AJCRADIO
Exposing Injustices Wherever Found
an Organization for Social Justice
Wrongly Convicted - Jeffrey Wansley
Jeffrey Wansley was indicted in the Circuit Court of Newton County in the state of Mississippi for sale of a controlled substance (0.89 grams or $100 worth of crack cocaine) to an under-cover informant, by the name of Cleveland McCall, within 1500 feet of a church. He has been fighting for the past 14 years to get his named cleared and his wrongful conviction overturned.
Website: http://www.jefferywansley.com
Human/Civil Rights Activist - Maurice Muhammad
Maurice Muhammad is a highly motivated, strategic thinking individual with a significant background in grassroots organizing and movement building as a former State Head Organizer. Maurice is currently working to help right the wrongful convictions of Jeffery Wansley, who is currently serving 30 years in a Mississippi federal prison for a crime, he says that he didn’t commit.
Website: http://about.me/maurice.muhammad
Attorney/Former Supreme Court Justice - Oliver Diaz
Oliver Diaz is a former presiding Justice for the Supreme Court of Mississippi. In 1985, he graduated from the Univ. of Mississippi School of Law, and in 2004, he received an LLM from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Website: http://www.oliverdiazlaw.com/
Wrongly Convicted/Exonerated - Seth Penalver
Seth Penalver spent 18 years in prison, including 13 years on Florida’s death row, for a brutal 1994 triple murder and armed robbery in Broward County. In 2006, with Seth continuing to maintain his innocence, the Florida Supreme Court overturned his conviction because the prosecution had introduced improper evidence at his trial – mainly a grainy video that was at best inconclusive in proving Seth was at the scene. (In Seth’s final trial, it came to light that the prosecution withheld evidence that an informant crucial to their case was given money in exchange for damning testimony).
Website: http://www.witnesstoinnocence.org/exonerees/seth-penalver.html
Human/Civil Rights Advocate - Mary Neal
Mary Neal is the founder of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AIMI"), advocating for 1.25 million inmates who are wrongly and cruelly imprisoned rather than treated for their mental dysfunctions. Her brother, Larry Neal, is a handicapped American who was wrongfully arrested and returned to his family as a naked corpse after 18 days with records and accountability denied. AIMI members works to have Civil and Human Rights applied to all, including the mentally ill.
Websites: http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/ ; http://www.wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/main.html
Founder of New Vision Organization - Leonna Brandao
New Vision Organization, Inc., is a nonprofit, grassroots organization, advocating for the incarcerated and soon to be released, men, women and youth. As a Social Worker, Leonna spent many years working with families, children and adolescents before coming to the reality that lightning can strike anyone, anywhere and anytime. After returning to the States in 1996, Leonna continued working in the health care profession, while advocating for prisoners and prison reform.
Daughter of IRP6's David Banks - Kea Banks
Our Special Guest tonight is Kea Banks, daughter of IRP6's David Banks. She will be sharing with our listening audience as to why she felt the need to write an Open Letter to the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame, requesting that 2014 inductee, Judge Christine Arguello, be removed due to knowingly sending her Father to prison wrongfully.
Wrongly Convicted/Exonerated - Damon Thibodeaux
Damon Thibodeaux was sentenced to death for the New Orleans-area murder of his half-cousin Crystal Champagne based largely on his recanted confession. After 15 years on death row, on a warm, overcast Friday in September 2012, Damon walked out of Death Row at Louisiana’s Angola Prison a free man. Damon had been on Death Row, since 1997, for a crime he did not commit.
Website: http://www.damonthibodeaux.com/
Private Investigator/Author - Martin Yant
Martin (Marty) Yant was an award-winning journalist in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Miami and Ohio before he became a licensed private investigator. Mr. Yant has been called ‘‘the most successful one-man innocence project in the country.’’ His investigations have helped free 16 wrongly convicted individuals, including two men originally sentenced to death who spent 26 years in prison and a couple incarcerated for 12 years for crimes that never occurred.
Website: www.aceofohio.com
Actor/Activist - Mike Farrell
Mike Farrell is best known for playing Captain B.J. Hunnicutt in the ever popular series M*A*S*H. Long before M*A*S*H was a household word, Mike Farrell was involved in issues that were of concern to him. The issues are largely those involving human rights and the death penalty. This involvement stems from his belief that being a responsible citizen means being willing to see conditions improve for the ultimate benefit of all.
Websites: http://www.mikefarrell.org/ ; www.freejoeg.com
Wrongly Convicted/Exonerated - Terrill Swift
Terrill Swift was wrongly convicted of rape & murder, at the young age of 17. On November 7, 1994, the body of Nina Glover was discovered in a dumpster in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago’s south side. Glover had been brutally raped and murdered. Vincent Thames, Terrill Swift, Harold Richardson and Michael Saunders were all arrested. At the request of some of the defendants, pre-trial DNA testing was done and that testing excluded all five of the charged teenagers as the source of the semen. On November 16, 2011, based on the DNA evidence, Judge Paul Biebel Jr. vacated the convictions of Swift, Saunders, Richardson and Thames.
