422: Darnell Epps—Where There’s a Pulse There’s a Purpose

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
Episode 422: Darnell Epps—Where There’s a Pulse There’s a Purpose
Release Date: January 21, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 422 of The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe, host Mike Rowe engages in a profound conversation with Darnell Epps, a remarkable individual whose life journey bridges the worlds of law and skilled trades. The episode delves into Darnell’s transformative experiences, from his challenging early years and time in prison to his academic achievements at Yale Law School and his entrepreneurial venture, Thurgood Industries.

Early Life and Challenges

Darnell Epps grew up in the housing projects of Brooklyn, New York, facing significant adversity from a young age. His life took a tragic turn on March 8, 2000, when a confrontation led to the loss of a life and resulted in his incarceration for 17 and a half years. Reflecting on this period, Darnell emphasizes personal accountability:

Darnell Epps [10:11]: "I took full responsibility for my acts... when we went to prison, we just committed to accountability, personal growth, and helping others avoid the same mistakes we made."

Time in Prison

During his time in prison, Darnell transformed his circumstances through education and mentorship. Despite not having completed high school prior to his incarceration, he pursued a GED and immersed himself in legal studies, becoming a self-taught jailhouse lawyer. His dedication led him to work as a law clerk in the prison library, where he assisted fellow inmates in navigating the complexities of the legal system.

Darnell Epps [24:06]: "I did the full boat. Because there's a federal law... the conviction in itself was wrongful."

Darnell and his brother developed a close bond in prison, supporting each other through challenging times and engaging in programs aimed at rehabilitating at-risk youth.

Educational Journey

Darnell’s commitment to education did not end with his incarceration. Upon his release in 2017, he pursued higher education with unwavering determination. He enrolled at Cornell University, where his exceptional performance and dedication caught the attention of influential mentors, including Joseph Margulies, a Supreme Court attorney.

Darnell Epps [50:17]: "I love the law... I was reading about Sean Hopwood, Dwayne Betts, and I knew it was possible to enter the legal community and apply the skills I’ve been self-taught over more than a decade."

His academic excellence culminated in his acceptance to Yale Law School in December 2020, making him one of the few individuals to bridge Ivy League education and vocational training seamlessly.

Darnell Epps [65:37]: "I was accepted to Yale. Got accepted to Yale."

Launching Thurgood Industries

Leveraging his unique background, Darnell founded Thurgood Industries, a career-building and networking platform focused on skilled workers. The platform aims to bridge the skills gap in the United States by providing a modern, digital space akin to LinkedIn but specifically tailored for the trades.

Darnell Epps [81:53]: "Think of it as a LinkedIn for the skilled trades. We want to bring attention to the meaningful careers that people can find in this space."

Thurgood Industries offers features such as skills assessments, a public feed for showcasing work, and job application capabilities, all designed to make hiring more efficient and to celebrate the achievements of America’s skilled workforce.

Vision and Future

Darnell envisions Thurgood Industries as a pivotal tool in transforming the perception of skilled trades and making these careers more accessible and appealing. By highlighting the tangible skills and projects of tradespeople, the platform seeks to inspire younger generations and provide underserved communities with viable economic opportunities.

Darnell Epps [87:50]: "The ask is to download the app, get engaged on the platform, and help build out this community and bring awareness to careers in this space."

Conclusion

Mike Rowe commends Darnell Epps for his extraordinary journey and his dedication to bridging the gap between legal expertise and skilled trades. The episode underscores the importance of personal responsibility, education, and entrepreneurship in overcoming adversity and driving societal change.

Mike Rowe [88:44]: "You were the only former inmate Yale graduate, lawyer, trades apologist that I know, and it was super great of you to fly across the country to do this."

Key Takeaways:

• Darnell Epps’ life exemplifies resilience and transformation, showcasing how education and accountability can alter one's path.
• Thurgood Industries addresses a critical skills gap in the U.S. by creating a dedicated networking platform for skilled trades.
• The integration of legal education and vocational training highlights the diverse avenues available for personal and professional growth.

Notable Quotes:

• Darnell Epps [10:11]: "When there’s a pulse, there’s a purpose, you know, that you can always find purpose, even in your darkest moments."
• Darnell Epps [81:53]: "Think of it as a LinkedIn for the skilled trades."
• Mike Rowe [88:44]: "You were the only former inmate Yale graduate, lawyer, trades apologist that I know."

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This episode serves as an inspiring testament to the power of perseverance and the impact one individual can have on bridging critical gaps in the workforce.

Transcript

[Mike Rowe]

Well, here we are, my friends, at the beginning of another new year with perhaps the most earnest title you're going to hear all year. You're on the way. I heard it. This episode is called Where There's a Pulse, There's a Purpose. I thought it was a decent quote.

[Chuck]

I thought it was a great quote. This is so great, in fact, that I totally missed it when it occurred.

[Mike Rowe]

I could see that when I glanced over and saw you just staring intently at nothing in particular in the near distance.

[Chuck]

Now, that wasn't entirely true, but. Yeah, but close enough.

[Mike Rowe]

My guest is Darnell Epps. I don't know how interesting or eclectic your resume is, but I doubt it's as interesting or as eclectic as this guy's. He came across my Transom because he launched something called Thurgood Industries, which is a career building and a networking platform that's focused on skilled workers and creating a more persuasive case for the opportunities that exist in the trades today. If that sounds like microworks to you, well, imagine being me and reading that.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And then add to it the fact that he went to Yale Law School.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. And Lincoln Tech at the same time. Yeah. So that's never happened before. My guest today has graduated from the most prestigious law school in the Ivy League, arguably, and a trade school that many of you have probably heard of. Consequently, he's taken his large brain and he's applied it toward closing the skills gap. And so I wanted to learn a little bit more about Thurgood Industries, which is why I invited him here and which is why he flew across the country to chat with us. I wasn't really up to speed with the 17 and a half years he spent prior to his admittance to Cornell, which then led to Yale, which he spent at, I believe was Five Corners Maximum Security Penitentiary, and before that, Rikers for a. Yeah. This guy's story zigs and zags. And there are times when you'll swear you're in the middle of an episode of Law and Order, and there are times when you'll swear you're in the middle of some kind of feel good graduation. Unlikely story interrupted by lockdowns, but then weirdly morphing into a trade school play. It's just you. You just can't make it up. And so there's no need to.

[Chuck]

No. And the one thing about Darnell that was really amazing is that there's just not a trace of bitterness in him. For a guy who spent 17 and a half years behind bars, there's not A trace of bitterness for his circumstances?

[Mike Rowe]

No. And you could make a pretty good case. And he did make an excellent case as a jailhouse lawyer. Self taught. The guy didn't even make it through high school. This is really a story of a Yale graduate and an entrepreneur who didn't make it through high school and very nearly spent his entire life in prison, but got out early on account of his excellent behavior and his great big brain. You're gonna like him, Darnell Epps, right after this. As we embark upon another new year filled with myriad unknowns and uncertainties, let's pause for a moment to reflect upon something we can all agree on. America needs to make more stuff in America. Which is another way of saying America needs more companies like American Giant. When it comes to American made clothing. American Giant's been setting the Standard for nearly 15 years. They make great clothes, they create hundreds of jobs in factory towns all over the country, and they are determined to bring textile manufacturing back to the usa. I've talked at length on this podcast about their soft but indestructible hoodies and their adorable T shirts and their denim sourced from cotton they grow and so many other things. So I won't bombard you with all that. I'll just ask you to pay a visit to american-giant.com and see what they're making in these United States. I think you're gonna like it. And I know this much is true. If you wanna see more companies doing what American Giant is doing, you gotta support more companies like American Giant. Shop high quality essentials that last a lifetime. At american-giant.com, get 20% off when you use code mike at checkout. That's 20% off when. When you place an order at american-giant.com. promo code mike. American Giant, American made. American Giant, American made. Darnell Epps is here. He's just traveled all across the country to sit in our humble little studio to tell us the story of his life. It's great to meet you.

[Darnell Epps]

Nice to meet you, Mike. Huge fan of your work since Dirty Jobs and love your podcast. You know, I have some big shoes to fill here, but happy to be here with you and Chuck. Great opportunity.

[Mike Rowe]

Like I said earlier, you got some big feet.

[Darnell Epps]

I do. Size 13 and a half.

[Mike Rowe]

How tall are you?

[Darnell Epps]

I'm six. Six?

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. So you played football in college?

[Darnell Epps]

No, I played in high school. I played high school football at Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn, New York, where I grew up. And yeah, I was a defensive end. I played Pop Warner too. So, yeah, back then I would say I was a pretty average. It was like my freshman year of high school when I actually put on all that height. It was that summer vacation between middle school and high school, and I came. When I seen most of my friends I hadn't seen over the summer, they were like, what happened? I just sprouted up.

[Mike Rowe]

Like, I've never heard anyone say they put on height. Yeah, I feel like they put on weight and sometimes they put on some.

