October 26, 2021 • 25 mins
Sir Richard Branson and Celia Ouellette join Jason to talk about their plans for the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice, abolishing the death penalty, and criminal justice reform.
https://www.responsiblebusinessinitiative.org/
If you’d like to learn more about Richard Glossip and get involved with his case:
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/s12e64-wrongful-conviction-with-jason-flom-richard-glossip
If you’d like to learn more about Linda Carty and get involved with her case:
https://reprieve.org/us/client/linda-carty/
https://lavaforgood.com/righteous-convictions
Righteous Convictions with Jason Flom is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Co No1.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the second season of Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam,
the podcast where I speak with some of today's most
prominent and active agents of change, people who see the
wrong in the world that are driven to make it right.
The premier episode of our second season features two guests
with a shared interest in reforming our criminal legal system.
One is a passionate human rights lawyer, the other a
(00:23):
British knight whose company has transformed every business from record
labels to airlines. The terrifying thing is that out of
every eight people who are executed, one person is found
conclusively innocent. You know, if our airline every ninth plane crashed,
you know we would not be allowed to fly. And
(00:43):
you know, if every ninth person is innocent that is
put on death row, something is fundamentally wrong. Together they
began the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice or r b
I J, with the goal applying the influence of the
private sector for the common good human rights. And CEO
of the r b I J Celia Willett and Sir
(01:04):
Richard Branson right now on Righteous Convictions. Welcome back to
Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam, the podcast where I have
the privilege of interviewing some of the most dynamic change
(01:27):
makers and do gooders, I'll say, in the world today.
And if you can hear me smiling, it's because I'm
interviewing someone who needs no introduction. I'm going to embarrass
him by saying he's one of my heroes, and by that,
I'm referring to Richard Branson. Richard, thank you for being here.
And with him is someone who's not as famous, but
is extremely accomplished and very dynamic in her own right
(01:51):
and has a lovely name which I'm going to be
excited to pronounce, Celia Willette. Is that right, you and Celia?
He has been a human rights lawyer, is part of
the human rights charity Reprieve, and the CEO of the
Responsible Business Initiative for Justice. So, Richard, what I don't
think as many people know about you as a wish
(02:11):
did is that you have been a champion of criminal
justice reform. And I'm talking about abolishing the death penalty,
decriminalizing marijuana and other drugs. Second chance hiring, for lack
of a better word, in some cases, you should call
it first chance hiring. For a long long time, what
got you started on this mission? You know, one thing
(02:32):
I think that definitely had a big influence was I
was a teenager once, as we all were, and I
got into some trouble with the tax man, and I
could have gone to prison if my mom hadn't had
a house to mortgage. And I was lucky enough to
settle the matter out of court. And in the ensuing
fifty years, you know, we've employed I think over a
(02:53):
million people have come in and out of Virgin over
the years. Maybe not one of them would have been
employed by Virgin if if I'd been in prison and
I got convicted. And so it made me realized that
people do make mistakes, particularly when they're young. People deserve
a second chance, and if they've given a decent second chance,
they can absolutely excel, you know. So one of the
(03:13):
things that I think most people that Virgin are really
proud of is the amount of people that Virgin takes on,
you know, who were out of prison, and they're fantastic people,
and not one of them have re offended. A lot
of these people ended up in prison for reasons of
dreadful upbringing, drug is ues, etcetera, etcetera. But give them
a second chance and they can get back on their
(03:34):
peta game, right. I mean, I have to wonder whether
there are at least a handful of other Richard Branson's right,
who were not so lucky, convicted of a minor drug crime.
I think about it myself. I was a drug addict
and I didn't hire a million people, certainly not. But
I created a lot of jobs and paid a lot
of taxes because I didn't go to jail, because I
was born in a in a zip code where they
didn't put kids in jail for the type of things
(03:55):
that we were doing. A lot of the breaking down
of the system is to, I think, to the absurd
war on drugs. The war on drugs has resulted in
our prisons being full of people who for for either
taking drugs or selling drugs, and you know that the
damage that's done to those people is enormous. All drugs
should be legalized, regulated, people should be warned not to
(04:18):
take quite a few of them, and they should be
taxed so that the money can go back into society
rather than going into the underworld. Immediately, you would get
rid of most of the prison system. Yes, there will
be a few casualties like there are with alcohol, but
few extra casualties. I mean where the states that have
legalized marijuana have not seen an uptick in the amount
of people taking it. And you know, it sounds like
(04:40):
a radical thing for some people listening to this program,
but when you spend a lot of time analyzing all
the issues, you realize that it's the only way of
actually dealing with this particular problem. Right. And of course,
when Portugal decriminalized all drugs back in two thousand, crime
went down, usage went down, overdoses went down. Portugal had
the worst heroine problem in the year two thousand relative
(05:02):
to its population of anywhere in the world. And you're
absolutely right. The president went on television said, anyone who's
has a heroin problem, you're not going to be put
in prison. We're going to help you. Come forward. We
will set up injecting centers with clean needles so you
don't get HIV. You will make sure you don't have
to break and enter into people's house used to get
your fixed. And then when you're ready to be weaned
(05:25):
off it, we will put you into drug rehabilitation centers
and get you back as useful members of society again.
Within three years, that heroin problem had disappeared in Portugal.