Website: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictionsyouth/
Attorney at Law/Juvenile Justice - Joshua Tepfer
Joshua Tepfer is Project Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth and an Assistant Clinical Professor at Northwestern University School of Law. Josh has been involved with more than ten exonerations of convicted men, including as legal counsel in two cases known as the Dixmoor Five and Englewood Four. Those cases involved nine men exonerated by DNA evidence two decades after they were arrested, and seven of them confessed as teenagers during police interrogation.
Website: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/profiles/JoshuaTepfer/
Actress/Founder of The Actors' Gang Prison Project - Sabra Williams
Sabra Williams was born in London and moved to Los Angeles in 2002. She has received international acclaim for her work as an actress on stage in plays and on screen in movies/TV, such as “Mission Impossible III" opposite Tom Cruise as 'Annie Miller', and Nip/Tuck among other notable roles. Based in part on her experience of working in prisons in the United Kingdom as an actress with The English Shakespeare Company and The London Shakespeare Workout, Sabra created The Actors' Gang Prison Project with Artistic Director, Tim Robbins (Lead Actor in Shawshank Redemption, which was about being Wrongly Convicted) and currently serves as the Program's Director in addition to serving as the company's Director of Outreach, overseeing prevention programs for at-risk youth and gang members.
Website: http://www.wtffestival.theactorsgang.com/index.html#/prisonproject/
Private Investigator - Patrick H. Moore
Patrick Moore is a Los Angles based Private Investigator, Sentencing Mitigation Specialist, and Crime Writer. He has been working in this field since 2003 and his areas of expertise include drug trafficking cases, sex crimes, crimes of violence, and white collar fraud.
Website: www.allthingscrimeblog.com
Host/Executive Producer of Leid Stories - Utrice Leid
Utrice Leid is the Host/Executive Producer of Leid Stories on PRN.FM. She is also a civil rights activist and journalist. She was the managing editor of The City Sun and general manager of New York radio station WBAI. In 2004, The Miami Herald wrote that she "prides herself on never working in the mainstream media during her 34 years of journalism".
Websites: http://prn.fm/shows/leid-stories/ ; www.prn.fm
Ex-Death Row Inmate/Reverend - Billy Neal Moore
William Neal “Billy” Moore – Former Death Row Inmate and Minister spent 16-1/2 years on Georgia's death row. His sentence was commuted to life in 1991 after the victim's family spoke out against his execution. He was paroled a year later, and he has spent the last 12+ years determined to show that the death penalty is no solution to crime and seeks that the death penalty be abolished.
Website: http://www.nationwideministry.com/eblasts/eblast-bnmbook52009.htm
Ex-Death Row Prison Guard - Bobby Allen
Allen is currently working as a Christian author/writer and speaks to churches, groups and schools about his prison guard experiences on Georgia's Death Row. Allen was a Correctional Officer at Georgia's death row from 1981-1987, he also worked as a Unit Clerk reported Correctional Captain (Unit Manager), maintained files on all inmates under Death Sentence, maintained files for all uniformed staff assigned to U.D.S. unit, and Escorted condemned inmates to the holding cell prior to execution in the Electric Chair.
Wrongly Convicted/Exonerated - Sabrina Butler
On April 12, 1989, Sabrina rushed her son, Walter, to the hospital after he suddenly stopped breathing and died the next day. The very day of her son's death, Sabrina was arrested for child abuse due to the bruises left by her resuscitation attempts. Sabrina was convicted of both murder and child abuse. On December 17, 1995, Sabrina was exonerated after spending more than five years in prison and 33 months on death row.
Websites: www.sabrinabutler.webs.com ; http://www.witnesstoinnocence.org/exonerees/sabrina-butler.html
Professor at Law/Former Prosecutor - Mark Osler
Mark Osler is a law professor at the Univ. of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and critic of capital punishment in the United States. At St. Thomas, Mark founded the nation's first law school clinic on federal commutations, and he has advocated for an expansive use of the presidential pardon power. As an appellate attorney, Osler has briefed or argued cases (often as Amicus for other sentencing experts) in six federal courts of appeal and in the United States Supreme Court, and as a sentencing expert he has testified in Congress (2009) and before the U.S. Sentencing Commission (2004).
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-osler/letters-from-prison_b_3893682.htm
Wrongly Convicted/Exonerated - Ronald Keine
Ron Keine, is the Assistant Director of Communications & Training for the Witness to Innocence organization. In 1974, Keine, Doc and 3 friends were stopped and harassed by police in Oklahoma. They were arrested and charged with armed robbery of a gas station, which had burned down two years prior. But before Keine and his friends were set free, they were told they had to be extradited to New Mexico and were being charged with the Albuquerque murder of college student, William Velten. At trial, Ron was convicted and sentenced to death row. He was finally released in 1976, after the murder weapon was traced to a law enforcement officer who admitted to the killing. Ron spent two years on death row, before being exonerated.