[Darnell Epps]

Width on some height. It was quite shocking to many of my friends. But, yeah, I'm a tall guy. Tall guy, I'll admit.

[Chuck]

No doubt.

[Mike Rowe]

So are you in a. You're in Connecticut now?

[Darnell Epps]

I'm in Connecticut now, yeah. I work from Connecticut. My wife and I, we moved there. Our kids go to school in Connecticut. Back when I started law school, 20, 21, which was, you know, a huge achievement for me given, you know, my upbringing and where. Where I come from and.

[Mike Rowe]

How many kids you got?

[Darnell Epps]

I have four. I have four kids.

[Mike Rowe]

You ever think about what the world would be like if, like, without Pop Warner?

[Darnell Epps]

Oh, yeah. Pop Warner, you know, taught me so many things. Just ton of friendships that I, you know, developed there as a athlete. My dad was a coach at the time. It was at Kings Bay. We played Kings Bay football. Yeah, a little fun fact is that Lombardi, Bill Lombardi, actually grew up in Sheepshead Bay before he went on to. To coach the Green Bay Packers. I think he actually was an assisting coach for the Giants before he went to the Green Bay Packers. But some fun history there. So the color of our team uniforms was gold and green, just like the Green Bay packers uniforms at Kings Bay. I didn't like the color growing up, but it grew on me and I kind of now understand some of the history there.

[Mike Rowe]

You near New Canaan, by any chance?

[Darnell Epps]

New Canaan?

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Darnell Epps]

No, that is.

[Mike Rowe]

I was just trying to think. I've been to Hartford, which is where you live now.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, Hartford County. That's where we live now. And I haven't been to New Canaan. Where is that? That's in.

[Mike Rowe]

It was the first time I ever shot in your state. And it was a dairy farmer, a guy named Matt Freund. You know, I mean, since we're about to talk about reinvention.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

You know, this was a guy. He was a dairy farmer and he was kind of a mad scientist. And he had like his whole house and the whole operation was heated by the cow crap. He built these digesters and these fixed film reactors and all this Crazy science. And then one day, the bottom fell out of the dairy market and he just couldn't make a living selling milk. And he realized in a way that the crap from the cows might be worth more than the milk. So he started, he started making these flower pots. He called them poo pots.

[Darnell Epps]

Poo pots. Okay.

[Mike Rowe]

And so you'd put your like geraniums in it and then just dig a hole and bury the pot with the, you know, the flower.

[Darnell Epps]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

And the fertilizer would just make the thing grow twice as fast.

[Darnell Epps]

Oh.

[Mike Rowe]

So I thought it was a great story. Yeah. We went and filmed there for Dirty Jobs and the thing aired and like six months later, the guy had a deal with Walmart. He was selling poo pots in Walmart all over the country.

[Darnell Epps]

Oh, wow.

[Mike Rowe]

And it's like, you know, one day, right, you realize the crap's worth more than the milk and.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, yeah, it's sort of like my own pathway. Right. Like, I don't want to characterize my legal education as crap necessarily, but I will say that, you know, when I went to law school, you know, I had followed really a non traditional pathway into college anyway. Right.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, look, that's why we wanted to talk to you.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

You're the only guy I know who went through the Ivy League and through a trade school. And I just thought that that in and of itself would be reason, you know, to get you out here so we could really understand what happened in your brain. But as it turns out, what happened in your life before that is every bit as interesting. So I know you told the story a thousand times, but give me the short version.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, I mean, you know, I kind of write about it in a New York 2018 New York Times op ed called the prison Old timers who gave me life. And I mentioned there that, you know, March 8, 2000 was the most regrettable day of my life. It was a moment defined by poor decisions. I grew up in the housing projects in Brooklyn, New York, and it led to devastating consequences, including, tragically, the loss of a life when things escalated between my brother and a man who had sexually assaulted his wife who was pregnant. And that landed us in prison for 17 long years.

[Mike Rowe]

Could have been worse, though. This guy was.

[Darnell Epps]

Could have been worse.

[Mike Rowe]

He was in a gang.

[Darnell Epps]

Yes. So he was a gang member in the community, older than my brother and I. And New York, unlike most states, doesn't have a stand your ground law. And you know, my brother could have raised a justification defense or asserted self defense, but in New York, there's called a doctrine called duty to retreat. And my brother basically didn't have a chance going to trial with that argument. And he pled guilty, took full responsibility for his acts. And when we, you know, went to prison, we just committed to accountability, personal growth, and, you know, helping others avoid the same mistakes we made. You know, we created programs that helped at risk youth in Seneca county and other areas in that region of Romulus, New York where we were at. We worked with the probation department to keep kids out of prison and out.

[Mike Rowe]

Of jail and I feel like.

[Darnell Epps]

Make better choices.

[Mike Rowe]

I feel like you're probably skipping over some, some big stuff.

[Darnell Epps]

This.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, I mean, first of all, duty to retreat.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. So duty to retreat means that when, if there's a threat made against someone and someone's going to do them bodily harm, they can't act on that. They can't. If there's an opportunity for them to say, leave the scene, perhaps call the authorities or hop in a car, drive a couple of blocks away, you cannot engage in that confrontation. So in this situation, it was right outside of my apartment building where I lived in those housing projects. And there were threats that were made and this followed the act that had happened to my brother's wife at the time. And again, she was pregnant and I happened to be with him. Right. I didn't actually physically do anything. I didn't shoot anyone. You know, there was a struggle over a weapon and my brother was wounded in the process as well as the other individual. And I was charged as an accessory, eating and abetting.

[Mike Rowe]

And the gang member died and he.

[Darnell Epps]

Died, yes, tragically, yes. And I remember, you know, going to court as a 20 year old, first time felon, spending time on Reichazalen, not knowing if I would ever see the outside of a prison again. It was a very challenging moment in my own life. And your brother's with you at this point? My brother was with me. We were initially in the same dorm on Rikers island for some time until we were separated. He pleaded guilty. He ended up going upstate New York to Five Points Correctional Facility, which is a maximum security prison in Romulus. And it was just built at the time, you know, so there were plenty of available beds there. And I was hoping that, you know, if once after I went to trial, I was, you know, eventually acquitted of some counts but convicted of, of reckless homicide or aiding and abetting a reckless homicide.

[Mike Rowe]

Did you have an attorney, a public defender at the time?

[Darnell Epps]

I had a public defender, I call them, you know, today sometimes public pretenders in some Respects.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, my gosh.

[Darnell Epps]

I don't want to. You know. You know, my brother had a private attorney. Resources were scarce. You know, we didn't have the funds, really, to pay for attorneys for both of us. And we felt like my brother was in the most challenging situation in terms of liability and potential sentencing exposure.

[Mike Rowe]

He brought the gun.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. And it was that. Because of that, you know, I decided to go to trial. And when I went to trial again, it was. I was found guilty. And we could get into some of the. The legal issues that stem from that conviction. But that could probably be its own podcast episode in itself, so we don't.

[Mike Rowe]

Need to take a super deep dive. But I think there are a couple things that are interesting. First of all, stupid question, but, you know, I was a law and order junkie.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

I watched every episode, and I could still hear, like, boom, boom. Rikers Island.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Was it like what we saw on that show?

[Darnell Epps]

Worse, probably. Rikers island was a terrible place. I mean, you have a lot of cuttings, a lot of, you know, violence, both on part of the guards and on part of the inmates who were there. And. And it's not an environment that I think is meant for any human being. In many respects, it is a very tough and challenging environment. But, you know, my brother and I were together, and we held each other accountable. You know, we never wanted to make a decision or a choice that would potentially separate us. We were in the same dorm. Right.

[Mike Rowe]

Can I ask about your mom, your dad, at this point? Because you said you had never had any issues with the law before.

[Darnell Epps]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

And so you're suddenly 20 years old. 20 and 21.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

And in about the toughest prison there is, under circumstances most people can't really. I mean, all we know is from watching tv, like most people. That's all we know.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

But if you can paint that like, where were your folks in the scheme of this?

[Darnell Epps]

Well, my parents had separated when I was in high school and divorced. And, you know, that was a challenging moment for. For us. There were four boys in the house. Right. I have four. Three brothers. Daryl, my older brother, was the one who I was incarcerated with, and I had two younger brothers. So my two younger brothers moved in with my mother, who was a New York City police officer, believe it or not.

[Mike Rowe]

Really?

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. So, yeah, I know that. And she, you know, so you can imagine. Just a mother's pain. It's not just me. There was actually someone who died. So I don't want to make it seem like, you know, I suffered as Much as someone else did or their family. But I will say that, you know, it was devastating to my mother. And she was in court every day. She stuck by us. She was on a visit when we were, you know, five hours away. She was coming up every month with my nephew, with my sister in law, with my brothers to show us support, send us care packages and commissary money. And I always wanted have the opportunity to make her proud again, given the amount of shame that I know that came with going to prison for such a serious offense. And I didn't know if I would ever have that opportunity, honestly. And when I entered again, I had dropped out of high school. I stopped playing sports in the 10th grade because I missed too many classes. I was kind of a knucklehead, like many at risk youth in the inner city. And I dropped out. And so when I went to prison at the age of 20, I didn't even have a GED. I had to take a GED exam when I first entered Five Points Correctional Facility in 2021.

