Isaac Wright, Jr. successfully fought his own wrongful conviction to life in prison, and has spent years since clearing his own name as well as those of other inmates in similar circumstances. Hear the incredible story of how he fought the system from within and prevailed, and how he has used that knowledge to not only cement himself a legal legacy, but used it to clear and preserve the legacies of countless others.

Welcome everybody. My name is Gary Michels. I'm the

host of Let's Talk Legacy, but I'm really excited about our

guest today. Isaac Wright, Jr. He's an attorney, a businessman,

a philanthropist, someone who successfully fought a wrongful

conviction to life in prison and has worked ever since to clear

the legacies of others under similar circumstances. Let's set

the scene for our listeners. By the late 80s, you were a talent

manager and owned an independent record label, while your wife,

at the time, was a member of the platinum selling group, which

you co founded, called the Covergirls. This all ended in

1989 when you were charged with being the mastermind behind one

of the largest drug distribution networks in the country and

convicted to life in prison, but you didn't do it right? First of

all, tell us what it was like to have your life just broken down

in the blink of an eye, just like that.

Isaac Wright Jr: You know, it's, uh, it's always, every time I I

reflect on that, it I always feel something different. This

is something that never leaves you, and it has so many

dimensions to it, emotionally that every time you reflect, you

get a little bit more deeper in your reflection than you were

before the expediency in which you lose everything. I mean,

there's just saying that, you know, it takes a lifetime, you

know, to build a legacy and only five minutes to, you know, to

tear it down, but when that is the result of the actions of

someone else, it's hard to express the devastation that you

experience, because you're not only experiencing your

devastation, you're experiencing the devastation of the people

around you, the people that love you, the people that you love.

Well, what happened? So what's important to explain is how

things were like in law enforcement and in criminal

justice during those times. By the time the 1980s came around,

you had a number of programs starting from probably the 40s

or 50s, and they glorified police culture. You know, if you

go back and you look at cops in the 80s and 90s, you will see on

TV some of the most egregious violation of constitutional

rights right there in front of you, but people didn't think

about it at that time, because cops were so glorified, it

became a culture of glorification through the media.

And so they could tell no lie if a cop said at that time that the

sky was yellow, the general public believe that the sky was

yellow, and so during the time that this happened to me, I

lived as a young man at the apex of that culture, and I was in

the music business. Hip hop has always been the foundation of

hip hop as a street and one of the things that makes hip hop a

national phenomenon, something that that wows the world, is its

connection to violence, its connection to the street. Even

though these rappers are are telling stories about

themselves. Most of the is not true, but they're telling true

stories about others. What happens when you're in hip hop

is you're not disconnected to that element. You know, if you

have a if you have a hip hop artist that has an entourage of

15 people, I can guarantee you that five of those guys are

criminals. What happened is, is that we're out in a skate rink.

I have an entourage with me. Police were investigating

another individual that was actually friends of someone that

was in my entourage, who I who I knew loosely. I didn't really he

wasn't a close friend of mine, but I knew him loosely. The

police is following him, and the police sees an indication of our

wealth. You know, the jury, the whole thing I was, you know, I

was very successful of selling a lot of records with making a lot

of money. So they're taking pictures. They're taking

pictures of everybody there. When they they follow this guy,

they're taking pictures of everybody he's associating with.

The prosecutor saw that, and I became his target. That's how I

came under the radar. And at that point, my fate was sealed.

Even even after I was arrested, they tried to distort me out of

a half a million dollars. It was the moment when they they didn't

find any money, and I refused to cooperate, when it was like,

okay, then we're going to send you to prison for the rest of

your life. And it was from that moment forward where they

started accumulating false evidence against me.

So while you were serving your sentence and you

began to self educate yourself on the law, from working as a

prison paralegal, helping other inmates in their cases and

working on your own case, that whole time, seven and a half

years, you were living side by side with some, some pretty,

probably some tough criminals. How did you stay focused on your

work and determined and hopeful?

Isaac Wright Jr: Yeah, so, so the prison that I was in, it was

a maximum security prison is it's a 24 hour lockdowns prison.

