#255 Jason Flom with Dieter Tejada

party goers. But Deeter soon realized his mistake when he arrived at Avery's house and was met by Nick and three friends, all with baseball bats. Instead of having a few laughs at Nick in front of the partygoers who had come along, Deeter was in very real danger. Unbeknownst to Deeter, Nick was on designer drugs that night and had a history of violence along with a troubling psychiatric diagnosis.

Nick hit Deeter in the chest, and eventually Deeter was able to wrestle away the bat and hit Nick as well before calling the fight over. At that point, Nick go to the crowd that had slowly amassed it's a further violence while Deeter left the scene. According to the law, since Nick was the instigator, Deeter had the right to match force with him, and a bat is arguably a deadly weapon. However, Peter did not get even close to

the force that he was legally allowed to use. Yet Nick's family's access to power appears to have mattered much more than the law. With the corrupt prosecutor and calling the shots, this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today's episode. Well, it's an important episode. It's a different type of episode than maybe you're you know, expecting. We were usually discuss cases with its sanely long sentences and

the death sentences and terrible, terrible crimes. But what we have here is a really well, relatively short sentence when you look at it in a big picture via one of the more common ways of which waful convictions happen, and that's by a guilty plate for an alleged crime that doesn't even warrant a long prison sense. I mean, it wasn't even a crime in the first place. But this also makes this sort of wrongful conviction a lot closer to home than some of our listeners might initially realize.

And the man we're gonna be interviewing today is one of the four guys who lived through this nightmare. But he's become a really close friend and somebody I admire a lot of them, proud to work with. And without further ado, I'll now introduce my friend, dear Tejta Deater. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Hey Jason, happy to be here. Man. So I think it's interesting because you were like a relatively normal kid with a seemingly pretty normal, if you

could call anything normal family background. Is that fair to say? Yeah, my parents were both teachers. I grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut. I was like an average dorky kid, had good grades, class clown. What happened to me? I never saw happening to somebody, for anyone. Let's listen to this. If you're a parent, if you happen to be middle class and you think that the justice system that it only affects other people, you're gonna want to stay tuned because your

kids are not safe. Yeah, whether you're a teenager yourself, or you have teenagers, or or you just somebody who's concerned about fairness and justice. This story it's important because of how things spiraled from what started off as a dispute amongst young men. And have you ever had any issues with police or any other type of thing like this before. No, I was very small most of my life. I had never gotten in fights before. You were not

the instigator, neither were your friends. But rather than me talk about it in the abstract, let's let's go back to the incident that was at the core of this whining road of what turned out to be official misconduct, and ultimately I'm just saying like madness in the system that was supposed to be there to protect and serve you and everybody in Norwalk. It was my senior year of high school and we were at a party one of my friend's houses. It was a bunch of us

from Norwalk, just bunch of friends there. We were drinking. So there were crimes done that night. Let's be clear. I just wasn't convicted of any of them. I drank and drove that night, but I was convicted of something that I didn't do anyway. So what happened is I'm at the party, I get a call from the girl that I've been seeing things hadn't ended well, and I picked up the phone and this guy on the other line it just immediately starts threatening me. He has like

a New York accent, which one like I was. Let me be clear, I was less mature back then. So when he started threatening me, I laughed at it because he was from a town next over to me. The point is that it was a town where these kids are not known for being tough. But this kid starts threatening me and try in it on speaker phone. So million witnesses right away, which is crazy how many witnesses

there were involved. So if you think that like having a bunch of witnesses proving that you're innocent matters, and that will that that that necessarily will save you. Not necessarily. Anyways, he threatened me, said he was like gonna kill me, said he was gonna come over there, and I was just like, nah, it's okay. I'll come over to the girl's house where he was at. He said that he would have bats when I got there. I just again I was like, dude, you're from Westport, Like, you're not

going to do that. You're not a killer. So again, judged a book by the cover or I didn't even know him. Also, for the kids out there, don't be stupid. If you do something stupid, things can spiral very quickly and you could end up going to prison. It's not fun. So I went over to that house, me, two girls, hopped in the car, and to my friends. Long story short, the reason I went there is because I did not

believe him. I did not believe anything was gonna happen other than me making fun of him, and I was wrong. As I understand it. You arrive with your little crew and the kids who were there at the house, one of whom who seems to have been the main instigator we find out later had a history of acting out in violent and anti social ways. I definitely did not know the facts of of his mental health history is

violent tendencies. I didn't know that then, and I also did not know that until only a couple of years ago when I first found out the fact of what he had been diagnosed with when I looked it up online. Essentially what it said was that we don't like to call people psychopaths when they're kids, so we instead say that they have this type of anti social disorder. You don't get diagnosed with this unless you have violent tendencies. One thing that I didn't know at that time too.

