The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice — Transcript

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1. 0:05uh so uh this really gives me an
2. 0:07opportunity uh to say a couple of things
3. 0:09first how much uh i value and i know the
4. 0:12whole city council council member albert
5. 0:14tarantino is here as well but i speak to
6. 0:16the entire city council how much we
7. 0:17value the chamber's partnership not not
8. 0:19just as an advocate advocate for
9. 0:22businesses within rochelle but really as
10. 0:24a pillar of our civic life organizing so
11. 0:26many different activities that define
12. 0:28who we are in this community and and for
13. 0:30that i'm enormously grateful and your
14. 0:33honorees really typify that tradition
15. 0:35and of course uh bob had to give me the
16. 0:37list because he doesn't trust me to
17. 0:38remember who the honorees are but uh let
18. 0:40me say just a couple of word about each
19. 0:42first uh jeffrey deskovic uh you know we
20. 0:45just met for the first time a few
21. 0:47minutes ago and i i'm going to repeat
22. 0:49publicly what i what i said privately
23. 0:51and that is just imagine the strength of
24. 0:53character that's required
25. 0:56to endure adversity that most of us can
26. 0:58hardly imagine
27. 1:00and yet afterwards not retreat into some
28. 1:03kind of inward bitterness
29. 1:05but instead find a way to
30. 1:07transform that experience into something
31. 1:09that uplifts others
32. 1:11and that is just a remarkable tribute to
33. 1:13strength of character and a wonderful
34. 1:15example for all of us and it's really an
35. 1:17honor to meet you and i think everyone
36. 1:19here is joined in feeling a great sense
37. 1:22of appreciation for what it is that
38. 1:23you've accomplished and let's give them
39. 1:43so what i'd like to do first is talk a
40. 1:45little bit about jeff description bring
41. 1:47him up and do jeff first so he can he
42. 1:49can catch his plane that he has to catch
43. 1:52now those of you who know me for a while
44. 1:54know that i've been doing morning radio
45. 1:56for about a decade now
46. 1:58and i became aware of jeff through a
47. 2:01wonderful defense attorney by the name
48. 2:03of murray richmond
49. 2:05and he told me about this young man who
50. 2:07at the age of 16 was accused of a rape
51. 2:11and a murder that he did not commit
52. 2:14and he was so
53. 2:16so um
54. 2:18i guess the right was persecuted he was
55. 2:21so interrogated to such a degree that at
56. 2:23the age of 16 he wound up in a fetal
57. 2:25position
58. 2:26on the floor
59. 2:28and admitting to a crime he did not
60. 2:30commit
61. 2:31he spent 16 years
62. 2:33in jail for the crime he did not commit
63. 2:36and the innocence group and other people
64. 2:39people like murray richmond
65. 2:41they they cried for his release
66. 2:43through his own work through his own
67. 2:45effort through his work
68. 2:47when he was in prison he ultimately won
69. 2:49his release
70. 2:50and he was vindicated not just by the
71. 2:53courts it wasn't something technical it
72. 2:55wasn't an issue where
73. 2:57they said yeah the dna doesn't match go
74. 2:59of course the dna didn't match and there
75. 3:01were lots of reasons why it didn't and
76. 3:03lots of bad police work
77. 3:05leading to the fact that it took too
78. 3:06long to free him
79. 3:08and it's just an incredible story so
80. 3:10what does he do he goes and he gets
81. 3:12his college degrees he's working right
82. 3:14now on a master's program
83. 3:16he has been named um one of the daily
84. 3:20news i guess it's top people of new york
85. 3:23now he did get money and that's what
86. 3:25this is about
87. 3:27those of you who read the papers
88. 3:28national and local know that he was
89. 3:30awarded the largest single amount of
90. 3:33money ever given uh to an exoneree in
91. 3:35the history of the country
92. 3:37now i say this lightheartedly and i've
93. 3:39said this to jeff on the radio so i may
94. 3:41as well repeat it here if i got 44
95. 3:43million dollars my significant other
96. 3:46aside
97. 3:47i would already be in acapulco with kate
98. 3:50upton and rihanna
99. 3:53but what does this guy do
100. 3:55he takes the money
101. 3:56and he sets up the jeff deskevick
102. 3:58foundation for social justice
