Serial S03 - Ep. 9: Some Time When Everything Has Changed
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How can you .

help us do that location.

看起来 还有 标注 一 previously on.

that's fine, but you still have to go through this question. You are bring there .

was a lot of talk that they would check in on him and hope that that means .

somehow protecting him tomorrow. yeah. Why would you have any court dates?

Why would you have a court tait coming up? From this american life and W B E Y, chicago is cereal, one courthouse SE told week by week, and Sarah ano.

Joshua was correct. The state was trying to invoke his eyo. They wanted to send him to adult prison. The morning after he called me, i'd inquired over at the juvenile justice center, see what was what. So i'm actually after .

courthouse right now. Are you yeah so they're just going to set a date for I guess, the hearing or the next whatever is onna happen next but um but yeah how are you doing?

my. My all.

like a master, was a solution that when I was just was age, I was found irritating. But all right, try to get some sleep. It's nothing's going na be Better if you don't get sleep. Guys like your mother, sorry.

I know you're worried. I know you're worried. I know you.

It's not my jo B2Comfort Jos hua, certainly not my job to tell him one to go to bed. But I haven't be the one on the phone right now at of all the cases we watched, joshi has got to me most. I could not fail them that the state would give up on him.

After all, he'd risk for long enforcement. After all the beat downs, he's absorbed a nineteen year old kid. I did what I know how to do. I reported out every beat of this sucker, every turn, spoke to Joshua almost every day, sometimes twice a day for a year and a half, so that the story of Joshua would exist not for posterity sake, but for the sake of straight up fairness.

First thing I wanted to know why, Joshua, what was odi a saying he'd done and made the one who reject him from their facilities and put him into the adult system, I got a copy of the motion to invoke Joshua. S. O.

IT had been filed by the county prosecutors office at the request of the juvenile prison indian river. The motion claim that Joshua created a substantial risk to the safety or security of the institution, but despite all the therapeutic programing josh was completed, he consistently chooses to make criminal decisions. Then there is a list of about a dozen specific incidence just from the past six months, assaults, fights, disruptive behaviours.

He threw a neuro on a kid. He throw a remote control at a feemale guard. He's smashed a video game console.

I'd later find out the incident that triggered the motion to invoke, apparently Joshua had put out a hit on another kid, which usually means ing for other kids to jump someone. The kid wasn't jumped, but still the prosecutors considered IT a serious threat. I got ta say I was taken back by the list.

I had that anxious jot of hold up. Have I completely misunderstood who this person is? The is look bad. The summary at the end, extensive, sixteen fights, six mention threats, twenty one disruptive behaviors seta.

But I have another report, an internal odi, as report the documents, every incident involving Joshua, whether as victim or aggressor, for almost all his time in odi, as custody. And when I cross references the request to invoke Joshua S Y O, with that internal O D Y S report, I realized, oh, these aren't isolated incidents. Many of them are connected in the request to invoke.

There's an assault when Joshua hit kid on february third with missing february second, which you can see on that internal report. February second, that same kid walked up to Joshua the water fountain and punched him in the face. There are a few sequences like this tit for tats, in which only the tat was included in the request to invoke S S Y O. Yes, indeed. Joshua did throw pee at a kid on march twenty seventh, the day before the same kid had assaulted Joshua.

Enter pee on him a common weapon in juvenile p iran the list of josh's offences by people who've either worked in odey as or were done behalf of kids inside odey as and they said, it's not great but yeah, for a kid who's been in there three years is not exceptional a notice as guard who known Joshua for a couple of years, he told me, overall, not a trouble maker, not even on the radar, in terms of major threats inside the facility. He gets mad sometimes, he said, but usually for a legitimate reason. Joshua, I did throw a video game promoted to guard.

For instance, joshi told me that was because the guard discuss his case in front of other kids, saying snitches get stitches. He said he apologize later when they were cool after that, but there was in the request to invoke another incident on the list, sound as if Joshua had caused a guard to get hurt during a fight. He said, not accurate.