Society had worked with those people and got them back
as useful members of society again, and it's become a
complete non event. And before we talk about all of
the different ways you're trying to attack the problems we face,
(05:48):
I want to turn to see you now. So you
were you and are a human rights lawyer who went
from private practice to running a nonprofit law firm, and
eventually you became the CEO of the Responsible Business and
the Should Have for Justice. But what was it for
you that that drove this? Was there a moment that
sent you on this righteous path? So? I mean I
(06:09):
always knew I wanted to work on on criminal cases,
and I moved to America when I was twenty one
with a law degree from a great university that I
was really lucky to go to. And it just was
very apparent to me very early on that like this
was the point. And you know, I think when you
start working on criminal cases and you see, you know
what Richard describes, and you meet the people that you
meet here sort of behind bars and their family members,
(06:30):
it's impossible to look away. I think you kind of
see things that you can't unsee. There was a case
that I was involved in that was the kind of moment.
There was case out in Kentucky, Apple actual Kentucky. My
client was eighteen year old black man. There were five
guys all arrested for a drug deal gun bad. So
was shot through the hand and then a little gunfight
took place. I mean, it's bad. Somebody died. Don't get
me wrong, but this is not opening fire in a
(06:51):
movie theater. A case that didn't actually result in the
death penalty. Um. He was the lookout guy, sort of
guy number three in the chain of worst at least involved,
and he was told he was gonna get tough penalty
unless you to complete. And so the plea that we
got for him was twenty years, which is crazy for
a lookout guy in a drug deal gone bad. And
this eighteen year old he says to me, like, what
are you doing here in this jail in Kentucky, Celia,
(07:11):
You know, like working on one case at a time,
Like these are my shitty options. You know, you've advised me,
you know, probably correctly, that I need to take this
twenty year plea in order to avoid the death on
se end. If I go to trial and probably get
the death penalty, and that's crazy. And let me look
at guy and a drug deal gone bad? Can you
go and do something that actually gives people like me
a less shitty set of options? And so I did
(07:32):
not think I was going to end up working with businesses,
like I'm a layal lawyer, But I ended up working
with businesses because we needed them. We needed them to
kind of change the power dynamic at the table. We
needed them to create change that we couldn't create on
our own. And so from private practice a round a
nonprofit law firm, and then now the Responsible Business Initiative,
And that's been kind of a series of zoom outs,
(07:52):
probably like starting with one case at a time, two
hundreds of people through the work of Power Project, which
was the nonprofit law from my ran, and now trying
to bring down the criminal justice is um as we
currently have it in the US by using the kind
of power and might and leverage of businesses and business leaders.
You know, what's the dream here for me is like,
is this thing that we're doing making that Kentucky client
(08:14):
two point oh a better set of options than the
one that he faced when I worked on his case.
The dream hare is that we don't have death penalty
defense lawyers. We don't have criminal defense lawyers, you know,
by the hundreds of thousands in this country, because it's
just there'sn't a need. The dream hare is that careers
like the one I've had don't exist. Richard. I do
(08:50):
want to talk to you about the death penalty in particular.
Richard Glossip is a case that troubles me as much
as any that I've ever been involved with. And there
have been a countless cases now over the almost thirty
years I've been doing this work, but Richard's case is
I'm getting the chills just saying his name. That's how
bad this is. How did you become aware of Richard
(09:11):
class up and what would you like to say about it.
I was approached by some lawyers, you know, they've been
representing him. They were absolutely convinced of his innocence, and
they told the story that that I wanted to verify.
And by the end of it, I was absolutely convinced
of his innocence. And this was two or three weeks
before Oklahoma were going to execute him, and so you know,
(09:35):
we were trying to think, you know, what's the most
dramatic thing we could do to try to stop the execution,
and we ended up on the day of the execution
taking a full page added the Oklahoma paper appealing to
the governor for her to stay the execution. We were
one amongst a number of people who were campaigning, including
a wonderful sister Helen, and the governor. I don't know
(09:55):
whether she listened to us, or whether whether there was
another reason why she stayed it, but anyway, she did
day of the execution. But the problem about just staying
in execution is it can easily be started again. And
like you, I'm completely convinced of his innocence. The terrifying
thing is that out of every eight people who are executed,
one person is found conclusively innocent. And you know, I
(10:17):
had the honor of being in a room and you
with a hundred and eighty five people who had been
on death row, who had all been found to be innocent,
predominantly black people. And you know, if our airline, every
ninth plane, if it crashed, you know, we would not
be allowed to fly. And you know, if every ninth
(10:38):
person is innocent that is put on death row, something
is fundamentally wrong. And so something had to be done.
About it and has to be done about it. Yes,
and those are just the ones we know about who
were exonerated, right. And we look at Florida for instance.
Florida has executed people since they reinstated the death penalty,
and in that time thirty one have been found and
proven actually innocent on death row in Florida, and yet
(11:00):
they persist in this disastrous social policy. Europe abolished the
death penalty I think eighty years ago. The whole of
you are after somebody had been executed mistakenly. And you know,
crime has not gone up, actually I think it's gone down.
The countries that continue to do it in North Korea,
around Saudi Arabia, China, and I'm afraid one of the
(11:23):
two states still in America. And America is such a wonderful,
generally civilized country. You know, why does America have to
kill people to show that killing people is wrong? You know,
government should not get into the business of killing people.
It means everybody in America and it looks ghastly from
(11:43):
around the world. I wanted to talk about the two
thousand and eleven Torture Regulation banning the export of the
drugs used in lethal injection here in the US. Again,
the Europe had to say to the US, fuck you,
We're not going to allow you to do this. And
they have refused in other cases to extradite people US
citizens who were caught over They're like een Zering, who
(12:05):
would have faced execution because unless unless the US agreed
not to execute touch people. So again Europe a moral
high ground for sure. Were you, Richard, involved in that
decision of the used two thousand eleven torture regulation. I
was involved in something which is similar and related, but
not that particular thing, and that was the drug companies,
(12:27):
you know, the big the big pharmaceutical companies. We've got
them all together in a room in Miami and just said, look,
you know you're you're meant to be making drugs to
save people's lives. Are you going to participate in people
being executed with your drugs? Is that the right thing
for the use of your drugs? And I think almost
with one voice, now drug companies have said no, our
drugs are not going to be allowed to be used
(12:48):
for executing people. Now some states, the way they get
around that is to say, okay, we'll hang people, or
will shoot people, or will find other ways of killing
them anyway, but at least drug companies did what was right.
