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Fernando Bermudez and Faulty Eyewitness Identification: An 18-Year Miscarriage of Justice — Transcript

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0:08- Good afternoon everyone.
0:11(audience chattering)
0:14Good afternoon everyone.
0:16- [Audience] Good afternoon.
0:16- Ah, that's so much better, thank so much
0:18for being here this afternoon with us.
0:20We have a fantastic event designed for you.
0:24I wanna just take a few moments to welcome
0:26our special guests from Francis Lewis High School
0:28who are here with us today, so thank you for being with us.
0:31And our many classes here at the college
0:33who are participating in The Common Read.
0:36This is the third and final week of events.
0:39It's been very busy.
0:42We've offered 35 student events
0:44and four faculty events.
0:45We're in the home stretch and if you haven't
0:48attended any events to date or if this is your first one,
0:51know that we have more scheduled.
0:52One this afternoon and two, several more tomorrow
0:56and the following day.
0:57It's been very exciting.
0:59I wanna just take a moment to introduce myself.
1:02I'm Susan Madera, I'm the Director of The Common Read
1:05initiative here at the college
1:06and working very closely with me is,
1:10my really good friend, Dr. Jean Murley
1:12who's from the English Department
1:13and she's the Coordinator of The Common Read
1:15so I'd like to introduce her right now,
1:17and come on over.
1:22- Hi everyone.
1:23I'm Dr. Jean Murley and I teach here
1:26in the English Department at Queensborough.
1:29I recognize some of you from other events,
1:31that's wonderful and I know that we're all,
1:34we all have been reading the book,
1:35Picking Cotton and we all love it, right?
1:39It's a great book.
1:41It's a wonderful book.
1:42It's about some very, very, very crucial
1:46social justice issues, namely wrongful conviction.
1:50It's about the power of forgiveness
1:53and it narrates the story of an exoneree
1:57and the crime victim and so today,
2:00we have a very special guest for you.
2:03As Susan said, we've designed these events
2:07to support your reading of Picking Cotton
2:10and I'm gonna tell you a little bit about our guest
2:13and then he's gonna come out, but the first thing
2:15I wanna say is, please sign the sign-in sheets.
2:19There's several going around.
2:21Susan has them up there.
2:23If you don't sign the sign-in sheet,
2:24you don't get credit for being here
2:26so make sure you put your name and your Professor's name.
2:29Very, very important.
2:30Thank you for doing that.
2:31The other sort of housekeeping thing is,
2:34we are not allowed to eat or drink
2:36in this room, unfortunately, because of the upholstery,
2:40so please be mindful, no eating or drinking here.
2:46I think that's it.
2:47We have other events scheduled for this afternoon.
2:50We have a movie that we're showing about exonerees
2:53and we have events both tomorrow and Friday.
2:57So, keep on reading, keep on talking about
3:01what you are learning and keep learning
3:04about wrongful conviction.
3:05There's a lot to it.
3:06It's a very complicated issue and it's very important.
3:11As citizens, you guys, many of you, most of you,
3:15will be called to serve on a jury one day.
3:18You may get called to serve
3:20as a juror for a criminal trial, who knows.
3:24Many of you, I know, are entering
3:26the criminal justice field.
3:27It's very important that you have a balanced view,
3:31an objective view of both the positive elements
3:35of our criminal justice system and the elements
3:38that don't work, that are flawed.
3:41Criminal justice is a human endeavor
3:43and as such, it is subject to human error.
3:47So we've been learning about a type of error
3:51called wrongful conviction
3:54and I just wanna introduce now, Mr. Fernando Bermudez.
3:57He spent 18 1/2 years in New York State Prisons
4:03serving time for a murder that he did not commit.
4:08Just let that sink in for a minute.
4:11Some of you are 18 years old.
4:13How many of you are 18?
4:16Yeah, some of you are 18.
4:19So, for your lifetime, Fernando was in prison
4:24for a crime that he did not commit.
4:27He's gonna tell you all about that.
4:30I will just tell you, very briefly,
4:32that Fernando has been free,
4:35fully exonerated, declared factually innocent,
4:39since 2009.
4:42He travels the world speaking to audiences
4:46such as yourself about his experiences
4:49and he's a very strong advocate.
4:51A very strong voice for the voiceless,
4:55the wrongfully convicted.
4:58So, he's gonna share his experiences
5:01with you now, so please help me welcome
5:04Mr. Fernando Bermudez.
5:06(audience applause)
5:24- Thank you everyone for coming out today
5:25to Queensborough Community College.
5:27It's a pleasure to see all of you
5:29and welcome your attendance
5:32and we appreciate your attention.
5:38A pencil has an eraser because it represents
5:44human acknowledgment of mistakes.
5:48However acknowledgments of mistakes
5:53in criminal justice can mean the difference
5:56between life and death,
5:58freedom and loss of liberty,
6:01and one's pursuit of happiness.
6:06So what do over
6:091,736 documented cases
6:13of wrongful convictions
6:16that can not be erased tell us about
6:19our American criminal justice system today?
6:24What does this mean
6:26amid America's problem of mass incarceration
6:30in which an estimated 2.3 million people
6:34are wrongfully,
6:38well 2.3 million people incarcerated
6:41with experts stating that at least 1 to 5%
6:45of that 2.3 million population is innocent.
6:53What does this problem mean
6:56if, since 1989, when this problem has begun
7:01getting documented, they are more
7:03undocumented cases
7:06and that only 10% of all wrongful conviction cases
7:12can be resolved through DNA
7:15leaving the non-DNA cases, like myself,
7:19fighting for their lives when that sort of technology
7:23can not prove their innocence.
7:27What does it mean when
7:30the innocent
7:33in prison are also placed there,
7:36not by mistakes, but by purposeful
7:40and willful misconduct of our police and prosecutors
7:45who have been entrusted
7:48to protect and serve us
7:53against violence and against injustice.
7:58What does it mean for the public confidence
8:02of America when an innocent person
8:06is incarcerated, and the guilty
8:10go unpunished
8:11leaving the guilty capable of committing more crimes?
8:16Such as
8:20it happens in many other cases.
8:26The Common Read that you're reading today
8:29that you have read, I would hope, Picking Cotton,
8:33deals with the story of
8:35Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton.
8:39Jennifer Thompson, as you know,
8:41wrongfully identified
8:45Ronald Cotton as her perpetrator
8:47after she was raped
8:49and it turns out that all along,
8:53someone else named Bobby Poole
8:56had actually committed the crime.
9:00At the heart of that story
9:01is not only forgiveness, yes.
9:03But it's also the problem highlighted
9:05by mistaken eyewitness identification,
9:08which is the leading reason why
9:11wrongfully convicted people end up in prison
9:15and why they have to fight for their lives.
9:19By extension, my case, began through that same problem
9:23of mistaken eyewitness identification.
9:27On August 6, 1991, when I'm living in Washington Heights,
9:32New York City with my parents,
9:35my life seemed full of promise, back then.
9:38I was set to enter the medical profession
9:41to atone for some mistakes I had made in my life
9:44at the age of 22, to make my parents proud,
9:49to contribute to society because I had been frustrated,
9:53as well, by not being able to get a job
9:56and I felt that a career path in the medical profession
9:58would finally give me a better chance at seeking
10:01steady employment.
10:05But my hopes and dreams, at that point,
10:09were dashed, when I'm arrested at gun-point
10:13by New York City detectives.
10:16And I'm charged with murder.
10:21Hours would pass in a police precinct before
10:25I knew about
10:28what I was being charged with.
10:32I had alibi witnesses who came forward
10:33to the precinct, and all attested to the fact
10:36that we were all together.
10:37Under no circumstances were we involved
10:39in any violence, whatsoever.
10:44I wasn't believed, despite 10 hours of interrogation.
10:48Despite the fact that
10:52all our stories connected together
10:54and my friends had not even known
10:55what I was being charged with.
11:01I believed in the American criminal justice system
11:03at that point.
11:05Having gone to private school all my life,
11:08having believed
11:12the mystical optimism of my immigrant parents
11:15who came from the Dominican Republic
11:17in search of a better life for myself
11:20and my four other siblings.
11:22I believed in that.
11:23I believed that the truth would prevail
11:25as I sat in that precinct.
11:28I believed that if I told the truth,
11:31that justice would prevail.
11:35I lived in Washington Heights where
11:37the mystical optimism
11:38of many Dominican families was tempered by
11:42the fact money making allure of people selling drugs
11:46in hopes of making it out
11:48of the inner city where I lived in.
11:53And yet, my dream was shattered
11:57because even though I told the truth
11:59I was sent to Riker's Island where now
12:01I had to fend for my self.
12:03Where I would endure physical attacks.
12:05Where I would, now, have to fight for my very life
12:09in hoping that the American criminal justice system
12:11would work
12:13as I waited for my trial.
12:16I didn't know, at that point,
12:20or at the precinct,
12:21that the witnesses
12:25had their own story to tell.
12:27And that story involved
12:30around them being near NYU on August 3rd and 4th, 1991.
12:37Efraim Lopez, 16, having absconded
12:39from a work-release program,
12:41having been punched in the face inside a night club,
12:45he sought revenge and called his friends
12:47from his West 90s neighborhood,
12:50evidence would demonstrate.
12:53These friends came and attacked
12:57the kid who punched him.
12:58Some kid from Queens, actually.
13:02On the corner, near NYU,
13:05when this fight broke out under night time conditions,
13:08which made mistaken eyewitness identification
13:12more of a possibility.