I could tell that he was like maybe a little bit drunk, maybe high. But the problem was again is that, like it's what I didn't know about. The different is between the two towns too. Nor were blue collar, middle class, you know, basically thirty white black Hispanic was the breakdown in my high school. The town that he was from is all white, pretty much a couple of Asians maybe like one black person, and they're very wealthy. And the

difference is that I smoked weed and drank. That's all we had really, Nor look at that time, things have changed, that's all we had. Where he's from, they had been having one of these parties where they were all taking a bunch of different drugs. So I didn't realize that this kid was on the drugs that he was on at this time, Nor was that evidence ever introduced during my case. It was only afterwards, in the newly discovered

evidence that I got many years later. That would have been useful information for you to know at the time, but of course that was withheld, and we'll get to that. But so these kids come out of the house with baseball bats. Right, that is right, four guys come out with bats. One of them was like a younger kid, so not a big deal. But i'll tell you what. I was about a hundred and fifteen pounds. The tallest kid,

which I didn't know who was who. Unfortunately, the tallest kid was the one that had called me, and yeah, like he was a lot bigger than me, and he wouldn't have necessarily needed the bat to kill me, but he had the bat, and I was unarmed. At that point, two of my friends hopped out of the car and meanwhile, we're we're all Spanish, like my other friends are much

more Spanish looking. So I also thought this town that probably a little bit racist, and they're gonna be scared of us because we're I don't know, ethnic and stuff. But I was wrong. He wasn't scared at all. I mean, he shouldn't be scared once he has the bats. He went right up to me and uh basically started things off by putting the bat right up against my head.

And in that moment I realized that like my plan going over there and just having a couple of laughs, that that plan had gone out the window, and things things escalated, so quick fast forward is I get charged with the salt from the first degrade. So normally the defense in my case is simple was it asall? Or was it self defense? So self defense one is that you can't be the initial aggressor, So the first question is who started it. If you're the initial aggressor, you

can't do self defense. If the other person's initial aggressor, then there's only one more factor really to consider what kind of force did they use? Now there's two types of force. One is common, it's usual, it's not like intended to kill or maim or that's usually like fists, unless your boxer, maybe you might get the deadly forced. But the second thing is deadly force. So deadly force any time that you're you're intending to really hurt somebody,

so you could use a knife or a bat. A bat could be used to kill somebody, right, especially like a bat put up against somebody's head. So technically, from the moment that he put the bat up against my head while I was unarmed, I could have acted in self defense. And the level of self defense that I could use is the same as the level of force that I'm threatened with. The point is that you you tell me audience, knowing this about self fense. Was this

self defense or was I guilty of list? Well, tell us what happened, because this is the crux of the story right here, and it's I mean, it's a traumatic experience, even if nothing had come from it other than the altercation itself. Yeah, so he puts the bat up against my head. I'm scared. I'll be honest, I had never been that scared, and the kid was clearly a little bit off. I realized at that point he sort of stumbling around, and realistically he probably would have killed me

if you hadn't been so screwed up. But he goes from the bat up against my head to try and push it away. You know, I wanted to try and talk. He was not having that. Basically looked at me. I didn't know that he had been diagnosed with a mental disorder. I don't know he was scary looking what he looked at me like that before. So he takes the bat after that and just hits me in the stomach. I'm not stair out of me. I mean, as as much

as my case sucked, it could have been worse. I could have been dead, and I might have been dead if I hadn't had my friends there, if they hadn't decided to come along because they had heard about the bad thing. I guess they took it more seriously the night. But after he hits me, he turned around and was laughing to his friends or whatever, and one of my buddies ran over and punched him in the head, knocked him down. He starts trying to get up, so I