In the end, it was that very agreement with those
pharmaceutical companies, along with the e USE Drug Export Band,
that ultimately caused a shortage of approved lethal injection drugs
(13:12):
here in America in two thousand fourteen, which in turn
had states like Oklahoma scrambling for new ways to carry
out death sentences. They are obstinance brought about a number
of botched executions with unapproved substitution lethal injection drugs, litigation
over cruel and unusual punishment, and in this day of
executions in Oklahoma, which at least temporarily kept Richard Glossip
(13:36):
and others alive. And so it's this sort of collective
action that acts as a precursor to the endeavor on
which the two of you are working together, which of
course is the r b i J, the Responsible Business
Initiative for Justice. Yeah, I mean, so with this particular initiative,
we're working directly with business leaders. Business leaders have really
loud voices when it comes to platforms. You know, until
(14:00):
to a business leader who has a very successful podcast.
You know, on this podcast is a business leader who
has huge opportunity to kind of speak to a large
number of people. You know, Richard's Twitter does bigger numbers
than my Twitter, right, you know, So Richard has the
ability to speak loudly to people. But Richard also and
you also have the ability to kind of speak with
significant social capital when we talk to our legislators, when
(14:21):
we talked to our governors, when we talked to our president.
And so that's the place where I'm asking business leaders
to kind of put their social capital on the table
as a big tool that can be used very effectively
and strategically by campaign organizations, you know, with the right time,
the right message in the right place. You know. The
campaign that that Richard and I launched earlier this year
and in March has been just kind of gathering pace.
(14:41):
We launched with twenty one CEOs of major companies. We
announced twenty one further ceo is just a few weeks
ago to really drive forward the issue of the death penalty.
And I think it's a good moment. You know, you're
at this kind of tipping point with the death penalty,
and you know, we've seen our first southern state, Virginia
to a bolisue in one of the States with the
bloodiest history of the use of the death penalty. We've
got our first president who ran on an abolition platform
(15:04):
elected in the US. I think we're at this moment
where what we really need is the kind of final
gallon of gas in the tank. Rather than all of
the work that's been done by advocates and campaigns over
the many years that's in the bank right. What we
need now is to really kind of turn up the
pressure on the pressure cooker and push this thing over
the line. There are cases I know that touch each
(15:42):
of you in a certain way. There are some that
cry out, and Linda Cardi is one. I know that
you're really dedicated to cel Yet Linda's just a horrible story.
But it's a story that's so typical. I mean, I
started working on Linda's case and probably two thousand and twelve,
and I inherited a case that was was done boil
extensive purposes as a case in Texas, and it had
(16:02):
gone through all of the appeals process and it was done.
She had a lawyer at trial who had met have
for fifteen minutes, prepared the case for a couple of
weeks before he went to trial. Famously underprepared, overworked lawyer
in Texas who was responsible for a large number of
other death cases. You know, the court system, through the
appeals had recognized that he was objectively bad at his job,
(16:24):
you know, objectively like unreasonable in his preparation for the case.
But that still wasn't enough of a violation of the constitution,
which entitles you to effective representation, even though he was
objectively ineffective. The second part of the test of going
back to trial is would it have made a difference
to the outcome of the case, And courts had just
consistently said no. So I was given the opportunity to
(16:44):
reinvestigate the case, and that looked like spending time with
the witnesses who had testified at trial ten years after
the trial had taken place, and most of the key
witnesses in the trial recanted their testimony and said, we
lied on the witness stand because the prosecut to threatened
us repeatedly with the death penalty or very long sentences
people who were never even indicted for participation in the
(17:07):
crime if we did not get a death sentence for
Linda Carti. So this all went in Afro davits. This
is the crazy process in America, where from the moment
that you find this kind of case, reopening potential evidence,
you've got one year to present that to a court.
(17:28):
So we did that. We spent this crazy year um
reinvestigating the case, you know, in this countdown clock ticking
until we needed a file what's called a success of
habeas petition. I was working for human rights charity, pro
bono lawyer. None of this was at the cost of
the State of Texas. And if it hadn't been for
a unique set of circumstances. She was a British citisteen
and that's how I happened to be involved in the case,
none of this would have ever happened. You know, your
(17:49):
average death row inmate doesn't get a free investigator for
a year with the bandwidth to completely reinvestigate the case.
So you know, just under a year later, we presented
all the evidence to the Texas Court a criminal appeal.
So the courter a criminal peal, said, you know there's
something here, I think you should present this, you know,
as evidence. Basically, test put these witnesses recounting through affidavits
(18:11):
on a witness stand and let them be opened across examination.
So that happened. We had a one judge, a single judge,
I think former prosecutor refer remember rightly, hear this and
his job was to decide whether if the jury had
heard this evidence rather than what they had heard at trial,
was it possible that they would have made a different decision,
(18:31):
and that might have been not sentenced her to death,
or that might have been not find her guilty of murder,
you know, go all the way back to a full
retrial rather than just resentencing. I should add that we
had affidavits from several of the original jurors saying if
I had seen this testimony, if I had heard this testimony,
I would have no doubt made a different decision. So
the single judge heard all of this evidence and said, uh,
(18:56):
I don't think it made a difference to a jury.
