#186 Jason Flom with Alfred DeWayne Brown

was coerced into supporting that testimony. But Dwyane was at his girlfriend, Erica Dockery's apartment at the time of the crime. He had called her at her workplace on the apartment's landline, and Erica corroborated that story. The prosecutor soon charged Erika Dockery with perjury for her grand jury testimony, sending her to jail for four months, away from her kids, and causing her to eventually start telling the story that he wanted here with no more alibi witnesses and no phone

records presented a trial to corroborate his story. Dwayne, a man they knew was innocent, was sent to death row. This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. You're about to hear the story of Dwayne Brown. This case involves an innocent man sentenced to death, a district attorney who knew he was innocent before he prosecuted him, and witnesses that were coerced

as too light of a term. With us today to tell the story is the man who is primarily responsible for getting him out. Brian Stolar's Welcome to wrongful Conviction. Hey, thank you so much for having me and of course saving the best for last. We have the man himself, Dwayne Brown. Thank you for being here, and welcome to wrong for conviction. Thank you, thank you for having me, and sorry for everything that you had to go through to get here to be here, but so happy that

you're free today. So let's go back to the beginning. Where did you grow up and what was your life like before this this tragedy happened that you ended up being falsely blamed for. Well, I grew up back and forth and takes us a Loisano mom, but I mainly stay in Louisiana. Out here is just straight country. You know, it's a lot of fun if you like being out

in and opening. That's what well I live in now Okay, And Brian, can you take us back to the crime and how the hell Dwayne Ever got his name thrown into the mix when it should have been clear to everyone that he wasn't and could not have been a part of this scenario. On April third, two thousand three, three men robbed the Houston check cashing store and South Houston called Ace America's Cash Express. There was an inside job.

Someone who worked there said there was gonna be three hundred thousand bucks, a huge drop of money, so people were conspiring to steal it. Three men went to go rob it, and the clerk who was there that day turned out to not be the woman who gave him the inside tips. She got cold feet, decided she didn't want to be there. So a woman named Alfredia Jones, who had just had a baby with twenty seven year old woman and she opened the door. She got bum rushed by one of the guys. They asked her open

the safe. She says, I have to call to let my boss know him here. She calls, but she uses the code form being robbed as I'm opening store twenty four or something like that. That was code from being robbed. Officer Charles Clark, year old, decorated veteran of the Houston Police Force, almost on the verge of retirement, was nearby. They were towing cars for impound and he happened to be nearby. So he went to the scene and was

murdered tragically. And Alfredia Jones was murdered tragically. And the record driver who was with the cop had driven by the scene and saw three men rush out. And the three men went to a housing complex, got rid of some clothes, you know, tried to get out of town. Now two of those men we know. One of them was arrested the next day to Sean Glassbie and then then man named Elijah Jolbert last week twenty one, Elijah Tree.

Now there was three men. Glassby and Jilbert sort of conspired to tell them that Dwayne Brown was the third guy, and they had several interviews with the cops. They were getting the third degree, and Glassby cut a deal. He agreed to plead guilty to armed robbery only and take a thirty year sentence in exchange for testifying against Dwayne and Elijah Jolbert and separate trials. Lajah Jolbert was charged with murdering Alfredia Jones and Dwayne Brown was charge of

murdering Officer Clark. So they got to charge two people with capital murder, which we know Texas loves their death penalty right, And these guys didn't want to implicate the third for whatever reason, the actual third guy who was known to them. But how did it come to your attention that you were a suspect in this case? If they just bust down your door one day and my mom and came that man, somebody told her that what was going on? So she was asked me, what's going on?