run over punched him, grabbed the bat from him. After he hits me, he like swings it at me, like loosely on the ground. But that one did not hurt, I'll tell you that much. But it did piss me off. I go down and wrestle with him for the bat again. I'm pretty strong now, I was not strong then. He was double my size, and if he hadn't been I on drugs, I don't think I would have won in that time. He was, and so I wrestled the bat

away from him. He rolled over. I hit him in the legs twice and then hit him in the back once. One thing I learned that night was that I had never hit somebody with the bat before, and I don't have it in me to hit somebody with a bat full four. So I didn't hurt him. Maybe if I had heard him more, things would have gone differently, but I didn't hurt him that badly. And what's interesting is one of the stories that evolved afterwards was that I hit him in the head with a bat and heard

him really bad. I never did the head of the bat at all. And it's ironic because what actually did happen is he did put his hands over his head and I remember I like like he held down, and it was like, I'm not gonna hit you in the head, you hidiot. And then I was right before I hit him in the legs. Long story short, after, I hit him with the bat a couple of times, which, again I know it sounds pretty bad hitting somebody with a bat, not assault, not under the circumstances when that bat was

wheeled against you. And trust me, he was fine. He got back up, he was spry at that point. Gets backed up, and now he went to go pick up the bat, and he started trying to get in a second fight with me, and I was just like, nah, put the bat down, though, like why do you get on in the bat again? Basically we're all sprawled out on on the lawn at that point. Long story, short after he got back up and threatened me. I just kept on turned down the fight. The girl comes out.

At that point things get panamoniing. But that was the end of my involvement. But what did end up happening is he did end up getting into something with a couple other kids. So three other kids show up a little while after after we had that first scuffle. They came from the party that I was at. I didn't call them. I didn't I didn't have anything to do with them showing up there, except that everybody at the party I've been at, like heard it on speaker phone.

But he gets into a fight with them. And in the second fight, again he basically starts at chess bumps one of the kids. He gets punched in the face again drops and this time he got kicked while I was on the ground. But I wasn't involved in any of that. And shortly after that, I mean, he did get up and we just left went back to Norwalk and that was that. I remember thinking that and I, okay, I was my first fight. You know, I've heard about

other people get any fight. That's my first fight. I thought I was gonna be a crazy night that you know, talked about for a week and whatever, but it ended up being at the start of like the most defining thing to happen in my life. This episode is underwritten by global law firm Greenberg Traaric. Through its pro Boto program, Greenberg Traaric leverages it's more than lawyers across forty two offices to serve the greater good of our communities and

provide equal access to justice for all. In the field of criminal justice, greenbrig Trowary attorneys have been soonrated and Freedom and in Philadelphia represent numerous individuals previously sentenced to life for crimes committed as juveniles and resentencing hearings, and received the American part Associations Exceptional Service Award for Death Penalty Representation for their work on five death penalty cases. GT is reimagining what big law can be because a

more just world only happens by design. Do you think that your kid all he has to do is going and tell the truth, Well, let me tell you this is facts. Anything you say can and will it will be used against you. It will not be used in your favor, So don't believe that it's a good idea to just bring your kids and your kids that honest kid, and you can just have the say what happened, and that's going to be helpful for WoT going into this, I thought that the system worked a certain way. Our

parents did too. We thought assault for self defense, so we thought that mattered. But guess what, all that stuff went out the window, regular facts evidence that was not

part of the case. Basically, they decided from beginning whore they were going to go after and what the facts were gonna be that that I was guilty of assault, and the first degree mainly happened a little bit later, and they had a trouble with it because to have a first degree charge you need to actually show evidence of injury, and they were not willing to turn over the medical work because I think the way that the case actually first got to the police was Nick may

have been hurt, but he also was clearly on drugs that night, pretty heavy drugs. When he got there. They needed to give him his anti psychotics, basically called him down. So you've got a group of rich kids high on drugs and something's wrong with their friend Nick, who's also on various drugs and got into a fight. They called