13:17Efraim Lopez had pointed out Raymond Blount
13:23to his friends
13:25and out of the confused fight that broke out,
13:28in which bottles were thrown, fists connected
13:32with people who were with Raymond Blount
13:33after Raymond Blount, himself, had punched Lopez
13:36earlier that night in the night club.
13:38A shot rang out and it killed Raymond Blount.
13:45Three friends of the deceased
13:48rushed Raymond Blount to the hospital
13:51where he was pronounced dead.
13:53And in that process, the police just gathered
13:56the teenage witnesses who were there
13:58and took them to a precinct.
13:59They had been attacked, they were hungry,
14:01they were hurting, they were sleepy,
14:04they didn't wanna be there, by their own accounts,
14:06but they were in the police precinct after this happened
14:09to them and, in one sense,
14:11they did want justice for their friend.
14:14Their acquaintance who they met that night.
14:17The three friends of the deceased, however,
14:21would choose Efraim Lopez correctly
14:23out of a mug shot identification picture.
14:26They picked him and they said this is the guy
14:29over whom this altercation began.
14:36They were in a room with the other teenage witnesses.
14:39Once they picked out Efraim Lopez,
14:41they were taken out the room
14:43and the other teenage witnesses
14:44were allowed to discuss other photographs
14:47that were being selected.
14:49A 17 year old young lady
14:52picked out my picture after picking out three people
14:55who she said resembled the shooter.
15:00And illegally, she shared my picture
15:03with the other teenage witnesses,
15:04thereby creating a psychological interplay,
15:08a reinforcement process, if you will
15:10in which, when one person said I looked familiar
15:13the other person said that as well,
15:16but then they settled on that I could be the shooter,
15:19even though they were not sure.
15:23Once this happened, my life, I would learn
15:27would take a turn for the worse.
15:31Because thereafter, the police were focused
15:35on my picture and introduced it and showed it
15:39and shared it and discussed it with all
15:41the other witnesses.
15:44Efraim Lopez, however,
15:48not knowing this process had occurred,
15:51had actually told the police
15:54and prosecutor who the real perpetrator was.
15:57Described as someone named Wool Lou
15:59from his West 90s neighborhood
16:02who came to his rescue that night,
16:03admittedly he said, after he had been punched
16:06and was embarrassed and wanted revenge.
16:09And he told them in a video taped statement
16:11on August 5, 1991.
16:13But the police and prosecutor,
16:16able at that very moment, ladies and gentlemen,
16:18to stop the illegal identification procedure
16:21from making my situation worse
16:23chose, instead, not to investigate these key leads
16:27coming from Efraim Lopez.
16:30They could have very well have gone
16:32to the 90s neighborhood
16:33and found this guy where he was living.
16:35But they didn't.
16:36Instead they focused on the picture
16:38and the illegal identification procedure,
16:40which occurred and took my picture
16:43and showed it to Efraim Lopez.
16:46Placed it in front of him and said,
16:48all right, all that other stuff you're telling us,
16:51isn't this the guy?
16:53Efraim Lopez looks up in the video, bewildered,
16:58and you could see in his face,
17:01he has this Scooby Doo look
17:04in which he doesn't know what they're trying to get at.
17:08He's like huh?
17:10And he realizes then, that there's an opportunity
17:14for him to get out of prison because he had been
17:17interrogated for over 20 hours and not free
17:19to leave a police precinct.
17:2116,
17:22facing murder charges,
17:25and so
17:26he says yeah, that's Wool Lou right there.
17:29He takes the picture,
17:31the police run with it,
17:33and now I'm at Riker's Island,
17:34as I told you.
17:36And I don't know any of this as I'm preparing for my trial.
17:38All I know, I have to survive at Riker's Island
17:40while I'm waiting for the American criminal justice system
17:43to work.
17:46And I'm fighting for my life.
17:48I'm trying to keep my sanity in a place
17:50where I know I don't belong.
17:51Thinking that if I'm patient,
17:53justice will prevail.
17:55I don't know that right before my trial begins
17:59some of these teenage witnesses are offered plea deals
18:02in which, in exchange for their own, unrelated
18:05criminal cases, those charges are dropped
18:08if they testify against me.
18:10I don't know any of this.
18:13Nor do I know that Efraim Lopez
18:14had done the same to get out of prison
18:17and not be charged in accessory to murder
18:19if he picked me.
18:22All I know is my truth.
18:24I take the stand and say it.
18:26My alibi witnesses come forward
18:28and three friends of the deceased
18:30said that I'm not the one who shot their best friend.
18:34In particular, because they said that I was too tall
18:39and big compared to what the perpetrator
18:41was described as by witnessed and 9/11 police reports.
18:44Namely, 5'10", 165 pounds, versus my 6'2",
18:49then 220 pound stature.
18:52Masked, hidden, because I'm forced to sit down
18:56in a lineup
18:58which today, should not be done.
19:00Because it influences witnesses
19:02not to make the correct identification.
19:06Not surprisingly,
19:08I'm convicted.
19:11And with a resounding pound of the gable,
19:13I'm sentenced to life in prison,
19:16shipped upstate.
19:19I'm given a green uniform.
19:22And my number becomes 928325.
19:26That's what I'm known as.
19:29At the age of 23, when I'm upstate,
19:32that's how I'm called, that's what prison I'm transferred
19:35to next,
19:37that's where I'm told to go,
19:40to go eat.
19:43When I see my family who has to drive six hours
19:46to upstate maximum security prisons.
19:52It's a horrible existence.
19:55It's a horrible existence.
19:57When your life is taken from you
19:59and your life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
20:03is no longer possible except if you fight,
20:07except if you get out of prison.
20:14When I arrive upstate, I start realizing
20:17that because I'm indigent,
20:18that is because I don't have a lawyer,
20:20I need to find one because my parents,
20:22now in debt from having paid a private attorney,
20:25which didn't work,
20:29now means that I have to find another attorney.
20:32So I begin writing letters
20:35and I begin trying to reach out
20:37and I begin educating myself,
20:38reading book after book trying to learn law.
20:45And a lawyer answers my cry.
20:48She became a lawyer in her late 40s
20:52after being imprisoned in Russia
20:54and she vowed that if she ever got out
20:56of her problem, for teaching Christianity in Russia,
20:59that she would become a lawyer.
21:02In her late 40s, I became her first case.
21:05And she came to my rescue.
21:07Her name was Mary Ann Di Bari.
21:09By 1993, Mary Ann Di Bari,
21:13five feet tall, blonde,
21:18the energy of a hummingbird,
21:20and the voice as if someone swallowed helium
21:27came to my rescue and she had these high heels
21:29that would clack and clack as she came to visit me
21:32and circulated the table
21:34showing me all the evidence with the excitement
21:36that she had telling me that the indictment
21:38was not worth
21:39the paper it was printed on.
21:42And she began investigating.
21:43She began doing what the police and prosecutor,
21:46by now, at my trial, had acknowledged not doing.
21:50Investigating.
21:52And she found all these teenage witnesses
21:55who said that they purposely
21:58sent me to prison to get out of prison themselves.
22:02Or, that they were, in fact, mistaken
22:05and just went along with everyone else
22:07because I resembled the shooter
22:09because I was Latino.
22:12And all these witnesses came forward
22:15and for me, it was the dawning of a new day
22:16because the same judge who sentenced me,
22:18I now felt, would now be receptive
22:20to hearing the evidence
22:22and order a new trial because my case
22:25only rested upon
22:28identification testimony.
22:30There was no physical or forensic evidence
22:32linking me to this crime.
22:35Just these witnesses
22:36who got up on the stand and lied.
22:39But, the judge didn't care.
22:42He scoffed at Mary Ann Di Bari and laughed her out
22:45of her courtroom.
22:47As if she was someone telling this emperor,
22:50the judge, that he had no clothes.
22:54And so began my legal odyssey
22:59in a criminal justice system
23:01flawed, due to mistaken eyewitness identification.
23:04Prosecutorial misconduct.
23:07And police misconduct.
23:08Which, by all accounts, had already resulted
23:11in the arrest of another innocent man
23:13by the same precinct, who would later get exonerated.
23:18But before me.
23:23And now I have to survive in prison.
23:26Because I was losing appeal after appeal.
23:31Each prisoner counts their hopes
23:33on winning an appeal.
23:35It's like a lottery in which you
23:38put the arguments forward
23:39and you hope, you pray, that your case
23:42will be heard by a court and that will reverse
23:46the circumstances which you find yourself in.
23:50But the odds are so infinitesimally small
23:53to get justice on appeal
23:57but I felt I could because I had the truth on my side.
24:02And that didn't work.
24:04Year after year would begin ticking by in prison.
24:091993,
24:1194,
24:1295,
24:1396,
24:1497.
24:17And each day felt
24:20not like 24 hours, but like 48
24:24because time in prison drags.
24:26It goes slow.
24:29You feel lost unless you try to find yourself
24:32in some meaningful way.
24:34Because you're surrounded by violence.
24:37There's people cutting and stabbing each other.
24:39There's people hanging up because
24:41they can't take it anymore.
24:43Being led out on stretchers
24:46because it's their end.
24:47It's their last stop.
24:51There's the brutality of correctional officers
24:53amid the good ones that do, indeed, exist.
24:55And there's your own mind
24:59your own mind which seeks to
25:01become your enemy,
25:04not your best friend.
25:06And you have to fight against that.
25:08And I fought against it
25:11by doing the best I could through education.
25:15Once I had Mary Ann Di Bari, and even though
25:17she didn't win, I knew I had a fight on my hands.
