#097 Jason Flom with Jimmy Dennis

I had the privilege of interviewing Jimmy Dennis on April first of twenty nineteen, shortly after he was released from death row in Pennsylvania. He served twenty five and a half years and had two execution dates actually scheduled. I mean, I'm talking about they asked him what his last meal was going to be, where he wanted his remains to be taken. It's unbelievable. Twenty five and a half years he lived in his tiny cell on death row with

This Paul is from a correction facility and is subject to monitoring and recording.

And a hundred years that's man.

I'm a kid.

I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, you know that was ah, that was real painful, man, you know, because my life was discarded as if you know, like I was a piece of trash or something, you know, one hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted to do things. I wasn't committing crimes, you know. I was a very good young man.

That is what happened. In so many cases, the cops have a hunch because they're so smart. At the scene, they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch, they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off marching in the wrong direction, and that happens in so many of these wrongful convictions.

They opened it uh to sell door, and I walked downstairs, and I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt very strange, like I said, to be walking without those shackles on my feet. I thought it was a dream. But then again, it wasn't a dream.

This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today, I have a guest whose story has to be heard to be believed. It's a Philadelphia story. It's a death penalty story. And it's sort of a miracle actually that you're even here at all under the circumstances, much less with a smile on your face. So and he does have a big smile. So I want to welcome to wrongful conviction. Jimmy Dennis.

Thank you so much.

Jason, Oh, you're welcome. And like I always say, I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad you're here. And I want to get right into it because I think it's super important to talk about this case, not only because it was a death penalty case, but also because of the facts of your case being so bizarre and that there was never anything to connect you to this crime, not that I know about it right now.

The case happened October twenty second, nineteen ninety one, in the Fern Rock station of Philadelphia.

A young lady by the name A Shadell.

Williams was rutally murdered for peer ear rings by three men.

Four hundred and fifty dollars earrings pier.

Four hundred and fifty dollars ear rings.

Right, a high school girl. And when they say four hundred and fifty dollars earrings, I'm assuming that's retails. Whoever whoever killed her for these earrings probably got maybe one hundred.

Dollars for it, right at best.

That's what her life was worth, a high school girl.

Right when this happens, it's a high profile case. The community is outraged by so on and so forth. In Philadelphia, there's a lot of pressure in high profile cases for the cops to sib crime.

So you weren't there when it happened.

No, I wasn't there.

In fact, you weren't even close by.

I wasn't even close by.

Well, let's go back to that, because where were you, and how did they end up? Like it seemed so random that you were several miles away, and then yet they ended up picking you up. And then the whole thing goes sideways and backwards from there.

So at the time of the crime, I was on a bus in Philadelphia called the K Bus, traveling to abbas Ford Projects, where I seen someone familiar, you know what I mean, just the acquaintance I said hi to all this was instantiated right, even the time I said that I got on the bus and got off the stop. The bus driver testified that that was correct, right, So all these things were stantiated. So the police came around. They went to every neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia, and they started.

Picking up stick up boys.

And when they did that, a group of individuals lied and said my name for or ungodly reasons of jealousy or whatever you might.

Want to call it.

And you were twenty one.

I was twenty one. I was barely I was a young man. I wasn't even a man. I had many aspirations of being in the music business. I would come up here to New York to the New Music Seminar every year. My group was one of the best amateur groups in Philadelphia, and we were receiving interest from.

You know, music people. What group was that sensation? And we had won many talent shows.

What kind of style of music was it? R and B? And you were the singer, I was the lead singer well, and so yeah, who knows, we might even cross paths at the New Music know It. But but then things obviously went took a terrible.

Terror and then things just started to turn from there.

You even see in the statements that.

They all had talked on the phone or whatever, and then they just you know, made up this you know Storrey that I, you know, had on these clothes and that I was doing these things, and the police ran with it.

But none of these people ever testified.

I mean, were you caught up in the gang life or anything.

I wasn't caught up.

In any gang life or anything like that. I wasn't, you know, in any type kind of gangs.

It really not.

Really gangs in Philadelphia like that at that time, you know what I mean.

So this was just people in the.

Neighborhood didn't like me, you know what I mean. I had no significant criminal history whatsoever. I had a misdemeanor drug offense.

