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 the 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 coorerough 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 happened to me.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today we have a very special episode that I know I say that a lot, but this time it's really true. This week's episode is a call to action because we're here to talk about the non unanimous jury problem in Louisiana and constitutional amendment too, which is on the ballot next month November sixth, and it needs to be eliminated. Today we have one of my favorite human beings and
a personal hero of mine, Doug Delosa. Doug, welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
Thank you, Jason, pleasure to be back.
And we have a guy whose name I can't pronounce but I'm going to try it anyway, who is a glutton for punishment. Let's just say that Chris Puscho is here for the first time. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
Chris, thank you for having me.
Jason, and by way of introduction, both of these guys are Louisiana natives, and we're here for a very specific purpose today, which is to discuss the non unanimous jury verdict problem in Louisiana, which is a unique and really terrifying problem, but with any luck at all, it's about to get fixed. And Doug, you have a very personal take on this because you are someone who was sentenced to life in prison after a non unanimous jury declared you guilty, and so you I mean, I can't even
imagine what this looks like through your eyes. But once you elaborate a little on that situation.
I was tried and convicted a second degree murder back in nineteen eighty seven, and the jury verdict was eleven to one. It was a non unanimous verdict, and from my understanding, after quite a bit of deliberation, numerous votes, at one point in time, the most people they had for conviction was eight, with four people holding out saying
that I was not guilty. Then the bailiff comes in and says, if y'all don't come in with a verdict in the next couple of minutes, we're going to have to continue this in the morning, and lo and behold, three of the four people decided to change their minds, like, well, you know, the majority of people feel you're guilty, We're just going to vote guilty so we can get out of here. So I was sent to prison for life with no opportunity for parole, probation, suspension of sentence, and
the verdict even after that was non unanimous. And you know, I may be opinionated and a little bit biased, but with even one person saying that I'm not guilty, to me, that's reasonable doubt.
I mean, yeah, reasonable. I mean it's eight percent of the jury, basically, right, more than eight percent of the jury, And it's insane. I mean in your case. First of all, let's just reflect for a second on the idea that those three jurors who slipped, you know, who flipped their vote at the last minute, apparently felt that their evening at home was more valuable than the rest of your life, which is hard to process. I mean, I can't imagine what was going through their minds. But and I know
the details of your case. Anyone who's listened to your episode on Wrongful Conviction knows that no reasonable person could have listened to the evidence that was presented. Even though they framed you egregiously, they still couldn't have possibly looked at that and said, yep, I'm absolutely sure this guy killed his wife. Because the circumstances of your case are as crazy as any I've heard, and I've heard hundreds
of them. So and Chris, let's turn to you, because Chris is the deputy director of the Unanimous Jury Coalition, and you've had a lot of experience in trying to do what you can to bring some justice to the injustice system in Louisiana. But first, let me ask you this question, because having been a public defender and everything else, in probably the toughest place in the country to be
a public defender. Are there any other states? I know the answer to this question, but are there any other states that have a non unanimous jury verdict?
One?
Which one aside from louise and it's organ Oregon.
I think they're working on fixing it too.
Because we probably have that fixed in the spring.
Right And I'm yeah, I actually met with the governor and spoke to her about it. I know she'd like to see it fixed as well. But the but back to this this crazy question, and certainly Oregon is a much smaller problem because they have a tiny fraction of the number of cases that go through the They probably have less cases than New Orleans, I would guess as a state. But we can't prove that. Yeah, I can't prove that. I don't know, but that's a guess. But how does
this situation even exists? Why does it exist, Chris, I mean, what was the origin of this non unanimous jury verdict? A protocol?
Let me just interject that while Oregon is the only other state in the United States where they have such a thing as a non unanimous jury verdict, Louisiana is the only state where a person can be sentenced to life imprisonment on less than the unanimous jury verdict. So in Oregon, while a person can be convicted with an eleven to one or ten to two, they can't be sentenced to life in prison.
And that's a tough cross to bear, I mean, and tough it is, obviously to the light of a word for that, But I can't imagine for you or anyone else. And it's You're not an isolated case. And we'll talk about that in a second. To be sitting there spending the rest of your life in prison knowing that a jury of your peers didn't actually vote to convict you.
They they It's called a hung jury for a reason, right, I mean, if anything, you should have been given a retrial, and you know, if the jury couldn't decide, then we know what happens. They go home and you start all over again. Sometime in the future. But that's obviously now what happened. How common is it for people to be sentenced to prison or even life in prison in Louisiana by a non unanimous jury.