He was trying to defend the guard. The one time I visited indian river, I met the same guard in passing, and SHE confirmed that he was trying to protect me, SHE said, second, Joshua, honey, again, I couldn't interview anyone at udi way. As on the record, they not participate in stories about specific youth, but in a statement, they reiterated that they do investigate allegations of misconduct and take action when necessary.

When I put the two reports side by side, what I saw was the raggy, morally compromised chronical of a kid at war. Joshi wasn't only a victim, nor was he only a perpetrator, like a lot of kids inside odi, as he was both the most powerful gangs in juvenile prison was after him, felt like guards couldn't be trusted every day. He felt unsafe.

So we created alliances where he could dominated, where he could took advantage, where he could sought protection, where he could. That didn't make his behavior right. Then again, odi yas prisons don't really spin on an access of right and wrong.

See previous episode. The prosecutors offered Joshua deal if he didn't fight the bind dover and transferred to adult prison, he'd d get nine years. If he went forward with the hearing, put up an argument, he could end up with more than that as many as eighteen years.

Juda was assigned attorney was a guy named jim holf lic. Jim hoffa. k. Hadn't done one of these s wio invocations before. Not many people in the county had Joshua didn't know whether to take the deal.

What what's hopeful telling you? He really, he he he wants to fight IT like he really made like what he wanted do either but he he's inclined to fight IT he he will fight I T2 by me to fight IT about me to fight in the light who's everybody friday day？ Oh, my, my, my, my is excited. Tell me.

Joshua tried to martial support. He ask him ody's staff members to write letters to the court on his behalf, says, if if you told them they were willing. Joshua father, who lives in jag a, pledged to hire josh, a private attorney he just needed to arrange for payment.

In the meantime, indian river declared that he wanted Joshua out now while they waited for the final hearing on his sy o. The superintendent clam Joshua was causing an environment of constant response in panic. A court magistrate, oed, the transfer Joshua was delivered to county jail, adult county jail.

A couple of weeks went by, and I could hear on the phone the Joshua was actually ating to the idea of an adult sentence in adult prison. He compressed the nine years in his head IT really be six years since he's already spent a few years in anyway as probably less than six if he was granted judicial release. Being in county with all these guys who are getting valued with big sentences, Joshua a had a fresh .

perspective on the number six fix. To the seven. So I know he rather be a man. He is right now. So it's like. Six years h like he look at that numbers, like he look at IT, like the close no is compared .

to double digits. He was saying maybe six was a lucky break.

When Joshua was brought to court the morning of his hearing, he still didn't know what he was gonna. He met with jim hoffa ick, who laid out the probable truth. But today, nine years was the best case scenario.

Sha took the deal. The actual proceeding was hard to stomach. Josh was stood there crying a few of his emptying.

Yes, mam, barely possible. And that you have demonstrated by your conduct that rehabilitation during the remaining period of juvenile rejection is unlike them. At one point, the judge asked someone to fetch Joshua some cleaning.

No one had come to his rescue. His father hadn't hire the private lawyer. He said he was gonna ire.

Joshua's civil tourneys never did file a lawsuit on Joshua behalf. The indian river staff who told Joshua y'd, stick up for him, vouch for his progress. Not here. I learned the'd been firmly reminded you work for O D Y S while we're adit. Where were the F, B, I agents who seemed to like Joshua back in twenty fourteen when they told them when they check on him, I get IT IT was all too messy, too much.

All those incidents on the list, the context, the tip for cats that who started words too messy, jim hold lick told me, sure, we could have picked a part three or four the incidents on that list explained, fights on paper are more intricate than they appear. But then what about the forty other items teethed ing just behind? They're going na be crushed him, hold lix said.

But the sheer volume of incidents, the one person who had shown up, josh a, was only witness with shale Turner. Josh a was meant tour from freedom school, SHE said. Jim hold lic had contacted her yesterday, but he thought he might be called upon to testify. Mister na was upset. I thought I could be fought.