Westport p D at one a m And requested an ambulance. Now, Nick was allegedly in a semi conscious state, and so one of the main goals of this group of drugs out rich kids at this point had to be to hide the fact that they were in fact all high on drugs, which certainly affected their interactions with the police. Now, we don't know exactly what happened after you left the scene that idea, but what we do know is that Schwartz was well enough to try to continue to fight you,

followed by the crowd that had gathered. But as you just mentioned, the first degree assault charge against you was, I mean, it's flimsy as it could be, not even counting that self defense aspect of this. But because they never turned over the medical records and still have it right, so it really calls it to question the validity of any claims of injury. I mean, you know, I've read about these alleged injuries in the news clippings because the

prosecutors said it. But let me I'm sorry to separate what's true. He was alleged to have been in the I c U. For a week, followed by physical and cognitive rehabilitation. What we do know is that you did not could not have caused that level of injury to Schwartz, even though in self defense in theory, you were legally allowed to have done so with no legal issues. So this is a double whammy. This is like what But now back to the people who had something behinde we're

talking again about the drug doubt rich kids. What happens between them and the police. The way that the detective work happened is its first talked to him and his friends. Friends lied really badly. They said that we were a bunch of Mexicans they met a library, told us like ludicrous story. So detective had them come back in and actually she had to make them change their story to another lie not as consistent as their first one, and the next one was all like a little bit scattered.

The point is that she tried to fit the pieces in together after my interview. In fact, the detective did some of the most like leading interviews that I've ever seen. You know, I went to law school. I've seen a bunch of cases and it's up there, and some of the interviews, including my own, were quote lost after they were recorded, because unfortunately my my interview wasn't that great for the prosecution. It sounded pretty credible. I didn't buckle

under any of the questioning, uh stole the truth. And after the investigation we went to go hire my attorney and this was the best piece of advice he gave us from the beginning was this, We go in there, we getta ready to tell him my story, the facts, evidence, but he astutely surmised that none that mattered. The only thing that mattered was the prosecutor. Who do you know? That was the first thing that my parents and I

were asked by my attorney, who do you know? Because that's how this guy operates, By this guy who was talking about the prosecutor and my kids, that's exactly the way this shouldn't work. And that's why anyone who cares about fairness and equity should care about fixing our system, because this is unfortunately not unique. As you said theater, this case is, you know, unique in certain ways, but it's so typical and so many others, including that particular aspect.

So ultimately, like a lot of other people, you were faced with the Sophie's choice, right you didn't know anybody. The fact is your family didn't have any particular contacts high up in the hierarchy in the town, and so you were now really especially because of the fact that they were willing to operate outside of the law right and break and bend the rules, you know, in service of I don't know who what I guess the family

that was on the other side of this equation. So theater that I got to turn the question around, So who did they know? The difference was my parents were teachers, They didn't know anyone. The closest we got was I had shadowed for the mayor of Norwald once not good enough. On the other hand, the kid who I was accused of assaulting his parents were both attorneys. They won that battle, and the rest of the case just led from there.

The prosecutor in my case was a who do you know type of prosecutor, which there's a number of them out there, and he was very ambitious. So the moment that he figured out who knew somebody more important, who knew somebody that could actually advance his career or get him ahead, or help him in some way, that's when when the case to this side. It wasn't personal. He didn't he didn't intentionally do something to hurt me. He doesn't care about that. He didn't want to get people

wrongfully convicted. He will wrongfully convict you if it helps him. He will also do justice if it helps him. That's how this guy operated. Three of my friends, we're just stepping stones on this man's journey to the top. Uh. And he actually made it there a couple of weeks ago. Finally came crashing down because the typical things that he did, the thing that I learned about him twelve years ago,

he finally got caught doing it. But this time he got caught doing it by the FBI, and the governor got pretty upset and they wanted him out, so he actually resigned in disgrace. He had made it all the way up to the Chief State's Attorney's office, along the backs of who knows how many other people. He did this too. But I'll just tell you this that we were on the wrong end of that who do you know question back there, and that's where this thing goes

so hardly wrong. Although it is nice to see that it's come full circle and that you know, at least justice delayed seems like it won't be justice denied here, although you're still dealing with this. So let's get to this sophie's choice that I'm talking about, right, So here you are, they're not disclosing the exculpatory evidence to you.