[Mike Rowe]

So how long were you at Rikers before and were you transferred up? Less than a year.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. And my brother ended up in Romulus, in at Five Points Correctional Facility. It took about six months or four months after he pled guilty, he ended up there and I ended up going to trial and my trial took a little while, but I'm.

[Mike Rowe]

So why didn't they try you at the same time?

[Darnell Epps]

Well, my brother pled guilty. So because my brother pled guilty and took responsibility for the act, he was sentenced. And once you're sentenced, you can no longer stay in a city jail. So he ended up going up to Five Points and there was no guarantee that I was going to end up in the same prison. In fact, odds are you won't because, you know, for security reasons, they don't want two brothers or two co defendants to be housed in the same correctional facility. And it just so happens again, because this facility was just built, I ended up being transferred to that facility and my brother was in a different housing unit. And then we eventually moved into the same housing unit and then we bunked for 10 years before we were later paroled in 2017.

[Mike Rowe]

What was Darryl's sentence?

[Darnell Epps]

It was 17 and a half years. 17 and a half years to life. Now typically when someone goes to trial, you get the maximum sentence.

[Mike Rowe]

40.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, I could have received upward of that if the judge, if I were convicted on weapons charges and in the top count and ultimately the judge chose to run no sentences consecutively. But the judge in my case didn't feel comfortable, gustin writes back. He did not feel comfortable imposing a sentence higher than what my brother had received. Later on, New York law had changed, and it was clear that the way that the prosecutor's office used aiding and abetting statute in my case was overbroad and that the conviction in itself was wrongful. In the Court of Appeals. New York, New York's highest appellate court, had ruled on this issue and said, you know, under the circumstances of my case, cases similar to mine, the prosecutor we shouldn't have been charged as an accomplice. The problem with that was that the ruling was not made retroactive, so anybody whose appeal was heard before October 14, 2004, would not benefit from the court's new interpretation of the statute.

[Mike Rowe]

So how close were you?

[Darnell Epps]

2003D.

[Mike Rowe]

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[Darnell Epps]

Netsuite.Com he said netsuite.com/Mike and the district Attorney's office even conceded the Brooklyn or Kings County District Attorney's office conceded that the conviction was Wrongful under the correct interpretation of the statute. And we litigated this all the way up to the U.S. court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and argued that the 14th Amendment, you know, required that the proper interpretation of New York's accomplice liability statute be applied to my case, regardless of when my appeal was heard.

[Mike Rowe]

Let me ask you this. You had dropped out of high school.

[Darnell Epps]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

Now, are you getting sort of a crash course in jurisprudence as you're going through your own hellscape?

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. Yeah. At the time, you know, there were no longer Pell Grants for incarcerated students. So there was a dearth of college programming inside New York's correctional facilities. And that came with the enactment of the crime bill in 1994. One of the things it did was repeal Pell Grants for incarcerated college students. So all of these programs that existed in the 90s and maybe late 80s, they just died off. So when I entered the prison system in 2000, the highest level of educational attainment that was available was a ged. So where I learned, my university essentially became the Lowell Library. One of the conditions you At Five Points. Yes, at Five Points, you applying to be what's called an inmate law clerk at a correctional facility in New York is that you have a GED and you take a state course on basic legal research, and you pass the final exam. And I did that, and I was hired as a clerk, and I worked as a law clerk in that law library from about 2002 until I was released in 2017. And it was.

[Mike Rowe]

So you did the full boat.

[Darnell Epps]

I did the full boat.

[Mike Rowe]

You did 17 and a half years.

[Darnell Epps]

Exactly. Because there's a federal law called the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty act, again, passed by the Clinton administration just like or signed by former President Bill Clinton, along with the Crime bill. But what that did was it restricted the Great Writ or federal Habeas Corbett, so that state prisoners like myself could not avail themselves of. Of that federal proceeding. If the US Supreme Court has not clearly decided that legal question previously. So you cannot ask an Article 3 judge, a federal district judge, or a circuit judge to announce a new rule when the U.S. supreme Court has yet to decide that rule. And if ruling in your favor requires the federal judiciary to announce a new rule, then the writ is unavailable to you. So in my case, when it was heard by the U.S. court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which was in New Haven, the oral arguments were in New Haven. That was represented by Jonathan Edelstein, who worked with a law professor from Fordham, Abraham Abramowski. That was the reason why the court ruled against me. Not because the merits of my claim weren't viable. Not because I was wrong on the law and what the meaning of the 14th amendment meant.

[Mike Rowe]

It was timing.

[Darnell Epps]

It was timing. It was that the US Supreme Court had yet to decide this question, and we cannot intervene here and announce a new rule that would affect your case.

[Mike Rowe]

Okay, so to sum up, your brother is married. His wife is assaulted. You two confront that perpetrator.

[Darnell Epps]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

Things go off the rails. He dies. Your brother winds up getting shot as well. He pleads guilty, gets 17 and a half.

[Darnell Epps]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

You go innocent, but also get the same 17 and a half. And somehow you wind up together in five points. Literally bunking together.

[Darnell Epps]

Literally bunking together. And it took a couple of years before that happened. He was in a different housing unit altogether. You had four housing units at that correctional facility. Nine block, 10 block, 11 block, and 12 block. He was in 11, I was in nine. And we always wanted to get in the same housing unit. Right? Let alone the same cell. But we would be happy if we got in the same housing unit. And over time, when the administration at the prison seen all the good work we were doing, they let it happen, you know? So it was a dep of programs at the time who had facilitated my brother moving into my cell. And for 10 years, we celebrated birthdays together. We ate. I remember one time we ate 16 slices of cheesecake because we didn't want it to go bad. There's no refrigerator. Right. Like. And my. My family sent us. Did she say. And we regretted it the next day. Right? We totally did. I said, we'll never do that again. We'll just throw you out.

[Mike Rowe]

Because if you're sharing a cell, you're sharing a toilet.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, share the toilet. Share the shower. We had a shower in our cell. Thank goodness. So it was bittersweet. Of course, you don't want to see your loved one incarcerated with you, but to have someone there to talk to who knows you. We were 14 months apart. He's older than me, and we went from the sandbox together, you know, and then to spend that time together in there and to talk about challenging things and to grieve together. When we lost our grandparents, you know, shackled together, going to the funeral, it really gave me a different perspective on life in many ways. And my brother's doing great work today. He's the deputy director of SUNY Higher Education in prison. He just won the Robin Hood Award in New York City and was hanging out with Eli Manning. And I was like, wow, you're a Jets fan here, hanging out with Eli Manning after the event.

[Mike Rowe]

So you mentioned accountability early on, like we were going to be accountable to each other. But I, you know, I don't want to spend our whole conversation in Five Points, But I do, I do want to understand when you decided to. Forgive me if I say this wrong, but make the best of it. When you decided, look, this is where we are. We're going to accept this sentence. We'll continue to take whatever legal avenues are available to us. But while we're here, you know, while we're here, let's learn, let's get better, let's, like, how does that process work? And when did you feel rehabilitated?

[Darnell Epps]

