Episode 140
Lessons from the Wrong Side of Justice: Deon Patrick
Deon Patrick's story takes a harrowing turn as he recounts the events leading to his arrest, characterized by a shocking encounter with law enforcement that he initially perceived as a misunderstanding. The interrogation process emerges as a focal point of the discussion, illustrating the psychological tactics employed by police that ultimately coerced him into a false confession. Deon’s firsthand account of being subjected to mental duress, isolation, and manipulation underscores the vulnerabilities faced by individuals, particularly young men with limited support systems. The narrative offers a critical examination of how systemic biases and procedural injustices can lead to wrongful convictions, as Deon discusses the trial that followed, which was marred by a lack of credible evidence and a jury influenced by societal fears rather than facts. This segment of the podcast serves as a poignant reminder of the urgent need for reform within the justice system, advocating for a more equitable approach that considers the humanity of those involved and the consequences of their legal decisions.
Takeaways
- The profound influence of a strong maternal figure is essential in shaping one's resilience and determination to achieve personal goals.
- Experiencing loss at a young age can lead to misguided choices and a descent into negative influences, highlighting the importance of guidance and support.
- The interrogation process often employs psychological manipulation and deprivation tactics, which can lead to false confessions even from innocent individuals.
- Systemic flaws within the justice system can lead to wrongful convictions, underscoring the need for reform and accountability in law enforcement practices.
- The stigma of having a criminal record persists even after exoneration, creating significant barriers to reintegration into society, such as securing housing and employment.
- A legacy of positive influence and mentorship is vital for those who have experienced incarceration, aiming to prevent others from enduring similar hardships.
Transcript
Well, Dion, welcome to the podcast, my friend.
Speaker A:How you doing?
Speaker B:I'm fine.
Speaker B:To yourself.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me.
Speaker A:I can't complain one little bit, except for the fact you're a Beers fan.
Speaker A:Other than that, we're good.
Speaker B:We are we on the rise now.
Speaker B:Here we come.
Speaker A:All right, here we go.
Speaker A:So I'd love to ask my guests this question.
Speaker A:Dion, what's the best piece of advice you ever received?
Speaker B:I think coming from a strong, single black mother, like she always instilled in me and my brother, like, to never give up and go after our goals and whatever it was we wanted to.
Speaker A:Achieve in life, I love that.
Speaker A:That's good because you know, those.
Speaker A:Those mothers are backbone for so many, so many families, especially in our community.
Speaker B:Definitely, definitely.
Speaker A:I'm curious, as you think, about people who have been in important in your life.
Speaker A:Who are some people that served as a mentor or maybe inspiration for you in your journey?
Speaker B:Well, as I just said, my mom, definitely, whom I lost at the age of 16, but she impacted my life so much that I still found myself doing some of the things that she talked to me about.
Speaker B:And I found myself saying things to my kids that she once said to me and my brother.
Speaker B:And then when I came home, I met a lot of impactful people, like some guys that I grew up with that had already changed their lives and got on the right path.
Speaker B:As a brother named Christopher Patterson, that really steered me in the right direction and what my goal and what I should have been doing when I came home and trying to better our communities.
Speaker B:And I've also trained under a brother named Benny Lee before who instilled a lot of things in me.
Speaker B:I used to find myself in those trainings.
Speaker B:Some days while he's talking to the audience, I would feel like he's talking to me and I would be getting everything that he was saying out of it.
Speaker A:That's so.
Speaker A:It's so cool.
Speaker A:So tell us a little bit about.
Speaker A:Let's get into your story.
Speaker A:Tell us a bit about your life before you were arrested.
Speaker A:What were your dreams and your hopes for the future?
Speaker B:As I said a little bit earlier, like, I was raised by a single mother.
Speaker B:Me and my brother, we're the only siblings.
Speaker B:We had a pretty.
Speaker B:Compared to others lives, we had a good life.
Speaker B:Like, my mother worked hard.
Speaker B:She made sure me and my brother had all the things we needed to be successful and to do the things that we needed to do.
Speaker B:She moved us away from a community that was somewhat impoverished and crime ridden because she wanted to show us something Different.
Speaker B:So she moved us from the north, from the west side of Chicago to the north side of Chicago to just get us to experience different cultures and different peoples.
Speaker B:Right, people.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I think my dreams were we really didn't have many options in our household.
Speaker B:We were either going to college, we was going to the military.