There's a lot of the stuff going on behind the scenes that you had no way of counteracting or fighting back against, first of all, because you didn't know about it a lot of it, and the rest of it was you didn't know anybody you know who could pull the strings for you, so you were just the thing to be sort of processed for the advantage of other people who didn't have good intentions, and as a result,

you end up with this sophie's choice. So tell us about that, because they you know, you're looking at a ten year sentence on this first degree assault charge, and then they come and they offer you a plea deal, right, And I can't imagine having to decide, am I going to take a plea for something I didn't do, which is, I would say, in your case, in too many cases, the logical and rational choice, or am I going to fight this and risk a ten year sentence, which would

be at that point, you know a large percentage of the time you've even been on the planet. Yeah, so I think that's another one of the key facts in my sort of I haven't seen many stories about Ralphais work. It was a plea deal, but I'll tell you this much. It's probably the number one way why. Because of cases are determined by a plea deal. People think that prosecutors if they come to you with like, oh, the prosecutors conviction, right, he's really good. No, he isn't. All he is is

a good like car salesman who has everything in his hand. Essentially. I knew that I was innocent, but I also knew math, and so did the prosecutor, and he did good math. I was sure that if I went to trial, I would win out. I was a pent sure I wouldn't get it an assault one charge. I wasn't so sure about the assault three charge. But that was only because they had been switching up the facts so much. I mean, in retrospect, it's so clear, it's so clear, cases so easy.

But you know, my parents and I, we were new to the system. We had never seen it before. So long story short, they dragged this case out. All this stuff keeps going on I had gotten into college. In the meantime, it was it was is terrifying, and I remember on Eventually, after a number of continuances, I went in one day. I didn't know I was going to go to prison that day, but I go in and finally the prosecutor comes back with the ultimate deal. It's

a take it or leave it. They haggled. Originally it was going to be a year, and then he was like, make the quote victims, you need to make them happy. If you make them happy, maybe i'll give you a better deal. And my parents against mine. And this is an interesting part of the case too, is you think, because I know what people think, that people get once flee convicted only if they're broke. We weren't broke. My parents were middle class and if you have money, you

won't get wrong full convicted. Yeah, we had money. They gave it all to these people for a deal, for a deal that one wasn't honored. So I was supposed to get a better deal because my parents gave money, but we didn't get a better deal. Didn't affect the case at all, um. But long story short, money was part of the deal and accepted nine months because I knew that the math said, that's the deal to take. It was the hardest decisions that I've ever made, but

it was the right decision based on the facts. Back then, all of my code defendants, we all took the same deal based on the facts we had. Now the facts we had, we're not the full facts. That was the issue. But at that time, yeah, I took nine months, over over ten years. And trust me, I know everyone thinks they wouldn't do it. Yes you would, Yes you would, and you would hate it, and you would cry as your kid goes in and he will be hurt. He might not make it out. I'm well aware that I

was lucky, and I've been lucky since then. All four of you were convicted, All four of you were miners. All of you served your full sentence as a prison and parole. Caesar Cordero, Um, your friend who I've gotten to know, was deported to El Salvador as a result of the conviction, which was a country he had no knowledge of. He was a baby when he was brought here from there, so even more dire consequences for him. So prison was it, As it turns out, the transformative

experience for you in some ways that are positive. Not because of prison, not because you belong there, because you didn't, but it informs your life's work. So tell us about prison and how it affected you and made you want to become this sort of justice warrior that you've become. Yeah, the prison was a turning point, especially after sentencing. You know, I thought I was at the lowest point ever. I went into sentencing. I thought I was going to talk

about everything that had happened that was so wrong. But instead I didn't, which was the hardest thing I had ever done. But I knew that I'd get hit with the harder sentence. Remember I didn't cry much while I was side, but I think twice because the first letter from my parents. But I cried after sensence, singing alone in a cell, and I thought my life was over. Judge said that my life was over. He was wrong. My life now that I'm living, uh, which the better

life than I ever had. It started while I was inside. For me, it was one of the wake up call was that this is how the system works, this is what it is. What I saw was a bunch of people that didn't deserve to be in there, a prison system in a course, system that was nothing like what the general public or people like the average person, people like you and me, thought it was. And I knew that even the people that were running it, the lawyers, the judges. One of the big epiphanies I had was like,

do they even know what it's like in here? And I knew that they didn't. So I knew that one of the big problems was that the people that are running the system, they're changing laws that are actually executing them that even they they don't really know. So how God's name would have system that doesn't include people that have been through it. If they're not included in the process of making the system better, how will it ever

be solved. So prison was not a very long sentence for me, but it was a massive period of change. I committed to doing something about it. You get out of prison in October two thousand and nine, and you said in your law admissions letter quote, I doubt I will ever experience the same level of euphoria as I did on that day. And of course you went to law school and excelled. But I want to talk about the evidence of your rawful conviction that emerged too late

to help you but which we now know. What were the key pieces of evidence that you were able to uncover that had you known about would have been well, what never wouldn't You never would have made the decision to take a pleaan and you would have gone to try and you would have won. I think that's almost a given, So talk about that. So I took a plea deal with because I had less than half the evidence. So my case originally was in two thousand and eight