I said, I don't know. She said, well, if he wasn't there, let's just go tell yourself into the police station. And they pulled me over right before I got to the police station. Did you know that this was what they wanted you for? No? I didn't. So you just were going in to see what was going on pretty much. And then did you ever see free air again after

that moment? Oh? No. Once they put the handkles somewhere, I didn't try them loosen until twelve years later, listeners of our show, No I've had rob Well and Rodney read two innocent men on death row in Texas on the show. I can't even imagine what twelve minutes on there would be like, much less twelve years. But you're here to tell the tale, which is great, and you

know how it happened to you and how it got undone. Brian, if you could walk through some of the dirty tricks that they used in order to fabricate this case and to condemn an innocent man, you know, the whole system broke on Dwayne. Now, there's never been and never will be, any science that ties Dwayne to this offense. No DNA,

no gunch at residue, no fingerprints, no nothing. And so they had to get this conviction through witness testimony because they already had de Sean Glasbiew who agreed to plead guilty thirty years testify against them. But by law they incorporated the snitches testimony with evidence, but they had none because they had no science. And I realized pretty early on when I got the case on habeas which will explain later, that this was corrupt from the very very beginning,

and it's manifests itself in a couple of different ways. First, witness intimidation. He had one witness named Sharon to Simon, who had told the police if she did not see Dwayne the morning of they apparently had all congregated at a at a housing complex. She said that she didn't see him. The police and the press her frightened her and said, if you don't say that you saw Dwyanne that morning, we're gonna take your kids away. She was living in a housing voucher at a child with cerebral

paulsy in and a wheelchair. Wanted nothing to do with the police. They made her life miserable. They came by every day and so she said, fine, I saw him there. So that's one piece of witness. They said that they saw the morning of. But Jason, nowhere was the investigation more corrupt and I think more broken then in the grand jury process involving Erica Dockery. Now Erica Dockery was Dwayne's girlfriend, and Dwayne had an alibi from the very beginning.

He was at Erica's apartment on the morning of the murder and made a phone call to where she worked. And so she goes to the police station and tells that exact thing. When I left for work that morning, he was there, and yeah, later that morning, I was working as a home health carriage to an elderly woman. A phone call came in. I looked down on the caller ID box, which incidentally have to explain to anyone under the age of thirty. But on the caller ID

box it said her house. The elderly woman picks it up, it's Dwayne, hands it to Erica. She tells that to the cops, and then she gets put in what's called the grand jury. For those of you who are not criminal defense lawyers, a grand jury is an investigative body of members of the public. But I have to get to that later too. Is how this was also skewed.

Members of the public sit and listen to the evidence, and if there's enough evidence to proceed, then the grand jury says, yes, prosecutor, you may proceed with a charge against that defendant. Then the charge is lodged, and then get to the trial stuff like you see on TV. Eric goes to the grand jury and says this, he was there when I left that morning, and the phone call came in, and there's a moment where it all turns now. Erica is uncounseled. She goes in there tells

the truth. During a break, dan Rizzo, the prosecutor in this case we hear a lot about, takes her into a locked room and says, if you don't say what I want, if you don't tell me the truth, my truth, you know you're gonna go jail the rest of your life or maybe die. And then she goes back in the grand jury and the grand jurors themselves start badgering her and threatening her and pressuring her, saying things like, come on, Erica, don't worry about that guy, think about

your kids. Tell us the true, and she holds firm and tells the truth. And then afterwards dan Rizzo decides to charge her with perjury. Why because he could. He asked for a high bail for her. She's not violent, has no prior convictions or anything, but asked for high bail because he can, because he knows that she'll sit

in jail because she can't make the bail. She sits there for four months, loses her job, her children get raised by her cousin, and finally she's like, screw it, I don't care, just get me out of here, and she agrees to get out plead guilty, says fine, I lied, and then she says a trial that Dwayne was not there when she left, and yes she got a phone call, but it was not from her house. And really she is the most pivotal witness because we talked to jurors.

So really her testimony was fabricated and manufactured as a result of pressure from the grand jury and pressure from Dan Rizzo. And that happened with not only her but another witness, Tronto Signmon. The grand jury process in Texas was built broken Houston and paneled grand jurors by what's called the pick apal grand jury system. Pickapal sounds something more fun than grand jury, so here it is a judge would appoint a commissioner, usually a donor or a friend.

