Interview with Valentino Dixon — Transcript

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1. 0:00on August 10th 1991 Valentino Dixon was
2. 0:03arrested for the murder of toreano
3. 0:04Jackson
4. 0:05two days later Lamarr Scott admitted to
5. 0:07the murder but Dixon was later convicted
6. 0:09and sent to prison just over a year ago
7. 0:12Dixon was released after spending 27
8. 0:14years in prison for a crime he did not
9. 0:16commit
10. 0:17drawing is what got him through it
11. 0:18during his 27 years in prison Dixon has
12. 0:21completed over 800 works of art and so
13. 0:25what is drawing for you what is what
14. 0:26does art mean the Burchfield penny
15. 0:40hosted an exhibition of drawings that
16. 0:41kept him motivated throughout his time
17. 0:43behind bars his work will be on display
18. 0:45through March 2020 at the kickoff event
19. 0:48Dixon discussed his goals regarding
20. 0:50sentence reform problems with the
21. 0:51criminal justice system and his feelings
22. 0:54on what it was like in prison his spirit
23. 1:17and resiliency are astounding as he
24. 1:19talks about those responsible for
25. 1:21putting him in prison and how the system
26. 1:23failed him clearly the confession none
27. 1:28of this stuff made it to trial
28. 1:29my attorney could have called these
29. 1:31people he didn't call them so he helped
30. 1:33to violate my most basic fundamental
31. 1:35constitutional right to a fair trial
32. 1:37you know
33. 1:39and this is why we need to you know get
34. 1:42Congress attention on these issues and
35. 1:45Congress needs to act on these issues
36. 1:47instead of sitting back and they're not
37. 1:49doing anything what now and what do you
38. 1:52think needs to change to make sure this
39. 1:53doesn't happen to another human being
40. 1:55again well wrong wrongful convictions is
41. 1:57gonna occur okay because you always
42. 1:59gonna have some bad apples in the system
43. 2:02that's going to cover up when they make
44. 2:04a mistake I'm gonna cover it up and
45. 2:06they're gonna bury it and saying hey
46. 2:07instead of saying we need to fix this
47. 2:08you know so you can't change that right
48. 2:12what we can do is we can put agencies in
49. 2:14place and we can have avenues for people
50. 2:17to present the evidence outside of the
51. 2:20court you know sometimes the court just
52. 2:23don't want to fix all wrong they also
53. 2:26you should have government agencies that
54. 2:28look at these cases just say you know
55. 2:30the evidence supports that this person
56. 2:32is innocent release them and not take
57. 2:35years to release a person Jenna Godinho
58. 2:38Canisius College