0:00

You know the old cliche justice

0:02

is really just us? Or how

0:04

about this one? Everybody in prison

0:06

says they're innocent, but some

0:09

really truly are. How

0:11

long were you in a Pennsylvania

0:13

prison?

0:14

Twelve years and three months, twelve

0:17

years and three months?

0:18

How old are you now and how old were you when

0:20

you went in?

0:22

I went in there seventeen Right now

0:24

I'm thirty.

0:25

Another case of injustice now

0:27

on Blackland, and now as a

0:29

brown person, you just feel so invisible where

0:34

we're from. Brothers

0:36

and sisters. I welcome you to this joyful

0:39

day.

0:39

And we celebrate freedom. Where we are,

0:44

I know someone's heard something and

0:46

where we're going.

0:47

We the people means all the people.

0:49

The Black Information Network presents

0:52

Blackland with your host Vanessa

0:54

Tyler.

0:56

More than a dozen years on the inside

0:59

for a shooting and c J. Rice didn't

1:01

even pull the trigger. In fact, he wasn't

1:03

there and was not physically able

1:05

to escape the scene of the crime if he was.

1:08

Now twelve years later, he is free,

1:11

charges, overturned, exonerated.

1:13

C J.

1:14

Rice. Welcome to Blackland.

1:16

Hey, what's going on?

1:18

How long have you been out?

1:20

All?

1:20

Right? As of today about

1:23

one hundred and almost

1:25

four months give or take almost

1:27

four months, about one hundred and

1:29

fifty seven days.

1:33

I find an interesting you counting it in days.

1:35

Whow have you adjusted.

1:37

With certain things a little bit? But

1:40

what other things? I still get anxiety, like

1:43

a lot of anxiety.

1:45

When you say anxiety, do you get anxiety about

1:47

being in crowds? Or do you get anxiety

1:49

that he would be picked up again for

1:52

doing absolutely nothing?

1:54

Sometimes it could be bold, right, So like

1:57

in a crowd, I look around and be like,

1:59

dang, how many people

2:01

even understand what's

2:03

going on on the other side of the

2:05

wall right now? Right? And it's

2:08

not really it's not really like a like

2:10

a bad anxiety, but it's still like a like

2:13

some kind of anxiousness, right, And

2:16

it's not really on a on a bad connotation

2:18

or denotation saying the word anxiety, But

2:20

it's more so like an uneasy

2:22

feeling. You get what I'm saying. Yes, yeah,

2:26

that could be put to a

2:28

few different situations, right, because

2:31

like even like going

2:33

to go get something to eat, simple as that, right,

2:35

But you'll see, like the amount

2:38

of freedom that's out here, it's just it's

2:40

blown on my mind compared to in

2:43

there. You know what I'm saying, so it's still certain

2:45

stuff that I'd be like hesitant to do when I'm

2:48

like, yo, I ain't got to ask nobody to go do that,

2:51

right m M. That's deep,

2:53

right, because that's like psychological for real,

2:55

for real, that's not even that's

2:58

deep.

2:59

In other words, you're free, but you

3:01

feel like you're not free.

3:03

No, I'm free, and I know I'm free.

3:05

I feel like I'm free, but at certain

3:07

points I catch myself

3:09

having to second guess if I could do something

3:12

without asks.

3:12

You know what I'm saying, Yes, what's

3:15

day to day like for you?

3:17

Right now? I'm focused on studies. Right

3:20

now, focused on studies. I'm enrolled

3:22

in school, going to

3:24

school to be get my parallegal

3:26

certificate. I'm on that right now. So

3:29

hopefully I have some good news before the end

3:31

of the year that I'm certified paralegal.

3:34

The interesting thing about the paralegal and the lawyer

3:37

relationship. The paralegal is actually

3:39

the one who could put

3:42

in the substantial

3:44

amount of groundwork that's necessary to help

3:46

somebody. Right, So, if the para

3:48

legal does a great job, somebody has a

3:50

great chance of beating the case. The

3:52

para legal does not

3:55

a great job, those chances

3:57

are slim or slimmer

4:00

them down some. So I

4:03

think for every good lawyer

4:05

they have to have a great paral legal behind

4:08

them, right, And for everybody

4:10

that's in a situation where

4:13

they depending on somebody else to fight for them

4:15

because they don't know the language of the law, they

4:18

need a great pair of leader, not

4:20

just a good lawyer.