SHE said. I really thought I could be fought in its .

letter to invoke Joshua's sy o audio. I had written that there was no more they could do to rehabilitate Joshua, no additional interventions and treatments that can be attempted. IT is unfortunate. They wrote that he threw away the opportunity he was given the idea that Joshua is unfixed ble this Turner said .

that part of IT is complete. Yes.

miss Turner isn't some wide, wide advocate. She's worked with lots of kids in juvenile facilities. Her masters is in public administration with a focus on youth policy.

She's from east cleveland. SHE is a deep and personal experience with the good and the bad of gangs. SHE agrees that some of the kids at indian river aren't ready to come out yet, but they are still works in not quite enough progress. Joshua, though he said he is not one of the ones SHE most worries about, and he's not one of the ones O D Y S should be most worried about. SHE does not accept that he hasn't progressed because to her, Joshua a at nineteen, such a far cry from Joshua at sixteen.

when he was the hot head iran ax hold that judge we need met at first, that I met at first. There is no double my mind that that when the conversation .

should have been had .

conversation of SHE rebuy, absolutely, because he is becoming a facility. You even had a question of the big. I had a complete question. I didn't think that .

he could not said the only fight they had in freedom school inside the facility. Only one, Joshua, his first week in the program, he stood up on a chair and spit .

on somebody like, I mean, just outrages, even in conversation with him. After that, I was this argantes him IT was this happiness and. That little doesn't exist in him anymore so now here his conversation pledge change to I want to get out of here I want to to be a Better person um i'm asking to not be put into these situations. I'm asking you putting a different, different so are the world is when crying out saying, this is what I need, I want to get out of this and you ignore that. What most disturbed.

this Turner, that IT, was Joshua, whose ethics and behavior were being scrutinized and punished. Now no one would look at what the state had done to him.

I think, judge, what is the best case example of why is so bogus when we had these expectations for kids to speak up about what's happening in the community and the test and things like that. And we see the ramifications and how we don't wrap around to protect that. I think the biggest issue isn't that judge a hasn't held up his end of the bargain is that the state hasn't held up theirs. They haven't .

protected him, haven't protected him from the gang he inflamed by testifying for the state.

More in a minute.

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That's M A D E I N coquart dot com. After the hearing, Joshua was taken back to the county, lock up he he gar to be shipped out to prison within a few days. That's supposed to happen once you're sentenced.

Joshua understanding was that early on a tuesday or thursday morning, they're going to drive them from county jail to an intake prison about forty minutes from cleveland. And from there they figure out where to put you, what's gone to be your home institution. But a couple of tuesdays and thursdays came and went in.

Joshua SAT in limbo. He wasn't getting either of the two medications he said he'd been described for his brain injury. None of his personal stuff had followed him from indian river, his papers and photographs and notebooks.

And also, I need to emphasize, county jail sucks. Go google IT cahoga canny jail to the headline cleveland judge, I will not send people to jail after six inmate dies in four months. Granted, that was a post Joshua headline, but IT was true then as well.

County is not a place you want to spend even one extra day. Insult to injury. Joshua a had no money on his books.

He couldn't buy any edible food or an extra t shirt or Normal toothbrush or minutes on a phone account. Why were they keeping him in county? What are they want with him?

Yeah, I think that's pretty much what happening. Yeah after a certain jail .

for a month of tuesdays and thursdays, I failed gym hole lick to ask and international um can you explain why Joshua still in county? His response, Joshua still in county? Jim, hollie wasn't. Josh was lawyer anymore, but he said he looked into IT.

Jim discovered a unica breakdown between the juvenile court and the canny share of office, which runs the jail administration vely no one new or seem to notice or care that they didn't know who had jurisdiction over Joshua, but jam said, theyd clear IT up, john. I developed a new routine. He'd call me and ask any word from mister hot like, and i'd say something like, so apparently now everybody knows .

what's up and made. It'll transfer you. How are you paying?

nope. That was early november, late november, two months after he had been sentenced. Joshua was still lousy. And county, i'd run out of encouraging reports .

from the outside. Somebody at some point has to do something that's, that's all I know. Somebody at some point will have to do something they cannot keep. You encounter jil indefinitely. And what they do.

the metaphor could not have been clums here. The government had forgotten about Joshua in county jail. Joshua was bored.

