E (5:00)

Well, I follow everything that Beth does anyway, and I knew that if she was going to spend time on this case, it was going to be infuriating. And one of the things that's so, I don't know, surprising is that the allegations are absurd. It sort of falls in that heading of travesties of justice that a regular human being on the street would be able to see, but somehow the justice system can't absorb because of the rules and the formality of it.

D (5:31)

And Charlotte, you've collaborated with Andrew on the Alabama Solution and the Jinx, and you were also part of Netflix the Innocence Files. Spending years immersed in prisons and wrongful conviction reporting can fundamentally change how you see power and truth. Did it change how you listen to or evaluate a case like DeForest? Especially when the system insists it got the conviction, right?

F (5:54)

Yeah, I mean, I think when you listen to a podcast like Ear Witness, it inspires you to want to interrogate any conviction really. Because you know, in the case of Taforis Johnson, you could read it on paper and say like, oh well, they did have evidence to convict this man. Like there was a woman, Violet, who said that he was responsible. But when you dig just a little bit further, you realize how weak the case against him might be.

D (6:24)

Yeah, actually Beth, I want to ask you about that because one of the most unsettling aspects of your witness is how much of the case hinges on contested memory in a single eyewitness. When did you begin to realize that this testimony wasn't just questionable, but potentially the foundation of a wrongful conviction?

C (6:41)

So, you know, the single eyewitness I think that you're referring to is the 15 year old whose tips to police ended in Tafarest and his co defendant's. Her name is Yolanda Chambers. She's dead now. It met a very tragic end in 2009 after working off and on as a police informant for years, which really sort of speaks to how our criminal legal system often railroads, not just defendants, but witnesses as well. And she got ensnared and all that. But I think I realized that this was a wrongful conviction when I read the trial transcript that resulted in Tafares conviction and death sentence and realized that the only evidence the state presented was the ear witness. This is of course, after the 15 year old witness fell apart and the state abandoned her. And then they used Violet Ellison, the ear witness, as their star witness. And what she testified to can be argued was hearsay. She claimed she overheard a jailhouse phone call in which somebody that identified themselves as Tafaris talked about the murder and she eavesdropped on this call. That was the single piece of evidence that the state presented to convict him. There's no forensic evidence, there's no physical evidence, There was no murder weapon recovered. He had an alibi. There was no eyewitness that placed him at the scene. So that was it. When I read that and really saw it on paper, I had already been told that by his family, by his attorneys. I had sat through a five hour our court hearing, but when I actually read through the transcript, that was my holy shit moment.

E (8:26)

I think it's, it's worth pointing out that the prosecutors in a lot of these cases are behaving in a way that's equally irrational, seeming right, that there's a prosecutor who's in court, sees all the evidence. There's no question that some part of them is thinking, yeah, maybe I ought have turned over that exculpatory piece of evidence. Or I'm not sure this is the strongest case I've ever worked on. And yet they throw themselves into it with absolute conviction. And then when later somebody finds out that the prosecution was deeply flawed and maybe they fudged something or flubbed something, that not only don't they question their own judgment very often, they will double down and bring the case back for trial again and again. And it sort of makes you realize that, you know, if you're a prosecutor, you might be the most senior law enforcement official who should be deciding what cases should be brought. But very often you're just assuming that it's an adversarial system. And there you're always in the position of trying to get a conviction. Which is why you see cases like Tafara's case where there's so many times when this case could have been abandoned by the prosecutors, and yet they're still convinced that he's the enemy and that you've got to defeat your enemy.

F (9:53)

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E (10:33)

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F (10:44)

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B (10:52)

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D (12:27)

So why is Tafaris Johnson still on death row when even prosecutors have called for a new trial?