25:22And that's because, also, I had people
25:25that I had to live for.
25:28Not including my parents.
25:30Not just them.
25:32Not just my parents
25:33who were suffering and were in debt as a result.
25:36But for now, my wife and children.
25:40Because in prison, I was able to find
25:42a wonderful woman who believed in me
25:44and married me while I was in prison.
25:50And she brought back the faith of God
25:52in my life
25:55and she gave me these beautiful children
25:57which made me want to live when I felt like dying.
26:03And so I was able to avail myself
26:04of a college degree in which a scholarship
26:07afforded me the opportunity to earn a business degree,
26:10which I translated and put into effect,
26:13in real action.
26:15I began selling clothes in prison.
26:18I began buying clothing, say for $5
26:20and retailing it for $20.
26:23And it wouldn't just be money that would be exchanged
26:26through checks that inmates would send my wife,
26:28but more through detergent, soap,
26:33toothbrushes, toothpaste,
26:35deodorant, stamps and cigarettes,
26:39which I would accumulate in lump sum
26:41and give to my wife on prison visit
26:44so she could take it out and sell it
26:46at the bodega for some money to pay the bills.
26:48That was my way of staying sane.
26:51Of making sense of my incongruous situation.
26:57But sell as many clothes as I could,
27:00that wasn't changing my circumstances
27:02of getting out of prison.
27:05By 2000, my next hope in prison
27:09to get out
27:11was to go to federal court because the state
27:14had denied me across the board.
27:16I lost every appeal in the state.
27:18So I had to go to federal court
27:20and fight my appeal.
27:21And it seemed like the dawning of a new day
27:24because for the first time,
27:27a judge ordered the witnesses
27:28all to come forward and to reveal the reasons
27:31why they lied against me under oath.
27:34I was like, wow.
27:36I can't wait to eat the sancocho.
27:39I smell it now.
27:40I got 10 years in prison and I got my chance to be free.
27:44So I walked in handcuffed, shackled,
27:48sat down,
27:50and all the witnesses came forward
27:52and revealed the reasons why they lied.
27:54By now, they were adults in professions
27:58living their lives, some troubled,
28:00particularly Efraim Lopez.
28:03Efraim Lopez who knew who committed this crime,
28:06as I said, who told the police and prosecutor
28:10got on the stand and told the judge
28:13and the whole courtroom, packed,
28:15why he lied.
28:17And then,
28:19he shuffled past me,
28:21clink, clink, clink, clink,
28:24and stopped at my defense table
28:25and said, I'm so sorry what I did to you.
28:30And he was quickly lead away.
28:33And then my defense attorney says,
28:36what do you think about that, Fernando?
28:38And I said, I forgive him.
28:40I forgive him in the name of Jesus Christ.
28:42I forgive him, without saying it,
28:46in my heart, because at that moment
28:49it was a victory for me to release the anger
28:51and resentment that was welling inside me
28:55like something rotten.
28:57Like something that was defeating me every single day
29:00because I carried such a heavy burden in my life.
29:05It was driving me mad to have this resentment,
29:07this grudge, which was, I felt,
29:10rotting me inside.
29:12When I forgave Efraim Lopez, at that very moment,
29:16I felt like I had a little victory
29:18because I didn't let the grudge defeat me anymore.
29:24And letting go of that felt really good.
29:27And so I also thought that because I did that,
29:30spiritually speaking,
29:33that that was just part of the reason
29:36why I was going to be free.
29:39But the years would tick by again.
29:41I'm in the law library, as usual,
29:43practicing and learning the law.
29:45Reading every book to stay on top of my case
29:48and to help my lawyers out.
29:51And then the decision comes.
29:53In 2004, four years later.
29:56Me, hoping, that the birth of my second daughter,
30:01Carissa, in 2001, a year right after when I had
30:07my proceedings, would now mean a difference.
30:12Went I went to court in federal court,
30:14she was celebrating on that very day
30:16her first birthday.
30:19And I really felt that that was a good sign
30:22that the meeting coinciding with her birth
30:25on the heels of 9/11 and all the destruction
30:28that had occurred against our great country
30:31would now be significant and connected
30:36to my being released.
30:39But in 2004, I get the decision
30:43that the judge, even though he agreed
30:46that my illegal identification procedures
30:48weren't constitutional and should not have happened,
30:52even though the witnesses had all these grand
30:56inconsistencies with the prior trial testimony, he said
31:01that it wasn't enough.
31:03He, instead, chose to believe the black and white transcript
31:06of their lies, under the federal law,
31:08which is complicated more than the state
31:11and decided to keep my conviction in tact.
31:16I came back from that decision
31:20and I felt like a body without it's skeleton.
31:24I was just walking around aimlessly in prison
31:28just feeling like I was gonna die in there.
31:31That's how I truly felt.
31:35And then I decided
31:38that I needed to fight.
31:40I decided that I need to rise above my circumstances.
31:47I need to rise and transcend above what was going on
31:51in my life and look at it all.
31:56Look at the problems, the depression,
32:01me having lost 10 appeals by then.
32:03And rise above it so I can get a better look
32:08and so my problems can seem smaller.
32:11Because when we rise against
32:13and above our problems, they get smaller.
32:18You get a better look, just like you do
32:22if you go on a rooftop and things look smaller
32:24and if you keep going.
32:26And that's how I had to look at my situation.
32:29I had to rise above it.
32:31I had to go against
32:33the depression that I felt,
32:36the anger that I felt,
32:38the feelings split in three through resentment,
32:40bitterness, and anger that was festering in me again.
32:45And I had to take the leap of faith.
32:50I had to
32:52go against what I was being told and what I saw
32:57and believe that God could free me.
33:01And so I joined the choir at church.
33:03And I began singing songs and hymns
33:05and I began reading my Bible and I began
33:08just holding on to the fact that I believed
33:11that if my situation was so peculiar
33:14that surly there would be a peculiar outcome.
33:17That surly there was a higher calling
33:19that I, too, didn't even know it then.
33:25So I began writing again.
33:27And writing, and writing, and writing.
33:29Mind you, this is how out of touch with technology
33:32I was at that point.
33:33I was using a green and white screened computer,
33:37at that time.
33:38One of those big computers that you laugh at
33:40if you even saw, if you've ever seen it
33:43'cause in prison, they just tucked away
33:44with all this technology.
33:46This old technology, I should say.
33:48But I cranked out letters.
33:50I wrote people on different continents.
33:53I wrote letter after letter to state assemblymen
33:55and Senators, anyone who would listen.
33:59And I started getting attention again.
34:01And my case got publicized on Court TV for an hour
34:07followed by MSNBC running another documentary,
34:10another story, and then, the New York Times
34:14placing my case front page in 2007,
34:18which also helped to attract a new group of lawyers
34:22who said, we're gonna work pro bono
34:24the way Mary Ann Di Bari had been working.
34:28Mary Ann, by now, had gotten cancer
34:32and even though it had been in remission,
34:33she was not able, no longer, to move around
34:36New York City, the way she had been to investigate
34:39my case and to do whatever.
34:41So she just served as a consultant.
34:44And so I got this attorney from
34:47New Jersey, Seton Hall Law School
34:50and she connected with law firms in Washington D.C.
34:55And New York, all of whom began working
34:59free of charge.
35:01And this collaboration
35:04made the District Attorney's office so nervous
35:06that they began investigating my case
35:09behind my back.
35:11What they did was, they started taking
35:13the key leads that Efraim Lopez had told them
35:15in 1991, and they were trying to match it
35:19to evidence that I could be this Wool Lou guy.
35:22Well the fact is, as we already had demonstrated
35:24in our proceedings, this Wool Lou guy did exist,
35:28he fled the state in 1991, right after the murder,
35:31had changed his name
35:34and had been arrested again for some other stuff.
35:39The District Attorney's office confirmed all of this
35:43and then confirmed that when they went
35:45to go check his alibi about where he had been
35:48on the night of August 3rd and 4th, that night,
35:50he says he was in Kentucky,
35:53no he wasn't because the employment records show
35:56that where he said he worked did not exist.
35:59And anyone who worked there did not recognize him.
36:02He had no tax information to prove that he worked there
36:07and a number of other inconsistencies were demonstrated
36:09that this was the right guy all along.
36:17And so a new judge opens my case
36:22in 2008 and 2009.
36:26And for the first time
36:29in state court
36:32this judge, Justice John Cataldo
36:36opened up my case and called an evidentiary hearing.
36:39And the District Attorney's office tried to stop it
36:42but they could not.
36:43Instead, they asked for more time to investigate.
36:46And then when that time ran out,
36:49now,
36:51they have the audacity to offer me
36:55a plea bargain.
36:57I'm in the prison yard running
37:00'cause I'm a runner
37:01and I'm running in prison.
37:02And the reason I run is to calm my nerves.
37:06Because I'm a nervous wreck.
37:07Silently I carry myself with respect and distinction
37:11but inside I'm crumbling.
37:14My hands shake, I can't sleep.
37:18Suicide still pops in my head
37:19even though I thought I overcame that problem
37:21in 1992 when I first came upstate.
37:29I'm called by a correctional guard
37:32and I meet my lawyers, and they say, Fernando,
37:35the District Attorney's office
37:36wants to offer you a plea bargain.
37:38Plead guilty and offer plea form to this crime
37:42and you can go free this week.
37:46I said, what?
37:48I had 18 years in prison, at that point.
37:51And let me tell you, I wanted to go home so bad.
37:54I wanted to taste my wife's cooking
37:56because through some strange phenomenon,
37:59she has all these compartments in her head
38:02and all these recipes passed down through generations.