Sometimes he'd be cooped in his cell. They all would be nearly twenty four hours our straight. But what I noticed was that Joshua, he wasn't raging, he wasn't getting in fights.

You know, you sound like you sound pretty good. Better. Any river is a stretch liver, right?

For this, the best thing of let do Better than any river to me, like this, to the stress liver. like. So this one was drama on her too much. I was dressed LED on her and just less stressful there. That's Better.

Being in county jail was a stress reliever. The co. s. Just did their jobs far. He could tell people are nicer to one another more relaxed, with one another more supportive. He said.

He was noticing what i'd noticed in the shift from middle school to high school, just because one person didn't like you. That didn't mean the whole pod was against you. IT was something of a revelation to him. Even White people .

do OK in here, he said, even White river. Like, why do a hard seen new. Year is day. They cool.

The other Young men I spoken to, leo milk, gave on White good name wave, who'd been in both O, D, Y S and then in adult jail. That all agreed that as IT was dangerous, as IT was was still Better than juvenile, less stress. That same feeling, less stress, more relaxed, would stretch out and hold true. When josh a arrived at adult prison, he finally shipped eleven point five weeks after he'd been sentenced to a place called alan oakwood correctional in lima, ohio, but a three hour drive from cleveland, so his family couldn't visit. But josh a was just happy to be strung from his cell.

He walking back just.

Because he had co Operated and adult enemies lurked in adult prison, Joshua was put in protective custody. No hartless felons on his unit. He wasn't footing with.

Other inmates are getting into IT with eos. Joshua marvel, there were fewer guards, yet the inmates had more freedom. Part of IT was maturity, he said.

People trying to get home see their kids. But the main reason the adult system was Better, he said, was because IT was harsher, a tighter, less forgiving ship all around. If you fight or act out through urn on A C, O, say, severe consequences, rain down.

yes. So now I never take one and wall, you tell me and I never happen on the, I never really going have tell me quality, saying your own, you're all there for rest that day and come out more.

He was in in juvenile, the worst that had happened. You'd be shed up in your .

room for the day. Try throwing pison adult prison, the whole level, if give you charges.

guards hear, will put their hands on you. He said. They do not play. You could lose your phone calls or your visitation, and you could fester in the hole for months. The whole especially major deterrent, he said, in oy s, the longest to your health conclusion is four hours, josher said. Judge else, take advantage that shit to the max.

So if you were to, if you were to propose juvenile justice reforms, IT would be that they should be stricter, right? And not just, not just only the you, the only only staff to you feel county .

jail was Better than juvenile. Adult prison was Better than county jail. Harsher punishment was Better than lenny Joshua.

World had rotated a full one, eighty, if he had known what adult prison was going to be like, he said he would skipped juvenile, he said to those cops and prosecutors back in twenty fourteen, just fine me over. I'll take my chances. CoOperation had gotten him nothing.

He said, no real benefit. I said, what about a shorter sentence though? Three armed robberies in adult court, they warned of time in the teens or twenties.

He said, look at my code, finance. Half of them already out. Yeah, you're run your finger down the list of the thirteen people named in the cut.

Third bunch of them got two or three years. Only a few are serving more significant sentences. Eleven years, thirteen years.

Joshua a got nine. Shouldn't just come straight here. He said, said having my last beat in odi us for three years.

Now, Joshua t was in prison as six years ticking for my purposes, in terms of plot, his story had ended. But he kept calling, kept calling, and I kept answering. I just took a ten minute break, in fact, because he called me while I was writing these sentences, I learned day by day what josh was. Life was turning into on the cusp of twenty years old in protective custody.

Yeah, I want to power, like all the police, thirteen D O. And loyalty with we were here you are on a part of former police officers and former cio. Yes, about sixty people .

who couldn't mix with the general prison population in a different building across the street. Cop ceos, for reasons I never fully understood a lot of weight to premises. Iron brotherhood just said everyone seemed to get along okay.