Well, it's a horror, you know, to think that they're members of the jury who think you're innocent, sometimes as many as too voting not guilty. Yet you're found guilty and sent to prison for mandatory life sentence or practical life sentence, meaning that just because you're not sentenced to life, if you sentenced to three hundred years, no one's going
to live to serve that. So, you know, it's disheartening at the very least, you know, to think that you're facing a system that the chords are stacked against you. The DA is bringing marginal cases because they know they don't need a unanimous verdict.
Right, And that's a very important point that you brought up, right, So das are much more inclined to bring case that they otherwise might drop because they know that they only have to convince, you know, basically ten out of twelve. I don't handing me do the math. You know, a majority of the jury, you know, to convict. I mean It's important also, Doug, to talk about the fact that, you know, for people who are listening, going, well, this can never happen to me. I mean, you know, like
it's not really going to affect my life. Right, you would be somebody that would probably have a lot to say about that because you were the farthest thing from a career criminal. I mean, when this happened, your life was basically a bull of cherry's right.
I don't know about a bowl of cherries, but maybe a bowl of peaches. Yeah, you're right, Jason. I don't think there's necessarily anything special about me. But at the same time, I don't think I'm the typical person who gets sentenced to life in prison in the state of Louisiana or anywhere. I'd never been in trouble with the law, I guess prior to me being arrested, I had one traffic ticket twenty years earlier, and that's the extent of my exposure to the law. I came from an upper
middle class family. No one in my family had ever been in trouble with the law. I was happily married with two children, and we will living the American dream as far as I'm concerned.
Until it turned into the literal.
Worst turned into the American nightmare.
Yeah, So, Chris, I want to come back to you, what is the origin of this very bizarre It was really Unamerican protocol that is sort of ulique, unique to Louisiana and Oregon and hopefully going to be going away by the time the most people even hearing this podcast.
So, the drafters of the state Constitution in Louisiana adopted in eighteen ninety eight to quote, to perpetuate the supremacy of the Anglo Saxon race in Louisiana.
So in eighteen ninety eight they drafted an amendment to the constitution. And it's hard to imagine that they were thinking anything other than, well, if we get some people who are of a color that's probably not the word they were using on a jury. We want to make sure that they don't get to screw up our you know, our our ability to lock people up whatever we want
to more or less. And since the overwhelming majority of the people being locked up back then and now were people of color, it's you know, it's really hard to imagine that they had anything other than the worst intentions when they set this up. And when I say the worst, I mean purely racist intentions. Is that fair?
That's fair, very fair. And the intent was clear. If the federal constitution required that African Americans be allowed to serve on juries, the state constitution would make sure that minority votes could be discounted.
Now, let me ask you this. You have many years of experience working in really in the trenches of the criminal justice system in New Orleans, right.
Not too many, but yes, I was a client advocate at the Public Defender's Office.
So you've seen a lot, and we know sixty minutes said that amazing disturbing peace on the Public Defender's office in Louisiana a couple of years ago, where the head of the association whatever it's called, the Public Defenders in Louisiana or was it New Ds It was New Orleans, right, So the head of the Public Defenders actually took a stand and said he was going to refuse to allow his attorneys, his public defenders, to handle any felony cases,
violent felony cases, because, as he said, we've got fifty two public defenders who are processing twenty thousand cases a year. So the math is simple, right, they were doing about four hundred cases per person. And when you get deeper into the weeds on the numbers, and you know the courts aren't open on the weekends, that means they were doing about a case and a half a day average, right.
So yeah, and just to be clear on that, what happened at the public Defender's office at that point there was because of staff turnover and the way things were shaking out, the public defender in New Orleans began refusing cases on all like major crimes, like life without parole, cases that the public defenders take would take at the time, public defenders would not take in that office. We're not taking death penalty cases. That's what was going on when the sixty minutes piece came out.
