Last week, four Montana Innocence Project staff members and freed client Joseph Jefferson-Dust attended the 2024 Innocence Network Conference in New Orleans. Over 1,200 people were united in community at the event, including 400 freed and exonerated people, who had endured a total of 6,654 years of wrongful imprisonment. Our staff and client Joseph Jefferson-Dust engaged in educational sessions, community-building, collective empowerment, and healing. In this episode they will reflect on their biggest takeaways from the event! To see photos from the conference, head over to our Instagram @Bigskyinnocence.
MTIP Communications Associate Ashley Miller spoke with client Katie Garding to discuss her reentry journey over the last year, after her wrongful conviction was overturned in March of 2023. She discussed updates on where her wrongful conviction case stands today, her newfound career, and her hopes for the future! Take a listen!
MTIP Communications Manager Ashley Miller spoke with client Bernard Pease Jr. and his sister Linda Thomas over the phone to discuss his re-entry journey after spending nearly 40 years wrongfully incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. On January 2nd, Bernie was discharged from the Alpha House Pre-release Center in Billings, MT and was reunited with his family. He candidly discussed new challenges he is facing after incarceration, the excitement of being home with family, and his hopes for the future.
Dana Comes At Night, Lisa Brueggeman, and Stacy Markus play instrumental roles in the Adult Drug Court program located in Polson, Montana, which serves Lake County defendants receiving treatment for crimes relating to substance use disorder. Along with more than half of the participants, all three women are Indigenous. Dana is enrolled in the Blackfeet Nation, and Lisa and Stacy are members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes. Indigenous defendants face the additional hurdle of navigating the complex generational trauma resulting from colonization. This was true for Dana, Lisa, and Stacy during their personal justice involvement. Today, they serve as examples of women from their communities who survived the system. They draw on their shared experiences with participants to infuse sincerity, truth, and understanding into the program. The Montana Innocence Project had the opportunity to attend one of their Thursday evening group sessions. The impact of their leadership as people who were once in the same positions as the participants sitting around the table with them was evident the entire time. In today’s episode, you will hear from each of the women about how they found themselves working in the same courtroom they were once sentenced in and the power of that dynamic.
The Montana Innocence Project is beginning the exciting work of digging into how we can meaningfully address not only wrongful convictions but also unjust convictions. In today’s episode, MTIP Executive Director Amy Sings In The Timber breaks down what Second Chance work is and how our organization is in the early yet promising stages of understanding mechanisms of release for the unjustly incarcerated.