38:05Meatloaf, boop.
38:07Lobster sauce, boop.
38:10Spaghetti and meatballs, boop.
38:12And I wanted to taste all that good cooking.
38:14I wanted to be home with my children.
38:16I wanted to be a dad with them
38:18and I wanted to run in the park with them.
38:20I wanted to be a human being again.
38:25I wanted to feel alive instead of feeling dead
38:27in a prison, in a six by nine foot cell
38:31where you sit in a small cell and you have a toilet
38:36and the bed is right next to the toilet
38:39and your cell is right there
38:40and people just walk by
38:41and you're like a caged animal in there.
38:46Even schools come in and watch you
38:48as part of a prison project
38:51understanding program.
38:53And they all walk and they just gawk at you,
38:54these little kids look at you.
38:56Of course, they're under correctional escort
38:58but they all gawk at you.
39:01Wow somebody in a cell.
39:03You're just there, embarrassed.
39:06So I wanted to leave prison.
39:08Hell yeah.
39:09I wanted to leave prison.
39:12But I couldn't leave
39:16by bending and crushing the principles
39:18upon which I first stood
39:20which was to maintain my innocence,
39:22which was not to accept a plea bargain
39:24when it was offered in 1992
39:28on my trial.
39:31I said I'm not gonna accept that.
39:34I'd rather die in prison for the truth
39:36at the risk that if I saw a parole board,
39:39they could deny me my freedom
39:41because a parole board requires you
39:44to say you're guilty and to express remorse
39:46before they let you out.
39:48How could I do that?
39:51And yet it was against this backdrop
39:54that I said no.
39:55I'll take my chances because I believe
39:58that my faith in God is sufficient
40:00as I prayed and I cried with my wife
40:02in that trailer visit
40:04that we would make it.
40:07In addition to that,
40:09we had kept the stork flying.
40:12Fernando Bermudez, III
40:14was born in 2005 and for me, he symbolized
40:18my determination to live beyond prison
40:21and to yes, allow something great
40:25to escape even if I didn't.
40:29But I took my chances and I go before the judge
40:33and all the witnesses come forward
40:35and they, too, reveal the reasons, again,
40:37why they lied.
40:40And I couldn't believe it because here we go again.
40:43Here we go again.
40:49But this time,
40:52the detective who had been arrested,
40:54who had arrested me and who had been arrested
40:56and was also responsible for, now,
40:58the exoneration of another innocent man,
41:00another Latino male, just months separately
41:03from when I was first arrested,
41:06and who had been arrested for drugs
41:09and crashing his car and hitting two young ladies
41:13and who somehow, miraculously was still on the police force,
41:16tell me how that happens,
41:19came in and came in drunk.
41:23He came in, like, stumbling.
41:25What was wrong with this officer?
41:27What was haunting this man
41:31as he was cross examined and couldn't remember anything.
41:35What was wrong, now, with the prosecutor
41:37who, before that, had been so smug in federal court
41:41about his position about my case,
41:43and now all of a sudden
41:45is talking about, well, which wrongful conviction
41:48case are you saying that I was involved in
41:50in sending an innocent man to prison?
41:53Oh, there's more?
41:55There's more wrongful conviction cases
41:57that you're involved in?
42:02The proceeding, at grave risk, however,
42:05went in my favor.
42:08Because a month later,
42:10I'm summoned to federal court
42:13and I'm standing there, my knees shaking,
42:17a touch of global warming
42:20under my collar, 'cause this is my fate now.
42:24After 18 1/2 years, if I don't get this 11th appeal,
42:29I could die in prison.
42:33And the judge asked me to stand
42:36and I'm standing there with my knees shaking,
42:38my lawyers are just bracing me,
42:41and he says the people of the State of New York
42:42versus Fernando Bermudez, defendant, will now
42:46make it's decision.
42:49And he said,
42:51I hereby declare you, Fernando Bermudez
42:55actually innocent.
42:58And I started crying
43:01and I was just there listening to the overwhelming emotion
43:05in the court, which I didn't have to look back for,
43:08but felt.
43:15I was a free man.
43:18I was going to be free
43:22and the judge said that the prosecutor
43:25knew and should have known that he was relying upon
43:29perjured testimony.
43:31That this prosecutor
43:34had purposely sent me to prison.
43:39That the police department had employed
43:42illegal identification procedures.
43:47Duh, we've been saying this for years in court
43:50which another judge had already acknowledged
43:52but didn't free me.
43:55And that the State of New York, for the first time
43:57had admitted that it's star witness,
43:59Efraim Pinocchio Lopez
44:03was lying.
44:05They admitted this.
44:08And he declared me innocent,
44:09apologized to me,
44:12and that began
44:15my freedom.
44:19I walked out
44:22into a new world which had changed
44:24over 18 years.
44:26I had been through several Presidents, Governors.
44:29The technology had drastically changed.
44:33The cell phones, which were the size of shoe boxes
44:36were now so small in your hand.
44:41Fashion had changed.
44:441990, 91, baggy pants were in.
44:47Now it was skinny jeans.
44:50And I caught one trying to put it on.
44:53Got it up one leg,
44:55got it up the other,
44:56and I couldn't get it up my Dominican butt.
44:59So I caught a complex
45:01and I tried to pull it up but I felt like a ballet dancer
45:04in tights.
45:06And one dude said, that's the style.
45:10I said, no it's not.
45:12These feel like leotards.
45:14Then I got the right size and I started getting with it.
45:17I started realizing that instead of me dancing
45:22old school, doing the robot and all this other stuff,
45:26which can still be in style if you do it right,
45:29I needed to get my Magic Mike moves on.
45:32I needed to dance, I needed to learn
45:34how to reintegrate into society.
45:39I needed to learn how to become a human being again
45:41as I ran in a park in freedom.
45:46And I started feeling alive again.
45:48But there was a problem.
45:50There was a problem.
45:53I didn't come out of prison
45:56the same person I was.
45:58I came out of prison
46:01and my parents didn't even recognize me.
46:05My mother said (speaking foreign language).
46:09You don't even want to even speak to us.
46:12You don't even wanna come by.
46:14Well I couldn't come back to the same neighborhood
46:16where I was arrested in and I was living in Connecticut
46:19and I was trying to be a responsible father
46:21to my children, to give them the dad
46:24that they were missing.
46:26And they don't understand that.
46:29They don't understand that I was waking up
46:30in the middle of the night, sweating.
46:33That I felt anxious around people
46:35in the department store.
46:36That I had got dizzy in the department store
46:38because of all the colors and selections
46:40were overwhelming me.
46:42That I had gotten up throughout the middle of the night
46:45in many occasions and I was walking
46:46because I still felt like I was in a prison cell.
46:49A six by nine foot cell
46:50only for my wife to tell me,
46:52go back to bed, you're not in prison anymore.
46:54There's no more standing count for you.
46:57When in my mind, there was.
46:59In my mind, I was free, and yet I still felt
47:02like I was in prison.
47:04I still felt like I didn't have permission
47:06to carry money.
47:07I would catch a complex when I swiped a debit card
47:10and it wouldn't register and I felt like I was being
47:12looked at as a thief.
47:16I was embarrassed.
47:19And I was hurt because the police and prosecutor
47:25were fighting me still.
47:27Not because I hadn't won my case,
47:29but because they offered nothing.
47:31The State of New York had kicked me out with nothing.
47:34After 18 1/2 years, I was released out of prison
47:38with no money, no psychological counseling
47:42and I had to get all of this on my own.
47:4618 1/2 years of prison.
47:48There is no pencil that can erase that damage.
47:52Let me tell you.
48:00And I realized that I needed psychological counseling.
48:03Because I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
48:07Because my heart would beat fast.
48:10Because I felt like I didn't belong in society.
48:14And so I started getting that.
48:16And at the same time, I started going to college
48:19and I earned my bachelors degree.
48:22And I continued trying to educate myself, as well.
48:26And equally important, I started sharing my story
48:29as a form of employment.
48:31I started devising a way to support myself
48:34in that, if I couldn't find a job,
48:38then I needed to tell my story.
48:41And I started cold calling universities.
48:44I started dialing and telling my story on the phone.
48:47And some people were receptive.
48:48I would show them newspaper clips.
48:49I would send it to them by way of email,
48:51links, 'cause I learned how to do links
48:53and all this stuff now.
48:53'Cause a computer, the internet had not existed
48:56and now all the sudden, we got this internet
48:59and I didn't understand when the screen would say,
49:02failed error detected, I was like what does that mean?
49:05All these different technological things.
49:07And everyone's texting.
49:08All these texting, omg, lol,
49:11people talking to themselves
49:13and I realize it's Bluetooth technology.
49:16It was a world that just confused me.
49:17It took me by surprise.
49:23And I started writing and the next thing I know,
49:24I'm getting these lectures.
49:26I even cold called Jean Murley
49:30and that way we met, and we got to talk.
49:33And I've been here several times since.
49:38It is the story, not only of forgiveness,
49:40that is essential with what you go through
49:43and what I went through
49:44and how I have to put that aside.
49:47But also the story of determination
49:49and perseverance that strikes at the heart
49:52that whatever adversity we face
49:54as human beings, that we have to also fight for
49:59to get our rights as human beings.
50:03And that's what I do.
50:05I'm an advocate with my children.
50:07It's not just me, it's myself and my children
50:10and my wife who we travel the world
50:13and nationally, to share our stories.
50:15To end the death penalty because we know
50:18that up to 147 or more people have been released
50:23from death row who were innocent.
