In February of nineteen ninety five, on the East side of Cleveland, sixteen year old William Marshall survived in arm robbery. Rumors swirled about a usual suspect named Reggie Lewis. On March twenty eighth, nineteen ninety five, the victim's cousins, Willie and Ashante Smith, ran into Reggie, who denied involvement, offering to go with them to their cousins and clear his name.
Over a week.
Later, Reggie Lewis's body was found in a wooded area, and eventually William Marshall blamed Willie and Ashante.
But this is wrongful conviction.
Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison, and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us at eight three three two o seven four and tell us how these stories make you feel and what you've done to help the cause, even if it's something as simple as telling a friend or sharing on social media, and you might just hear yourself in a future episode. Call us A three three two seven four six sixty six.
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we have a Cleveland family that was ripped apart, literally ripped apart by the wrongful conviction of Ashante and Willie Smith. But before we introduce them, I want to welcome back their appella, attorney Kim Carral, thank you for having me, and of course the two men who continue to endure the effects of their own cousins lie, both of whom are calling in from correctional facilities in Ohio. First, the younger of the two,
Ashante Smith, thank you for having me. And his older brother Willie, thank you guys both.
For joining us.
Absolutely no problem.
And this goes back to mid nineties nineteen ninety five, when so called tough on crime politicians had been elected around the country to prosecute the war on drugs, which was really just a war on people, the American people, when what we had was a humanitarian crisis which became known as the crack epidemic.
Not only were we talking about tough on crime politicians in the nineties, but we were talking about like these super criminals, particularly juveniles, and so that kind of sets a tone for this case. Because Willy and a Shanty were fifteen and nineteen. And when I say that, as Shanty was like, there're a fifteen year old who looked like adults and fifteen year old who look like ten year olds. That's how I would describe as shanty at that time. I mean he was fifteen, but he was very young.
I was fifteen years old when I left, so I didn't experience much like My mother was a single parent, grady four children. My parents divorced when I was I was just about four or five years old.
My father, he was kind of a fusive dude. We would be eating at the table and he might come in and just flip the whole God damn playball, you know what I'm saying. Food everywhere. And my mother eventually divorced. We were living on Kingsmen when I stayed across from my grandmother. That's before the divorce, and we were moved down to the projects project housing called Longwood Estates, and they basically got settled.
On East time of the Firs Street. In you, it's fourth of us.
I was a third child.
My second brother is right.
She and my sister Satan and where I'm the oldest of three other siblings. My mother comes from a big family, so she had her sisters Andretta kid Agatha and one of her sisters who was murdered collect Marshall, being you had her brother who had committed suicide back before I was born.
My understanding is Lucretia Ashantine, Willie's mom. She basically was the one to find him and that further solidified her position as I the black sheep in the family. So Lucretia and her sisters all have children, but really her children are other than some of the other cousins. And when one of Lucretia's sisters dies, Grandma takes that child in. That's William Marshall.
There was always a different type of treatment towards us being sneels versus how my other cousins was treated by my grandmother.
But William Marshall really is the golden boy in this group of cousins to Grandma.
And our cousins came around, you know, we spent time with them, and we're all relatively in the same age bracket. My one cousin, William, one year older than me, and then my older cousin Laney, is a few years older than my.
Brother, Sean Laney, and his mother and Dretta William Marshall and his grandma Sarah Marshall, and then Kit Laster who married Don laster. They all lived close to each other, while the Smiths lived about five miles away near the victim in this case, Reggie Lewis.
I didn't know.
I've seen you around the neighborhood. He was definitely a reputation because at around his time, guys in the neighborhoods with robbing people, Stars jackets, Chicago bulls, jackets, raiders, jackets, or they were robbing and shooting killing people for him. So, mister Lewis, he was grappling with a drug addiction, which I believe that led him out into the streets to rob people to feed his addiction.
Have you ever seen a wire?
Yeah?
Not trying to, you know, disparage him, but I would describe Reggie as being like what Omar was. He was a terror. He was on drugs and he was calls in habit, making a lot of enemies and doing a lot.
Then in February nineteen ninety five, William Marshall was in the Smith's neighborhood when a mass gunman attacked.
I believe it was over like a Mooney Tunes jacket.
He got shot in his back and I think he came out his neck. He went through surgery. It was serious. He almost lost his life.
And so a kid gets rob a gunpoint and no one's trying to figure out who did it or what happened, except for the other members of the family, the sort of cousin group who's trying to protect their own.
