#180 Jason Flom with Marty Tankleff

brutally beaten and stabbed. His mother was dead, his father was dying. When authorities arrived, they kept him separate from any of the adults in his life as they focused their investigations solely on Marty instead of Marty's father's business partner, Jerry Stearman, who all signs pointed to being the obvious

suspect in this awful crime. In our original two thousand seventeen release of Marty's story, we touched on many of these details, but at that time, with ongoing civil litigation, we were not at liberty to delve more deeply into the details of the reinvestigation of Marty's case that ultimately

led to his exoneration. In this episode. You'll hear excerpts of that original interview, which included both Marty and false confession experts Paul Cassine, to set the stage for not only the evidence and witnesses that made Marty's freedom possible, as well as all the amazing things Marty has been able to accomplish since winning his freedom, but also what Marty intends to do to bring closure to this harrowing tragedy. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to

Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Especially excited today because I have two people who I consider to be well, let's just call it what it is. They're heroes of mine, but for very different sets of reasons. Marty Tankleff is here today. Marty is an exonoree who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his parents, UM, which I get the chills

just hearing myself say that. UM. And he's going to share his remarkable story of going through what could be considered one of the most traumatic experiences that any human being could ever endure and his subsequent triumph post exoneration. You will be amazed at at what he's been able to accomplish and overcome. We also have today Saw Casson.

Saw pioneered in the eighties the scientific study of false confessions by introducing a taxonomy that distinguished between three types of false confessions, voluntary, compliant, and internalized that is universally accepted today. He has recently studied forensic confirmation biases and the impact that confessions have on judges, juries, lay witnesses, forensic science examiners, and the plea bargaining process. He is widely considered the foremost expert on false confession. So welcome

both of you. Thanks for coming in and joining us today. Thank you for having us. Marty, Let's start with you, So let's go back to you grew up in Long Island. I grew up in an affluent area called Belta, New York, which is a little hamlet in Portrepson, New York, north Shore, Suffolk County. I went to Portrefs in high school, where the norm was we drove nice cars, we went on boats. And what happened to me was not something myself or anyone in my neighborhood could have ever imagined. No, no

one could imagine it. Um. You had a happy childhood, nuclear family, right, you and your sister. Your parents idyllic a little bit more idyllic because I was adopted, so my parents were older. So a lot of what we did growing up, my father lived vicariously through me because he didn't have a very good childhood. So you know, we had the boats, the a t v s, We traveled a lot. People used to joke that I was a spoiled kid, and I was, but my father instill

amazing work values in me. I was working since I was probably eleven or twelve years old, and he was the bagel king, right. My father was an entrepreneur who invested with Jerry Stewarman, who was then known as the bagel King of Long Island. My father had invested over a half a million dollars with Jerry and his bagel stores and horses, and in the summer of night, their

relationship significantly deteriorated. What I later learned was that we believe my father learned that the bagel businesses may have been a money wandering operation for Jerry's son, Todd's drug dealing business. We're talking hard drugs. Todd was arrested, went to prison for possession of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs, and he served time in New York State prisons. UM, but my father was a tough older man. Nothing would

stop him. And one of the things that he was involved with was is there was a weekly poker game, and in September six was his night to hold the weekly poker game, and one of the members at that game was Jerry Struman. My father was the type of man it didn't matter, you know, how much threatening Jerry

Struman did. And there were threats. We later learned about two weeks before September six, Jerry Struman threatened to cut my father's tongue out, and it got so bad that my father was even looking into buying a shotgun because he was fearful. Now we've set the stage. There's the poker game right, There's obviously it's a tense environment right with the two of him in the room. But you went to sleep. I went to sleep because September seven, who was the first day of my high school year,

