I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean. I was brought up with cops are the good guys.
I didn't know what was going to happen, but I do know that everything was stacked against me.
Everything like everything.
This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do with this. How is this possible?
I grew up trusting systems. I've grew up believing that every human being should do the right thing. And that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with four other people, I wasn't going to break anyone to get me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the fact that I break my way out of my wife's death.
I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me. Our system. Since I've been out ten years, it has come a little ways, but it's still broken.
I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flohm. Today, I have a very special guest, my friend and my colleague on the board of the Innocence Project for a long time, Calvin Johnson. Calvin, welcome to the podcast.
Oh, thank you for having me.
Jason Calvin, you are an extraordinary I don't embarrass you, but you are an extraordinary person. Your spirit really lights up every room that you walk into. And I've seen you walk into a lot of rooms, so I know this. But your story is insane in many ways, but also typical in certain ways of wrongful convictions. And I want to get right into that and I'll explain what I
mean as we go along. But this goes back to nineteen eighty three, but I want to go back even a little further than that, because you grew up in a very nice environment, good family. I mean, can you explain what your childhood was like.
I really had a really great childhood. I was brought up in a middle class setting. My father was a lawyer and my mother, she worked at a college as an administrative assistant. My father later became a senator, the first black state senator in Hamilton County in Ohio. So I really was brought up in a very nice setting. I remember living in a nice home, having my own room, even had a game room with slock car racing sets, train sets. It was just a very, very very nice environment.
I also kind of say, when I look back at it, I felt kind of protected because I wasn't exposed to a lot of negative things. Are a lot of bad things in the world. So I can remember days like when the first time I saw when Martin Luther King got assassinated and I saw my mother crying in front of the TV. It had a profound effect on me because I was like, well, what's going on? I saw people riding riding and people protesting, and it's kind of just opened up my eyes to a lot of things.
I said, Wow, look, look what's going on in the world. It's things out there that I hadn't even been aware of, and it really, really I started looking at the world a little bit different.
Now. None of this would have prepared you for what was about to happen on that faithful day in nineteen eighty three when your life literally went from being I want to say a dream, but like your whole future was in front of you and everything was looking good.
You're a smart guy. You came from a great family, you had good upbringing, you had every opportunity to be successful in the world, and then all of a sudden, you get arrested and charged with a crime that you had no knowledge of it nothing to do with, and
then ultimately charged with another crime. I mean, this is a crazy story because there were two separate incidents, one of which was used against you in the trial for the other one, and then later on when the charges were dropped for that one, it was too late because you were I mean, it's really a nutty and terrifying scenario.
What happened to you? And can you explain the circumstances of how this happened in the first place, and why did they focus on you, and how could they have gotten this so wrong?
Like you said, it is a little crazy, Jason, it really is. I'm to just go back just a little bit further in my upbringing, because I remember when my family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and we moved into this really nice neighborhood where there were professional football players and
doctors and lawyers and people in the political field. And I'm riding around on mini bikes and motorcycles, was growing up and just living a great life, and it was it was considered the upper echelon of Atlanta for blacks at that time. And I went to college, and once I graduate from high school, I went to college with as you said, I went to college. I was at Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia and getting my education and
I graduated with a bachelors's Arts and Mass Communications. And you would never imagine anything like this happening to me. But then I had a little bit of a wild streak. Like most kids, I was adventurous. I didn't just always stay on the upper echelon side with the good kids. I had the tendency to go over into the to the lower neighborhoods. I wouldn't say, I don't like to say lower, but I would say economically not as successful as we were. And when I used to go over there,
I just hang out with those guys. And I was doing a few things things that I shouldn't have had no business doing, I have to be honest about it. Drinking, smoking marijuana, having fun, partying, chasing the girls, and I just got involved into things that had no business being involved with. I knew people that would buy hot items, and I knew people that were committing crimes, and I got mixed up with some of the wrong people and I actually did somebody had no business doing. That started
the ball to rolling. I put myself in that position in the beginning. I did commit a burglary to I'm gonna tell you what led up to that. I had brought some marijuana one day and at time when I was buying the marijuana, the police actually pulled up and arrested me and charged me with the marijuana. Having that case, I went to see a lawyer, and the lawyer was pretty expensive and I didn't have the money. So my friends on the other side of the track said, wait, man,
we can get you some money. Just go ahead and if you bring us a few hot items and we will take care of it and you can get you a lawyer. So I went across to What I did was I committed a burglary and got caught, and that's what really started everything I was. I pleaded guilty to that because I was guilty. You know, I a set responsibility for anything that I've done. But if there's something that you say that I did that I didn't do, then we got a battle.