C (12:33)

Yeah, that's a question I get all the time and I think that defies logic when you listen to Ear Witness and hear the facts of the case that the current district attorney in the county where he was convicted did a full review of the conviction through his Conviction Integrity Unit and said that this conviction can't stand. He has filed multiple motions in court asking a court to grant to forest a new trial with the support of the original prosecutor, a man named Jeff Wallace who we interviewed for Ear Witness and listeners can get to know in this series. I have not found another capital case anywhere around the country where the original prosecutor who asked a jury to to send the person to death row supports a new trial. So with all of that, how is he still sitting on death row? Well, it's in front of a court right now. It's in front of a new judge in Jefferson County. So there's a lot of hope there that she's spending a lot of time looking at all the evidence and the arguments and that the right thing can still happen. But you also have the Attorney General of Alabama who represents the people, and their position has always been to defend the original conviction at all costs. The Attorney General's office has shown no even curiosity about the district Attorney's findings in his conviction integrity review. They called the DA's conviction review unsanctioned and even suggested that he may have acted with misconduct, saying he acted outside the scope of his duties. Which is really incredible if you think about. Because prosecutors jobs are not just to convict people, but to make sure the right person was convicted.

F (14:25)

You know, it was very, very interesting while Beth was making the podcast, you know, the same time as we were all working on the Alabama Solution. And I remember some of the most interesting conversations we had was trying to get into the psychology of those prosecutors and the psychology of the people who were involved in convicting this man who were now being presented with a really strong case for his innocence, being Beth presenting it to them, and the experience of how they responded. You know what that's like, that someone keeps pursuing their case despite the fact that it's clearly wrong. It really makes you want to question everybody who might be convicted in the prisons. And that was, I think, an experience working on the Alabama Solution. We were making a film about the institutional crisis of the Alabama prisons and the people have in prisons whether they are innocent or not. However, along the way, we met so many men whose cases don't add up. I want to just step back for a second. For those who haven't seen our film, you know, our film is. Starts with the premise that prisons across America are run as black sites. And any journalist or filmmaker that has worked on a film about prisons knows that the only way you get to do that work is if it is state sanctioned. If you get permission by the wardens or the administration to visit the prison. You know, you can't speak with prisoners unless it's on recorded wall phones. You can't visit the prison to see what's happening inside unless you have been approved by the state or the warden to go inside. And I think because of that secrecy and that state control, they get to control the narrative too. And they get to control what quote, unquote, evidence of how their systems are running gets put into the public domain.

E (16:20)

It's not just that it prevents people from getting too much information. It's that the knowledge that journalists are not going to come and see what Happens actually creates a culture of impunity where they then can take it to the next level and just lie about what's happening. So you see, these cover ups happen where the Department of Corrections will often not tell a family when somebody has been killed inside the prison because they know they have some liability. A guard, very often maybe somebody who's committed a terrible crime against one of those men. But rather than their internal affairs people coming in and saying, let's put these three officers on ice, let's do an investigation, they immediately start scrambling the witnesses to protect the guards. So I guess the secrecy, it's not just that you don't get to see what you don't get to see, it's that it gives them the freedom to start lying about lots of other stuff because they know nobody's going to question it.

F (17:22)

Breaking news, everybody. Not everything is terrible. I repeat, not everything is terrible. The Ripple Effect with Jenna Kim Jones is proof that the Internet, it hasn't ruined humanity entirely.

D (17:33)

Clean the world. We have almost 10,000 hotels that operate our soap and plastic recycling program. And we have created and distributed 90 million free bars of soap to children, families, mothers in 127 countries across the globe.

F (17:50)

It's like magic, you guys. So put down your doom scroller and pick up your faith in humanity and join me, Jenna, for the Ripple Effect. It's a reminder that you can start a ripple that changes everything. You really can.

E (18:03)

Best stat of all is that the.

D (18:05)

Death rate to children under the age of five dying to hygiene related illnesses has decreased by more than 60% since the day we started.

F (18:14)

Listen to the Ripple Effect with Jenna Kim Jones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

B (18:21)

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F (19:53)

Code iheart and you know, with, with our film, we were able to overcome that sort of state control because we were speaking to people on contraband cell phones. So we did not have to wait for wardens to approve what we could see inside or where we could go and visit in the prison, because the people we were speaking with with their phones could take us there and show us without the state controlling it. And through that, we saw a lot more of the reality inside Alabama's prisons. And it is very shocking when you realize the extent of the abuse, the extent of the negligence and the corruption. It's sort of like you go through the looking glass. This is the largest law enforcement agency in the state of Alabama, yet it is being run as a criminal enterprise. The rate of overdoses happening inside their facilities are multiple times higher than on the street. It's like everything is topsy turvy. And the secrecy that exists in prisons is part of what sustains this very abusive system because it not only keeps secret the crimes committed by the officers or the administration, but it also keeps secret the humanity of the people who are inside the facilities. And it makes it easier for, you know, the public to turn a blind eye to what's happening. And I think in our storytelling and in the film the Alabama Solution, and certainly in Ear Witness, it's really important to bring back that humanity that has been silenced.