On my record.

Uh, and that's all I ever had on my record up until the time that I was arrested. So going back from the misdemeanor, I had a picture, you know, mugshot that the police kept in the number one spot the entire time when they were showing witnesses the photo rays. So one witness said, I think so. They said, can you be sure? They said no yet, and still they ran with that.

And what was the description of the subject?

Uh, five to ten to six feet tall, to one hundred and eighty to two hundred pounds, dark skin complexion. Now when they say dark skin complexion, they talk about Miles Davis or Wesley Snipes. You sitting here before me, you know, I'm brown skin. I weigh one hundred and twenty five pounds at the time, I had a diminutive

Yeah, I mean that should have been a moment that alone for everybody to go, well, Okay, let's just look and see if he's got an alibi, and if he does, we maybe wouldn't even need that, maybe would just say, well, okay, the description doesn't work. The one witness who at least is even saying anything still isn't sure. But that would have been inconvenient, yes, right, because they would have had

That I grew up in in North Philadelphia. Abbas for projects, there are literally five people that have been proven to be innocent, myself included, that have all come home. And Anthony Wright, who I believe you may have had on this show. Is one of the guys that came from North Philadelphia. Him and I have the same.

Police that worked on his case, did the same thing to me.

And there's an amazing I'm glad you brought that up because there's an incredible article that ran in Rolling Stone magazine about Tony Wright's case, and I'll never forget there was a pull quote in that article where it said that in whatever year that was nineteen ninety or something that he was convicted, it said a black man had a better chance of getting justice in Philadelphia, Mississippi than they did in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

That is so true.

I mean, I'm happy to see that now we have a whole different situation in Philadelphia with Larry krast.

Get much better with mister Krasner.

Yeah, and you know it had to change. But you were caught up in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. So at what point did they arrest you? Was it a day or two after the crowd?

So as soon as I heard like this is one thing, that one other thing that people don't know, I got arrested like a month later. But as soon as I heard any rumors in the neighborhood of my name being mentioned. Actually went down to the police station and asked him did they want to speak to me? And stayed down there for over four hours, and they did not want to speak to me. Everybody has this thing about what innocent people should do.

You don't run, you go to the police station, so on and so forth.

So I get arrested November twenty third, nineteen ninety one. So before I get arrested, I went down there, me and my father and my brother asked him did they want to talk to me? I signed in the police law book. All this was said at trial they didn't want to talk to me. But two weeks later they came and arrested me.

In a nightmare began.

I did everything you supposed to do, and I still got my life stolen away.

And so you go to trial when you had a quarter point lawyer, I'm assuming no.

Actually, my dad and I you know, paid for my first attorney. It wasn't quarter point. My dad was a musician, He wasn't rich anything like that.

We were poor. But my dad put the money together and he got me.

What we thought was a you know, decent enough lawyer to represent me, but he did not.

Do his job.

How much time did you get to spend with him before the trial?

None?

None, none, He never visited.

You came to see me one time to tell me that they were charging me with more cases, and that's it.

Left.

I would call him all the time, no answer, so on and so forth.

It was that bad.

Wow, And then you go to trial. Then I go to trial with an attorney you don't even know, Yeah, who doesn't really know much about your case.

Right, who's really not investigating things like that? And you know, so on and so forth. It was.

It was the typical nightmare that you had come to know with all the great work that you do.

But it was the typical standard. Okay, don't care.

I mean he wasn't really the face I think you so much as processing you at the prison.

There you go.

And I mean, was he alcoholic or no.

There was an article at the time that set him and two other attorneys took on the most homicide cases in the city of Philadelphia.

It kind of came out like in the mid nineties.

But you know, so he was just taking as many cases as he could get to make as much money as he could and not really worrying about the outcome.

Yeah, that's how I feel.

So it sounds like me. I mean when you say they were trying to put other cases on you.

I was charged with over nine other robbery cases.

They tried to make it look like I was Jesse James, and I was nothing of the sort.

If you go back in.

My community and you do your own type of investigation, which my lawyers and everybody do, everybody be like, Yo, he was a good kid, you know what I mean. You know, nobody's perfect, but he ain't. No, you know, he ain't no robbery, he ain't no murdering, he ain't no stick up with you know what I mean. So I was charged with nine other cases that were later dropped, all except for.