I was gonna be a senior. And I woke up and my life was never the same again. The lights were on in my house, the house wasn't locked up. UM walked through the house and we're upstairs. It's a ranch house. It's a very long ranch house. Where the bedrooms were in one end of the house. Um, where the card game was was in the complete opposite end of the house, right, So you wouldn't have heard anything, would have heard anything. And I discovered my father who

was still sitting in his office chair. Um. And he was alive. Um. And he was bleeding. And what did you do? I called nine one one and I followed their instructions, right. They told you to wrap them as best you could, gave you some medical tips whatever, try to stop the bleeding, that kind of stuff, right. Um. And within a short period of time, law enforcement showed up at the house. Where's your mom? My mother was actually in her bedroom. Cops come and immediately they removed

me from the house. And what I kind of can say now is that the process of questioning me, trying to find out what happened started almost immediately. Even when I had family members show up that morning, there was this immediate separation. When my brother in law showed up, he was ripped away. When my godfather, who was also the family attorney, showed up, I saw him. He never saw me. But McCready who was the lead detective. His name is Kay James McCready was the lead detective on

the case. Ran two him and basically told him I was already on the way to the hospital. I wasn't at the house. Even though I was at the house, I was told consistently I was being taken to the hospital. Unfortunately I was never taken to the hospital. I ended up being taken to police headquarters. At this point, were you aware that your mom had been killed? Um? So you're in a state of total shock, panic. Words can't describe it. Your parents were beaten to death? Is that right?

There was a bludgeon instrument uh and a knife uh, And to this day neither one has been discovered. And there was some forensic evidence which I can talk about. There was glove prints, so whoever did do this, we're wearing gloves. Um that they still haven't found the gloves. So, I mean there's all these little things that actually the jury was aware of, but they chose just to ignore.

So they took you to police headquarters because and obviously this whole sort of pattern is emerging right where they wanted to. They had an agenda. Yeah, I mean, you know, at that day. I didn't know that. I was seventeen years old. My father was the police commissioner of our little community. I was raised to trust law enforcement, believe in them. Law enforcement wouldn't lie to you, they wouldn't

deceive you. Unfortunately, that's everything that they did that morning. Right, And you're in an extremely fragile state, and you need help, right, you need someone to help you. You're seventeen years old, right, we know that they have misled, is it not probably nice way to put it? His family guardian at this point, right, your godfather, who was also the only lawyer that was available to you at this time. They kind of mislike

everybody though. I mean I had other cousins and aunts and uncles who were at the hospitals, and they were lied to too. They were told Marty's on the way to the hospital, Mars on the way to the hospital. Right. So they're basically doing everything they can to prevent you from having any responsible guardian or legal representative that might be able to stand in the way of them getting the conviction that they wanted. Regardless of truth. Yes, there

was no truth seeking here. I mean, you have a man who was business partners with my father half a million dollars involved was there the night before. My father also had in the weeks prior, had demanded he had two notes fifty dollars. Back in the days after the murders, Jerry Steuerman cleaned out a joint bank account. He faked his death. He fled to California. He had a hair weave back then, and he went to a club that he wasn't a member. Full of um. He had five

or six different aliases at that moment um. But law enforcement never considered a suspect. And every time I tell people, you know, the average person would say, well, how is he not a suspect? I mean, you could have stopped that. He faked his own death. So let's get to the interrogation and the false confession in prison and the whole Saturday. So let's I mean, you're obviously very familiar with Marty's case. You've known Marty since all right, he started writing letters

to me from prison. So here's Marty in a state of panic and shock and grief. And as we discussed, he's still a child. And his confession is different than any of the other ones I've studied, right, because it may or may not have ever even actually happened, right, Usually they actually get somebody to say something on video, or they'll get a written statement or something. But in

Marty's case, it's much more highly nuance, isn't it. Yes? Yes, And in Martie's cases, you've got to ask yourself the first question, why did Marty, seventeen year old, without a criminal record, without a history of violence, with good parents and good relationships, in an affluent community, why would Marty kill his parents? And in a brutal way, in a brutal in the in the most brutal of ways. And you have to ask yourself the question, how in God's

name did he become their suspect? You know, most people said, well, you know, he did it for the money, because they thought my parents were affluent. The way the wills were structured, I would have gotten everything. And we later learned that law enforcement never really understood the way the wills and

never looked into the way the wills were structured. I wasn't going to benefit financial until I was twenty five, and I was seventeen, and so, you know, as one of my aunts said, what was he supposed to do? From seven? Live on the streets so there he is in the interrogation room, alone, alone, seventeen, not street wise, never been in trouble before, never had to worry about how do you behave when you get picked up by police.