On our held.
So that's that's what put you in the crosshairs of the authorities. Right, So when this, you know, when they had this terrible incident where this woman had her house broken into. It was in College Park, I think, right, Georgia, and a woman's house was broken into and she was tied up with a belt or strangled with a belt, and then I mean, it's a terrible, terrible crime, and she was raped and robbed and the whole thing. And then how did it end up where they came to
arrest you? What made them suspect that you were the guy that did this? Ultimately was proven that you didn't. But how did that? I mean, can you explain that whole scenario, because that's where this thing goes really off the tracks.
Okay, I'm explaining as best I can. At the time, when I got arrested for the burglary, that's basically all that I was guilty of. They had some other crimes that happened, a rape or two that happened in the area of the burglary, and so they decided that they were going to clear the record books and charge me
with those rapes. And this was back in nineteen eighty one, and we were getting ready to go to trial and everything, and the only thing that really cleared my name was that the lady that was assaulted and rape in this particular case, she was honest and I really appreciate her honesty. She said that I'm positive that the person that raped me was an uncircumcised individual, and I had been circumcised since birth because I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in
the Jewish hospital and was circumcised since birth. And so once that was brought out, they dropped the charges on the rape, and basically I just went to prison for burglary and I did about a year, maybe a year and a half, got back out, started my life over, trying to do the positive things and working out every day, going to work every day. I was living in my parents' house at the time, and shortly one day I was coming home. I never forget that day. It was a beautiful,
beautiful day that day. It was a spring day, and I was coming home and I felt a strange feeling.
Some just wasn't right.
And as I walked into the house, no sooner than I walked into the house, there was that knock on the door, like, don't doom.
I tell people that was the weight of the state. They busted the door.
They put handcuffs on me, extremely tight, so tight that I still got bruises on my wrists all these years later, and they dragged me out and they charged me with these rapes. And it was the same police officers they had arrested me earlier, and so now they're charging me with some more rapes, saying that you got to be guilty. We feel you're guilty of this. But I, you know, I was innocent. I had no connection with the victim or anything. And I remember being in that cold, damp,
dark cell and just waiting to be to be clear. Now, any day I thought that, okay, this is America.
You know. I brought up in America believing in.
The judicial system and injustice and justice for all, and once that happened, I just I just never, ever, I never believed that I would go to prison. I said, any day they're going to walk in here and say, hey, you're not guilty, You're free.
And this is.
Basically how it had all started. Those same police officers that had previously arrested me a couple of years earlier, rested me again in nineteen eighty three and decided that, Okay, now we're going to make sure that we got this guy this time. But they had the wrong guy.
I'm getting the very strong visual of you and knowing you as I do, and every time I see you wearing a suit and a big smile and everything else, and now I'm picturing quite the opposite, right, I'm picturing you in this, as you said, the cold, dark, damp cell, and still thinking that the justice system is going to be just, and that because you didn't do and had no knowledge and weren't involved in any way any of these in these particular crimes, that you were going to
be freed probably relatively shortly in this, but this proceeded to trial in actually a shorter time than many of the cases that we see here. It was about six months right until you ended up actually on trial for your life, literally for your life.
That's true, Jason.
I mean they put me into a live lineup before I went to trial, and in that live lineup, they actually were trying to select the person that committed the crime and the individual Joel who I actually went to prison for with a life sentence, the individual that actually went to prison for picked out another person did not pick out Calvin C. Johnson Jr. And all this was brought out in a preliminary hearing where they were trying to decide whether or not if they were going to
indict this case and carry it on over to have trial. I remember during a preliminary hearing when it was brought out that hey, this individual picked out somebody else. I'm sitting there thinking like, wow, you know, am I gonna go home?
Now?
Are they gonna go ahead and just drop the case. And then there was some other facts brought out because they asked this individual about her identification procedures how he was identified, and apparently they said that I was supposed to have been identified through a photographic from a photographic lineup in the beginning, and in questioning this individual, they said, well, what kind of photographs were they?
Color? Were they black and white?
