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How Are People Exonerated?
Marvin Cotton Jr. • 2024-12-03
Dylan Carnahan:Welcome to the Simple Questions Podcast. This is your host, Dylan Carnahan. The question for this episode is, how are people exonerated? You will learn in this episode, barriers faced by formerly incarcerated individuals, the stigma exonerees face despite proven innocence, and key factors leading to wrongful convictions. Our guest is an exoneree with a compelling story. Was wrongfully imprisoned for 19 years, seven months, and 12 days for a crime he did not commit. And the best selling author of Better Not Broken, an optimistic guide to overcoming pain and leveraging life's opportunities. I introduce to you, Marvin Cotton Jr. I am sitting in my brother's house, watching a Netflix documentary that was put on by the Innocence Project, which goes through several different cases where different factors led to the wrongful conviction of a person. I'm taking back about how intricate these cases are and the negative consequences. So I want to take a step back and ask you about your experiences, Marvin. What was the crime you were wrongfully convicted of?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:I was wrongfully convicted of first degree murder and felony firearm.
SPEAKER_3:Wow.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Yeah. You know, although it didn't take me long to say what I was wrongfully convicted of, you know, I actually spent a very long time in prison with that wrongful conviction weighing down on my shoulders. I spent 19 years, seven months and 12 days in prison for a crime that I didn't commit, and I was actually sentenced to the mandatory sentence, which is a natural life without the possibility of parole. So not only was I wrongfully convicted, I was wrongfully convicted to essentially a death sentence.
Dylan Carnahan:That's very heavy.
SPEAKER_3:You're...
Dylan Carnahan:That's extremely heavy, Marvin. What factors, at least that you initially knew, led to your wrongful conviction? You have more hindsight now.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Yeah, absolutely. The very core of my wrongful conviction, and it's really the core of most wrongful convictions, is really the integrity of the investigators and the police involved in the case. You know, all investigations start and end with law enforcement. And anytime you have corrupt law enforcement, that can take a case from the very beginning, and that's what happened with me. There were several bad actors or homicide detectives that played a role in my role for conviction.
Dylan Carnahan:And what ways did this corrupt or misused information impact you? It's my understanding that one way was that there was even a jailhouse informant that came forward that testified during your trial.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Yes. Most investigators that investigate wrongful convictions, like the Innocence Project, the attorneys with the Innocence Project and Conviction Integrity Units, they'll tell you that it's almost a red flag that you have an innocent person in prison when a jailhouse informant is involved in a case. That's almost a red flag for wrongful conviction. And what happened was, in my case, you had a corrupt homicide detective that met with this jailhouse informant and supplied this jailhouse informant with information on the case. And this jailhouse informant came to trial and testified. Initially, he had wrote perfectly written statement. That's what I call it. I call it a perfectly written statement because it sounds like something that somebody with a law degree wrote. It literally read like somebody that went to school to be an attorney wrote because it covered every basis that it would need to cover in order to be admissible into court and it wrapped up the entire case in such a way that only someone that had access to the discovery packet would have been able to write this statement. And that's what happened in my case. They supplied him with information and he came to court, and he was the nail in the coffin, for lack of better words.
Dylan Carnahan:And you have the investigator working against you, and this kind of plays out in a couple different ways, one of which is through you being one associated with this crime that's been committed, the usage of a jailhouse informant, and not only that, but you also had your defense attorney, things that occurred with him, is that correct?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Yes. I didn't draw the long stick when it came to defense attorneys. And anyone that is familiar with the criminal justice system know that it's always best to have a great advocate fighting alongside of you, especially when you're entangled in something that you didn't do. You want to have a great advocate. I did not have the best advocate, but we were up against overwhelming odds with law enforcement that, you know, they hold all the cards. They hold all of the information. They have access to all of the witnesses, and they manipulate the circumstances. And in a lot of cases, with me, not only did law enforcement withhold information, which is called like a Brady violation, they withheld information that they didn't want me to know about to have a defense, but they also manufacture or created things and push that forward. So I was dealing with really two different things. I was dealing with information being hidden from me, but I was also dealing with information being manufactured.