One, all except for the one the original one, or except for another one besides that.

All except for another one besides that.

Yeah. So you go to trial, right, and you charged with capital murder, which is murder in the act of committing another felony, which was robbing her of the earrings. Right, Yes, And so how long did the trial last?

The trial went from September about twenty first twenty fifteen October sixteenth. I was found guilty October nineteenth, they gave me the death penalty.

Each part of that trial, it was horrible.

I still relived even to this day everything that I went through, because you don't think that this is.

Going to happen to you.

You think, even then, you believe that the truth is going to come out, that you believe in the system, that everybody can see that I'm not five ten, two hundred pounds in dark skinned complexion.

But you had a prosecutor that was something of a theme on law and order, right.

You had jury members going to sleep, literally going to sleep.

No mistrial. It was just a nightmare from beginning to end.

I mean that's a pretty long trial. And I'm assuming that your lawyer wasn't doing much. What was he doing just sitting there listening?

Nah, he was he he was doing I guess you could say he was doing I don't know what he was doing, to be perfectly honest with you, Jason, I don't know what he was doing. All I know is that it was the entire thing was a nightmare from

You know what I mean.

This is a violent crime, you know what I mean. So you know, if somebody runs into the studio right here, and you know it robs us right now, nine times out of ten, we all gonna get it wrong when it comes to the physical description.

Nobody paid attention to that.

Right in this crime, this took place. There was a chase. The poor girl was after her her earrings were stolen. She was shot in the throat. She was with a friend who was luckily not harmed. But we know also from decades of research that in cases in which someone is up close when the violent crime is being committed, we know that that person is much more likely to mistakenly identify someone because you're in makes sense if you think about it, right, Your adrenaline is going crazy. Your

Yeah, So you actually had three witnesses you know, that testify, but you actually had over nine witnesses and the other six you know, didn't testify because they didn't say what the police wanted them to say. They actually said the opposite.

What about the other evidence that showed that you were somewhere else?

That evidence was with hell for over a.

Decade, and which evidence was that? All?

Right?

So there was a welfare receiat from the young lady that I seen on the bus that stantiated my innocense as well that the police went to her, threatened her, and they took the welfare receipt from her. Now welfare receipts are done in military time. She had picked up her welfare receipt and then she had got on the same k bus that I was on, So the receipt said thirteen oh three. They told her that it set three h three pm because she couldn't tell military time.

So when she.

Takes the stand, she says exactly what they wanted her to say, that she seen me it, you know, later on that day and not the actual time that she did see me.

Right, So had they not lied about that, then you couldn't have been there because they know the crime.

Happened exactly, so that that stayed hidden away.

That was one thing. There were there other things that were withheld as well.

So the clothes that they said they took from my father's house that the police officers got on the stand and testified about.

And said they were their closed that was used at the crime.

Non the witnesses ever seeing these clothes, they weren't cataloged and they suddenly poof disappeared, right, and all this stuff could have helped prove my innocence, you know, going back to other evidence, there still was never two.

Other people locked up.

There's supposed to be three people to the crime, but only one person was ever arrested, which was me, right.

So there's all these holes, you know, but it's all come from the same prosecutor and police officers.

And the very real consequence of this, aside from the obvious terrible injustice that was done to you and your family, is the fact that there's no justice for Shadell Williams. Not to mention that the citizens of Philadelphia remained in danger with these two or three guys how many it was that actually committed this robbery and murder being out on the loose because you were in there instead of them.

That's the har other situation that that family hasn't gotten justice.

And when you lie.

About something to someone, you dishonored a victim and you dishonored their family as well.

So let's go back to that day of the verdict. Can you give us a picture of the courtroom that day. I mean, you had now been in the system for almost a year, but you still said you had hope and you still believe that no one could possibly convict you because you knew that you weren't there. You knew that none of the evidence match, You knew you had alibis, but you also knew that you know this trial had been sort of a you know, for lack of a better word, I'll say with a clusterfuck.

Yes.

But even with all of that, did you still have hope that the jury was going to do the right thing.

