Equal Justice | EP 7 | Season 2

Jermaine Hudson’s conviction exposes the dark legacy of Louisiana’s non-unanimous jury system—where a 10–2 verdict was enough to send a man to prison for a crime that never happened. Jermaine and Bobby Gumpright join forces to try and change a system rooted in Jim Crow laws. You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. For more Burden of Guilt, follow us on Instagram @glasspodcasts https://www.instagram.com/glasspodcasts/. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 2:34Speaker 04

  Any person that was convicted by a non-unanimous jury did not get a fair trial. Period. They had an unconstitutional trial. Nothing else really matters. And I'm not saying the person isn't guilty. I'm not saying the crime didn't happen. All I'm saying is they had an unconstitutional process to get to their conviction. And when we know that for a fact, when they can prove it, nothing else really matters. They get a do-over.

• 3:28Nancy Glass?

  I'm Nancy Glass. This is Burden of Guilt, Season 2, Episode 7, Equal Justice.

• 3:37Nancy Glass?

  In March of 2000, Jermaine Hudson sat in a large courtroom waiting to hear if he would be going home or be sent to prison. Would he be found guilty of an armed robbery that actually never happened? It was up to a 12-person jury to make that decision. And they came back with a verdict in less than an hour.

• 3:59Speaker 06

  Ladies and gentlemen, have you reached a verdict? Yes, sir. State of Louisiana versus Jermaine Hudson, Criminal District Court for the Parish of Orleans, Case Number 407-888, Section G. We, the jury, find the defendant guilty as charged. Mr. Foreman, is this the verdict of the jury? Yes.

• 4:27Speaker 06

  My body shut down. Everything just went deaf. Everything just went silent. I can hear people talking, but everything in my body just shut down. I was like, this can't be happening to me. It happened so fast.

• 4:49Nancy Glass?

  Over the last several episodes, we've learned how Jermaine Hudson was an unfortunate victim of Bobby Gunpride's lie. It spiraled into destroying more lives than Bobby had imagined when he was only 18 years old. What he thought was a smart cover-up for a drug habit he was hiding from his parents turned into an armed robbery case that sent Jermaine to prison with a 99-year sentence. But Bobby's lie was only one part of the problem.

• 5:20Speaker 06

  All right, verdict is 10-2. Let the verdict be recorded into and made part of the record.

• 5:26Nancy Glass?

  The verdict was 10 to 2. That meant 10 jurors said guilty, 2 said not guilty. Those 2 jurors were not confident beyond a reasonable doubt that Jermaine had robbed Bobby at gunpoint. But at the time in Louisiana, that didn't matter. 10 out of 12 was all the state needed to get their conviction.

• 5:50Nancy Glass?

  In most states, 1 juror's doubt, never mind 2, means a mistrial. That lack of consensus, lack of unanimity, is reasonable doubt. But it wasn't in Louisiana. For more than 100 years, that law, the non-unanimous jury rule, was part of a larger, darker, more hateful history in Louisiana's criminal justice system.

• 6:15Speaker 06

  Louisiana is set up for failure, especially for African-Americans. It's really set up to destroy their lives.

• 6:28Nancy Glass?

  At the end of the last episode, you heard that Jermaine called Bobby.

• 6:33Speaker 06

  I say, "How you doing, man?"

• 6:37Nancy Glass?

  Say, I bet you'd never think you would hear from me. Jermaine called Bobby for two reasons.

• 6:45Speaker 06

  I say, even though I told you in the courtroom that I forgive you, now you're really hearing it from me, from my voice, one-on-one. I said, I forgive you, man.

• 6:58Speaker 06

  I said, I really, honestly, in my heart, forgive you. I said, so let's do something positive. Let's reach out and change situations. Let's change other people cases. Let's put our story out there to influence others that may have done this to a lot of other people, which I know have been done to. Let's change the narrative. Let's take the negative and turn it to something positive.

• 7:28Nancy Glass?

  That call started a relationship no one could have imagined.