Dylan Carnahan:And then you're not only combating that, but you have your counsel who ends up getting disbarred. And also there were several people that he represented that also were exonerated, being that they were wrongfully convicted.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Yes, yes. There's a cultural problem with the judicial system. It's very easy for wrongful conviction to happen, and it's very difficult for a wrongful conviction to actually be overturned or to actually be dealt with with a measure of justice. You know, one of the other cases that my attorney had was Devonte Stanford, which is a very high-profile case out of the city of Detroit. And Devonte Stanford, he was a young boy, really, that wandered down the street into a crime scene, and the homicide detectives in Detroit, they got their hands on him, and they coached him to write a confession. And the details in the confession didn't match the details of the case. And they still prosecuted him, and they still convicted him. And then they fought him for many years as he was trying to get out of prison. In the midst of somebody actually confessing to that crime.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, right. So you have this duality of not only is there's this massive injustice for the person that's being wrongfully convicted or tried for this crime, you also have the, like, you know, the fact that justice is being delayed for the actual perpetrator of these crimes.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Yeah, absolutely. Anytime you have a wrongful conviction, that means you have a real perpetrator that still possibly creating mayhem in society. So you have the wrong person in prison which sends ripples through, like, my family, you know, sends ill and negative ripples through my family, destroy my family, but you also have the real perpetrator that's sending ripples through other people's families by not facing justice. So wrongful convictions affect more than just me. You know, of course, I'm at the epicenter of it, and I don't think anybody would have wanted to trade places with the position that I had to carry for that 20 years, but it sends ripples through the community in many different ways when you get the wrong person.
Dylan Carnahan:So when we go back to this, these, you know, let's say the, you've been wrongfully convicted. What impact does that have not only on you, but your relationships after you've been found guilty at the time?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:I lost about 95% of communication with most people that I was in contact with within my first year. It's very difficult for even your immediate family to stand on side of you when it's the state of Michigan versus Marvin Cotton Jr. Or the state of Missouri versus Dylan. Like, we're talking about the whole state versus you. And that's not natural to families. So people don't know how to support you, even when they want to. They believe in you, they want to support you, but they don't know how to help you. So most people just don't. I know all of us would like to think that we will be there for the people that we love, but when the reality of it is so heavy and so hurtful, most people just don't know how to rise to that occasion. That's just the reality. It wasn't just my reality. It was the reality of most people that I was incarcerated with.
Dylan Carnahan:What mentality do you have at, you know, 19 years, seven months, 12 days? Can you elaborate on what you're thinking at the onset? Because you're likely not thinking that I'm going to be here for nearly 20 years. You're thinking that, you know, that you've been wrongfully convicted and that you're going to seek justice and get out, and you're having immediate consequences. Your liberties have been taken from you. You're incarcerated now. You're 95% of people aren't talking. What is that initial feeling, thought process when all these are happening?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:I always thought at every stage that I will be going home. So even before trial, all of the court dates that came before trial, always thought that I was going home on that day. I never lost hope even after I was convicted. I never lost hope. I thought that every appeal that I filed, which were nearly two dozen appeals, every appeal, I'm going home. So like you said, I didn't never think I was going to be in there for 20 years. I thought at this next stage, they're going to be able to see and I'm going to go home. They're going to be able to see the truth and I'm going to be able to go home. I never thought that I would go to trial. After trial, I never thought that it would take years for me to be exonerated and for the truth to be able to be revealed for that to happen. I never thought it will take that long. But the type of mindset that I had to have, I will liken it to like a war mindset. You feel the constant pressure and heaviness of a life sentence. If you relax, it can overtake you. And I've seen men that it overtakes. I've seen men in prison that were so overwhelmed by their circumstances that they didn't even try to fight. They get on medication, start taking psychotropic medication in order to be able to cope and be able to sleep and to be able to kind of deal with what they're going through. Some innocent, some not so innocent, but the pressure of the environment of prison, a life sentence, is very heavy. So you have to go to war with that. And that's what I made up my mind to do very early on. And that was my mindset. So much so that I developed high blood pressure at 29 years old. You know, I was in great shape. I was a vegan, and I'm working out every day. My body was chiseled. I'm very far from that now, but my body was completely chiseled. I looked great, and I had high blood pressure. Because my mindset every day, all day, was a war mindset to be able to fight. It's wrongful conviction. I have to be able to get my name back. I have to prove my innocence. And it became just like my mindset. And it affected my body as a result.
Dylan Carnahan:I want to go to the mindset that you have from a social perspective. You are Marvin, you're Marvin Cotton Jr. You know that you're innocent. You are incarcerated. You know you're innocent. And now you've had this retraction of all your social relationships prior to being incarcerated. And now you're incarcerated. And you're with people, some of which who are not innocent. And you're interacting with them. Can you explain to us what that took from you?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Yeah, it, carrying that truth around with me, yet I'm dressed in blue and orange prison uniform with a number on my back, literal number on the back of every shirt. It was difficult being treated a certain way. It was difficult being looked at a certain way. And I know I'm being treated like a criminal. I'm being treated like somebody that's in prison. That has such a, I always felt the need to prove to everybody that I came in contact with that I was not the prison uniform that I wore. It was like, I can't even really explain it. I can't even really explain it. It's like, it was a constant, I was in a constant state of not only proving that to the courts, but also proving it to everybody that I came in contact with. I did not want to be treated, not like I was better than anybody, but I did not want to be treated like I was a criminal. I didn't, I think that's the best way I can explain it. I detested having to put those prison uniforms on every day. It hurted every day wearing clothes that identified me as one thing, and I was not that. It was like, almost like I was cooperating with this process by putting those uniforms on every day, by having to indulge in the prison routine of things. It was like a psychological war that was going on inside of my head every single day, because I'm fighting, I didn't want to get used to prison. I kept myself uncomfortable purposefully. It's like, I constantly did things to remind myself that I was not going to get comfortable in prison. And as a result, it made my time a little bit more difficult in a lot of ways.