4:22

You see what I'm saying, which, of course

4:24

brings us to your personal story. You didn't

4:26

have either.

4:31

Talk about things coming forward the right.

4:35

Is that why you're so passionate about this?

4:38

I think so. But it's also like so

4:42

having to study

4:44

it as long as I did, and you know, to

4:46

really try to fight. In

4:49

a sense, I

4:51

developed a knack for it. So I got no problem

4:53

with reading for an hour

4:55

or two three hours writing for

4:58

you know, equal amount of time. That's I

5:00

had to do that, So that became habit.

5:04

So it's fight. I already

5:06

developed a night for it. Why not get the

5:08

accolade for it so that I could be able to do it?

5:10

You know, professionally.

5:12

How instrumental were you in

5:14

your case? In your freedom?

5:15

I mean, I

5:19

don't know. Every night I went to bed on

5:21

that I tried my artists, right, So.

5:25

You wrote material, wrote letters, You did the

5:27

research.

5:28

As much as I could, As much as I could

5:30

comprehend anything that I came

5:33

upon, I didn't leave it any

5:35

If it was a pebble, forget a rock. If it was

5:37

a pebble, I was I was turning over

5:39

greens thing looking for a way out.

5:43

You know your story because of CNN's

5:45

Jake Tapper first did an Atlantic

5:47

magazine story on you in twenty

5:50

twenty two. It made the cover, then

5:53

a CNN styled documentary on

5:55

your release. You were a cause celeb.

5:58

What did all that attention do.

6:00

For you and to you?

6:02

But for me, I think it allowed

6:05

what I was saying to

6:08

be heard because somebody else

6:11

was saying it, even though they were saying

6:13

it like the same way that I was saying it for years on

6:15

paper. But you know, sometimes

6:17

it's it's not about what you're saying.

6:19

It could be who's saying it, or you know so.

6:22

And who was saying it. A respected

6:25

white doctor, father of a prominent

6:27

newsman with an international TV

6:29

news platform in a legal case

6:31

we've been following four years here

6:34

on the lead involving CJ.

6:36

Rice, who is now a free

6:38

man.

6:39

CJ came to Jake Tapper's attention

6:41

through his father, doctor Theodore

6:44

Tapper, who was CJ's pediatrician.

6:46

CJ was seventeen at the time of the liquor

6:49

store shooting, where the finger was wrongly

6:51

pointed at him. Doctor Tapper

6:54

testified at CJ's trial the

6:56

eyewitness who claimed seeing CJ run

6:58

from the scene of the krome. As doctor

7:01

Tapper explains on CNN running,

7:04

CJ was recovering from being shot himself

7:06

three times three weeks before

7:09

the liquor store incident, so

7:11

run no way. Doctor

7:13

Tapper says he could barely walk.

7:16

He had staples in his abdomen

7:20

over approximately an

7:22

eight or nine inch surgical

7:25

incision from his breastbone

7:27

straight down as far as you can

7:29

go.

7:30

But CJ was picked out of a lineup,

7:32

even though the witness first picked others,

7:35

something the jury never heard. But

7:37

CJ says his public defender, a black

7:39

woman, did not even do the basics

7:41

needed to free him. She never gathered

7:43

his cell phone records proving he was

7:45

on the west side of Philly when the crime

7:47

took place. On the south side bottom

7:50

line, there was nothing there. In Philadelphia's

7:52

District attorney Larry Krasner. Now,

7:55

looking back, there was nothing

7:57

concrete tying CJ to the case.

7:59

If this case had occurred yesterday, it

8:01

is very likely that it wouldn't be so murky

8:04

that we would have phone records that would geolocate

8:07

to exactly where mister Rice was or pretty

8:09

close to exactly where he was.

8:12

Luckily, the person shot at the crime scene

8:14

reportedly was not seriously injured, but

8:16

the damage was done, tearing into a raggedy

8:19

justice system again, another

8:22

innocent black man swept up in

8:24

prison with the law throwing away

8:26

the key. We

8:29

do so many of these stories.

8:32

What percentage do you think people

8:37

black people are innocent

8:40

inside?

8:43

From my personal

8:46

perspective, from what I've seen,

8:48

especially in Pennsylvania, the

8:51

doc in Pennsylvania specifically,

8:53

now across the country, you know, we could use

8:55

these Pennsylvania numbers, then you know they

8:57

may apply. But let's say

9:00

it would take ten points, right plus

9:02

a minus ten points in Pennsylvania.