Website: http://www.witnesstoinnocence.org/exonerees/ron-keine.html
Attorney - Laurence Severance
Larry Severance is an Attorney at Law and has his own practice in Seattle, Washington. He has been practicing law for the past 30 years.
Attorney/NBC Legal Analyst - Lisa Bloom
Lisa Bloom is the founder and managing partner of The Bloom Firm. Lisa for eight years, hosted her own show, Court TV, but over the last decade she has become the nation’s premiere television legal analyst for NBC. Her book, “Suspicion Nation,” is a story about Zimmerman, Martin, and the subsidiary cast of lawyers, cops, and witnesses. Bloom maintains that our nation’s biases and cultural blind spots created the conditions that led to the death of Trayvon Martin and made George Zimmerman’s acquittal the most likely outcome.
Websites: http://lisabloom.com/ ; http://www.thebloomfirm.com/lisas-blog
Attorney/TV Host - Darren Kavinoky
Darren Kavinoky is an accomplished trial lawyer, a well-known television host, legal analyst, and compelling keynote speaker. He is the creator and host of the television show Deadly Sins, which airs on Investigation Discovery. He has worked as both a field correspondent and as in-studio talent for Entertainment Tonight and The Insider. This once bankrupt attorney who swept floors in a furniture store to make ends meet has since created several multi-million dollar businesses, including a law firm that now employs more than 25 people.
Websites: http://www.darrenkavinoky.com/ ; http://www.nocuffs.com/
Retired Judge - H. Lee Sarokin
Judge Sarokin (85 years old) is a retired U.S. district judge and U.S. appeals court judge. Sarokin served as a district judge in New Jersey for 15 years and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1994 until 1996. In 1985, Sarokin famously overturned the 1967 triple murder conviction of middleweight boxer Rubin Carter. Sarokin had ruled that Carter had not received a fair trial. Judge Sarokin has authored over 2,000 written opinions, settled approximately 3,000 cases, and presided over more than 1,000 cases involving all types of federal and diversity jurisdiction issues.
Wrongly Convicted/Exonerated - Nicholas Yarris
In 1982, Nicholas Yarris was convicted of murder, rape, and abduction. He was sentenced to death. Still, Yarris proclaimed his innocence, leading to a long struggle for DNA testing of the crime scene evidence. In 2003, the profiles obtained from the gloves and the spermatozoa evidence appeared to originate from the same person. On July 2, 2003, Nicholas Yarris was excluded from all biological material connected with this crime. On September 3rd, 2003, based on Dr. Blake’s results, the court vacated Yarris’s conviction and he became the 140th person in the United States to be exonerated by post conviction DNA testing - the 13th DNA exoneration from death row. In December 2003, Nicholas Yarris was exonerated and finally freed from a Pennsylvania prison after spending almost 22 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.
Appellate Attorney - Sidney Powell
Sidney Powell served in the Department of Justice for ten years in Texas and Virginia and has devoted her private practice to federal appeals for the past twenty years. She was the youngest Assistant United States Attorney in the country and the youngest elected Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, for which she also served as President. Recognized by her peers as a “Super Lawyer” and named as one of the “Best Lawyers in America” for years, she has been lead counsel in more than 500 appeals in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, resulting in 180+ published opinions.
Website: http://www.federalappeals.com/
Wrongly Convicted - Nino Lyons
Nino Lyons was a clothing store owner, who was arrested after a raid in December of 2000. Although federal agents never found any drugs or paraphernalia, he was charged with trafficking cocaine, counterfeiting and became the victim of what a judge recently called a concerted campaign of prosecutorial abuse. The prosecutors covered up evidence that could have discredited many of Lyons' accusers. Nino Lyons spent three years in jail while prosecutors concealed evidence that could have set him free.
Website: http://floridainnocence.org/content/?tag=nino-lyons
Author/Motivational Speaker/Entrepreneur - Randy Kearse
Randy Kearse is a 5x published author, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur. Randy was an honor student until the 10th grade when he became bored with school and dropped out. At 26 years old, Randy was arrested and indicted on a slew of federal offenses. He was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. During his prison stay he completely transformed himself; his mindset, his perspective, goals, and dreams, as well as his vision for himself and his community. Upon his release from prison, Randy immediately began working to help steer troubled youth in the right direction. Randy has dedicated his life to educating and empowering today’s youth. From first-hand experience, he shares the thought process and lack of principles that steer young people off track.
Website: www.randykearse.net
Founder of Young Advocates Youth Organization - Leonard Reece
Leonard Reece is a Social Worker. In 2007, after being fired from his last job for advocating for a client he was serving, decided to not work with any of these organizations again and started the Young Advocates Youth Organization Of Ontario.The Young Advocates Youth Organization was created to serve youth in marginalized communities. They work with youth from the community who require support in the areas of substance misuse, mental health, as well as youths involved in the criminal justice system. They also advocate for the rights of homeless youth, provide street outreach, and work with youth who are involved in education system that are experiencing difficulties.