He had done nothing wrong. And the funny thing about innocent people is even if they had read him as miranda rights, he would have waived those rights. So miranda becomes not a safeguard that's particularly effective at this point. Keep in mind, they've got him in police headquarters. The whole family is with his father, who is dying but still alive in the hospital. That's where Marty wants to be. So he's already in a state where he's motivated to cooperate.

And they started asking him questions about what he saw, how he saw it, what had happened, and he gives them answers, and the answers are consistent. They don't believe him, They tell him they don't believe him. They asked for the story to be told again, and they're searching for inconsistencies and they're calling him a liar, and they're not believing the story that he keeps telling over and over again. But then they shift gears and they shift gears towards

a procedure now where they start to lie about the evidence. Now, the average American doesn't realize that in the United States police are allowed to bring in a suspect and lie about the evidence. They're allowed to say to the suspect, we have your fingerprints on the murder weapon, even if that's not true. What happened in Marty's case is they bring him in they say, well, you know, it appears that your mother was in a struggle and there's hair in her grasp and it turns out it's your hair.

We did the analysis, that's your hair, and that confused Marty wasn't true, but he got confused as to how that was possible. And then because it was such a bloody scene, it was too bloody scenes. There just wasn't enough blood on Marty to account for that. They suggested to him that he had showered before calling. He said, no, I didn't use the shower. They came back and said, well, we did a humidity test in your bathroom and we found that the shower had been used that morning. A

humidity test. I don't believe even on c side, they've given us humidity test um. Now they have delivered two lies, and then the detective delivers the ultimate lie. He leaves the room. There are two detectives and they're the lead detective. McCready leaves the room, stages a phone call, and comes back to deliver the news to Marty. Marty, I've got good news and I got bad news. I just spoke to the folks at the hospital. The good news is

your father has come out of his coma. He's regained consciousness. The bad news is he said you did it. Now, think about this for a month. Insane. You've got a seventeen year old and you're now delivering one lie after another, culminating in a lie that to Marty, the person he trusts most in his life has just said he committed this crime. And not only did Marty of course, had no choice but to believe that that evidence, because he doesn't believe police would lie to him. Certainly, not like that.

Even McCready's partner believed that presentation. So what choice is Marty have now but to wonder, how is it possible that they have this kind of objective evidence. My father doesn't lie, he said. Marty has almost no cognitive choice but to accept that information. Because he's got two things right. His father doesn't lie and the cops don't lie. Right, these are the two things that he believes exactly. So those things lead to one conclusion, one conclusion, I must

have done it. And the conversation turns to memory consciousness, the possibility of sleepwalking and doing it without awareness, and generate theories from Marty to explain how come you don't remember doing this. So we know that that was the nature of the conversation. We know that for some degree of transient time, Marty became confused about even his own innocence. His confession was a handwritten statement, handwritten by the detective,

that is inaccurate as a description of the crime. It doesn't complete itself, it's actually ends in mid sense, and it is un signed. This confession, the so called confession, was written by the detective and not signed by Marty. And yet that allegation of that confession is the one and only piece of evidence that was used to convict him. You're at trial, You still believe that justice is going to be at trial? Still believe it? I mean, this

is what the lawyers are telling me. The system works. Um, I was innocent. I testified in my own behalf. The prosecution have tried me with intentional murder and depraved in difference murder. So when we got called back in the first verdict that was read was not guilty, and then all of a sudden, the second one was guilty. The one thing I vividly remember is the walk after they

read the guilty verdicts over to the county jails. They have these tunnel systems, and I remember just I felt like I was being led like a dog because I was just listening. And I remember getting to the property room and I remember the property and most saying what are you doing here, Marty? And I go, why else would I be here? And been everything else went blank for about the next six or seven days. But now you're thrown into this environment. You're in maximum security prison,