O nine conviction. The new evidence didn't come about until so after law school, I had to take the bar and I went back to Connecticut to take it, and you know, you take the exam and then there's this thing called the character and fitness process. So in the process of that, they asked me to go get all the evidence in my case. So the police report is one of the key pieces of evidence in any case.

It's usually just very good for the prosecutor because it's written by the police detective, especially if the detective happens to a bad investigation. But in my case, that police report, I was missing more than half of it. Back in two thousand and eight, two thousand nine, when I was trying to make my decision I had a twenty one

page document. Many years later, many years after the case, I go back to get the police report from the Westport Police Department, and this time what I got was the document that was forty four pag this document that we had never seen before. In those twenty three pages, there was a lot of evidence. I know why we never got it before because it was all bad for the state's case. We got evidence of the not the full medical reports, still don't have them, doing a Freedom

of Information Act right now to get it. But we got evidence that showed that one the kid was on a number of drugs, drugs that actually, especially for somebody with his mental disorder, can lead to quote violence. Additionally, a diagnosis of the conduct disorder, which is only given to young people very rarely, and it's only in the

case when they exhibited violent tendencies. That coupled with some of the witness statements that either contradict completely the state's case or cast doubt on the credibility of their key witnesses. All of that evidence we never had before. One other key piece of evidence is actually interesting, so that at my sentence thing, there was a big show put on. They made a big deal, and as they should in

an assault one case. An assault one case, you need to have an injury, so did in two thousand and eight, two thousand nine. But we were were led to believe the prosecutor said during my sentence saying, was that this kid, uh, you know, he had been really hurt. He had a fractured skull, he was in the hospital, he had permanent injuries, he had cognitive and and speech problems, trouble walking. The problem was that wasn't true, and a pretty strong evidence

that that he was actually totally okay. In fact, I didn't see this until many years later, but social media did exist in two thousand nine, and he was on it, and he has a post that I found that was from that exact time when he's allegedly in a hospital bed fighting for his life and and and never recovering. The photo was of him and his family in Africa on a mountain top and the line was summer of

over nine, best time of my life. So it's unclear to me yet whether or not he was lying to the prosecutor fully, but it's pretty clear that the prosecutor was lying, or that what he said was lying. The kid was fine. And we took the plea deal based on the evidence BACTA, which included an alleged terrible injury and as time of your life is not recovering from

a terrible injury Africa sounds nice. After uncovering that, I remember, I brought it to my co defendants right away and just was like, hey, guys, have you had you ever seen this? None of us had, and all of us to tea. Yeah, of course I never would have taken the plea deal had I seen this? Why would I? No? During the world's going to convict us with this. So in addition, you know, after that, I started doing like a little investigation myself and started interviewing witnesses again, and

some people lied back that wasn't personal. People were just looking out for themselves or you know, in the case of the kid who assaulted made his friends, they literally said, why they lie, We're afraid of him getting in trouble. That's what they told the police detective after she made them redo their statement. But since then they've recanted that. In addition to the police report, which we always should have had, is basically the basis of wrong for conviction.