So she's still in death row, she's out of a peals.
Is there anything people can do for Linda Cardie or
anyone who's listening now who says this stuff makes my
blood boil? What what do you recommend that those people?
You know, we we've got to end the death penalty, right,
you know, just like my client in Kentuckty. We can't
keep pulling people across the border. We need to end
the death penalty. We need to change the starting point
(19:16):
for all these people. So you know R B I
J Is working with businesses. If if you work for
a business or you own a business, we want to
get you involved in ours. If you're none of those things,
then get on Death Penalty Information Centers website talk to
Death Penalty Action. Equal Justice USA is another one. There's
a lot of campaign organizations that are really like building
the ground swell of voices of people that are really
pushing lawmakers to prioritize this. Biden needs to commute folks.
(19:41):
You know, this is a huge goal right now. We
need President Biden to step up to the plate lead
on this movement and get people of federal death row.
And he has absolutely got the power to do that.
So contact your lawmakers, get involved in the community organizations
locally or nationally that are organizing folk into ending death penalty.
Ask your employer to be part of the Responsible Business
(20:03):
Initiatives campaign. We're at a Business against Death Penalty to or.
Richard speaks very clearly in a short video on the
website about what this campaign is. Jason, you're part of
it to thank you and many of our friends like
Mike no regrets as well, And so you're joining great
company basically and kind of getting on the right side
of history. Here. There's ten principles that the r B
i J has has laid out, which I think are
(20:25):
quite brilliant. And I'm just going to read the first
couple right but then and maybe we'll post them on
the link. We'll put a link in the biot to these,
because I just think it's absolutely so on point. So
R B I J's principles that lie at the heart
of their efforts and provide framework for the collaboration with businesses.
Ready everyone, okay. Number One, access to fair and equal
(20:45):
justice is a fundamental and unequivocal right to everyone is
entitled to respect and dignity and systems of criminal justice.
Three Racism or any other foreign discrimination has no place
in systems of criminal justice. What at these all time?
I'm I can it all tend? But where did these
come from? It almost feels like they're divine? Thanks Jason,
(21:06):
I wrote them, Um, yeah, we thank you. Along with
my incredible team at r V I J. Yeah, we
wanted to kind of come up with some founding principles
that we we felt, you know, businesses could get behind.
We we like, we really recognize that not every business
comes from the same place. You know, even on the
death penalty campaign, you know, some folks motivated by innocence,
some people by racism and the death penalty. Some you know,
(21:28):
feel that the government shouldn't trusted to deliver the mail,
let alone take people's lives. But you know, I think
one of the things that's really amazing about criminal justice reform,
especially in the U S. Is um there is very
strong sense of like, we may not agree on everything,
but we can agree on this. And those principles were
and I believe are sort of intended to capture that.
You know, what is it that we all agree on,
(21:49):
and it is these things, And I think one of
them is, you know, no punishment should leave no opportunity
for rehabitation, which yeah, I mean obviously, you know, encapusates
things like you've not life without pro and the death penalty.
And I don't think it's a surprise that businesses are
saying yes to this kind of stuff and are waiting
into this kind of stuff. And we talked about the
pharmaceutical companies that's a really direct example of businesses saying Nope,
(22:12):
we're not going to be a part of this, and
actually we're gonna we're gonna do somebody to try and
stop this. And you know, if you are directly involved
in the supply chain of things in the criminal justice system,
then you can turn off that tap, right, you can
turn off the tap of the source. But if you're not,
then you know, you're left with philanthropy, how you use
your investment flows, advocacy like this campaign around the death penalty,
(22:33):
who you hire, and so you know, we really believe
that if you sit with these principles, like every company
could do at least one thing that would you know,
fundamentally change the justice system. So, okay, Richard, I gotta
ask you that one question I ask every one of
our guests, and I'm going to ask you as well, Celia,
if you had a magic wand and could fix one problem.
(22:54):
I know what Celia is going to say, because you
just said it, um, but I'll do another one. Okay,
there's lots of things I want to change. But Richard,
if you had and you practically do, but if you
had a real magic wand, what problem would you fix.
There's a delightful film that would recommend everybody sees that
hit Netflix called Breaking Boundaries. And this is a completely
(23:16):
different subject than than really that what we've just been
talking about. But but it divides the world up into
eight planetary boundaries, and it shows how badly or how
well we're doing in each of those. I'm afraid, by
and large, we're doing badly. And so if I've had
a wand, I would do everything we could to reverse
the trend on each of those planetary boundaries, whether it's
(23:37):
the decimation of species, whether it's the decimation of rainforests,
whether it's climate change. It's not actually on the list,
but I would criminal justice reform work. I'll get it.
I'll get it, at it somehow to the planetary boundaries.
But time is short, and we've got to work really
hard to address all these problems, whether it's planetary boundaries
or criminal justice reform. And so can I can I
(23:59):
take a thing, can have a thing with my magic
wand and get a thing Genie and about it whatever
you want? Yeah, yeah, I want five thousand more business
leaders like you and Richard. You know that client in
that Kentucky jail is more or less powerless at the
point that he sat in a jail looking at the
options that I can put on the table or my
peers can put on the table. You know, you guys
(24:22):
have power, and I need you to put it on
the table in your large numbers, because it's very hard
for for President Biden to ignore, you know, a hundred
of the biggest companies in America or their leadership when
they're asking for something, So ask for changing our justice systems.
Come on the right side of history with Richard and Jason.