9:04

I'm gonna say a good forty percent.

9:06

That's nearly half at

9:08

least.

9:09

Right, And that's for everybody that went to child and

9:11

for people that took dis Because you got

9:13

people that's taking deals for crimes that they didn't commit,

9:16

but the lawyer refusing to fight for him,

9:19

or they feel like the lawyer gonna, you

9:21

know, sell them out, so they

9:24

go ahead and take complete the or they

9:26

don't and they wind up getting

9:29

a life sentence or you know, twenty

9:31

five to fifty or you know the maximum

9:33

sense it's sticker, it's

9:35

gut n for real, for real.

9:40

We are speaking with CJ. Rice, a free

9:42

man who spent more than a dozen years

9:44

behind bars for her crime he

9:46

did not and could not commit. We

9:49

hear a lot about court

9:51

appointed attorneys, and but

9:54

in your case, it was really astonishingly

9:57

bad. You were, you know, according to the report,

9:59

you on telling her what to

10:01

do, banging her what to do, telling your mother

10:03

to tell her what to do.

10:05

That happens every day, right, It's

10:08

just that people don't understand

10:10

that when they representing somebody

10:13

that they really got a

10:15

person behind that paperwork. Right,

10:17

It's literally a person behind that paperwork. It's

10:20

not just the doct number. It's

10:23

a son, it's a brother, it's an uncle,

10:25

it's a person behind that paperwork.

10:27

People and the lawyers, they I don't know, if

10:29

they don't they don't always get that, or

10:32

I get it. You know they be swamps, but

10:34

it's like, got to do

10:36

better, especially if you're saying that and

10:39

you professing that this is your profession.

10:41

The public defender who represented CJ

10:44

has since passed away, but it took

10:46

years, J says for him to get

10:48

competent help, including the backing

10:51

of dream dot Org, an organization

10:54

fighting to reduce the prison industrial

10:56

complex that sweeps up the innocent

10:59

like CJ right along with the guilty.

11:02

Dream dot Org. Janos Martin

11:04

says CJ did not get the

11:06

justice that is the right of every

11:08

American under the Constitution.

11:11

CJ. Rice is somebody who's

11:14

had an incredibly difficult time navigating

11:17

the injustices of the criminal

11:19

legal system from start to finish, from being wrongly

11:21

accused of inadequate assistance of

11:23

counsel to his

11:25

difficulty in getting the true story of what

11:28

happened out there. And

11:30

you know what, we when

11:32

we met several lawyers

11:35

from the Reform Alliance who were connected

11:37

to CJ. Rice, we wanted

11:39

to do what we could to help. We helped

11:41

spearhead a number of petitions

11:43

to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office to

11:46

pay closer attention to the injustices in CJ's

11:48

case and try to get his case dismissed. We're

11:51

very fortunate, we're very excited that after

11:54

a long period of time, we got

11:56

the result we wanted and CJ is finally home.

11:59

But we've also try to do our best to help CJ

12:02

on his return, because, like so many other

12:04

people coming home from prison, you know, we don't

12:06

have a good safety net in this country to help people get

12:08

back on their feet. So we've been doing whatever

12:10

we can to support CJ. And

12:13

as unjust as his case was, we

12:15

also want to shine a light on the fact that there

12:18

are many people still in our prisons who

12:20

are innocent and trying to fight

12:22

to have their day in court the way CJ did.

12:25

Dream dot Org wants it right,

12:27

and so Dream tackles many issues,

12:30

talk about them absolutely.

12:32

We're committed to closing prison doors

12:34

and opening doors of opportunity into the

12:36

green economy. And what we mean by that is

12:39

many of the same communities, especially black

12:41

and brown communities, that are historically

12:43

the most over policed and overincarcerated,

12:46

are also places that aren't

12:48

exposed to all the economic opportunities

12:50

that come to other neighborhoods. So for

12:53

us, we really believe that in civil rights,

12:55

in people's rights, and the criminal

12:57

justice system, but we also believe that we

12:59

need to bring good jobs of the future to those same

13:02

communities. So different parts of our program

13:04

work with different pieces of that, and you

13:06

know, we think in the long run, that's how we're going to make

13:08

this country better.

13:10

I know, one of the issues you want us

13:12

to be aware of and stop is

13:14

the construction of this half a billion

13:17

dollar mega prison in Kentucky.

