#072 Jason Flom with Noura Jackson - RE-RELEASE

ended up serving eleven years in prison. Of course, the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously overturned her conviction and set in there ruling that the prosecutors head lied and cheated and broken so many rules there were too many to count, too many examples of prosecutorial misconduct too good into in one recording. Norah. The good news is since the episode aired, she's moved from Tennessee to New York. She now lives in Brooklyn, and she is a sophomore in college. The

thirty two. Her freshman year, she achieved at three point six seven g p A. I know she's going to improve on it. This year. She started in an organization called Meet Your Mentor, and she is working with some other incredible dynamic women Um, Sarah Raphold, Stacy Ryan, and others, and Meet Your Mentor is an organization that is dedicated to helping AX Honorees formally incarcerated people get back on

their feet and get a fresh start. Nora is a hero of mine and I'm super proud of everything she's doing. I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was naive enough to believe that I would be able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be going to prison because I was a good person. I

hadn't do anything wrong. In the back of your mind, you say, well, when we go to a hearing, we go to court, the truth will come out the prosecution from day one, kneo I was innocent, and let forth testimony go uncorrected from the lower courts all the way up to United States Supreme Court. You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really, in that moment unchecked authority. Don't presume that people are guilty when you see him on TV, because it may just be a dirty d

eight that is trying to rise upward. Welcome back to wrong for conviction. I am particularly honored actually today to have in the studio Nora Jackson. Nora Jackson was convicted in two thousand nine of killing her mother. Jackson was eighteen when her mother, Jennifer Jackson, was found murdered stabbed at least fifty times in the bedroom over East Memphis home. In two thousand nine, a jury convicted Jackson of second

degree murder. Nora Jackson has maintained her in a sit In two thousand fourteen, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct and ordered a new trial, claiming the lead prosecutor, now District Attorney Amy Wyree withheld a witness statement from the defense. Stephen Jones, is facing missconduct charges for not turning over a key witness statement. District Attorney Amy Wyrick also is facing misconduct charges connected

to the case. In Jackson's attorneys accepted a plea deal of voluntary manslaughter from prosecutors, avoiding a potentially lengthy new trial. She could have fought for another ten years on principle, I don't know anybody who would give up their thirties for principle. Nora Jackson is officially a free woman today. Nora, welcome to the show. Thank you, and we have with you Bryce ben Jet, your lawyer from the Innocens Project, and Bryce, welcome to you too. Glad to be here.

This story just really shocked my conscience and you lived through it unfortunately. Yeah, there were times when I didn't know if I would make it to the other side, but here I am. No, or let's go back too. Was there really not that long ago? I mean two thousand and five you were you were still a teenager. Yeah, I turned eighteen in March of two thousand and five, so I was just at the age where you know, there was no issue with them charging me as an adult, right,

Just another terrible circumstance of your case. And it started with one of the worst things that anyone can experience, which is the murder of your mother. And you had already been through so much because your father was murdered sixteen months earlier, correct, in January of two thousand and four. But they weren't together, No, no, no, no, they weren't.

They weren't together. My parents had spiled up when I was like eighteen months old, and they shared custody for about eight years and then there was an eight year period where I didn't see my father, and that's another interesting story. Actually walked into a convenient store about a year before he was killed and found him. So I've lived with my mom on my entire life. So the death of my father, it did really rock me, especially since there was like that newfound relationship there with him.

But my mom was my rock. The death of my mother's mother, my grandmother, was the first one that happened in the summer of two thousand and three than the death of my father in two thousand and four. And then my best friend was actually killed in a car wreck on the way to my house in January of two thousand and five. So that was a really really rough year for me, a really rough time, and my mom was the one that was actually able to get me through all that I had pulled back from a

lot of my friends. Anybody that has a single parent will know that that relationship is kind of sacred. It's totally different than if you're raised in a two parent household and you were an only child as well. So yeah, I can imagine that would create even a stronger bond because there's there's no one else there's no buffer, right, it's just you and your mom. And your mom Jennifer Jackson was a successful banker as well, right investment. Yeah,

she was actually a broker. She worked in the stock market. She was a bondsman, and she was very successful. And she had actually just wanted a word about three months before she was killed, and it was a really big deal. They gave her like a gold bat for like a heavy hitter because of all the money that she had brought in. And I was her date for that. Actually.

So you have all of these successful bondsman's there with their trophy wives and or their girlfriends, and you know, my mom is like kind of like the star of the evening and here she comes with her eighteen year old daughters. So it was it was really really fun. Yeah, it sounds like an awesome event, and she sounds like an awesome woman. Um, it's worth noting that the murder

of your father went unsolved and still unsolved. Correct, It's only worth noting and as it relates to this particular case about your mom, because of the fact that there could be some correlation. But let's go back to the terrible night when this happened. So at that time. I came home and retrospectively, I can look back and see that there were signs that something bad had gone on in my house that night. I walked into the kitchen and I saw some broken glass on the floor, so

I looked up at the window. My mom had actually broken into that same door once before when she had lost her keys. There's a way to enter into our garage from the backyard. We had a gate that went into our backyard. Then you could go down the hallway which led to our garage, and you could enter into the kitchen through a side door in the garage. There was no key to that door because there was a

latch actually in the middle pane. It would slide up and slide over, and that's how you would enter into the house, was through that latch. I remember having friends over like all the time, and they kept like trying to open the door because we had a fridge outside, and like everybody was like, what is going on with this door? And there's this like tiny little piece of

metal that would hinder you from going outside. So that's what makes me feel like anybody that was involved in anything that took place that night and killing my mom, they had intimate knowledge of our house, but at the time, it still didn't alarm me. What alarmed me was when I got ready to go to my room, which was across from my mom room, and the light was on

in the bedroom. The door was halfway open, so that's what caused me to go into the bedroom and UM, I saw my mom and UM, I'm sorry, take your time, and UM, you know, I'm not really even sure of what I remember. First is what I've heard along the way, especially like from trial and transcripts and things like that.