The Knight of William shooting Sean. Ronnie Johnson, the friend of Sean Laney and a few other guys went through my neighborhood and they jumped out on a few guys in rough house a little bit, and they came up with Reggie Lewis name.
And then on March twenty eighth, nineteen eighty five, Willie and Ashante were driving around with their friends Rasheen Bledsoe and Clarence Brown, and they ran into Reggie in front of their friend Chanel Owens his house.
Chanela Owens comes to the car and basically expresses that another drug addict named Scott lad Rocket had just jumped on Reggie beat him up a little bit, and she was like, I want Reggie Lewis by my jar and he won't leave. Everybody jumped out the car, but I remember the name. I said, ain't you the one supposed to be? And he says, I didn't shoot nobody. You got me le fed up and we got to fighting. And then the course of us fighting, he basically like, I didn't do it, but I know who did. And
base vlase you could take me to your cousin. He is seated. I ain't the one that shot in. I don't know why everybody put my name in that shit. I ain't had nothing to do with it. It was somebody else. So I'm like, okay, well let's go. So we get it to the car. He's not being restrained, he's not being pushed into the no damn car, none of that.
And we roll out and Chanelle Owen's immediate statement to the police is that he goes Willingly with Willie and Ashanti and their two friends. Later, she testifies that they all get into a fight and they kidnap him.
It was doing today. So I'm assuming that William is at school or wherever the hell he's supposed to be, but he's nowhere around. I go to the van various station Warrensville to go run down on my cousin Sean. He walks up to the car. He said, that's Reggie. I say it's Reggie, right, here. He said, he didn't have nothing to do with that. Why is y'all putting his name in it? And he basically like, oh right, well, look,
we're gonna find out then. So he gets in the car and we all go to my uncle's house, Donald Lasser's house in kid Marshall's house down the street from my grandmother's house, Sarah Marshall. So we rolled up in there, me and the chante and Sean proceeded to my aunt's house. You know, he wasn't gonna walk up in there with all these people. She had a fit. And as soon as we get up in the house, the whole tone changed with Sean like, that's the dude, who did it?
Why did you bring you down? Now? He nowhere our aunt's day. My aunt chimes in, kid laughter chimes in at the time like yeah, if he shoot him, he has shoot us. And you know, I'm saying, hold on, man, the man said he didn't do it, So you know what I'm saying, I'm not about to do nothing to this duty. And I asked him, I say, look, man, go and check it out with Williams. If he didn't do it, he cool. Sean says, well, I'll take care of her from here.
Man and Missus Lewis got the car with Sean Leney, Missus Johnson's the food truck. My brother, myself and our two friends. We left. We didn't see what it.
We didn't even see them leave, and so that is the end of their engagement with what turns out to be a murder.
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Of Horse we ate my grandmother. My brother and I did see her at a hall restore around three thirty four o'clock of the evening with our two friends. To say, two frands, the same white car. We Drepp be driving these all day.
Actually she saw them on the other side of town before.
She goes home, which corroborated Willie and Chante's version of events. They saw their grandmother shortly after leaving Reggie Lewis with their cousins. Meanwhile, as that day turned into the next, Reggie's mother began to wonder where her son was.
His mother said at trial that we need to hear from me. He clawed down to the police department and found police before and he said a few days later the body was recovering.
It's April eighth, nineteen ninety five. A kindergarten class is walking through a public park in Warrensville, which is about twenty minutes from where the crime occurred, and in the ravine they find a pretty decomposed human body. Kindergarteners and
so this gets a ton of attention. So once they're able to identify that it's Reggie Lewis, they start like a backwards investigation of like, who doesn't like Reggie Lewis, And they become aware that he's in a fight in Chanelle Owen's yard, And when they first talked to Shanelle Owens, she says, yes, he was in a fight in my yard with this person. And then he was in a fight my yard with Willie Nashanti Smith and their two friends, and he got in the car with that and then they drove off.
On April nineteenth, nineteen eighty five, despite Chanelle's initial statement that Reggie had gotten into the car Willingly, both Willie and Ashante were arrested for kidnapping and had an additional assault charge attacked on.
The kick During about six thirty seven o'clock in the morning, our team ran in the house and masked on machine guns. Was terrified and told me and my brother was were arrested. Our questions and I was fifteen years old at the time, but they questioned me anyway before my mother even got there. But I didn't have that to offer other than the fact that he got in a fight and we dropped the guy off, and that was the truth.