I still had hope that the jury was going to do the right thing because I always had faith, period, ever since I was a kid. I always had that, you know, faith in God that you know, I could get through anything. So I'm sitting there and I'm praying that the right thing is going to happen, that people sitting on this jury would be able to see through all the you know, the lies and things like that,

And I had hope.

So when they stood me up and then they read the verdict, it was like like somebody just knocked the wind out of me. It was like Tyson hitting somebody, you know. I immediately started crying. I remember my mom crying. I remember my sister rocking back and forth. I remember friends that I grew up with, men crying. Everybody broke down and just started crying because nobody could believe that this was happening, because a lot of lives would destroyed on that day, A lot of dreams were destroyed.

It was a horrible scene. You know when you hear these cries and.

These wells, and you you like in this moment that's so sad and like out of body, like you don't want to be in here, and you know when I'm shaking and I can't believe it.

And then you said a few days later, you were sentenced to death right, which is the only thing worse that could happen to everything that's already happened. Right, And then you get taken I.

Get taken to the greatest for a prison.

From there you go to Camp Hill, and then you get your destination of what prison that you go to. So I wound up at huntingon death Row. After these other two stops of death row. You know what I mean, you get your first taste of death row.

Can you explain what that's like for the audience?

That process going on death row is your shackle Your feet and your hands are shackled. They got like a belt in a black box on you. You literally can't move and they basically strip you neckd which is a very dehumanizing process. When you come, they got the cameras on you and all that stuff, and then they throw you in the shell, you know, and then the nightmare gets even worse if you can believe it. You know, prison is such a dehumanizing place. Prison is meant to

So when I.

Say that I went through hell, it's actually an understatement to describe what I went through. I got it from every side, guards, prisoners. I was basically in a fight for my life just to be whole, period.

And that is because the case was such a high profile case.

It was a high profile case.

But back then you couldn't be in prison for nothing like this, anything that had to do with a woman or a child.

You can't be in prison. This is real prison.

I was in, you know, real situations where I was jumped.

I was you know, had to fight, you know what I mean. I had to defend myself. You know what I mean. I was jumped, I.

Was set up by guards, I was rolled on by prisoners, on and so forth. It was a living nightmare, something that you never recover from, something.

That you never get over.

I got teeth in my mouth right here that are broke and fixed from stuff I went through in prison. You know, the battle scars are still on me and in my soul. My situation is just like what we all know that Kylief Brouder went through.

I went through a lot of that.

And you were on death row for a quarter of a century.

Yeah, I spent twenty five point five years in prison.

Yeah, how did you maintain sanity? How'd you maintain hope? I mean, you know, if someone want to meet you now, they would have no idea that you've been through this. I mean, you know, there's that saying that everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Just be kind, but this is the extreme version of that. I mean, everyone's going through their stuff. You don't know what anyone's going through. It might be all heartbreak, might have just lost their job. Who knows what. You all

Kind of trippy because when I was in there, I've seen people kill theyself. You see the body bags come in, and you see the ambulance come in.

You see people die from.

Natural causes or what have your dehabilitating diseases.

But how did you, like, what was it that allowed you to, you know, persevere and to not not take your own life and not go down this rabbit hole that so many of the guys went there.

So when you in prison, for me to sit here and tell you that I never thought about suicide.

That's a lie.

Many times, even when I was in the county because like I told you, I was suffering so greatly.

And nobody was hearing my crowd.

Like one time I was literally gonna take my life because I just couldn't take it, you know what I mean, I'm innocent, and I'm not getting proper representation that. You know, everything is going on. You know, the cops done, you know, frame me, whatever the case may be. So for me, I once read this book by Victor E. Frankel called A Man Search for Mean And in this book he had this quote by Nietzsche. It said, he who, he who has a why, I can bear with almost anyhow.

That they could live and survive and have hope with some you know.

And for me, I would do the same thing. I would visualize myself home with my daughters someday.

Let's talk about your daughters. What are their names?

My oldest daughter's name for Team, and my youngest daughter's name Kiara.

And when you went to prison, one of them wasn't even born yet.

Kiara wasn't born.

She was born one week after I was stolen away.

Yeah, so you never got to see her until you got out of prison.

My dad would bring her to see me a lot that the family would bring them to see me, but I never literally spent a day with them with her until I got out. So everything I went through was for them and my father, you know. And then I wanted to restore my family name.