But I do remember walking in and seeing her neckd body on the floor and my first reaction was to just pick her up, and she was so heavy, and I'm looking and I don't even know if I registered at the time. I must have. I mean, somebody gets shot, you know, there's like a pool of blood. I don't even remember there being a pool of blood. I remember they're being blood everywhere, like on the sheets and even on the walls, and I'm just like screaming, and then I know I'm I wanted help, So I run across

the street and I go get a neighbor. And at that point, I'm thinking about the broken glass and I'm like, somebody broke into my house, and so he comes with me, and I guess I run in the house in front of him. That's what he said at trial, which they inadvertently made a huge deal about. I didn't give a funk who was in there. I knew a man was behind me with a gun, and I knew my mom was in there on the floor. That was like my life, that was my cheerleader, that was my coach, and I

needed to get to her. And so I went back in there, and Um, the neighbor across the street, I think his girlfriend actually pulled me away from her and told me to call it nine with one. So I called nine one one, and I'm just I'm screaming. And at one point they asked me if she had been shot, and I said no. Um, but I just remember standing out on that curb. You know, I watched plenty of

TV and I know that. You know, the evens he goes inside and they bring the body out on the gurney if it's going to go to the hospital, And the gurney came out and nobody was on it, and that's just when I lost it. They actually put me. It's so ironic because it was like foreshadowing what was going to happen. I was so uncontrollable trying to run in the house. They put me in the back of a cop car. One point, I don't even know what

to say. It's one thing that I say. I have represent a number of people who have been convicted of of a murder of a family member, and just to have that trauma of of what you're talking about, and then to be sort of re traumatized by being convicted

for it is is just unimaginable. And I think that police, when they're faced with a situation where they don't know who did it, rather than looking at the evidence, they start looking at suspects, and they do these suspect driven investigations where they look at the person and try to make a case against the person, rather than looking at the evidence and trying to follow where the evidence leads.

And the interesting and disgusting thing is that the day of my mom's funeral, they had two detectives waiting on me. My mom was killed on June five. June six, I stayed with a family friend. June seven, my aunts came into town and they tried to take me. I wouldn't go with him. So June eighth, they came and got me and they were like, you're coming with us. We stayed downtown in a hotel room and they left me there.

They went somewhere and they left me there, and so one of the people that attended our church came to pick me up and she was like, why are you by yourself? I was sitting on the curb. She was like, you need help, Like, I'm gonna take you to see somebody. So she takes me to a child psychologist and he's talking to me and he was like, this girl is in shock. She needs to be surrounded by people that can pay attention to her and give her what she needs and love, and they need to give her some

type of security. So my aunt's solution to that was to take me to Lake Side, which is a behavioral health center. So we go to Lakeside. I don't think at the time I was really aware of the fact that I was eighteen, so they couldn't put me in there. So what they did was they told me we will involuntarily commit you and it'll be a seventy two hour mandatory minimum and you will miss your mom's funeral, so they knew that I signed whatever they put in front

of me to go inside. So when I went inside, I was there for two days, and then they were supposed to pick me up for my mom's funeral. My best friend that was killed. Her mom actually came up there and brought me closed the night before. So I just remember, like I'm sitting up there waiting on my aunts to pick me up to what I know is my mom's funeral. It's kind of morbid, like in my dead best friend's clothes, and they're not there. So at this point I began to like shred a whole box

of Kleenex, and then I began to freak out. We didn't have access to phone, so my nurse starts to call them. Nobody's answering, so then I really start to freak out. So they give me a sedative, and when my aunts get there, they're like, get in the car. You know, it's not a big deal. You're not gonna miss it. The show is not going to start without us, like they referred to it as a show, and I do remember of that. And so we're sitting at the

funeral and we leave. I don't even go to anything that they have after the funeral, I'm I'm pretty sure I heard that they had a reception. I didn't go. They took me straight back to Lake Side. I walk into the doors of Lake Side and I'll never forget. My nurse's name was Chris, and I just really, really really was clinging to her at that time because she reminded me of my grandma, and she was like, baby, She was like, I have to take you into the office.

You have some people here that want to talk to you. I don't even know what I'm thinking, Like, maybe it's like old friends, maybe it's a visit, maybe somebody's here to see me. And I walk in and it's two detectives with a camera and they hand over a piece of paper and so at this point lake Side has become very overprotective of me. They're reading the paper and they were like, are you kidding me? Like you picked this day of all days, and it's the Affidavid with

the warrant. It was very apparent that the attacker or the killer was injured at the scene of the crime, so they needed to photograph my body and its entirety and get some or DNA, which I had already provided the first day, and so they took my clothes off, and I mean, if you look at these pictures, you can tell whatever since that I had left at that time left me. I just it was like out of body. I couldn't. I could not cope with reality at that point, and I had no choice but to go with it

because at this point I had nobody left. So I'm taking off my clothes and they're photographing me, and I'm thinking, like, I just wanted to lay down and die at that point, I just I didn't. I didn't want to have the wherewithal to continue. I'm just trying to process. Well, you just told me, um, you were still, as you said, a child. I mean, the idea that they would strip you at that point, I mean, you're never even stripped of everything except your dignity, and then they took that