50:27What pencil can erase that?
50:31Because once you're dead, it's over.
50:36We advocate to change the laws
50:40up in Albany with the politicians up there
50:44so that they can change the laws.
50:47To prevent things like forcing people
50:50to sit down to hide their height and weight
50:54difference so that witnesses,
50:56if a suspect stands, can make a better identification.
51:01We're working to change that.
51:03We're working to hold corrupt police
51:06and prosecutors accountable because what happened to me
51:11and the over 1,700 documented wrongful conviction cases
51:15since 1989, and those, that have not been documented
51:19before and those who are estimated to still
51:22be wrongfully incarcerated in the 1 to 5% range
51:26out of the 2.3 million people we got incarcerated
51:30presents a human rights and social justice problem.
51:34That needs to be addressed.
51:38So I find no better way to live
51:40than through the action
51:43of what happened to me and preventing it
51:46from someone else.
51:48And we also fight to get appropriate
51:51and any compensation for those
51:53who've been wrongfully convicted.
51:54Because you would think that upon getting out,
51:57with New York State having compensation laws,
51:59that is giving people some monetary help
52:03to help get their lives together,
52:06that even though it's in the legislation
52:08that it would be that simple.
52:09But it's not.
52:11It's not.
52:14I had to fight for 5 1/2 years
52:17before I got my compensation
52:19and the state fought me at every turn.
52:22At every turn they fought me and forced me
52:25to relive my case all over again.
52:28That is, I was being interrogated
52:30for up to 10 hours.
52:32The way I was in the police precinct.
52:34Where they wanted to know everything
52:35from my childhood
52:37to my adulthood
52:38just to see how they were not paying me
52:42for the 18 1/2 years I've been through hell.
52:45Which is why we seek to hold
52:48corrupt police and prosecutors accountable.
52:52There are stories, today, like Steven Avery's
52:54The Making of a Murderer,
52:56that make more people aware
52:58of this wrongful conviction problem.
53:00Jennifer Thompson's book, Picking Cotton,
53:03demonstrates the danger of mistaken
53:06eyewitness identification
53:07and all the host of problems that it can create.
53:11But the damage that wrongful convictions cause
53:15is not so simple as just giving a person
53:18a check and
53:21compensating them.
53:22It's not so simple as allowing this person
53:25to just be free again and to get on with their lives.
53:30The police and prosecutors
53:33those who purposely sent innocent people to prison
53:36must be held accountable.
53:39They have an ethical responsibility
53:42to uphold the law
53:45and to make sure that no innocent person should suffer.
53:51When they don't do that,
53:53they erode the public trust and confidence that we,
53:56as citizens, have
53:58to protect us from this happening again.
54:02To one of us, to one of your children,
54:05to one of your relatives.
54:11What it does to every human being
54:13to be wrongfully incarcerated
54:17is that
54:19it can kill you inside in certain ways.
54:23You live with an anxiety of knowing what happened to you
54:26that no matter what, you just can't shake off.
54:31My friend, Daryl Hunt,
54:34just died.
54:40He did 19 years in prison.
54:43He just died, man.
54:45I was in North Carolina
54:47and I was at the Healey Justice Center,
54:50which Jennifer Thompson created
54:52who wrote the book, Picking Cotton evolved
54:54and we were waiting for Daryl Hunt.
54:57One of the reasons I moved to North Carolina
55:02is because I wanted to work with Daryl Hunt
55:06and I wanted to work on the criminal justice reform
55:08there and everywhere else
55:11and he had cancer.
55:15And he had been so stressed out over what happened to him.
55:18We were at the retreat and we got news
55:24that Daryl Hunt, who was supposed to be there,
55:29was found in a car dead near Wake Forest University.
55:33And there stood his empty seat.
55:36Now we knew where my friend, Daryl Hunt,
55:39the first exoneree, who took me out to lunch
55:42when I was just free for a couple of months,
55:45why he didn't show up and why we can't work together.
55:55There have been over 10 exonerees in the last two years
55:59that have died.
56:00Heart attacks.
56:02(quiet crying)
56:08Strokes.
56:11Suicide, man.
56:13Because it gets hard to live with what happened to you.
56:18It's not about just so easy getting back with your life.
56:21They do damage to you no pencil can erase.
56:28And people take advantage of you when you're innocent.
56:33You deal with people in the world, they know you're innocent
56:34they think you're a good boy, you can be taken advantage of.
56:44But I'm determined.
56:46I'm determined
56:48that I'm going to continue living my life out loud
56:53that I'm going to pick up and work through
56:57Daryl Hunt's legacy to help him
57:01because I'm not the only one.
57:03We have to stand together.
57:06And we have to fight.
57:09Not just here but globally.
57:16The book, Picking Cotton,
57:18speaks about forgiveness, redemption,
57:23and the opportunity to use that story
57:27as one agent of change.
57:30I wanna be that agent.
57:32I'm gonna continue devoting my life
57:35right now, I am developing a real estate
57:38development project which, from North Carolina,
57:43will become the Fernando Bermudez Innocence Scholarship Fund
57:47and this fund, through the profits
57:49received through the real estate development
57:51that I'm involved in
57:53and am learning more and more about
57:56will provide a scholarship to students
57:59who win an award winning essay
58:02and they will receive X amount of money
58:05and their mission will be
58:08to volunteer their life in some way,
58:10for a certain amount of time,
58:12to an innocence project or some wrongful conviction cause.
58:17I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is.
58:19And I'm gonna put my experiences
58:21where they need to be.
58:23Because whether it's you, or anyone else
58:25in this audience, we want to fight together
58:29with you against this problem of wrongful convictions.
58:34I see no better way to live
58:36and it's the legacy that I'm creating
58:38for my children to carry over
58:40as they travel with us and have been affected too.
58:46My daughter, Carissa, 14,
58:48she's distracted now with all the different technology
58:52and all the different things that happened.
58:53But let me tell you, she's a lawyer, at heart.
58:57And that's what she wants to do.
58:59My son, Fernando, 10 years old now,
59:03has been affected by this situation.
59:05I'm not embarrassed to say,
59:08that to this day because he's so concerned
59:10that if I leave him too long, I might go to prison,
59:12that he still sleeps with us.
59:15I'm not embarrassed to say that I'm just concerned
59:17that if he doesn't stop, he'll have a mustache.
59:22And my eldest daughter, Shayla,
59:2523 just gave us our second grandson.
59:30So I'm a grandfather, twice, now.
59:34And all of us, our family, will continue fighting.
59:37Because what happened to me shouldn't happen to anyone.
59:41And I encourage you, that whenever you're in the darkness,
59:45the boredom, the frustration of your studies,
59:49when life tells you that you can't,
59:51let me tell you that you could.
59:54Let me tell you that you can rise above
59:56your circumstances
59:57and get that perspective, as I did.
1:00:01And see the problem for what it is.
1:00:03Something smaller, but not greater
1:00:06and bigger than yourself.
1:00:08Be good to yourself when you make mistakes.
1:00:11Learn from them, 'cause I've made mistakes
1:00:13upon my release, as well.
1:00:15I just got cheated by a corrupt contractor.
1:00:19But I'm gonna take him to court.
1:00:21And that fight is not over.
1:00:23And the fight is not over against wrongful convictions.
1:00:27So I ask you today, Queensborough Community College,
1:00:31to evaluate Picking Cotton beyond it just being a good read.
1:00:37To evaluate what forgiveness means in life.
1:00:40What mistaken eyewitness identifications mean
1:00:42for our criminal justice system as a leading cause.
1:00:45And what you, after reading and hearing my story today,
1:00:48can do to become an agent of change.
1:00:52If I have no excuse, why should you?
1:00:56Thank you.
1:00:57(audience applauding)
1:01:07- [Student] Well the question is,
1:01:07what are major issues it seems you had to go through
1:01:11that can help me inspire new characters in chapters
1:01:16for a book involving someone who was also, not although
1:01:20wrongfully convicted, that is in prison though.
1:01:24- Okay.
1:01:25It's the structure of a book.
1:01:27It's the skeleton of a book where you have to fill in the,
1:01:30yeah, I mean certainly you always have your protagonist
1:01:33and antagonist and regardless of the background,
1:01:35guilt or innocence, there's always, I would think,
1:01:38the hope that there's a level of redemption
1:01:40in that character development's life.
1:01:43Sometimes, and really it doesn't matter
1:01:46what you have done, it matters what you become
1:01:50as a result of that.
1:01:51There's no excuse, really,
1:01:54for horrendous crimes that have happened
1:01:57and things like that, you can't take back that damage.
1:02:01It's horrible but how do you redeem yourself?
1:02:04What do you do when that circumstance is part of your life
1:02:08or you were responsible for it.
1:02:11What were the elements that helped you connect
1:02:14to what becomes your story?
1:02:16Was it faith?
1:02:17Was it personal disgust?
1:02:19Was it
1:02:21your love for your own children
1:02:23and now you see through their eyes
1:02:24and empathize the type of damage you've done
1:02:27when perhaps you were too blinded or drug induced
1:02:31or any other reason that put you in that position
1:02:34in the first place?
1:02:36You have to have elements that acquire the character
1:02:38development of that particular person.
1:02:45- [Susan] We have another question?
1:02:49- [Student] Recently on the news
1:02:51they have been talking about shutting down Riker's Island.
1:02:54Being that you've been there and you've seen, first hand,
1:02:57the brutality and everything that goes on,
1:02:59do you agree with that?
1:03:03- Well I agree with shutting it down.