He was like being A B that cool. I can no a problem with them anyways that you could have had to get along. The unit was too small for anything else.

During our phone calls from indian river, i'd often hear howler ing in the background. Now from Allen correctional, I could hear the soft click of billiard balls that a pull table on the day room. Joshua was the Youngest on the party, said that he didn't feel like the adults around and were dangerous.

And the adults in charge of the prison didn't feel like Joshua was dangerous. Odey as had tag Joshua as a gang member, but he said the game ordinator for the adult prison system, how to chat with him, checked out his history. His tattoos did not tag him as being affiliated on a scale of one to five, five being super maxi material.

Jojo was designated a level two prisoner. The sacrifice of being a prisoner in protective custody was the closeness of the unit and the tedium. Joshua says he couldn't take advantage of some of the programs on a rental shops across the street where jen pub was housed.

He was feeling the time, filling the time with people. Joshua, intensely social. He is a talent for gathering people, pulling people towards him, including people who can help him out like me, I do some small favors, favors that a reporter shouldn't really do, connecting him to the outside world, mostly via three way phone calls. My most immediate benefit to josh a was that, unlike mostly of people in his life, I could afford an entry supply of global town. Link minutes .

was the. Number.

Joshua wanted contact, continual contact, usually with family. I became .

the Operator and son, hello, hi Joshua. Troubles aren't .

news to his family. Obviously, incarceration isn't used to them either. Even so, it's heavy information when IT comes.

买的 还 不错， 我 上门 跟 我们。 I heard, man, man, josh, man, great. My heart that told me what 啊， i can. Even.

even josh, a, lived with his grandfather for a year, is about twelve.

You say, right? Yes, i'm good right now. Josh ce.

relatives said I was OK to use these recordings. His family's huge. They live all over and clearly in the course, but also in florida, california.

Jamaa and his little knife.

Ce, his great grandmother, his arms and cousins, his parents, his sisters, his daughter, in every call, he tells them he loves .

them and they say, IT back, I love you. I like. You.

when josh was for his father, was arrested by the D. E, A for conspiracy to distribute more than a thousand kilograms of marijuana in the united states. He had got a long sentence in federal prison.

His mother went to prison a couple years later, once they were both locked up. What happened was what you might imagine, what would happen to a kid longing for his absent parents, he floated from house to house, miserable. Probably the most stable person in his life is his grandmother. SHE was his legal guardian, and he lived with there .

are for long stretches growing up. I put you in the back member, yeah.

By the time.

and he was thirteen, josh a began to paying at the juvenile court initially for petty stuff, being unruly, fighting at school. Then I got more serious. At fourteen, he was caught for a stronger, more robbery in some friend's mug, a guy they knew Joshua sent to an odi as residential facility he escaped climbed over a while with a friend and called her sister from a gas station.

Payphone SHE dropped out to collect them once he was home. Hartless felons, drug dealing, guns, sum robberies. When he held up the two bps and the poppies, he was fifteen.

Just after he turned sixteen.

his baby daughter was born in two months later, the FBI came to get him.

hello. Hi, 妈咪， i really like, thank you, mom. Four years ago.

sometimes in the calls, IT feels like the master clock of Joshua's immediate family. Is the criminal justice system itself a continual pulse of court dates and visitation forms and commerce .

y money we come down to? And yes, I don't have no idea, and I will let your mother lead money. I could get some idea and bring you back. You know, how to bring you back to you?

Joshua knew I was recording these calls. Occasionally, we d discuss the content afterwards, debrief about his relationships is open like that, strikingly so. And he knew I was rooting for him. And so sometimes he'd call me, just to call me.

那是 too much i'm recording。

I don't know why.

In cases of something fascinating to tell me, I do get some fast. today. I have my.

T, V, what? Yeah, no way. really. Yeah, got nothing. Friday he was relieved.

