Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1714 - Josh Dubin & Robert Jones
Uploaded: 2021-10-05T00:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1714 - Josh Dubin & Robert Jones' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-10-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1714 - Josh Dubin & Robert Jones' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-10-05. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1714 - Josh Dubin & Robert Jones

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
Gentlemen, what's up?
How are you?
Good to see you, man.
See you, bro.
Always.
And Robert, very nice to meet you.
It's a pleasure as well.
Pull this sucker up right to your face.
It moves around.
Yeah, it's very...
That's cool.
Yeah, try to keep it like a fist from your face.
All right.
Before we...
Let's just get into it.
Let's explain Robert.
Why don't you get started with this?
Explain how you came to know Robert and what his circumstances were.
Yeah.
In 2016, 2016, right?
Yeah.
I was speaking in New Orleans.
I was asked to speak at this conference of hundreds of criminal defense
attorneys with Barry Sheck,
who founded the Innocence Project.
And we were teaching a class, essentially, from the National Association of
Criminal Defense Lawyers.
And Barry and I were giving a presentation in front of hundreds of lawyers
about things that they could do to ensure that during jury selection and a
trial,
that you can expose prosecutorial misconduct, how you can make stronger legal
pleas to get what we call exculpatory evidence or evidence that would tend to
show someone's innocence.
So it was an hour long speech, and Barry and I were going in 15-minute blocks.
And at some point while we're on the stage, and I feel like we're killing it.
You know, I'm, like, feeling myself.
Like, they're really loving this stuff.
And at some point on stage, Barry goes to me, by the way, you know, we just had
an exoneration here in New Orleans.
And this guy might show up.
And I said, when was the exoneration?
He said, just a couple of weeks ago.
And I said, it's kind of a tricky thing to put him in a position to come up and
speak in front of hundreds of lawyers.
And I said, how long was he in for?
He said, almost 24 years, 23 years, seven months for a vicious rape and murder
that he didn't commit.
So we're wrapping up our speech.
And all of a sudden I see this man walk in the room, and, like, a lot of heads
turn around because it was, like, a big hotel, like, ballroom.
And all the heads swung around because the door opened real loud and slammed.
So everybody is looking at this guy, and I see this very well-dressed man.
And Barry, you know, says, oh, and, you know, we have a very special treat for
you.
This man, just a few weeks ago, was walked out of Angola, one of the most
violent penitentiaries in the country.
And I feel like, you know, something bad is about to happen because I know what
that's like to, at least, I don't know what it's like,
but I know what it's like to see somebody in the throes of just getting out.
And they're usually shell-shocked in a way that is not conducive to public
speaking.
So this guy just strides up on the stage, grabs the mic, and gives this galvanizing
speech where, you know,
like you could see the jaws dropping open about how important it is to fight
while you're in court
and to not back down from judges that aren't letting you, you know, protect
your client's constitutional rights.
And I'm sitting there watching him, and I'm thinking to myself, I've never seen
anything like this.
So Robert and I met right there on the stage, and we got to talking, and then
we went across the street to a bar.
And we had more than a few cocktails, and he told me his whole story about the
crime, about this awful, you know,
set of prosecutors and detectives that covered up evidence and lied and were
responsible for his incarceration.
And I've said this to you before, these, you know, if you've never been in the
presence of an exoneree,
you don't really know, you know, really the true strength and, like, the
triumph of the human spirit in a way that is very hard to describe.
So, you know, 25 minutes in, we're at a very crowded bar in the French Quarter,
and I'm weeping.
So this woman is sitting at the bar, and Robert puts his arm on me, and he's
just like, it's all right, I'm going to be all right.
And we had, like, one of those conversations where it was like, we just
connected in a way that was, you know, really extraordinary.
And then I went on to help represent him in his civil rights case.
And, but that's how we met.
I don't want to give away too much of his story because I'd rather him tell it,
but that's how we met.
And then, you know, have kept in close contact over the last, you know, five
years or so.
And I say this with full confidence that none of it is hyperbole.
You're in the presence of a miracle.
I mean, what this man was able to endure, overcome, and accomplish since he's
been out is nothing short of mind-blowing.
I mean, he's a force of nature, and it's just such an honor to bring him here.
How long have you been out, Robert?
About five years or so.
And has it, what has the transition been like from the first day you're out to
now?
Is it, have you, like, gradually become accustomed to this idea that they're
not going to drag you back in?
Have you, have you, like, has freedom changed, like, the way it feels?
Is it, like, normal now?
Maybe after, after my charges were dismissed, I was released in 2015, but maybe
two years after that, being threatened for a retry.
After that was over, when the charges was actually dismissed on my 44th
birthday, right, which a day I'll never forget, I started feeling freedom from
there, in a sense, because I wasn't tied into anything no more, in the sense of.
You didn't have it hovering.
Right.
So, yes, it has been a transition from the first day I got out until, even
until now, a lot of things I'm getting accustomed to.
And just the way the world is, right, you know, inside of, inside of prison,
you live under a set of rules and guidelines, administratively and as a
prisoner, right?
They got their own set of rules, you know.