13:20

Talk about that absolutely.

13:23

Uh, you know, we have. The federal

13:25

prison system is something that a

13:27

lot of people don't realize. It's the biggest prison system

13:30

in the United States, bigger than any state. They're

13:32

about one hundred and thirty prisons scattered

13:34

across the country and we

13:36

actually have finally seen some success over

13:39

the last few years in bringing the prison

13:41

federal prison population down. So

13:43

now is absolutely the wrong time to be spending

13:46

five hundred million dollars building a

13:48

new federal prison

13:50

in Kentucky, a place that already, you

13:52

know, uses prison as a tool of economic

13:55

development.

13:56

You can almost see who's already going to be filling

13:58

those prisons.

13:59

Yeah.

13:59

Absolutely, And one of the things that since

14:01

it's a federal prison, you know, it's people from

14:03

cities all across the United States, not just people

14:06

from Kentucky. So one of the things

14:08

we did to testify against this prison is, you

14:10

know, bring a van of people from DC

14:12

whose loved ones are incarcerated

14:14

in Kentucky. They have to drive eight hours every

14:16

time they want to see them.

14:18

Dream dot Org is also making sure CJ

14:20

has the money he needs to get on

14:22

his feet by starting a goalfundme

14:25

in the name of CJ. Rice. At

14:27

last check, the goalfundme for CJ Rice

14:29

was still short of its goal.

14:32

You know, I'm really excited to hear that

14:34

CJ is looking into becoming

14:36

a paralegal or an attorney and really

14:38

does I think have a really bright future

14:41

ahead of him. But it's true that for

14:43

so many people coming home from prison, you're

14:45

at square zero financially, you've

14:48

got lost time with your family, your community,

14:50

ties of atrophied. And one

14:52

of the things that we want to do is make sure that

14:55

people who are directly impacted,

14:57

formerly InCAR strated, are able to get

14:59

trained for jobs to actually pay

15:01

good wages for the future. So we've

15:03

got a program that helps train

15:06

people up on tech jobs of the future.

15:08

We've got connections to scholarships

15:10

for programs that will train people up on jobs

15:13

in the green economy, so the

15:15

solar and wind industry, which are incredibly

15:17

fast growing industries. I mean, these are jobs where

15:20

you can get paid well if you're trained right. And so we

15:22

need to get that training to formally

15:24

incarcrate people and even currently incarcerated

15:26

people, because you know, if the state

15:28

is going to hold you in prison, you might as well

15:30

get trained up to that when you come home, you're ready to

15:32

go and can support yourself and your family.

15:36

S CJ continues to inhale

15:39

the fresh air of freedom. He continues

15:41

his studies. He is so close to being

15:44

a paralegal to help people like him,

15:46

he can taste it and replaces

15:48

the bitter taste of a dozen years locked

15:50

up in the system.

15:52

Everybody to help me. I appreciate it

15:54

so much. I'm trying to be normal,

15:57

right, So I'm not you too, but I'm

15:59

doing good thing. I'm doing

16:01

good. Once I get this Paryer legal certificate,

16:04

I should be straight after that. Straight.

16:07

What's your message to the Philadelphia prison

16:09

system that held you and finally let

16:12

you go?

16:13

They gotta do better. They know they gotta do better.

16:16

That's the baseline, right, They gotta

16:18

do better. We gotta do better. They

16:20

don't see it as us.

16:23

Like I said, it's not just a name,

16:25

or it's not just a docking number. It's a

16:27

person. It's a person.

16:30

The job description is to met out

16:33

justice, not to do

16:35

anything other than that. Right, So

16:37

if that's the case, stick to the job

16:39

description and do the job to the best of your abilities.

16:43

Don't cut any corners. Do

16:45

your job.

16:46

Are you feeling now physically? How's

16:49

your help?

16:50

I'm pretty well. Go out. I'm gonna go

16:52

out and run. Tomorrow morning. I go out do my little

16:54

running, a little couple push ups, keep

16:57

it, keep it together. Feeling

16:59

good, celante,

17:02

oh CJ.

17:03

Rice. Thank you so much for talking with

17:05

us and stay safe.

17:07

Thank you so much, Miss Vanessa Taler.

17:09

You take it easy, Appreciate it.

17:11

I'm Vanessa Tyler. Be sure to like

17:14

and to subscribe to black Land. Join

17:16

me next time. We have a new episode

17:19

dropping every week.