Speaker B:We was doing something.
Speaker B:But at 18, we had to make a choice.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So I think at that time in my life, I was prepared to go away to college.
Speaker B:My brother was already in college when my mom passed, and I was a sophomore in high school going into my junior year.
Speaker B:And I think that was our goals and aspirations, just to be successful young men and do the right things in life.
Speaker A:So tell us how you got into the situation you were in.
Speaker A:Because I looked, I read your story, saw the video, but just kind of give us the backdrop as to how you ended up in the situation you ended up in.
Speaker B:I think some things transpired in my life.
Speaker B:Like I said a minute ago.
Speaker B:I lost my mom at 16, became an angry, misguided kid, became a very poor manager of my time in my life, started hanging out more in the streets, ended up in the street gang culture and around those who I perceived to be my friends at the time.
Speaker B:And I think now I understand what the word friend means.
Speaker B:So I just started making poor decisions.
Speaker B:Like, I became angry.
Speaker B:I started fighting a lot.
Speaker B:Started getting in trouble in school, which I never had issues at school until after that.
Speaker B:Started out in all honors classes, perfect attendance in school every day, very attentive.
Speaker B:And I think the thing for me was, like, losing her, like, it took that guidance away from me that I had, and I really didn't know how to guide myself, but I didn't want to listen to anybody else.
Speaker B:So I started to rebel against people that were actually trying to help me.
Speaker B:And that's where I kind of found myself going down the wrong path.
Speaker A:So tell me your initial reaction to getting arrested and being accused of this crime you were accused of.
Speaker B:Initially, like, they came to my grandmother's house because I had moved back into a building that she owned.
Speaker B:I thought they were kidding.
Speaker B:Like, I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker B:Because I knew for a fact that me and nobody that I hung with or ran around, we had anything to do with it.
Speaker B:So I think I was in shock in the beginning, but I kept, like, trying to get them to understand, like, you got the wrong guy.
Speaker B:Like, I don't really know what you're going with or what you're thinking, but I'm not the man you're looking for.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:So we, we've all heard, especially being in Chicago myself, I heard about some of the processes they use for interrogation in Chicago and other, other big cities too.
Speaker A:I know Los Angeles had a big problem with interrogation too.
Speaker A:So kind of describe that process to us that you went through and what tactics did they use to get you cooked on this, on this crime?
Speaker B:I think like at that time I was 20, I had a co defendant who was 15, I had two that was 17 and two was 19.
Speaker B:So we were all like very young men or kids.
Speaker B:And so when they first got me, the first thing I said was, I want to speak to my attorney.
Speaker B:Because I had just come home from some cases where I had a paid attorney who I had a great relationship with.
Speaker B:Still knew her number by heart.
Speaker B:They never allowed me to.
Speaker B:So they took me in a room and they handcuffed me to this ring on the wall.
Speaker B:And it's a chair that sits by the ring, but they immediately took the chair away from me.
Speaker B:So now I'm standing handcuffed to this ring and they left me there for hours.
Speaker B:So they came back in.
Speaker B:By this time I'm sitting on the floor and my arm is hanging from the ring.
Speaker B:And they're telling me that we got some people down here that say you, you actually murdered these people.
Speaker B:And I'm like, that's impossible.
Speaker B:Like you can't have nobody down here saying I did it.
Speaker B:And so now they telling me that it's my so called friends at the time, which were guys that I hung with in the neighborhood that were part of the street culture and stuff like that.
Speaker B:And I'm like, nah, because I really knew these guys, but I didn't hang with them like that.
Speaker B:So I think the interrogation process was just constant badgering because I don't have a claim of being physically beaten.
Speaker B:Because when I asked my attorney, I think they kind of pulled back off of me, like, well, we can't beat him because he's gonna see an attorney soon as he leave this room and he's gonna tell him what happened.
Speaker B:So I think more of my stuff was mental where they kept me in a room for like almost two and a half days.
Speaker B:They didn't feed me.
Speaker B:They did take me to the bathroom once or twice, but they didn't feed me, they didn't let me get anything to drink.
Speaker B:I never knew what time it was.
Speaker B:Like if I start to fall asleep.
Speaker B:Like they were using these sleep deprivation tactics too, where they'll kick the door in and be like, oh, this is what's happening.
Speaker B:They're saying that you did.
Speaker B:And they.
Speaker B:It will wake me up and put me back in shock.