103. 4:02and he gives back yeah he runs a
104. 4:04business and in fact we i i brought him
105. 4:05in to keep mickely's family before
106. 4:07frank's family tell him what you did
107. 4:09well i started this energy business and
108. 4:11boy you'd be great news guy imagine that
109. 4:13lincoln well there was a disruption at
110. 4:15the play the guy
111. 4:17has had a second life he's working on
112. 4:19his phd
113. 4:21he teaches college he flies all over the
114. 4:24world giving speeches
115. 4:26uh to help people who um
116. 4:29who are in the situation that he was
117. 4:31once i don't know what else to say he's
118. 4:32one of the true heroes i've met in my
119. 4:33life and just a wonderful human being
120. 4:36and with that i would like to introduce
121. 4:38to you and recognize the chamber of
122. 4:41commerce is humanitarian of the year the
123. 4:43first one in the new chamber to jeffrey
124. 4:45tuskeffect jeff thank you
125. 5:14good evening
126. 5:16i need some energy in the room good
127. 5:17evening good evening all right one more
128. 5:19time good evening good evening
129. 5:22thank you very much it's uh it's surreal
130. 5:25to be here never my wildest dreams
131. 5:28would i ever have imagined i would uh
132. 5:30receive an award uh not when i was uh in
133. 5:34sing sing which is here in westchester
134. 5:36county
135. 5:37still doing a life sentence for a crime
136. 5:40i didn't commit and not even
137. 5:42post
138. 5:43exoneration of post release so it's very
139. 5:47humbling and surreal to be honored and
140. 5:51i want to thank everybody that
141. 5:53signed off on the award i know bob runs
142. 5:56the chamber but obviously he has a board
143. 5:57and he has colleagues and
144. 5:59other people
145. 6:00signed off on that
146. 6:02i want to thank everyone who came out
147. 6:04tonight as well
148. 6:06so i founded and started uh the jeffrey
149. 6:08desk vic foundation for justice
150. 6:11which fights wrongful convictions
151. 6:14we have four prongs
152. 6:15we raise awareness
153. 6:17we seek changes in the law in order to
154. 6:19prevent wrongful convictions
155. 6:21we work to exonerate people who have
156. 6:24already been wrongfully convicted and we
157. 6:26also help reintegrate people once
158. 6:29they've been
159. 6:30once they have been
160. 6:32exonerated i started the organization
161. 6:36not because i was a concerned citizen
162. 6:39which is really the position that i wish
163. 6:40that i was coming to you tonight from
164. 6:43but instead as a as a first person
165. 6:45advocate who
166. 6:47is trying to take the negative that
167. 6:49happened to him and uh turn into
168. 6:51something positive i'm trying to take a
169. 6:54uh
170. 6:55get a silver lining out of everything
171. 6:58i spent 16 years in prison wrongfully
172. 7:00convicted of a murder and rape which
173. 7:02happened here in westchester county
174. 7:04my wrongful conviction was caused by a
175. 7:07coerced false confession prosecutorial
176. 7:10misconduct fraud by the medical examiner
177. 7:13and a terrible public defender
178. 7:16a perfect storm
179. 7:19i lost all seven of my appeals
180. 7:21and i was also turned down for parole
181. 7:24because rather than
182. 7:26telling the board what they wanted to
183. 7:27hear which was to take responsibility
184. 7:30and to express remorse
185. 7:32i instead stood on my innocence and the
186. 7:35cost spent additional year
187. 7:38ultimately i was exonerated through
188. 7:41further dna testing which not only
189. 7:44reaffirmed my innocence but also
190. 7:46identified the actual
191. 7:49perpetrator whose dna was only in the
192. 7:51data bank because
193. 7:53left free while i was doing time for his
194. 7:56crime
195. 7:57he killed another victim three and a
196. 7:59half years later
197. 8:01a school teacher and mother of two
198. 8:04in in pikascan which of course is here
199. 8:07in westchester
200. 8:10as i mentioned at the table where i was
201. 8:12dining at uh just a few short minutes
202. 8:14ago
203. 8:16i struggle hard against the idea that
204. 8:19my case is rare
205. 8:21my case is not rare
206. 8:23let me share with you some context
207. 8:26in 2014 125 people were exonerated
208. 8:30nationally
209. 8:33in 2013 91 people were exonerated
210. 8:36nationally and in the year prior to that
211. 8:38the figure was also 91.
