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The Case of Jason Flom and Lara Bazelon with Tony Wright
📻 Episode #77
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Oct 30, 2018
About This Episode
In her new book Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction, Lara Bazelon makes a powerful argument for adopting a model of restorative justice as part of the innocence movement so exonerees, crime victims, and their communities can come together to heal. Tony Wright is one of those exonerees. Tony endured two trials…
The Case
In her new book Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction, Lara Bazelon makes a powerful argument for adopting a model of restorative justice as part of the innocence movement so exonerees, crime victims, and their communities can come together to heal. Tony Wright is one of those exonerees. Tony endured two trials and 25 years in prison before a jury found him not guilty for the rape, sodomy, and murder of Louise Talley, a 77-year-old woman in Philadelphia. He was only 20 years old when he was arrested in 1993, signed a confession after being beaten and threatened by the interrogating detectives, and was sentenced to life in prison—he narrowly escaped the death penalty after the jury voted against it 7 to 5. Later DNA testing of the rape kit not only excluded Tony as a suspect, but also identified Ronnie Byrd as the real assailant. On August 23, 2016, Tony Wright was exonerated, and he became the 344th DNA exoneree in the nation.
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom
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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:06:44“Speaker 1: the stuff that really means something. So anyway, it's good Speaker 1: to be in this and it's good to be in Speaker 1: it with you. And meanwhile, very exciting is a new Speaker 1: development in your life, which is a book. You've got Speaker 1: a book, a real hardcover book. I'm holding it in”
00:27:49“Speaker 4: is done and this is a travesty. And then she Speaker 4: started a change dot org petition. She attended as much Speaker 4: of the trial as she could, and she said that Speaker 4: when Tony's lawyer texted to say that, as you say, Speaker 4: he's been acquitted in five minutes, she literally screamed with relief,”
00:46:47“Speaker 1: because I won't get into all the details. You have Speaker 1: to read the book, but it's an amazing, amazing case. Speaker 1: And he is such a hero for having, you know, Speaker 1: won that case in Alabama, you know, I mean, tough, Speaker 1: tough down there.”
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Also on the podcast: #1 Jason Flom and Barry Scheck with Barry Gibbs · #10 Jason Flom on Christmas Behind Bars: A Special Episode with Amanda Knox, Jarrett Adams, and Jeffrey Deskovic · #17 Jason Flom and Barry Scheck with Jason Baldwin