I walked through the door. The interrogation wrong that check this Spira says, slid out. We know you didn't kill him, we know you just dropped him off. The first one to talk is this one to get the deal. So what are you saying? If I don't talk, you're going to put a case on me.
We didn't completely come out and say who we dropped him off to. That's true. We didn't do that, and maybe we should have said we saw mister Lewis leave with our cousin and his friend and become a listen and dead. You know one plus two equals what it does, right?
I told them, I said, well, shit, it seemed like you already know everything. So if you know I dropped him off then you know he was alive, and well, then what am I here for? You talking to the wrong dude, And it was like, well that's not like hot his words, And my mother and my grandfather on my father's side of the family happened to come in and sit down and see seeing where it was going, and told me not to say another word. And I have not said another word into this interview today.
Now they do a search in a Chante's room. They find a gun, but it doesn't match the bullets that shot Reggie.
At that time, Me and a Chante are only charged with kidnapping it, and Shant has an additional charge of assault.
I was you and now own of county jail. They had me the most their adultter he once until they found out I was you and now and a salemate who was about will was about like twenty eight years old.
William Marshall has not been involved or picked up or charged yet.
An alleged anonymous tip led Detective Sparra to William Marshall.
Whoever made the tip said that they witnessed the murder in the basement of William's homes that he lived with from a grandmother, and he identified to Sean Laney, William Marshall and my uncle's and this would led them to execute the warrant at the home.
They searched William Marshall's house and find blood bullets. I mean, the house has been cleaned, but there's still remnants of blood all over the basement, all over.
A nine millimeter bullet was collected and the prology came back consistent with Reggie Lewis's blood, leading to William Marshall's arrest, as well as a renewed offer to a Chante and Willie catcha Sparah.
Was told me he had told my mother that he knew that me and my brother did not commit this crime. He said he knew that we were not there, but he told me he could not help us if we could not help him. He implied to me that if I put myself there and say I saw what happened, he could help me and my brother. But neither I nor my brother was willing to put ourselves in that basement and say that we saw something that we didn't see. WILLI was willing to do it.
And they basically tell William Marshall they think it had to have been William Ashanti and they tell William Marshall, you are going to get raped in prison. Your asshole will be the size of a grapefruit. We cannot protect you in adult prison. If you agree to this one year deal in the juvenile detention center and testify against your cousins, you can be done with this. And there's like the family dynamic here. Grandma wants to protect William Marshall,
who she is raising. Meanwhile, we sort of have black sheep Lucretia's two sons, and his grandma tells him take the deal.
Donald Last and Sarah Marshall were having visits with him, and we're not having visits with a chante, and they were prepping him on what to say and what not to say, and they were getting ready to put the screws and fuck us all the way around.
And the statement was carefully crafted to kind of make William into a passive observer. That Willy and a Shante dragged Reggie Lewis into their grandma's basement, ordered William to find some twine. William then gave them phone court and then went upstairs to be a lookout. They tied Reggie up shot him ordered William to get some sheets to wrap the body, and then Willie and a shunte dragged the body out to the trunk of a car and William cleaned.
Up the basement that day.
I had never ever saw William Marshall. William Marshall never saw me. The only person that saw me that day was Sean Lanny, Ronnie Johnson, hit Laster, and my grandmother, Sarah Marshall, who saw us for when she was coming out of the hardware store, which inadvertently solidify my alibi. I feel because if you saw us with these two guys, and my aunt saw us at her house with these two guys, that was with us when we dropped this man off alive, and well, why am I going to trial?
Willie is tried first, And that's largely because Willy is an adult and ashunty first had to go through the bindover program. It'd be bound over from juvenile court to adult court. William Marshall, because he takes this deal, never gets bound over. He gets a one year sentence for his role in a murder and then he's done. But unfortunately for Willie, he didn't have much of a defense.
Oh no, the streets and the other suspects. Was getting teed that I was convicted of his crime. By making sure that nobody, no witnesses came up at my trial. I was naive to believe that you got a subpoena. Ay no, not come in the court. Oh excuse me, shit, because I said, subpoenas out to kid laughter Raa Sheen Blasso, Clarence Brown. In my mind, it was time to list ey voice to sing, and you know, nobody showed.
Up without an alibi. William Marshall's statement went unchallenged. Rather, it was supported by Chanelle Owens, who had changed her story to say that Reggie had not gone with the Smiths willingly. So Willie was convicted in September nineteen ninety five.