Right, And there's a simple reason for that, which is that and the gentleman I forgot his name, but he spoke very eloquently, and he talked about how he wasn't going to continue to just process people into prison because you know, when you break it down, if you're handling that many cases plus trying to have any kind of a life which as a public defender and making you know, barely above minimum wage and with debts from college or
law school and everything else. I mean, there's an amazing movie, Gideon's Promise, that really takes you inside, you know, the struggles that these people, many of whom are really doing, you know, doing the Lord's work, so to speak. It's it's impossible for them to mount any sort of an effective defense without having any time to prepare. Many of them meet their clients on the day of the trial
for the first time, and then you're up there. I mean, I can't imagine that, you know what's going through somebody's mind when they're like, wait, you're my attorney, And basically a lot of them just come up and say, hey, my advice is pleaded guilty because I can't you know, I don't. I don't know what to do. And that's why we have this this guilty plea problem in America where ninety six percent of felony convictions are a result
of guilty Please, it's probably even higher down there. If I had to guess, Doug, what's your take on this whole situation, and what do you I mean, what can be done? I mean, obviously people have to get out and vote vote right, because his referendum's on the ballot and that's what we're here to talk about now, to be about to get out and vote and get rid of this thing before it gets rid of you.
You're right, Jason, the education of the voters in Louisiana is probably the most important thing. You know, I myself haven't gone through everything that I have. It only dawned on me a couple of years ago that a person could be convicted in Louisiana by less than a unanimous verdict, and that we were the only place in the United States where I would have received a life sentence based
on an eleven to one vote. So if I didn't realize this, I would say that the vast majority of voters in Louisiana have no idea what the law is, right.
I mean, you are a very educated guy, and you know you would have had every reason if anyone would know about it, you would have been person. But it's sort of obscure aspect of the criminal justice or criminal injustice system down there. And we know that up until very recently, Louisiana incarcerated more Americans per capita than any state in the country. Now Oklahoma has taken that dubious distinction, and of course New Orleans incarcerates more Louisiana's per capita
than anywhere else in Louisiana. So you were actually right in the epicenter of the problem, and you were processed I mean, yeah, really processed through because it was good for certain people's careers to get a conviction. In your case. I mean, your case was for people who aren't familiar with the Doug Delosa case. I mean, your case was a high profile case and they needed to get a conviction and they couldn't figure it out, and you made a convenience scapegoat. Is that about right?
That's pretty much it. The careers of the two assistant districts attorneys and the detectives who arrested me rested on getting a conviction, and I think they did it just to prove that they could frame a person and get away with it.
Well, one of the most terrifying aspects of your case is the fact that they actually told you they were framing you. Well, one of the arresting officers told you they were framing you while they were framing you, right, which is something that I think if you put that, you know, I'm friends with John Grisham, I think I don't have to call him and see if he even I don't think he would even dare to put that in a book. If someone would go, that's ridiculous. No one's gonna believe that, right.
Yeah, The arresting detective stood face to face with me, and when I asked him why he was arresting me when he knew I didn't do it. I won't go into all the profanity that he used.
You can. It's a family show, but you can go ahead.
You know. I mean he looked me in the face and almost spitting with his words and said, fuck you, fuck your children, fuck your dead wife. And they said, stupid bitch to die in my parish, my jurisdiction. And I know you didn't do it, but you wanted someone arrested. So guess what. I couldn't find the person that actually did it, but I can frame you.
So you're rich, right, So you had the you had the nerve to actually speak out to try to encourage the authorities to find the person that murdered your wife, the mother of your children, and that's really what your crime was. And then that was that was enough to say, Okay, Well, I mean that wasn't the only reason right. The other thing was a few months had gone by they didn't have an arrest. We know that in these cases when there's a media spotlight, a high profile case, nice neighborhood,
brutal crime, people are scared. There's a lot of pressure. There's that much more of a chance that an innocent person's going to get not just wrongfully convicted, but framed as you were because of all those factors. And this was this, I mean this when it hit all those buttons.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean I was told by quite a few people, including the attorney that represented me a trial, if I'd have just kept my mouth shut, I'd never been arrested. They would have left the crime go unsolved. But because I'd caused trouble for the local police department, they were going to make trouble for me.
Wow, that's I got to just process that for a minute. And I know your story. I mean, I've told your story so many times, and I find sometimes when I'm actually telling your story, I'm listening to myself tell it and going, no, that can't be true. But I know that it is because I know you now for how many years It's like nine years? Yeah, and so and we've been you know, we've told your story in great
detail on this show. I believe, you know, one of the most powerful and disturbing episodes that we've ever done,
h is the episode we did with you. And yeah, so I hope people will take the time to go back and listen to the Doug Delosa episode because it is really there's a lot to be learned from what you went through and it speaks to the problem, exactly the problem that we are facing now in Louisiana, and that we're hoping that people who are listening will get out and vote, understanding that again, you can be convicted by a jury of your peers even though two of
them don't think you're guilty. And that's crazy. And you know, imagine if that was the situation across this country. The rate of convictions would be astronomical. And I mean, we already have the worst mass incarceration problem in the history of the civilized world, and it would be absolutely untenable. And the number of innocent people in prison, which is currently estimated to be six percent across this country, right, which six percent, Well, what if you're one of them?