And she was kind of shaking, like, you know, she wasn't sure, and she actually said, well, I think they were color. They were color pictures. So later on we brought a police officer in who had been said questioned, so he didn't hear what she said. And when he came in, we asked him, do you have the pictures with you today that Calvin Johnson was identified from? And he said, yes, I do, and he showed them to us and they were a serious of small black and
white pictures. And I'm sitting there in the courtroom, you know, my eyes are wide, my head is shaking back and forth because I'm in disbelief, and I'm saying, well, cat, to just see that something is not right here. And I kept believing that I would actually that at that moment, and it meant minute.
He would say, Okay, you're free to go.
I remember going back to my cell and sitting in there selling, you know, just wondering what's going on, what's going on? And so one day they dragged me out their cell, Jason. They just took me and they jack dragged me out. They handcuffed me all around my waist and around my ankles and took me to a local hospital and set me in a room with the door wide open, and then they made me strip down and they just they didn't close the door. It was inhumane.
And they started plucking hairs from my body and taking blood samples and for comparison purpose to see if anything mashed up with the individual that committed the crime. And as they did all this, Jason, I remember when they came back and they said, well I got I got good news and I got bad news. I said, well, well, what's the good news and what's the bad news. Well, the good news is that the hair samples came back and they matched. They belonged to a person of African
American ancestry. But the hair sapple did not match you. I said what, I said, Well, am I going home now? And they said, well, no, that's the bad news. You know, the blood sapple came back and it was all positive. They didn't have DNA technology, they weren't using it in the courts at that time, and said, oh positive, Well, most of America. America is a positive. Majority of the
population is oh positive. And because I'm all positive, the person that committed crime was OH positive, they decided, okay, we're gonna go forth with the trial because he must have committed the crime. I mean, it was really really crazy. I mean even the jury selection was crazy. They it was in the county that were predominantly white, Clayton County, Georgia, and they had three or four blacks, which they systematically struck from the jury and I ended up with all
white jury. The victim was white, and as we proceeded to the trial portion, I'm sitting there facing the all white jury with a victim that's white, that's crime, and pointing the finger and saying, this black man raped her. What chance do would I have? Jason? I mean, what chance? In a situation like that, you have no chance forsoever. And that's why I emphasized the fact of the fact that you know, a jury needs to be culturally diverse,
different ethnic backgrounds, otherwise you don't stand much of a chance. Basically, I was railroaded, and through the course of the trial a lot, a lot of evidence was brought out in my behalf. I had alibi testimony. I was at home living with my parents. We had a dog, you know, my dad. I didn't even have a car at the time, and my dad, you know, was take would take me to work in the morning time every day. And all this was brought out. You know that you know that
I was at home my parents. My plury came, he testified at the trial, and he even showed my employee ID picture of me having a full beer. Said Calvin Johnson has a full beer that had a full beer at that time, and they didn't they.
Didn't wear so that the victim had told the authorities that the assailant was clean shaven, Is that right?
Well, she said that he had I think if I remember correctly, that she said that he had a mustache, and she didn't even describe anything about any facial hair until later on where she actually said that it may have been some stokee so, but she never mentioned anything about a food.
Yeah.
So so here you are, I mean, and what's you know, what's common common factors that we see in your case
our eyewitness misidentification and unvalidated or improper forensic science. And in this case it was flawed zerology, right, because, as you were saying, the idea that the lab analysts testified at trial that thirty six percent of the male population could be excluded as potential contributors to the semen was absolutely wrong because in this case, the victim and the and the perpetrator shared shared common traits which actually meant
for reasons that are that are complex in science. But basically, the victims blood group markers could have been masking the perpetrators and under such circumstances. The failure I'm reading this part, the failure to inform the jury that one hundred percent, one hundred percent of the male population could have been included and that none could be excluded, was highly misleading. Even still though all you're doing, even if she was right, which she wasn't, you would say that you could only
eliminate thirty six percent of the population. That's not enough to convict somebody instead of the prison for the rest of her life when you have all of this exculpatory evidence that was brought forward. But the fact is you were in an impossible situation, as you described, and you had virtually no chance. So what was that moment if you could describe the courtroom at that moment, was when the most terrible moment of your life when the jury came back and rendered you guilty.
It was sad. The reason why I use the word sad because my parents were there. I'm a pretty kind of look at myself as a pretty tough guy. But I hear the guilty verdict and I'm looking back. That's the first idea. I look back at my mom and I can see the expression out her face, the expression of a disbelief. But my dad was he it was like, you know, he had a serious look because my dad had a little more knowledge and he knew what was going on, and he knew that my chances were slim,
So I don't think he was surprised. But a mother's love for her son is something special, and it just it literally broke her heart.