Dylan Carnahan:How did it make it difficult?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Prison is set by routine. Everything is routines, and everything is process. You eat breakfast at the same time every day, you eat lunch at the same time every day, you eat dinner at the same time every day, they open up the yards for recreation at the same time every day. Everything is done in routines. They cut the lights off, you have to... The sails are... You never really have complete darkness in prison or even complete silence in prison. But I did everything I can to make sure that my routine did not fit within the routine of prison. So when they cut the lights off at night, I stayed up and I read, I used the light coming into the sail from the moon to read at night, because I just wanted to... I'm not going to sleep because you turned the lights off. You know, I'm gonna fight against that. You open the sail doors to feed me three times a day. I'm not eating three times a day. I'm gonna miss some of those meals. I'm gonna miss some of the best meals that you served. And all of them was garbage, but they had some that was a little better than others. And most days when I had the good meals, I didn't go purposefully, because I seen other people be happy when they were serving certain meals. And there was almost like a happiness that went through prison, and I did not want to indulge in that. Because it just felt like getting comfortable. It felt like accepting it, and I did not want to accept anything that had anything to do with prison.
Dylan Carnahan:So you did not want to be compliant with the label that you had been assigned. And this label manifested not only through your wrongful conviction, but through what you wore and the process and decorum that you had to adhere to. So you almost lived a life within a life. You had this routine that you were subjected to, but you had to maintain your innocence and reject this label at the same time.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Absolutely. Absolutely. And I tried to do the time with as much honor as I can muster. You know, I didn't catch what are called misconduct tickets. You know, in prison, I can write you like misconduct tickets for different rule violations. And, you know, I went 16 years before I caught a single ticket, which is almost unheard of when you have correctional officers just looking for reasons not only to write tickets, but you have some that look for reasons to give you a bad day. And I still found a way to navigate that process. And that was important to me because again, like I said, I didn't want to be treated like I was a prisoner. So I did my time in such a way that even a correctional officer didn't have anything to say to me because I didn't want that interaction because that interaction would be like a reminder of this is where you at.
Dylan Carnahan:We're, it's my understanding that you had a social circle, if you will, on the basis of religion, while you served your time, is that correct?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Yes.
Dylan Carnahan:How did that help you with serving your time?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:You know, having a strong faith is the only, it's really the only way to get through something like I went through. Having a strong faith and being able to learn and to be able to grow and to be able to create discipline in order to, you know, prison is such a volatile environment. A lot of your listeners may have seen things on TV about prison. It is all of that and more. Prison is, there's never a time where prison is not prison. You know, there's not, there's not bad days and good days in prison. There's every day is a bad day and some days are just worse than others. So in order to be able to get through those bad days and some, sometimes worse days, you have to have a strong faith. You have to have strong discipline in order to be able to navigate a lot of the personalities and emotional and mentally affected people that's in there. You have a lot of people with issues in there. So are you going to be able to out think the people that's trying to visit a bad day on you? Or are you going to indulge in that back and forth and, you know, just make your time a lot worse than it already is? So I had to grow into a real strategic thinker. And I grew a lot under those conditions. And I talk about a lot of it in my book entitled Better Not Broken. And I talk about a lot of tools that I had to develop within myself in order to get to the time of faith. It's definitely at the top of that.
SPEAKER_3:Yeah. What you...
Dylan Carnahan:Something I'm just curious about as well is, you know, you've obviously been vindicated, you've been exonerated, right? Were... And you have this part of you that wants to maintain that image. You don't want to lose that, right? And it's so easy and you were in there for so long, 19 years, 7 months, 12 days. When interacting with other people serving time, how common was it to express the fact that you were innocent? And how did people view that? Because it seems like there may be people that say the same thing, that maybe they don't fall into the exonerated category.
SPEAKER_3:So...
Marvin Cotton Jr.:That sort of conversation is more made for TV than made for reality.
Dylan Carnahan:OK.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:There's not many people that... And it does happen, but it's not many people that walk around prison and claim that they're innocent. Sometimes the conversation could come up. I've met people in prison that knew things about other people cases and knew that other people in there was innocent. Like, I know he didn't do it because such and such did it.