1:03:04The problem is, where you gonna put everybody?
1:03:08The thing is, what you really need,
1:03:10is you need a revamping, a reform
1:03:13of that correctional department.
1:03:14I've been in there.
1:03:1591, 92 I was there.
1:03:17And then I was there for my court proceedings
1:03:19where I was there a few weeks.
1:03:21And it's like the same old, same old,
1:03:23except the gangs change, but yet the disposition
1:03:26for anger and violence, etc, is still there.
1:03:29So is the correctional officer brutality.
1:03:33What do you do?
1:03:34You have to have a determined effect.
1:03:37Laws are created in our society to provide
1:03:41a push against repeating this sort of behavior again.
1:03:44If there's no consequences or accountability,
1:03:47just like wrongful convictions, then they can happen again.
1:03:50Those who are responsible for not upholding the law,
1:03:53even a correctional setting,
1:03:54need to be held responsible.
1:03:56And recently, that is starting to happen,
1:03:57which is why, as you said, they are calling for reforms
1:04:01and the closing of Riker's.
1:04:04I think people need to be held financially
1:04:06and socially liable for this type of destruction
1:04:11'cause people have died in Riker's Island
1:04:13and they haven't even been convicted of a crime.
1:04:15What if, for some reason, you end up in Riker's Island,
1:04:19say you're caught with some pot or something,
1:04:22pot smokers, that's a whole nother subject,
1:04:24medical marijuana in Colorado and what they do,
1:04:26that's a whole nother subject.
1:04:27But what if you're caught?
1:04:28You get sent, you go to central booking,
1:04:29and then you don't post bail, you get sent
1:04:31to Riker's Island.
1:04:32Just for something like that,
1:04:34you could end up, now killed, 'cause you're
1:04:36at Riker's Island.
1:04:40It's so important to provide a safe atmosphere
1:04:43for every person who's arrested and to give them
1:04:46the opportunity to also change their lives.
1:04:48- [Student] Do you feel like there should be
1:04:49a separation in there?
1:04:51Because I know there's low-level criminals
1:04:54as well as those that committed felonies,
1:04:56they're all put into one area.
1:05:00- Yes, absolutely because you have people
1:05:02for drug crimes, and you have people
1:05:04who are convicted of serial murders, murders, etc.
1:05:08And now you have all these people grouped together.
1:05:10The mindset of different people facing different time,
1:05:13in itself, can create a combustion.
1:05:15Which, when explodes, can lead to dire consequences.
1:05:19So yeah, I think there should be a separation.
1:05:21- [Student] Thank you.
1:05:27- [Student] You spoke about forgiving Efraim Lopez
1:05:30for his wrongful testimony, if you will.
1:05:33Do you think your thought process would have changed
1:05:35if he did not show any remorse for his actions?
1:05:44- I think it would have changed after I got out.
1:05:47I think it would have changed then,
1:05:48because I was dealing with the problem
1:05:50of holding so much anger and stuff,
1:05:53but when he did that,
1:05:55it broke me on a level that I wasn't expecting
1:05:57because I had been trying to forgive him
1:05:59and all the witnesses who put me in prison.
1:06:02Because I was on a Christian walk
1:06:04in which I was reading about forgiveness,
1:06:07I was learning about forgiveness
1:06:08and I wanted to carry that out.
1:06:10But I was having trouble doing it.
1:06:12He did that, when he said that to me,
1:06:15he helped create a change in me right then and there
1:06:19because it's what I wanted to do.
1:06:22And if he was man enough to do that in open court
1:06:24the way he did, then I had to search my own self
1:06:28for what I could do as a result.
1:06:39- [Student] I wanted to know how was it meeting
1:06:42Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton?
1:06:44Like what words did you exchange
1:06:46and, since you had similar experiences?
1:06:51- Yes, well I met Jennifer and Ronald Cotton years ago.
1:06:54We do innocence movement work
1:06:56so we travel nationally and we meet at different events.
1:06:59And once I moved to North Carolina,
1:07:02then I met her more personally
1:07:06because that's where she lives.
1:07:09We was able to be sociable, her and her husband.
1:07:12Her husband got me a talk at his university
1:07:14and then she said, she said I want you to be part of
1:07:17the Healing Justice Foundation.
1:07:18You're an exoneree and we could use your consultation.
1:07:22But just as important, she invited me
1:07:24to the Healing Justice Retreat.
1:07:25The first of it's kind and which, just last week,
1:07:28just a few days ago,
1:07:30Sunday, the day that we heard the bad news
1:07:32about Daryl Hunt, actually,
1:07:34that he was found dead.
1:07:35We were all together and there was several exonerees,
1:07:39Ohio man who spent time in prison
1:07:41for a crime he didn't commit,
1:07:42one from D.C. who had gotten out
1:07:44through the parole board but never had been exonerated
1:07:46and is working on it.
1:07:47Another one who was from Virginia and like two others,
1:07:51including a female who had been released from Death Row
1:07:55and who was declared innocent.
1:07:56In addition to crime victim families
1:07:59who were there and dealing with their own suffering.
1:08:02And it was great.
1:08:03It was great connecting her on this level
1:08:05because it's a program that is going to help people
1:08:09who have trauma to help understand it
1:08:12and start working on trying to heal from it
1:08:15through a group support system, in which,
1:08:16we even had a licensed therapist there.
1:08:18Because some people would break out
1:08:20and would have to leave the room
1:08:22with uncontrolled emotion because reliving
1:08:25some of this stuff is not easy.
1:08:27So it was a great opportunity and we're going to do more
1:08:30work together, this is just a beginning.
1:08:32In fact, I was just with Daryl Hunt
1:08:34and Jennifer Thompson in Washington D.C.
1:08:37Where we were working with the Attorney General there
1:08:40and other people so we can bring the reforms
1:08:43that we need to our criminal justice system.
1:08:46Including states that give no compensation
1:08:49to those who they've wronged.
1:08:51I'm gonna say that again.
1:08:52Some states give no compensation
1:08:55to those who've been wrongfully incarcerated.
1:08:58And that's a shame.
1:09:04Yes?
1:09:07- [Woman In Audience] So Ronald was able to connect
1:09:10with Jennifer.
1:09:11Were you able to connect with anybody after
1:09:14you were exonerated for anybody who's accused you?
1:09:18- No, due to my ongoing cases,
1:09:20I can not converse or have any contact with them.
1:09:23But I do know Ronald Cotton.
1:09:25Ronald Cotton is a nice man.
1:09:28Haven't met him in North Carolina, itself.
1:09:30I think he still lives there,
1:09:32but he had had a stroke two years ago,
1:09:34so he had dropped out.
1:09:35When I saw him, he was in bad shape
1:09:37and I just hope that he's in better health.
1:09:43Yes?
1:09:44- [Student] I would like to know your thoughts
1:09:45on The Central Park Five case and since it relates
1:09:49to wrongful, faulty eyewitness testimony,
1:09:53what are your thoughts about that?
1:09:54The Central Park Five case?
1:09:56- Yes, well their case didn't, yeah.
1:09:59I know them personally, and we've worked together
1:10:01in some instances and
1:10:03it's a good documentary that they came out with,
1:10:06which has ignited the public imagination
1:10:08and public knowledge about this wrongful conviction problem.
1:10:12And the long battle that they had to be compensated.
1:10:16It took them over 10 years to be compensated,
1:10:19and not only that, the damage,
1:10:21the damage that happened in their lives
1:10:23as young men.
1:10:25These young men were in their teens
1:10:28when this happened to them.
1:10:30And then it also speaks to the gravity
1:10:33and consideration that we should all have
1:10:35to the political candidates that we have at the fore
1:10:38in our political race for presidency.
1:10:41For example,
1:10:42Donald Trump, you know what he's doing.
1:10:46You know how he's thumping.
1:10:48Let's take it back.
1:10:49In 1989, when this case first happened,
1:10:52when New York City was a hotbed of crime,
1:10:54which from 1989 until 1993,
1:10:57there was over 2,000 homicides in New York City each year.
1:11:00That's the context in which I was arrested in, as well.
1:11:04But Donald Trump, at that time,
1:11:06put a big billboard condemning the Central Park Five
1:11:10and essentially calling for their execution.
1:11:13But was he right?
1:11:15No.
1:11:17These men were proven innocent.
1:11:19So what does it mean for someone to have
1:11:21that sort of judgment and then to be elected President?
1:11:24What kind of rush to judgment may have he had
1:11:26if we get into a conflict with another country?
1:11:29What misjudgment, what misfiring may he have
1:11:34in his political ammunition and strength?
1:11:36What does it mean for our country
1:11:38if he did such a grave mistake, then.
1:11:40And to this day, speaking about redemption,
1:11:43forgiveness, and so forth,
1:11:44he hasn't even apologized to them.
1:11:48So that's how the Central Park case
1:11:50strikes me the most, besides knowing them personally
1:11:53and how they suffer, still.
1:11:55And what does it mean for the imagination
1:12:00and public discussion we need on this.
1:12:02- [Student] Thank you.
1:12:05- [Student] Hi.
1:12:10I think that both you and I can agree
1:12:12that prisons, as they are now, are in a dismal condition.
1:12:16Besides exonerations, what would be the reforms
1:12:19that you would like to see, not just in the law,
1:12:22but in prison life and mentality?
1:12:27- Well the kind of prison reforms that I would like to see
1:12:30is certainly to
1:12:32expand the prison education programs.
1:12:35I was a beneficiary of the prison,
1:12:38the TAP and Pell grants, when they existed,
1:12:40before they were taken away in 1995.