That's six percent, by the ways, about one hundred thousand people. That's one hundred thousand Doug Delosos that are out there. I know because I get letters from them, you know, and it's you know, it would be again, the numbers would go up dramatically, maybe even exponentially, if that were
allowed to be the case. It's also true, and why I think this is so important that we have to have a unanimous jury very everywhere is because it's a mismatch in the courts right the you know, the fact is we talked about the public defenders and how overmatched they are, but even if you have a private attorney, the government has literally almost unlimited resources and they can they can do an awful lot that the defense can't
do by way of convincing a jury. I mean, the juries we know that My friend Josh Dubin conducted a study and found that your average person has an inherent bias that if someone is on the stand, or if someone is in the you know, is shown to them in a lineup or anything else. The numbers are almost eighty percent around eighty percent of how many people think they must be guilty or they wouldn't be there in
the first place. So start with that and the burden is really high to try to convince yours that you didn't do it if you ever find yourself in that situation. Chris, what else can you share with us about this situation and the effects that it has on the justice system in Louisiana. And let's not forget, by the way, that every time a Doug de Losa or someone else is convicted that's innocent, and we know that that happens much more frequently when you have a non unanimous jury verdict.
The guilty guys allowed us to remain free and prey on other innocent victims.
I mean, it makes us less safe right when we're not sure, when there is when there is doubt, and we're essentially prosecutors essentially able to weaponize the non unanimous jury in their power because they can basically use for they can use somebody's past against them, and they can basically use that as a way to get people to plee out because they're staring at, you know, a major charge that carries a certain amount of weight, and you know, depending on the facts of the case, if you're if
you're a guy who's looking at twenty years if you lose this case, right, and the prosecutors can can use the fact that they don't need, you know, a unanimous sturity to put you in jail.
That's unpacked that for a second. So basically what you're looking at is, particularly in the minority community, where you know, we know that a lot of people have rightly or wrongly, and in many cases wrongly, they have a prior arrest and that means that they can stack the charges and they can you know, hang that over your head the idea that you're going to end up with an enhanced sentence. Enhanced is a weird word, but because that actually sounds
like a positive word. But so that you can have a much longer sentence based on the fact that you have priors and now you go into the career, you know, whatever you want to call that category. So then and then you add to that on top of that hammer
that they're already holding over your head. Now they can say, well, we know they don't even have to say it out loud, but they know that their chances of getting conviction are greater than any other place in the country because of the fact that they don't need to get a full
jury to convict you. So now you as a defendant if you are made aware of this and you're sitting there going wait a minute, So not only am I looking at potentially spending twenty or basically all the best years of my life in prison, but I know that the odds are not only stacked against me because I'm dealing with a public defender who's overworked and underpaid, and NOBO not proper investigators that could help me, and a system that's really just sort of you know, collapsing down
on me, and my chances of proving my innocence in the case of unanimous jury. You know, situation would be tough enough, but now, yeah, I mean anybody would go, well, hell with it. I don't care if I did the crime or not. I'm going to take the five to six to seven years whatever I can get so I can at least go home and see my kids, you know, graduate from high school or god knows what.
Right, if you're looking at five years and you might be a year into in your rest and you're just waiting for trial, you're looking at getting out in a handful of years, you know, and you may not even have to do that full five depending on the type of plea you take.
So it becomes a processing sit situation pretty much. And yeah, Doug, I going to go back to how common I mean, because I'm sure some people are listening say this can't happen all that often, right, I mean, like, you know, is this really something I need to be concerned with? But that's not accurate either, right, I mean, this is how often does this actually come into play?
I think it comes into play all too often? Jason. Just in Louisiana in the past ten years, we've had more than thirty exonerations to my knowledge, and there have been over the same period of time, probably well over a thousand exonerations nationwide in the past ten years, and I think we've got a total of almost two thousand exonerations since the inception of the Innison's project or accurate record keeping, So it's not like it's once in a blue moon occurrence.
But in Louisiana specifically, how often are people convicted by a non unanimous jury? Is that a frequent.
Currents From the statistics that I've seen, roughly forty percent of all jury verdicts or non unanimous verdicts, So four out of ten people who go to trial, maybe even a little bit more than four out of ten or convicted by less than a unanimous verdict.