Back, you know. And for me faith, faith in God was the key in music.

And so every day I would wake up, I would hear these songs in my mind. Literally because it didn't have a good radio station up there, couldn't listen to the.

Music I wanted to listen to.

But every day I would hear the Wantings, Trusting God, John Coltrane, Dear Lord. And then I would hear Bruce Springsteen in the East Street Band, Bruce Springsteen, as you know, he has all these wonderful ad libs, all right, come on, you know, and I would play Hungry Hard or Born and run in my head, you know what I mean. Then it would go to Stevie Wonder if It's Magic and Fleetwood Mac Don't Stop, And every day those songs would play.

In secession in my head.

And then I would get up, I would work on the Justice for Jimmy campaign. I would work on legal work. I would call my lawyers, I would discuss law within them, legal issues, how to you know, proceed and what we should do and things like that. And I just I think everybody has it in them, you know, to make it out of any situation if they believe. And I just knew and believe that my dead truth was going

I see you have a bracelet on it says in big letters, never ever give up, Never ever.

Give up, and this one say not throwing away my shot.

My lawyers from Arnold and Porter, who are liked my family, gave me these when when I came home.

Now we understand how you found this extra gear, this extra this extraordinary otherworldly grace or whatever it is that allowed you to maintain yourself and maintain your sanity in an insane situation. How did you end up getting out. How'd that work?

You know, for so long I labored just trying to yell out that I was innocent, over and over again, and the system felled me horridly over and over again until I got the Federal Court. On August twenty first, twenty thirteen, the Honorable Judge Nita Brody gave this forty six page legal opinion that breaks down the truth.

About what happens to me.

And the part that met everything to me was the first paragraph.

If you read that opinion, it says.

James Dennis was wrongfully convicted of this crime.

And she called it a quote grave miscarriage of justice. And she's she wrote that police and prosecutors ignored, lost, or covered up evidence that was favorable to.

You, and then came three years later, because nothing happens that quick. The Third Circuit, the entire panel ruled in a majority decision vote. You know that it was a great mischaracter justice that started the wills rolling to me getting home. So you know, the DA offered a deal to get me out, and it was something that I didn't want to do and something that bothers me to this day.

But sometimes you got to make decisions.

That's best for your family and not so much you or just to get you out, you know what I mean, because you might be in there another five years and you don't know what's going to happen, because I was literally at the end of my role. So if they appeal this decision, you go to the US Supreme.

Court, and most people ask me that aren't familiar with this work, how could it be that this real judged need to Brody called this a grave mischaracter justice said you were innocent. Then the Third Circuit Court ruled, I think was nine to four strong majority.

Strong majority, and it's a very scathing legal opinion.

Quote evidence suppressed by the prosecution, a receipt corroborating Dennis's alibi, an inconsistent statement by the Commonwealth's key eyewitness, and documents indicating that another individual committed the murder effectively gutted the Commonwealth's case against Dennis. And she finishes by saying, I'm getting it chilled. The withholding of these pieces of evidence denied Dennis a fair trial and state court. So they

No, that's not the way it worked.

They were going to appeal to the US Supreme Court because no one's really trying to say we made a mistake, we did anything wrong. So that would have took more years out of my life. If you look and just ask comparison. If you look at the Anthony Right case, it took him three years to go to trial after the DNA evidence proved diminising. Then he still had to go to trial. Why do you have to go to trial and the DNA evidence? So this is Philadelphia, This is not where people.

Are going to do the right thing, Johnson.

There you go, and I can name other cases William niaz On and so forth, and the list goes on where they don't want.

To do the right thing.

So I would have spent another three to five years or more in prison, and we wouldn't even be sitting here talking.

And you could have died in there too, I mean just from deprivation. You could die in there. But and then I want to go back to the you know said it was a scathing opinion.

Yes, how did it.

Feel to hear those words?

So I'm sitting there in prison. So I just want to take you back to when the first one happened. Every day I used to walk back and forth and I'm looking for.

A sign.