1:12:44I was able to get an associates degree
1:12:46and just that alone, from that experience,
1:12:48from 1995 and to now, be able to get more private education,
1:12:52in 2008 through another prison scholarship program,
1:12:57I seen the transformation of human lives
1:12:59inside prison in remarkable ways.
1:13:01Guilty and innocent.
1:13:03I'm talking about men who have, to date,
1:13:06gone on and earned their doctorate's degree
1:13:08as a result of getting that foundation of education
1:13:11in prison.
1:13:12I'm talking about statistical empirical evidence
1:13:14which shows that those who get a college education
1:13:18in prison are less likely to return to prison
1:13:22because they've prepared themselves.
1:13:24Educationally, with a different attitude
1:13:27and marketable skills, which in large part,
1:13:29allow them to become leaders and become marketable
1:13:32out in the employment place.
1:13:34So, education in prison is something
1:13:37that I feel needs to be refunded in greater ways.
1:13:41It's something that would help improve the lives
1:13:46of society because these men and women
1:13:48who get these college educations in prison
1:13:51come out and become taxpayers,
1:13:55they become more productive,
1:13:56they become better family orientated individuals
1:14:01and they just, overall, have a better chance of success.
1:14:03That's my first reform, and of course,
1:14:06nipping problems such as drug and substance abuse
1:14:08because a lot of people in prison, as well,
1:14:10and what I call a land of bad decisions
1:14:12because let's face it, people make bad decisions
1:14:14and in some instances, they end up in prison.
1:14:17But some of that is based upon drug and substance abuse
1:14:20and if you don't address those problems
1:14:22while in prison, then you're gonna come out,
1:14:23you're still gonna be an addict, then what's gonna happen?
1:14:26You're gonna end up in prison.
1:14:27So those two things, education and
1:14:30the drug and substance abuse funding
1:14:32should be part of the funding.
1:14:34- Thanks. - You're welcome.
1:14:36Yes?
1:14:37- [Student] What happened to Wool Lou and where is he now?
1:14:40- Wool Lou is still free.
1:14:42He's living his life, I would say,
1:14:44still thumbing his nose at justice
1:14:47even though the judge said in his decision
1:14:49that the police and prosecutor, by all means,
1:14:51know who actually committed this crime.
1:14:54And to this day, they haven't done anything.
1:14:57The way I look at it,
1:14:58this case is a cold case in that,
1:15:02it's never been solved.
1:15:03If a case hasn't been solved,
1:15:04by definition, then it becomes a cold case.
1:15:08And that means that there's still a murderer
1:15:09out there walking around and this person
1:15:13is capable of committing more crimes
1:15:16and this person should be arrested
1:15:19and it hasn't happened.
1:15:20It hasn't happened, it's a disgrace
1:15:23that this person has been allowed to be free.
1:15:30- [Student] You said that one of your lawyers
1:15:32had cancer. - Yes.
1:15:34- [Student] How is she and was she there to see
1:15:38when you was pronounced innocent?
1:15:41- Yes.
1:15:42Well Mary Ann, who is my spiritual mother,
1:15:49who nurtured me in so many ways throughout my incarceration
1:15:51coming to visit me, offered me an opportunity
1:15:54to write her letters and call her
1:15:56and just all the fighting that she did,
1:15:59she had gone through several bouts of cancer,
1:16:01which went in remission and then finally,
1:16:03last year, she died.
1:16:05She died, she couldn't take the fight anymore
1:16:07and she died of cancer and I was there with her
1:16:11right before she died and
1:16:14it's interesting because she always had hoped
1:16:17the best for me and she wants me to go to law school
1:16:20and it's something that
1:16:21when you have kids, it's hard to do.
1:16:23But I'm not putting anything out of the ordinary, still.
1:16:29When I fought to get my house in North Carolina,
1:16:34the real estate agent said that he didn't think
1:16:35that I would get the asking price.
1:16:38And I did all my homework and I shot the best price
1:16:40that I could, and Mary Ann said that I could do it.
1:16:42Well, when I came back from making my last offer,
1:16:46and I was on my way back to Connecticut,
1:16:50we got the news that Mary Ann had died
1:16:55and seconds later, I kid you not,
1:16:59our real estate agent called and says,
1:17:02you got the house on the hill.
1:17:04We don't know how you did it,
1:17:05someone was looking over you,
1:17:08and I just thought of Mary Ann.
1:17:11'Cause he didn't think we could get that price.
1:17:16- [Student] I've read a statement saying
1:17:19unforgiveness is the poison that you drink
1:17:22waiting for the other person to die.
1:17:24What advice would you give someone
1:17:26who's struggling with unforgiveness?
1:17:29And do you think that the reason why
1:17:32you could have moved forward is because
1:17:34of your faith in God, Jesus Christ?
1:17:40- Yes, of course.
1:17:41I deal with a lot of stuff in my head.
1:17:47Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in my own house.
1:17:51Still dealing with things and forgiveness
1:17:53was something that I had to deal with,
1:17:55and even then, I still have to.
1:17:57Whenever I get angry at the people,
1:17:58because, see this is the context,
1:18:00to this day, the prosecutor has been let off the hook.
1:18:05So I want you to just understand how,
1:18:07even though I've forgiven those teenagers
1:18:10who put me in prison, and even though I've sought
1:18:13to forgive the prosecutor,
1:18:15he's never gotten punished for what happened.
1:18:18He's not been held accountable.
1:18:19Not even the court's been held accountable.
1:18:21The only people that the courts are holding accountable,
1:18:23to this day, is the police department.
1:18:25Where was the prosecutor who had
1:18:28every opportunity to stop this case from going forward?
1:18:31However, I know that I have to seek forgiveness
1:18:36from others and give it myself, as well,
1:18:41because I can't live with that anger and bitterness
1:18:43and grudge inside me.
1:18:45It makes you miserable.
1:18:48You can't progress.
1:18:50I can't be a father to my kids being an angry dude.
1:18:55You just can't.
1:18:55You don't have that innocence that you need for children
1:19:00by being so angry and having a grudge.
1:19:02So I had to forgive.
1:19:04Anger, it can make you physically sick
1:19:07through the grudge that you hold to unforgiveness.
1:19:10There's a physiological process
1:19:12that actually occurs.
1:19:14You get this adrenaline pumping in you.
1:19:16You get this cortisol, these bad hormones
1:19:19that really deteriorate your health.
1:19:22And so I don't want part of that.
1:19:24So I just strive to forgive.
1:19:26I pray.
1:19:27I pray for my enemies and I still run to exhaustion
1:19:31when I need to.
1:19:35Yes?
1:19:36- [Student] What was your hardest adjustment
1:19:39when you came home.
1:19:41Like in Picking Cotton, he was almost
1:19:43kind of afraid to, he wanted always an alibi,
1:19:47he had to be with people, is that something
1:19:49that you have also had trouble with?
1:19:51- Absolutely, I've even coined the term for myself,
1:19:53which I call alibi explanation.
1:19:55It's more academic term in my writings
1:19:59and for me, one of the problems that I had
1:20:00is that I may over explain things too much
1:20:03and I'll give details about things
1:20:05and then I'll even reference it.
1:20:06Like I'd say, if you don't believe me,
1:20:07ask such in such, or ask such in such.
1:20:10And I realize now, in self-evaluating myself
1:20:12that it's because I told the truth in the precinct
1:20:16and for so long that I wasn't believed,
1:20:18that now, it almost feels like I have to have an alibi.
1:20:22I have to have support just in case I'm not believed.
1:20:25Even though I know I'm telling the truth.
1:20:27And it's something like, where, if I'm eating gum,
1:20:30you're not gonna see me dumping a piece of gum
1:20:32on the sidewalk.
1:20:33That gum is going inside, right here.
1:20:36We're gonna flush it in the toilet
1:20:37because nobody's gonna get my DNA.
1:20:40Or I'm gonna go to an ATM and take some money
1:20:43out on purpose or just play with it
1:20:45so I can get a receipt.
1:20:47That way, that receipt shows me in the camera
1:20:50and I have a receipt as well.
1:20:51It shows me in the camera and it shows me,
1:20:53so someone try to say I did something in another state,
1:20:56while I'm in North Carolina in Wal-Mart.
1:20:58Mind you, trying to get spray cans for my graffiti art,
1:21:01which is the other thing I'm doing for therapy.
1:21:03I do graffiti art, so I got my token
1:21:06New York City subway token.
1:21:09For real.
1:21:14- [Student] You built a family in prison.
1:21:16How did you meet your wife and realize you loved her?
1:21:20- Well this is the (laughing)
1:21:22come on, man, the romancer.
1:21:29This tells you the dangers of watching television.
1:21:33It was a national story, my wife was living
1:21:35in Oklahoma and she saw me on TV
1:21:38and she wrote me letters.
1:21:38She investigated and found me.
1:21:41Next thing I know, I get this letter,
1:21:42and she wants to come visit me.
1:21:44And she came to visit me and we fell in love.
1:21:47And then we got married in the early years of my,
1:21:50early beginning of my incarceration
1:21:52and she just, I knew she was the one because
1:21:56out of all the other females I had coming to visit me
1:21:58when I was first locked up,
1:22:00she brought God into the picture.
1:22:01Other girls was talking about,
1:22:03when you get out, we'll go do this.
1:22:05She brought God.
1:22:07'Cause I was going back and forth.
1:22:09(audience applauding)
1:22:10Yeah, praise God.
1:22:11Let me tell you, she brought it real.
