as he continues to speak, the smiles get larger, and the judge was so moved himself. I think that there was, you know, clapping throughout the

It's astonishing, and it's just so great that you're here and that you're getting your life back. And tell me about that now, like, how what's going on now? What's your family situation? What are you doing day to day?

I go to home to Federation, meant to help CircUse.

I got what's that PTSD?

Yeah, espress on my drama. Well, I went through my losses. You know, I could never get it back. I think about it all the time, though, but that not to do. I got to live more and I go every you know, three days a week.

And how are you living, where you're living, who you're living with.

I live with my brother Jerry Chevy Hatchett. I talked to Martege. You know, holly kids, I got one thirty three, Wow, want to be thirty four?

And Everca's like twenty nine.

Might as well shout him out. What are their names?

Arica elk Along Stack, Keisha Love, Kristen Spears, Lauren for he passed away.

Do you have any grandchildren? Yes?

Wow, I got four grandkids, my son and the one passed away and looking for his daughter. And I got four grands My oldest is Swan, he'd be eighteen.

And I got my daughter. E got two twins, a girl and the boy.

I was asking Andre the names because all of them came, or most of them came to the exoneration. Yeah, And I said, what's this guy's name? And he said, Pooky, what's the other guy's name?

He's like, yeah, I don't know that.

They all new to me. You know, all my grandkids is knew, everybody new to the getting the norm.

So you got a big family. He's surrounded by a lot of love. Now, so I'm really stuck on thinking about this exoneration with like so it sounds like these rolling waves of excitement and enthusiasm and clapping and smiling and just a celebration. Right.

We had to get the ceremonial courtroom because so many people wanted to attend, and it was it was just a triumph. It's a triumph of Andre's spirit, is a triumph of a man against the system.

After the Designeration, we was leaving the court, everybody was blowing in a cars. Remember everybody was blowing as we was walking down the street because Bbq's sponsored the Designeration. So everybody went to Bbq's and they sponsored everybody food and everything.

That's great. Andre. We have a tradition here at Wrong for Conviction, which is that at the end of the show, I like to turn the microphone over to you for any final thoughts that you have, anything you want to share with the audience, just whatever is on your mind.

Yeah, Like I was saying all the time, all the times, I'll be good to anybody. Anybody need a dollar, sorry, I'll give it to them. I don't care who he is. You know, my mother raised like that. You see somebody home your freedom, you know, I mean, I got to know you. I get no help. Anybody always been like their free audum. My mother used to always tell me, you too, free hearty, you help too many people, you know me, stuff like that. She s used to always tell me that when I was a kid.

You know.

Then then I went to you know, I went went to prison for Sunday. Ain't you know anything I do.

I own up to it. If I did it, I did it. That's me.

I never lied to my mother or nobody, you know what I mean. I don't do that a lot to people.

And in the court room, Mandra even said, I told everyone I didn't do this, and I told you I'd be coming home one day.

And you told everybody.

I always tell my brother every day, my whole family, I'll be home one day. I'll be home one day. I didn't I'll be home one day. Out know where. She said, I'm coming to see you. I said, you ain't got to come to see me, a mor You ain't got this drivel all the way up here, just spending of money. Send it to me, you know, I'm all right. Just send me pictures. Just send me pictures.

Well, all I can say to you is welcome home, thank you were glad you're here.

And can I think and I like to thank Zeima. Jason Craig Barby Shack lies of Natalie believe in me, ain't it no? And it helped me, I think.

And I'd like to also get any closing thoughts, Jerry, is there anything else you want to share? Because I know you went through this with your brother, your little brother, like it's got to be it's got to be hard on you too. Yeah.

It was being that I'm the oldest and ra after him. I had to deal with Berry and my brother that was coming back from Mexico and dealing with his situation, then trying to keep an eye on my mother, dealing with his funeral, thinking about Andre, dealing with him, and

Same, what about you, Let's we're going to give you the last word here.

You shouldn't have to pull your hair out and kick and scream to get an innocent person out of prison in this country, And like Barry Schek once said, our system is disabled by the impact of class, race, and money. If you are the right color, if you have money, if you're from the right socioeconomic status, you get better results from the system. If you're the wrong color and you're poor, you don't. And that is just a fact of life in our criminal justice system, in the Land of the Free.

I think it's a lot of innocent people in jail like me because I hear a lot of stories, a lot of stories day and Joy, I know there's a lot of innocent people in jail.

I know it is one of them.

There are, and we're going to keep fighting until our last breath to make sure that we get as many of them out as we can. So I just want to thank all of you for being here and sharing your story. Seem As Safety and senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project, thank you.

Thank you, and.

Jerry Hatchett, older brother and protector, and thank you for coming in and sharing your thoughts and Andre. What can I say, Man, it's great to see you here and we're just so happy you're home, and we're going to keep fighting and that's all we can do. 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 Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future