In this episode of “The Pinnacle Pod” Tricia Rojo Bushnell, Executive Director of the Midwest Innocence Project (MIP) and 2021 Pinnacle Prize winner, speaks with host Maurice Watson about her journey to fighting wrongful convictions. Tricia also discusses MIP’s work preventing injustices through policy change, empowering those impacted by the system, and how community support can be a catalyst for justice.

Transcript:

Maurice Watson:

Welcome to “The Pinnacle Pod”, the voice of The Pinnacle Prize, an annual award recognizing passionate people who are driving positive change in the very fabric of Kansas City. I’m Maurice Watson, your host, on this conversational journey to meet dynamic emerging leaders. Each month we’ll delve into tales of resilience, learn from innovative approaches, and be inspired by the determination of these remarkable individuals. Today I’m honored to welcome Tricia Rojo Bushnell, Executive Director of the Midwest Innocence Project and winner of The Pinnacle Prize, a California native of Mexican descent. Tricia received her BA from Bucknell University and her JD from NYU School of Law. She approaches problems with the belief that representation matters and that solutions to problems must come from those directly impacted. She has engaged this philosophy in her previous work as an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Law, a fellow with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, and an associate at the law firm of Kirkland and Ellis in Los Angeles. She has also served as a President of the ACLU of Missouri on the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s diverse business committee, and as President of the Innocence Network, as the Executive Director of Midwest Innocence Project, MIP for short, Tricia works to free innocent people convicted of crimes they did not commit. She’s responsible for managing all aspects of MIP and serves as its lead attorney representing clients in court and in clemency proceedings. Tricia believes in the power of community and what can be achieved together. Thank you so much for joining us, Tricia.

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

Thanks so much for having me.

Maurice Watson:

Let’s get started with you explaining to me and our audience about your work. So habeas law and human rights work is incredibly complex. What drew you to this work? And you might want to begin by explaining what habeas work is.

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

Yeah, <laugh>. I mean, I think most folks listening to this who don’t know what it is, I didn’t know what it is when I got into it, and I got into it completely by accident, right? I don’t think its what folks know about. Habeas corpus is the full, long name of it, and it means folding the body, right? So we do kinds of law for people to release the body from jail or from prison. In some cases people do habeas without immigration law, but essentially it’s work to get people out of prison. It’s a very specialized area of law, very complicated. They say that the most complicated things are tax, immigration and habeas, and that’s what I do. I got into it not knowing that that’s what that was and that that’s what I wanted to do. I actually went to law school because I wanted to be an immigration lawyer. My family is Mexican American. I’m the first in my family to go to college. And so when I was going to law school I really wanted to do immigration work and support folks like some of my family members. I picked a law school that had a really great immigration program. I did a clinic, which is like a residency for doctors. You go and you represent real clients under supervision. But professor loved it except my last year of law school, I was getting ready to do the advanced clinic for the immigrant rights, and a professor that I’d had for all the years that I’d been there, was not famous then and pretty much is now, was bringing his clinic back for the first time ever. And so that was Bryan Stevenson, and he brought back his clinic, which was to represent people sentenced to death in Alabama as a law student. So, I spent my very last semester of law school in Montgomery, Alabama, and I worked on the case of a man named Emmanuel Gissendanner. We investigated that case. You look at sort of two phases of a death penalty case, the guilt phase, do they do it or not? And the sentence, so do we sentence them to death at the hands of the state or do we sentence them to death in prison, essentially? Most of the time in these cases, you’re looking at the sentencing phase. We started investigating this case and it turned out he was actually innocent. So when I graduated law school and I went to a law firm in LA, they somehow let me bring that case with me. So, I continued to work on Mr. Gissendanner’s case in Los Angeles, and ultimately decided to go back to Alabama to keep doing that kind of work.

Maurice Watson:

That’s fascinating. I do want to say, I’ve told you this before, but Bryan Stevenson was in my small section in law school, the first year of law school. And all of us understood very early on that he was gonna do something really important in life other than to join a big corporate law firm like 99% of the rest of the law students in my first year. You’ve also, in the past, talked about a rebellious lawyering. Describe to me what that is and what it looks like, what it’s meant to you and how it’s directed your career.