D (21:28)

Yeah, that's. Beth, I'm just really curious. What do you think about Alabama, like, trying to silence Tafara's humanity by not allowing him to speak to the media?

C (21:36)

It's so infuriating. All of the barriers that the system throws up with incarcerated people and their First Amendment rights I honestly think there's a First Amendment case there. If there's any attorney listening that likes to take up First Amendment cases, that's a good one. We didn't get to interview Taforest for the podcast Ear Witness, but I have spoken to him several times, and I'm in regular communication with his family members, both of his daughters, his mom, Donna. And he's just a really incredible person. He is aware of the podcast. He's read some of the press coverage. He's talked to his family members and community about it at length and has told me and his attorneys and his family, you know, no matter what happens with his legal case, he is so grateful that the truth is out there. Because, as you know, Gilbert, when people are stripped of everything, of their liberty, their freedom, their individuality, their humanity, and put in a cage, the truth about themselves is really all they have. And, you know, he has said that the lies that were told that got him arrested and then the lies that were told that got him convicted have bothered him just as much as his wrongful conviction and incarceration. And so the fact that there's now truth on the record in a really comprehensive way, he's grateful for that. He is still very hopeful that the right thing will happen. He has an incredible amount of hope and grace. Every time I've talked to him, he's cracking jokes. He's super funny. He is sort of the thread in his family that keeps everybody together. He's got five kids, 19 grandkids, and they're all in constant contact. And Tafarest is sort of the one that navigates all the dynamics and keeps everybody sane and positive. And here's just a little tiny insider thing that happened during the making of the Alabama Solution that just blew me away about the way that communities form inside prisons. Robert Earl Council, also known as Kinetic justice, who's one of the primary men in the Alabama Solution, he has a life without parole sentence. He's never been on death row. But when we were talking during one conversation during the making of the film, he said, hey, the next time you talk to Lil Russ, tell him I said, hello. Lil Russ is DeForest nickname. And I was like, how in the world do you know Taforest? And he told me that for a brief time, he was incarcerated at Holman Prison, where death row is, and he was working as a runner inside the prison. And he took meal trays over to death row and would, like, have conversations through the bars, you know, with some of the men on death row, and got to know Taforis that way and. And feels a real connection with him. And, you know, of course, Kinetic knew that a podcast was coming out about Tafora's case and was really happy about that. So it's just amazing to me how humans can maintain relationships and their humanity, even when they are locked away, thrown away in a cage, you know, away from the general public, as far away from society as the government can put them in. You know, humans are still going to human.

D (25:09)

That's a great way of putting it. You know, it's interesting you. I came up earlier that you were working on these projects. At the same time, I'm just really curious. How did Beth come onto your radar and how did you start working together?

E (25:19)

Well, I was sitting, I'm in my office here talking to Charlotte, and we were going back and forth looking at articles that had been written about the Alabama State prison system. So we were looking@al.com and we were looking at the Alabama reflector and all the various news outlets. And we made a list of all the reporters who were covering the prison system. And we were already so devastated by what we were learning, we just thought, well, who are going to be the intrepid reporters that have made this their. Their beat? So we went through the list and we started calling these reporters and we said, when did you first get involved in, you know, prison reporting? And they said, what? And we said, you know, when did you really get engaged in this very disturbing situation? And they were like, well, it's not really my. I just. Usually I write about shopping centers, but in this particular case, they handed me this and Charlotte and I said, how is it possible there's nobody in that state who considers this their mission? It's such an important part of journalism. And then, you know, we started hearing Beth's name and then Charlotte, how did we first reach out to Beth?

F (26:24)

A cold call. I probably sent her maybe a Facebook message. And then a cold call.