away too. How how that's even possible? Is um hard for me to process. You've no have been through everything that a human being can possibly adore. You're not even twenty years old yet, right, You're all alone in the world, and how the fuck did you find the strength to persevere? Oh? Well, my mom told me when my best friend a and ide that grief is like Sarah, you know, that's the

name that she wanted to name me. And she was like, you go through sadness, and then you go through anger, and then you go through resentment, and then you go through acceptance, and then you go through healing. And I wanted to go through those things. So the anger is

what drove me. When I was first arrested, I remember being in the jail, sitting on my bunk and watching like everybody else in the pod of the jail, watched the television where they were talking about eighteen year old girl arrested for killing her mother who was stabbed over fifty seven times. Prosecutors have not announced that they will be seeking the death penalty. She has been charged with first degree murder, which carries us and stuff life without parole,

life with parole, and even the death. But you know, and it just was like going on and on, and I remember sitting there thinking like, I wonder if they will try to give me the death penalty. The constitution, they guarantee the right to a speedy and fair trial. That's what it says in black and white. But the reality of the situation is you will sit there for as long as they deemed necessary. Amy Wyrick was determined

to be my prosecutor. She was a death penalty lawyer, and she was on what they used to refer to as the death squad, which means that she was qualified to trial death penalty cases. Amy went on on maternity leave. Do you think that she handed the case over to somebody else. No. I sat there and waited for her to go on maternity leave, to have her child and

come back. Amy was determined to try that case. I wasn't there, but it's pretty clear that she saw you as a real stepping stone to where she wanted to get to in her career. Correct. This was the biggest and longest running case, with the most evidence in the most exhibits and shelby counting history at the time. It was very clear to her that this could be like a career making case, especially if she got a conviction.

So she played like a win at all costs came and you know, one of the things that Amy Wyrick likes to hold onto and like she steadfast on, is that we had forty witnesses. Okay, you did, but let's look at what those forty witnesses presented. You had tb I, the Tennessee Bear of Investigation, that testifies that the DNA that they analyzed belonged to somebody else. You have Kirby McDonald,

Sophie Cooley, Perry Brassfield, Andrew Hammock, Joey McGough. You have all of these children, because they're still children at the time, testifying that I smoked pot and that I drank at a party. But they were doing the same thing and they're not on trial for killing anybody. That does not make you a murderer. They made a big deal out of the idea that you were this crazy druggie, right when in fact you were a typical eighteen year old.

You're having, you know, some beer as you're smoking some pot. That's what eighteen year olds do. You were no drug addict. I'm a diabolical killer, and then I'm a pothead. I'm someone that can totally get rid of any trace evidence that made blood disappear off of clothes that they pulled out the back of my car, Clothes that they had that I had on that night that was able to overtake a woman that was five eleven. I don't know, like without she was on five three. She was an

avid runner, she worked out at the time. I was a chubby, little pothead. Like, there's no my mom would have kicked my ass any day of the week, you know, And they said this, I mean, she fought for her life. I mean, if you look at the pictures like she she went down swinging, there's no way that anybody walked away from their unscathed. And you know it's crazy, is that. I know I remember like in situations where like I was in danger and I know my mom. There's no

way my mom left this world willingly. You know, she she took something from those people, whoever it was. So that is what they use for the warrant for my body. They you know, there would have been evidence of some type of attacks, some type of fight. Of course there would have been, and we know that your nails were

perfectly manicured, and there's just no way. And we know this from dreams of evidence of cases throughout the years that when somebody stabs somebody else numerous times, you always leave blood because the thing gets slippery and you get you know, and you cut yourself. So, Nora, there's a very unique aspect to your prosecution, persecution, etcetera. Which I've never heard before, which is the fact that the prosecution made a big deal out of the fact that you

were wearing long sleeves. What difference did it make that you were wearing or not wearing long sleeves, right, So I think the theory that they adopted was that I had on long sleeves because they said I was trying to have the cut on my hand. I kind of touched on the fact that I was a little bit different with this single mother. But I was also different

because my father was Lebanese. I'm I racial, So that was a really difficult thing for me, and it was made even more difficult at a young age by my mom's sisters because they constantly pointed it out. Growing up, I always wanted to look like my mom because she was like, she was so beautiful, and I just like idolized her. I could never do that figure wise, Like I said, you know, she was tall and very fit, and I was shut and I was always kind of chubby.

But I would damn my hair, Like if you look back at the pictures, all throughout my high school and junior high, I died my hair blonde, because I felt like if I died my hair blond, I would look like more like my mom. I have really, really really hairy arms, and that is my heritage, that is from being Lebanese. So at that point in my life, I thought different was bad, so I didn't want to be different, So I tried to hide those differences, and it became

just kind of a thing. I mean, I was called natured, but I think subconsciously it started off as being more of like trying to mask the difference in me versus other people. But let's also just examine the fact of how ridiculous it is that you were wearing law sleeves to hide the cuts on your hands. You would have needed a mittens, right, That's what you needed, right. And so all of this comes down to seeing every fact

through the prism of Norah's guilt. And once these investigators decide who they think did it, they make everything fall in line. And when they do that, they miss the obvious evidence that shows that there was somebody else there. There's somebody else's blood on the bed. Instead they're looking at shirt sleeves, and that person is still free. All of this goes back to the idea that they had

no evidence against you. There never was any evidence against you, and the exculpatory evidence, I want to touch on that for a second. To Stephen Jones, the assistant prosecutor in the case, this motherfucker took evidence that he clearly knew would have blown the case against you, right, which means in English that he knew you were in sent But

this was an inconvenient truth. He somehow or other managed to forget that there was a note which would have totally blown to think to Smith means and then magically, five days after the trial he remembers it, which leads me to think that he started thinking after the trial was over, well, I probably did something really wrong here. If my attorney value quarter is nothing else. She is very,