SPEAKER_3:Or...
Marvin Cotton Jr.:And I have had relationships with people. I was able to say, listen, I'm in here for something that I didn't do. And most people don't believe you when you say that. My focus when I came in contact with people in prison was to send people home better than it was, better than they were when I came in contact. So that was the primary objective in my different relationships that I had with people, was to send them home better. So I did a lot of mentoring in prison. I did a lot of speaking. I did a lot of training and just teaching young men, and even older men. It was off times that I was the young guy, and everybody around me was older than me, and I still was in positions of leadership to be able to guide them. But just sending people home better. Every time I came in contact with somebody, they had an out date, because I didn't have an out date. And after a while, I didn't know how long it was going to take in order for me to fight my way out of prison. So I tried to teach as many people as I can. And as I move around the city of Detroit, and even in the Michigan area, and I'm with my wife, every now and then somebody will stop me, and they'll tell my wife like this guy right here, I learned this from him in prison. And she gets to actually see people approach me and like talk about the experience that they had coming in contact with me in prison.
Dylan Carnahan:How does that make you feel?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:It makes me feel good. I'm the type of person that I never feel like anything is enough. I'm a go, go, go, go, go. So, I don't rest, I don't rest at compliments. It's my first time ever saying it like that. I think I'm going to use that. I don't rest at compliments. Somebody give me a compliment and, you know, of course it's the polite thing and the politically correct thing to say thank you. But inside, I don't feel like I've done enough and I don't feel like I do enough. And I haven't found anybody that agreed with me yet, but that's just how I feel.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. And I'm sure there are certain aspects. However, you get there, emotionally or logically, but you have to have a drive. And you mentioned these over, you know, two dozen appeals that you put in. What is the chain of events that ultimately leads to your exoneration?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:I was appointed an attorney. She was, her name is Christina Larson Dunn. And she came to see me before I even found out that she was appointed to my case. I had just fired a couple of attorneys before that. I had several attorneys that I hired before that, but she was court appointed. And she came to visit me, and she had read everything. She had detailed notes about the case. She knew the case. She knew my name. You have a lot of attorneys that come to see you, and they don't even know your name. They're making mistakes on your name. She knew my name. She knew the case very well. And she had a strategy. And what was most important to me, and I stopped her after she gave her presentation, and I said, you know, you've read, it sounds like you've read everything. I said, I'm innocent, and it's important for me if we're going to move forward, that you believe that too. And if you don't believe that, we can't move forward. And, you know, I was very arrogant then, and I was very difficult to work with because I had been fighting by myself for a long time at this point. And, you know, very fearful of the system. And I didn't want to be manipulated or anybody to trick me out of my justice. So I was very difficult with her. And she listened to me and she asked me a couple of questions and she let me talk and she didn't interrupt me. And when I finished, she asked me, was I finished? I said, yes. She said, well, I think you have a very compelling case. And I said, well, you know, do you believe in me, though? Because that's what I'm asking. She was like, yes, I believe in you. I said, OK, we can move forward. So she came to see me a few weeks later, I believe. And she said, listen, it's this new unit called the Conviction Integrity Unit out of the prosecutor office. And I think you should do an application and have them look into your case because they're going to be looking at cases of innocence. And I told her, I said, out of the prosecutor office? She was like, yeah. I said, no, we're not doing that. We're going to proceed with this appeal. You know, we've been talking about it. I have these issues. I have this newly discovered evidence. I have this new information. We're about to move forward with this. And she started asking me questions. She said, why? So I gave her this long dissertation of why we're not going to do it. And she listened to me. And then when I finished, she asked, she said, are you finished? I said, yes. She said, we're doing it anyway. And she told me, she said, you're wrong. She said, I don't agree with some of the things you said. You're wrong. And she said, we're going to do this. And she pulled out the application and she put the e-fan on there and she said, fill it out. And it was the first time in many years that anybody had checked me. And like really, you know, she put me in my place. I'm talking about this little bitty old woman too. Short, little bitty, little bitty, little bitty woman. And had she not been as stern as she was, it's possible that I'd still be sitting in prison. Because it took for her to come at me strong like she did in order for me to get out of my own way.