C (26:30)

Yeah, I did get a Facebook message from Charlotte, and she was very nice, but formal. You know, I'm a film in New York and I'm working with another filmmaker in New York, and we're interested in Alabama prisons As an Alabama based journalist. You know, we're very aware of the sort of parachuting in dynamic of like the New York Times flyby. You know, they'll come down here and use up the energy of local reporters and then go away. But when Charlotte and I had that initial phone conversation, I think we were on the phone, Charlotte, for like two and a half Three hours, that conversation. I remember thinking, like, where this woman just fell into my life, and she's like my, you know, sister from another mother. And then, you know, she told me about your work, Andrew. And I realized, oh, this is. This is not flyby. These. These folks are, like, genuine and very invested. And, Gilbert, I should say that did turn out to be the case. I mean, I don't think this film could have been made without Andrew and Charlotte's dedication to investing the time, the brain power, coming down to Alabama over and over and over again and spending weeks, months at a time on the ground, building relationships, embedding with multiple stories down here. I mean, reporting on incarceration is hard, but doing a system critique in a documentary film is just nobody else would do it. So I'm so glad that they did and really proud that I was a small part of it and so proud of the film.

D (28:05)

I want to just sort of go to a process question for Andrew. When you encounter an idea that might demand years of investigation, what tells you it's a story that you have to pursue?

E (28:16)

When you get into these things, I think there's just. There's a natural sort of momentum, and you either feel it or you don't, right? You start looking into a story, and you feel like, yeah, okay. I mean, I sort of feel like I know where this is going. Then you give it some time to surprise you. And if it doesn't surprise you, then it's probably better for somebody else to do it. And in this case, I think it happened very, very early that we got locked into this story, because I had gone to Montgomery with my daughter on sort of a road trip, because we were reading this book by Anthony Ray Hinton, who had been wrongfully convicted in Alabama. And when we were down there, we met this prison chaplain who is in the film. And that led to us getting this sort of unique access, being able to go in and film a revival meeting. And then when Charlotte and I went back down there, we were told by the warden, well, don't talk to any of the men. They're very dangerous. And they'll tell you stuff that's not true. And they'll try to give you little pieces of paper and just steer clear of those men. We'll give you two or three people you can talk to. Which, of course, if you say that to a documentary filmmaker, we're like, the only people I don't want to talk to are the three people that he's introducing me to. And then when we went in there the men were so shocked that anyone was allowed in there with cameras. And then they started calling us aside and saying off camera, listen, if you want to talk about this, if you're interested in this, this is a horrific situation. They're not showing you what's really going on in this prison. And started pointing out to us areas of the prison where that's where they have the solitary confinement. There are people that have been in there for five years looking at other areas. There was a. You know, they have a dorm called the Behavior Modification Unit, and that was a site of a tremendous amount of violence. And they were just telling us that your visit is curated, and if you have any inclination to talk to us, we need to tell our story. And that's when we discovered that some of them had access to contraband cell phones. So we were gonna be able to have an unmediated, unfiltered conversation. When you walk into a situation like that, there's no turning back. You're not going to say to those people, you know, I realize that they're, you know, people being murdered under the noses of the taxpayers paying for this institution, and that you guys are in desperate straits. But, you know, I have this baseball movie I want to work on. Like, it just. It's. It's out of the question that you would walk out of that. Just. It's like an obligation.

D (30:59)

Yeah. You know, you mentioned surprises, Andrew, and your work is kind of known for having pretty significant surprises. I'm just wondering, because now I know, Beth, you tried to speak with Alabama's Attorney General Steve Marshall, and at the time, he would not talk. But Andrew and Charlotte, he did speak for you and the Alabama Solution and just talk about why it was important to get him on record and what that was like, trying to get him to talk.

F (31:22)

Well, as Andrew was saying, we felt compelled to make the film after that first visit to the prisons, but we didn't know what the story was going to be. We didn't know what the angle would be. We just wanted to understand what was happening inside Alabama's prisons as a way to understand more broadly, you know, what's happening with criminal justice in America. And we approached him with that interest. And I think, you know, looking at Andrew's prior work, the Jinx is a series that investigates Bob Durst, who's very wealthy, that got away with murder for many, many years. And due to the investigative work, Andrew did and eventually got prosecuted. So I think, you know, for Steve Marshall, he saw that we were interested just in understanding his position on criminal justice and that our work had been fair in the past and he was willing to sit down with us. And I think for us going into that interview, it wasn't trying to get, you know, a gotcha moment or trying to criticize him right in the interview or anything like that. We genuinely wanted to know how he thinks about the criminal justice system and just give him the space to explain his worldview and the way he justifies the crisis.