Speaker B:And I think just eventually I come to the conclusion, oh, and then it got to the point where they started showing me court reported statements from other guys.
Speaker B:So in my mind I'm saying, okay, somebody else is in this room with them other than these detectives.
Speaker B:So I'm like, okay, I want to confess.
Speaker B:I want to tell y' all what happened, but I wanted them to bring other people in the room.
Speaker B:So when they brought the state's attorney and the court reporter in the room, I think I kind of jumped the gun and I said that.
Speaker B:So y' all about to make me confess to something I didn't do.
Speaker B:The state's attorney tapped the court reporter and left back out the room and left me with the detectives to continue to badger me.
Speaker B:And so at that point I knew like, I wasn't leaving that room without being charged with this case.
Speaker B:And I just decided like, I'm ready to go and let somebody else listen to the truth as opposed to the people that we had been talking to.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:So you're stuck in a room and they're, they're doing everything to break you down.
Speaker A:So you confess.
Speaker A:What's your emotional, psychological feelings as you're going through this process?
Speaker B:And I think the weird part about it for me is did I have a confession?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:I never confessed, though.
Speaker B:They had a, they gave me a handwritten confession that the state's attorney went out of the room and wrote based on the court reported statements that he had.
Speaker B:And they told me that we don't need you to tell us anything.
Speaker B:We already have enough for.
Speaker B:From the other guys.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So they, they pushed it as a handwritten statement of mine, but it wasn't in my handwriting.
Speaker B:It was in his handwriting.
Speaker B:And when he was posed the question of how long did he talk to me?
Speaker B:This man said he talked to me for 30 minutes and went out and wrote a five page statement, a four and a half page statement.
Speaker B:So my lawyer was like, so where are your notes from that conversation?
Speaker B:I didn't take one.
Speaker B:So you didn't take not one note.
Speaker B:You had a 30 minute conversation with this man and you made a four and a half page statement that you said is verbatim what he said to you.
Speaker B:So it's like for me it was just different.
Speaker B:And I think the question was, how did I cope with the.
Speaker B:What was your first question?
Speaker A:Which is how you.
Speaker A:With all this going on, they're trying to mentally break you down.
Speaker A:How do you.
Speaker A:In the middle of all of that, deal with that pressure of this interrogation?
Speaker B:Terribly, because.
Speaker B:Because I left with a statement.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So it's like, as much as I tried to deal with it, like, eventually it kind of broke me.
Speaker B:And it was so weird because they were badgering me so much that at times I was in that room questioning myself, like, but I don't get high.
Speaker B:I don't drink still to this day.
Speaker B:So it's like, no, you couldn't have been there.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:But they saying you was there.
Speaker B:And now I'm questioning where I was that day.
Speaker B:And that's.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:That mentally confused me and.
Speaker B:And baffled me to the point of, why are they saying this if you weren't there?
Speaker B:So I was just trying to figure that stuff out in my head.
Speaker B:But I.
Speaker B:I feel like I failed at it, and I feel like I should have continued to stick to.
Speaker B:I just want to talk to my lawyer and move forward from there.
Speaker A:But if they weren't.
Speaker A:So you had.
Speaker A:You asked for your lawyer.
Speaker A:So tell me how they denied your lawyer being there during this whole process.
Speaker A:Seems like that's.
Speaker A:That right there shouldn't have happened, but.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:But at that time, there were no safeguards in place, so it's why we're.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:They're gonna always say, I never asked for an attorney.
Speaker A:Oh, wow.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Really?
Speaker B:Go back through my record and see that I had an attorney of record that I actually paid on my previous cases.
Speaker B:So they know that I knew the process.
Speaker B:But they still.
Speaker B:When they went to court, their argument was that I never asked for an attorney.
Speaker B:And why wouldn't I when I've had an attorney before?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So tell me how the trial went, because apparently, you know, from what I read, you did go to prison for a while.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:Even though evidence was not there to support them putting you in prison, how'd that trial go?
Speaker B:I think the biggest factor to me is the term that they use that you're gonna be tried by a jury or your peers.
Speaker B:Those were not my peers.
Speaker B:Like, you had old retired school teachers from affluent areas in Illinois, where rich areas that were really terrified of what was going on in the inner city at the time.
Speaker B:And they just kept talking about the gang culture.
Speaker B:Like, my trial, to me, wasn't even really about me.
Speaker B:It was about what gangs do.