(24:43):
That's what I'm going to get with my my one wish,
my magic wand thank you for listening to Rageous Convictions
with Jason Flam. I'd like to thank our production team
Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin Wardis. The music in
(25:05):
this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Jay Ralph. Follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on
Twitter at wrong Conviction, and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one
Welcome to the second season of Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam,
the podcast where I speak with some of today's most
prominent and active agents of change, people who see the
wrong in the world that are driven to make it right.
The premier episode of our second season features two guests
with a shared interest in reforming our criminal legal system.
One is a passionate human rights lawyer, the other a
(00:23):
British knight whose company has transformed every business from record
labels to airlines. The terrifying thing is that out of
every eight people who are executed, one person is found
conclusively innocent. You know, if our airline every ninth plane crashed,
you know we would not be allowed to fly. And
(00:43):
you know, if every ninth person is innocent that is
put on death row, something is fundamentally wrong. Together they
began the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice or r b
I J, with the goal applying the influence of the
private sector for the common good human rights. And CEO
of the r b I J Celia Willett and Sir
(01:04):
Richard Branson right now on Righteous Convictions. Welcome back to
Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam, the podcast where I have
the privilege of interviewing some of the most dynamic change
(01:27):
makers and do gooders, I'll say, in the world today.
And if you can hear me smiling, it's because I'm
interviewing someone who needs no introduction. I'm going to embarrass
him by saying he's one of my heroes, and by that,
I'm referring to Richard Branson. Richard, thank you for being here.
And with him is someone who's not as famous, but
is extremely accomplished and very dynamic in her own right
(01:51):
and has a lovely name which I'm going to be
excited to pronounce, Celia Willette. Is that right, you and Celia?
He has been a human rights lawyer, is part of
the human rights charity Reprieve, and the CEO of the
Responsible Business Initiative for Justice. So, Richard, what I don't
think as many people know about you as a wish
(02:11):
did is that you have been a champion of criminal
justice reform. And I'm talking about abolishing the death penalty,
decriminalizing marijuana and other drugs. Second chance hiring, for lack
of a better word, in some cases, you should call
it first chance hiring. For a long long time, what
got you started on this mission? You know, one thing
(02:32):
I think that definitely had a big influence was I
was a teenager once, as we all were, and I
got into some trouble with the tax man, and I
could have gone to prison if my mom hadn't had
a house to mortgage. And I was lucky enough to
settle the matter out of court. And in the ensuing
fifty years, you know, we've employed I think over a
(02:53):
million people have come in and out of Virgin over
the years. Maybe not one of them would have been
employed by Virgin if if I'd been in prison and
I got convicted. And so it made me realized that
people do make mistakes, particularly when they're young. People deserve
a second chance, and if they've given a decent second chance,
they can absolutely excel, you know. So one of the
(03:13):
things that I think most people that Virgin are really
proud of is the amount of people that Virgin takes on,
you know, who were out of prison, and they're fantastic people,
and not one of them have re offended. A lot
of these people ended up in prison for reasons of
dreadful upbringing, drug is ues, etcetera, etcetera. But give them
a second chance and they can get back on their
(03:34):
peta game, right. I mean, I have to wonder whether
there are at least a handful of other Richard Branson's right,
who were not so lucky, convicted of a minor drug crime.
I think about it myself. I was a drug addict
and I didn't hire a million people, certainly not. But
I created a lot of jobs and paid a lot
of taxes because I didn't go to jail, because I
was born in a in a zip code where they
didn't put kids in jail for the type of things
(03:55):
that we were doing. A lot of the breaking down
of the system is to, I think, to the absurd
war on drugs. The war on drugs has resulted in
our prisons being full of people who for for either
taking drugs or selling drugs, and you know that the
damage that's done to those people is enormous. All drugs
should be legalized, regulated, people should be warned not to
(04:18):
take quite a few of them, and they should be
taxed so that the money can go back into society
rather than going into the underworld. Immediately, you would get
rid of most of the prison system. Yes, there will
be a few casualties like there are with alcohol, but
few extra casualties. I mean where the states that have
legalized marijuana have not seen an uptick in the amount
of people taking it. And you know, it sounds like
(04:40):
a radical thing for some people listening to this program,
but when you spend a lot of time analyzing all
the issues, you realize that it's the only way of
actually dealing with this particular problem. Right. And of course,
when Portugal decriminalized all drugs back in two thousand, crime
went down, usage went down, overdoses went down. Portugal had
the worst heroine problem in the year two thousand relative
(05:02):
to its population of anywhere in the world. And you're
absolutely right. The president went on television said, anyone who's
has a heroin problem, you're not going to be put
in prison. We're going to help you. Come forward. We
will set up injecting centers with clean needles so you
don't get HIV. You will make sure you don't have
to break and enter into people's house used to get
your fixed. And then when you're ready to be weaned
(05:25):
off it, we will put you into drug rehabilitation centers
and get you back as useful members of society again.
Within three years, that heroin problem had disappeared in Portugal.
Society had worked with those people and got them back
as useful members of society again, and it's become a
complete non event. And before we talk about all of
the different ways you're trying to attack the problems we face,
(05:48):
I want to turn to see you now. So you
were you and are a human rights lawyer who went
from private practice to running a nonprofit law firm, and
eventually you became the CEO of the Responsible Business and
the Should Have for Justice. But what was it for
you that that drove this? Was there a moment that
sent you on this righteous path? So? I mean I
(06:09):
always knew I wanted to work on on criminal cases,
and I moved to America when I was twenty one
with a law degree from a great university that I
was really lucky to go to. And it just was
very apparent to me very early on that like this
was the point. And you know, I think when you
start working on criminal cases and you see, you know
what Richard describes, and you meet the people that you
meet here sort of behind bars and their family members,
(06:30):
it's impossible to look away. I think you kind of
see things that you can't unsee. There was a case
that I was involved in that was the kind of moment.