And on top of all that, The most recent thing is what happened with the prosecutor now his corruption charge, which really his credibility is shot, and the argument in terms of what he did to us and what he did intentionally, it's not that hard to make now that he's shown to be somebody who's still doing this stuff. And of course the guy you're referring to is Richard Colangelo, who was the prosecutor in your case and who later

served as Chief State's Attorney until March. So get this, while the FBI was investigating the state's second highest budget official, disubpoenaed all of his communication, and on the back of that, an independent investigation began into his relationship with Colangelo, who had hired this budget officials daughter. Yeah, okay, while lobbying

to secure raises for himself and others. Again, it's just a pattern of who can benefit me, right, But in this case he was actually caught and forced to resign. So at the end of the day, your case is a laundry list of misconduct and misdeeds by people and official capacities who knew better and just didn't care. There are so many stories like this, and there's a whole hashtag hashtag guilty plea problem for people to look up hashtag guilty plea problem, and many of them have much

longer sentences, even for much more serious crimes. But people take the plea because, you know, when they're represented by an attorney maybe they haven't even met, who might not even know their name, who's juggling a hundred or two hundred cases, having trouble paying their bills, maybe having their

own personal problems. We see a time and again and you're sitting there and you know the government has endless resources, you know, to take you to trial and to basically make you look like you did the crime that you know you didn't do. The rational choice in too many of these cases is to take the plea, and there goes the guilty plea problem of which you are assembled. Anyway,

you've transcended this horrible experience. You've come out come out swinging is a bad way to say it, based on the initial incident, But the fact is you are on the way to changing things, and I think a way that's so profound that you know it's going to put you in a rarefied air among the people that I really look up to in the world of criminal justice reform. You're you're well on your way. So let's talk about

the work you're doing now. I mean, you're the founder of the National Justice Impact Bar Association, which is of course a bar association for formerly incarcerated lawyers, an idea whose time has certainly come, you know, surprising, I think to a lot of people, a surprising number formerly carcerated people who have you know, gone on to become lawyers and excel of course Marty tank Lip and so many others.

You know, it's amazing, And there's a whole another category of people who just did brilliant legal work on their own, behalf on, behalf of others behind parts like I can't I can't not mention Sean Hopwood, right, who's one u S Supreme Court cases and taught himself the law in prison, and just you know, there's so much potential for these people to make a difference with their lived experiences, as you have so quickly tell us about the National Justice

Impact Bar Association, and I want to talk about the other project that we're working on together, So just the back Bars, the first legal bar association for impacted people. Essentially, it's it's just following my path trying to like expand the deader plan to the masses. You know, inside, I decided that I needed to go to law school because

I saw that the laws where the power was. During my journey, I realized that there were a lot of barriers, a lot of barriers that were specifically there because of my experience, which was crazy to be because you know, I played the game to go to law school. I got four point up. I got a one seventy five nive PERCENTIL on d L side. And when I applied to law school, I should have gotten in anotherywhere and now I would have luckily partially because if we've expanded

things for people. But back then I was denied from a number of schools. Ended up going to Bannerboats. Very happy about that. It was it was great. But that barrier at the law school level, and the barrier that also exists afterwards, which the character and fitness process for licensing that barrier is inspired initially for me to set up this bar association because I've talked to other people Marty tank Cliffe, Taras Simmons, Sean Hopwood, Dwayne Betts, all

these lawyers. When I was going to law school, I didn't know that it was possible. I was told it was impossible, and I didn't know that there were other people like but there are. That was one of the key things that Like, I get out of law school and i find out about all these other lawyers and I'm like, holy, and they they're they're superheroes. I mean, they're they're there, We're there, we're changing the system. I'm

I'm blessed to be around in this time period. And and that's what the bar works for, is to advance us to get more people like Sean Hopplood. There are more Sean Hopploods out there. I just talked to another guy who's formerly car Swrated, been working with him for like two years now. He just got into Yale Law School, that's the best law school in the country, formerly in car Swart. Awesome, he's gonna he's gonna be a beast.

It's awesome. It's an exonerie. I'll tell you this. I won't name him yet, but I know who the first justice in fact of the Supreme Court justice is gonna be. You can circle back with me in a couple of years, but you'll say, so, these people are the people that are going to change the system, and of course to

Justice Impact Alliance. As you know, the very first time you told me about this, it just hit me like a ton of bricks and it's something that I think has the potential to help countless future deter tehatas and others who are in situations that they have seemingly no way out of. So what is the Justice Impact Alliance and what do you view as its potential and the impact it's going to make. So that's the second thing.