is that right? Yeah? I was. Basically every day it's a fight for your life because you never know in maximum security facilities what could happen, whether it be the gang's going to war with each other, the alcers taking you know, their aggression out on you, or just the random attacks that occur just for no reason whatsoever. Right, I mean, we know that people are being killed every day in prisons in America, UM, sometimes by guards, even absolutely for me. My case was very high profile, so

prisoners knew about the case. Guards knew about the case. UM And I had a guy come up to me and he solicity. He goes, if you want to survive, he says, don't do drugs, don't get involid drugs, don't get involved homosexuality, don't get involved in gambling gangs, he said. And work your way into the college program or the library. He said. One of the hardest things is once you're innocent, is getting out, he said. But you'll figure out a way to do it. My lawyers said, okay, what's never

been done here before? And we said a full investigation. And that's when I started looking for private investigators and end up hiring Jason Peter. And one of the things that Jay said to me was, if you're innocent, hire me. If you're guilty, don't. I said, I'm innocent, I'll hire you. I just find the truth, giant. And it took years.

You ended up serving six thousand, three and thirty eight days, which is about seventeen and a half years now that we're up to speed from our two thousand seventeen release, and with party's civil litigation out of the way, he was finally able to tell us about the mountain of exculpatory evidence that they built, how his freedom came to pass, all of the amazing things he's been able to accomplish, and of course his plans to finally bring the people

who conspired to murder his parents to justice. Witness is an evidence slowly emerged over the years pointing towards a conspiracy involving at least Peter Kent, Joseph Creeden, Glenn Harris, and of course the Stewarman's and more continues to come to light to this day. But the process started back in the early nineties when a woman named Carlene Kovaks

went to a party. In the early nineties nineties, Joseph Creeden, who was an enforcer for Todd Steuerman, was at a party where he admitted his involvement in the murders to Carlin Kovacs. So the idea that Todd Strum and Jerry Schuhman were responsible for this not only from day one, but every year subsequent to my conviction investigation, more and more evidence would come forward, continuously pointing back towards the Stearman's and it was around three when we presented the

D's office with that information. And as the years would go on, throughout the nineteen nineties and the two thousands, the court system failed me. It feels to me like the tides started to turn around two thousand three when you hired j Sawpeter. Jay started from the very beginning was kind of like who been intited financially and let's just start branching out from there. The criminal ties around

the Stewardmans. It was pretty well known when Jay took on this case of investigating it, and he just started looking at Todd Storman and Jerry Stewarman and started branching out, and eventually they found Glenn Harris. Glenn Harris said something to the effect that I've been waiting for this day

for twelve or thirteen years. Glenn Harris gave us one statement saying that he had been high fired by Stewartman to drive the two hitman Joe Creeden and Peter Kent to and from the Tank Cliff House where you lived on the night of decline, and that just kind of

started the snowball effect. We assembled a body of evidence of witnesses, and in two thousand five we presented everything to the Suffolk County d A with the hopes that with their subpoena power and wire top power, that they would actually take a real serious look at this case.

And we said, you know, if you don't do anything after forty five days, we will file a post conviction most in New York, and we learned that it wasn't until the forty four day that they actually went out and went to interview the first witness, and we thereafter filed a post conviction motion. Judge Braslow granted a hearing, and throughout the hearing of very his technical issues came up,

and more witnesses came forward. Throughout the hearing, carly and Kovac's claimed that Joe Creten told her about how he and another man hid in the bushes outside the tankleff House, evaded capture and got rid of the bloody clothes. And then there was more. There were family members of the killers, right, there were murder weapons that were actually had been hidden

that were found. Am I wrong about that? Mighty? So the culminating witness at the hearing was Joseph Creeding's son, who said that his father confessed to him of his involvement. There was a pipe that was discovered on a piece of property that Glenn Harris said, I pipe was thrown. Nobody knows if the pipe was actually used, but what are the chances that somebody could know or say, look,