Dylan Carnahan:So I want to pause there for a second. When you talk about this mindset that you have regarding your appeals and how you'd like to proceed to get out of there, and you have this opposition, if you will, to this idea of working with the prosecutor's office and their specific team. How do you get there mentally? It seems to me that there would be a massive amount of mistrust that you would have in the system because of you being there in the first place.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:I absolutely did, you're right, I absolutely did. And although I agreed with her on that day, it was a process for me to actually arrive at that agreement. So I agreed initially, you know, right then, and then I went through a mental struggle going back and forth before I actually relaxed because she actually gained my trust, my attorney actually gained my trust. And she believed in the process. And I said, I believe in you, you believe in the process, I'm going to take my hands off the steering wheel, I'm going to trust you, you trust this process, let's go. And that process took two and a half years, two and a half years of the prosecutor office, re-investigating my case, going through all of the evidence, re-interviewing witnesses, and they really pulled and picked the case apart, and they pulled and picked me apart as well. And they arrived at 13 reasons why they were going to lead and seek relief on my case. There's 13 reasons, all of them were Brady violations, things that the homicide detectives either, like I said, either withheld or manufactured.
Dylan Carnahan:And so you're saying you've been serving, at this point you've served relative 17 years, and then throughout this process of re-examining the case, this takes an additional two years.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Two and a half years.
Dylan Carnahan:Two and a half years.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Yeah, and that two and a half years, let me tell you, that two and a half years seemed, it felt like 10 years. Because the thing about innocence is, you have so many people against you for so long. When people start believing in you, time start moving really slow. Everything is stressing you out. You feel the pressure, and it's like, okay, these people can see it. Everybody should be able to see it. I should be able to go home tomorrow. I should be able to go home right now. So when people start believing in you, time start moving really slow. And, you know, all of these gray hairs that I have started coming during that time. You know, I was looking pretty good up until, you know, up until that two and a half years. And it was stressful. And trust in the process probably was a part of the stress as well. Because, you know, my appeal, everything was on hold pending, you know, their investigation. You know, so I had a lot on the line and I felt the pressure. I felt the pressure of it.
Dylan Carnahan:Once, once this reexamination concludes, they've come up with these 13 points that substantiate that you were wrongfully convicted, what happens then? So we've got, they've gone back through, they've, you know, picked everything apart. They, they flip the script. They think, we'll even look over and say, he did do it, right? And kind of go through and they, they just examine this entire thing. They come to the conclusion, you've been wrongfully convicted. Here are the 13 reasons, then what?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:When it worked out, and that was like part of my everyday routine. It kind of keeps stress off of you, kind of keep you in shape, keeps you battle ready because you are in a type of environment where you have to be battle ready. So I used to work out every day, and I used to have these really good workouts, not so much anymore. And I was coming off of the prison yard, and something told me to call home. And usually at that time, I wouldn't call home because I would rush back and get in the shower before they locked the prison down because I didn't want to sit in the cell without getting in the shower after I worked out. Well, for some reason, I stopped and I got the phone, called my mother. And when I got on the phone, my mother was like, it's over. I was like, what you mean it's over? And she said, it's over, Kate, it's over. You know, your lawyer called me and said, it's over. So I'm like, hold up. You know, my mother, she's such an optimist that maybe she got a bit of information and she's running with it. And it may not be exactly what she's saying. So I got off the phone with her and I called my daughter. Now my daughter is the complete opposite. She's not a pessimist, but she's going to tell you exactly how it is. She's not going to add anything. She's not going to take anything away. If she says it, you can put all your money on it. So I called my daughter and I said, have you talked to my lawyer? And my daughter was like, well, you're not even supposed to know. Like, how do you even know? You ain't supposed to know. So I'm like, you talked to my lawyer. And she was like, yeah. I said, like, what's up? So my daughter actually confirmed it. So when my daughter confirmed it, I knew that that's what it was. And the next day, I talked to my attorney. My attorney called up to the prison. I talked to my attorney and that made it even realer. And then I went to court two days later via Zoom. And you could find a hearing on online. It's a YouTube video floating around. I'm sure you could find it. Like, you know, Google in my name. And the same day, I walked out the door. The same day I went to court, I walked out the door. And it was really surreal. And I've been home now three months. I mean, three years and like seven, eight months. And I still have surreal moments.
SPEAKER_3:What?