You got to put yourself at the time when all this is going on too. So it was a little bit of hostility going on because of the oj situation, you know, and his verdict that it just transpired three days prior to my verdict. You got you know, CEOs Deputy Shares making comments, even got the judge chiming in about that. Basically everybody felt like he got away with something. So I'm hearing, you know, with this one, won't you know?
When the jury came back and said that I was guilty of kidnapping, I knew that it was a lie. When they said I was not guilty of the first kind of aggravated murder, I was relieved. And then when he went to the third kind of aggravated murder and said I was not guilty of prior calculation and design, not guilty of the gun specification, and not guilty of being the principal offender, I was like, whoa hold on,
that's a lot of not guilty. And then they turned around and went to having a weapon under disability charge and found me not guilty as that as well, and an argument ensued with my attorneys with the judge. They was like, hold on, the state's theory was that this guy was executed by this guy, and the jury just said that he didn't have a gun. He's not the main guy. Did I did not commit this crime with prior calculation of design, but yet I ended up with
a thirty the life sentence. I ended up going to jail for a crime that I didn't commit, and that basically a jury of my peers took the gun out of my hand. That William Marshall was so willing to put in my hand.
It sounds like there was a conflict among jurors who reached a compromise. But hell of a compromise it was. The result was still thirty the life. And then Ashante went to trial the following spring of nineteen ninety six.
I was petrified, I got to be honest with you. I was going to lie and trying to take a deal. I was thinking about doing it just to save myself, because people do this every single day in this system, just to save themselves. This is how cool the system is. Well, I went to trial for my brother to know that the truth can get out because I was thinking I was under disillusion that if you told the truth and it's staying.
By the time Ashante went to trial, his family and other alibi witnesses were now willing to testify.
Maybe they thought Willy would be fine because he didn't do it and they didn't need to put themselves out there, and so they didn't show up for him. But then when Willy was convicted, they were like, Oh, this is our come to Jesus moment. We need to show up for a Shanti. I don't know what happened but could be attributable to like more time went by and the
family had some time to process what was happening. But by the time as Shunty goes to trial, he has uncle don Kit has all of these people coming in to testify that Shunty and Willie were with Reggie Lewis, but that they laughed.
Yeah, both of our friends was with us the entire time. They testified to this. At my trial, they testified that they witnessed mister Lewis get out of the white car and get into the Booch truck with our cousin and his friend. I'm thinking to myself that okay, if the truth is here, they have to see it now. I'm going to be found not guilty, and I'm thinking that they would have some positive ramification for my brother as well too. Though the opposite happened. The prosecutor played it
as they said, if our two friends. This is seeming to the bar imagination, despite the fact that six additional witnesses is saying the same thing that testified at the trial.
And Grandma trying to play the middle ground. She did if actually she saw them on the other side of town before she goes home. She testifies she sees him on the other side of town, so it couldn't have been them. But the state comes in with their star witness, William Marshall, who has been given the sweetheart deal of a lifetime.
He gets upon a stand and he tells a story that makes absolutely no sense.
William Marshall testifies that he and Willian Ashanti brought Reggie Lewis over to his grandma's house, took him into the basement, tied him up, shot him, killed him, and then took his body to Warrensville. Now, how that all was feasible, how it all went down, There's a thousand gaps and holes in his testimony.
There was no physical evidence that links me and my brother to that basement or two victims. So we get to the victims clothes and the victim's body, no hair fiber, no finger prints in nothing.
But it was just treated as true. William and Shunty were convicted and it's essentially been thirty years.
Did you come back in and they say guilt till no charges? And I heard my mother and I heard my sister behind me, and they were stopping. I heard tall. My mother kept saying it's not there, it's not there, It's just not there. And then I had to kick me. When I knew that my life was evaluable, I knew that the system did not care at all. I knew the truth. But it's not necessary. Ain't thinking about a conviction? Who get it in that.
I'm sitting in the Lorraine Correctional Institution, which is reception when you come to prison. I'm waiting to be classed and see what prison I'm gonna go to. And then you know, they woke me up in the middle of the night and told me I was going to s OCF. And I've seen all the older guys ship their head from undercovers because they knew where that was the time. That's Lucasville. So I'm I'm going maximum security, and you know,
you gotta do what you gotta do to survive. You know, my brother he had to go to Madison because I think that was where they was housing the juveniles at the time.
I stayed in to Madison until I was eighteen years old, and then they sent me to Lucas Hill.
I guess after they gave him enough milk, it was time to send him to the big house too.