For unit manage your account. So that runs the block to come and say you got to call your lawyers because your lawyer's called up here good news or whatever. You don't know, or it might be a family emergency. This particular day, it didn't even click in. I'm thinking something bad had happened with my mom because I had already lost my dad very tragically. You know, he died from all timer's and didn't even remember who I was.

Wo.

So this is the kind of stuff that I endure. So that day they come to sell, they say, you gotta call your lawyers. I call my lawyers. A guy yells out the door. That's not bad news. Shorty is what they call me. You know what I mean, Shorty do wop because of the music thing. So they say that's not a bad call. So I pick up the phone and my lawyers say James A. Dennis, and they never set you know, my entire name, said James A. Dennis,

And then when I got off.

The phone, I put my tie up to the window and I broke down and cried because for me, everything that I went through in prison, I've been waiting for that. So when you read the legal opinion and you see the first words where say James A. Dennis was wrongly, that meant everything to me. That's what I waited for, period. And you don't know that you're gonna get that, but that's what I waited for my entire life that I was incarcerated. So when the second decision come, it's the

Does this mean?

And it's a real emotional roller coaster, where, you know, did y'all call my mom, did y'all tell my mom?

Did y'all tell my daughters? Did you you know what I mean?

Do all these people know what just happened? So it's an emotional roller coaster.

It's the best way I can explain it.

I don't think anyone can possibly begin to understand that that hasn't been through it. And let's talk about the day you got out.

May thirteenth, twenty seventeen. I was released from Sei Green Prison. Korby was there, My lawyers were there, A cool guy by.

The name of Dan was there, and they were waiting outside for me in a van, you know.

But my lawyer of Ryan came in to get me and give me a suit, and I hadn't had on a suit and twenty five years, you know, since I've been to church.

Oddly enough, the last night that I.

Was home, I was in church. She and I went to church and did not get arrested that morning. So it had been a long time since I put on a suit.

So I put on this suit this time, and we walk out.

There's hugs, things like that, and then we get on this van and then we're going and everything seems surreal, and I start making phone calls to my mom, to my daughters, to my supporters, you know, thanking everybody. And I'm on my way to Philadelphia. And we're playing Boys the Men. We're playing Meek Mills, We're playing Elton John Philadelphia Freedom. Where we're doing, you know as we come into city, you know, we're playing pay La Belle, were playing.

You know, all my favorites.

We're on the highway, you know, driving John Coletrane, you know, the boss in the East Street band is up in there where we're just grooving down the highway.

Me I'm sitting there.

There's a lot of laughter going back and forth, and I'm in the moment.

I don't know what to eat.

When we get to a rest stop, I can tell you that my first meal was like some French fries with some onions on it and a milkshake with some sunflower seeds.

I ain't know what to eat. I didn't know, you know what I mean.

I had never seen a convenience store where McDonald's and a gas station all that was in one now, you know, stuff like that. So when we get to Philadelphia, after we get down the highway, you know, my mom and daughters are at the hotel and we have this there's this moment with me and my mom's it's a beautiful moment where we just sit there and we just hold their hands and you know that it's emotional, you know.

And and now I'm.

Back home, and how did you meet your beautiful wife who I've just recently met myself.

Right, she's my childhood's sweetheart. We actually met at Girls High High School in Philadelphia and we were singing on the District sixth Festival choir. And back then she was an alto, I was a soprano, and we had met on a choir at eleven and twelve years old.

But there was twenty five and a half year gap in there. Yeah, this work.

So there was a petition that was started by my supporters to save my life on change doc org. So my supporters would send me in the mail the actual petition to.

See how it was growing.

And I was going through the names and then they were in like alphabetic order, and then when it got to c I seen Corby.

And it was like, oh, whoa.

You know, it's like that moment when you're like okay, okay, that's my childhood sweetheart, right, you know what I mean, and you're like okay. So then I had asked my sister Hope to ask her, you know, did she believe in my innocence? And my sister Hope asked her and she said yeah. And it was like, okay, good cause you looking for a silver line and for anybody to believe in you, but for anybody to know the truth. You want everybody, every single person that ever cared about you,

You know what I mean?

Because I basically like it's almost like I fell off the face of the earth for so many years and we didn't have any contact. So when I seen her name on the petition, I was like blown away. So I eventually call home and my mother says, somebody's here, and I says, and she don't tell me. It's like a little game. Then she gets on the phone and we start talking. I'm still not thinking nothing of it.