• 7:33Nancy Glass?

  Jermaine's forgiveness and warmth, along with Bobby's genuine remorse, were becoming something bigger than the two of them. And that day on the phone, they made a pact to use their story to change Louisiana.

• 7:51Nancy Glass?

  In reporting this story, our team was shocked to discover that non-unanimous juries existed at all. It turns out unanimous juries were never explicitly written into the United States Constitution. But historians say it didn't have to be. It was implied.

• 8:10Speaker 06

  It would have been redundant. It wouldn't have been something that they would have thought that they needed to do. I mean, they didn't include, "You have the right to breathe air," because they just assumed everybody breathes air. I mean, these are the kinds of things that were taken for granted as part of the system.

• 8:28Nancy Glass?

  That's Dr. Thomas Ayello. He's an expert in Africana Studies and History from Valdosta University in Georgia. He's also the author of Jim Crow's Last Stand and an expert on how southern states like Louisiana built racism into their laws.

• 8:46Speaker 06

  Under the Civil Rights Act of 1875, you couldn't say, "In the South, we're only going to have a white jury." It was okay to have an all-white jury. That was fine. But you couldn't say that that was what you were doing.

• 9:01Nancy Glass?

  In Louisiana, racism was written into the state constitution in 1898.

• 9:09Speaker 06

  That was the state that put poll taxes and literacy tests into the constitution of the state to try to get black voters out of the system. And it was the constitution that made juries for criminal convictions non-unanimous. Only nine jurors had to agree that you were guilty for you to go to prison.

• 9:38Nancy Glass?

  Non-unanimous juries were not just allowed. They were part of a strategy engineered by a Jim Crow state determined to keep black citizens from gaining any power. Louisiana embedded this into the state constitution at the moment when black men were given the right to serve on a jury. Black men were in the minority, so there would only be one or two, maybe three, people put on the jury who weren't white. But this clause meant that if the majority wanted to throw out their votes, they could. Jermaine's conviction in 1999 wasn't just about Bobby's lie.

• 10:20Nancy Glass?

  It was tethered to a legal structure built in the shadow of slavery more than a century before. Yes, Bobby lied, but Louisiana provided the perfect environment for him to get away with it. Because when reasonable doubt surfaced in that jury room, it didn't matter. An estimated 1,500 other people are still incarcerated in Louisiana prisons after split verdicts. And the situation was even worse earlier in history. Before the law was changed to 10 in the 1970s, only nine jurors had to agree.

• 11:01Nancy Glass?

  Eventually, Jermaine and Bobby would come together to advocate for those still incarcerated by non-unanimous juries, people who had little hope of ever getting out of prison. But first, they had to plant new roots and rebuild themselves. For Jermaine, that meant a radical change.

• 11:22Speaker 06

  I was leaving this state. I already had that in my mind. I had to get out of Louisiana. Mass incarceration is very, very deep in Louisiana. They will paint you out to make you look like you is the most dangerous person to walk the face of this earth. They will arrest you, try you, find you guilty, and send you on your way. And you was a forgotten soul after that.

• 11:52Nancy Glass?

  He knew he had to leave Louisiana. The only question? Would he do it alone? Or would Kristen, the woman he loved 22 years earlier, come with him? It turns out Kristen had gone to Dallas right after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and she loved her time there.

• 12:11Speaker 06

  She said, "Yeah, I want to go back to Dallas." I said, "So what we're waiting on? Let's make this happen." And she was stunned because she didn't think I wanted to go. But I told her I was leaving this state.

• 12:25Nancy Glass?

  This was the state that had incarcerated him, deprived him of his freedom and his family. He wanted a fresh start, and Kristen was in.

• 12:36Speaker 06

  She found us a place. We packed up everything, and we moved to Texas. And we've been to Texas ever since.

• 12:45Nancy Glass?

  And in Texas, he found some of the peace he'd been seeking.