Dylan Carnahan:Well, what was that feeling like the first night you're back?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Remember when I said that there's no real darkness or silence in prison? I went and I lived in a motel for my first 34 days. And my first night, I laid down. I could, you know, my body just wouldn't let me. I didn't want to go to sleep because I didn't want to wake up and thought I was dreaming the whole thing. So I did not want to go to sleep. And I felt so numb from the process that I was not sure that I wasn't dreaming. Like, I literally felt numb. My hearing didn't sound right. My vision wasn't right. You know, emotionally, I didn't feel anything. So I didn't know if I was dreaming or not. So I didn't want to go to sleep. But I laid down and the motel room was completely dark. And it was completely silent. And it scared the hell out of me. I jumped up, it made me, it like, you know, I didn't know that that would even be a problem. And it was, and it took me several months to even getting, to get used to sleeping without the TV on. You know, I turned the TV on at night. I actually didn't get any sleep for eight days. It took me eight days for my body just to shut down and make me go to sleep. Because, like I said, I didn't want to go to sleep. I thought I was going to wake up and dream the whole, and thought I had dreamed the whole thing. So all of the ideas that I thought I had and was going to do once I got out of prison, I did none of those things. You know, I'm like, I'm going to get me some fried chicken and some macaroni, and I'm going to get in the jacuzzi. You know, I did, I did none of those things. It took, it took several weeks to actually relax enough to be able to do things that I thought I wanted to do. And it took, it took a year and a half to even start to learn what I like and to actually enjoy, enjoy things because I just didn't feel anything. Prison numbs you because you don't have an opportunity to grieve when you're in prison. So you have family members just dying, friends just dying, you have horrible things that's happening not only in there, but you call it home and you're finding out about horrible things. In prison doesn't, prison doesn't allow for a grieving process because they don't allow for you to be vulnerable. You can't be vulnerable in that environment. You're vulnerable in that environment, they're going to prey on you, they're going to take advantage of you. So there's a culture of not being vulnerable in prison. And you learn to turn those emotions off so thoroughly, that once you're out, you just can't turn them back on. And it takes time for them to come back on. It takes time for you to have and feel things. It takes time for you to let your guard down and trust people when you've been in an environment where you can't trust people. You know, being around that many men for that long in that such an environment, you know, your words come out stronger. It's always loud in prison, so you're talking loud. So now you're in society and you're talking loud. Everybody in the room looking at you like, why is you talking so loud? Because I just come from an environment where everybody's talking loud. Everybody has almost a toughness or an edge to the way that they talk. And it just becomes a part of the way that people communicate. So that takes some time to get that off of you. Not having choices in prison. Now that I'm out here and you have a menu with these options on it, it's so hard to make a decision. Because your brain has been rewired to either pick plain chips or barbecue chips. They're the only chips you can pick. But you go into the grocery store and you got 30 brands of chips, seven different flavors in each brand. I found myself, Walmart is the worst place in the world for somebody like me, because it's impossible to make decisions in the face of so many options. That's true not only for Exonerees, that's true for anybody who has done a substantial amount of time in prison. Because it's like your brain has just been rewired. All of the things that I thought of myself and how I would interact with it, getting my life back. None of those things were worked out that way. I faced some challenges that I just didn't expect to face. You have people that come back to prison, they get out of prison, they come back. But nobody talks about the trauma and effects that prison had on them once they got out. They don't come back and say, hey listen, when you go home, it's going to be hard to make decisions, it's going to be hard to connect with your family. Nobody come back and share those stories. It's almost like a shame and a stigma attached to it, so they don't say anything to anybody. So I find myself facing some of those things, and that's why the work that we do in the Organization of Exonerees is so important because we understand what those that's been wrongfully convicted go through, and we try to put things in place to where we can actually connect and help people through the process that we know they're going to face because we all faced it. I'm sorry if I was a little bit long-winded.
Dylan Carnahan:No, no, that was great. There was a lot of very good information you gave right there, information that I couldn't have thought to ask to find. What things helped you feel comfortable becoming vulnerable?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:I've always been a very self-aware person. I've always wanted to help people. Like I said, even when I was in that prison environment, I still was trying to help people. It's just so much a part of me that I can't even imagine, I can't imagine not helping people. And I know that it's important for me to be vulnerable and talk about these things because there's so many people that's not. So I think my desire is just to be vulnerable. Not only is it there for me, I don't have to keep it in, but I know that it's also helping somebody else. So I talk about it as a way of just getting it out. I never wanted to be that guy to just feel with so much negativity. And because this horrible thing happened to me, it doesn't mean that I have to happen to other people in that way. You know?