And I could see it.
I can see it at that time, and that's what bothered me more than anything, you know, looking back and only seeing my mom's expression, you know, and I can see it. It was written all over her face. And shortly after that, my mom did suffer a very serious stroke because it broke.
From now you get taken away, ultimately sentenced to a double life term, right and taken to prison. And I've heard you in a speech that you gave, very powerful speech that you gave. Explain what that was like. And it just blew my mind to take us there, Calvin, you what prison were you sent to?
I was sent to a prison in South Georgia. I was actually sent to the hardest working state prison in the state of Georgia.
At that time.
I was young, twenty five years old, and they decided that, you know, this is a young person that he can go down there. And it was really basically they send you down there to this prison and you work. It's a work camp, and everybody in the prison. It's a small prison, know the more than maybe by two hundred men, but everybody there either has life sentence or twenty years more. There's no short time as there at all. It's a close security prison. And you go outside and you're early.
In the morning. You wake up in the morning and they feed you.
They walk around for a shotgun above you, like as if to say, hey, you know, feed my boys good. And the Wharton's walking around and he's looking down at you. And then they take you out. And I remember working in swamp land and swamp water and with water up to my knees, with moccasins swimming around, and every now and then you run across a rattlesnake. And this was
something that I never dealt with in my life. It was it was really, it was just it was crazy, and I had to make this adjustment to just deal with that and to deal with the violence of prison where you sleeping in your bed at night with your with your shoes on because you never know when you
might wake up in the middle of the night. I remember one time an individual I was sleeping on a double bunk and the bump below me started shaking in the middle of the night, and I looked down and the guy below me were being stabbed because he borrought some money I bought. Basically, it's not money, but cigarettes are candy or something, and he didn't pay his debt, and so it's his own world. It's we call this
on the outside the free world. The prison world is a whole different world in itself, and it's run differently, and it's just a matter of survival. You got You go in there and you try to survive. And the strong pay pray upon the week, so you have to be strong. So during the course of years when I was in prison, I used to just lift weights all the time. It was a way, it was a therapy.
It was a way for me to relieve some of the anxiety and the emotions that were After I lifted them, I was too tired to do anything or to get in any trouble. Plus it built me up physically so that I could defend myself, or at least people would think twice about before trying to take advantage of me anyway,
because I was physically fit. And those years went by, and I remember being in prison and they wanted us to you know, prison doesn't rehabilitate you, but they like to make society think that they and their rehability tain people. And they had this program in there called the Sexual Offenders program that they wanted me to be involved in. And I'm like, hell, you want me to be involved
in the sexual offenders program? And so I had people make suggestions and say stuff like, you know, even my family just say just just do the program, play along with them so that you can get out. And so you actually think about this, you know, crazy thought. But I'm like, hey, I can't sit there and say I did something that I didn't do. So I went ahead and got into the program for a little while. And as I was in the program, you go through the
first half, I felt terrible. I'm sitting in the room with sexual predators, rapists and child molesters, and I just I just don't feel right. I don't say anything. I'm just sitting there in the room every day going to this little class. And then finally they complete that part and you get to the second portion of the program, and they say that order to complete the program, you have to sign an admission again up and I'm like, what sign a mission to guilt? I said, I can't
do that. I can't do that because I'm not guilty. And then I went to see my counselor, and the counselor looked at me and looked me in my eyes and told me said, listen, if you don't sign that mission to guilt, you'll probably never ever get out of prison. You'll be here for the rest of your life. And so guys were taking this course and signing the missions of guilt and then they would get parolled out. But I sat there. I thought about it. I prayed about it,
and I thought about it. I said to myself, I'd rather die in prison to sit there and say that I did something that I didn't do. I said, what kind of life would I have come out of prison with that stigma over me. I said, I couldn't live. I'll walk out into my yard and the neighborhod run out and grabbed the children and run inside the house. That's not a life, that's not a life. So I
refused to do it. Those years went on, and those years went on within prison, and I remember getting to a point where my tempers started getting short, I started being anti social. I felt like a walking time bomb. I felt like a rubber band being stretched to a point that was just getting ready to take pole and just pop. And I remember at that point, at that time, I just got down on my knees and I prayed.
I prayed, and I couldn't deal with the burden. That's when God entered into my life and my life changed. And then I remember hearing about DNA technology.
