In 1973, Detroit artist and award-winning boxer Ray Gray was accused of breaking into a local drug dealer’s home and fatally shooting him. Though none of the surviving occupants were able to identify the invaders, Ray became a focus of the investigation. Tunnel vision, corruption, faulty identification processes, suppressed evidence, and failure to investigate...
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While release from prison can be a joyful occasion, people who have been incarcerated face an entirely new series of challenges upon reclaiming their civilian status. Housing, a fundamental human right, is perhaps the most daunting of these challenges which can be observed in the disproportionately high number of homeless people with criminal histories. Pioneer...
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For the last sixteen years, Susan Slotnick has gone beyond the walls at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility to bring the joy, passion, and healing properties of modern dance to incarcerated men and boys. After retiring the dance company she ran for forty years, Susan was free to teach in concordance with her true humanistic values:...
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On February 20th, 2020, Kevin Baker and Sean Washington walked out of prison after spending twenty-five years locked up for a double-murder they didn’t commit. The trial that condemned them to a quarter century of incarceration relied on a sole witness who later acknowledged she was under the influence of crack cocaine at the time...
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In April of 1989, teenage mother Sabrina Butler experienced every parent’s worst nightmare when her nine-month-old son Walter suddenly stopped breathing. Despite her intense resuscitation efforts, Walter was pronounced dead at the hospital. Sabrina was then subjected to interrogation by twelve police officers and three detectives — without an attorney present — only to be...
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Sex sting busts are often regarded as heroic acts justice, but the ethics surrounding them aren't necessarily clear-cut. When a police set-up resulted in the incarceration of Kathleen Hambrick’s son, she claimed fraud due to a series of misleading interactions that equated to entrapment. Four years after his arrest, the Hambricks find themselves in legal...
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Robert Riggs is Peabody Award-winning journalist and digital media entrepreneur, widely regarded as one of the nation’s top investigative journalists. In his new podcast, Free to Kill, he exposes the rampant, deadly corruption that has come to poison many parole board systems across the country. In a disturbingly increasing trend, many parole boards let out...
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Open Mike has made it to triple-digits! On our landmark, 100th installment, Mike reunites with three former guest exonerees, Aaron Salter, Julie Baumer, and Kenny Wyniemko, as well as two journalists who have been blazing a path to illuminate the wrongful conviction crisis, Kevin Dietz and Bill Proctor. In this groundbreaking centenary episode, our guests...
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For nearly two decades, Chris Mumma has served as the Executive Director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, having represented 8 exonorees and fighting for a half a dozen more still behind bars. During her impressive tenure, she has forced legislation on multiple issues regarding wrongful convictions and established the only innocence inquiry...
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On December 2nd, 1999, Timothy Cole died of an asthma attack while in prison for a sexual assault he didn’t commit. Stunned by the injustice of the loss, his brother Cory vowed to clear his brother’s name and ensure such a tragedy never befall anyone else. His family, joined by the victim and the Texas...
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What if you could nourish both the bodies and the souls of your fellow neighbors? We the People Opportunity Farm has accomplished just that for Washtenaw County and its inhabitants. The community farming project has sowed the seeds for its participants’ success by investing in the employment and development of formerly incarcerated men and women...
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The entire world has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but few industries have been hit as uniquely hard as the bar and restaurant sector. Recognizing the dire straits the industry faces, Michigan-born comedian Jason Douglas was compelled to help and launched Pay it Forward Comedy, a virtual standup series that distributes crowd-sourced funds to...
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