Pursuing Justice

Quentin Lewis has been incarcerated since he was 16. He's now 45 and an inmate at Wende Correctional Facility in upstate NY. He earned his G.E.D. and an Associates Degree in prison. He's been fighting a wrongful conviction since 2001. Students at Cardozo School of Law and Yeshiva are assisting with his case. Quentin is certified as law clerk in the prison system.

Read his article in the New York Times here.

Read Quentin's poem below.

Jailhouse Lawyer, by Quentin Lewis
You not a Jailhouse Lawyer
Unless you won a case
Stop sitting on the sideline
Looking out of place
You sitting down at Chowtime
Looking at your plate
Like wait
How I'm gone get out From behind this gate
Go escape in the law library
Lifting weights
Damn straight
This time is scary
As your fate
No date upstate
The cell your sanctuary
Like a braincell
Where your energy is carried
The law legalise
In my memory is buried
Due process
Came way before slavery
Maybe you need to learn
Johnson verse Avery
Supreme Court said
Jailhouse Lawyers amazing
Filing torts
Trying to get back to the pavement
A better person
More than before I was caged in
Trailblazing
Champion of human rights
Hell raising
The right to counsel never dies
After direct appeal
You still alive
Strategize like a chess game
Be a knight
Bounds versus Smith
Is your right to fight life
Late night on the West law legal cite
Hype as a typist type
Defending rights
Wrongfully convicted
Feel like double jeopardy twice.


This podcast is proudly sponsored by the Innocence Project of Florida. Visit www.floridainnocence.org for more information. 

What is Pursuing Justice?

What if you or someone you loved were arrested, convicted and incarcerated for a crime --a crime for which you or that person was innocent?
What if the lawyer you hired was incompetent and you were out of funds and out of options?
What if years and decades had gone by and you or your loved one were still behind bars?
Where would you find help?

Wrongful conviction in the United States occurs more often than you might think. In 2022, the National Registry of Exonerations recorded 417 people who were proven innocent.

They have tracked cases of innocence since 1989. Since 1973, 200 people were taken off Death Row and freed from prison.

The total number of men and women exonerated since 1989 is 3,460. That is just the tip of the iceberg as it is estimated that 4%-6% of the 2 million people doing time are innocent.

The desperate help these people need is coming from innocence organizations in most every state in addition to groups like Conviction Integrity Units around the nation. They work pro bono for each client.

This podcast will explore causes of wrongful conviction in addition to many other topics related to our criminal justice system. We will continue to interview exonerees, share memoirs they have published, speak to Professors of Law who are also authors of books about false confessions and junk science. We will interview directors of Innocence Projects around the nation in addition to organizations like "Puppies Behind Bars".

Host Harriet Hendel served on the Board of Directors of the Innocence Project of Florida from 2013~2019, having been active with IPF since 2009. The project is the sponsor of the podcast.

Harriet has been teaching classes on topics related to our justice system since 2012 in Florida and New Jersey. Her goal is to shine a light on the miscarriage of justice going on all over our nation with the hope that one day wrongful conviction will be eliminated for good.