I wat to a place that was petrifying, sir, I'm talking about. I walked to the place that looked like it was just one of those old if you look at yourself on PEV with the bars and the powers and the mean faceguards and then you know, with the glee clubs in the hand, and you know, don't talk, don't say nothing, you just keep the high forty they speak, you don't speak in I just that's that's what.
That's what was my first in its experience, we saw each other. And I'm so proud of my brother because I saw a lot of guys his age come in and be destroyed, you know, basically lose their mind. And my brother, you know, he educated hisself and he basically became the man that he is today. And you know, I mean, in a situation like this, I hate to be in it with anybody, but if I had to go through it, I'd ready to go through it with one of the strongest people I know.
But Shunte has even written a book.
Well the book is called A Life Portrayed and it's about me and my brother, and it chroniclizes my childhood and my early experiences in the home is just growing up the neighborhood and going to school, my struggles at school, and my discoveries about myself as far as his case went forward, and how I went to prison. I taught myself how to read and tap myself how to write, and began to read books. I became a voracious reader and began to write and study. Found my voice. And
that's what book is about. And I've been trying to rEFInd it a little bit, to get it together in the manuscript form so I can get it out here to the puppet.
If anyone would like to help in that process. We're going to have ways to reach a Shante linked in the description. And you know, there's even more to their story that we have time to cover while getting the word out about their innocence, which of course they've been fighting to do that ever since their initial appeals about the insufficiency of the evidence, which is almost impossibly high bar.
After a jury's verdict and they were denied, then Willie had the opportunity to get the alibi witnesses available to a Shunte on the record. But it appears kit Laster had even more to say.
I was calling home and my mother was confiding to me that her sister's kit Laster was having nightmares and could not get a good night's sleep knowing everything that had just happened. It destroyed the family any trust or any love for each other. But she did have a conscious where a lot of people did not have a conscious in this situation. And it was to the point where she kept calling my mother and she's like, I
got to do something. This shit ain't right. My mother was basically well, order Alfa David, come forward, tell them what you know, and she did, and she even convinced her husband to come forward.
So in nineteen ninety nine, Willie files a post conviction. He got a hearing on it.
My evidentiary hearing that happened in January third of two thousand. Alpha Davis were presented from Lachine and Clarence basically attested today was threatened and you know that's why they didn't come to court. They came down there and admitted who threatened them. Kit Laster testified to the fact that the knight of the murder that her husband Don Laster, had confided in her and told her that Residad Lewis was in fact dead, when they hadn't solved the body and said April.
An open court, you have testimony of witness tampering and that Don Laster knew about Reggie's death before the body was discovered.
It's kind of like in that situation, but it's like a fark. Once you throw it in the room, you can't act like you don't smell it.
And then it was denied. The quick summary of it is, it wasn't enough to change the outcome of a Shanty's case when it was available to him, So you can't show here that it would be enough to change outcome of your case.
Even though that evidence far exceeded what was available to a Shunta a trial. And then, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, that hearing was the last positive thing to happen in this story for quite some time. After twenty one years, Willie was flopped at the parole board for another eight long years, and then Kim signed on to help a Shuntay with his parole.
So in twenty eighteen, a Shanty started to reach out to me to do a parole packet for him. And he is a profoundly impressive person who went into the system at age fifteen. He could barely read and write but now he's written for the call and post for the plane Dsler. He has developed and initiated and promoted
and produced programs within the prison system. If there were a person who exhibited and arguably he didn't need rehabilitation because he was innocent of this crime, but who has exhibited the rehability function of prison, it would be a shunty. I didn't even lead with their innocent because a Pearl
board never wants to hear that I talked about. They deny involvement, and there's the lack of evidentce your support of their involvement, but they do take responsibility for what role he did play in terms of the fight and thinking there's zero chances man is not getting parole. And then they were basically like, well, you admitted to beating up and kidnapping that man, and now you're denying that you did this.
Even though they never admitted the kidnapping.
They think the States theories the kidnapping happens on Chanelle Owen's lawn.
Even though their statements and Chanell Owens' initial statement all said that Reggie Lewis went with them willingly anyway.
Pearl denied, but by then I had sunk in my teeth into the case and I couldn't let it go. It took some time to really develop family relationships, get to understand how this all works together, and William Marshall eventually came forward.
Sean's mother died and that's when William had saw my mother for the first time since the trials and broke down and started crying and sobbed and what have you. After that, he I guess he probably couldn't sleep, and that's when he came forward.