go search on this piece of property. We threw something there eighteen years ago, seventeen years ago and it was found. The actual murder weapons, the non have never been found. By now we're talking about two thousand five, two thousand six. The defense your team had assembled twenty witnesses who all painted collectively a picture of how Storman had orchestrated these murders. Two of the witnesses had seen McCready with Storman just before the murders. Hello. There was also the matter of

the murder weapon not having been found. There was a bloody stain of what appeared to be a knife imprinted on one of our lead tank cliffs sheets, but no match was found, suggesting that someone had taken it. But justice was right around the corner, right so March seventeenth, two thousand six, the petition for the new trial was denied, but then December two thousand seven, tell us about that. Well, in New York State, after you fill a post conviction motion,

you have to seek permission to appeal the case. Thankfully, the Appel Division that had denied me relief in three had granted me permission to hear my case and my lawyers argued before four amazing judges in September of two thousand seven, and I remember it was December that I was calling home, calling the lawyers every single day, trying to find out how the decision come down. And I had four different appeals in the Appel Division, including one

for a new trial, one for DNA testing. So I was finally able to get through to one of my lawyer's offices and the receptionists said to me, She's like, don't tell Bruce, I told you, But we won the big one. And my legs started to shake a little bit, and I kind of almost didn't believe it because it was kind of that moment when you or just waiting for that day for day after day, year after year. And when I finally spoke to Bruce Barquette, I'll never

forget his words. He said, act your ship. You're coming home, and you'll never see the inside of a jail cell again. And at that very moment. Don't ask me why I said this, but I was kind of sarcastic, and I said, Bruce, and I said, I've been studying a little long enough. I said, it's an oral agreement and I'm going to

hold you to it. And he kept his word. I was brought down to the Subvin County jail December twenty six, the day after Christmas, and on December twenty seven, I was freed and I have never returned to a jail cell since. So Bruce Bork kept his word. In the book A Criminal Injustice, which is I recommend so highly that reads like a Grisham novel, but it's true and you lived it. And in that book, one of the things that sticks out so much and about your story

is that Suffolk County was like a criminal enterprise. And I'm talking about the justice system. Can you describe it well? I think it was best described. I think it was William Hellerstein described it as the wild wild West of law enforcement and the court system. Um And essentially he said, is that in Subfolk County, they do whatever the hell they want to do, whatever they want to do it

because they are almighty um. And I think that almighty attitude can be traced back to the homicide division where in the eighties they used to wear these shirts that said and that referred to their confession and conviction rates for homicide cases and they were proud of it. And Suboc County has a long history of turmoil and corruption.

When the Attorney General reinvestigated the case during some of the post conviction proceedings, they uncovered forensics that were in the possession of Subbok County the entire time, and they proved to be exculpatory nature. You know, it just goes to the depths of how sinister and evil the criminals injustice system was in Suffolk County back then, even up to recently where the district attorney that was in office during my post conviction litigation, Tom Spota, was recently criminally

charged while he was a district attorney. When Tom Spota was in private practice, he and his firm had represented Todd Stearman and Jerry Steuerman and the chief of Police William Burke, was also criminally charged and he went to prison. It's unbelievable. And this gets deeper and deeper because the creedy. The detective was under investigation for perjury, and let's not forget the creedy wanted to business with your sister, who

became the heir to the family fortune. Shortly after my conviction, my half sister through a celebratory party at a country club for family and friends, and right around the same time, went into business with money she received from my parents estate with the lead detective who put me in prison, and they opened up a bar restaurant Diggaro Dells and

the Riverhead, New York. Yeah, I didn't want to go down in history as being known as the person who was convicted of murdering my parents because I didn't do it, and nobody stands criminally charged or convicted of those murders as of today. I knew that I wanted to continue fighting until the truth came out, and we continue to explore every lead, and even to this day, we've had new witnesses who have come forward and the only reason why they've come forward was because Peter Kennon Joseph Cream

have died. They've come forward with exculpatory evidence that no one has ever heard before that I'm hoping by the end of the year it will get out there. Are you still hoping for the authorities to do what they should have done decades ago and prosecute the people responsible for this tragedy. There is a new district attorney who ran on a line of exposing injustice. He set up

a conviction integrity unit. He has clearly stated time and time again that he owes no allegiance to the prior administration. And I'm currently working on putting a package together. I'm confident that any fair minded prosecutor, if they look at the body of evidence that we have now, someone should be criminally charged. And I'm going to be asking the