There was case out in Kentucky, Apple actual Kentucky. My
client was eighteen year old black man. There were five
guys all arrested for a drug deal gun bad. So
was shot through the hand and then a little gunfight
took place. I mean, it's bad. Somebody died. Don't get
me wrong, but this is not opening fire in a
(06:51):
movie theater. A case that didn't actually result in the
death penalty. Um. He was the lookout guy, sort of
guy number three in the chain of worst at least involved,
and he was told he was gonna get tough penalty
unless you to complete. And so the plea that we
got for him was twenty years, which is crazy for
a lookout guy in a drug deal gone bad. And
this eighteen year old he says to me, like, what
are you doing here in this jail in Kentucky, Celia,
(07:11):
You know, like working on one case at a time,
Like these are my shitty options. You know, you've advised me,
you know, probably correctly, that I need to take this
twenty year plea in order to avoid the death on
se end. If I go to trial and probably get
the death penalty, and that's crazy. And let me look
at guy and a drug deal gone bad? Can you
go and do something that actually gives people like me
a less shitty set of options? And so I did
(07:32):
not think I was going to end up working with businesses,
like I'm a layal lawyer, But I ended up working
with businesses because we needed them. We needed them to
kind of change the power dynamic at the table. We
needed them to create change that we couldn't create on
our own. And so from private practice a round a
nonprofit law firm, and then now the Responsible Business Initiative,
And that's been kind of a series of zoom outs,
(07:52):
probably like starting with one case at a time, two
hundreds of people through the work of Power Project, which
was the nonprofit law from my ran, and now trying
to bring down the criminal justice is um as we
currently have it in the US by using the kind
of power and might and leverage of businesses and business leaders.
You know, what's the dream here for me is like,
is this thing that we're doing making that Kentucky client
(08:14):
two point oh a better set of options than the
one that he faced when I worked on his case.
The dream hare is that we don't have death penalty
defense lawyers. We don't have criminal defense lawyers, you know,
by the hundreds of thousands in this country, because it's
just there'sn't a need. The dream hare is that careers
like the one I've had don't exist. Richard. I do
(08:50):
want to talk to you about the death penalty in particular.
Richard Glossip is a case that troubles me as much
as any that I've ever been involved with. And there
have been a countless cases now over the almost thirty
years I've been doing this work, but Richard's case is
I'm getting the chills just saying his name. That's how
bad this is. How did you become aware of Richard
(09:11):
class up and what would you like to say about it.
I was approached by some lawyers, you know, they've been
representing him. They were absolutely convinced of his innocence, and
they told the story that that I wanted to verify.
And by the end of it, I was absolutely convinced
of his innocence. And this was two or three weeks
before Oklahoma were going to execute him, and so you know,
(09:35):
we were trying to think, you know, what's the most
dramatic thing we could do to try to stop the execution,
and we ended up on the day of the execution
taking a full page added the Oklahoma paper appealing to
the governor for her to stay the execution. We were
one amongst a number of people who were campaigning, including
a wonderful sister Helen, and the governor. I don't know
(09:55):
whether she listened to us, or whether whether there was
another reason why she stayed it, but anyway, she did
day of the execution. But the problem about just staying
in execution is it can easily be started again. And
like you, I'm completely convinced of his innocence. The terrifying
thing is that out of every eight people who are executed,
one person is found conclusively innocent. And you know, I
(10:17):
had the honor of being in a room and you
with a hundred and eighty five people who had been
on death row, who had all been found to be innocent,
predominantly black people. And you know, if our airline, every
ninth plane, if it crashed, you know, we would not
be allowed to fly. And you know, if every ninth
(10:38):
person is innocent that is put on death row, something
is fundamentally wrong. And so something had to be done.
About it and has to be done about it. Yes,
and those are just the ones we know about who
were exonerated, right. And we look at Florida for instance.
Florida has executed people since they reinstated the death penalty,
and in that time thirty one have been found and
proven actually innocent on death row in Florida, and yet
(11:00):
they persist in this disastrous social policy. Europe abolished the
death penalty I think eighty years ago. The whole of
you are after somebody had been executed mistakenly. And you know,
crime has not gone up, actually I think it's gone down.
The countries that continue to do it in North Korea,
around Saudi Arabia, China, and I'm afraid one of the
(11:23):
two states still in America. And America is such a wonderful,
generally civilized country. You know, why does America have to
kill people to show that killing people is wrong? You know,
government should not get into the business of killing people.
It means everybody in America and it looks ghastly from
(11:43):
around the world. I wanted to talk about the two
thousand and eleven Torture Regulation banning the export of the
drugs used in lethal injection here in the US. Again,
the Europe had to say to the US, fuck you,
We're not going to allow you to do this. And
they have refused in other cases to extradite people US
citizens who were caught over They're like een Zering, who
(12:05):
would have faced execution because unless unless the US agreed
not to execute touch people. So again Europe a moral
high ground for sure. Were you, Richard, involved in that
decision of the used two thousand eleven torture regulation. I
was involved in something which is similar and related, but
not that particular thing, and that was the drug companies,
(12:27):
you know, the big the big pharmaceutical companies. We've got
them all together in a room in Miami and just said, look,
you know you're you're meant to be making drugs to
save people's lives. Are you going to participate in people
being executed with your drugs? Is that the right thing
for the use of your drugs? And I think almost
with one voice, now drug companies have said no, our
drugs are not going to be allowed to be used
(12:48):
for executing people. Now some states, the way they get
around that is to say, okay, we'll hang people, or
will shoot people, or will find other ways of killing
them anyway, but at least drug companies did what was right.