Speaker B:They're bad people.
Speaker B:They hurt people, and this is what they do.
Speaker B:And so I just think they scared the jury into believing that you're doing society a favor by taking these young Men off the streets.
Speaker B:And so I, like, when I look at my whole trial, like, they rarely talk directly about me.
Speaker B:They were talking about co defendants who weren't there testifying.
Speaker B:They were talking about the gang culture and the lifestyle and the things that they perceive all gang members to do.
Speaker A:So from listening to your story, they also withheld evidence that would have proven your innocence.
Speaker A:How did you get.
Speaker A:Finally get the evidence in front of a jury or a judge to prove that you were innocent about it?
Speaker B:I just.
Speaker B:I could only give it to.
Speaker B:To a higher power.
Speaker B:Like, somebody was looking over us, and somebody had a plan for our lives, and they were going to see us through it, right?
Speaker B:So I believe it was God, because, like, we had.
Speaker B:I have a co defendant, Daniel Taylor, right?
Speaker B:He was actually incarcerated the day this murder happened.
Speaker B:They went and got him and beat him into confessing that he was holding somebody while I murdered him.
Speaker B:Daniel didn't realize or could remember that he was in jail until they took him out of the interrogation room, put him in lockup.
Speaker B:So he asked for the detectives, like, man, I got to talk to them.
Speaker B:So when they came down, he was like, I couldn't have been there.
Speaker B:I was in jail the day that murder happened.
Speaker B:They went and looked him up in the system.
Speaker B:He wasn't there yet because he hadn't been to court yet, because it was like a city disorderly or something, right?
Speaker B:And so they didn't believe him, so they sent us to the county jail.
Speaker B:So about three days later, we have a police report in our possession.
Speaker B:Now, because I have all of my emotional discovery where they found his bond slip.
Speaker B:And they went to their supervisor and said, we found her arrest report for Daniel Taylor that shows that he was in jail at the time of this murder.
Speaker B:What should we do?
Speaker B:Their supervisor told them, you can't do nothing because his statement intertwines with the other six people that y' all arrested.
Speaker B:So if you take his statement back, you got to take all theirs back, because his name is in the same place and theirs that is in everybody in his.
Speaker B:So they let it go through the system, through the process, right?
Speaker B:And so we're in jail like I ended up doing me.
Speaker B:And Daniel was sentenced to natural life.
Speaker B:Daniel ended up doing 20 years in, like, the 19th year, because we were constantly writing people for help to try to get us back in court to prove our innocence.
Speaker B:And we, by the grace of God, again met a lady named Karen Daniel, who unfortunately isn't here anymore.
Speaker B:And she was at the center for wrongful conviction at Northwestern she met us one time and was like, I'm not leaving you guys until I get you guys out of here.
Speaker B:Because I truly believe in you guys innocence and I'm gonna see this through.
Speaker B:So over the course of them filing stuff and still getting denied with this man showing that he was in jail.
Speaker B:Let me go back a little bit.
Speaker B:We in, we in the county like three months and Daniel's coming to court every month saying, man, I was in jail.
Speaker B:So we sitting there like, how could you have been in jail but you sitting here with us like, you couldn't have been in jail, right?
Speaker B:So I'm like, where's your bond slip?
Speaker B:He like, it's in my wallet.
Speaker B:Like, where's your wallet?
Speaker B:In my property in Cook county jail.
Speaker B:I'm like, send your lawyer over there to get your wallet.
Speaker B:His lawyer go get his wallet.
Speaker B:Lo and behold, the bond slip is there.
Speaker B:So the next court date, he presents this to the judge.
Speaker B:The judge sent Daniel home that day, gave him an I bond, say, hey, you're going home today.
Speaker B:Something went terribly wrong at that police station.
Speaker B:I don't know what, but we're going to figure it out.
Speaker B:The rest of you guys just be patient and let us sort through this stuff.
Speaker B:Being a 17 year old kid who's awarded the state, who, like myself, had no guidance, Daniel went right back to the neighborhood, ended up getting caught with a drug case, trying to sell some drugs.
Speaker B:So he comes back to the county with us, which put everything back on slow motion.
Speaker B:There's no hurry, there's no urgency now because he's back in jail with us so we can move how we move.
Speaker B:And I think we ended up getting a new judge who hadn't heard any of the facts about our case.
Speaker B:And he started hearing the case, he started sending people to trials and hearing motions.