It's all about access, empowerment and inclusion, and so the bar as it works to get impacted people involved in and through the field of law. The Justice Back Network is a new digital platform that came about again because

of my experience. In my case, part of the reason I was wrongly convicted was my parents and I we weren't wlayers, We did not know, we weren't stupid, but we didn't know where to go to get the help or to get the self help resources that we could have used, or to connect with people that could have helped us in the situation. And that's a problem that's

all too common. There are a number of resources out there, There are a lot of service providers out there, but up until this point, it's completely unnavigable, and that's what the Respect Network works to fix. Essentially, it's like any other digital platform that has revolutionized other industries. Uber has revolutionized how you get arived. Just back Network is going to revolutionize how people get justice. And it's not gonna do it any in any complicated way. It's literally very simple.

If we connect people with service providers that's fit their specific need, we connect people with resources that fit their specific need. We have very cool program that brings in students and other allies and just connects the space to make this happen. But the key thing is, and it's the key thing with everything that I've done so far, is that we do it through the people. Just in

back to people are included from the beginning. We're working with developers that have done other justice tech projects, but we're the first digital platform where we from the beginning, it's been over a year of development. From the beginning, we were working with Impact of People, doing user testing with Impact of People, and where we have our pilot right now in New York and Connecticut, but we're gonna be expanding nationally over time and that's really exciting. It's awesome.

I mean, for me, it's just such an amazing idea because of the fact that it's it's simplifying what is a byzantine and intimidating process for a lot of people. This information is not readily available for people who need it in their time of great crisis and to their family members. So please go to the link in our bio right now click on the Justice Impact Alliance dot org to find out more about this incredible work and and maybe to help somebody that that you know that

needs to help. And Deeter, you know, amazing work, amazing story. Thank you again for being here on wrongful Conviction and sharing it. I've been looking forward to this for a while. Thank you. Thank you for everything you do. Man, one of the one of the real ones out there. I'll just throw in that so um in my case, there's one other thing you could do. My co defendant, Caesar Cordero, he added the worst out of all of us. He was legally here, but because of the wrong fo conviction,

he lost his status. He ended up getting deported, He got sent back to El Salvador. He left there as a baby, got sent back there only because of the wrong food conviction. Ultimately, my goal is to working to get him be able to come back over here. That's gonna be a long fight. But right below the justin back lines one is going to be the link to his go fund me because he needs support. We will link to go fund me for Caesar as well in the buyout um and hopefully people will join me and

us in helping him. And now, of course we turned to the closing of our show, which is aptly titled Closing Arguments. This is the part where I kicked back in my chair with my headphones on, turned my microphone off and just leave yours on for any last words you want to share with our audience to the general public, to take anything from my story, to take this that would happened to me, It definitely can happen to you.

It can happen to you if you have a your honor roll kid, your kid that you love a lot that you can't have ever imagine going to prison. You think that like you have the money, or that you have like some type of security you don't. You don't. Necessarily things can spile very quickly and depending on the character is involved, justice might not be done. They could go to prison. Another message I have is is this. It is to all the impact of people both in

and out of prison. Anybody that's listening to this is uh one. If you want to be alerted, do it, talk to me, reach out, check out the link. That's what we're working to do. We're trying to work to get you in there. I didn't know that I could do it, but I did. I'm telling you right now you definitely can. So don't think about it, do it and hang in there. The one thing I found is that eventually, eventually you win eventually as long as you

stay in to stay in the fight. And to everybody else, if you want to make a better system, I've seen it because I work with hundreds of students and hundreds of students. The future is bright. The future is super bright. And that's because there's a lot of people coming up that want to do the right thing. And here's the point. You can you can't get involved, work with us, work with impacted people. Right now, we're in the middle of movement,

a movement for justice. The point is that there's impacted people and their students are the two main groups that have been involved. But quite frankly, Also, if you're a lawyer or somebody else that's working in the system, wake back up, Wake back up to the fact that, like you don't have to give up on things and be

totally burnt out. Things are changing right now, and we look forward to anybody that wants to be part of this change and make it happen, and quite frankly, to anybody that doesn't want this change too bad, whether you like it or not. Luckily, I've gone to the point where some of the things that I've built, I don't build things that are like deeeder or dependent. The more association is not deeper dependent, justified bliance is in deeder dependent.

These are These are machines that are gonna be working for and through my people, regardless of performing here, and they're gonna work to fix the system. They are systems that attached to the system to make the system better. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Claver, and Kevin Wardis,

with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph be Sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow me on both

tick talk and Instagram at its. Jason flam Rawle forul Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one h