Joshua wrestled with the language arts portion of his get twice before a former oi Y S guard who knew Joshuas, a Younger teenager, had described him as impressive, the kind of person who'll do good if he's around good, do bad if he's around bad. Adult prison is filled by a large with adult criminals. I kept antenna up for signs that Joshua might be listing toward darkness.

Sometimes i'd hear a hard blade of anger in his voice. He started ts swearing more on the phone, but I can not really tell what that man maybe was just more comfortable with me. Maybe you're just .

in a bad mood. On the positive side.

Joshua d become friends with an x cup on the protective custody unit, a big guy who josh laughingly told me was making his huge muscles, even huge, working out all the time. This x cop denying dixon from his cleveland from Jesse nick son's case. The officer who take injustice to the park and pleaded guilty to a couple felonies.

As a result, josh a really liked the name. They knew people in common and donate, like Joshua, who's funny and Carries matic, denae told me, feels like having a little brother around. I was interested in danae's assessment.

Once Joshua got out, did he think Joshua could have an O. K. Future when that didn't include perpetual incarceration?

No, no. Because why you. too. 咋 的？

I hated this answer because Joshua a was bound over. He would now have an adult felling record. Joshua a knew that would read the most long term damage to his prospects. Once he got out, tattoos began creeping back onto his hands and neck and face, all the places he had them removed before.

I spent many phone calls looking up people on the internet for Joshua, people who live from cleveland, who were in county jail or with their charges. He was asking what they're going to trial, or else he had asked about people who'd already been sentenced, how long they get? Which institution can give me the inmate number? Tom is zipp code again.

He was writing to them making contact. But some of the people who was having me look up their cases sounded terrible. A premeditated murder. Somebody shot, then burned in a car. I asked him, what are you doing?

Look like to meet, no matter what situation is, what you do, what your Price is. I am not heard of this. Nobody, like nobody is party.

Everybody in this world may be a choice before IT. Rather, they got called form or not, if you think, what of people like that might not ever get out of prison to tell me. So for my bitter, for a long time. So even some people need good friends, or even for money to tell, just tell, like, like, like body more something somebody, sometimes people need a good friend, the house, right? Everybody has has to like you.

He was being kind and I understood he was trying to give other people what he himself needed a reminder that he wasn't a piece of shit, that he was forgivable for diamant he was taking a position far more humane than the one the criminal justice system had taken with him. So I did think for a minute about why I was getting angry. I realized this community of inmates he was stitching together was worrying me for when he got out. So I think my the reaction and having is like, could you just please stay to fuck away from some criminals for a while so you have a chance of not falling back into that world and I think that's why i'm having this reaction, which isn't .

there to you like thing like that. People understand me the most, tell me so that long and it's like like it's not that that like these only time could have been around like so. You don't take you about being, so let me get all.

It's tempting to think that all of this prison and punishment leads somewhere, but there's a goal we can point to people who commit crimes. Maybe if they turn their lives around, a civic reward awaits them back home. But for someone like Joshua, it's hard to imagine what that reward would be.

Miss Turner had told me the Young man she's worked with inside the prisons, kids who ve been able to crack open their feelings make themselves a vulnerable. She's watched many of them come home and then crumble because they're back in violent neighborhoods where they need armor to survive. SHE told me the most successful ones, I hate to say, the ones that are communicating that they actually feel joy, are the ones who went back to the streets.

Josh, who knew you'd said its me many times. His only chance of survival was to never go back to cleveland. If he returned home, he was going to end up hurting someone or getting hurt. He end up right back at the justice center.

The year we were in cleveland, twenty seventeen, more than thirteen thousand feline cases move through the justice center, brutal, less tower downtown, twenty six stories high. Hundreds of people coming in everyday wound up emotional.

And this is the previous P.

G. Two at, well, this is famous IT contains .

the maybe watching .

a little TV will help them relax. That was the idea when the court had tvs installed in the waiting areas near the courtrooms on the fifteen floor. And older woman's weeping SHE retreats into the ladies room.