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:So I think it's just my attempt just to flip the circumstances and try to use it to help others.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. It's great to hear that you've been able to channel that. And I think you've definitely embodied that throughout your entire journey. Marvin, you mentioned some of the just initial challenges that you faced upon release. What other challenges did you face?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Now, most people can't imagine building a life from zero. I know a lot of people, but they've started over. Like, hey, I've started my life over. But let me share with you how it is to start your life over after 20 years of having nothing. And you walk out with only the clothes that you have on your back that doesn't even fit right because somebody bought them for you. And you literally have nothing. You have no ID, you have no birth certificate, you have no social security card, you have no bank account, you have no job, you have nothing in your name, and you have no resources. And I was locked up for 19 years, seven months and 12 days. And those are nearly 20 years of not building the relationships that successful people have in order to sustain their success. All successful people have relationships. People they've met in college, people they met at their first job, people they met at their second job, their frat brothers, their sorority sisters, they built this network of people that can help sustain their success. I had 20 years of not meeting people. So not only did I come home with nothing, not even the basic things that I would need to even get a bank account, I came home with no credit. I came home without those relationships to be able to pick up the phone and ask someone, hey, listen, I need a lead on a job. I need some help with this. Coming home as an Exoneree means you're building your life from zero, and that's a very difficult thing to do. It's difficult to accumulate a wardrobe. Most people don't think about it because some of your clothes just roll over from the year before and two years and three years before and next thing you know, you have this closet full of things that you have. But as an Exoneree, you come home and you don't have anything. What you do have is a lot of people looking at you. You know, so here you go, come on with all of this trauma and you have nothing and everybody's watching you and nobody knows how to help. So that's what it felt like coming home. Feeling the pressure of I have to do something to be successful. So I found myself chasing chasing success and running from failure. I literally felt it and I had to check myself after about a year and a half. I said, what am I doing? I feel like I'm running every damn day. So I had to check myself and change the way that I was looking at it. Instead of chasing or running from failure, I said, let me just run for health. It's a difference between somebody running from a dog and somebody actually jogging for exercise. They're too different looks. So I went from running from a dog, running from failure to just jogging for health. And it really changed my perspective. It changed the way that I look at life.
Dylan Carnahan:When you bring up how you were running after success upon your release, what are some things you can attribute that to? It seems like you have a lot of pressure from people around you, whether they're saying it or not, right? Marvin, you're home. You're home now. And you also have this aspect of you've been gone for a while. A while is an understatement. And so, you have these expectations other people have and this sense of loss, it seems like, that you're coping with.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Absolutely. Being in prison, and so many people turning their back on me, or not knowing how they help. When I walked out of prison, I never wanted to be in a position or situation where I needed anybody. So that was more pressure. I didn't want to fail, because I knew failing may mean not having anyone to help me pick up the pieces. I think that's why I work so hard, why I grind so hard. Now, I know what it felt like. You know, you know, my mother was always there for me during those 20 years. And, you know, my now wife, she was a friend of mine then. And, and, and, you know, my right hand and a few other people, they were, they were there. But very few people, very few people were there for me, and very few people even have what it takes to be there for someone that was in a situation like I was. And I understand it. I don't hold it against anyone. I'm the most positive person, the friendliest person in every room I'm in, even if I'm in a room full of people, that wasn't there for me. I'm not, I'm not mad or bitter about anything. It actually helped shape me into the man that I am. As hard as it was to get through those days, it actually shaped me into someone that is not going to be in a position to need anyone to fall back on, if that makes sense. Like, yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:In your time that you've been out, how often have you encountered a stigma that other people have put on you, being that you serve time?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:You know, a cousin of mine, when I first got out, maybe two months, three months, he said, you know, it's good seeing you. I'm glad you're out. You know, stay out of prison. I said, what? He said, no, you know, stay out of prison, stay out of trouble. I said, I was never in trouble to begin with. I didn't do anything to be in prison. What do you mean, stay out of prison? He said, no, no, I'm just saying, you know, stay out of trouble. And I don't know if he even realized what he was saying. But that was definitely one of the most hurtful things that someone has said to me. It's almost like he was willfully just being ignorant. And, you know, it hurt it. I spent 20 years in prison trying to prove every single day to everybody that I came in contact with that I did not belong in prison, to walk out of prison, and to be told, stay out of prison, stay out of trouble. And most people don't say that, but some people do treat me like that. I've been at events where I'm sitting at the table, and, you know, I'm talking to people that either recognize me or know me. And, you know, my story comes up, and I'm sharing my story. And then people that was just friendly with me at the table don't talk to me anymore. You know, and that's hurtful. You know, most people don't understand, and I understand it, you know, and that's why education is a part of, you know, a lot of what we do. But most people don't understand the difference between an expungement and exoneration. You know, an expungement is when you go through a process to get something taken off your record for something that you actually did. And an exoneration is when you go through a process for something that you was never supposed to go through to begin with. It was never supposed to be on your record. You were never supposed to be convicted. You were never supposed to suffer that. But most people don't know the difference. And I do get comments from people that let me know that they don't know the difference. And that's hurtful too. You know, and I don't think I've ever talked about it in any setting the way that I'm talking to you right now about it. But it is hurtful. But I don't show it. It's just an opportunity for me to teach on it.