Speaker B:Within the first week, us getting in his courtroom, who knew absolutely nothing about the case, right?
Speaker B:So now me and Daniel, we're convicted.
Speaker B:We found people to help.
Speaker B:We.
Speaker B:We got the, the first person we met as a reporter named Steve Mills from the Chicago Tribune, who started writing articles about police corruption, false confessions, and how they interrogate young men of color, right?
Speaker B:And his stories brought some light to us, which brought the center for Wrongful Conviction to us.
Speaker B:So in the course of Karen, Daniel now filing stuff for Daniel to try to get him home, they were getting denied in the circuit court level.
Speaker B:So she had filed a writ of hape's corpus in the Illinois supreme court level, which goes to the attorney general's office.
Speaker B:So when it came to the attorney general's office.
Speaker B:She requested an assistant attorney general, requested every piece of paper that the state's attorney or Chicago police department had pertain inside case.
Speaker B:They do this thing in Chicago called the official file.
Speaker B:And then they have a street file.
Speaker B:The street file is every piece of evidence that they occur, that they obtain during their investigation.
Speaker B:The official file is what they choose to put in there.
Speaker B:So they must have sent both.
Speaker B: me documents from December of: Speaker B: Now, mind you, this is: Speaker B: re's some stuff from December: Speaker B:We got arrested December 2nd.
Speaker B:Throughout the 2nd and the 3rd of 92, around December 20th, something.
Speaker B:They sent the state's attorney to the police station to check on Daniel's story because by this time, they know he was in jail.
Speaker B:The lockup officer, the civilians that worked in the lockup, they found all his cell mates.
Speaker B:He had like three cell mates from that night.
Speaker B:They all said, yes, this is the man that was here that night.
Speaker B:They made that disappear.
Speaker B:We didn't see that for 19 years.
Speaker B:So that's the evidence that when she got it, she wrote Karen Daniel a letter and said, I'm forwarding you some documents and I'm not responding to this petition until you take these documents back to the circuit court and let them deal with this.
Speaker B:This issue.
Speaker B:Because no lawyer in his right mind had these papers in their possession and didn't use them.
Speaker B:Because that was the key that would have freed all of us back in 92.
Speaker B:And when Cameron found that, I want to say within three to four months, Daniel was at home.
Speaker B:And then he.
Speaker B:Six months after he went home, I made it home.
Speaker B:So I did end up doing 21 years.
Speaker B:And he did a total of, I think, little over 20.
Speaker A:That's an amazing story.
Speaker A:How, how so?
Speaker A:As you think about our justice system, what are some of the flaws that you see?
Speaker A:I'm sure you've been thinking about this for a long time now.
Speaker A:What are some flaws that you see need to be corrected so this doesn't happen again?
Speaker B:I think for me, like, the flaws are human error.
Speaker B:And the people that they put in charge of putting these cases together, right, because the law is the law.
Speaker B:But when you can skirt the law and do what you want to do and there's no repercussions behind your actions, then people are going to continue to do what they do.
Speaker B:Because I don't think any of the things that happened to us Were by chance.
Speaker B:I think they were direct acts.
Speaker B:I think these were intentional acts that people did because they didn't care and there was no accountability for them on their end.
Speaker B:So like, and then I also pay attention to, I'm a size and symbol type guy.
Speaker B:Like, I noticed that the, the statue of justice holds scales and it has a blindfold on, right?
Speaker B:Justice is blind.
Speaker B:I think justice eyes is wide open and it plays out based on the color of your skin and who you are.
Speaker B:And I think like a lot of people just don't get a fair shot at justice.
Speaker B:Because if you, if you're going strictly by the book, a lot of people wouldn't be in that situation.
Speaker A:I'm kind of curious.
Speaker A:Your situation seems so random.
Speaker A:How did they pick you four people out of, I guess a list of, you know, millions of people in Chicago.
Speaker A:How did you four get caught up in this?
Speaker B:It was actually eight of us total that got charged.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:They, they had a homicide that happened in the neighborhood that we grew up in.
Speaker B:They deemed it a drug related homicide.
Speaker B:At the time, this was a very drug infested neighborhood.
Speaker B:We hung out there and I'm not gonna sit here and be like, I was an angel and I wasn't doing, I was doing everything the right way because I wasn't right.
Speaker B:So I think they targeted the people that hung on that block.