That's a great question. Really. It came from the realization that our actions don't simply affect us. Right. As simple as that sounds. When you look at your mother and you see the tears in her eyes, or you see your father, you see the tears in his eyes and you see the impact that your poor decisions have had on so many people, you have to grapple with that. Right. When that gate closes at night, you're there by yourself and you're thinking about that. You know, I had my brother there. He was very, very spiritual. He was a chaplain's clerk and he devoted his time to studying the Bible. Right. And being grounded in his faith. And I did as well. Right. And it was a great Pastor Bishop, Bishop Ronald Dewberry, who was the chaplain at Five Points Correctional Facility. And every Saturday we would attend services, and it was always a message there that resonated with us. Where there's a pulse, there's a purpose, you know, that you can always find purpose, even in your darkest moments. And, you know, my brother and I spent a lot of time under Bishop's tutelage and talking about life with him and grounding ourselves in our faith, and that helps spur us to where we're at today. In many ways. I could reflect back on some of those conversations I had in a Christology class with Bishop Dewberry or Reverend Stewart, who preceded Bishop Dewberry as the chaplain at Five Points Correctional Facility. And it was really our faith and really finding a sense of purpose in helping others. My brother chaired the Youth Assistance Program. He was the youngest inmate at the time to chair that program. And that was the program that it's not scared straight. It was more therapeutic. It was when Seneca county probation and the courts brought in some of the at risk youth who were potentially going to expose themselves to a potential jail sentence or something. To that effect, or they were involved in diversion programs. And we really let our life stories be a lesson for them. Right. And my brother was a great leader of that program, a great chairman of that program. And he did that from 2002 until we were released in 2017. So while I was working in the law library and eventually joined the YAP program with him, that was where he was grounded. He was grounded in his faith, as I was, and he was working as a chaplain's clerk. And then he also chaired the youth Assistance program. And we found a sense of purpose in volunteering because we weren't paid to do any of this. And we weren't told that we would get a letter to parole if we participated in these programs. In fact, the employees were told that they couldn't. So we were doing it just for the sake of doing good, working with Project HOPE out in Geneva and Mark Pittafer, and he would bring his students in and some of the youth who really needed to benefit from hearing about some of the decisions that Darrell and I made growing up. And it was rewarding in many ways. It was something we look forward to. And, you know, I had the legal studies, right. I was working to help others in the law library, Many people who just couldn't grasp the law, the complexities of it, the nuances of litigation, whether it's post conviction appellate, or doing something like a federal habeas corpus petition. And I found success there writing briefs on behalf of some of the incarcerated people. Some were wrongfully convicted, and I helped get them out of prison. There was one gentleman, Lewis Hairston, out of Westchester county, who had a Brady violation. A Brady violation is something that happens when a prosecutor withholds exculpatory evidence that can demonstrate someone's innocence. And he had been incarcerated for 17 years time. And we did a FOIL request, a Freedom of Information Law request, and his mother sent it into Mount Vernon City Hall. And we ended up getting an affidavit or a statement that was made by a civilian witness that basically supported his defense and said that the victim in the case was actually armed with a firearm and that the other two witnesses were armed with firearms. At the time this encounter happened, he was convicted of manslaughter. This was not presented to the jury at his trial. The prosecutor never told the defense about this witness. And we ended up finding out about this through a FOIL request that we submitted. So I filed a 440.10 motion, which is a post conviction motion in the Westchester county courts at the time. And the judge Felt like we raised a colorable claim. So the judge then assigned counsel.

[Mike Rowe]

Colorable.

[Darnell Epps]

Colorable meaning a meritorious argument and raised an argument that has merit to it. And the district attorney's office had no answer for what had happened. Right. And they wanted the judge to hold the hearing. Right. They were like, yeah, something's wrong here. We ended up getting an affidavit from his trial attorney also verifying that this was not disclosed during the discovery phase of the trial. And it's rare when a district attorney asks for an evidentiary hearing in a criminal case. They typically just want the court to summarily reject the motion and not even hold the hearing. Here they wanted a hearing. They wanted to try and justify what had happened. And the judge wanted no part of it.

[Mike Rowe]

Same judge.

[Darnell Epps]

It was a different judge. It was a different judge at this time because he had been incarcerated 17 years. The original trial judge had retired. So this judge said, I don't want any parts of it. This is a clear violation of his rights under Brady v. Maryland. In fact, the two witnesses that the prosecution called were implicated by what this, you know, civilian witness who lived across the street from where the crime had happened said to authorities. So what happens?

[Mike Rowe]

Sorry to jump in, but what, what happens to a prosecutor? Yeah, what are the consequences for willfully and deliberately sitting on exculpatory evidence?

[Darnell Epps]

In some cases you think of like the Duke lacrosse scandal. Yeah, that was one of the most. That was one of the most prominent instances where a prosecutor was held accountable for withholding exculpatory information. But in most cases, prosecutors aren't disciplined. In fact, they eventually go on to become judges, and it's hard to sue. It's have something called absolute immunity in federal civil rights proceedings. So if you were wrongfully convicted, like Lewis Harrison was, he was eventually exonerated. But if you are wrongfully convicted and you tried to sue for what happened to you in federal court, absolute immunity would prevent you from suing the prosecutors for any acts undertaken in their official capacity. So it's not even qualified immunity. Qualified immunity applies to police officers. So there's still a window where you could potentially raise a successful claim in federal court if you could show that the acts of the officer were unreasonable. But in the case of a prosecutor or a judge who engages in misconduct, it's virtually impossible to sue in federal court. So then you have to rely on the disciplinary committee to take some action. But in most cases, the disciplinary committee does very little to hold prosecutors accountable for these acts. And that's a well known fact within the criminal law of justice community in New York that prosecutors typically aren't held accountable for acts like that.

[Mike Rowe]

Life would be so much simpler if we all had a dad who could just pardon us situation. Life is simple.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. I mean, yeah. Okay. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, we could. There are a lot of people who deserve pardons and clemency who don't get it. It's gotta be.

[Mike Rowe]

What did it feel like to get this guy out?

[Darnell Epps]

His mother wrote me a letter.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, boy.

[Darnell Epps]

His mother wrote me a letter thanking me for what I did. And that was such a touching moment for me because I had never gotten a letter from somebody's mom in a card, like, showing so much appreciation for the work I did. And that was something I held onto. And it really let me know that I was doing something very meaningful in the law library.

[Mike Rowe]

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[Darnell Epps]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, yeah. This is good information.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. Yeah. Great question. So when I first entered five points in 2000, there was a gentleman named Harold Oglesby. He was maybe. He had to be about 68, 69 at the time. He had been incarcerated for over 20 years. And he was very knowledgeable with respect to the law. He would type on a ribbon typewriter with one thing, but his grammar was impeccable. His writing skills were, like, super impressive. I was like, I want to write like that one day. But here's this guy, and, you know, he was the one who got me my first job there. Harold Oglesby. I'll never forget it. I got to give him so much credit, because I used to bother him all the time. I would catch up to him in the yard. He's doing his walks, right? And. And I'd say, on a claim of ineffective assistance and counsel, what are the two?

[Mike Rowe]

I'm just trying to take a walk.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, yeah. And he showed me how to shepherdize cases, which is a way of updating cases.

[Mike Rowe]

Shepherdize?

[Darnell Epps]

Shepherdize. Back then, you had print volumes in the library. It wasn't like now if you're a Yale law student or even if you're incarcerated. Many clerks now have access to LexisNexis or Westlaw Edge, but then it was all print volume, so you had to get stacks of books. Shepardizing a case was, say you get an older case from 1985, and you want to see how it's being interpreted today by getting the shepherd's books. You can then update that case and see if the rule is still valid. So there are little codes that are used to show what part of the holding might be questionable today. And you can then pull those cases and see how it's being applied.

[Mike Rowe]

It's so interesting, the fact that it's that fungible and what was true 10 years ago might not be relevant today in the same way.

[Darnell Epps]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, and so to stay on.

[Darnell Epps]

Top of that, the law is constantly influx, like the very legal issue I mentioned about retroactivity earlier. You know, the court today, the US Supreme Court, could decide that question favorably to, you know, that issue as I raised it. And, you know, there would be no way for me to benefit from that today. But the law is something that's constantly in flux, and you constantly have to check these cases and deep read them. Everything I would read everything I had when I left Five Points Correctional Facility. I don't know how I fit all this case law in my cell. My brother. I had a typewriter in the cell. My brother used to get ticked off because I'd be up 2 in the morning, typing, and we would get instant coffee. You can. You can get a coffee pot, but make folgers. I'd stay up reading his cable, eating cheesecake, reading case law. He's trying to get some sleep. And then when I decide to go to sleep, you know, I snore. So, like, oh, come on, man, like you killing me in here. But I don't know how I fit that much case law in myself. So I think about, like, I kept those decisions very organized. I had them organized by date, I had them organized by subject matter. And I had wrote in the margins all these thoughts. Right. And it became a way for me to kind of immerse myself in what I was thinking at the first time I read this decision, how it's being applied. It was always cool to kind of read some of my thoughts in the margins on these cases. I would copy them in a law library. And I gave all these cases away when I left. And the other guys in the cell block were like, super happy to have it. It was like giving them gold.

[Mike Rowe]

How many guys like you are in, like, how many people are doing this? It's just so fuzzy. But over a 17 and a half year period, somehow you're going to explain how a high school dropout winds up in Yale.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

And it sounds like during this period it was just a constant revolving door of mentors.

[Darnell Epps]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

New cases.

[Darnell Epps]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

Constantly talking with people, testing theories.

[Darnell Epps]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

It must have been consuming.

[Darnell Epps]

So there were some of us who really devoted our time to wanting to study a lot. And part of it was motivated by desperation. And, you know, I wanted to get out. I wanted to win my appeal. I felt like I had a meritorious or strong argument and I had opinions about that. And it really. There was a fair, a small community because not everybody is a law clerk inside a correctional facility. It's. You're talking about four or five people. You have an administrative law clerk, then you have about two counter clerks and two research clerks that work in there as well. Someone is responsible for teaching the legal basic legal research course. And that group typically is a small group. There aren't many people. But you do have jailhouse lawyers. So called jailhouse lawyers, which is a term people often use to describe clerks who work in a prison law library who are doing some great stuff today.