• 12:50Speaker 06

  I love my neighbors. I love the community, period, because everybody is nice. It's like a community where you can come outside 11 o'clock at night, and you're gonna see them walking their dogs. They're gonna be jogging, exercising. You'll see, "Hey, man, how you doing?" You know, that's part of the American dream. So to have a chance to actually live that life, it's amazing.

• 13:15Nancy Glass?

  With their dream coming to life, Jermaine decided to make it official with Kristen.

• 13:21Speaker 06

  I honestly never felt.

• 13:26Speaker 06

  No love like the love she gave.

• 13:31Speaker 06

  I didn't have the bond with any other woman that I shared with her. She was the first woman to ever come into my life and give me the love that I really was longing for, and she gave me peace. One thing I can say about her that won't ever change is her spirit, her love, and her loyalty. That never changed with her.

• 13:57Nancy Glass?

  Kristin loved Jermaine equally. And we got married in November, the 19th of 2023. Everything Jermaine manifested when he was locked up came to be.

• 14:10Speaker 06

  I am about to start my own business, own my own home and forward. That's a beautiful feeling to come home and be a homeowner, you know, to establish things. So honestly, I'm just getting started.

• 14:35Nancy Glass?

  Bobby also had to start over again after he was released from jail. When Jermaine forgave him, Jermaine asked him to live a better life. Bobby was intent on honoring Jermaine's wish, and he has maintained his sobriety since the day he was arrested.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  I went back to school online. I'm just about to finish my associate's degree now.

• 14:59Nancy Glass?

  He is now using his past addiction to counsel others still fighting their battles.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  I work with an outpatient counseling service where I get to work with people that are in the criminal justice system. Most of them are on probation for drugs or alcohol, and they get sent to me for counseling.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  I've got a picture behind my desk that's a before picture of me when I was on the streets of New Orleans. They'll sit down and they'll look at it, and the first thing they say is, "Is that you, Mr. Bobby?" And I'm like, "That was me. Not anymore."

• 15:38Nancy Glass?

  In 2018, Louisiana finally ended the use of non-unanimous juries, leaving Oregon as the only state still using them. Then, in 2020, the United States Supreme Court went further, ruling that non-unanimous jury verdicts were unconstitutional. It was a landmark decision. But it raised an even bigger question: What about the people who had already been convicted? The ones sentenced, incarcerated, many for life, under that very system? Here's Dr. Thomas Hiello again.

• 16:13Speaker 06

  I would say every night, you watch a Law & Order rerun, and they drill it into your head that the only way to give fairness is to make sure that all the jurors say that someone is guilty. And if it was your loved one, it was somebody you cared about, you would want all those jurors to do that. The idea that we have in Louisiana, hundreds of people in prison that are there after one or two people said they were not guilty, should weigh on your conscience.

• 16:51Nancy Glass?

  The question before the justices was simple but enormous. Would people like Jermaine, found guilty by a non-unanimous jury, be entitled to a new trial? In the end, the Supreme Court declined to require retrials. Instead, they left the decision up to the individual states. And that's when Bobby got the call. Jermaine had asked if I would join him in Baton Rouge. And, like I said from the beginning, he really can't ask me anything that I'm gonna...

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• 19:57Nancy Glass?

  Jermaine Hudson was convicted by a non-unanimous jury in the year 2000. Nearly 20 years later, the Supreme Court ruled that split juries were unconstitutional, raising hopes that past convictions would be reexamined. But the court clarified the ruling would not apply retroactively. If old cases were to be reopened, the decision would rest with the states.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  It is estimated there are roughly 1,500 people in Louisiana prisons convicted by non-unanimous juries who have used up all their chances to appeal. The promise of justice initiatives says 80% are black and have long called the Jim Crow era practice racist.

• 20:37Nancy Glass?