very thorough. They knew that it would be found because she was thorough, Valerie, she knew head on going into this that these people were unethical. The prosecutor, Amy Wyrick, had been censured numerous times for behavior not dissimilar to what she did to you. She was promoted after the trial, right, She's she's moved up in the world and brought some of the detectives that were on the case up with her. This woman sat there and said that DNA analysis was

not important. It is important in some cases, she said, but it wasn't important in mind. But if you go back to the very beginning, they use DNA as a way to gain access to my body. They used all of this stuff to get what they wanted, and when the results came back then it wasn't relevant anymore. That

never really made sense to me. You have a warrant that was issued in two thousand and five for a person's body because you say an arrest cannot be made in the case that's in June of two thousand and five. An arrest cannot be made in this case without some type of DNA or physical evidence. September twenty ninth, two thousand and five, you arrest me. December of two thousand and five, the Tennessee Beer of Investigations releases their findings with the DNA analysis and it comes back as a

profile that it excludes me and excludes my mother. Do you think that at any point they revisited the case, they revisited the theory, They said, maybe we got this wrong. We should let her go. Let's go back to the drawing board, let's start over. No, it's I can't. I mean, and I'm trying to. I can't obviously put myself in your shoes. Nobody can. But the nightmare it's total. I mean, the people who are supposed to be protecting you and are supposed to be, you know, protecting society, are are

going so rogue. I really really have to point this out. You have to have motive, means, and opportunity. That's the three requirements when you're trying somebody for a case. So their motive became money. There was no money. My father ran a business that relied on cash, and some will say that he ran an escort service. If anybody knows anything about when you're doing legal activity, you don't put that money in a bank account. It's not rain on books,

it's rain off books. Whatever was there. We saw a person on video lifting cash out of a floor safe that I didn't even know existed. By the time the cops had released the keys to his house, it had been ransacked. My father had ten thousand dollars in a bank account, and my mom allowed me to make the choice of what to do with that, and we used that money and she ended up having to put like another thousand dollars with it to send his body back to Beiruts so he could be buried with my grandparents.

So there was no money. There was this big idea that there was a fight over control of an estate that did not exist, the idea that he had an estate or he didn't even have a will, I mean, there was there was nothing. So the whole theory of the case was built around there was money that my mom had that I could not have. Well, okay, let's look at that too. I'm eighteen, so anything that existed that she had by right would have gone to me. Then they said that she wanted to send me away.

I'm eighteen. She can't send me away unless I choosed to go. She could kick me out, but she can't send me away. So this whole theory that I was an out of control teenager that wanted some money that didn't exist. I mean, it was like and what was so frustrating to me, and I didn't know the time, is that all of this could have been easily disproven, but it wasn't. You didn't testify in your own case,

and this became a very important factor. Your attorney was concerned that in your fragile state, which, by the way, you're now an orphan. You've been in jail for three and a half years. Your attorney made and what could be deemed a rational decision to not have you testify because on cross examination you could have broken down or who knows. I mean, it turned out to be the wrong decision, but you could sort of see where that

came from, right right. It's always a tough call because you have this dynamic where the state has all the power. They are the ones who create this narrative, and they've got you on the stand. The judge is going to let them ask all kinds of horrible questions, and there is always a very delicate question about whether your client's going to testify. And certainly nobody should ever think about somebody not testifying, and that's an admission of guilt. Juries

are instructed about it. And in this case, the state took that right that Nora has and reasonable decision. Every single person has the right to say to the state, I didn't do this crime, and there's no proof that I did this crime, and I don't have to subject

myself to being attacked because of it. I mean, think nor is they're sitting accused of the murder of her own mother, traumatized for a second time, and is it a reasonable decision to not allow yourself to be traumastized for a third time where you're being accused of that murder. On the stand that that's a reasonable decision under the circumstances,

So you have these rights. But here in the closing argument, the prosecutor takes that and really comments on that and invites the jury to and for guilt in ways that is unconstitutional. Well, the prosecutor chose to basically excoriate and more or less scream at you, demanding that you tell her what had happened, which is not only wildly inappropriate, but also patently illegal. Right, that's illegal behavior. You can't

do it. But she did it anyway. She had this goal, right, she was gonna make it to where she had to go by stepping on your neck. And that's exactly what she did. And she was willing to not only bend the rules, but break the rules and break the law. And it's actually mind blowing in your case. I mean,

before she was able to finish it. Valerie Quarter, my first attorney, she jumped up and you know at this point, I'm I'm still like I just turned twenty one, and I really didn't know a whole lot, but I knew what she did right then and there, Like I was about to jump out my seat and I was about to say but you know, and my lawyer like put my hand like this, and she jumped up and she was like, you're all like, you know, I object and all of that. The thing is is that her intention

was met. It was very, very very calculating what she did. Jurors are your everyday people. The human condition is to be curious. These people walked out of the jury box with the last thing in their mind being just tell us where you were, Nora. That's all we're asking. She simplified it in a way like if you would have just told us where you were, none of this would be happening. So that's the last thing that these twelve

people hard when they walked out of that box. And I'll tell you, as a as a lawyer, you know that you're not allowed to do that. You are not allowed to comment on a person testifying or not testifying in that manner. And if a defense lawyer had done that, they'd be in jail. It's their world. You're in it, and they make the rules and they move the lines when they want to do. And if you're a defense attorney and you do something wrong, they'll have no fury.