This is down getting to the part of the story that's, you know, always the best part, I guess, right, which
is when things turn around in the right direction. And in your case, it was the Innocence Project, which obviously I have a very close connection with, being the founding board member and being having served on the board for so many years and so many years alongside you, and so you started learning about the DNA technology and it must have been like a light bulb going off, like, wait, there might be hope for me after all.
Yes, yes, that's exactly what happened. I was working in the library in the prison. Because of my educational background, they gave me a job in the library, and they had the regular library for the prisoners to convicts, and they also had a law library that you could use at times. And the staff member who he ran both libraries, and he would allow me to have access to go
into the law library whenever I wanted. And one day I stumbled across an article of DNA technology where people were actually getting out of prison based on this technology, and I said, Wow, now I'm trying to figure out how the heck can I get a DNA test.
I really really, really really really.
Wanted to do that to to prove that I was innocent, but that was a struggle in his self. And they had a guy named Jim Browner Jim Bonner. He used to come into the Prisident. He was with the project called Prisident Legal Counseling Projects, who did little simple stuff like haybist corporates for prisoners and so forth. And I talked to him. I told him about my situation, and he's actually the one that got the bass started in the beginning, because when I told him about it, I
told him my whole story. And after that I looked him in the eye and said, you don't have to believe a word, I said, I said, but let me send you my transcript. And I gave him my transcript and one day he read it and he came back he said, Man, I can't believe this. He said, I'm really I really wanted to try to do something to help you, because this is an atrocity in itself, and he said, I just can't believe that this happened to you.
And he started trying to see if there was some type of way that we can do something about my situation, and he found basically emotionn't called the extraordinary motion based on newly discovered evidence, and to try to see if they even had the evidence, if it still existed. And so they went on the search to see if the evidence even still existed, and in my case is one of the really strange cases because at first they couldn't find it. But what happened was they had actually were
going to destroy the evidence. There was no laws at that time. They said they had to keep it after after the trial, and the evidence had been thrown into a trash bend to be destroyed, and somebody from the court they saw it and they said, hey, why is this evidence being destroyed and throw it away, and they took it and they put it.
Back hold on a second miracr The evidence that freed you was actually in a trash can and somebody saw it and had like your name on it or something like that, and was like, wait, let me pluck that out. Is that that seems like it seems unreal?
It does.
It does seem very unreal. But this is exactly how it was explained to me that it was actually, you know, in the trash bend to be destroyed.
I look at that. It was a miracle. It was a miracle.
And so the evidence was was brought back out and that was the evidence that they were going to test. But then after that they took and the prison and Legal Counselor project that was helping me with this guy, they actually stopped the project. So I'm looking, I said, well, wow, now what did I do? And then a friend, a friend of mine who knew the plight of my situation, who lived in Ohio, who I grew up with.
They were at I.
Guess what you call a place where you hand out food and clothing and so forth to people to come through that are in need. And some guy this was in Ohio. I don't know who the guy was, but some guy was in the line and he was young. And my I call my aut Marty, who was my godmother. She said, well, you know, man, why don't you have a job. Why are you in this line? And he said, well, I just recently got out of prison. And he told
her about he mentioned about the Innocence Project. He said, they got me out of prison for a crime I didn't commit. And they said, wow, you know, give us the information. Just give us that information and we'll bring you some more clothes and help you out a little bit more. Just give it the information card. We know somebody in the same situation. And they wrote me a letter and he gave me the information about the Innocent Project. And that's when I got in contact with the Innocent Project.
And this was not too long after the Innisce project had started, because we're talking about late nineties now, right, And so yeah, so you because I know that you were the first DNA exonery in Georgia, right, Yes, that's a powerful thing. I mean, that's that no one's ever going to take that away from you. I know that's not you know, I always say to all the guests
that we have on the show. You know, I'm happy you're here, but i'm sorry you're here because you're a member of a club that no one should ever have to be a member of, and no one would ever want to be a member of. But that is an amazing distinction. And of course now you're so serving with distinction not only on the Interst's Project board in New York,
but also the board of the Georgia Intercess Project. So that's so there's two there's two miracles here, right, One is pulling the thing out of the garbage can, and the other is bumping into this guy sort of randomly who had this information that you were looking for. And then things started to really progress.