  As soon as Louisiana Senator Royce Duplessis joined the legislature, he began addressing the legacy of Jim Crow era juries.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Members, justice has no expiration date. And if we choose to vote down this bill, that's what we're saying. Tough luck. We're saying that we do not want to restore the faith in our justice system. We have an opportunity right now, Louisiana, to remove this stain. Because right now, we are the only ones who are wearing it. We were sent here to do the hard stuff. And I know that this vote is hard for many of you, but in many ways, it's simple. Do we affirm the past? Or do we break free from the past? I didn't even know it was a non-unanimous verdict. I thought everybody found him guilty. I didn't know that there was such a thing.

• 21:32Nancy Glass?

  When Bobby learned about non-unanimous juries, he was appalled. And helping the next person have a chance, another person like Jermaine, felt like part of his amends. When I had reached out and got reunited with Jermaine, I was able to learn a little bit more.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  More about the work that they were doing. And Jermaine asked if I would consider helping. And I couldn't ask for something better to be a part of.

• 22:02Nancy Glass?

  Later, when Roy Stuplesses joined the state senate, he teamed up with criminal justice reform advocates to pass legislation that could bring relief to those who may have been wrongly convicted because of non-unanimous juries. And that's when Jermaine and Bobby were asked to tell their story publicly. In fact, that's how we first heard about Jermaine's case. In addition to speaking to the press, Jermaine and Bobby testified before the Louisiana Senate Judiciary Committee. Jermaine sat at a table, wearing a green T-shirt that said, "End Jim Crow Juries", and faced the committee, sitting on a dais. A crowd of supporters looked on behind him.

• 22:47Speaker 06

  Today I am here in support of the non-unanimous jury bill.

• 22:52Speaker 06

  Praying that you guys pass this bill today, because you still have a lot of people that suffer behind this.

• 23:00Nancy Glass?

  In Bobby's case, it's pretty striking to hear how far he's come. For Bobby, it was tough to admit his crime in public, out in the open, in the Louisiana State Capitol Building. But he felt it was something he had to do for Jermaine.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  In 1999, in threes my addiction, I falsely reported a crime in a desperate attempt to hide my failures. That lie, my lie, led to the wrongful conviction of Jermaine Hudson. I couldn't change the past,

• 23:35Speaker 02

  but I could refuse to live the lie any longer while a justice continued.

• 23:40Nancy Glass?

  In April of 2025, the committee voted on the bill. Here's what happened.

• 23:47Speaker 04

  Five yeas, one nay.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Celebration this week from supporters of Senate Bill 218 as it travels to the senate floor. Proponents say it would plug a

• 23:59Nancy Glass?

  The bill made it over the first hurdle. It was approved by the committee. But now they had to go to the Senate floor. And there was a powerful organization that opposed the bill. The Louisiana District Attorneys Association, also known as the LDAA. The executive director is Zach Daniels.

• 24:22Speaker 07

  We're a nonprofit organization that is responsible for the training liaison and lobbying for the district attorneys of the state of Louisiana.

• 24:32Nancy Glass?

  The LDAA contends the prior split verdict system was constitutional at the time and should not be retroactively challenged. We asked Zach to explain.

• 24:44Speaker 07

  I think it's a sliding scale where perhaps you do have cases that may need more debate. Perhaps you, on the opposite end of that scale, have folks that regardless of the amount of evidence, not even proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but proof beyond all doubt, they would never vote guilty. It often comes up inadvertently where you have deeply religious folks. One consistent thing, especially in Christian denominations, is not sitting in judgment of others and forgiveness. So if you have an inability to sit in judgment of another, you could not vote.

• 25:17Nancy Glass?

  Zach believes a juror who appears moral and can get through the selection process won't necessarily disclose or even realize they are not able to judge a person guilty.

• 25:28Speaker 07

  They would be an 11 to 1 verdict that has nothing to do with the evidence. It has to do with a deeply held religious conviction.

• 25:35Nancy Glass?

  But isn't it easier to be judged not guilty if you only need 10 votes?

• 25:40Speaker 07

  So a person may, you could argue, get convicted more easily in Louisiana with a non-unanimous verdict, but an acquittal could also happen more easily as well.

• 25:50Nancy Glass?

  And what about the victims? How would retrying cases impact them?