If you're a prosecutor and you do something wrong, it was a mistake, it was an inverted mistake. They didn't mean to They're sorry. It won't happening in it. And nor let me point out that the Fair Punishment Project at Harvard, which is as blue chip of a panel as you can have, there are literally legal luminaries on that panel, and they just this year singled out Amy Wyrick, the prosecutor in your case, for numerous allegations of misconduct

over the last several years. And yet there she is serving an eight year term victimizing other people the same way she did to you, and getting away with it. Yeah, it's crazy. And she actually gave a statement when that came out. She gave a statement, and she dismissed that as easily as she dismissed the d n A m

AT case. Nor when you were at trial, obviously you knew you were innocent, But now you've been incarcerated in a horrendous jail situation for three and a half years, which let's not forget at that point that's a big percentage of your life. Was there a point during the trial at which you said, WHOA, they may actually convict me, Like, did you just expect that finally justice would be done and that jury would rule in your favor going into trial.

I looked forward to it and I was looking for my day in court, and I thought that justice would prevail, and I believed all that during trial. It was like, so when my mom was killed, it was a shock, it was a trauma, but it's like it had the advantage of like I didn't see it coming and I was totally blindsided. Going to trial, I was reliving all of that. I knew how horrible it was. I knew how horrendous it was. I knew what it looked like, I knew what she looked like, and I was faced

with all that again. So I think, like there were points during the trial where I would literally like bite the inside of my cheek at one point in bled just because there were so many times I wanted to open up my mouth and say something, whether it was during testimony or at one point I wanted them to just take the fucking pictures down, Like I didn't want

to see that. There my mom is neked and she has been murdered, and it's just like there's a thousand people in the courtroom, and I just I didn't want to see it, and I didn't want anyone else to see it. So I think subconsciously the first week, I just was so focused on like trying to get up and like make it through the next day. I'll never forget this Saturday, because we went to trial on a Saturday. It lasted like fourteen days, and that Saturday it was

Valentine's Day. And the only way I knew that is because when they took me to the holding cell, no

one else was obviously going to court. It was Saturday, so I was in the whole jail by myself, and so they kept me in this little tiny holding cell that normally they would have the men in during the week, and one of the jailers had put a heart shaped butterfinger in there for me to like acknowledge that it was Valentine's Day, and I remember like getting that piece of candy and realizing that it was Valentine's Day and that that was a day that people recognized and like

that I wasn't even aware of what was going on, you know, and that the only thing that I could figure out was that today might be the day that I found out what was going to happen with the rest of my life. I think that not knowing was

the worst. And then we get to the point where the prosecutor Wyrick violates your constitutional rights flagrantly by totally disregarding her responsibility to not highlight or make an issue out of the fact that you chose or your lawyer actually advised you, and you chose not to testify your own defense. And the jury goes out and then they come back in, and that moment you knew when they came back in, n you know, I almost feel like I knew when Amy did that as they walked back in.

There was periods throughout that trial it was like a fourteen day trial where when things are being discussed and things were being said, the jury would look at me. I mean, who wouldn't you know you're talking about this person like they're not in the room, but the person is in the room and they're just sitting there. So periodically I would look even though my journeys kept telling

me not to. I would look at the jury and there was this one guy with like reddish hair, and he constantly, along with the woman next to him, made eye contact with me throughout the trial. And when they walked in his nose because he had red hair and he was paler, I could tell that either he was angry or he had been crying. And I looked at him and he looked down. He wouldn't look at me, and I knew right then. So you're convicted and sentenced

to twenty years and nine months in prison. You've already been now in jail for three and a half years. You go to prison, How did you deal with that? You know? Prison? I talked about Sarah with you, and prison was where I did like my anger, and then I did my resentment and then my acceptance, and it kind of armored me to go back out and fight again. I was really broken when I got to prison. I

had totally lost faith in the justice system. That that's when I really realized that the world was not fair, that my mother's killer was walking around free, and that people that said that they loved her didn't care. Because to love my mother was to love me because I was my mother, like we were a package deal, and so I just I really couldn't believe when it happened,

Like I was really in a daze. So I go to prison, and I'm very very very much to myself, and I get involved in a lot of different activities. So I go to this one seminar in the prison, and they had assigned you to tables by stickers. While I decided I didn't like the sticker that I had, and I didn't like the table I had, and I wanted to set at a different table. So I took it upon myself to switch my sticker with somebody else and moved myself. I'm not thinking anybody's paying attention. There's

like a hundred inmates in there. So the lady that's the director of this program, she just keeps picking at me, like the whole time that I'm in there, saying something to me about changing my sticker, putting me by at my table, and there was like another thing that she did to me. So at the end of the seminar, she's asking questions to give away prizes, and she has something that was relevant to what one of the speakers said,

and she called on me. I guess she thought I didn't know the answer, and I stood up and I gave her the answer, probably in like the nicest, nastiest way that you could. And at the end of the seminar, she was like, I'm gonna be her on Wednesday to talk to you, and I was just looking at her like, and I'm not going to talk to you, Like I've had so many people, I just at that point I didn't want to talk to anyone. And her name was pat Colp and she is the reason that I still

have my sanity. She runs an organization called Women Empowered to Become Self Sufficient shortened its webs, and what she does is she comes into the prison and she nurtures the people that have longer sentences. So many of the programs inside the prison are geared towards people that are fast tracked for release. You know, they want to reduce the rate of her cidivism theoretically, and they want to provide entry for people that are closer to getting out.

So then you have someone like me with almost a twenty one year sentence and I'm just at the back of the bus because they're not worried about people like us. Or my friends that have life, because they'll get to us. When they get to us, we're gonna be there a while. But then you have an amazing situation like might happen where the Supreme Court overturns on my stuff and I have the possibility of being thrown back out into society.