1:22:13She brought the proverbial,
1:22:15Proverbs 31 woman to the fore.
1:22:18If you ever read the Bible,
1:22:19Proverbs 31, just read that.
1:22:21She brought that to my life
1:22:23and then she brought these babies.
1:22:26She brought, look at.
1:22:32Look at the, my first daughter right there, right above me,
1:22:34Shayla, married to her Brazilian husband.
1:22:38She left college 'cause she, listen.
1:22:42I came home, let me tell you real quick.
1:22:44I came home, she didn't know me anymore.
1:22:47She got scared.
1:22:47I was in my room, I was in my son's room,
1:22:50I was going through stuff.
1:22:51She didn't think I loved her
1:22:53so she dropped out of college
1:22:55and got in love with her high school sweetheart.
1:22:57They were the prom people.
1:23:00She got married to him.
1:23:01They produced,
1:23:03right there, little Noah.
1:23:04The little kid right next to my son
1:23:06who's next to my wife.
1:23:08So he came in, and then he already had a baby,
1:23:12his daughter right there, so that's her stepdaughter
1:23:17and then, my daughter, Carissa, next to me right there
1:23:22on the other side, to the far right
1:23:26is my daughter Carissa, and then my grandson,
1:23:28my second grandson was born.
1:23:31Gianno Robert King.
1:23:33And so she brought me this into my life.
1:23:37I'm one of the few previous exonerees
1:23:39who was able to have a family in prison.
1:23:42And it's because I believe that our creator
1:23:44has given the spaces between our hands
1:23:46so we can hold the hands of another
1:23:48in life.
1:23:51And so we could support each other
1:23:53and so we could pull each other up when we're down.
1:23:58(audience applauding)
1:24:03That's my family right there.
1:24:04And that's my son who if he don't stop sleeping with us,
1:24:06he's gonna have a mustache, right there,
1:24:09with the white and black shirt.
1:24:23- [Student] When you got released,
1:24:24what was the first struggle that you faced
1:24:28and when journalists interviewed you,
1:24:33what was your first reaction?
1:24:38- I was bewildered in just getting out.
1:24:40I mean it had been a struggle in which
1:24:41I felt part of the institutional furniture.
1:24:46You live in prison so long that you become
1:24:49accustomed to that, not because you want to,
1:24:51but because it feels like you're gonna,
1:24:53that's it, you're in there,
1:24:55you don't feel like you're gonna get out.
1:24:57And so it became something where,
1:25:00with reporters, I just expressed my happiness
1:25:02in getting out and what my plans were.
1:25:04And then I also made it clear, in the public,
1:25:07that I wanted to start getting speaking engagements.
1:25:09'Cause I needed to find employment.
1:25:11And some of that helped.
1:25:14And it helped me, as well, because let me tell you
1:25:16how it helped, through journalism.
1:25:20I've got a fundraiser.
1:25:21I get out of prison, right.
1:25:22And I got a fundraiser, 'cause I need money.
1:25:24I got no money, so I got this fundraiser
1:25:27online with these Irish guys.
1:25:29Come on St. Paddy, come over here,
1:25:31we have a fundraiser for you, sir.
1:25:33We can have some fun here.
1:25:34So I get there, we have fun.
1:25:36Listen, Miguel Cotto, a boxing champ,
1:25:39signed some gloves, Leon Spinks signed some gloves for me.
1:25:43Pieces of Yankee Stadium were donated.
1:25:45I had tickets to the Hard Rock Cafe,
1:25:47all these different places donated stuff
1:25:49because they heard about my story.
1:25:54It helped,
1:25:55but now I need a car 'cause I need to get to places,
1:25:57I need to get to college.
1:25:59I'm trying to finish my bachelors degree.
1:26:01And so, I go to a,
1:26:04a dealership and I go in there and they say,
1:26:06you got no credit, where you been?
1:26:09Who are you?
1:26:10You got no credit, we just can't give you a car.
1:26:14So I told them, I said, but I got a story.
1:26:16So I took out the newspaper clippings
1:26:18and I started showing them.
1:26:19Next thing I know, I'm having like a audience
1:26:21in the car dealership and they gave me the car.
1:26:25(audience laughing and applauding)
1:26:27Yeah!
1:26:29I got a Nissan.
1:26:31I mean I had to put a down payment,
1:26:33but they gave me this low interest
1:26:34and they gave me some credit so they threw in some extras.
1:26:37That's how the news helped me.
1:26:38'Cause I was able to show them the paperwork.
1:26:43(laughing)
1:26:56- [Woman In Audience] When you were in prison,
1:26:58and you think you're gonna be there
1:27:00for the rest of your life,
1:27:03how do you deal with,
1:27:07understandably not even other people,
1:27:10but to know you'll never feel grass on your feet again,
1:27:14or dive into the ocean,
1:27:16how did you deal with things like that?
1:27:20- Reading.
1:27:22I read countless books in which,
1:27:24as Emily Dickens would say,
1:27:26a book is a gate which helps take you to lands
1:27:29undiscovered, and I would read books
1:27:32and I would have this little map
1:27:34in which I would barnacle it with
1:27:36all these little places that I would read about
1:27:39and I would write little fun facts.
1:27:42Like cork was discovered in the Mediterranean,
1:27:46this is the highest mountain in Japan, Mt. Fuji.
1:27:50All these different little notes and I would read.
1:27:51I would imagine going to these places.
1:27:54And it kept me going as a human being
1:27:56'cause I said, one day I could travel
1:27:57to these places.
1:28:00If I get out of prison.
1:28:01And so it would help my imagination.
1:28:04Which I would read about these places
1:28:06and concepts and ideas and battles.
1:28:09Inspirational stories of people
1:28:10who overcome odds, people who were trapped in icebergs.
1:28:13If you read the Endurance, Ernest Shackleton,
1:28:16they had it tough.
1:28:17They were stuck out there eating dog food.
1:28:22Dogs as the food.
1:28:26You learn to get inspiration through literature
1:28:28and that's what happened to me.
1:28:30And so when I got out, I'm gonna tell you
1:28:32how it connects, also.
1:28:34When I got out, sure enough, I started learning
1:28:38different languages and I started trying
1:28:40to get to these places and to this day,
1:28:42I've had lecture tours throughout Japan,
1:28:46France, Italy, Germany,
1:28:48I've been to Sweden,
1:28:50been to Canada, traveling.
1:28:54Because I imagined the stuff in prison
1:28:57and I learned the culture so when I got there,
1:29:00I was able to connect there with the audience.
1:29:03So if the Japanese tell me, I'll be like,
1:29:07(speaking foreign language)
1:29:09Thank you very much.
1:29:11And they love that 'cause you're connecting
1:29:12with their culture and that's what literature did for me.
1:29:16(audience applauding)
1:29:23- [Joan] Any other questions?
1:29:25Yes.
1:29:29- [Student] How did you converse with the other cell mates
1:29:31in Riker's and in the upstate prison you were sent to?
1:29:34Did you have any issues with them
1:29:35or did you try to tell them I am innocent?
1:29:39- You were kinda low even with the microphone.
1:29:40- [Student] Oh, how did you converse with the other
1:29:41cellmates from Riker's and when you went to Upstate
1:29:43Albany Prison and things like that?
1:29:45- Well sometimes very carefully 'cause people
1:29:47can have delusions in prison so you gotta be careful
1:29:50how you speak to people.
1:29:52'Cause they could just, the slightest thing
1:29:54could be taken, are you trying to disrespect me?
1:29:57So you have mental problems.
1:29:59That's one of the problems with the mass incarceration
1:30:01problem that we have with over 2.3 million people.
1:30:04Some of the mental asylums have been downsized
1:30:06and they caused people to come to prison.
1:30:08So how I talked to them really,
1:30:09at ever level, is with respect.
1:30:12I tried to be respectful to everybody
1:30:14and I just tried to mind my business
1:30:16and if someone catches delusion,
1:30:18I tried to sort of like, kind of moon walk it backward.
1:30:23Because I don't want no trouble
1:30:24with big Bubba who weighs 400 pounds.
1:30:27When I sold clothes in prison,
1:30:28if you sell clothing, I sell clothes to big Bubba
1:30:31who weighed 300 something pounds.
1:30:33Now big Bubba, what if he don't wanna pay you?
1:30:36You gotta be careful with big Bubba,
1:30:37you can't tell him, yo you gotta pay me, man.
1:30:39You behind paying me, where's my cigarettes?
1:30:41Big Bubba's gonna get pissed.
1:30:44You gotta learn how to talk to Big Bubba
1:30:45or anyone else and so,
1:30:48you have ways of learning how to communicate.
1:30:50Like I would tell big Bubba, I'd say listen.
1:30:52I'm gonna sell you this five extra large shirt.
1:30:54I know you're pumping iron every day
1:30:55and I know you wanna see your girlfriend
1:30:57you met by way of a penpal,
1:30:58but I don't trust big Bubba, so big Bubba,
1:31:02I'm gonna say, why don't you let me hold
1:31:04your cassette tapes, all those R&B cassette tapes you got,
1:31:06let me just hold them and when you pay me,
1:31:08I'll give you the cassette tapes.
1:31:09We'll do a layaway plan.
1:31:12So, you have to reason with people sometimes
1:31:14because if I don't reason with big Bubba,
1:31:16then big Bubba may try to crush me.
1:31:18Me and him gonna tussle.
1:31:23- [Joan] Any other questions?
1:31:30Okay, thanks everybody.
1:31:32Please join me in thanking Fernando.
1:31:35(audience applauding)

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