That's a crazy number. I mean it's and I know from God from working in this field for twenty five years, there have been way too many cases that I've seen, even death penalty cases where it ended up in at ten to two or eleven to one, and of course that ended up in a retrial and ultimately an acquittal in the cases where somebody was adequately represented by council.
And some of these cases would when you read them, and I'm reading this incredible book, Quest for Justice Defending the Damn by Richard Jaffey, it will blow your mind.
But in it you see cases that are I think even you Doug with your experience, it would turn the rest of your hair gray because some of these cases you just sit there and go, you can't understand how anyone could vote to convict, or how they could have even been taking a trial in the first place, and yet they end up in these ten to two or
eleven to one situations. But at least you have those holdouts, and let's you know, and let's talk to for a second about the importance of serving on a jury because I talk about this a lot for your average person. It's sort of one of those things in life that you dread, right. You get that envelope in the mail and you know what it is before you open it up, and it's it's from the court, and it says show up at such and such time nine in the morning. And then your thoughts go to, oh my god, I'm
so busy right now. I got work, I got things with my family, I got obligations, I got to How important is it for people that are listening to show up and when they're and Doug from your experience, terrible experience, what should people be aware of when they do go to serve on a jury and they end up in a criminal trial and they hold somebody's life in their hands.
I think that the average juror are all jurors, when they show up for jury duty and they're selected to sit on that jury, they need to realize that their vote counts and that they shouldn't compromise their beliefs just to go home early or just because they're being pressured by other members of the jury. That there's a reason why they're on that jury, and it's not to just acquiesce to someone who's a bully trying to tell you, or vote guilty so we can go home, or vote innocent.
Even you know, it's up to each individual on that jury to vote clearly what their conscience tells them to vote, because the end result is you stand a chance to either ruin a person's life, ruin the life of their family and loved ones by a vote other than what you sincerely believe, or you have the opportunity if you bring back a not guilty verdict, you have the opportunity to give that person a chance to go on with
their life and be a productive member of society. But they can't do that if they don't vote sincerely right.
So you have to be made aware. And anyone who listens to the show knows that there are you know there listen, there's a lot of very decent and honorable people in law enforcement. It's by no means an easy job.
And I'm you know, I believe in a system of laws, and I think we need to have you know, I know when I call nine one one, I want to know that somebody's going to come if I'm in trouble right there that it's funny Back in the seventies, anyone who's all I remember there was a a T shirt or a sticker that said, don't like don't like cops. Next time you're in trouble, try calling a hippie, right, And so I'm not one of those people that wants
to call it hippie. But at the same time, it's important for everyone to stay woke and realize that in any profession you have bad apples, and it's certainly true in law enforcement, where there are reverse incentives in many cases like they were in your case, to get things solved.
And sometimes, you know, even sometimes even for you know, a decent, honest person, they can get tunnel vision and they can go ahead down a road and then start to ignore the signs that someone's really innocent because it's kind of gained momentum on its own. And we've seen all different kinds of causes of wrongful conviction. So yes, if you get called to be on a jury, go your life is going to be okay. You know, you'll you're you'. It seems like a big inconvenience at the time,
but it's not that bad. Go serve, realize that you're there, uh,
protecting or you know, or you're there. You're there as a as a citizen of a society that needs you, and you're there passing judgment on your fellow citizen, so and protecting your community, as you said, because again, when when you were convicted, Doug, when anyone in your situation is convicted wrongly, the actual killer or violent criminal, whoever they might be, remains free and goes and praise on other innocent people, Chris, before we before we wrap up,
it's it's going to be by the time this airs and people are listening, it's going to be almost time to get out there and and vote or not in Louisiana. So, with your experience of having worked in various different aspects of uh, you know, the criminal justice system in and around New Orleans, how important is it for people to vote on this referendum? And what do they need to know going to ballot box? Is there a particular is
there a number to this? Yeah? Okay, let's give people all the information that they need so they can make the best decision that they can. Yeah.
So it is constitutional amendment to on the ballot box. The language is written very well, so it's very easy to understand The actual amendment says, do you support an amendment to require a unanimous jury verdict in all non capital felony cases for offenses that are committed on or after January first, twenty nineteen. So that is the exact language of it.
You just vote yes.
So early voting starts on October twenty third, and it lasts a week, and then the actual vote will be on November sixth.