• 25:54Speaker 07

  Where you have a victim's family in a murder case, where you have a rape victim who, in the rarity, chooses to report the crime and proceeds to trial and faces their abuser, we have an obligation to follow through on the promises that we made there.

• 26:12Nancy Glass?

  And then, of course, there's money. What would it cost?

• 26:15Speaker 07

  Let's talk about whether we can feasibly retry these cases. We do. We talk about logistics. We talk about this cost. Let's talk about 1,500 major cases. If they're still in prison at this point, we're talking about the worst rapes and murders in Louisiana's history.

• 26:32Nancy Glass?

  But this applied to cases like Germaine's. And it begs the question, if these people were the worst of the worst, why was the verdict not unanimous? Were all those split verdict decisions the result of religious jurors unable to sit in judgment?

• 26:51Nancy Glass?

  Eliza Kaplan, a professor of law and the director of the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis and Clark Law School in Oregon disagrees with the LDA.

• 27:03Speaker 04

  I mean, the truth is, on this issue,

• 27:07Speaker 04

  you know, any person that was convicted by a non-unanimous jury did not get a fair trial, period. They had an unconstitutional trial. Nothing else really matters. And I'm not saying the person isn't guilty. I'm not saying the crime didn't happen. All I'm saying is they had an unconstitutional process to get to their conviction. And when we know that for a fact, they get a do-over.

• 27:44Nancy Glass?

  It's why lawyers, the incarcerated, their families, and even some victims were calling on lawmakers to right an old wrong. This is Samantha Kennedy, the executive director of the Promise of Justice Initiative in New Orleans. When we're talking about non-unanimous juries, what that did is it created a conveyor belt. It's pretty easy to put someone in prison if you don't have to prove your case. What happened is the district attorneys have not had to do their job for 200 years. In fact, they're taking some sort of shortcut, which ends with conviction.

• 28:28Nancy Glass?

  There is no other purpose.

• 28:32Nancy Glass?

  On May 21, 2025, the bill to challenge those non-unanimous verdicts, the one you heard earlier, passed out of committee, went to a vote on the state senate floor. Senator DuPlessis made an impassioned plea. What's our legacy going to be? Because this vote, this is our legacy. I move for final passage. Thank you. Senator Pliss, this is final pass Senate Bill 218. When the machines are open, all those in favor vote yes, opposed vote no. Members, let's go to open the machines. And when those votes were counted, here's what happened. The final vote was nine yays and 26 nays, and the bill fails to pass. Next bill. And just like that, it was over. The bill failed.

• 29:17Nancy Glass?

  Louisiana wouldn't revisit split jury convictions, at least for now.

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• 31:20Nancy Glass?

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• 31:37Nancy Glass?

  You just heard how Jermaine and Bobby joined forces to help other people who may have been convicted wrongly by a non-unanimous jury get a second chance at freedom. They traveled to Louisiana's Capitol Building and urged lawmakers to provide that pathway. There had been momentum, hope, headlines, testimony that moved the room. For a moment, it felt possible.

• 32:01Speaker 03

  The final was nine yeses and 26 nays, and the bill failed to pass. Next bill.

• 32:09Nancy Glass?

  It was heartbreaking for Jermaine. It meant the men he left behind in Angola, who also had split verdicts, who may not have been guilty, would not get the second chance he was finally living. I literally shared tears. I broke down crying just to deny it. You know what I mean? It was crushing. It was, like I say, it was even more crushing watching those inmates' families, their mothers, their children's mothers, their brothers, sisters. It's like they just ripped their heart out from people's chests because I know that's how it felt to me.

• 32:47Nancy Glass?

  He was especially moved by the victims of crime who had advocated for the bill to pass. A lot of, a lot of their victims showed up in court saying that they would like to see these guys with another shot at life, you know, a second chance. So that's what really had me emotional. And it had me like that for probably one or two days. Bobby had outed himself and what he had done to Jermaine publicly. He showed legislators how easily he had manipulated the system. He was wholeheartedly invested in the bill passing. There's an app where you can watch the webcam.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  On the Senate floor. And I spent days watching that. And I remember thinking it took two minutes for the vote. And then they just went right along. I was here in my office and after the vote, I went back in and, and I was just, I was devastated.