That friend would go get their friends and they go to the grand jury together. And it was typically older white folks sitting in judgment of minorities in one of the most diverse cities in the country. And the fourth person of the grand jury and a police officer shooting investigation was himself a police officer. That is a system the Erica doctory founder in and so she testifies against him, and as Simon testifies against him, and glassbeed. And that's it.

That puts an innocent good man on death row. Yeah, and it allows at least one of the actual perpetrators to get off light as well as the third actual perpetrator escaping justice entirely that man. We did a thorough investigation of who we believe the third person to be. We go to the d A and we say, here's the guy who we believe it to be. We lay it out chapter and verse, and I said, investigate this guy swab as DNA came go interrogate him, do something

they didn't. He was in jail for a armed robbery. This man gets out and murder someone in a drug deal gone bad. Now, so do you talk about public safety? The cascade of wrongs here led to that man who was murdered by this man. So, Dwayne, you lived through this already totally insane tornado of bullshit, but you weren't being represented by Brian yet. And while awaiting trial in Harris County jail, your attorney, Loretta Muldro came to you

with a deal. Not much of a deal though, forty years in prison in exchange for a guilty plea, which is suspect to begin with in a case in which a police officer had been killed. But that's beside the point, because even though she advised you to take the deal, you stood your ground. Yes, Mr Loretta Modro, she told me to take the deals. She would like, you've been in her year, you will do forty years, you'll come home role and all that. I'm like, I didn't do

this crime. Would you steal a sign? And she said yes, And I totally if you didn't do it, so he could go sign the papers and you could do the sign because I wasn't going to do it. Good for you. And yeah, if they really thought that he murdered a police officer, nobody's offering you anything that allows you to ever go free again. So there was some under a current to that offer right there. And we know it, and you know it, and I know it, and they knew it. But you did the right thing. Now it

comes to the trial. And again when I say the whole system broke on Dwayne, I don't just mean the prosecution, police work, the investigation, the grand jury which was corrupt. I'm talking about everything. He didn't have money to hire an attorney, and there is now, but at the time there was no public sender system, so it was private lawyers willing to take the case on a reduced see and Vernamujo took the case. Dwayne tells her the alibi, and she does not issue a subpoena to the phone company.

And I had asked her later when I got involved, It's like, why didn't you Why didn't you ask for that? And she's like, I didn't think they'd have them, and I was like, a man's life, it stands in the balance. She said, well, I used to work there and I didn't think they kept landline phone records. That's the distinction she makes, and that's where he made the phone call from. And that's really critical Jason, because he was the landline.

He was there at the house, could not have been at the crime scene, and he need a superman cap to get there. So then she presents that defense. When we talked to the jurors, they were like, but where's the evidence of the phone call? And so she could not prove that he made the phone call and didn't put a single piece of evidence in for his case.

There was a critical ALBI witness, Reginald Jones who lived with Erica and Dwayne, who was there who saw him come down the stairs, you know, at a certain time, which would have given credence to the fact that he was sleeping. Is actually asleep there in this murder. Maybe she didn't call him, she didn't try to speak at the phone record, and he gets found guilty to nobody's surprise. This episode is underwritten by the a i G pro

Bono Program. A i G is a leading global insurance company, and for over a decade, the ai G pro Bono Program has provided thousands of hours of free legal services and other support to nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. More recently, the program added criminal and social justice reform as a key pillar of its mission. This episode is brought to you by Stand Together. Stand Together is a

philanthropic community dedicated to helping people improve their lives. For more than twenty years, Stand Together and its partners have been on the front lines of criminal justice reform. By empowering people to take action, supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses, Stand Together tackles the root causes of problems in our community. These and empowers those closest to the problems to drive solutions.