E (32:37)

We've been able to see through the documentary that when he says there's some theory that we have a systemic problem within all of our facilities, and I wholeheartedly disagree, disagree with that. Well, he's saying, you know what, call that his truth or call that his cover story. But we've just watched the result of his ignoring the prison problem that is under his nose. And so when you see those two things juxtaposed, it's much more powerful than if I'm sitting in front of him saying, isn't it true, sir, that let the audience discover that. And boy, they do discover it.

F (33:14)

And I think the other thing that's important in speaking to state actors is we, we talked a lot about the concept of the banality of evil, which is, you know, Hannah Arendt's theory to understand how the atrocities that occurred in World War II occurred. It's not always just like one psychopathic bad actor who's deciding to kill people or whatnot. It's a lot of people kind of just doing their job, coming up with their own justification of it. And I think being able to kind of see not only the type of very jaw dropping violence of a guard like Officer Gadsden, but to also then see someone like Steve Marshall just sitting in his suit and very calmly explaining how he does his job. Like, that's two sides of the picture. We need to understand both those things to get what's driving the issues. And I think that's also what Beth gets at really well in Ear Witness is elements of the banality of evil too. That it can kind of just be. For a lot of people, it's just like doing their job and then someone ends up on death row.

D (34:19)

You know, that's a really good point. You know, we, we really just have time for like one more question, but I want it to be all of you. And it's, it's an important one for me because I think about it all the time. And I'm just curious what you guys think. And it's really about the balance between journalism and advocacy. You know, you spend years and years on these cases and stories and you, you're convinced after a while that you know what happened and eventually it infuriates you. So as journalists and storytellers, how do you balance that narratively when you're telling these stories?

E (34:47)

Well, there's this sort of big question mark that keeps arising, especially in the US where you have like conservative commentators who are fighting with liberal versions of the news or progressive versions of the news and this idea of like false equivalency or having to build two sides of a case to make it appear that, you know, it's one person's opinion versus another person's opinion. And it all, you know, everybody's right. And the reality is when you get into some of these stories and circumstances, you find that one side is terribly wrong. Right. You don't always find that. But when you're Beth and you're working on Tafares case and you're seeing the most absurd legal arguments being made and then being replaced by alternate equally absurd legal arguments, you know, he, well obviously he did it because we have this incredibly strong piece of evidence in this wonderful witness. Oh, by the way, your evidence isn't strong and your witness is terrible. Yes, well, that's. We've always been saying, you know, there's this other piece of evidence that indicates. So I think that there is a danger to this false equivalency to saying that, you know, you go in as a dispassionate journalist and you see what's going on. The Alabama state prison system. You should make a movie that says, yes, it's true that we're murdering people in the prison. And on the other hand, crime is bad. Okay, well, we all want safe communities. But if you're trying to make a film that reveals something, sometimes what you reveal is sometimes they're not good arguments on both sides. And that's what we found and I think that's what Beth found. As balanced as you want to be, you just recognize that the story you're going to be explaining is to the average person going to not be a two sided story. It's going to be more bad than good, or it's going to be more clear that law enforcement officers shouldn't be murdering people in their career. So at that point you're telling the story in a neutral way. Truly, you're still telling an honest story and using evidence and using journalistic techniques that are ethical. But you just can't make an argument for the other side because they're killing people.

D (36:49)

Well, I Think that's a great place to end up. I want to thank Beth Shelburne, Andrew Jarecki, and Charlotte Kaufman for joining us to talk about Ear Witness and the Alabama Solution, now streaming on hbo Max. And, guys, congratulations to all of you on telling a story that's not only powerful, but deeply necessary. Thank you, Andrew, Charlotte, and Beth. Anything else you guys want to add?