In the end, it was that very agreement with those
pharmaceutical companies, along with the e USE Drug Export Band,
that ultimately caused a shortage of approved lethal injection drugs
(13:12):
here in America in two thousand fourteen, which in turn
had states like Oklahoma scrambling for new ways to carry
out death sentences. They are obstinance brought about a number
of botched executions with unapproved substitution lethal injection drugs, litigation
over cruel and unusual punishment, and in this day of
executions in Oklahoma, which at least temporarily kept Richard Glossip
(13:36):
and others alive. And so it's this sort of collective
action that acts as a precursor to the endeavor on
which the two of you are working together, which of
course is the r b i J, the Responsible Business
Initiative for Justice. Yeah, I mean, so with this particular initiative,
we're working directly with business leaders. Business leaders have really
loud voices when it comes to platforms. You know, until
(14:00):
to a business leader who has a very successful podcast.
You know, on this podcast is a business leader who
has huge opportunity to kind of speak to a large
number of people. You know, Richard's Twitter does bigger numbers
than my Twitter, right, you know, So Richard has the
ability to speak loudly to people. But Richard also and
you also have the ability to kind of speak with
significant social capital when we talk to our legislators, when
(14:21):
we talked to our governors, when we talked to our president.
And so that's the place where I'm asking business leaders
to kind of put their social capital on the table
as a big tool that can be used very effectively
and strategically by campaign organizations, you know, with the right time,
the right message in the right place. You know. The
campaign that that Richard and I launched earlier this year
and in March has been just kind of gathering pace.
(14:41):
We launched with twenty one CEOs of major companies. We
announced twenty one further ceo is just a few weeks
ago to really drive forward the issue of the death penalty.
And I think it's a good moment. You know, you're
at this kind of tipping point with the death penalty,
and you know, we've seen our first southern state, Virginia
to a bolisue in one of the States with the
bloodiest history of the use of the death penalty. We've
got our first president who ran on an abolition platform
(15:04):
elected in the US. I think we're at this moment
where what we really need is the kind of final
gallon of gas in the tank. Rather than all of
the work that's been done by advocates and campaigns over
the many years that's in the bank right. What we
need now is to really kind of turn up the
pressure on the pressure cooker and push this thing over
the line. There are cases I know that touch each
(15:42):
of you in a certain way. There are some that
cry out, and Linda Cardi is one. I know that
you're really dedicated to cel Yet Linda's just a horrible story.
But it's a story that's so typical. I mean, I
started working on Linda's case and probably two thousand and twelve,
and I inherited a case that was was done boil
extensive purposes as a case in Texas, and it had
(16:02):
gone through all of the appeals process and it was done.
She had a lawyer at trial who had met have
for fifteen minutes, prepared the case for a couple of
weeks before he went to trial. Famously underprepared, overworked lawyer
in Texas who was responsible for a large number of
other death cases. You know, the court system, through the
appeals had recognized that he was objectively bad at his job,
(16:24):
you know, objectively like unreasonable in his preparation for the case.
But that still wasn't enough of a violation of the constitution,
which entitles you to effective representation, even though he was
objectively ineffective. The second part of the test of going
back to trial is would it have made a difference
to the outcome of the case, And courts had just
consistently said no. So I was given the opportunity to
(16:44):
reinvestigate the case, and that looked like spending time with
the witnesses who had testified at trial ten years after
the trial had taken place, and most of the key
witnesses in the trial recanted their testimony and said, we
lied on the witness stand because the prosecut to threatened
us repeatedly with the death penalty or very long sentences
people who were never even indicted for participation in the
(17:07):
crime if we did not get a death sentence for
Linda Carti. So this all went in Afro davits. This
is the crazy process in America, where from the moment
that you find this kind of case, reopening potential evidence,
you've got one year to present that to a court.
(17:28):
So we did that. We spent this crazy year um
reinvestigating the case, you know, in this countdown clock ticking
until we needed a file what's called a success of
habeas petition. I was working for human rights charity, pro
bono lawyer. None of this was at the cost of
the State of Texas. And if it hadn't been for
a unique set of circumstances. She was a British citisteen
and that's how I happened to be involved in the case,
none of this would have ever happened. You know, your
(17:49):
average death row inmate doesn't get a free investigator for
a year with the bandwidth to completely reinvestigate the case.
So you know, just under a year later, we presented
all the evidence to the Texas Court a criminal appeal.
So the courter a criminal peal, said, you know there's
something here, I think you should present this, you know,
as evidence. Basically, test put these witnesses recounting through affidavits
(18:11):
on a witness stand and let them be opened across examination.
So that happened. We had a one judge, a single judge,
I think former prosecutor refer remember rightly, hear this and
his job was to decide whether if the jury had
heard this evidence rather than what they had heard at trial,
was it possible that they would have made a different decision,
(18:31):
and that might have been not sentenced her to death,
or that might have been not find her guilty of murder,
you know, go all the way back to a full
retrial rather than just resentencing. I should add that we
had affidavits from several of the original jurors saying if
I had seen this testimony, if I had heard this testimony,
I would have no doubt made a different decision. So
the single judge heard all of this evidence and said, uh,
(18:56):
I don't think it made a difference to a jury.
So she's still in death row, she's out of a peals.
Is there anything people can do for Linda Cardie or
anyone who's listening now who says this stuff makes my
blood boil? What what do you recommend that those people?