• 33:45Nancy Glass?

  Bobby made it a goal to make amends to Jermaine. He wanted to do everything possible to own up to his mistakes and repair what he could. He felt like Louisiana should do the same.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Amends is a, is a integral part of recovery, right? As a recovering, recovered addict, uh, I know how important it is to recognize the things that I did wrong and do what I can to let the people know that I harmed that I'm sorry. And that doesn't always just mean saying I'm sorry. Sometimes that means providing some sort of tangible witness to, hey, I'm, I'm not that person anymore.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  And when it comes to Louisiana as a state, all those politicians stand up there and say, yes, this law was created in a horrible way. It was created with racist views, but that's not Louisiana anymore. Okay. Well, that's somewhat an apology, but there's nothing tangible there. You're not showing me that Louisiana is not that way anymore. Because if they were, then you would be going back and dealing with the mistakes that Louisiana made over many, many years. Way prior to Jermaine and I coming into this system, it's been happening for a long time.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  All I heard during those hearings from the opponents was, "It'll cost too much. It'll be too hard. We just can't do it." And for years, I told myself,

• 35:39Speaker 02

  "It'll cost too much. It's too hard, and I just can't do it."

• 35:47Speaker 02

  And Jermaine and his family suffered for over 20 years because I kept telling myself that.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  And until I was able to say, "It doesn't matter how much it costs. It doesn't matter how hard it is.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  It has to be done.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  Because it's the right thing to do." That's what Louisiana needs to do. If they want to show the rest of the country and the world that that's not them anymore.

• 36:22Nancy Glass?

  Jermaine was upset and frustrated. The bill not passing, it felt like failure. But the men he was thinking about advocating for, they weren't about to let Jermaine wallow. What brought me back to reality is, I was getting phone calls from these guys, and they were telling me to chill, relax. This is just the beginning. We need to focus. It's gonna be alright, man. For them to call me and encourage me like that and lift my spirit up like that, it says a lot about the character of these guys. So when something like that drops, something like that come along, then, man, it's either you gonna hold or you gonna fold.

• 37:05Nancy Glass?

  And Jermaine is not about to fold. Lord knows I didn't have it on my mind to be an advocate like I am today. But it shows you. How the universe work. You know, somebody got to step up. Somebody got to take the lead. Somebody got to take one for the team.

• 37:25Nancy Glass?

  So he's going back to the Capitol in just a few weeks to try again and keep trying.

• 37:37Nancy Glass?

  We haven't spent much time discussing what happened in Oregon, the other state that, until 2020, had the non-unanimous jury system. It started in 1934, and it was similar to Louisiana in that the rule evolved from a deeply discriminatory history. Law professor Eliza Kaplan picks up the story.

• 37:59Speaker 04

  There was a very big underground sort of gang world happening here back then. Jacob Silverman was on trial for murder of another gangster-type person. And the newspapers followed it so carefully, like every single move was followed. They wanted to give him the death penalty. And there was one person on the jury that just would not go for it. And so in the end, they agreed to manslaughter.

• 38:33Nancy Glass?

  And a single holdout juror sparked huge public outrage. How could a Jewish man have gotten away with murder?

• 38:42Speaker 04

  If you look back at all the newspaper coverage, a lot of the outrage really were coming from a place of discrimination, not just against him and that he got the deal, but the jurors from these other countries can't make these decisions and aren't smart enough and those kinds of things.

• 39:06Nancy Glass?

  Within a year, voters amended the state constitution, and Oregon became one of the only states in the country to allow non-unanimous jury convictions. Eliza first learned about non-unanimous juries when she moved to Oregon from the East Coast.