Once I got involved with the Innocence Project. Actually, uh, you know, once they took it, I actually I had very strong faith in them. I believed once they took it, I said, okay, wow, just a matter of time before I walk away and then I'm free. But then they took and they had my evidence tested, and once they had it tested, it came back where it was inconclusive. At first, it actually came back inconclusive. And then I remember talking to Barry and Peter on the phone, and
they were saying, you got a choice. You know, what are you going to do now? They said, all the evidence is basically almost almost used up. If we continue to test, then what happened is if we use up out evidence, you'll never get out of prison. Come, we won't have anything else to test. All You can wait till years later when technology improves, as we get better technology, then we can test that small amount of evidence and
try to get the proper result. They said, we do an know a guy in California named doctor Edward Blake who's really good. Now it's up to you to make that decision. And I decided, you know, at that time, I said, well, you know, let's go ahead. Let's go ahead. I we rather were using up or not, you know, let's go forward. And they sent it out to a guy named doctor Edward Blake, and doctor Edward Blake tested
it and he came back with the results. And I can't really say how you know the numbers, but I know will proven beyond any reasonable doubt that there was no way through then that technology that I could could have committed the crime. And that was in November of nineteen ninety eight. And it still wasn't until nineteen ninety nine before I actually was able to walk out of prison.
So let's talk about that. June fifteenth, nineteen ninety nine, was your exoneration date. And what was the scene in the courtroom. Let's do this again, right, so this is your back in court. Was it the same court where you were convicted?
It wasn't the exact same courtroom, but it was still it was Clayton County with Clayton County. Well, I can remember before I before I even walked into the courtroom, Peter Newfield was there and he was my attorney that day. And Peter walked up to me and said, uh, Calvin, uh, there's.
Going to be some some some newspeople.
It shouldn't be that bad, but there's gonna be some cameras and so forth that may be uh waiting on you. And he asked me. He looked at me, he said, Calvin, Uh, what do you planning to say? And you know I have a way of answering questions and I just looked at him and said, Peter, don't worry, I'm not going to embarrass you and just kind of laughed.
And then we went.
Into the courtroom, and I remember my family was there. My mother couldn't be there because she was bedridden at the time, so she was in a medical facility but so she couldn't be there, but my father was there, my sisters were there. I remember the judge going through the proceedings and I remember him saying, well, mister Johnson, you're free. I remember the prosecutor. He walked over to me and he he never did apologize or anything. He just kind of reached out and I did shake his hand.
People wondered, would I even shake his hand, But yes, I shook his hand. I shook his hand and he said something like, well, uh, I wish you the best. But you know, at the time, we felt like we were doing what was right, you know, so you know, and I kind of I didn't say anything, and so we walked on out and all these cameras were there, and so it was a good feeling. I walked out, and you know, this sunshine. It was another beautiful day, and all I wanted to do was go see my mom.
And I went to see my mom and she was bed rim She had a trichia and her throat so she couldn't hardly talk but I saw when she saw me a tear, a tear ran down her face, and I told her that was a tear of joy, and that was the most special moment of me being released when I walked into that room.
It's a beautiful moment, like you said, and it's so great that she lived to see it. You know, it's this silver lining in this dark cloud. And so one of the silver lines in this dark cloud. And now, Calvin, let's see it's now here. We are twenty eighteen. So you've been out for nineteen years now, and tell us what your life is like. I know you went to work for the transportation authority down there. Marta wrote a book.
Yes, wow. Well, first of all, when I got out in nineteen ninety nine, I got involved with a company called tech Real, which was a Christian company, and they actually I went on a missionary trip with them to your Godda, Africa, and that was amazing. It was a very humbling experience because it's a very it's a third world country and people are very poor over there. But we went over there and we actually went into the
bush area. We went to Capola University and they made me the main speaker and I was shocked because we had other ministers with us who had churches, but yet they made me the main speaker. I couldn't believe it, but I shared my story. It was very well received, and it was a very humbling, humbling experience. And I remember my dad making jokes like saying, hey, you know, you're just as you're two minutes of fame. It said, it's not gonna last. But it just kept going on.
It kept going on. And I remember being on different shows different Today, good Morning America, The Today's Show, and BT with Tavis Smalley, and here I am traveling around and I'm speaking and I'm sharing. And then I remember a couple of years ago went by and they formed the board of directors for the Innocent Project in New York, and they actually asked me would I like to sit on the board of directors? And I was shocked. I mean it was I was so honored to be asked.