Solutions like reducing unjust prison sentences through the First Step a Act, empowering community based programs that help people re enter society, and now working to bridge divides in our communities. To learn how you may get involved, visit stand Together dot org, slash Conviction. The Ansis files on Netflix covers Twayne's case, so you can get a deeper look there as well. You can check out the whole story and

Brian Stolars is amazing book Grace and Justice on death Row. Now, Dwayne, you're convicted and sentenced to death row, can you tell us about what your initial experience was like in that hell hole? Oh? Man, When I got there, the first thing they said it was getting driss but but naked. It was like I was just shocked, I guess, And I was like, man, I get a naked go see everybody in the doctors and all list. And when they put you in the sale, man, it's like this is unreal.

Seven uh footsteps sideways in thirteen forward and I'm sex too, and my guest my home is another two and a half foot tall, I guess. Long and there was the ceiling. I can put my palm of my hand on the ceiling, and the twenty three over there you could put your palm on the ceiling. So this is almost like a living tomb that they put you in basically, right, I would say this rufus maybe eight ft tall. I guess if that nine ft tall, and you get fed through the slots to use the door. It's just this is

not right. That sail is not designed for any man to be in that long term. It misses with your mind. And I think the Lord that I can come back out crazy or nothing, because I did see some people just lose it in there. It's it's not right at all. Now. I know that they had a suicide on that throw this week in Texas, and I imagine you probably saw your share of that as well, because you're exactly right. I mean, that is no place to put any human being.

When they first put me in and said I didn't have anything, no picture, no letter, no address to write anybody or nothing. The only address I had was my grandmother address, and that's because I remembered it my heart. No phone calls you have to put in a request for a phone call, and they would take thirty days a longer, or to even get it. It was man. The sale was just empty, It was cold, and it was nothing. They didn't even bring me a bunk and un said, I want to say the next day or

the day after that. And the only way I started getting something it was a guy but we called in fifty fifty. That was the first person that gave me a coffee cup, a new to lead or anything soaping the thing. It took me a good little while to adapt. I guess you could say that's twenty three hours a day during the week, twenty four on the weekends. Where would you go for the extra hour during the day, either to the rick yard or to the barricades. But I call it because I know that you can do

is look up. You've got twenty ft walls alloway around you, and it's no bigger than the cell. Mhm. Right, So you go to an outdoor cell basically one hour a day now twice a week, three days in the day room, and you've got two days outside. Mhm. You gotta get button naked anytime you leave the cell or going back to the cell. I used to call it my favorite part of the day, just to make the cards called the favorite part of the day, because why just to make the guards mad? Why would you make him mad?

They gotta sit there and look at you lift your cleanus up, and a lot of they don't want to look at that. So I will say, hey, time to get stripped out the favorite part of the day. I say that they would look at me in my face like, man, you're crazy. Well you took a dehumanizing part of it and made it humorous, which shows your gracing, your your inner peace. Okay, so how did you find out that

Brian was going to take your case? When I first met Burned and he was talking, and I was like, religiously, you go out one year and to the other because I really didn't trust him, because I thought he was gonna be like Loretto Modro and Robert Modro and you know, talk good, but don't follow through with it. But it took me three years to trust him, and he stayed at it. So he was consistent with it, and I

thank you for that. He kept fighting for what he was believed in and I love him for that for real. And Brian, he had every right to be skeptical. He had been let down or screwed really by everyone. Yeah, you know, I can understand why he wouldn't trust me because of how he had been wronged by his trial lawyer. And he actually even had a second lawyer who was a direct appeal lawyer who also didn't do you know,

great job for him. So I was just called habeas corpus lawyer, which is for the non lawyers on this it's just it's any anything else you can find about the case, like usually it's for DNA and other new evidence. And it took a number of times of me going back down there and really not talking about the case, and I showed interest in who he was. One of the only beautiful things about going to meet him was

it was all all behind glass on phones. I could bring twenty dollars with the vending machine quarters to buy him whatever he wanted for food, because the food there obviously is terrible, and like it was my favorite part of going because we had little mini thanksgivings every time and I'd buy him, you know, an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert and one time they had the lion pie.