I don't want to.

Maybe she just came to see my mother and check on me, you know. But the next Sunday I call, she's there again and again, and so then you start to feel like, okay, maybe, and then eventually she wanted to come see me.

But I had shut down.

I was on some I'd stopped having visits for a number of years, For over at least eight years or so, I stopped having visits. I stopped going the yard, the library I built the library, and my cell the lawyers that sent me books, and all I was doing was getting up every day studying, working on the Justice Jimmy campaign because I was already suffering from the panic and

Yeah, it just went from there.

It did.

Yeah, you are got lucky?

Yeah, yeah, you did? You know you're a remarkable guy. I mean, I'm always just totally in awe of people like yourself, who I get the privilege of being around on a very frequent basis. It's almost a daily basis. Actually having dinner tonight with John Huffington, who was on death row for thirty two years in Maryland. And wow, you know, I was with Damien Echles this weekend and a man story of course. You know, there's so many incredible human beings and one more or so then the next.

I guess for me as well.

I want to tell you that nobody comes through the prison system unscathed.

For me, I'm in therapy. I go to therapy every week.

I suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, panic and anxiety attacks. My life was destroyed for something I didn't do, and it's something that when I hear sirens, I just shook up, you know, I literally don't go nowhere.

You know, me coming here was a thing, you know. It took a lot of courage for me just to come here.

So there's a lot of bitterness inside of me. To say that there's no would be lying. I'm hurt by what has happened to me, you know, and I'm hurt that is still happening to other people, like I know,

He's locked up.

And I go to their hearings and try to be supportive to their families and stuff like that. And when I have an opportunity to speak out, I speak out, you know.

So there's a lot of hurt in me.

You know, what my daughters went through while I was out of their life.

So yeah, it's yeah.

Yeah, I mean, let's not forget them and all of this too, right, I mean to talk about an innocent victim. They were baby, well one wasn't even born yet, the other one was born.

And you have to understand the ripple effects of that, you know what I mean, the lasting ripple effects of not having your father and your life for twenty five.

Pointy five years.

You know, when the decision was made to get me out and I was on the phone where her you know, one of the things that she said to me was I used to sit by.

She said, I used to sit by the door every day and look out the window and wait for you to come home.

That's that's something hard to swallow. What she said, Oh, I want you to do is to come home and have a relationship with your granddaughter. And the ripple effects are very lasting on anybody who has been in.

Prison, none of us us.

No matter how good it seems everyone is doing. No one comes through the system unscathed. Me having nightmares all the time, struggling out here in the world.

It's real.

It's not easy, you know, because oftentimes when I hear siren, I think that they coming back to still my life. I made sure that there's a locator on my phone at all times where I'm at you know, when I first came home, I was literally calling the lawyers, like every hour on the hour, calling other people, just so my whereabouts are always known.

It's that deep.

People that are listening, I'm sure they're thinking, what could I do to help right some of these guys that you left behind, who are innocent and stuck in the situation that you were in. What could they do to possibly help you? Do you have any kind of social media? Do you do speaking? Do you have a page where people could donate to help you with your transition? If

Ralph Stokes, he has a Facebook page in the website Ralphstokes dot org. Get in touch with his supporters there. For Willie Vessi, you can look up his case and get in touch with his supporters and you could write these men they are still in prison, Willie Vessi is doing life v A. S. E.

Y and Ralph Stokes has death.

At Sei Green And any one of you listening can make a difference. You can help by writing them and reaching out to them and then just start championing their calls like I'm trying to do. Get involved on their support team, and you know, help get them some type kind of justice, you know what I mean. Because everybody can make a difference, even when they think they can't. They could use their voice to make a difference through social media, through other outlets.

What about what about you? What do you need? What's I don't?

I don't necessarily I'm not looking for a handout, you know what I mean. I don't even want to say it that way. Maybe that's wrong enough, you know, to say it. But there is a trust fund that my lawyer, Amy Row set up Amy Row of Washington, DC, Merland and you can look it up on our Facebook page where people could donate if they wanted to. But I have a social media Instagram, Jimmy Underscore, Dennis Underscore music. I just like for people to listen to my song.