I was the first designery in the in the country to sit on the board like that on the Innocence Project. Well, I mean this, this was it was. It was amazing to me, uh, just to be able to sit there and to share and to give my my input. You know, sometimes I actually sometimes I felt overwhelmed being around such powerful people, and I remember I was being so thankful. I remember sometime driving down the street and just looking
at my house and and almost crying. You know, I didn't cry, but I would feel like crying because I was just so thankful that that people that I didn't even know reached out to to try to help me. The volunteers, the supporters, the state have, the attorneys, people that I look now as being great people in my eyes, who are not just great people, but they're my friends. I look at Barrysheck and Peter Newfield and Maddie Delone and the Jason Floms of the world as great people
that have made a difference. They have changed lives, that are making difference into this judicial system that we have in this country. That's not perfect. It's a great country, but the system has some flaws because anything that man may not be perfect. And so my life went on. My life went on. I've been married twice. My first marriage I end up getting a divorce, and my second marriage, believe it or not, I'm actually going through a divorce.
But hey, I'm free. I'm free.
I've been at my job now at the Transportation Agency with Martyn Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authorities for nineteen years. I could probably retire in another year if I want to. And I still do a little a few speaking engagements, travel here and there and share my story. As you said, I did write a book called Exit the Freedom, which I tell people is not just a physical exit, but it's a spiritual exit also, And so my freedom came even actually before I walked through those doors. I felt
free on the inside and that meant a lot. And that's why I was able to forgive and let go and move on with my life, which was one of the most important things that I could do, was take control by forgiving and letting go through the power of God and saying thank you, thank you for this opportunity to the people that touched my life and made it possible.
And here I am now. I live, I have a nice home. Jason.
You know, I got three dogs, my daughter lives with me, and I got a sports car, and I don't I don't ride motorcycles anymore. I rode motorcycles for years. I love motorcycles, but I actually gave it up this year in January and that's that's this is my life.
I I'm very very m beautiful.
Uh it's a beautiful ending. It's not an ending, but it's a beautiful phase that you're in, I guess you could say, with the with the three dogs and the daughter and the and you. And it's like, uh, it really does put a smile on my face thinking about how how you've been able to you know, persevere and overcome and and really triumph and build this wonderful life
for yourself. Before we wrap up, Calvin, I'm actually remembering, Uh, you and I shared the stage one time at an and it is Project event and this was right after you had gone to Aspen, Colorado and you told the story. Do you remember that story?
Oh?
Which one the one when when you and yeah, you can remember, I remember.
I really yeah, I love to tell that story because that, you know, that was one of the highlights since I've been free.
That was one of the highlights.
Is that is at the top, I mean next to you know, my daughter being barn and these events like that which are very special because uh, you know, but this this this was I remember I had a speaking engagement in Aspen, Colorado. Okay, never been to Asspen, never been to Colorado, never been skinned before in my life. And I'm just I'm just planning to go there for a couple of days. I remember, Uh, you and I we spoke and you said, you said, Calvin, you can't go to Aspen just for a couple of days and
not ski. You hold up, let me let me, let me, let me take care of something. Let me make a phone call. Next thing I know, you called me back and you say, hey, you know, Calvin, you know you're gonna stay there for for almost a week, you know, some more, a couple of extra days, and I'm gonna have somebody who's gonna get in touch with you, and you're gonna go skin. And sure enough, I went out there and a guy came and he introduced himself and said,
I'm here on behalf of Jason Flom. He took me uh and brought me some ski gear and so forth, and then we went to the uh with skin and I had a private instructor, and I remember what the private instructor he. Uh. He kept taking me back and forth on the baby slope because this is my first time ever skinning in my life. But I'm loving it. And so the second day, I went, skin, I'm begging this guy to take me to the top of the mountain.
But he's you know, he's like, man, this is just your second day's skin, I'm not going to take you to the top of the mountain. I said, you got to take me to the top of the mountain. I said, I don't know if I ever do this again in my life. I said, this is this. I want to go to the top of the mountain. And at that time, I used to ride sport bikes, and I had sport bikes. They should go zero to sixty in two seconds. And so I'm telling this guy, said, hey, hey, man, I
ride a motorcyculd have go zero to sixty in two seconds. Now, if I can do that, you could take me to the top of the mountain. And so I went to the top of the mountain and I started coming down and when I first took off, I hit one of them. I guess I was on one of them slopes. I guess it was one of the higher degrees, and I fell, but I got right back up, and then I said, okay,
I got it. This time I got to keep zig zagging to slow myself down, and so I got up and I kept zig zagging back and forth going down the slope. And then when I got to the point where I could see the bottom, I turned straight and I just started flying. And then I can hear the guy that instruct it behind me, hollering. He behind me, hollering, slow down, slow down, slow down. Now I'm just flying down the slope having a great I got the biggest smile on my face from ear to ear.