But I have no tools and no help because I've been put at the back of the bus because of my sentence. So Miss pat comes in, and she's so important because she offers computer classes, how to write a resume, thinking for a change, like things that people like me need, but the prison doesn't, like they don't have anything for that. She also does something called Winner Wonderland where it's like for a whole week, I felt like I wasn't in prison. I don't have any children. But what they do is

they turn the whole gym into the prison. They allow people to go down there. If you don't have any children, you get thirty dollars you're able to go down there. And it's just something about being able to get like something from the free world, a nice, real gift to send to people that are on the outside, that are taking care of you, that are coming to see you. That are accepting your phone calls, that are sending you pictures.

To be able to be in prison and to give something to somebody else, you know, when you're so locked away from the world is the most amazing thing. And then if you do have children on Saturday, your children come in and you give your children Christmas. So it's not in a visitation setting. It's not where you can't hold your child, you can't feed your child, you can't

do any of that. These mothers get to have their children from eight to three, open gifts with them, do arts and crafts with them, hold them, if they need to change their diaper, they can. You know, all of the things that mothers want and need to do for their children, and she enables that opportunity. So to be a part of that was like the most amazing experience ever.

There was so much joy and at the same time, like you open up the day and it's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen for these women in prison to be able to hold and have Christmas with their children. And then it's the most heart wrenching thing you've seen when these children have to walk out of the prison

away from their mothers. It will destroy your soul nour then a miracle happens, literally a miracle, right, I mean, because we know how rare it is for wrongful convictions to be overturned, very rare in Tennessee, for the Supreme Court of Tennessee to overturn a wrongful conviction. It's it's it's a miracle, right. What was that day? Like it was I'm actually on the toilet, going to the bathroom watching TV and it just like so happens that my roommates TV is on the lower stand and she had

it on mute. I think it was something good to eat for dinner that night, So everybody else has like gone to the chow ha and I eat what I think is my name flash across the bottom of the screen, Like you know how they have like the little title at the bottom of whatever the news story is about. Well, you get in trouble if you listen to your TV without headphones in it. So we always have the close caption on. So even if the mute is on, the close caption is running, so the close caption is always

a little bit behind that. So I'm like, did I just see my name? So I'm waiting for the close caption to come on, and all I see is Nora Jackson and I don't know if I saw reverse or Supreme Court. So I was like, holy shit. So I jump up and I changed the channel because we have something called three dash two, which is like it just runs the news over and over and over again. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, you know what, Like I get impatient. I'm like, I'm gonna go to news

channel five. I got a news Channel five. I wait about two or three minutes it's on there, so I'm screaming out. At the time, I lived around the corner on the upper level of D South, which is like, um, it's a pod that's away from the rest of the prison because they have a dog program there, so I think the officer was outside with the dog program, like and I'm like screaming. I'm like, somebody let me out

of here. And I'm just so excited and I want to tell my friends and they're they're gone to eat, so I'm like waiting for them on the breezeway. I'm like, guess what, and they're like what. I'm like, what would be like the best thing that could ever happen to me? And they were like, you know, you walk away and you do this, and you do that, and I was like, the Supreme Court just overturned my stuff, and we all just started crying because the victory for me was a

victory for them, because it's hope. We haven't seen that done before. I'm just gonna say that I don't remember ever having a visual quite like you sitting on the toilet while watching your own name scrolled across the screen and then jumping around. I mean, you know, I know, it's like I almost wanted to change the narrative just because I'm like, I'm sitting on the toilet, but I mean that's what happened. There's something symbolic about that. It

really is. I mean, the toilet is is perfect analogy for this a lot of what's gone on here so far as something else really dramatic about you having to wait to be able to tell your friends. So the Tennessee Supreme Court in a unanimous decision. I want to emphasize that unanimous decision reverses your conviction and in the strongest terms, condemns the conduct of the prosecutors, and anybody listening is probably going okay, well, that's uh, that's a wrap, right,

Kase closed or is out. But that's not the end of the story. And what we learned in these cases is that having your conviction overturn doesn't mean that your indictment. You know, your indictment still stands right, and the prosecutor still has power to inflict harm on the person that's in the cross hairs. Here in many cases they'll drop the charges at that point because the conviction has been overturned, and in this case by the Supreme Court, I mean

the highest court in Tennessee five zero, right, incredible. When you got that news, did you think you were going home that day? You know, if I was anyone else, I probably would have thought that that meant that I was going to be free. A lot of people, you know that we're not really really totally aware of the workings of the justice. Um we're like waiting for me to pack myself that night. But the way my life and my world works, I knew that there was still

an uphilp at all. For there to be no real consequence of that is insane. It is It's nuts that this can go on, that a court can identify, yes, a flagrant violation of her rights, and and that ultimately is a condemnation of this conviction. It's it's as close as can be to a finding by this court that

she really didn't do it. And for that then to go back to the county and for them to just go right back to work on the same railroad that they were doing before is unimaginable from this perspective, but unfortunately pretty routine. So in a claim like a Brady claim,

you cannot say no more. All they can do is put you back in the same position that you were for the government cheated, which is one of the real problems with these Brady claims, because the government can cheat and cheat and cheat, and the worst possible consequence for them is that they just get to do it over as if they weren't caught cheating. So the Supreme Court returns your conviction and then you end up back in court because they can put you back in court, and

that's another outrageous thing about all of this. But nonetheless they put you back in court, and now you are faced with a momentous decision, which is that the government gives you the option to go back to trial or to take what's called it Alfred play, and I know that had to be really the hardest decision of your life. It was okay. The Supreme Court overturned my conviction in in August of and I didn't even go back to