[Mike Rowe]

So is there like a word gets around, okay, that you're, you're getting smarter and smarter by the day and somebody like, what percentage of the population there was like in a queue to talk to you?

[Darnell Epps]

Oh, well, yeah, tell me about it. Because after a couple of people got out, it's like the whole prison wanted to come see in the library. And I'm like, I go, I can't keep my brother out that late. I got, you know, you got to have some time to, you know, actually do some jobs in the yard too, myself. But it was high demand. Like, once people figure out that's the guy to go to, that's the guy who knows his stuff, then you have everybody flocking toward you. And that's the experience I had for probably the last 10 years of my sentence, 12 years of my sentence. And I tried to help as many people as possible.

[Mike Rowe]

This is the ultimate ojt. This is the ultimate on the job training.

[Darnell Epps]

Absolutely.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, it's not a position you apply for.

[Darnell Epps]

No.

[Mike Rowe]

You're not going to clerk your way to it.

[Darnell Epps]

No.

[Mike Rowe]

But there you are.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. Yeah. And I end up at Yale later on.

[Mike Rowe]

No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Darnell Epps]

I will. There's a lot to skip in there.

[Mike Rowe]

All right, well, just, I mean, give me the instruction. Like, when did you wake up? At what point? How many cheesecakes had you devoured? Like, where are you when you go, you know something? Hell with it, man. I'm going to the Ivy League. I can do this.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. So that's a great question. It was when college came back. So President Obama introduced Second Chance Pell, which was a pilot program that was going to restore Pell Grants for incarcerated students. President Trump ended up making it permanent when he signed the 2021 Consolidations and Appropriations Act. Huge shout out to both of them. But the fact that it was a nonpartisan issue and everybody's seen the benefit of this was, you know, I love it. So it was 2012, when Cornell actually wasn't Cornell first. It was 2012, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, which is a small, private college liberal arts college in Geneva, New York, started offering courses at Five Points Correctional Facility. We can only take one course at a time. So there were two volunteer professors, Professor Arisad with a strong French accent, and then Professor Vaughan, who taught math. I ended up taking Foundations of European Studies 101 with Professor Arizard. And then eventually they started offering more courses. And this at the time, this was before Obama signed the. The pilot or announced the pilot of Second Chance Pal. At that time, this program by Hobart and William Smith Colleges was being funded by a student who devoted money to getting this program off the ground at Five Point. So the thing was, you had to take the courses that they gave. There was no course catalog you couldn't select. So I was trying to get the most out of every class. I take a class on Geoffrey Chaucer or Christian Detois reading, You know, I read Geoffrey Chaucer's the Canterbury Tales. And one of our assignments, Wife. Yeah. And you know, Juan, not Abril with the Charizot, a draft of Martin Percy to the Rota. We had to memorize this and we had to read the Middle English version, Right. And Professor Arisad held us accountable. And I thought I was a great writer until I went into. I was like, I wrote all these briefs, so here I am, I won some cases. And she was like, your sentences are way too long. You need to put a period on it. I like my sentences short and crisp like my salad. And I was like, how am I going to win her approval? Right? And I remember when I got my first A plus on a paper that I wrote on Sir Gowan in A Green Knight. I was so excited when that happened. It was there, it was in that, you know, in those early days when I started taking college courses that I began to think about, well, what are you going to do with this once you get out? I love the law, right. I was reading about. Or later on I would read about someone like Dwayne Betts, who was incarcerated as well, who graduated from Yale Law School. The one thing my grandfather did was he paid before he passed away. He would make sure I got the Sunday Review to the New York Times, right. So I read that and I would read these stories about Sean Hopwood, Dwayne Betts, and I knew it was possible, if I was able to get out, to actually enter the legal community and apply the skills that I've been self taught over more than a decade. Cornell began offering courses at Five Points Correctional Facility in 2016. And it was the year that my brother and I were going to be considered for parole. And I enrolled in those courses. I took a course with. On Public policy with Jamila Michener. I took some philosophy courses as well. And by this time, we're now taking four, three or four courses, Right. So we're really ranking up credits there.

[Mike Rowe]

And these credits all will transfer.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, so they did transfer. So when. So I wanted to go to Cornell and a mentor of mine, a legal mentor, Joseph Margulies, who wrote the book what Changed When Everything Changed, which focuses on the unity that we've seen in this country after 9, 11, and then how that sort of collapsed later on during this, you know, the Bush administration, when Bush was reelected. And, you know, and so he sort of elaborates on that. But I. He was a Supreme Court attorney, argued a couple of cases before the Supreme Court successfully, and he Came to see me one day on a visit. He read something I wrote about federal Habeas Corpus. And he was like, I got to see this guy. So a friend of mine just took him right up to Five points. And I had read his book and we were sitting there talking about the book for about three or four hours, right? He's like, wow, you read my book better than any of my students did.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, I had some time, yeah.

[Darnell Epps]

He was like, you should come to Cornell. I was like, come to Cornell. I dropped out of school. I have a ged. It was like, no, I'm serious. You should come to Cornell. So what happened? When I finally thought about it, I was like, I would love to move to Ithaca. We ended up getting parole. Right. Which was rare because for someone to make their first parole board for what's designated as a violent offense and you're serving an indeterminate life sentence. That is very, very rare.

[Mike Rowe]

So 17 and a half to life.

[Darnell Epps]

To life.

[Mike Rowe]

And that's is ultimately determined by the parole board.

[Darnell Epps]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

As you go.

[Darnell Epps]

Yes. So after you serve 17 years, you're eligible to. Because we ended up getting six months knocked off through a maritime law. So at the 17 year mark, we were at parole eligible and we went before parole board. And, you know, I remember when I first arrived at Five Points, there were folks who I met who had been denied parole multiple times after serving their minimum sentence. So some of these guys were serving sentences of 20 to life. And every time you deny parole, you can't see parole for another two years. So we call it the getting deuced. So there were guys who had deuced three or four times. I didn't know, like, what was going to happen. When Daryl and I went to the parole board, it was scary.

[Mike Rowe]

You've seen Shawshank Redemption when red is just like over. He. He was deuce.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

A dozen times.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

What a scene that is at the end when he's kind of like.

[Chuck]

Just doesn't give a sunny.

[Mike Rowe]

I don't know what rehabilitated is.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

You know, I mean.

[Darnell Epps]

Oh, yeah. Shawshank, that was quite the movie. I remember seeing it since it was. But we didn't know what was going to happen. You know, we were in the cell in the same cell at that time. We basically had to support an administration, given all the work we were doing around the prison and with the local community project hope, Seneca county probation, the Seneca county court system. So we didn't know what was going to happen. And Depp Laurie Jones, she was a Deputy superintendent of programs. I remember we went through sort of intense parole interview and we didn't know what was going to happen. Was Commissioner Elovich and Commissioner Krangle and there were about, I don't know, maybe 15 other people who were seated there. And my brother and I were probably 7 and 8 if I remember correctly. And I went first. I was in there for, you know, some time, probably about 15 or 20 minutes, which is long. And what do they ask you?

[Mike Rowe]

Like, how's the conversation go?

[Darnell Epps]

They were super impressed with our institutional record. So Commissioner Crangle was like, how could you stay at this prison and not have any disciplinary. Because we didn't have any misbehavior reports. Like, which is very rare for someone in a maximum security prison. Typically you get over a 17 year span, you're going to get some type of misbehavior report. It doesn't matter if you wire your hot pot so it cooks at a higher temperature. Like there's so many things you could be written up for. But we had no tickets and that was something that stood out to them. And they also asked about the crime. They asked questions to kind of see if you took responsibility. And obviously I took full responsibility for my ex and my brother did as well. And it was just hard to read them. They asked some tough questions.

[Mike Rowe]

It must be tough because you, you pled innocent.

[Darnell Epps]

I pled innocent.

[Mike Rowe]

So, all right, time goes by. The guy pled innocent, but now he needs to and that assume responsibility for.

[Darnell Epps]

And that came up during the parole hearing. Ellen Mitch asked about it and I made that point, but she said so I made clear to kind of pivot and then say like that doesn't mean my actions weren't wrong and I couldn't have handled the situation better. You know what I mean? Like, I could have handled that situation much better. There's no doubt in my mind. And always go back to that day and I regret it. You know, I didn't just like body slam my brother who shot it at me and like, let's, this is stupid. Let's not do this our lives away. Right?

[Mike Rowe]

But on the other hand, you probably didn't know about the duty to retreat.

[Darnell Epps]

No.

[Mike Rowe]

Dumb Prize Picks is sponsoring another episode of the Way I Heard It. Which leads me to the obvious inevitable question to my friend Chuck. How'd you do this week?

[Chuck]

Well, it was a mixed bag, Mike. Russell Wilson let me down. Lamar Jackson came through flying colors. He had more than rushing yards. But Russell Wilson, well, he just, he got his butt handed to him and.