Speaker B:And they had one with, they had a witness who saw some people come out.
Speaker B:She didn't hear shots, but she's living her window and she noticed people hovering around that entrance of the courtyard at that time.
Speaker B:And then like 10, 15 minutes later, that was hundreds of police there.
Speaker B:So she get up like, what's going on?
Speaker B:And they tell her what happened and she tell them what she saw.
Speaker B:Like 30 minutes earlier she id one of my co defendants.
Speaker B:Okay, I saw him come out of there.
Speaker B:But at this time, this is a 32 year old man that at 20, I wasn't hanging with 32 year olds.
Speaker B:At 5th, at 15, he wasn't hanging with 32 year Olds.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And so the police, she had identified him by name because he had been in and out of that entrance and she had bumped into him a couple times.
Speaker B:But she described three other people that was with him.
Speaker B:So they say four people went inside the apartment.
Speaker B:So when they started doing the roundup, they started with the 15 year old who had an IQ of 66 or 67.
Speaker B:So they deemed him like borderline handicapped.
Speaker B:And they put pictures in front of him and asked him, who do you hang with?
Speaker B:And he picked out us.
Speaker B:Like, I'll be with him.
Speaker B:I'll be with him.
Speaker B:I'll be with him.
Speaker B:I'll be with him.
Speaker B:And they picked roles for us at that time and was like, okay, we're gonna put these four here outside as lookouts.
Speaker B:So they tried, they put them like they were standing on different corners while we went in.
Speaker B:And then they picked four of us and said we actually went inside the apartment.
Speaker B:And that's how they ended up with, with eight.
Speaker B:And then when I go back to the pictures, right.
Speaker B: In: Speaker B:So in order to get pictures of guys, you had to order them.
Speaker B:And then it takes 40, 48 hours for them to process your order as a police.
Speaker B:You got to get in your car, go to 11th Estate to pick up the pictures and bring them back to the police station.
Speaker B:Remember the day, December 2nd, November 29th, they wrote a police report saying, close this case after our days off.
Speaker B:So they had already made up their mind because they ordered those pictures November 29th.
Speaker B:But when they got on the stand during the course of our trials, one of the key questions to them would always be, when you wrote this police report and signed it, did you have any suspects?
Speaker B:And he would adamantly say, no.
Speaker B:So how did you end up with their pictures then if you didn't have any suspects?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And it went a step further.
Speaker B:My lawyer asked him, when's the first time you heard Deon Patrick's name?
Speaker B:The man said, when Lewis Gardner, which was the 15 year old, picked him out of a picture, I showed him.
Speaker B:Where did you get a picture of him from if you had never heard his name before?
Speaker B:Oh, no, no, no, no.
Speaker B:I didn't have a picture.
Speaker B:I went in there and Lewis told me his name and then I went and got the pictures.
Speaker B:You still wouldn't have had them pictures for 48 hours.
Speaker B:So it just didn't make sense.
Speaker B:Like, so they really had already devised a plan.
Speaker B:Like, these guys hang right here.
Speaker B:This happened right here.
Speaker B:It's a drug related murder.
Speaker B:We think that they're the drug sellers right here.
Speaker B:So we're going to give them this case.
Speaker B:And they had made up their mind November 29, that that was what's going to happen when they came back to work.
Speaker A:And it didn't matter then that you were innocent of this particular crime, you were innocent of.
Speaker A:You were guilty of some crime in their mind?
Speaker B:Probably.
Speaker B:Definitely.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:So what's life been like for you after getting out of prison?
Speaker A:I mean, you went to prison at, you know, Your whole life ahead of you.
Speaker A:You spent 21 years there.
Speaker A:What.
Speaker A:What's.
Speaker A:What was life like?
Speaker A:Trying to get back into society and adjust to life after that was all over.
Speaker B:I think, for me, like, I came home to.
Speaker B:I could actually say a great support system.
Speaker B:Like, I had some family members who genuinely cared and were happy to see that I was home.
Speaker B:Kept me out the way a little bit, but was pointing me in the right direction as far as re obtaining, like, my driver's license and ID and stuff like that.
Speaker B:So for me, I think it's great.
Speaker B:Like, I just have learned how to weather a lot of things because lately I've been getting a question about happiness.
Speaker B:And I don't really know when's the last time I've truly been happy.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And, like.
Speaker B:And I think it started when I was 16 years old.
Speaker B:But I'm still here, and I'm still making a difference in other people's lives.