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

Yeah, you know, rebellious lawyering is a term that sort of came around in the early nineties from a professor, Gerald Lopez. It means a lot of different things to different people, but for me, what it means is a style of representation, which is that the lawyer isn’t the most important thing in law, right? If we’re here to represent people, it should be about people. And so how are we actually empowering the people that we represent to have power in the system? And so, one of the things about being a lawyer, <laugh>, if you’re trying to make change, is you are working in the system, right? You need people who work both in the system and out of the system to change the system. But when you’re working in the system, it can be really hard to say, I’m operating under these rules, but let me change all of them. Rebellious lawyering says exactly that though. This is the way the system is designed, but this is not the way it should be. How can I use my role within the system to create that better world and to really make it accessible for other people?

Maurice Watson:

Now talk about your work with the Midwest Innocence Project.

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

Currently I’m the executive director. I have been here almost 10 years. I started originally as the Legal Director. So, at the Midwest Innocence Project, we represent people convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. We work to investigate their case, litigate it to bring them home. And then we also do policy and research to prevent wrongful convictions in the first place, and also social work to support folks as they’re returning home.

Maurice Watson:

It’s estimated that 4,000 people are incarcerated for crimes they did not commit within the five state area, which the Midwest Innocence Project serves. Tell us about the goals and mission, its affiliation with the larger Innocence Network and how you got involved with the organization. You’ve already given us some background on that, but tell us what drew you from California to come out to the Midwest. Do you have any prior connection with the Midwest or Kansas City?

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

I had no, no prior relationship. Um, I had never been to Kansas City until I came and interviewed for this job. So, you know, after I left the law firm, I went back to Alabama and I did a two year fellowship with Equal Justice Initiative. And at the end of those two years, ended up going to Wisconsin, where I taught as professor there in their Innocence Organization and also in their criminal appeals project. But like with many law schools around the country, funding was getting cut and we had to look for other positions. And so I looked, and I took the position here. At the time, MIP was going through a brand new restructuring. It was, it’s actually one of the first five innocence organizations to exist in the United States. But for a variety of reasons, the way it was structured as a clinic, solely a clinic, in the law school wasn’t working with the sort of the nonprofit aspect of it. So, when I came in and I was hired, I was actually the only staff member at that time. And so, because I especially had experience in other places, I was able to draw on all of these different ways. We know how to do the work and put it to work here in this region, but every state and every region is unique. And there are definitely different issues that we see here, that I see here that are gonna keep me here. I mean, there’s so much work to be done, particularly in the Midwest. I think that when people think about injustice, when they think about racism in the criminal legal system, they think of the South, they think of big cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia. They don’t think of Kansas City, Kansas, just over the border, right? Which has some of the most horrific police misconduct you’ll ever hear of. And so they send those resources to those other places. So in some states that we work in, like in Iowa, there’s been nobody litigating innocence before. So we get into court and we’re the first people to ever stand up and say, this is an issue and we want you to hear it. And there’s no precedent to rely on, there’s nothing to look back to. We have to make that law. But that is very different than in other parts of the country.

Maurice Watson:

How many states do you currently serve?

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

So, we work in five states, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Arkansas, which is the Midwest for our purposes.

Maurice Watson:

As an organization committed to justice in the legal system, how can the average person get involved?

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

There’s always something for everyone to do. I think one of the things that I always think about is just educating yourself. Something we say in our office a lot is, do you know your prosecutor? Right? So the prosecutor is the person who decides what justice is in your jurisdiction, and many people don’t even know who that is, right? So taking an understanding that we as individuals create the system and we have a responsibility to monitor the system because anything that happens from it happens in our name. So knowing your prosecutor, serving on a jury, right? Not trying to get out of something that is, is something so critical and important. And then sharing information. I mean, most folks in this region have heard of our client, Kevin Strickland, who exonerated in 2021 after 43 years wrongfully convicted. Prosecutor wanted him to come home, the Attorney General didn’t. So, we had this interesting battle where we had to pass a law to let the prosecutor file a motion to an attorney’s conviction. But the Attorney General still fought it. And we were going up and down in the courts over and over. But one of the reasons we were able to pass that law, and one of the reasons that Kevin came home is because of the publicity around it. Because people were sharing his story, people were talking about it, people were saying, what is going on in Missouri? Why is this happening? And without that pressure, the system doesn’t change, right? So just talking about it, sharing and caring is really one of the biggest things folks can do.

Maurice Watson:

And can people help with financial resources and contributions to support the work of the Midwest Innocence Project?

