In early two thousand and eight, Dieter Tejato was a high school senior dating a girl named Avery Ascebado until a heated argument led to their breakup. At a party on March eighth, two thousand eight, Teta received a call from Avery's number, but a guy named Nick Schwartz was on the other end, slurring and making threats in a
fake New York accent. Dismissing the tough guy persona and the threats, Theeter put him on speaker to share what he'd believed to be trivial and amusing with the other partygoers. But Theeter 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'd come along,
Theeter 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 Peter in the chest, and eventually Dieter 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 Dieter left the scene. According to the law, since Nick was the instigator, Deeer had the right to match force with him, and a bat is arguably a deadly weapon. However, theeter 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 a corrupt prosecutor 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 discussed cases with insanely long 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 waffle convictions happened, 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 going to 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 Tejada Theater. 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 door key kid, had good grades, class clown. What happened to me? I never saw happening to somebody like me. For anyone who's listening 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're 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 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. At Norwalk, it.
Was my senior year of high school and we were at a party one of my friend's houses. There was a bunch of us from Norwalk, just a 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 pick 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 talent where these kids are not known for being tough.
But this kid starts threatening me, and it on speakerphone. So a 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'll 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, no, 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 two of my friends. Long story short, the reason I went there is because I did not believe him. I did not believe anything was going to 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 and violent and antisocial ways.
I definitely did not know the facts of his mental health history, his 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's psychopaths when they're kids, so we instead say that they have this type of antisocial 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 normal. We were in blue collar, middle class now basically thirty three percent white black. Hispanic was the breakdown of 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 in Norwalk at that time. Things have changed, but 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. Then 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 one 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 all Spanish, Like my other friends are much more Spanish looking. So I also thought this town, they're 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 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 escalated, so quick fast forward is I get charged with assault in the first degree. So normally the defense in my case is simple, was it assault 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 as usual, it's not like intended to kill or mame or hurt. 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 anytime that 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 that I'm threatened with. The point is that you tell me audience, knowing this about self defense? Was this self defense or was I guilty of ass all?
Well, tell us what happened, because this is the crux of the story right here. And I mean it's a traumatic experience even if nothing had come from it other than the altercation itself.
No, 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's sort of stumbling around and realistically he probably would have killed me if he hadn't been so screwed up. But he goes from the bat up against my head. I try and push it away, you know, I wanted to try and talk. He was
not having that. Basically looked at me. H. I didn't know that he had been diagnosed with a mental disorder. He was scary looking. Nobody had looked at me like that before. So he takes the bat after that and just hits me in the stomach. I'm not stare out of me. I mean, 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 had decided to come along because they had heard about the bad thing, I guess they took it more seriously than I. 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 punch him, grab the bat from him. After he hits me, he like swings it at me, like loosely on the ground. That one did not hurt, I'll tell you that much,
but it did piss me off. I'd go down wrestle with him for the bat again. I'm pretty strong now, I was not strong then. He was about double my size, and if he hadn't been high 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 a bat before, and I don't have it in
me to hit somebody with a bat full force. So I didn't hurt him. Maybe if I'd hurt him or 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 hurt him early bad. I never did him in the head with 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 it and was like, I'm not gonna hit you in the head, you idiot. And then I was 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 of when that bat was wielded 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, now put the bat down, though,
like why are you get on the bat again? Basically we're all sprawled out on the lawn at that point. Long story short after he got back up and threatened me. I just kept on turned down to fight. The girl comes out. At that point things get pandemonic. 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 speakerphone. But he gets into a fight with them, and in the second fight again he basically starts it chest 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 night, Okay, that was my first fight. You know, I'd heard about other people getting in fights. That's my first fight. I thought I was gonna be a crazy night that you know, talk about for a week and whatever, but it ended up being at the start of the most defining thing that happen in my life.
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If you think that your kid, all all you us to do is go in 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 kid in, your kids, that honest kid, and you can just say what happened, and that's going to be helpful or won't. 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, right, like facts evidence that was not part of the case. Basically, they decided from beginning who they were going to go after
and what the facts were going to be. That I was guilty of assault, and the first degree mainly happened a little bit later, and they had 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 medic 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 antipsychotics, basically calm 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 PD at one seven am and requested an ambulance. Now, Nick was allegedly in a semi conscious state, and so one of the main goals of this group of drugged 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 night THEA 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, as flimsy as it could be,
not even counting the 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 slippings because the prosecutor said it. But sorry to separate what's true. He was alleged to have been in the ICU 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 really what? But now back to the people who had something to hide, we're talking again about the drugged out rich kids. What happens between them and the police.
The way that the detective work happened is 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 this like ludicrous story. So the 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 their 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 interview wasn't that great for the prosecution. It sounded pretty credible. I didn't buckle under any questioning, just tole 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 went there, were getting ready to tell him my story, the facts, evidence, but he astutely surmised that none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was the prosecutor.
Who do you know?
That was the first thing that my parents now raised by my attorney, who do you know? Because that's how this guy operates, by this guy who was talking about the prosecutor of 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, this case is, you know, unique in certain ways, but it's so typical in 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 Teter, 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 Norwalk 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 of this side, it wasn't personal. He didn't he didn't intentionally do something to hurt me. He didn'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 were just stepping stones on this man's journey to the top, 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 us there's 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 a 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 case, sort of. I haven't seen many stories about Rolberic Conviction's work. It was a plea deal, but I'll tell you this much. It's probably the number one way why because ninety five percent of cases are determined by a plea deal. People think that prosecutors if they come to you with like, oh, the prosecutor is a ninety five percent conviction rate, 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 ninety five percent sure that ever went to trial, I would win out. I was one hundred percent sure I wouldn't get 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,
the case is 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, I was terrifying, and I remember eventually, after a number of continuancies, 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. This is an interesting part of the case too, is you think, because I know what people think, that people get want fully 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 fully 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. But long story short, money was part of the deal, and I accepted nine months because I knew that. The math said, that's the deal to take the hardest decisions that I ever made. But it was
the right decision based on the facts. Back then, all of my co defenders, we all took the same deal based on the facts we had. Now the facts we had were not the full facts. That was the issue. But at that time, Yeah, it took nine months, 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.