Speaker B:So I'm content.
Speaker B:But I really don't know what happiness looked like because so much.
Speaker B:So many things have transpired in my life that I'm just here in the.
Speaker B:In the flesh and I'm going through the motions right now.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I'm okay with that.
Speaker B:Like, I'm not.
Speaker B:I'm not depressed, nor am I sad.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But I just don't know what true happiness looks like.
Speaker A:So you.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:The video I saw of this whole story was called the Hazel Boys.
Speaker A:You guys have a book out that you're telling a story to let people know what you went through?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:The Hazel Boys was titled that because the area we come from is Agatitan Hazel.
Speaker B:Those are the cross streets.
Speaker B:So we called ourselves the Hazel Boys because we feel like at that time, that area was being targeted heavy.
Speaker B:And I can't say that it was being targeted for the wrong reasons, because, like I said, a lot of us were young, misguided men, and we were doing things that we didn't have any business doing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I think just paying homage to where we come from and to show people that there was a lot of good people that did come out of that neighborhood that got wrapped up in some of that stuff back then who had really changed their lives.
Speaker B:And I'm doing something different now.
Speaker A:So do you think about what you went through?
Speaker A:And if you.
Speaker A:If you were speaking to a young Deion today, what would you tell him?
Speaker B:I'll tell him I'm sorry.
Speaker B:Like, I would apologize for all the things.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:It's funny you asked that because that's One of the things that Benny Lee did that made me feel like he was talking to me and he was asking the room of young men, if you could talk to your 10 year old self, what would you tell them?
Speaker B:Because these guys were incarcerated at the time, right.
Speaker B:And at 10, like, we're so innocent, we're so full of hope and joy and we just want to play and have fun.
Speaker B:And so right now I would definitely apologize to him and I would tell them like, I'm sorry that I took them through some of the things that I've taken them through.
Speaker B:But I'm so focused on being the best version of myself now that we're okay.
Speaker A:Now we all know how difficult prison life can be.
Speaker A:How did you navigate or improve yourself in prison when it's really not?
Speaker A:We always think that prison is about rehabilitation when it's really not.
Speaker A:It's really about punitive, punishing people for decisions they've made.
Speaker A:How did you keep your wits about you in that system and come out on the other side and not go back into a life of crime like one of your, one of your co workers, one of your fellow prisoners did?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that was the perfect way to say that, like, because I think we learned a long time ago that the punishment is supposed to be your sentence.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And then go to jail, you're supposed to be rehabilitated so you could be re acclimated into society.
Speaker B:There's no sense of real rehabilitation in there.
Speaker B:And I think they're getting back to that.
Speaker B:But I think with us, we got lucky and there were some staff members around that believed in change.
Speaker B:And so we had a sister in there named Ms.
Speaker B:Miles who started this lifestyle redirection class in there.
Speaker B:But she was hand picking who she wanted in this class because she saw certain things in certain guys, right.
Speaker B:And it took off and it really like opened our eyes up to who we are because it allowed us to tell our story, be ourselves.
Speaker B:It taught us about me and roles in the community and within your family and what you really supposed to be doing with your lives.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And she wasn't the only one.
Speaker B:Like there was a few of them that saw us as human beings and was like, this guy has the potential to be something different than what he, what they say he is.
Speaker B:And so I think those things helped us a lot because I have a lot of guys that are really doing well out here that have done 25, 30 years, but they left at 16 and 17 years old.
Speaker B:And so now that we're back, it's like, now we are the man that we should have always been, and we're going to continue on that course.
Speaker B:I have a friend who's the executive director now of Illinois Restored justice, and he did 26 years and went to.
Speaker B:Caught his case when he was 16, went to jail when he was 17.
Speaker B:So it's like, just the things that we're doing now.
Speaker B:Like, we're showing society that we do have the capacity to change and that we can be a different individual.
Speaker A:What are some of the hurdles someone coming out of prison has to overcome when they get back into society?
Speaker A:Because it's like, you don't get the best jobs coming out of prison, so how do you find your way when you get back into society?
Speaker B:I think one of the biggest hurdles is dealing with the stigma of you're a criminal.
Speaker B:And I think, like, we also used to doing our trainings, like, when is our debt paid?
Speaker B:Because you got guys who've been out 30 years and they go get a job and that stuff still pop up on their background.