And one of the things is about respect.
Respect is huge and just having that empathy for other, other people that's in
the situation that you are in, right?
So, immediately when I got out, maybe by the first week I was, I was out.
I'm going to tell you, one of the transitional phases, I was with a friend in a
river walk, like near the French Quarters in New Orleans.
And man, I was just talking and I seen an old lady crossing the streets, an old
white lady on one of those canes, like the full stand canes.
Yeah.
Like a walker.
Yeah, like a walker, right?
And it's like, she's crossing the streets, but these cars kind of like moving
kind of fast and a lot of traffic, you know, and people blowing homes and
different things of that nature.
And I'm like looking at everybody like, ain't nobody going to help this old
lady?
Like, she, she might get hit, you know, a car might hit her, right?
So, I'm talking to my friend, but I'm constantly paying attention to what's
going on, right?
Paying attention to my surroundings.
So, I said, man, what the hell?
I went and helped her, made sure that she crossed the streets safely.
And when I got back to the other side, people were like clapping and patting me
on my back.
I'm like, this is a fucked up world.
Like, you're giving me accolades.
For doing a normal human thing.
Right.
Yeah, that you're supposed to do.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I know that I was in for a hell of a transition.
Just to see that people didn't have respect for one another.
I mean, just passing my people and just saying, excuse me, right?
Open the door for women and older people and children.
Shit like that.
So, are you saying that there's more of that in prison?
Well, in prison, it's just like, it's a lot of respect.
Because when you don't respect nobody, I mean, that's consequences for it,
right?
Right.
Maybe not those particular instance, but just that level and that mindset of
having that level of respect.
You know, if you're in your own space, a guy is not going to invade your space.
And if you invade your space, that's consequences for that, right?
So, it's just having that level of respect.
So, what I said is, coming into society and making that transition, it was
difficult in that aspect, amongst a lot of other things.
So, you were 20 years old when they arrested you?
19.
19.
And can you explain the circumstances, like what happened, how you found out
about it?
How did you find out you were being accused of something that you didn't do?
Well, actually, they came to my mom's house, knocking on the door, banging on
the door.
The police raided the house, pulled out guns and said they were looking for me
for some crimes.
And I was like, I mean, knowing I didn't commit no crimes, right?
So, like...
You had never been in trouble before that?
Little shit?
Yeah, just normal things that people growing up in private, they get in trouble
for.
Right.
You know, selling drugs and just being...
Mm-hmm.
Basically, being a product of your environment.
You know, things that you see and participate in.
But not no shit I did was trying to say I was involved in, like murder, robberies,
rape.
I'm like, what the hell?
And so, and I was thinking in more terms of, okay, well, I'm just going to go
to the station.
But, and I told my mom, I can still remember this, I said, I'll be back, I'll
be right back.
I said, no, I ain't do shit, right?
Right.
So, I left out the house and went down to the station when they went to telling
me about this murder I was told with, these armed robbers and rape them.
I'm like, man, y'all people have lost y'all mind.
Like, so me understanding the system as from what I was, I mean, from what was
known, innocent people wasn't, it wasn't prevalent during that time.
In 1992, it wasn't a huge thing where innocent people would get arrested for
crimes and get convicted, right?
So, I'm thinking that when people commit crime, they get arrested, they go to
jail.
That's the standard norm, right?
So, I was under that presumption of assuming that, well, eventually they'll get
this shit right once they go to talking to folks and different things of that
nature.
And so, yeah, it was mind-blowing just to be known I was charged with aggravated
rape, first-degree murder at the time, and a whole slew of armed robberies, you
know?
And what did they try to say they had on you as far as evidence?
Well, a lot of that stuff kind of came out in the proceedings thereafter.
They just, I mean, initially during the arrest, they don't really tell you all
that.
You don't find these things out until you, eventually, you're arrested.
I mean, because it was a British tourist that was involved in the, I mean, that
was a part of the crime, so shit made national news.
So, I was on television, like, internationally.
This case was, like, really huge because of publicity.
So, I mean, half of the stuff, technically, I would charge, well, I didn't even
understand as to what was the evidence and, I mean, what they had against me or
what have you until I started going through the court proceedings.
And, you know, they said they had eyewitnesses, then they didn't, and then they
said they didn't have eyewitnesses.
So, in the Orleans Parish Jail, right?
I stayed in the Orleans Parish Jail four years, four years before I was
actually convicted.
And that because the state's case had a lot of difficulties as it relates to
the identification procedures that happened.
And eventually, I was ended up convicted because a lot of things was with hell
that showed that someone else actually committed a crime, committed a crime.
And they knew about this evidence that would have exonerated you.
They knew about it.
These motherfuckers.
That, to me, is the craziest thing when I hear about that over and over and
over again.
And Josh has brought this up, I don't know, to me, more than a dozen times,
horrific cases where the prosecutors absolutely knew that they were convicting
an innocent person.
They knew that there was evidence.
They withheld that evidence.
Right.
How the fuck do those people not wind up going to jail?
That, to me, wanting to put someone in jail for a crime that they're innocent
of is almost as horrific as the crime you're charging the person 