Survivors Guide to Prison Page #11

"You know what?

There's some mistakes made here.

We should drop the charges

in this case."

We should incentivize that.

But instead, we actually

incentivize the opposite,

of getting convictions

and getting conviction rates.

All of a sudden, justice gets

lost in that process.

And whether this guy committed

the crime or not gets lost

in that process 'cause

it's all about winning my case.

Immunity, that's bullshit.

I mean, in the real world,

you know, you're supposed to be

held accountable

for your wrongdoings.

So, therefore, if you're

a person of authority...

of authority,

that you have to be held

at a higher standard

than just a layman.

I think we actually need

to step back

and kind of rethink

the whole system

in the way

we're approaching it

because it's become this game,

and people's lives are lost

as a result of it.

If you ever do find yourself

wrongfully convicted,

odds are,

you're never getting out.

The first thing you need to do

is send preservation letters

to the Police Department labs

and the courts

requesting that you want

all your evidence saved.

Otherwise, they may destroy it

within 30 days.

Try to find an Innocence Project

that'll take your case.

Prepare for this process

to take years.

Then pray for a miracle.

The Innocence Project

estimates conservatively

there could easily be 40,000

to over 100,000 Americans

currently wrongfully convicted,

the majority of which

are people of color.

It's kind of hard for me

to relate to my family

because they don't see me

as the same.

It's like Adam and Eve

when he told them,

"Don't go

and don't eat this fruit,"

and they ate it,

and they were enlightened.

I'm enlightened.

I'm on the other side now.

I'm not the same

as y'all no more.

You know, I don't...

I can't speak

in a boisterous tone

because everyone gets scared.

But I'm not that dude.

I'm not him.

And I'm innocent, man.

I'm innocent.

You know,

I gotta fight my demons.

I gotta do what I gotta do

for me, you know?

I got a child, you know?

I'm trying

to get myself right so I can,

you know, teach her right.

But I mean,

there's no accountability.

These people

that did this to me,

these people

that took everything, man,

they took everything.

[Susan] Bruce's

private investigator

never gave up on his case.

He had a very vigorous

private investigator

who made a complaint

to the LAPD,

and it landed on the desk of

an Internal Affairs investigator

who looked at Bruce's claims in

a very serious-minded fashion.

It's the people

like Detective Monsue

and the others out there

that have made our job

very difficult to do

day after day

because we lose

the confidence of the public,

and we lose the confidence

of the courts.

We have to have police chiefs,

directors of public service

that are willing to do

the right thing

and terminate employees

who are doing the wrong thing.

If you want to say

you're the good guy

but you're ostracized by

everybody that you believed in,

it's a very difficult situation

because I have to continue

to work for the same department

that did this to Bruce Lisker.

I don't look at myself

as a hero.

I look at myself as a survivor

because the system attacked me.

The system went after me,

and the system did

everything they could

to keep Bruce Lisker in jail

and everything to keep me quiet.

It's been a lot of therapy.

My wife and I met

in third grade.

We were elementary, junior-high,

high-school sweethearts.

We lived on the same street,

and it's been a very difficult,

difficult road.

She is third-generation LAPD.

And the survival is day by day

and always looking

over your shoulder

whether you're doing

the right thing or not.

You're constantly

looking over your shoulder.

And every time I get called

into the captain's office,

I wonder, "What did I do now?"

And I've never had

that feeling before.

I just kept on telling myself,

they are not going to defeat me.

They're not going to defeat me.

It's just when you

come across something like this,

what are you gonna do?

And that's the difficult thing.

If I had not given up

the information that I did

to the LA Times, Bruce Lisker

would still be in prison.

[Matt] A bloody footprint

that was attributed to Bruce

at his trial had recently

been reanalyzed

and shown to have not been

made from Bruce's shoe.

So that got us interested

in the case,

and we started talking

to his private investigator

and began

the seven-month investigation.

And at the conclusion of that,

they filed an article

called A Case of Doubt

that eventually

won them an award,

won The Times an award.

I wound up sitting

between 2005,

when the first article came out,

and 2009 in prison,

four solid years...

a widely recognized

innocent man.

We knew back in 2003, 2004,

that we had probably a person

that was in prison

for a crime he did not commit.

And it took five years

for the courts

to work through the...

the entire system.

There were a lot of delays

because of the conduct

of my own police department

and the conduct

of the California

Attorney General.

[Matthew] Reggie Cole

spent 16 years in prison

for a crime he didn't commit.

10 of those years were spent

in solitary confinement,

and he had to kill another man

to get a trial.

The whole way I've been

telling them, I'm innocent.

Every article I'm in,

everything...

everybody I'm talking to,

I'm telling them,

"I'm innocent, man,

I didn't do anything to anyone."

They don't care.

They don't care.

It's not that they didn't know.

They didn't care.

It's a miracle Reggie

got out at all.

Tim's is a miracle story

as well.

In late 2012, after 26 years,

he made parole.

I signed some papers

for the parole officer,

he said,

"Okay, see you later.

Didn't ask me

how I was getting home,

didn't ask me if I had a home.

When I realized these people

honestly don't give a f***.

To survive getting out,

it's a lot harder

than it sounds.

You may have developed

post-traumatic stress disorder,

agoraphobia, paranoia

and require immediate treatment.

You're gonna need food,

new clothes.

You're going to need money

for transportation

to and from

your parole-officer meeting.

If you miss a meeting,

you could find yourself

back in jail.

You're going to need a job,

but there's a lot

of discrimination out there

for employment and housing.

Speaking of which,

you're gonna need a home.

I wouldn't have a home

if it wasn't for

the Rescue a Life Foundation.

They set up a house,

a transitional housing.

God and that foundation

is what's got me by.

It's the reason I'm sitting here

and not back inside.

[Susan] The Rescue

a Life Foundation was founded

by Dwayne McElwee who knows

how challenging it can be

to re-enter society.

Dwayne did 25 years himself

for murder.

After school,

we would have to go down

to my mother's dress shop

and hang out all day

and work around the business.

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