You thought it was freaking Christmas. It was just like but the greatest day ever, and he lined up a Hawaiian punch, a cheeseburger, and a key line pie and we sat there and talked for hours, and over time we began to trust each other, and I began to truly love him and believe that this was my mission

as a lawyer and a person. And things would happen like can we get an affidavit from a critical witness, or we would tell him that we had a court hearing, and he realized I was actually doing real work for him and cared about him deeply. I'm glad, I'm glad he trusted me. Can you explain habeas corpus? Because the literal meaning is you shall have the body? Right, it's

medieval back. What you're telling the court is you have the body and I wanted out, and you are doing that by raising anything new newly discovered evidence can be raised in the habeas corpus petition. And that's what we took on with my prior law firm, Cano Gates pro Bono. Got a bunch of people who are you know, committed to the mission. Jacy Kaplan, Bethey, Nick far Christate, Megan Whistler. Are all these folks? So I just love dearly for

helping me, helping Dwayne, but that was our mission. The Habeas corpus brief is what we would submit, would be two seventy page brief. And in that brief we discovered with all the new evidence, we could find all the affidavits from the witnesses who described the pressure and the threats. So when I we're in tooth thou in eleven right, Erica Dockery, let's talk about her. She is the most critical witness. I got a hot tip on where she lived. I'd fly down to Houston go knock on her door.

She slammed the door in my face because the last time she got involved this, she went to jail. But here is where the case turns for Dwayne. Anthony Graves whose exsonary number twelve from Texas's death row, Dwayne is number thirteen. So by just by that standard alone, they've executed over five hundred. Dwayne and Anthony are like living unicorns. And so Anthony Graves gets out and he says a lot of guys belong there, but your guy doesn't. So what can I do? And that the beautiful moment of

paying it forward. I'm forever grateful to Anthony. I said, I can't get Erica to talk to me. I just want to find out what the truth is. And his girlfriend had been pressured and Anthony's own case, so he's like, I got you. He goes and talks to her and says, hey, just talk to that fast talking lawyer, and she said she would. So I flew down on a Sunday, had lunch at a Cajun restaurant and I said to her, I can't take your kids away, do anything to you.

Just tell me the damn truth, please, And then she starts to sort of cathartically cry, and I said, I was Layne there when he left that morning, yes, And did you get a phone call? Yes? And where was it from? From my home? Did you talk to him? Yes? And she starts letting it all out in a very cathartic way, and she said to me the following which sticks in my brain forever. She said, Brian, I chose my kids over Dwayne, and I'm sorry, and she want

to make it right. I wrote affidavit, she signed it, and I submitted that to the d A. And so that was step one in the affidavit. She we can't her testimony a trial, swearing that the ad A quote told me he did not believe me, that it was not a good person, that he was going to take my children away by calling Child Protective Services, and that I was going to go to jail for a very long time. I would never see my children again. These

threats are why I gave the testimony I did. I mean, there's a special place in hell for people that would do to her and of course to you. So let's talk about these phone records. The whole damn case comes down to phone records. It's a mainline phone record. If he's there in Eric's house, he cannot be at the crime scene. Can't do it. I drove it, you can't do it. So I sa poen at the phone company. Nope, it's been of the cops notes between the d A note. So I go see Dwayne and I say to him,

this is the only time I cursing documentary. I said, I can't find these fucking phone records. I'm so sorry, and I started crying. I put my head against the glass, and this man who's in a cell that you can almost touch side to side, brought me peace and brought me grace and said, hey, it's all right. The truth is gonna come out. So, Dwayne, how did you stay so damn peaceful in there and then transfer that piece to me? Yoga good? All right? How did the phone

records magically appeared? So I had all these affidavits from a Simon Erica and I go to the d A. I'm like, this guy's innocent, innocent, is didn't do it? And she says this. She says, just like that. So you flapped her hand at me and says, all you fast talking yankee lawyers from big firms come down here, say your system is broken. Say the guys are innocent, he's guilty. You're gonna watch him die. And Jesus, I had all that I could not to channel my inner.