And I get to the bottom and I don't fall.
I spend sideways and I stop, you know, and he's behind me just shaking his head.
And I'll never forget that.
I'm so thankful to you, Jason, for giving me the opportunity to go skin. I haven't been skinned since, but that one time, I'll never fundy.
I actually remember, if I remember, correct me. It was a long time ago, but I remember when you gave that speech and you said, you said, he says, I'm not taking you to talk about it, and you said to him, it's slightly different than what you just told me now. But I don't know which version is correct. But you said, I survived sixteen years in a maximum security prison. Take me to the top of the mountain, and I was like, oh.
Man, yeah, yeah, I did. I said that too.
So that's a great story and I'm glad it just came back to me. It must have been fifteen years ago when I heard you tell that story. But Calvin, we have a tradition at Wrong for Conviction, which our listeners are very familiar with by now. I think it's a lot of people's favorite part of the show. I know it's my favorite part of the show. And that's
the part of the show where I stopped talking. And as we wrap up and before I thank you one final time for being here, I just want to leave the mic on and ask you if you have any final thoughts that you want to share with our audience.
It's all yours.
First of all, I just like to say that I'm very thankful. I like to thank my mother and my father, who no longer here. My father passed away in June or this year, and that was a little bit rough because I got to spend a lot of time with them. I mean, I are very we were very close, and my mother and I we were close. She passed away back in two thousand, but they instilled in me a strength.
I used to always say, you're from good stock, You're from good stock, and he gave me that inner strength, and that's what helped me when I was in prison. Despite everything, I will not let prison break me.
In prison with.
Design is designed to tear you down, destroy you, and break you into what they want you to be, and I wouldn't let them do it. I never allowed them to break me. I stayed positive. There were times when it was a little bit rough, but all in all, you know, I believe that one day that even with the flicker of hope was just about to go out, that candle was about to be distinguished. I still had that flicker of hope that one day that I will
walk out of free man. And I actually said that on the day of my sentences, that I believe that the truth will come out one day. I can say thank you all day long because there's so much to think. And those who I haven't even mentioned by name, I'm thankful to them because, uh, there's volunteers that I don't know, the supporters that I don't know. There's some staff members that I don't know up at the Innocent Project. But the project has grown so much. It was so small
when I first got out. Now it's a it's a it's a nation. Guy has a national network, has projects all across the world, and it's it's it's really unbelievable. I got a chance this year to go to the UH to the network conference and to see how it has grown and to see that there are people there from from different countries, and it was I'm just I'm
I'm glad to be a part of this. This this this amazing movement that's making a difference and changing laws and not only changing laws, but helping people to get the life back started all over again. And that's basically, you know, all that I can say right now is thank.
You, Calvin. I want to thank you for being so to a great advocate and just such a great example of human potential. And the work that we do is you know, because of people like you, and you know, we'll never stop. We're going to keep fighting and fighting and fighting until there's no more fighting left to be done. And so again, Calvin, I just want to thank you for sharing your story here on Wrongful Conviction. I wish
you all the best. I want to thank in addition your the ski instructor, the one that the two Day Ski instructor Chuck Kessler for keeping you alive in spite of the fact that you made it difficult for him, and yeah, and anything. The last question I want to ask you is if people want to book you for speaking, are you still doing that? Would you like to share an email address or a website or anything like that.
Yes, that's my email address is e x I t O f R E e x oh free e x I t O f R E E at yahoo dot com. Uh, feel free to email me anytime. I'm still doing speaking engagements. And yes, I'm available off days on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
I do work. I do have a job, but I usually can fit it in audio.
So email Calvin for bookings or for advice on phishing or anything else you can think of.
Maybe he'll even give you a ski lesson.
Calvin, thank you again.
For being here.
I look forward to seeing you again soon. And to our audience, thank you read the book too, Exit to Freedom, Calvin Johnson, Exit to Freedom, don't forget to order that and uh, I'm gonna order one myself today too. So once again, thank you to everyone for tuning in. This has been a very special episode with my friend and Xannerie Calvin Johnson.
Thank you, Jason, 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 Ennosnce Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to innosonsproject 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