William Marshall wrote an AffA David, telling us the truth that he had always known Ashanti and Willie weren't involved, that they didn't come with him back to his grandmother's house with Reggie Lewis, and that he had been bullied and pressured into saying it was them, because basically the police were like, you will be gang raped every day, best of luck to you. We're not going to protect you from that. They use the term your asshole will be as big as a grapefruit, and this was something that
as a child he was terrified of. Then he had family members coming and saying, like his grandmother, you need to take that deal to protect yourself. So he lied against Ashanti and Willie, which I think is obvious without him admitting it, But now with him admitting it, that's the new evidence you need to go forward.
He added that was Uncle Don's brother Al who ultimately shot Reggie Lewis. It's not lost on us that he was lying back then, and what would stop him from lying again now? The point is he never was credible, but there's one big difference this time his word was corroborated by everyone else.
And so we filed that. I filed it for a Shanty, and the state came back and there were a couple of defenses, all of them equally preposterous. Well, this affidavit is not believable one because it's possible William Marshall is involved in the murder. Therefore he's not credible. He was credible when he was being bought with his life, which is nowhere in their whole response. They say Willie and a Shanty are responsible for the murder, which to me is
the point we should just win on that. If the state is not confident writing that down, then they know what we know, which is that they're innocent. Number two, they said this Affidavid's not believable because there's another defendant in this case, Willy Smith, and he didn't file this APPA David, which means it's not believable. I respond and say, Willi Smith doesn't have counsel. I will happily represent him. I sent a letter to Willie Smith saying do you
mind if I represent you in your innocent's claim. Of course he is no, I do not mind. Thank you, thank you, thank you, And we start to represent him, and then the state suddenly is you have a conflict. You can't represent both of these people and called us in like literally, this prosecutor gets in my face about this conflict, and I'm like, it's not your conflict to raise. You don't have standing to raise it. I don't know
why we're here in court. I don't know what your point is, but you don't have standing to raise it. Willy can raise it a shunt, he can raise it. But they didn't. They waived it, and here we are. And so both of them were denied without a reason, just flat out denied by the court, and we took it to the Court of Appeals, and one that appeal we were all doing quite literally a happy dance in
our office. When we got to call them both, the state filed for reconsideration, those were dismissed, and now we're looking forward to having our day in court and bringing these guys home.
The state still needs to exhaust all of their appeals in order to have a hearing in which the state's only evidence is no longer available.
How these prosecutors could literally read a case where the only evidence is now being recanted and say it doesn't even warrant a two hour hearing.
Right unless they persist in continuing to disingenuously posit that these men admitted to kidnapping Reggie Lewis on Janelle Owens's lawn, which they simply did not do. So with that, we're going to go to closing arguments, where, first of all, I'm just going to tell you guys, I appreciate you so much for sharing this story. I know it's not easy and we're all just hoping for justice in this case. And now I'm going to turn my microphone off and kick back on my chair and just listen anything else
you want to say. Kim, let's kick it off with you and then a shunte and Willie, if you could take us off into the sunset.
My final thoughts on the matter are that we're getting our day in court. Finally, we would love to fill the court room with support. Hit me up on my Instagram at Kim Law Krim Law if you have any information about this, if you want to show support in some way. But it's important that we engage the community so that we can let these elected officials know that we both are entitled to and expect that justice and due process be served.
I have to say that this has been taxing, sir. Never in my wowdest imagination what I ever thought I would be in a situation like this. Also, to have my relatives to be the people that will be inspired and they get in system. You know, it's heart wrenching, truly was it is. And I'm telling you to be in here, thrown away since I was fifteen years old in this place, this experience has tried to strip me of everything sacred, which is my humanity, which is my decency,
which is my self respect. And I watch every day people lose that. I watch the men and lose themselves every single day. And I've been fighting and resisting it, and I'm tired, and my brother's tired and my mother's tired, and it's time for justice. Time for truth and justice. That's what we're fighting for. That's what we're striving for,
the truth and justice. I will pray and hope that anyone that is decent and kind and that wants to live in a society that's just equitable, fair, who wants to participate in this process to help me and my brother. We claim our freedom because it's just our right. We should have never lost it to begin with. That's all I have to say for to day.
Well, I guess I'm wanna quote Doctor King injustice anyway. Where is a threat to justice everywhere. A huge injustice is taking place in this case between me and my brother, and you know, I know it's covered in shit. Somebody got to be brave enough to work to shovel. And I'll leave you with that.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction.
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I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis and Jeff Clibern. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on Instagram at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is the production of Life Ober for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one