212. 8:41the national registry of exonerations
213. 8:43which
214. 8:44uh collects
215. 8:46and centralizes uh all the exonerations
216. 8:49uh nationally currently in their
217. 8:51research which only dates back to 1989
218. 8:54they're they're now up to sixteen
219. 8:56hundred and fifty something exonerations
220. 8:58that have been uh chronicled
221. 9:01when you think about
222. 9:03that there were thirteen people that i
223. 9:05personally did time with that were
224. 9:07proven innocent through the court either
225. 9:10prior to me
226. 9:11or
227. 9:12after my exoneration
228. 9:15that i met in the course of those 16
229. 9:17years
230. 9:19i really believe it's the iceberg effect
231. 9:21that we're talking about here
232. 9:23in other words what we see above the
233. 9:26surface is just a fraction of the larger
234. 9:28hole of what's going on below
235. 9:31i believe the percentage of wrongfully
236. 9:34convicted people nationally is 15 to 20
237. 9:39percent
238. 9:41there was a recent uh article
239. 9:43in which the it was reported that the
240. 9:45fbi
241. 9:46uh admitted that for 20 years it sent
242. 9:49agents into the courtroom to give
243. 9:51so-called scientific testimony on
244. 9:54the significance of a match when it come
245. 9:56when it came to hair all the while
246. 9:58knowing that that was a junk science and
247. 10:00did not
248. 10:01have any validity
249. 10:03many junk sciences have passed for
250. 10:05evidence in our courtrooms
251. 10:08bullet lead analysis which is the idea
252. 10:10that you can determine based on its
253. 10:13medical its uh chemical compositions
254. 10:16not only what gun a bullet came from but
255. 10:19even tracing it back to the manufacturer
256. 10:21no validity tire tracks bite marks voice
257. 10:25uh analysis uh uh
258. 10:28even boot sizes even fingerprints where
259. 10:31there's really no universal consensus on
260. 10:34how many points of match on a palm has
261. 10:36to be there in order to constitute a
262. 10:38match and with no way at all no
263. 10:40scientific testing no scientific
264. 10:42underpinnings to be able to know well
265. 10:45just how many people would be capable of
266. 10:48making the same points of match
267. 10:50no universal standard on that each one
268. 10:52of those things has impacted thousands
269. 10:54of people out of which it's reasonable
270. 10:56to conclude that some of those people
271. 10:58were actually innocent
272. 11:01but what is it that causes wrongful
273. 11:03conviction what can we do about it
274. 11:06coerce forced confessions where we need
275. 11:08videotaping to ensure that police
276. 11:12don't lie understand that they don't
277. 11:13conveniently leave out illegal tactics
278. 11:15which they engage in and it protects
279. 11:17honest cops and false allegations of
280. 11:18coercion
281. 11:20coerce false confessions have been the
282. 11:21cause of wrongful convictions in 25
283. 11:23percent of the cases
284. 11:24misidentification the leading cause of
285. 11:26wrongful conviction at 75 percent
286. 11:30informant testimony in which somebody
287. 11:31gets a deal a benefit in exchange for
288. 11:34giving testimony it's been a cause of
289. 11:36wrongful convictions in 15 of the cases
290. 11:39bad lawyering
291. 11:41literally when it comes to the public
292. 11:43defender you get what you pay for
293. 11:46which is to say if you pay nothing at
294. 11:47all i'll let you finish for me
295. 11:50we still don't
296. 11:51preserve evidence so if you've been
297. 11:53lucky enough to have been wrongfully
298. 11:54convicted
299. 11:55in one of the cases that could be
300. 11:57subjected to dna testing the first
301. 11:59barrier is whether or not that evidence
302. 12:02has been lost or destroyed there's no
303. 12:05law that mandates the preservation of
304. 12:07evidence and so often we have a literal
305. 12:10trashing of the truth
306. 12:14i started the jeffrey destiny foundation
307. 12:17for justice for the reasons that i
308. 12:18mentioned i mean i wanted to
309. 12:20be the person that i wish i had on on
310. 12:22the out on the outside
311. 12:24nobody should have to go through what i
312. 12:27went through in terms of distinguishing
313. 12:29from the other organizations in the
314. 12:30field
315. 12:31firstly most organizations in the field
316. 12:34will only take on a case if it has dna
317. 12:36in it
318. 12:37but that's only five to twelve percent
319. 12:39my organization takes on non-dna cases
320. 12:42as well as dna because i don't believe
321. 12:44it's fair that if somebody is innocent
322. 12:46and they have a way of demonstrating
323. 12:47that and there's a way to prove it if
324. 12:49there's but somebody to do some boots on
325. 12:50the ground that we're instead going to
326. 12:52turn that person away because it can't
327. 12:54be proven through a microscope
328. 12:56so that's the first distinguishing
329. 12:58feature the second thing we advocate for
330. 13:00certain policy positions that the other
331. 13:03organizations are silent about i
332. 13:06referenced i had been denied parole
333. 13:09because i asserted my innocence but i
334. 13:12advocate a policy reform on that but the
335. 13:14other organizations while mentioning it
336. 13:16in the narrative of individual people's
337. 13:18cases and stories they won't advocate in
