Maggie Freleng was pushing and practising social justice earlier than she even knew the idea’s nomenclature. As a toddler rising up in Lengthy Island, New York, Maggie championed the underdog and spurned the scourge, ensuring to step between each bully and their meant goal.
Years later, when Maggie left Lengthy Island for school in Massachusetts, she discovered herself writing about luxuries solely the lucky may afford — journey, effective eating, and good wine. However she knew that was neither her ardour nor her goal. Fortunately, Maggie shortly shifted gears, first touchdown herself a chance at Girls’s eNews, then NPR’s Latino USA — an expertise that will result in her in-depth protection of incarcerated people and the stunning realization that multitudes of harmless folks have been sitting behind bars.
At the moment, Maggie is an award-winning reporter, producer, podcast host (Homicide in Alliance and Unjust & Unsolved), and social justice activist. On Might 2, along with Lava for Good and philanthropist Jason Flom, she launched Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng – a much-needed podcast that not solely parallels Flom’s Wrongful Conviction, however are inclined to the rising variety of backlogged circumstances. Her first episode options Patty Prewitt, the 72-year-old mom of 5 accused of killing her husband.
SPIN caught up with Maggie to speak in regards to the impactful podcast, talk about the significance of Prewitt’s case, and achieve some statistical perception as to how faulty the system will be.
SPIN: What’s going to your function be as a bunch on this podcast?
Maggie Freleng: As a journalist, I all the time try to uncover the reality and inform tales based mostly on the information relatively than my private beliefs or opinions. I imagine that laying out the information of every of those circumstances will make the reality clear to our listeners. I feel listeners will likely be simply as stunned as I used to be on the methods during which wrongful convictions of harmless persons are obtained. And I hope that every of those tales will likely be a name to motion — not only for every particular person case, however for change all through our prison authorized system.
How will your episodes differ from Flom’s?
Maggie: Jason has been internet hosting his Wrongful Conviction podcast since 2016, telling tales of women and men who’re behind bars for crimes they preserve they didn’t commit. The podcast and its counterparts have been actual success tales: executions have been stopped, harmless folks have been launched, exonerated and compensated, and legal guidelines have been enacted to guard folks from police manipulation and misconduct.
Nonetheless, final yr, Jason realized that he had an issue. Although he was doing as many episodes as he probably may, there was an enormous backlog of tons of of circumstances, and he was rising more and more uncomfortable at having to inform folks that he couldn’t inform their story or couldn’t get to them for one more yr.
My collection, Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng, will deliver my voice to the Lava for Good crew and double the variety of tales we are able to showcase every week.
Why did you resolve to go together with Patty Prewitt for the primary episode?
Particularly with Mom’s Day approaching, Patty’s story hit me actually onerous. She’s a 72-year-old mom of 5, grandmother of 13, and a great-grandmother who’s serving a life sentence after being convicted of the homicide of her husband Invoice, against the law for which she has unwaveringly maintained her innocence. Her conviction additionally highlights so lots of the methods ladies face an uphill battle in relation to society and our authorized system. Patty’s trial was riddled with sexism and slut-shaming that finally convicted her within the face of no proof.
What are your hopes for the podcast?
I hope that Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng continues to construct the momentum we’re seeing within the innocence area. Jason has lined the tales of Rodney Reed and Melissa Lucio on his podcast; they have been every simply days away from being put to dying in Texas when their executions have been stayed. They have been each saved after a media firestorm and public outcry.
However these are solely two tales, and there are such a lot of extra harmless people who find themselves having days, months, and years stolen from their lives as they sit behind bars — typically because the clock ticks down in direction of their execution date — as the true perpetrator is free to reside their life and probably commit different crimes. My mission is to search out justice for these folks and assist transfer the needle to create change in order that fewer folks find yourself wrongfully convicted within the first place.
What do you would like extra folks have been conscious of in relation to the jail system and wrongful convictions?
Most individuals hear tales of wrongful convictions and suppose, “Oh, that’s a one-off. It not often ever occurs.” I feel folks could be shocked in the event that they knew the frequency at which wrongful convictions occur. A examine from 2018 discovered an general wrongful conviction charge of about six p.c in a normal state jail inhabitants. As of January 2020, the Innocence Mission has documented over 375 DNA exonerations in the USA. Twenty-one of those exonerees had beforehand been sentenced to dying. The overwhelming majority (97%) of those folks have been wrongfully convicted of committing sexual assault and/or homicide.
It’s heartbreaking whenever you consider so many individuals having their lives primarily stolen — time with their households, experiences, and alternatives they’ll by no means get again. However whenever you take a look at these statistics and take into consideration the variety of folks we execute annually, that’s when it actually will get blood-chilling. What number of women and men are we placing to dying for crimes they didn’t commit?