Speaker B:And then they had a job and they get fired as soon as they do a background check.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But I think for me, like, one of the biggest hurdles was getting housing.
Speaker B:Got lucky again, because I came home and I got into the violence prevention field, where your background doesn't really matter.
Speaker B:They just want you to be a credible messenger in the neighborhoods that they want you to work in.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So I think even, like, with housing, like, the first apartment I applied, applied for their lease, said that you couldn't have been convicted of a crime in over a hundred years.
Speaker B:So I'm like, so that means you got to be like 120something in order to get this apartment.
Speaker B:So I was like, whoa.
Speaker B:So it took me to the point where I had to get articles and send property owners articles from my case saying that I was wrongfully convicted.
Speaker B:I had to send them news clippings and stuff just to show them that I'm not who they say I was and give me the opportunity, and I'm going to show you.
Speaker B:And then I also found myself having to pay my rent for a whole year up front just to prove to people that I could sustain this lifestyle and not be a problem to my neighbors as well.
Speaker A:So they didn't expunge your record when you realized you were innocent?
Speaker B:No, what they do is it will stay there, but they will.
Speaker B:You would have to go through the process of getting it expunged.
Speaker B:Like, I got pulled over for a traffic stop one day, and the first question they asked me Was, when did I get off parole?
Speaker B:I had never been on parole, so I'm like, I ain't never been on parole.
Speaker B:And after I said that, they asked more questions, but I didn't feel compelled to answer.
Speaker B:Like, you go figure it out, because now I'm not that young kid that's doing everything the wrong way.
Speaker B:Like, I have my driver's license.
Speaker B:I have my insurance.
Speaker B:So what are we talking about?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:And we search your car.
Speaker B:Absolutely not.
Speaker B:Can I search your car?
Speaker B:Why would you ask that?
Speaker B:I'm like, why would you ask the search bucket.
Speaker B:So it's like, just understanding.
Speaker B:Like, I am a grown man now, and I do things the right way.
Speaker B:There's nothing illegal in my car, and I have everything that I need for you to write me a ticket and let me go or just let me go, because I wasn't doing anything.
Speaker B:They pulled me over just because they looked in my car, and I guess they didn't like what they saw, and they.
Speaker B:They stopped me.
Speaker B:But those be the biggest obstacles, like, just getting over that hurdle.
Speaker B:But I went through the expungement process now.
Speaker B:So my stuff is.
Speaker B:My previous cases are sealed, and that case is expunged, so it shouldn't be on my background now.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:So, Dion, I love to ask my guest this other question.
Speaker A:What do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker B:I feel like I'm still writing it.
Speaker B:Like, I want to be known as a.
Speaker B:A great father, a great dad, a great human being.
Speaker B:I go see my mom a lot when I go back because I moved from Chicago now, and one of the questions I asked her is like, are you proud of me now?
Speaker B:Because.
Speaker B:And I think every day, I'm constantly trying to do things to make her proud.
Speaker B:And so I think, like, for me, my legacy, I want to be someone who impacted the lives of the youth and try to steer some of them from not having to go down the path that I went down or even have to experience some of the things that I experienced.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And so I'm just trying to.
Speaker B:I talk about writing my obituary all the time.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I think that's what I'm doing right now with the things that I'm doing.
Speaker B:Because I've been to funerals where the obituary is like, well, he got baptized at 5.
Speaker B:And then they start naming their siblings.
Speaker A:Right, Right.
Speaker B:Well, mine have more substance to it.
Speaker B:And to be able to tell who's the man that my mother truly raised for 16 years and to show society that this man came out and did everything the right way, that's awesome.
Speaker A:Where can people find the book the Hazel Boys that connect with you on social media?
Speaker B:You can find a book on Amazon as well as Barnes and Noble and then social media right now is the hazelboys book.com and we can be reached through that and social media.
Speaker B:That's the page that we're using now because it's open to all of us.
Speaker B:So if you want to reach out to either one of us who are the co authors, we're there.
Speaker A:Well Dion, thanks so much for sharing your story and I just pray that it inspires people but also makes us aware of the system that we are dealing with and how sometimes it's just not like you said sometimes justice doesn't blind sometimes very much justice can see exactly what justice is doing.
Speaker A:So we just pray that we realize that there are deeper stories.
Speaker A:There are more stories out there than we're sometimes aware of.
Speaker A:So thank you for sharing your story with us.
Speaker B:Definitely.