You said, if.

Give a listen, if you like it, you like it, you know, hopefully you'll like it, heat know what I mean. And I just really want to be a part of the music fraternity, you know, earn my keep that way you know, it's always been my dream to be in a business since I was a kid. And for me, I used to see my musical heroes Gladys Night, Bruce Springsteening all on the Grammys, and even when I was on death row. That was the one time on death row anybody could tell you that you know me. You

What's your favorite song to sing? Oh?

I don't necessarily have a favorite song to sing. I just like, you know, whatever comes to my heart, you know.

Or what's your What do you want to sing right now? You want to sing something right now?

Yeah?

The first time, Ibody, I'll say, you said, I say, you said, If you don't mind, do it?

Okay, okay, Bull Through the Hurricane, went through, Firing, Ring, Fel Doll, Last Pain, Crazy, the Endsane for you, Woo.

For you, Woo.

Nothing Never Rider Bounce always there too, we found never once let ship down.

I was there for.

You woo.

For you woo whoo? Who you said.

You love me?

Oh?

True, you said love? You said.

You said you love me.

I'll be there for you.

There.

What's it's just Jimmy Dennis dot net.

You could find a single you said, you said what you and then the word said?

Okay?

Last question? So what would you tell people? Because everyone that's listening right now someday is going to get a jury. Do you notice and you went through a really crazy situation people sleeping through a death penalty case. I mean, the word disrespect doesn't even come to mind. I mean, that's not strong enough. It's it's reprehensible, it's it's fucking terrible. But that's beside the point. What would you tell people they get called to jerry duty and they end up

The first thing you shouldn't do is worry about making a mistake. You should go in.

There and it has to be like twelve angry men in that room. If you take jury duty, somebody has to be Jack Lemon or Henry Fonda.

Right.

You have to pay attention to every single thing going on. Don't be biased, sit back and pay close attention to the evidence and weigh it.

It is a.

Large responsibility for anybody to take on jury duty, and you should want to because you could be the reason that somebody doesn't get real roaded like me, and that an innocent man a woman comes home. We don't need more Jimmy Dinnis, Damien Echos, William Diez, Jeff Dislicks.

And the man the knocks and so on and so forth.

We have to stop it somewhere, and by you sitting on the jury, paying attention to all the evidence and then weighing it properly, you can be the one voice that says this doesn't make any sense, or pay attention to this facts and not the theatrics of it all that the other side is trying to do. Because that's what happened here. A lot of theatrics from the parties that big, the DA and the police, a lot of

That's good advice and I'm sure it's going to help people as they go into that situation, which is a difficult situation for anybody. I think, you know, being in the courtroom and it's uncomfortable, it can take a long time, but it's a responsibility we all have to each other. I mean, because this could really happen to anybody, and

I want to first thank you Jason for having me. You encountered means the world to me. Your hospitality is greatly appreciated. I just want to commend you for the work you're doing in the innocence community. It takes a lot of courage to do what you do. I want to thank Jennifer Thompson. She's been one of my biggest supporters and she's a hero of mine. I call her my SHEI ro you know what I mean. She's been

Jeff, Melanie, Uh.

Kathy and Ron and everybody. I want to thank my friend my friends have been an instrumental support for me. You know, when you get get out, you need support.

You know, your family, your friends.

I just want to thank my friends and my wife Corby, and my friend Kasein Quade Ski and that due all for supporting me Arnold Imported Law Firm, Amy Ryan, Rebecca, Meghan, Melanie, Kitty B and James. They did a wonderful job and it's because of them that I'm sitting here there like family to me and I love them daily.

And I just want to tell.

People listening that if you do your due diligence and you read a case and you want to get involved, don't be scared to get involved.

Reach out to that person in prison.

Become their supporter and become their champion, become their voice, because a lot of people in prison have no voice.

And to everybody on death.

Road, to every man and woman in prison, never give up and never give up on you dream, no matter what your dreams are. For everybody in the innocent community, I don't care if you wanted to be a fisherman or a carpenter, go for it and don't give up.

Never give up, never ever give up.

This has been an extraordinary episode of Wrongful Conviction with death Row EXONERI, Jimmy Dennis, Jimmy, thank you, thank you, don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org