E (37:11)

I would just say that the work that Beth is doing and has been doing in the state of Alabama is in very short supply. There's a dearth of people that are reporting locally that have the fortitude and willingness to devote their lives to this. So I think it's so important to try to read those stories and engage and try to learn more about what's happening in your own community, especially in your prisons. And I would hope also that some people would go to the website for the film, which is not just a promotional website. It's really quite a deep and interesting dive into what's actually going on and the full investigation that we did along with Beth, not just of the particular murders and particular deaths that we see in the film, but also around 1377 deaths that have happened since we started making the film. And also you can go to that website, thealabamasolution.com and it will give you some. Some action items you can do very easily. Like, it will let you generate a letter to go to the governor's office and go to the Department of Corrections. And. And I think that kind of individual effort by real people saying, hey, we don't. We don't want this to continue. You know, you listen to a podcast or you read an article and you think, well, maybe my opinion doesn't matter, or there are millions of people, but the reality is that politicians and people in positions of power listen to voters and they listen to Americans, and they just have to be responsive to it. So it does matter. So I hope people will go there and click and put in their email address and be part of. A. Part of the solution, their actual solution.

F (38:49)

And I would also just add that, you know, I know Bone Valley listeners appreciate not just revealing investigative reporting, but also really good storytelling that's engaging and suspenseful. And I think both Ear Wetness and the Alabama Solution also prioritized that. So it's not just educating you on an urgent institutional crisis or urgent issue of a wrongful conviction, but we knew that because the issues were so urgent, we had to tell the story like it was a thriller so that we would get as many people engaged as possible and I think it's very much in the spirit of your incredible series Bone Valley, and of Ear Witness, and it's quite an honor to get to talk about our film with you and to reach all of your many listeners. So thank you so much for having us.

C (39:38)

You know, Charlotte and I and Andrew have talked a lot during the making of the Alabama Solution about how these men were not just sources for the film, they were kind of our teachers and our guides into this world that for us, we dip in and out of as journalists and filmmakers, but this is their reality 24 7. And we had the. The privilege of being proximate to them and their experience inside the prison system and developing relationships not just with them, but with many other people who, who aren't in the film, but helped inform our storytelling. And we hope that the film and the Ear Witness series can provide that kind of opportunity for listeners who may not know anybody who's locked up, may not have a family member or a friend that has spent any time in jail or prison, but this kind of storytelling gives them a front row seat where you can get proximate and get as close to the system as possible without being in it. And that kind of proximity is what changes people's hearts and minds. And it takes prison and mass incarceration out of the abstract and makes it real and human. And I think that's really how we're going to end up changing the system.

D (41:17)

Beginning January 28th, we'll be releasing all episodes of Tafarus Johnson's story right here in the Bone Valley feed as bone Valley season four ear witness, available to binge on Lava for Good, plus on Apple Podcasts. Then on February 4th, the full series will be released as a binge in the free Bone Valley feed. This is a case that demands attention, and we hope you'll listen, share it and stay with us as the story unfolds. And thank you as always for listening.

A (41:57)

Bethenny Frankel here from Just be with Bethenny Frankel. And I am just going to say it. The drinks aisle needs an intervention. Bottles, cans, all promising health and wellness. But after a glug, you just shrug. Then there's synergy. Kombucha. Real kombucha. Synergy supports mind and body through your gut with 9 billion probiotics. Yup, 9 billion probiotics. Can you even count that high in flavors you will love? No hype, just quality, taste and real benefits. That's kombucha made the right way. Don't chase fads. Choose standards. DM@Synergy Kombucha on Instagram at the code thereal Kombucha to get a free bottle while supplies last Synergy the Kombucha with.

B (42:39)

Standards Everybody, it's Tony Robbins. Look, the time is here. It's 2026, and everybody talks about having a new year and a new life. But what do most people do? They create a few resolutions and in the end, they don't really do anything. If you want this to be the best year you've ever had in your life, it's going to take a new tool, a new strategy, a new momentum, and maybe a new community of people to hang out with. So come join me for the Time to Rise summit. I do it only once a year. It's coming up January 29th through the 31st. There's absolutely no charge for it, but it'll be an experience I promise you. You will not forget. It'll give you momentum, a plan, and a strategy to make 2026 the best ever. If you're up for that, you're hungry for more, come join me. There's no cost for it whatsoever. Just go to time to riseummit.com time to riseummit.com, i'll see you then.

C (43:34)

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