I can hear her hauling in there. SHE comes back out, still crying. A Young man neighbor, her son, is folded over head in his hands right above them, just top IT off the touch of ada tears kitto the food network.

That's the courthouse soundtrack. Clean kitchen covers. Well, stock. The administration of judge auditioned other options, the news to upsetting history channel and boom, there is something about the notes and the concentration camps.

We thought of a animal planet cartoon network, in the end, the most reliably suthing food network. IT does love you. You forget for a moment how much is happening .

all over this building is higher interest .

in the space of a year. All those thousands of cases began here in the arranging ment room. Crucial decisions are made in the arrangement room. The judge chooses your lawyer. If you can't afford, one can usually assigns your case to a courtroom, reviews your bond.

ten thousand thousand cash from primary .

I just set up or down if he wants, keeps you in jail or lets you out. Didn't really quite understand IT dozens of people are waiting their return with this judge. The bail of is at the ready big pile of case holders.

Thank you to understand what the charge means.

Asking questions .

slows rhythm. So we understand the church argument .

is the justice centers in take five, the rush of cases now process, they all woh upstairs into court room. Has any made any promises? Auto change, about twenty one. They're teeing up the three words that will button closed many thousands of plea .

bargaining this year, voluntarily knowing.

voluntary and intelligent fashion.

And I want to be sure you're doing this voluntary.

involuntarily, Normally .

intelligently and voluntarily made. A few floors down, judge Daniel al goal, just reelected, by the way, tells a defendant to pull up his pants. The guys been in jail. I. T.

This all all your trousers up.

The cases, nineteen floor, a trials just beginning. Jury selection, the jury pool, all White, safe for one woman whose black SHE works in an IT at a law firm. The defensive tony starts asking her questions.

SHE stop them full. This close here I am not emotionally. Ready to participate in our legal system. I have so much personal disappointment.

K the in equities .

in our .

system OK.

Ground floor in the hallway outside the doors to the county jail, a crowd was waiting for a man named evan king to walk out. He spent twenty two years in prison for a murder he didn't do. People are singing, crying, then they see him exhilarated.

Outside on the street, police officers from all over the county, the state Martiny annual memorial .

parade honner's two local police officers .

who died during the past year in the land of duty, separate incidents, but both hit by cars while working on the highway.

Back up on eighteen in juda donal's courtroom, a sentencing the brother of a murder n woman gives a statement. He talks quietly, angrily for few minutes, says he's glad the defendant is gna suffer every day in prison.

Seems like maybe is winding down and .

any launches himself like a missile at the defendant.

Another sentencing for a triple murder in a barber shop is a capital case. The courtrooms crammed relatives of the victims, end of the defendant fill the gallery, the media set up in the jury box, their cameras and microphones. A man named alvin right comes forward.

He was a victim in the case. He had been cutting someone's hair when shooting exploded. The shop is our people who you get killed. Alban Wright had testified for the prosecution at trial now, just before the judge issues her final decision whether she's gona sense the defendant who's twenty one to death. Alban right, addresses the court.

How was situation but that? 还没。 还没 还 你说 他 这个 位置。

The judge tells him to quarter law this different words go head.

The situation is messed, mess up situation. then. Do not agree with putting them down like a dog.

No, that doesn't mean. And nobody wants. You put them down. We don't get nobody Better. nothing.

This is like we just keep lose IT just black people, period. We just keep those. We got all these White people right here.

I look at us back like me in the zoo and this real ship. Like me and zoo, right? No, no, i'm looking like a big teacher of I let me this will look at this as lives. We got this Better in.

The best keep secret in the justice center is in the lobby. It's tucked between two pillars near the elevators looks like a wheel. You might see a rafle or a bingo game, but if functions as a suggestion box, you can sign kites to the staff the administrative judge will get them. Has got the key after .

hanging around .

this building three year. I have many suggestions just off the top of my head. It's a go minimal alist. Don't pile six charges onto a single crime when one charge will do.