So early voting starts October twenty third, the vote itself is on November sixth. I think there's there's you know, if you if you're having trouble figure out how to get to the polls. I think Uber and lyft actually offering free rides to the polls.
Yes, both of them are.
If you don't have the Uber or the lift app, get it on your smartphone, they'll give you a free ride to the polls. A constitutional amendment to vote yes, because the ass you save could be your own, or it could be someone you love. I mean, it's you know,
it's really as straightforward as that. You could find yourself in a situation where you're facing a jury of your peers and you're going to want to know, even if it's just for purely your own interest that a unanimous jury is what's going to be required to convict you. And again, I mean, we're sitting here now with Doug Delosa, who was sent to life in prison by a non unanimous jury for a crime that he has proven that he didn't commit. I mean, they should have known all
along they didn't commit it, because it was obvious. But now he's here, after serving fourteen years in maximum security prison to talk about this. So I mean, Doug, I want to turn it back to you just for any other thoughts that you have, because there's really almost no one more qualified to speak on this subject than you.
So I appreciate you showing up here, coming all the way up to New York to record this with us, and you know, and and help to educate and motivate your fellow Louisiana's i's the importance the critical nature of this vote, which I'm you know, I'm optimistic and really hopeful that it's going to pa.
I think the one final thing I'd like to note, as Chris mentioned earlier one hundred and twenty years ago in eighteen ninety eight, racism played a large role in the Constitution being written. The way it was so that there wasn't a need for a unanimous verdict to convict someone. But that racism in one hundred and twenty years hasn't
disappeared in Louisiana one bit even today. Well, at my jury in nineteen eighty seven, the state used every strike that they had to strike blacks from my jury, even though on Caucasian. And the reason they did that. I could overhear the two assistant district attorneys talking at the bench next to us, and they said, the last thing we want is any fn blacks. Of course they use the N word, not blacks on that jury, because blacks will understand that he's telling the truth, where white people
can be convinced that's what happened to Doug Delosa. Doesn't happen, and even to this day, I think statistics will prove that, especially in Jefferson Parish, where majority of the jury pool is white or something other than black, they still use way too many strikes against black jewors.
And that's unconstitutional. The Supreme Court decided many years ago that you cannot exclude people based on their race, but it still happens, and it's another reason why it's non unanimous jury a practice is so dangerous and so nefarious.
It's part of the reason why, you know, gentrification is becoming such an issue and it's something that nobody thinks about, especially like in the New Orleans area. Like part of this is now you have some many of these residents who don't necessarily understand the culture and they may not understand, you know, everything about the city. And these are individuals who are being selected to go on jurys and they
don't really get everything right. They don't get the system, they don't get what's going on and how that affects can affect somebody's life. You know, they just want to be on a jury, or they don't want to be on a jury. And so it's something that it's just a byproduct of this of gentrification in New Orleans where we have just a different type of jur and it's not always the best thing for folks who are from the sit from the area. And yeah, it's it's fascinating.
So, Chris, besides the obvious, which is for people to get up, get out vote early, starting on October twenty third or on November sixth, of course, go to the polls, do whatever you need to do to get there. Remember that Uber and Lyft are offering free ride, So if you don't have those apps, get the apps so you can get there and you can take advantage of that free it's totally free. If you're going to vote, people donate. If they're hearing this and they're saying, this is outrageous,
I didn't know about this. I want to do something. Can people donate money to help with this effort to get the vote out and to fix this terrible problem.
Absolutely, people can go to www Dot unanimous jury dot org.
That's www Dot unanimous jury dot org.
There is a donate button on the page. It goes to our Act Blue, which we use to for our fundraising.
Right, so there's a donate button on the page and it goes right to Act Blue and it's used specifically for fundraising for this very very critical issue. And yeah, so go there, vote, donate, get involved. Let's fix this problem and then we can move on to the next one, because there are plenty of other ones for us to deal with as we do on wrongful conviction. And Doug, you know, since you've been on the show before and you've heard it and you're very very familiar with our work.
I do the thing this hardest for me to do, which is that I stopped talking and turn the mic phone over to you for any final thoughts.
Yes on November six, we need everyone in Louisiana to go vote yes on Constitutional Amendment too. Let's vote yes on two And if you want any more information, if anyone wants to volunteer, if anyone wants to donate, you go to www dot unanimus Jury dot org.
Once again, Chris Pouso, Doug Delosa, thank you for being with us today on this very special episode of Wrongful Conviction.
Thank you for having us Jathon.
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 NSIS project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocentsproject 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