he spent the next sixteen years in prison he was one of the quote lucky ones who was exonerated and released from prison after sixteen years authorities knew his d n a did not match of that of the actual perpetrator who three years later went on to murder another young woman and mother of two but wrote police officers prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel knowingly and maliciously accused prosecuted and eventually secured his conviction geoffrey is now in law school and he started the jeffrey deskovic foundation for justice which is committed to fighting wrongful conviction to raising awareness seeking legislative changes exonerat you know the fact that you have done what you've done with your life taken on law school and not only that but taken on working for other people who have who are in the situation you were in and making a difference from trying to get them out to trying to reintegrate them so i'm happy to have you back thank you very much my next guest is lorenzo johnson lorenza spent almost twenty two years incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit wrongfully convicted of a nine hundred ninety five murder in harrisburg pennsylvania he won release from his life without parole sentence in two thousand and twelve after the third circuit federal court of appeals ruled there was legally insufficient evidence for his action he remained free for four months after which the u s supreme court reinstated the conviction ordered him back to prison to resume the sentence his defense was not allowed to file briefs or make oral arguments for his position and he returned to prison on june fourteenth two thousand and twelve with the support of the pennsylvania innocence project he continued to fight for his freedom and on july eleventh two thousand and seventeen he was recent unst and released from prison welcome exams you know for most of us this sounds like a made for television story you know it's we can go to an o and all that and have absolutely no idea what it's like to be convicted of a crime you didn't commit and then put in prison by that's it done done deal so i'm going to start with you because you know jeffs has shared his story and i invite people to look on my you tube channel natasha sherman and there are a couple of interviews with jeff telling his very compelling story but let's talk about you right now so how old were you when you were convicted accused of in connection to your twenty two and didn't interview you and how long did the process take it pretty was so the most we use for me to go to trial but none of my alibi witnesses was interview none of their witnesses basically  it was just kind of let's wait for his trial and then send him off to jail as as the trial neared things begin to change and when i say things begin to change it started from the police and the tri his way up my down to the prosecution office as far as what misconduct was constantly being in play like you know for example we have an alibi witnesses one of toward them or  got to trial the model that was the case was bound over for the player hearing or change the whole theory change was i got a child and they lined up all this kind of a false evidence and they the scene one person put me on the scene i was never there so my alibi witnesses was crucial to me and the only way they felt i guess is they had a chance of a conviction for me is to have people put me on the scene or have people change their testimony that would help me write madge and you're sitting there in court and you think that you have these alibis and all of a sudden you hear them lying venice is cole is that is in situations like that well for convictions a lot of us don't go to court to be lawyers you know it happens to a certain percentage of us you know anybody like jeff was wrong so and it turns out from what i read that after you were released and then went back and i'd like to talk a little bit about that  found that there was a lot of withheld information in the police reports so as family law now what what transpired and how did that happen yeah it was it was it was discovered through our investigation it happened after lorenzo went back to up and back to present that the sole witness that put him at the  actually was an alternative suspect and that that information had been withheld from his attorney and that the model what this actually had like a familial relationship with maine to tack to mother that was also crucial material that had been withheld from  talk about a minute ago it was over two hundred some missing pages of my cases covering it like a star from paint pays it goes sort of the peace of mind i believe and then as i have a copays and jumped twenty pages this way then so no criminal penalties for when the prosecutors do that and there's no there's no civil penalties either i mean they have a no i have a law and you're right and i agree with you you're right but that's why the misconduct is prevalent because they know that the away with it and to make it even worse natasha is even within the context of a defendant trying to get rough a conviction overturned is not even enough just to show that there was a baby a violation but then the courts have this additional analysis that they put in they determine whether or not something that's been a harmless error you know and obviously if it's harmless they would not bother to write gaijin it in the first place so they didn't really stacked the deck against you know a defendant think i read somewhere where you said where some of the old timers when you came in told you suggested that you get your ged and that you study the law and you did that right actually yeah so that was these old timers they i guess is they grew to like me because i was consistent about my innocence so they you know they assisted me in little ways and that's why the best information i could ever get to war this was get my education i w educated my eyes open to what was what was a place with me yeah wow that's really impressive but so you're in there did you actually when you're in there believes like i'm never going to get out not never i never doubted the prison life and you would never think that you know they was innocent but they gave up they don't want to fight no more and you know i think the fact that you were engaged and you got educated and and you were proactive but there are a lot of people who are on death row i interviewed a criminal attorney for in california and he said there are i think seven hundred forty seven inmates waiting on death row most of them people of color all of them poor so if you're in prison and you're innocent and you're not educated and you don't get educated who's going to advocate for you and you can't advocate for yourself i mean it's just you know unbelievable i without allow my legal team to fabrice or argue normal procedures although one day so i was numb like that's any innocent person who got out of prison their worst nightmare that took place with me because you can argue the issues that your ways of you know they got you out they over and i say supreme court the highest court now you've got to go back down stairs and start all over again and try to mount up another defense you know amount of some new evidence that sort of her innocent twelfth ok so you have two weeks to process this and to decide whether you're going to bolt and rattly let me just say this that and during the interview it did during that intervening period you know lorenzo and i made a number of moves we tried on a political level you know i contacted a number of elected officials i knew i brought lorenzo whipping up to albany to participate in a press conference that i was doing in connection with the innocence project on wrongful conviction legislation but i just threw him in front of the this terrible car ride together you know and so asked me called me up one day and you know he asked me to do the most difficult than i've ever had to do in my life after being so out of it myself he said just listen i need you reading and now they're saying go back go back and try again you know it was like i wish it on no one like you know what i went to that day of the dr going back investigate is going to take place you know when i turn this thing around for five months you'll be back in court you know and half the time i'm telling him that to come for him and then like five minutes later he's telling the same thing to me is no i'm a just so we're alternating roles and then and then also it felt crazy what we were doing when it was rotating drivers and then on top of that people of calling lorenzo in and up and mike everybody is telling him what do you not see going back where what you know  turned around and the corny opposite direction yes he got a lot of cause like that and then he's explaining half the people don't understand the legal context i was trying to educate them really really quickly also you know we had the last a last meal yeah just before he turned himself and it was i don't think anyone can imagine it you know it's almost like and this is a horrible thing to say but if i can people heading to the concentration camp yeah you know you're getting on the up back inside stuff that he would need help but short time you know the typewriter creature comfort study got to get its clothes and other stuff from postage and legal copies and i'm like given him i don't know maybe five six hundred dollars and and i'm thinking like after i did that he gets out the car and walks i feel so inadequate that the money that then what do you build for the overall situation no i drove a car out and i pulled over on the side of the road and it took me like twelve minutes just to get my motions under convictions you don't have the luxury to entertain a lot of things a lot of times you have to be emotionless as a lot of things because the time you're going to entertainment is going to time away from the fight so i mean myself i knew what i was up against so it's like some fire to say i got my game face on you got a lockdown mine stay then i'm coming here i'm not coming here to be causal with you i'm coming here to sit and so my time is up and get out of here and when i said my time's up i mean my legal so i never you know i didn't understand what was going on then it dawned on me they had me bets was i going to show up or not and someone some was so i'm looking out and it's sickening to me like you go from a five star restaurant then you can sign slid under the door slid to the door and you know you have a laboratory for that type of stuff so i will talk dark place for like you know first ten days by dark place real dark way i don't want to and you could get that you know i'm going to make a request we're almost out of time in this half hour that we continue this we take a break and then we continue this because i want to hear more of your story and i think it's important for people to hear more of your story and what people should be paying attention to all right my name is attached to sherman thank you for joining us and please stay tuned for part t