Dylan Carnahan:It must be, it must not be easy to have cultivated a sense of vulnerability, right? You've been so guarded. You were in such a terrible environment for so many years. And then to do this work, to ground yourself, to be more vulnerable, be more in touch with yourself and people around you. And then have to be knocked down by comments like that.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Yes, it is. It's tough. You know, you walk out of prison and you conclude one war, then you pick up many new wars. From the moment that you walk out of prison, the same government that exonerates you, other aspects of the same government hires attorneys to fight you because they don't want to compensate you for the wrong that has been done to you. So you conclude one war and immediately picks up a new war. Then you have the war of the family trying to, you know, reintroduce yourself to people that you love but they don't know you anymore. Because you're different, your circumstance has changed you. So they don't know you anymore. And you really don't know them either because they've lived life as well. But you love them and they love you, but it's difficult. You know, some carrying a shame that they wasn't there for you. They're awkward moments because they're happy to see you, but they wasn't there for you either. So now it's awkward and they don't know how to be they're not really trusting that you're not mad at them. You know, you're just so damn happy to have been exonerated and to have climbed out of that grave. But you don't care about the mud that's on you. You just climbed out of a grave. Like I can breathe. I don't care about this mud. I don't care about the mud that's on me or on you. I can breathe and most people don't know how to respond to somebody that's just so damn happy. Yeah. I struggle within my family as well. It's just building those relationships. That guilt and that shame of not being there for me sometimes creates such awkward moments that people don't know how to be and it's like I'm being robbed all over again.
Dylan Carnahan:You were put in such an unfortunate and unique situation and that has ripple effects and like you said, these constant battles, these new battles that have come up and all of these emotions and things that you've had to work through based upon all these experiences, Marvin, what guidance would you offer the average person and others about being wrongfully convicted of a crime?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Therapy is a must. Do not think that you can do this on your own or that you even have to try to do it on your own. Therapy is a must. And you don't have to go through a wrongful conviction to have, you know, to seek therapy. If you can hear my voice right now, most likely, you need some therapy for something. The world that we live in is filled with different traumas. It's filled with different things that we have to process and work out. You know, my case, it's more extreme because it's hard for anybody to believe that we have many innocent people in this world that's still locked up right now. And it's kind of easy to ignore those things. You hear or see my case, people are usually like, wow. But we all have things that we need to work out. So therapy is number one. Number two, building a support system of friends and people that really want your best interests or have your best interests at heart. You'd be lucky to have more than one. Any of us are lucky to have more than one. If you have one friend, you're a very lucky person. If you have more than that, you're extremely blessed for sure. But having a strong, solid network of people that will tell you the truth and that you can accept it from them. They see something that they're worried about, that they can just tell you and say, listen, I'm concerned, I'm worried about you. How can I help? Everybody needs that at least one person that will look them in the face and speak truth to them in a way that they can receive it. Therapy, number one, having really good friendships or support system is number two. Number three, always advocate for yourself. That's really number one. Advocate for yourself, speak your mind. Somebody that's been wrongfully convicted, get our voice was taken away for many years, and we finally get our voice back, we have to be able to use it. If we feel like we deserve something or something, it's not. Having your voice, having your voice is good for your soul. I don't care who you are. I think those three things is a great start for anybody that's dealing with trauma or anybody that's trying to make it through something. Nobody has to sit and suffer and then not use their voice. Use your voice.
Dylan Carnahan:I'm very appreciative of the way you've used your voice during this conversation. I know that our listeners are as well. What's the best way for people to learn more about you and the work you do?
Marvin Cotton Jr.:You can follow me on social media. On Facebook, it's Marvin Cotton Jr. On LinkedIn, where we met, it's Marvin Cotton Jr. On Instagram, it's TheTHE underscore Reoreal underscore FMC on Instagram, and also Better Not Broken on Instagram and Facebook. I have business pages on there, Better Not Broken. And my website is www.betternotbrokenllc.org. And you can always check out different things that I'm working on and different things that I have done. And you can find my book, it's an Amazon bestseller, so you can look up Better Not Broken or Marvin Cotton Jr. and find my book on Amazon.
Dylan Carnahan:We will be be sure to put all of that great stuff in the show notes. So be sure to check those out. Marvin, I'm very grateful that that you're breathing free air and that you are using your voice. It would be so easy with what you've been through to just enjoy the time you've had, but you're utilizing it, you're teaching people, you're speaking. And I'm just really grateful that you shared your time and knowledge today.
Marvin Cotton Jr.:Well, it's definitely an honor being here. And I will tell you that I've done many shows, podcasts, radio, all sorts of TV. I've done a lot. And you've asked me some new questions. And you've presented this interview in a way that probably has never been done before. And that's really new to me. And I really appreciate that more than you felt.
Dylan Carnahan:Thank you. That wraps up our conversation with Marvin. We talked about the chain of events that can lead to an exoneration, incarcerated life, and the psychological impacts of incarceration. Go to this episode Show Notes to see any resources Marvin mentioned during our episode. And lastly, subscribe to the Simple Questions Podcast to get notified when our latest episodes are released. Thank you for listening. And remember to keep asking questions.