[Mike Rowe]

So thanks for the visual.

[Chuck]

Didn't win that one, but the other one that I had with hockey, I did a flex play, which is where you choose three players, and if you get two out of three, you still win. And I did. I got two out of three, so that was good.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you know what? It sounds very interesting. If I was a guy inclined to play games, I'd be playing this one, but I'm not. I can tell you this, though. Prize Picks is the best place to get real money sports action. They have over 10 million members, Chuck. 10 million of one, I suppose, counting you.

[Chuck]

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[Mike Rowe]

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[Chuck]

Thanks, man. I'm doing the best I can. I'm going to the Kings game on Wednesday night, and I'm definitely going to do some time on ice entries.

[Mike Rowe]

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[Darnell Epps]

I actually didn't know what was going to happen, right. I didn't know, honestly, at that time, if the person who was still there right when my brother was going to confront him. So there was so much that was unknown to me. I never thought it would escalate the way it did. But at the end of the day, I could have made better choices, right? I could have made better choices. And I took ownership of that during that parole hearing. But I was in there for roughly 15 to 20 minutes. And then when my brother, he comes out, he's like, how did it go? We had hot dogs for lunch that day. That's what they were serving in the prison. And, you know, that's like the cuisine. Hot dogs, like, get some real meat, because most of the food is loaded with soy, soybeans, like, fake meat. And so we had hot dogs. We, you know, and then he went in, and he was only in there for about three to four minutes. And one of the things that the parole board said was, you know, this isn't a package deal, right? If we let one of you guys go, that doesn't mean we're going to let you both go. And he took that as meaning that we both weren't going to get out, which would have been the most devastating news for me to give to my family, who had been committed all these years and coming up to see us on a visit. So I didn't know what was going to happen. My brother, he seemed a little depressed, but he wanted me to get out. He was like. He always used to say in his yacht presentation that, does anybody know what it feels like to wake up and see the worst choice you ever made right in your face? So he was. I didn't know it till I heard his yacht presentation. So he was saying, like, every day, him seeing me in a cell.

[Mike Rowe]

He felt you were his accessory.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, he felt like he was responsible for that. Right. And I didn't know he was carrying that guilt with him till I actually enrolled in YAP and I seen what his presentation was, and it was hard not to be touched by what he was saying. I mean, when he would do his prison life presentation, you would see everyone in the room shedding a tear from civilians to corrections officers, to the youth that came in. So what's it stand for? Yeah, Youth Assistance Program. And then we created the Prison Community Awareness Program, which was actually for incarcerated younger people. So after we seen the parole board, you know, my brother had the short interview, I had the long interview. We didn't know how it was going to go, and it took about four days before we actually got a decision. How we got the decision was very weird. I knew that if you would deny parole, typically the envelope that you would get on the legal mail cart would be thicker than a typical envelope that you get because there would be appeal forms in there. So I was like, I'll know from the weighted envelope if we're denied. So we end up getting called to the school building. So we're in a school building, and I have no business being there at this time, right? Because I have no classes. I'm supposed. Supposed to be in my program in a law library. And I get this random call out to come to the school building. So I get down there. I'm sitting on the bench. There's no officer at the desk. So I'm like, I'm just gonna wait. Here comes my brother down the hallway. I'm like, what are you doing? And he's like, what are you doing here? I was like, I don't know. They just told me I had a call out. They told me I had a call out, too. He said. And he just left the chaplain's office, which was his assigned program. He was the chaplain's office, Clark. So I'm like, wow, what is this, like, crisis intervention? Is this going to be like the deputy of programs and a superintendent saying, look, you guys didn't make it. Hold it together. It might happen the next time, or whatever. I wasn't sure what to think, right? But I was like, this is a weird way of us getting a parole decision. If we were getting a parole decision at the time, I just didn't know why we were there. So then I hear these heels clicking down the hall, and it's Dep. Laurie Jones at DEPA Programs, who we've always worked closely with in getting these programs off the ground that I mentioned from Pete Cap to Yap. And she said. She has two envelopes in her hand. She says, I got something for you guys. So she tells the officer who now showed up to open the door, and she tells him, shut the door. So she says, have a seat. She gives both of us envelopes. So we opened the envelopes, and we both were granted parole. And I was just like. And then here comes the chaplain, and here comes the all. Some of the other civilian staff who knew but were coy about it the whole week and didn't tell us.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, my God, it's an episode of returning the favor or something.

[Darnell Epps]

I know. And we were. You know, we would. So the first thing I do, I gotta run back to the gallery and now tell my family. So I call my mother. And now I didn't call her all week on purpose because I was like, well, I'm gonna wait till I get a decision, right? I'm not gonna have them come into the phone anxious. And so I heard a voice crack. She said, hello, because you hear it's a prison call. You hear, you know, the recording that comes before you actually get to talk. And I heard a voice cry. So I think she was anticipating bad news. I was like, ma, we made it. And that was. She just started going bananas.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, my God. Was she retired at that point?

[Darnell Epps]

She was retired at that point. And my stepfather, Louis at the time, who passed away from cancer a couple years back, he was like, wow. He was like, I guess I don't gotta get you anything for Christmas this year. And it was that moment that stands out as, like, such a monumental moment in my life when that had happened. And then back to the point of me wanting to go to Cornell. Typically, when you end up in the prison system in New York, you have to go back to the county or city where the crime was committed. So in this case, they wanted to send me back to Brooklyn, but all my family had moved out of Brooklyn, so I was going to end up in a halfway house or something in Brooklyn. But my friend that I mentioned who brought Professor Margulies up to visit me had spoken with a judge who was friends with Mary Katzenstein. And the judge's name, Jim Carrigan. He's now probably in Hawaii somewhere enjoying a son. Great friend of mine to this day. And he was like, darnell could stay with me, you know? And I was like, I didn't even know him. He's like, he opened up his doors to me, and, you know, so I ended up moving in into. He had a residence in West Seneca street in Ithaca, New York. And I ended up moving there. I didn't know whether to call him, your honor when he came in or how to freedom.

[Mike Rowe]

I'd go with your honor.

[Darnell Epps]

He was a city court judge. And then I ended up getting a job as a litigation paralegal with the offices of Wiggins and Palino, and I landed a job through Professor Margolis at Cornell Law School. So I worked for the Cornell center for the study of death penalty worldwide. I wanted to prove myself so much. His wife, Professor Margolis wife, was the clinical professor of law, Sandra Babcock, at Cornell Law School. And I wanted to prove myself to her and Delphine and Sharon so much. They gave me a writing assignment. I think it was Based on Moore vs Texas, a recent criminal decision that came down from the U.S. supreme Court. And they wanted me to brief the case and to give an analysis of the case. So I did that, and I told them, look, I'll work for you guys for free. I'll work for you for free. Just give me a letter of recommendation so I could get into the undergraduate school. Right. Arts and sciences. Right. And Sandra, Professor Babcock was like, we pay people for their work around here. And she ended up hiring me. So I. I hadn't even been accepted to Cornell as an undergrad yet, and I was working with law students at the law school.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, my God. That's unbelievable.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

All right. We got to leapfrog a little bit.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Cornell to Yale.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

How's that happen? How long are you there? What's your degree in? And then you got to get me to the trade school.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. So I end up graduating from Cornell in 2020. The pandemic hit, so they kind of shut down classes, and everything went remote. It took a gap year to study. You know, you got to take the LSAT and stuff like that when you apply to law school. And I also wanted to Earn some income before I moved to. To Connecticut, because it's a big move. And I had a family, started working for a nonprofit, Ithaca snr, doing research around academic libraries and stuff like that.

[Mike Rowe]

Sorry, I should have asked you. Did you marry when you were out or while you.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, when I was out.

[Mike Rowe]

Okay.