All four of you were convicted. All four of you were minors. All of you served your full sentences, a prison and parole. Caesar Cordero, 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. It was a baby when he was brought here from there, so even more dire consequences for him. So prison, as it turns out, the transformative experience for you in some ways that are positive, not because of prison,
and not because you belonged 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, so prison was a turning point, especially after sentencing. You know, I thought I was at the lowest point ever. I went into sentencing and 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've get hit with a harder sentence. I remember I didn't cry much while I was in side, but I think twice my
first letter from my parents. But I cried after sentencing alone in a cell and thought my life was over. Judge said that my life was over.
He was wrong.
My life now that I'm living, which is the better life than I ever had, It started while I was inside. For me, it was one the wake up Paul 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 court system that was nothing like what the general public were 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 did it, So I knew that one of the big problems was that the people that are running the system, they are changing laws that are actually
executing them that even they they don't really know. So how in God's name with a 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 euphore you 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 wrowful 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, never would have You never would have made the decision to take a plea, 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 eighth nine conviction. The new evidence didn't come about until twenty twenty. 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 do 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 and 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 paygs 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've 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 there was a big shell 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 in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, what we were led to believe the prosecutor said during my centusing was that this kid, 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 speech problems, trouble walking. The problem was that wasn't true, and a pretty strong
evidence 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 and nine and he was on it, and he has a post that I found that was up from that exact time when he's allegedly in a hospital bed fighting for his life and never recovering. The photo is of him and his family in Africa on a mountaintop and the line was summer of 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 lie. The kid was fine, and we took the plea deal based on the evidence back then, 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 the tea. Yeah, of course I never would have taken the plea deal had I seen this. Why would I. No dury in 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 then. Wasn't personal. People were just looking at for themselves or you know, in the case of the kid who assaulted me, his friends they literally said why they lined, we were 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 the 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 thirty first, twenty twenty two. So get this, While the FBI was investigating the state's second highest budget official, they subpoenaed all of his communication, and on the back of that, an independent investigation began into his relationship with Colangelo, who had hired
this budget official's daughter. Yeah, okay, while lobbying to secure raises for himself and others. Again, it's just a pattern of who can benefit me, 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. 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 one hundred or two hundred cases, having trouble
paying their bills, maybe having their own personal problems. We see 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 a symbol anyway you've transcended this
horrible experience. You 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 in I think a way that it'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 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. I've formerly incarcerated 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 other category of people who just did brilliant legal work on their own, behalf on behalf of others behind bars, like I can'tnot mention Sean Hopwood, right, who's won US 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.
Yeah, so just the Backbar. It's the first legal bar association for impacted people. Essentially, 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 me, because you know, I played the game to
go to law school. I got four point zero. I got a one to seventy five ninety nine point five percent on the l SAT. And when I applied to law school, I should have gotten in everywhere. And now I would have, luckily partially because we've expanded things for people. But back then I was denied from a number of schools. I ended up going to Vanderbilt. It's very happy about that. It was great, But that barrier at the law school level, and the barrier that also exists afterwards, was 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 Tancliffe, Tara 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 that, 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 they're We're there, We're changing the system. I'm blessed to be around in this time period. And that's what the bar works for, is to advance us to get more people like Shawn Hopplin.
There are more Shawn Hoplins out there. I just talked to another guy who's formerly incarcerated, 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 incarcerated. Awesome, he's gonna he's gonna be a beast.
That's awesome.
It's an Axgonnery. I'll tell you this. I won't name them 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 see. 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 Deeter Tejadas 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 Justiceback Network is a new digital platform that came
about again because of my experience. In my case, part of the reason I was want fully convicted was my parents and I we weren't layers, 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 DISPEC network works to fix. Essentially, it's like any other digital platform that has revolutionized other industries. Uber has revolutionized how you get arrived. Just the back network is going to revolutionize how people get justice. And it's not going to do it any in any complicated way.
It's literally very simple. If we connect people with service providers that 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 fact, people are included from the beginning or 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 going to 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 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 maybe to help somebody that you know that needs the help. And Peter,
you know, amazing work, amazing story. Thank you again for being here on Ronful Conviction and sharing it. I've been looking forward to this for a while.
Thank you Jackson, Thank you for everything you do. Man on one of the real ones out there. I'll just throw in that. Also, 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 folk conviction, he had 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 for conviction. Ultimately, my goal is to work and to get him to be able to come back over here. That's going to be a long fight. But right below the justin back Lions one is going to be the link to his gofund me because he needs support.
We will link to go fundme for Caesar as well in the buyout 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, turn 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 what happened to me, it definitely can happen to you. It can happen to you if you have a you're on a roll kid, your kid that you love a lot that you can't 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 characters involved, justice might not be done. They
could go to prison. Another message I have is this. It's to all the impact of people both in and out of prison. Anybody that's listening to this one, if you want to be a layer, 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 just 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 a 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 to 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 gotten to the point where some of the things that I've built and I don't build things that are
like Deet dependent. The more association is not Deeter dependent, just in fact alliances and deader dependent. These are machines that are going to be working for and through my people regardless of the follow year, and they're going to work to fix the system. They are systems that attach 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 Cliburn, 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 TikTok Talk and Instagram at it's Jason flam raefl Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one