You know, my dad's a union carpenter from New Jersey, doesn't take shift from anybody. I said to her, I said, I'll be back, like terminator style. But I didn't know I was gonna be able to be back. And so we had a hearing coming up which we're going to present all the evidence, all the affidavits, and before that hearing, we get an email like I've never seen before. And the email is from the prosecutor and when who did

that to me? Sent it to the judge and my co counsel and she says, it's the purfocy email to let you know that the HPD officer in charge then investigation of the Brown trial, Breck McDaniel, found a box of documents over the weekend while spring cleaning his garage. And I'm not kidding, and my co council in Dallas gets the box, Megan, and you know, I called her, was like, Hey, what's in there? And she's like, God,

it just looks like stuff we've seen before. So I kind of hang up, figuring this was just a nothing. And then about an hour later I get a call that they say, check your email phone record. Maybe I'm not that good of a lawyer after all. I'm just freaking lucky it was in his garage in a box. But here here is what's worse. I know, how could

it get any worse, But here's what's worse. Attached to that phone record was a subpoena from Dan Rizzo, the prosecutor, to the phone company, dated the day after Erica testified about the phone call in the grand jury. Dan Rizzo sent a subpoena signed it got the records back from the phone company and never turned them over to his defense lawyer, or in a moldrow, to me as his habeas lawyer, or anyone else. And yet they were found in a cops garage in two thousand and thirteen. This

is a classic what's called Brady violation. Was a constitutional violation when you don't turn over sculptor records as a prosecutor. And they agreed to a new trial without a hearing, which I've been told in Texas never happened. And so we waited for seventeen months because a stable of Republican judges was up for election on the Appellate Court and they were never going to give Dwayne a new trial

in an election year. But in November they were all re elected, these judges, and the day after that re election, they issued an order formally vacating his conviction and ordering a new trial. That he came the night before and the ladies told me to pack up. You on the chain, so they don't never let you know what's going on here. They just come to you doing to tell you what you gotta do. I started packing my stuff up, and the next morning they can't get me around I don't

know what time it was. They can't got me and put me in the van. That van is you can't see out of it. You handcuffs if they have an accident. If you don't die, you're really gonna be hurt. Uh. They got into the county once again. I was back with nothing, and they had some guys that was already there waiting to go to trial that was from death. Rod knew, and they just started giving me, you know, soap stuff, two paces and stuff like that, hygiene and

I didn't know what was gonna happen after that. I just just in there. So that's November, around the turn of the year, round December, he actually goes back to population and the d A was changed by that. And actually the DA who gave him the new trials name is Mike Anderson. He died of cancer. He authorized the new trial. His wife, Devin Anderson, who took over his d A, was in charge of reinvest getting the crime to see if they were going to be a retrial.

And so the only benefit of those seventeen months that I talked about, but the the Pelate court was that the user chronicles all over this. They had pressured and said, you know, like you're following too the air? What do you do? What do you do about Brown? And then on June eight, Twayns released my lawyer Can. She came to see me and I'm like, what's going on? She like, did you see the TV? I'm like, no, what's on the TV? You're like you're getting out. When she said that,

I started crying. I'm like, man, don't play with me now, just another time played like that? But she was real and when she left, the girls came with the god. He normally handcuffed me in the bank. This time he didn't put no hand coues home me. He just walked into my cell and said, when you read it, just let me know. Hit the button. I got up there, I went to the celle, I looked in up. I say, man,

