Pod Insights Burden of Guilt Four Flat Tires | BONUS | Season 2 About this episode We meet Sam, a lifelong friend of Jermaine Hudson. Sam offers insight into how black men have been treated by the justice system. And he explains why incarceration in Angola is a dead end.
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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2:26 Speaker 05 Hi, I'm Carrie Hartman, the senior producer on Burden of Guilt 2 with another bonus episode. When our team visited Louisiana, we had the opportunity to meet some of Jermaine's childhood friends. These were men he had relationships with going all the way back to elementary school, and it helped to give us greater insight into Jermaine's young life. Before Jermaine saw the prison walls of Angola, before the trial, the arrest, and the pain his family endured, he was just a kid in the Fisher Projects, a public housing development where childhood and survival unfortunately intertwined.
3:05 Speaker 06 I'm stepping over bodies, witnessing bodies, coming on from elementary school. You've got police, AMLAMs, fire engines, you know, because somebody was murdered.
3:17 Speaker 05 It was a rough place for a kid, well, for anyone, really. The Fisher Projects was rife in crime, a stomping ground for drug deals, and a place where residents sometimes had violent clashes with police. It's also the place Jermaine met lifetime friends like Sam. They were just 10-year-old kids when they first crossed paths. Meet Sam.
3:41 Speaker 06 Grew up in the Fisher Project. You could see somebody smoking crack in front of you. Nobody liked to grow up in the Project, you know, but something we just had to deal with coming up young.
3:55 Speaker 05 Jermaine and Sam attended the same school, and they hung with the same crowd. And for a lot of their childhood, they just did typical kid things.
4:03 Speaker 06 Played football, played basketball. Talk about sports. Me and Jermaine were so close, we were together every day. It wasn't deep, but we were together.
4:17 Speaker 05 But life took a turn once they became teenagers.
4:21 Speaker 06 At the high school, we just got off into hanging out with the bad crowd.
4:27 Speaker 05 Earlier, we told you about Jermaine's two arrests before Bobby identified him as the man who robbed him. Sam admits he had his own run-ins with law enforcement, including drug arrests going all the way back to 1998.
4:42 Speaker 06 I got in lots of trouble, staying with the police, in the police, running from the police. And they know my name very well.
4:49 Speaker 05 Early in their lives, Jermaine and Sam learned the same lessons about how they'd be treated in the criminal justice system as Black men in Louisiana.
4:58 Speaker 06 You know, we guilty before we answer, before anything, right or wrong, we guilty.
5:04 Speaker 05 When Sam found out about Jermaine's arrest for an armed robbery, it didn't make any sense to him.
5:11 Speaker 05 We heard earlier in the series that Jermaine had a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But everyone in the Fisher Projects and at school knew Jermaine was a good kid.
5:22 Speaker 06 I heard what happened to him, and I'm like, I couldn't believe it. And I know New Orleans' history.
5:30 Speaker 05 And in some ways, that makes his story so much harder to hear.
5:35 Speaker 05 Sam always believed Jermaine was innocent of the armed robbery charge. But Sam was also convinced that Jermaine's case didn't come down to guilt or innocence, it was about access.
5:46 Speaker 06 We young, we Black, we know nobody with lawyers. Who gonna help, who gonna help us out with the lawyers? Nobody, you know?
5:56 Speaker 05 When you're arrested and facing charges in Louisiana, you're often faced with a choice. Take a plea deal that guarantees a shorter prison sentence, or roll the dice by going to trial.
6:07 Speaker 06 So what you gonna do? Plea out or go to trial?
6:12 Speaker 05 And as we know, Jermaine took the gamble.
6:17 Speaker 05 In Louisiana, incarceration is commonplace. It's often steeped in neighborhoods like the one Jermaine and Sam grew up in. And getting wrapped up in the carceral system can feel less like an unfortunate circumstance and more like destiny.
6:31 Speaker 06 You don't stand a chance back there. Black men do not stand a chance back there.
6:37 Speaker 05 Louisiana has some of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Jermaine was wrongfully convicted, and Sam's charges led to him serving six years in prison. But Sam was fortunate in one way. He was never sent to Angola. But he knew, like everyone knew, what it represented.
6:56 Speaker 06 Angola? We used to call that four flat ties. Four flat ties. You ain't never going nowhere. Four flat ties, man. You ain't never coming home. For life. Stay Louisiana means life. Natural life. When you say Angola, you're thinking about the blood is penitentiary across America.
7:19 Speaker 05 In his 30s, Sam got his life together, raised his kids, and left the streets behind him. But he never expected Jermaine to get that same opportunity. He thought Jermaine would be stuck at Angola for the rest of his life.
7:34 Speaker 06 I was scared for my brother. And I was mad. You did him dirty. I was mad you did him dirty. 99 years? Come on, man. Say my brother's a death. Ain't no man can do 99 years.
7:51 Speaker 05 It sounded like a death sentence. But for Jermaine, it wasn't. And that's what we'll get into on the next episode of Burden of Guilt.
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