the county jail. I had my first hearing in February of so there was like a long waiting period in between there. My first court appearance in February often was for a bond hearing. And the mentality of people that are incarcerated in anybody that knows, is it's easier to fight your case from the street if you're out there and you're in the free world and you're doing good things you can and also just mentally you're more prepared and you're not all broken down. There's a big advantage

to that. So our thoughts were I would have a bond hearing and we would work really hard on getting me out in that way, because this case theoretically could drag on for a really long time. In a very calculating move, the Shelby County District Attorney's office recused themselves the day of my bond hearing, which therefore forfeited me the opportunity to have a bond and Jason, that's like really important because if that just goes to show that they they were so underhanded and all of the stuff

that they did to me. I mean a bond hearing. People have bond hearings every day. People get bond set before they ever have a court appearance. A special prosecutor does not need to be familiar with the facts of the case in order for a defendant to have a bond. But this is the judge saying that it was all just a ploy because the ultimate goal for them was for me to take a plea. Of course, they had

no case. There was so much public scrutiny. The Supreme Court had slapped them down very very heavily in that opinion, and they had lost all their witnesses. A lot of them didn't want to testify, and a lot of them were now in material. So they just kept pressuring, putting off, pressuring and putting off. And the day before I took my plea, we had actually subpoena thirty assistant district attorneys and they had filed injunctions to block him, and then

they were getting ready to go through. Their ultimate goal was to keep Amy Wywrick off the stand. She had already been in the stand earlier in that year about hiding evidence in a totally different case, and if you put Amy on that stand, she was going to have to be held accountable. And I guess the solution to all that was to get me off their case and just to dispose of all of this was a plea. So my lawyers came to me the night before I took the plea with the offer. There was a lot

of confusion. I kept asking, like, you know, how much is it? What is it? And they just kept reiterating, you will walk out of here tomorrow. You can go home, you can be free. And my lawyer the first thing I asked them, I started crying and I was like, do you know what this means? And she was like, what I said. For them to offer me this plea, I said, this means that they know I didn't do it. They went to my mom's two sisters that were against me,

and they agreed to this. Police. If they really thought that I killed their sister, do you think that they would be willing to offer freedom? I said, I don't know what's more awful the fact that I've been here, the fact that these people know or have a doubt in their mind and still went through with all of this that I could be free. Like I was crying, and she was like, Nora, listen, you want five things.

You want your mom back, It's not gonna happen. You want your aims to acknowledge the fact that you didn't do this, and you want them to love you. That's not gonna happen. You want people to think you didn't do it. The people that believe you and that they know you, they're going to be behind you. They've always been behind you. The people that have made up their mind that you did do this and that are opinionated. Nothing a trial, an overturnal like your conviction being overturned,

an acquittal, that's not going to change their mind. She said, you want to get out and help people. You can do that. You want to get out and have a baby. You will be young enough to do that now. She said, hold on to the things that you can do and let go all the things that you can't and sign

the paper. And you did. I think any reasonable person in your situation would have signed that paper because you had seen the worst of what American justice system can dish out At that point you knew that they were going to go to any lanes they had to to reconvict you and send you back to hell, basically for as long as they could write. I'm not in prison anymore. So I'm back logged down with a totally group of people. I'm restricted from all of my friends. You make friends

in prison. We have Joe House lawyers in prison called law clerks, So all of the people that can understand and empathize and actually like talk about what the court proceedings and what's going on and fully understand them and give me advice. I'm not even allowed to communicate with these people. Were not allowed to write, We're not allowed

to talk, We're not allowed to do anything. So I once again was back at square one, and I was all alone, and I was tired, and I was going to court, and I was just sitting there and watching them do the same thing to me that they had done all over again, and acting like the Supreme Court decision had never happened. And so when they offered me a piece of paper to sign, it was unreal. They

told me I would walk out that day. You're sort of signing your life away, right, because once you signed that Alfred plea, you're not able to sue them, they're not liable for anything. On top of that, you're living as a convicted felon, even though the Tennessee Supreme Court has said in five to nothing that basically that's not true.

So it's really a Sophie's choice kind of situation, right, and you took the logical choice, but you took it under false pretenses, thinking that you were going to be freed that day, and instead you're sent back to prison for fifteen months, which is I don't know, it's really just it's just hard, like it's it's hard for me to just wrap my head around. That was my lowest point. So when I get it there, T d o C is like, we did not tell your lawyers that you

will go home. We told your lawyers that you would be eligible for parole. And when I was sitting there taking the plea that day, that's what Chris Craft, the judge, was saying, you'll go back and you'll be eligible for parole. But one of the things that my attorney has told me before I took the standards, look, don't listen to anything he says. Okay, he doesn't know you're getting out. We've arranged this with T. D O C. They just know you're taking the plea. They don't understand how much

good time you have. So if he says something that makes you, like, you know, uncomfortable, ignore it. Don't listen to anything he's saying. So I get understand. And he's saying that I'm going to go back to prison at this point, like I'm not even acknowledging my lawyers in the core room, I'm looking at miss pat and she is willing me like a mother because I feel like

she became my adoptive mother. I'm looking at her and my ex boyfriend's mother, Ainslie, and these two women are a force of nature, like their eye contact is trying to pull me off the stand. They are looking like, oh ship, like something has gone terrible wrong. They just knew, you know, because they weren't back there when my lawyers were telling me all this, and they're thinking that I'm

signing this plea and I'm getting out that day. They've gone out and they bought me root beer, they bought me close, they bought me a toothbrush, and they're gonna be waiting on me when I get out. And they're sitting there listening to the judge saying I'm gonna go

up for parole, and everybody we're all really confused. So I get off the stand and I go back to the back room with my attorneys, and they're like, but you're not even smiling, like this is so exciting, You're about to walk out of here, and I said, I don't. I don't think I'm gonna believe it until it actually happens. So I go back to the jail. I give away all my stuff. I checked the computer. It says disposed, so then it's real to me. I'm getting out of here.