[Darnell Epps]

When I was out, I married. I married my wife, Jessica, who was a teacher in Ithaca, New York, and we met at Cornell. She worked at Cornell initially, and she was an admissions director at Cayuka College in Pen Yen. So we were married. We got married. I took a gap year, graduated in 2020. I didn't get a full commencement like most students do because, you know, it was Covid. So I walked the art squad, but my son took some cool pictures, although we both had masks on, like. And I applied to law school. When I applied to law school, I applied to Yale because I had met Professor James foreman, James Foreman Jr. So his father, James Foreman Sr. Founded SNCC or co founded SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and was a huge activist during the civil rights era along with Martin Luther King and others. And he did a talk at Cornell in 2018 after I wrote my New York Times piece, and he encouraged me to apply to Yale. He was a professor at Yale. He was part of the faculty. And I was like. He signed his book. He said, I look forward to seeing you at Yale. And I was like, well, that's kind. That's the number one law school in the country. I don't know if that's even possible. But I applied to Yale after I graduated from Cornell and took that gap year. And I remember the day that the dean of admissions had called me, and she said, I seen. I had hadn't even finished applying to all the schools I wanted to go to because, you know, it costs money to apply to each school, right? And I was like, I'm gonna pace this out. I'm gonna apply to about four, and then I'm gonna apply to another four. And I needed some safety schools, too, because you didn't know if you were gonna get your boots smoked and not actually get into any of those colleges that were your top choice. So I got a call. It was December 7th of 2020, and it was Miriam Ingber, who's the dean of admissions at Yale Law School. And I had just interviewed for that job at Ithaca snr, actually. And it was a long interview where I had to. I did a writing sample early in a week, and then I had to speak with, like, three or four different People at the non profit, Kevin Guthrie and others, who is the founder of jstor. And so I had a long interview. I was like, I'm gonna go for a jog. So when I get in the car, I see this call from Miriam Ingber, and it's transferring over to my Bluetooth in my Toyota Camry that I had at the time. And I'm frantically trying to figure out, like, why is Miriam ing we're calling me? I thought, like, maybe my application was incomplete. Maybe they needed additional information on my character and fitness statement. Because if you have a criminal record, you have to then specify that and go into details about the crime and explain why the law school should admit you, you know, given the fact that you've been incarcerated before. So I ended up getting on a call, and the first thing she said was, I hope you're ready to move to New Haven. I was like, what? I was like, you got to be kidding me. She was like, I'm very serious. And I got out of the car, ran back into the house. My son Chase was 2 at the time. I started jumping up and down. I'm like, I got accepted to Yale. Got accepted to yell. And he doesn't know how to interpret it. He just starts saying, happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. So then we got prepared for the big move, and I started Law School in 2021. Small Group professor was Una Hathaway. Great experience with her and many of the students who are in my small group, because every class, incoming class, gets situated in a small group, and then you get coker fellows who are like student advisors. And then you get who your small group professor is, who's someone you can ask for advice throughout your legal education and whatnot. And so I had Una halfway, and I met some great people in that small group class. And, you know, I took a sports law course. I had met with demora Smith, who at the time was the head of the NFL Players Association. I kind of thought about sports law. I was also thinking about appellate litigation and criminal law, because that's something I devoted so much of my time to all those years. But I was looking for something with a little softer or less, you know, intense bend to it. And I thought sports law could be something pretty cool. And I. I had met Peter Stern, who was the CFO at a Brooklyn Nets, right? So Peter Stern and I became good friends, and he wanted me to come over there and work with the Brooklyn Nets for the summer, and I work with him, and that was a very great opportunity that I had. But at the same time.

[Mike Rowe]

39 at this point. 40, maybe.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, 39. 40 actually at that time. So I had also met Matt Blodgett, who was an investor in general partner at Praxis Ventures. And I met him at a dinner that involved a non profit that he has called Put Me in, which provides funding to children with incarcerated parents to partake in athletic programming. You know, so he's, you know, they get some of these kids cleats and uniforms and anything they need to, you know, participate in Pop Warner sports and other activities. Athletic activities. So I met Matt and I met, you know, the supporting team from Put Me in and their ambassador, Julian Edelman, super bowl, you know, winning wide receiver from the New England Patriots and Robin Glaser, some of the folks from the Kraft Corporation. And I ended up learning that Matt was an investor in companies that are at the intersection or startups that are at the intersection of IT and manufacturing. And what he started talking about was the fact that there was this skills gap, right? No employers could find top of the funnel talent, that the baby boomers were quickly leaving these careers after Covid, right? And many of the companies that he was associated with just couldn't find top of the funnel or entry level skilled labor. So I was like, wow, that's fascinating because I was doing clinical work with Professor James Foreman at the time as well. And you know, there were many people in New Haven who were in need of, of middle class jobs that didn't require four years of college because many of the job openings that Matt was talking about didn't require a four year degree. And you know, some were union jobs, some weren't, but paid well above a living wage. I was like, wow, why isn't that messaging getting across to communities where the hunger for economic opportunity is greatest? And I ended up meeting another investor, Jacob Ritenberg, who's the general partner at Tinicum Incorporated. He's a senior associate there, but he was a general partner of Tinicum Venture Partners. So their investment wing at Tinicum Incorporated at that time he was running that. And they had plenty of factories throughout the US from pen engineering to Watlow to Dexter. And he kind of reiterated what Matt had said about this skills gap. And another fun fact is that part of the law school is named after Jacob's grandfather. So you have Ruttenberg hall at Yale. It's named after Darrell Rutenberg, who was a famous Yale attorney who then went into the manufacturing sector and founded Tinicum. So I wanted to know more about it. I had done some research. I read A report by Deloitte which said that 2.1 million jobs in advanced manufacturing were expected to be unfilled due to the existing skills gap. I read that report and, you know, at the time there were half a million construction jobs that were unfilled. And I was like, wow, this is a tremendous opportunity to kind of connect people in underserved communities to some good careers. Because many of the people I was seeing in New Haven, which had a 26% poverty rate in a median household income of $42,000, you know, they were working in the food service sector or the retail sector, the gig economy. Right. And they needed jobs that, you know, offered good benefits and in a living wage. So I ended up, you know, going to the IMTS conference in Chicago with Jacob and Matt and. And we did a panel on the main stage in imts. And then I went on sort of a. A road trip with him and Matt where we toured several of his factories throughout the Midwest. We went to Wattlow, we went to Dexter, and we were in this small car and we were like bumping Kentucky bluegrass and rap, listening to Loretta Lynn's Coal Miner's Daughter. And then we will play some rap music like the Rizzes from Wuang Clans Grits. And there were a lot of synergies between, you know, what. What we heard about, what we were listening to across these two genres, despite the different cultural contexts. And we were listening to the Kentucky Bluegrass because our final destination was this place called the Gene Haas E. Kentucky Advanced Manufacturing Institute, which is in Paintsville, Kentucky.

[Mike Rowe]

Sure.

[Darnell Epps]

And we were going to meet with their executive director, Kathy Walker, who was running a program, a boot camp essentially, that was initially launched to provide skills training to people, to dislocated co workers and their families. But then it eventually expanded.

[Mike Rowe]

Are you done at Yale at this point?

[Darnell Epps]

No. Did this in between classes. So I'm in Yale. So we ended up going on this Tour. This was September 2022. Flew out to Chicago for the IMTS conference. We take this road trip, go throughout the Midwest. Small car, three big guys. All of us are tall. Matt used to play football for Yale. He used to play center. Jacob is about my height. So here we are, two investors and a guy who did, you know, 17 years in the. In the can. Right. So here we are, road trip. And so we end up at, you know, the E. Kentucky Advanced Manufacturing Institute. And it was a great program. And I mentioned it because it was something that really inspired me to do more work in this space. Cathy Walker, I would encourage you. You And Chuck, maybe one day to attend one of the graduate graduation ceremonies there. It's a remarkable program. It's not only free, but they provide a stipend to all the trainees. $1,700 a month, and all the cutting edge skills, from additive manufacturing, CAD cam modeling, to mechatronics and machine industrial vision technology. You get eight NIM certifications when you're there. It's a remarkable program. And I attended the graduation, and it was so many tears that I seen from the families who were there and seeing the impact that these new career opportunities had on the folks in Eastern Kentucky. And I felt like, how could we replicate this elsewhere? Right. There's so much in common between the folks in Eastern Kentucky and the folks in East New York, Brooklyn. Right. Eastern Kentucky. 80% of the population, working age population, doesn't have a college to come. Agree. Same thing in East New York, Brooklyn. Why aren't we extending opportunities for people to achieve the American dream who haven't gone the traditional track of going to college for four years?

[Mike Rowe]

So it's a really good question, but why are you asking it in the middle? I mean, you're getting close to graduating from the top law school in the country.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

You're about to do something that I don't think has been done before.

[Darnell Epps]

Mm.

[Mike Rowe]

And now you sound all distracted by the fact that there's another course or another path.

[Darnell Epps]

Well, yeah, Great question. When I went to law school, I wanted to have a social impact through the work that I did. I either wanted to, you know, initially go into appellate litigation or constitutional law or focus on civil rights law. But I felt like this was an opportunity to achieve the same outcome through entrepreneurship. And it still holds true to what inspired me to go to law school. And I didn't see it as a distraction. I ended up working as an entrepreneur in residence because I wanted to launch a company. Initially, we were thinking about augmented reality or virtual reality. This is that, you know, at the time when Mark Zuckerberg is, you know, his avatar is showing up all over YouTube when he's talking about the metaverse being in new frontier for human interconnectivity and everything else. And I wanted to see if potentially we could provide free skills training to people in some of these communities to fill some of the openings that, you know, Matt and Jacob were talking about. We didn't feel like the hardware was where it needed to be. You know, we went through, tried to Oculus. It would be too capital intensive. I wanted to launch a company that would have again, provided that kind of skills training to underserved people in underserved communities. But I just felt like VR augmented reality wasn't the way to go. And I also didn't know really what the skills were that employers were looking for. So that's why I ended up going to vocational school in my second year. I wanted to go to kind of investigate and identify what are the core competencies, what are the skills that can get someone in the door at a Sikorsky or at Electric Boat, which is building the Virginia class submarine. And they need, you know, 20,000 technicians over the next three years. Right, right. What are the basic core skills that are needed? And so I ended up enrolling at Lincoln Technical Institute in East Windsor, Connecticut. First I wanted to see if it was doable within my skill schedule. My wife was ready to strangle me. Right. I was doing a lot. So I kind of tailored all my Yale law courses to be from 8am to 12 noon and from 12:45 on I was at throwing on my Lincoln Tech uniform and hopping on a multi axis CNC machine and, you know, machining some cool parts for my son. So, you know, I journaled all of this, I documented all of this. You know, I developed a lot of friendships during my time at Lincoln Tech. When I eventually launched my software, you know, with my two brilliant co founders who worked at Indeed, dan Sellen and R.C. johnson, Lincoln Tech gave us the opportunity to pilot the software there.