I don't want nothing that of yet. I turned to the run and I gave all the stuff to the guys that was already there, and I love He woke me up and Dwayne, you said on the tips outside the prison that you have no hate in your heart for what they did to you, and that you can't trust everyone, but you can love everyone. That was the first thing came out the first thing I thought about it, and that just said it. That's like some Mandela shift

right there. Amazing. So, Brian, can you explain to us this madness of the civil suit when people are exonerated, there's a hodgepodge of laws across the country or some states, you don't get anything. In Texas. The statue is actually fairly generous. It's eighty thousand dollars a year. For every year you're in, put the same amount in an annuity going forward, so it gets broken out over his life. So Dwanne would get about two million, one million up

front and a million broken out. But in order for that to happen, the disc attorney has to file what's called an affidavit of actual innocence. When he was released in a Devon Anderson just said, I don't have enough events to go forward. That's not the same thing as actually innocent. So we asked for an independent special counsel, and special council was appointed, my named John Really. After ten months, John Really issued a lengthy report declaring Dwayne

actually innocent. The d A agrees, the court signs in order. We send that to the comptroller and he denies it. We heard that back channel. The Attorney General wrote a letter to the comptroller saying, don't pay him because the

Houston Police Union still thinks Dwyane did it. And so we had to file a petition the Texas Supreme Court, and in December, finally the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the Comptroller's denial was improper, and so the court ordered the comptroller to pay Dwayne and behold finally after all these years. And so now the whole legal team feels finally, so a sense of relief. But there's still one thing left is accountability for Dan Rizzo, the d A. Dan Rizzo has a bar hearing. I believe he should be

disbarred at a minimum. And it's important not to gloss over this particular sular fact, which is that in two thousand eighteen, as part of the civil suit, kim og who's the current d A, disclosed a long concealed email between Rizzo, the ad A, and Detective McDaniel, which happened the day after Dockery's testimony at the grand jury hearing, and McDaniel, referring to the hidden phone records that Rizzo had subpoena, had said and I quote I was hoping

that it would clearly refute Erica's claim that she received a call at work, but it looks like the call. Detailed records from the apartment shows that the home phone dialed Erica's place of employment at about eight thirty am and again at ten oh eight am. They knew, they always knew, and they deliberately suppressed withheld glide and conspired to send an innocent man to death row. And then I don't know this, but I'm just gonna speculate they probably went home that night and had a nice dinner,

watched the little TV, and went to bed. And I just don't understand what makes people like that. What I have found in the last five years, though, is the beauty of strangers to join the beauty of those who hear his story, including you you. I am forever touched by the generosity of those who have heard his story and offered to help him. My church agreed to help

buy him a truck. After the Netflix documentary, we heard from folks across the world asking how they could help, and we set up a go fund Me page that raised nearly thirteen thou dollars that we've now taken down because he's been compensated, and Dwayne is asked, if you're motivated by this story, to donate to the in this this project in other similar organizations before I sign off and let you guys have the final words. The book is Grace and Justice on Death Row by Brian stole Our.

So now this is the closing part of our show. We call it appropriately enough closing arguments. First of all, I thank both of you guys for being here today and sharing this amazing story of cards and perseverance. And then I turned my microphone off, I kicked back, closed my eyes and let you guys talk about whatever you want to say for the final words. So first we're gonna do Brian stole Ours and then Dwayne Brown Death Row ex honoree over to you guys. Thank you, and

thank you so much for having us. Dwayne's story has been the sort of the blessing of my life. I am honored to tell it. But the reason why we tell it is so that there won't be future Dwaynes. Dwayne will always tell me there's more of me out there and the only way to changes through the power of the story. And what we need is accountability for those in power who do this so there are no future Dwaynes. And it is truly my honor and privileged

to tell the story. And Dwayne, I just love you like a brother and I'm so glad that that you are free over to you. Trust no one but love everybody. And thank you an for listening to watching don't forget to give us a fantastic of you 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 involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music on 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