• 39:21Speaker 04

  I was floored, just floored. Like, how could this be? The whole sort of concept of convicting someone is the reasonable doubt standard. And if one or two people on a jury think that the state didn't make their case or that someone might be innocent, if that's happening, then how can you even convict someone? So I was shocked.

• 39:44Nancy Glass?

  She was on the front lines of the fight in Oregon to retry cases.

• 39:50Speaker 04

  The District Attorney Association in Louisiana is saying very much what our District Attorney Association said. And let's just be clear, the arguments are really similar to not ending the rule. They say the numbers, the money, the burden, the old cases, right? I mean, those were the arguments to not get rid of the rule. And I just want to say that some of the arguments are not wrong arguments. It's a lot, especially in the very populated parishes or counties. There will be a lot of cases, and it is really hard on old cases

• 40:31Speaker 04

  or to like contact these poor victims and all of it. I mean, it's a mess. There's no doubt about that. It's not as much of a mess as they say. And the other thing I'd say is like, sorry, then you shouldn't have unconstitutionally convicted people for over 100 years. And the truth is, the numbers of people that will never get relief, the numbers of people that can't prove it, or died already, or already served their time in prison. I mean, nobody wins in this. Nobody wins. It's really sad. It's sad. I

• 41:14Speaker 04

  mean, you know, the whole thing. It's just sad and awful. But it's the state's responsibilities, both states, to make it right.

• 41:25Nancy Glass?

  In 2022, Oregon went in a completely different direction than Louisiana. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that the unanimous jury requirement does apply retroactively under Oregon law. It opened up possibilities for hundreds of people in prison, ranging from new trials to dismissals. The process has been completed there. I was curious, how difficult was it to go back through all those cases?

• 41:56Speaker 04

  It was so much better than we thought it would be. On every level, it can happen much quicker and in a more meaningful way for everyone involved.

• 42:12Nancy Glass?

  Okay, now I want to get back to Jermaine. You've heard his story. He faced down the state. He made his peace with Bobby. But there was something he hadn't done since his release from Angola.

• 42:23Speaker 06

  I was released in March 26 of 2021, and I haven't been back to this place since.

• 42:33Nancy Glass?

  Our team went with him. We're in the car as he thinks about returning to the prison where he was incarcerated for 22 years.

• 42:42Speaker 06

  A lot of the fellows been asking me when I'm coming back. I wasn't really ready to face it at that moment because it was still fresh in my system. And I didn't want to look at that place for a long time. But now is the time for me to go pay my respect, pay my visit to the brothers that I grew up with, and give them some hope.

• 43:06Nancy Glass?

  We go back to Angola with Jermaine. That's next time on the final episode of Burden of Guilt.

• 43:22Nancy Glass?

  Thank you for listening. If you're enjoying Burden of Guilt, subscribe, rate, and review the series with five stars. Yay! It helps other people find our show. So are you curious about what the people involved in this look like? Do you want to hear bonus content? Just check out our Instagram account, @glasspodcast, where we recap each episode with show notes that include people, places, and even court records. You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Burden of Guilt is a production of Glass Podcasts,

• 44:07Nancy Glass?

  a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series is executive produced and hosted by me, Nancy Glass. Produced by Carrie Hartman. Also produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our story editor is Monique LaBord. Our associate producer is Jade Abdul Malik.

• 44:30Nancy Glass?

  Our production manager is Kristen Melchure. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krychek. Thank you to our voice actors, Trey Morgan and Ben Fetterman. Audio editing by Zach Prout. Mixed and mastered by Anna McLean. The Burden of Guilt theme is composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by Myb Music. And we want to give our special thanks to Jermaine Hudson and Bobby Gumpright. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio app or Apple Podcasts. To follow the work of the Promise of Justice Initiative, go to promiseofjustice.org.

• 45:14Nancy Glass?

  On Instagram and Twitter at Justice's Promise. And on Facebook and Blue Sky at Promise of Justice.

• 45:31Speaker 03

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  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed ZOLAR, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

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• 47:33Speaker 02

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• 47:35Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.