338. 13:21any type of legislation on that on that
339. 13:23to address that particular deficiency
340. 13:26the third thing is on the reintegrative
341. 13:28side my foundation we provide short-term
342. 13:31housing so we have a bedroom apartment
343. 13:33lease which is served as that crucial
344. 13:36housing
345. 13:37for four different wrongfully uh
346. 13:38convicted people
347. 13:40one of whom was able to get a bachelor's
348. 13:43degree from emergency college and also
349. 13:45open a juice bar as a result of having
350. 13:47some stability in the housing area so
351. 13:49that reintegrative component
352. 13:51is another distinguishing
353. 13:53feature along with us recommending
354. 13:56uh recommend referring exonerees to
355. 13:58potential job openings whenever there's
356. 14:00a match of a skill set and a business
357. 14:03need
358. 14:05another thing is that we do use parole
359. 14:08as a
360. 14:09stopgap measure so if any of our clients
361. 14:11come up for parole we send them the
362. 14:12parole border letter advocating their
363. 14:15release outlining the primary and
364. 14:16secondary reasons for our belief in
365. 14:18their innocence
366. 14:19why because although our goal is always
367. 14:21to prove innocence it's better for that
368. 14:23long slow process to take place while
369. 14:25somebody is free albeit on parole rather
370. 14:27than still sitting in prison as the slow
371. 14:29wheels of justice turn
372. 14:32lastly we're the only entity that was
373. 14:34started by somebody coming from my
374. 14:37position which has an exonerative
375. 14:39component to it that put in some of the
376. 14:41money that they received in the nearly
377. 14:45three years now that we have been in
378. 14:47existence
379. 14:48our highlights have included we helped
380. 14:51free william lopez who was incarcerated
381. 14:54for 23 and a half years prior to being
382. 14:56exonerated collaboratively with my
383. 14:59organization
384. 15:00mr lopez had been wrongfully convicted
385. 15:02of a shotgun murder in brooklyn
386. 15:05he incidentally he remained with us for
387. 15:08about a year and a half before passing
388. 15:10away
389. 15:12we convinced the parole board in two
390. 15:14different instances
391. 15:15to release people on parole based on
392. 15:18edison's grounds
393. 15:20we have the apartment which has helped
394. 15:21four people we also put together a
395. 15:23thinking journal's manual and
396. 15:24distributed outside of state and federal
397. 15:26courthouses with basic information which
398. 15:28we think that potential jurors
399. 15:31should
400. 15:32have
401. 15:35i am a
402. 15:36member of the
403. 15:37chamber of commerce i do wear a few
404. 15:39different hats
405. 15:41so changing gears
406. 15:44i want to
407. 15:46share that the business entity that's a
408. 15:48member of the chamber of commerce here
409. 15:50in new rochelle
410. 15:52the name of the company is called
411. 15:54majestic oil corp my business partner is
412. 15:56with me here miss nancy lopez we have
413. 15:59flyers from the
414. 16:04we have flyers from the business which
415. 16:05is back there we have a lo our low price
416. 16:08guarantee uh in a nutshell
417. 16:11if uh homeowners or business owners uh
418. 16:13they fax us their most recent bill we
419. 16:15guarantee to beat it by uh 10 cents a
420. 16:18gallon which does
421. 16:19is quite a bit of money you think about
422. 16:21the thousands of gallons but lastly more
423. 16:23importantly the most important feature
424. 16:25of the company
425. 16:26is we continue
426. 16:28the
427. 16:30my film my philanthropical leanings we
428. 16:32have a give back program
429. 16:34uh in which
430. 16:35nonprofit entities as well as uh
431. 16:37faith-based organizations of whatever
432. 16:39domination and faith
433. 16:41uh we donate 15 of the profit of the oil
434. 16:44company that from the sale oils back to
435. 16:47those entities so they can continue
436. 16:48their good works again the flyers are
437. 16:51are in the back if anybody uh is is
438. 16:54interested
439. 16:56i can't really uh
440. 16:58i can't really believe if i'm i'm not
441. 17:00really even sure if i'm sitting here
442. 17:02speaking or this is all just a
443. 17:05figment of my imagination because i
444. 17:07couldn't uh couldn't couldn't deal with
445. 17:09the present bars or the cell the cell
446. 17:11walls any longer i'm no longer really
447. 17:13sure whether i'm actually here speaking
448. 17:15but um
449. 17:18i guess i am i'm not i'm not sure of
450. 17:19that but
451. 17:21but um
452. 17:22i wish i could stay the rest of the
453. 17:25night if i had my way i would
454. 17:27unfortunately have to catch a plane i
455. 17:28have to speak at a conference tomorrow
456. 17:30in florida i have to do uh two
457. 17:32presentations so i have to leave in a
458. 17:34few minutes but i i really do feel bad
459. 17:36that i don't want to feel like i'm just
460. 17:38coming and like you know eating and
461. 17:39running i guess at the event version of
462. 17:41that but i
463. 17:42i'm sorry for that but
464. 17:45thank you so much for giving me uh your
465. 17:48attention and
466. 17:49i don't think i'm ever gonna uh
467. 17:53i don't think i'm ever gonna forget this
468. 17:54night that i got the uh got an award
469. 17:56here from the chairman
470. 17:58it means so much