You know, we we've got to end the death penalty, right,
you know, just like my client in Kentuckty. We can't
keep pulling people across the border. We need to end
the death penalty. We need to change the starting point
(19:16):
for all these people. So you know R B I
J Is working with businesses. If if you work for
a business or you own a business, we want to
get you involved in ours. If you're none of those things,
then get on Death Penalty Information Centers website talk to
Death Penalty Action. Equal Justice USA is another one. There's
a lot of campaign organizations that are really like building
the ground swell of voices of people that are really
pushing lawmakers to prioritize this. Biden needs to commute folks.
(19:41):
You know, this is a huge goal right now. We
need President Biden to step up to the plate lead
on this movement and get people of federal death row.
And he has absolutely got the power to do that.
So contact your lawmakers, get involved in the community organizations
locally or nationally that are organizing folk into ending death penalty.
Ask your employer to be part of the Responsible Business
(20:03):
Initiatives campaign. We're at a Business against Death Penalty to or.
Richard speaks very clearly in a short video on the
website about what this campaign is. Jason, you're part of
it to thank you and many of our friends like
Mike no regrets as well, And so you're joining great
company basically and kind of getting on the right side
of history. Here. There's ten principles that the r B
i J has has laid out, which I think are
(20:25):
quite brilliant. And I'm just going to read the first
couple right but then and maybe we'll post them on
the link. We'll put a link in the biot to these,
because I just think it's absolutely so on point. So
R B I J's principles that lie at the heart
of their efforts and provide framework for the collaboration with businesses.
Ready everyone, okay. Number One, access to fair and equal
(20:45):
justice is a fundamental and unequivocal right to everyone is
entitled to respect and dignity and systems of criminal justice.
Three Racism or any other foreign discrimination has no place
in systems of criminal justice. What at these all time?
I'm I can it all tend? But where did these
come from? It almost feels like they're divine? Thanks Jason,
(21:06):
I wrote them, Um, yeah, we thank you. Along with
my incredible team at r V I J. Yeah, we
wanted to kind of come up with some founding principles
that we we felt, you know, businesses could get behind.
We we like, we really recognize that not every business
comes from the same place. You know, even on the
death penalty campaign, you know, some folks motivated by innocence,
some people by racism and the death penalty. Some you know,
(21:28):
feel that the government shouldn't trusted to deliver the mail,
let alone take people's lives. But you know, I think
one of the things that's really amazing about criminal justice reform,
especially in the U S. Is um there is very
strong sense of like, we may not agree on everything,
but we can agree on this. And those principles were
and I believe are sort of intended to capture that.
You know, what is it that we all agree on,
(21:49):
and it is these things, And I think one of
them is, you know, no punishment should leave no opportunity
for rehabitation, which yeah, I mean obviously, you know, encapusates
things like you've not life without pro and the death penalty.
And I don't think it's a surprise that businesses are
saying yes to this kind of stuff and are waiting
into this kind of stuff. And we talked about the
pharmaceutical companies that's a really direct example of businesses saying Nope,
(22:12):
we're not going to be a part of this, and
actually we're gonna we're gonna do somebody to try and
stop this. And you know, if you are directly involved
in the supply chain of things in the criminal justice system,
then you can turn off that tap, right, you can
turn off the tap of the source. But if you're not,
then you know, you're left with philanthropy, how you use
your investment flows, advocacy like this campaign around the death penalty,
(22:33):
who you hire, and so you know, we really believe
that if you sit with these principles, like every company
could do at least one thing that would you know,
fundamentally change the justice system. So, okay, Richard, I gotta
ask you that one question I ask every one of
our guests, and I'm going to ask you as well, Celia,
if you had a magic wand and could fix one problem.
(22:54):
I know what Celia is going to say, because you
just said it, um, but I'll do another one. Okay,
there's lots of things I want to change. But Richard,
if you had and you practically do, but if you
had a real magic wand, what problem would you fix.
There's a delightful film that would recommend everybody sees that
hit Netflix called Breaking Boundaries. And this is a completely
(23:16):
different subject than than really that what we've just been
talking about. But but it divides the world up into
eight planetary boundaries, and it shows how badly or how
well we're doing in each of those. I'm afraid, by
and large, we're doing badly. And so if I've had
a wand, I would do everything we could to reverse
the trend on each of those planetary boundaries, whether it's
(23:37):
the decimation of species, whether it's the decimation of rainforests,
whether it's climate change. It's not actually on the list,
but I would criminal justice reform work. I'll get it.
I'll get it, at it somehow to the planetary boundaries.
But time is short, and we've got to work really
hard to address all these problems, whether it's planetary boundaries
or criminal justice reform. And so can I can I
(23:59):
take a thing, can have a thing with my magic
wand and get a thing Genie and about it whatever
you want? Yeah, yeah, I want five thousand more business
leaders like you and Richard. You know that client in
that Kentucky jail is more or less powerless at the
point that he sat in a jail looking at the
options that I can put on the table or my
peers can put on the table. You know, you guys
(24:22):
have power, and I need you to put it on
the table in your large numbers, because it's very hard
for for President Biden to ignore, you know, a hundred
of the biggest companies in America or their leadership when
they're asking for something, So ask for changing our justice systems.
Come on the right side of history with Richard and Jason.
(24:43):
That's what I'm going to get with my my one wish,
my magic wand thank you for listening to Rageous Convictions
with Jason Flam. I'd like to thank our production team
Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin Wardis. The music in
(25:05):
this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Jay Ralph. Follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on
Twitter at wrong Conviction, and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one
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