SUBFLK County District Attorney's office to reopen the case. July eight the charges were dismissed, and your life began again or a new I mean, you hit the ground running. And there's so much to talk about still, because there's the federal civil suit against New York State in the Suffolk County Police Department, and this was not a frivolous suit. In fact that July two thousand fourteen, New York State settled for three point three seven five million, and in

two thousand eighteen, Suffolk County settled for another ten. They didn't do that willingly. They did that because they had no way out. I mean, you had them literally dead to rights. And then you go and graduate from law school. Now, I mean seriously, Marty, like, are you trying to make the rest of us look? It's unbelievable. I was just gonna say that, you know, when you when you say get up and start running. It was three weeks effort.

I was out of prison, I started producing on my Bachelor Glory at Hatstraw, and I knew that, you know, what I went through, no one should go through. And if there was somebody that could help make a difference, it would be me. I am out Now I'm a lawyer um also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and Atoral Law School. There's very hard to miss message of what the rest of us have as an excuse not

to live out our dreams. I mean, you, that's an unbelievable transformation, and I am so so proud of you. So you're now the head of the Prisoner in Civil Rights litigation group at Metcalf and Metcalf. You're living your best life. And they say living well is the best revenge. I mean, I think you can attest to that, but we can't leave alone. The other thing that you're doing now, which I'm gonna I'm gonna guess is probably the most rewarding thing other than your family of everything, which is

of course, be making an axotari program. You're, of course, as we talked about, an adjunct professor at Georgetown. Let's just say that again, you're a professor at Georgetown, like, what the hell anyway, and you're working with your childhood friend and my dear friend, Mark Howard co teaching a

class called making an Axonoree. And one of the students from that class was on this show in our episode of the Awful Awful Case of Terrell Barrows, and she said, and I think any of the students would say that her life has been forever changed by this experience. So please, anyone go back and listen to the Terrell Barrows episode. Terrell really needs and deserves our help. Listen and you'll get some ideas of how you may be able to

make a difference in his life. He's just as innocent as Marty was and is so tell us about some of the people that you've helped Wherever you want to go with this just to get people a little background and making fun a lot more on our website, making an asoni dot com. Mark and I have been friends since we were three years old going to Love a w preschool, and every I got out, Mark would invite me to come down to his class and speak to

him about my experience about the criminal justice system. And as the years went on, we start talking about the idea about teaching a class together, and the idea of making exon are kind of came together one day, just us talking taking undergraduate students and having them reinvestigate real cases of men and women in prison, try to track down new witnesses and try to develop a body of evidence that could help get them exonerated. And their final

project was to create short documentaries. And we started the class in ten and one of our cases was Valentin at Dixon, and our students were able to uncover enough evidence that we share with Valentino's lawyer and he was exonerated in September of that year. And each year our students have done this amazing work, and there's not a single student who's taken our class that hasn't walked away and said that the opportunity to try to impact someone's

life is life altering for them. Our students become friends with the individuals who incarcerated tragically. John Moss, who was from our first semester, our students and covered evidence that convinced the Innocence Project to represent him tragically. He passed away in Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year, but the students became so close to him and his family they went to his funeral. I mean, it's kind of unheard of that students can develop a bond like that.