Don't overcharge to force a guilty play, don't lock anyone up unless they are demonstrably violent, admit that police officers lie under oath, get out of the punishment business in turn, tower the urgent problem of fairness, keep obsessive track of who exactly is being charged with what crime, how their sentence shakes out, and what their life looks like in three years or five years. Take note of the color of their skin and how much money they have. Don't shower what you learn in a draw and forget about IT.

Don't be insensibly tempted as Charles sticker s route into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad course. Cops, prosecutors, judges, lawyers, call out the colleagues who degrade your profession. Pay, assign atterley in public defenders at least twice as much as you're paying them.

Now, judges stop choosing those assignment. Attorneys, citizens, mix up the bench, stop electing judges county wide and overall. Slow down. Doubt yourselves.

And I know how corny the sounds, but imagine that every person in the elevator car is part of your own family, and reflect on the far reaching pain of prosecution. Also, don't tape anyone's male shut in court that happened and consider getting rid of the grand jury. I could cram that will to bursting. But if I only allowed one suggestion, i'd say, let's all accept that something's gone wrong. Let's make that our premise.

Many times during .

our reporting in cleveland, when I ask about problems, our reforms, someone would thrown out. Well, let's remember, we have the best system in the world, country prosecutor Michael mali said IT. To me, I just think people need to realize we have the best criminal justice system in the world.

The people who Operate that system know about the words and they concede we can always improve. But generally they're not champing for an overhaul, the kind of extreme makeover that the data is screaming at us to undertake. We've all heard the stats that we hear in the united states in prison, a vastly higher percentage of our population than any other country in the world.

We are a number one. The numbers are well documented, wildly out of wac and unprecedented in our history, also well documented in equity. Every joint in the skeleton of our criminal justice system is greece by racial discrimination, compared to White people who have committed the same crime and who have similar criminal histories, black people in other people of color are arrested more often.

They are charged more harshly given higher baes offered worse players, their handed longer prison sentences, and their probation is more often revoked. These numbers aren't floating above us in the sky. They're alive all over the country. We looked at studies from new ork city in alabama in was conscious. I was six district in hammonton, rodd's, Virginia, and Harris county, texas, everywhere in all .

our courts houses.

Reporters often hear that we only report the bad stories. We exaggerate sensation lize, especially when IT comes to long enforcement or monkey prosecutions. But we didn't go to cleveland and sift through hundreds of cases looking for the most egregious injustices we could find. We didn't have to do. The ordinary ones told us everything we needed to know.

Serials produced by Julie snider, a manual joky ben coho and me with additional reporting by italo coskata editing on this episode from ira glass and Nancy update tape transcription by Robin smith, witney danger fields, our digital editor research in fact checking by ben fAilin sound design and mixed by stoell's music clearance by Anthony roman sample lenders are director of Operations.

The sero staff includes Emily condon, Julie whittaker, Cassie holy, Frances sponson and matt arney. Our music is by adam dorne and how willer with additional music from that maginness our theme songs is by nicko burne and remixed by adam dorn. This is our final episode this season, so we have some special thank you are tape loggers gallery scissor beth card micro or zero daughter and merita Francis. Thanks to the entire staff at the ki of account criminal justice center, thanks to advance Kevin brickman, jillian accurate, joe buley, rima day and cafe cafe at the juvenile courthouse, thanks to mary Davidson and greg ery Moore.

Thanks also to Kimberly henderson son at least bergeron Sarah adam spending estein is oller malicious Georgeous I L guten tug eai suker ryan anan gar having automat Christina hagner a neta vy add results media kita ladson Angela loudon, ian freedman, Kevin cobain, Edison Riley, tom SONY area norton wendi fan danny try faggin hoo, the ohio highway patrol and amy gifford at the start county clerk of courts also a personal thanks to jeff melman entire and arleen richmond and a huge thanks to rich orris who builds and managers are fantastic website. The talented team at more studio to the animation and illustration for this episode and IT is great. You can check IT out on our website at sero podcast at work, that is serial podcast dot work, where you can also sign up for our email newsletter.

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