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

Always. I mean, obviously, we’re a nonprofit and like every nonprofit, that means we’re under resource. Folks can always make a donation. That goes a long way, especially when we’re able to leverage it with our pro bono partners at law firms. And it also brings up an interesting point that you mentioned earlier, which is, you know, every Innocence organization is actually independent. So we’re the Midwest Innocence Project. We work in this region. We are separate and distinct from the organization many people know, which is The Innocence Project in New York. We affiliate and work together as there’s currently 73 Innocence organizations in the, mostly in the US but also around the world that are members of what’s called the Innocence Network. I was actually president in the Innocence Network up until about a month ago, and we all work together, but we’re all independent. We have our own criteria for how we take cases and individual funding. So for anyone who really cares about these issues, really donating to your local organization to work on your local issues is the biggest thing you could do.

Maurice Watson:

Tricia, you and Tara Raghuveer were two of the first recipients of The Pinnacle Prize back in 2021. It’s been a while since you and I have talked about that experience as the part of the inaugural class of the Pinnacle Prize. What are you focused on right now? Has your work changed or evolved, and if so, in what way since 2021?

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

Certainly, we’re doing a lot of the same things folks would expect a lot of direct representation, bringing people home. But our organization really has shifted to put more resources into the preventative measures. So not only do we pass laws in all of the states that we work in, but we’ve been working with police departments to change their different policies. We did a training for all of the investigators in the state public defender for both Kansas and Missouri. So those investigators had never once had a training before provided for them. So we did a two day training, because we know that that work is gonna prevent wrongful convictions in the long run, right? I mean, our whole goal is to really work ourselves out of a job. And so we can’t just be reactionary. We have to be on the front end. And there’s so many interesting and frightening things to think about when we think about the front end. I mean, you’ll see AI in the news all the time now, right? What does that mean in the criminal legal system? What are we using that for? What do those shot spotters do? What does facial recognition do? All those things are gonna play a role in the criminal legal system, and we need to be preventative about it now or else the numbers of wrong convict people are just gonna grow and we’re just constantly gonna be responding.

Maurice Watson:

Your commitment and enthusiasm for your work is incredibly gratifying. What’s next for you?

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

Well, a lot of more are the same <laugh>, but I do think one of the things that I’m able to focus on now, particularly as I’ve been able to grow in my leadership and my time, is really providing the resources for directly impacted people to be the leaders in not only this movement, but any movement. I think I hold a lot of privilege when I walk in a room. I’m a very light-skinned person. I have a, you know, broad education. And in many spaces that I go, especially as a lawyer, people don’t know that I am a justice impacted person. I have family members who have been incarcerated. I’ve lost two family members to police violence. One of my family members, I lost to police violence on the day that I was filing Ricky Kidd’s brief for him to come home.

Maurice Watson:

Tell us about Ricky Kidd.

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

Ricky Kidd was wrongfully incarcerated here in Kansas City. He has been home since 2019. He was convicted of a double homicide he didn’t commit. And all of that happened, even though he had an incredible alibi, that he was at a sheriff’s department getting a gun permit at the time of the crime. So, it took, you know, years and years of litigation for him to come home. A lot of that litigation just being, are you allowed to be in court or not? Years of that until he did finally come home. And now, you know, I’ve been lucky to have him as a colleague and to continue to learn from him. But you know, those are the times. Like I remember when we were filing that brief that people who don’t have these other kinds of experiences don’t continue to have when they’re doing the work. So anytime someone says to me, oh, you’re changing the system, or, oh, you’re doing something like this, I keep thinking, well, who are all of the people who would be changing it if they had the resources? Right? So, you know, Ricky Kidd likes to say he’s going from justice impacted to justice impacting. And so, part of what I’m looking to do is to be able to give the influx of resources that I get as someone you know, who gets to be in the room, has an education to folks who don’t, and let them really lead the way of what those next changes are going to be.

Maurice Watson:

Well, you’ve already given us some information on this, but I do want you to have the opportunity to tell our audience how they can connect, learn more about the Midwest Innocence Project and provide support.

Tricia Rojo Bushnell:

Absolutely. You can go to our website, which is www.theMIP.org for The Midwest Innocence Project, and you can follow us on social media; Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and sign up for our newsletter. Certainly, donations are always helpful, but just staying in touch so that you can use your voice when these issues arise is one of the most powerful things folks can do.

Maurice Watson:

Thank you so much for all you do. It is so important to all of us. Thanks for listening. And be sure to sign up for our newsletter at PinnaclePrizeKC.org to continue to listen, learn and be inspired by dynamic emerging leaders in our community.

Hosted By Maurice Watson

Maurice is a recognized community leader and has more than thirty years of experience working in law, social and public policy and board governance as a lawyer, advisor, and board member. He is the co-founder and principal of Credo Philanthropy Advisors.