Every one of the student groups, even after they've graduated, continue to work on any of the cases that they were connected with, and if they're in a position where they can't work, they want to know what's going on. Because in Valentino and Dixon's case, when he walked free in September, of Ellie and Julie, who were to the young women that worked on his case, flew back from France and England to be there when he walked out of prison. And I think it's something that they will

never forget their entire life. And Valentino has said time and time again that they have lifelong friends and if they ever need anything, he would be there for them. The relationship you developed with these men and women is just different. You know. We walk in and we tell our students that there's no guarantees here other than you're putting a thousand percent in, and they do more than that. Our students can sometimes work thirty hours a week outside

of class. They travel around the country, They track down witnesses, they confront former prosecutors. In one case, they confronted a currently sitting judge who was a former prosecutor. There really is no fear that our students have, and it's just, to me an amazing experience having the opportunity to work with them, and it really hasn't does even feel like work. From times, it feels like such an honor and pleasure to work with students that want to come to class,

want to work. I want to sacrifice their time. And I remember this year when the idea of spring break, are going to see somebody in a maximum security prison during spring break. Our students said, who cares about spring break, Let's go to prison. Who cares about spring break, Let's go to prison. Wow, that really does say it all.

And the fact is that those of us who work in this area now that the first time you get to be a part I don't care how small the part is of helping somebody out of this Kafka esque nightmare. It is unlike anything else that I've ever experienced, and it makes me feel useful. You know, you now get to live that to the tense power or to the nth degree what you want to call it, because you're doing it again and again, and you're doing it from a place that the rest of us can't possibly understand,

and doing it for all the right reasons. So it's wonderful to see. And people can go to making an exonoree dot com and see these eight minute videos which are so powerful, and I know that every one of those students is going to be forever changed by this experience and they're gonna become freedom fighters in their own right. And so there there goes the Marty tank Cliff force multiplier effect. Marty, you've been on the show before, you know how it works. At this point, we turned to

my favorite part of the show. It's the part of the show we call closing arguments, where first of all, I thank you for being here, sharing your story and just being this sort of beacon of hope and light that you are and then I turn off my microphone leave yours on for what we call closing arguments. I remember when I talked about becoming a lawyer, I said, you know, I said, I don't think I can ever reach the pinnacle of exonerations of Barry Scheck or Steve

Drisen or anybody like that. But I know if I'm instrumental in helping one innocent person walk free, you know, I kind of joke I've done my job, um, And I was there the day Valentino walked out, but I'm far from over. You know, it is so rewarding. And I know, Jason, you've had the opportunity to be there when people have walked free and been involved in exonerations. Its impacts your life in a way that I think

nothing else does. Um. And I know one of my lawyers said, you know, those who do this work are doing God's work. And he explained it was simply that, you know, when you fight to get somebody who's innocent out of prison, you were almost giving them an opportunity of new life. So it's almost like a rebirth for them because some of them have been locked up longer than they were free, and now all of a sudden you help them gain their freedom back. It really is

probably some of the most rewarding work. And you know, Mark is somebody who is just amazing because you know, Mark was a tenured professor of government and it was because his involvement in his choice to go to law school to join my defense team to fight to get me out of prison, that his career essentially changed. Where he teaches prisons and justice. He goes into prisons and

teaches college credit courses. He's established the Frederick Douglas Project, and Mark and I have made a decision that we will teach this class every year going forward, just because so many innocent people don't have the ability to have

their voices told. You know, after Just Mercy came out, I told our students that you have to watch the scene where Jamie Boxes talking to his lawyer after the evidentiary hearing and he says something to the fact that even if I don't get out of prison, I'm good because the truth came out. And that's what we empower our students to do. Get the truth out there, because

those who are incarcerated, that's what they want. We can't control the criminal justice system, but we can control investigating these cases and telling the stories and having those who are incarcerated have their stories told through our voices. I think anybody who walks away and watch the videos, we'll just find that our system is is so flawed on so many levels. And everyone across America can do something, because that's a question. I'm sure you get asked all

the time, what can we do? And we tell people, you know, find something you're good at and just offered a help, you know, whether it be writing a letter to somebody who's in prison, social media development sharing, passing along petitions, if there are fundraising efforts, do fundraising because so often people sit back and say, I'm not a lawyer,

I know nothing about the system. And when I tell people that the system is about humanity at its core, because our system succeeds and fails based on humans on so many levels that if we go deep into our hearts, we can find something that we can do to make a difference. 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 Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get an 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