[Mike Rowe]

What's it called?

[Darnell Epps]

The software Thurgood. Thurgood, the app for workers.

[Mike Rowe]

So now we finally get around to the shirt.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, sure.

[Mike Rowe]

You're wearing.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of people ask, why is it, what's the deal with Thurgood? What does that mean? And you know, I, I kind of, it was a way to blend my legal education with what I was doing in, in the trades. And Thurgood Marshall, I always considered him to be a legal, legal engineer of sorts. He spearheaded the arguments in Brown v. Board to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. So he was always a hero of mine. He also believed in the right to industrial self determination. So I felt like, who better to name the company after than Thurgood Marshall the first.

[Mike Rowe]

And the airport in our hometown, Baltimore is now the Thurgood Marshall.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, he was from Baltimore. Deep history there. You know, you had. Thurgood Marshall is, you know, someone who I always had looked up to. And so I named a company after him. We launched at several campuses after our pilot with Lincoln Tech. We've partnered with other schools from SUNY to Porter and Chester Institute to workforce development programs like Match that offer free skills training. And what we want people to do do is to be able to showcase their work. One of the problems, I think, with the trades and advanced industry and the stigma that's associated with it is that, you know, it's not visible to everyone. Right. Many of the students and skilled tradesmen that I encounter, they're not on LinkedIn showing what they're building. They're not. And we want to have a platform and a network where we can build that out. So kind of think of a LinkedIn for the skilled trades. If I had to use another company to compare it, that's what we are. We want to bring attention to the meaningful careers that people can find in this space. We want people to showcase their work. We want to celebrate the achievements of America's skilled workforce. And that's the only way we're going to really appeal to the younger generation. Right. So we have a combination of skills assessments and a public feed where people could post videos and showcase some of the work that they're doing. But it can also apply for jobs on a platform as well. Search within a specific geo and look for a job as an electrician. Look for apprenticeship opportunities. You can find that on a platform as well. So what's your referral bonuses and stuff like that to incentivize people?

[Mike Rowe]

What's your business card say?

[Darnell Epps]

Thurgood. What do you mean?

[Mike Rowe]

Like, what's your title?

[Darnell Epps]

Oh, CEO and founder of Thurgood. Co founder. Because I have two other co founders who have much more product expertise than me.

[Mike Rowe]

The big guys in a little car with you?

[Darnell Epps]

Oh, yeah. So Matt Logic and Praxis did provide the pre seed funding to get Thurgood off the ground. So that's when I recruited a founding team in R.C. johnson and Dan Sellen, who used to run Indeed.com's internal incubator. And they'll all the pitfalls and problems with the traditional resume when applying for jobs. And what we're trying to do is, you know, allow students and job seekers to showcase their skills and work and use that as a way to connect them with employers who are looking for people with the requisite skills to fill some of the needs that they have on a labor side. So, yeah, it's making hiring more efficient, given students and job seekers a better way of applying for jobs in the construction trades and advanced industry, but also having an aspirational pull as well in trying to get more people interested in the trades. So we have a dual objective Right. To kind of make hiring more efficient, to streamline the process, do away with the traditional resume, but also to create that aspirational feel toward doing great work in the skilled trades. And that's where we need more seasoned veterans and technicians to come onto the platform and showcase the work that's being done in this space. Some of the baby boomers who are leaving, how do you pass on that tribal knowledge to those gen zers? We're trying to create a network and a platform where that information can get shared, better disseminated.

[Mike Rowe]

It's just so crazy the fact that you and I have wound up in such a similar space.

[Darnell Epps]

Space.

[Mike Rowe]

Coming from such completely disparate backgrounds.

[Darnell Epps]

Loretta Lynn and Arissa, you know, yeah, man.

[Mike Rowe]

What should people do? There's not a day goes by where somebody doesn't call me for some kind of quote around what you just summed up, really. And. And for me, it's just math, you know, five leave to come in. Five go to come in. It's been going on now for over a decade and the opportunities are so vast. People truly just don't understand. And so get. Making a more persuasive case for the trades is something I spend a lot of time thinking about. It sounds like that's precisely what you're doing.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

So if we can just leave people with a.

[Darnell Epps]

What's the ask, Download the app, get engaged on the platform, showcase what you're doing. There's so many people who aren't in vogue tech schools, but who are working on stuff in a dad's garage or who are building things with their hands that really demonstrate their skills and the great work that they're doing in this space and get involved. Right. Get on the platform, share some information about, you know, what it's like to work at Sikorsky for 30 years, the benefits of doing it, the types of opportunities that it opened up for you.

[Mike Rowe]

How about a welder? How about an H VAC guy? How about an electrician? Somebody who's just got it done right today. Film it, put it up there.

[Darnell Epps]

Exactly.

[Mike Rowe]

So you have what I did.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah. You have electricians who've been sharing some of the work they've been doing in our public feedback. Because you have the option to just create a portfolio that's visible to employers, but also to post something in a public feed that anyone can see. So if you downloaded the app now, you would see some cool posts and videos from students and people working in the trades who just want to show some of the stuff that they're Building. So that's the ask. That's the ask is to download the app, get engaged on the platform, and help build out this community and bring awareness to careers in this space.

[Mike Rowe]

Brother, you took the scenic route, but you got there, man. Yeah, you really did. You were the only former inmate Yale graduate, lawyer, trades apologist that I know, and it was super great of you to fly across the country to do this.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Mike means the world to us.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, yeah, totally. And I know you're working to bring awareness to the careers in this space and how I could be involved, Involved and team up to. To do that. I'm more than happy to do. So.

[Mike Rowe]

We're singing from the same hymn book.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, that's for sure.

[Mike Rowe]

Something tells me we'll find a way to figure it out.

[Darnell Epps]

I've seen your tweet, by the way, about Elon potentially doing some work with Elon Musk. Let's get Elon Musk to build the gigafactory in East New York.

[Mike Rowe]

There you go. Well, look, man, that guy is just crazy enough to do it. He just does things, it seems. I didn't even tell you that. I saw a clip of him the other day. I put it on Facebook and all the normal places, but I saw that. Yeah. I mean, there he is.

[Chuck]

It's like saying what you say all the time.

[Mike Rowe]

It's like, hey, man, I mean, welcome to the party, dude. Yeah, yeah, right. But look, it's. It's the truth. Like, people, I understand how important law is. There is no order. It's law and order, right?

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

You have to have it. But very few people are walking around today going, you know, God, if we just had a few more lawyers, things would be so much better. The need is elsewhere, and the fact that you manage to inhabit both those worlds at the same time is super cool.

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, like I wrote about in a Washington Post piece, there were 50 students in my Torts class at Yale and two in my machining class at Lincoln Tech, which was really showing where our priorities are as a nation and, like, the work that needs to be done to really balance that out better. So definitely going to continue to be an advocate for the trades and vocational training and hopefully keep people engaged and. And active on our platform.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, please give your brother my regards. Is your mom still around?

[Darnell Epps]

Yeah, my mom's still around. She's out in Staten Island. She's super proud of our accomplishments. She was at our graduation at Yale. I got to walk across the stage with my daughter and my son, carrying my daughter who's one in Chase. And it was an experience I'll never forget. We had a wonderful dinner afterwards. And you know, that one thing I wanted to do was, you know, make my mother proud that I mentioned before. I can always say I did that. And that really, that means a whole lot to me. So. Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

What's your name?

[Darnell Epps]

Denise.

[Mike Rowe]

Denise. You done good. Thank you for your time.

[Darnell Epps]

Thank you.

[Mike Rowe]

Sure.

[Darnell Epps]

Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Yeah. When you leave a review, which we.

[Mike Rowe]

Hope that you'll do, tell us who you are. Tell us who you are.

[Darnell Epps]

And before you go, won't you leave.

[Mike Rowe]

Five star.

[Darnell Epps]

Five lousy little stars.

[Chuck]

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[Darnell Epps]

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