My case is disposed of. So they say, nor you have a visit. I go up to the top of the steps. It's one of my friends, Jennifer, my mom's name that was actually for million car started with me her and her girlfriend and they're like, Nora. We asked them what time you were getting out, because we were just going to wait on you and surprise you, and they said, you have a fifteen year old for the

penitentiary in the computer. And I just left my visit and I walked downstairs to the officer and I was like, I want you to check that computer again. She was like, nor, are we already checked it? And I said no, I want I want you to check it again, and she did and it said fifteen years because that's what I had signed for, so it said fifteen years hold t d o C, which is Department of Corrections. So that meant that I had to go back to t d

o C and they needed to calculate my time. I went back to t d o C. In that was in May of When I got there, my expiration day, which is the day that I would get out, was sitting in July of I was past my parole eligibility day. So I get there and they're like, Nora, you're on the pearl docket. And I just looked at the counselor and I don't think anyone has ever said this before. And I looked at her and I said, fuck parole. And she was like what. And I was like, I

don't trust you. I don't trust t d o C. And I don't trust the State of Tennessee. And I'm refusing to go out for a parole and she was like, no, you cannot refuse to go out for a pearl. I said, I am not gonna go up and say I'm sorry for a crime I didn't commit. Please let me out, and then I'm under state supervision for two years. I said. I don't have anybody waiting on me out there, I said, and I don't trust anybody out there, and I'm going

to flatten my sentence. So let me explain. Flattened means that I would sit there and earn my good time and meet my date. So I could have gone up for parole. I might have gotten it, I might not have. But if I would have gone out on Pearl, then that means I would have been under the Tennessee state supervision for two more years, which means Amy wy Wreck would have been like over me for two more years. And I was isn't about to release what little control I had back to them at this point, to be

quite honest, nothing personal. I didn't trust my lawyers, I didn't trust t DC, I didn't trust anyone. So I had to trust myself. So I sat there for fifteen more months so I could walk out of there and never look back. Yeah, and and think about this. She gets a decision from the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimous that puts her in the position of she's innocent, no more guilty than you or me of this crime, and she waits months and months and months to even get a

hearing about whether she can get bond. There is no daylight but this one option that is put in front of her, and then the rugg is pulled right underneath her, and it's just all of this to prevent her from just bringing the light of the day to what happened. Here. We see this over and over again, where you've got innocent people who are stuck behind bars with no legal justification, and they're given this forced choice because the government holds

all the cards. Nora, Then what was it like for you the day you got out, you finally got out? How do you feel it was unreal? Up until the moment that I walked out this sally port the gates, I didn't think I would really get out. They had played with They would release me at twelve o'clock midnight, then they would release me at four o'clock the next day.

And then I ended up leaving in eight thirty and the warden actually came told me if I told anyone when I was leaving, they wouldn't release me at all, but I knew I was expirating, and I knew I would get out, and I signed the piece of paper, but I didn't believe it, just because of everything that had happened on my journey, that it would really really happen. And I got out and Annesley was there, and I

was so lucky and so happy to have her. But I honestly think being out, I knew that my mom was gone, and I knew that someone had killed her. People talk all the time in prison about going home because they have this idea of home, and I don't really know what a home is for me right now, and so I think getting out has been such a blessing and I'm so grateful. And I used to always think that getting out was the hard part, getting released, getting free, but life after something like this is the

hard part. I took that plea because I thought I would get out that day and that didn't happen. And so there are times that I think I wonder that if I made a really big mistake, because being a felon in today's world is really hard. A lot of people aren't like you. They don't understand that the justice system is flawed and unfair. Getting a job is hard. Finding a play to live as hard. But I'm still lucky.

I find myself. When I talk to my friends in prison, it's like, I don't even want to tell them these things, because who am I a complain when they're still sitting in there? You know, but these are the things they don't tell you when you're in there. Um, I think, I guess I'm just gonna say. Everyone who's listening out there, get involved. Donate to your local innocence project, go online,

read about these issues right to someone in prison. Support organizations like Women Empowered to Become Self Sufficient that meant so much to Nora when she was in Check them out and vote. Nora can't, but you can, and so get out there and make a difference, because you know it's time. It's time for us to turn this whole tied around. We have a tradition here Nora at Wrongful Conviction, which is that to close the show, I like to just turn the microphone over to you for any closing

thoughts that you want to share. I don't know, Um I would. I just I'm just I'm just one. I'm one of many. There are Michelle's and Shane's and Joscelyn's and Octavia's, and so many people like me that are sitting inside that haven't gotten the opportunity or the chances that I've gotten, that are just waiting on someone like

the Innocence Project to accept their case. So I guess what I would say is I just hope that the people are listening, ros that like any little bit counts, and I just hope that people are able to look at this with an objectivity that maybe they didn't have. I want to thank you both for being on the show, Bryce for sharing your your wisdom of all these years, and Norah, of course you. I can't even put into words how much it means to have you here, and I know the best is yet to come for you.

And we're all on your side, and we're we're fucking test too, so we're gonna we're all gonna have to practice Sarah together. And I also want to give special thanks to Emily Basilon, who first brought so much attention to your case. Extraordinary writer for The New York Times, a scholar at Yale Law School, she doesn't funk around, and another badass. A lot of badass women on your side now, which is great. So this has been a very special episode of Wrongful Conviction. Thanks to you, Nora,

and what else can they say? Thanks for being here, thank you for having me, don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor into the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,

Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. 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 Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one