The cell, I couldn't open my arms out in the cell, the toilet

wasn't a toilet. Was a hole in the back of the wall. So it was

a very violent and very tragic kind of environment to live in

when I came to prison. There's a, there's a there was a, an

inmate legal association called, there were paralegals. It was an

association of maybe three or four paralegals called the

inmate legal Association. They knew of me because of, you know,

I tried my own case. I mean, it was, it was. Big news. They came

to visit me, and they asked me to join the organization, and I

agreed, and I went through the selective courses that I needed

to take, and the warden had to approve me. But what that did

was that gave me unfettered access to the Law Library. It

also gave me unfettered access to the entire prison. I was even

able to go on death row. So in my case, the prosecutor that

prosecuted me, he was a head prosecutor. He was chosen by the

governor, so my case was very political. The guy that actually

prosecuted me was the governor's choice. I knew that when I put

my appeal in, it was going to get rubber stamped, denied. That

did two things while I was helping other inmates get

released from prison, some of the ones that were wrongly

convicted or and some of the ones that were that were

overcharged and over sentenced. While I was helping them get

out, I was also looking for an inmate that was charged with the

same thing and that went to prison with the same crime that

I went to prison for. I developed the legal theory that

the statute was promulgated against legis was enforced

against legislative intent. I didn't want to use it in my

case. I wanted to use it in somebody else's case because I

thought they had a better chance of winning. So I ultimately

found this person as I was helping other people, I found

the person that came in had the same charge, same amount of

time, he had life, and I asked him, I said, Listen, I know you

have a lawyer, but let me work with your lawyer. I have this

legal theory I could put in your case. Guys got life so he don't

have anything to lose. He says, yes, if you can help me out.

Anything do? Do however way you want. I said, Okay, so I

formulated theory. I talked to his lawyer. I said I would put

this legal argument together for your client. We'll put it in one

of just put it in one of his briefs. And he said, The Lord is

like, oh, send me what you need to send me to us. I sent it to

him. He calls me back. Get on the phone. He says, he listen,

you sure you did this argument? The Lord didn't do this. I said,

No, I you know, I did that argument. I told him. He says,

Listen, this is an incredible argument. I'm going to put it in

the brief. He puts it in the guy gets reversed, makes new law. So

now I take the new law, I use it in my case. I get my kingpin

conviction reversed and but let me tell you what they did. They

vacated the kingpin, vacated my life sentence, but affirmed the

other convictions. And so now I'm still doing 70 years after

all that work, that's where the other hearing came in. So what I

also did, I was also doing civil cases, suing the prisons for

inmate conditions, medical conditions, things like that.

And I also sued the state, the prosecutor, the prosecutor's

office, for wrongful conviction. In one of the suits that I did,

I want a motion where the court ordered me to be transported

from a maximum security prison to the prosecutor's office and

made the prosecutor allow me to look through their files. I was

there all day. I went. I arrived at eight o'clock in the morning,

and I looked through files until the office closed that evening,

and I found a single piece of paper that I used three years

later to get a police officer to confess that they set me up. It

was an interoffice memo. It directed the police officers. It

was a memo that was written before I went to trial by the

prosecutor himself, to the police officers that was going

to testify against me. It directed about five officers to

read my files, to sign it and pass it down to the officer up

under them. I understood when a police officer takes a stand,

some of them write reports. Some of them don't what's important

about a police officer taking a stand is not the report that he

writes, they are trained to say that they didn't read any other

reports. It's always good for a police officer to read

everybody's report so he can get a broad understanding what

everybody says. But when he takes the stand, he's never

supposed to say that he read another Officer's Report. And

here's the reason why, because if you wrote a report, I can

destroy you before you even take the stand. If the officer that's

currently understand has read your report, because he could

testify to his knowledge, his personal knowledge. So if he

read your report, I can then start impeaching you based on

the things that he read. I can even introduce your report to

him and start ripping your report apart. The memo is

directing these officers to read all the files, which means each

other's reports. So this is why this is important. I know two

things those police officers don't know I have this document,

and I know if I ever get a chance to ask any one of them if

they read the other officers report, they're going to lie,

that document is going to say something else. So I get him on

the stand, and I geared up his honesty and his integrity and

and he and he was rolling with me. Yes, I said, you're an

argument. Yes, I am. Is you've done everything. Yes, I did. I

said, but you wouldn't lie to Police Report. Would you? The

last thing that you would do is lying at police report, which

is, No, I never, I would never do that. And the last thing

officer race would do this is another office would lie in a

police report. Woody, he says, Officer race. I see officer

race. The other guy that that, the other detective that

investigated this case with you. He says, Mr. Wright, I never

read officer racist report. So I said, Are you sure you never

read officer racist report? He says, No. I says, Okay, well,

what about detective Thornburg? Mr. Ryder, I didn't read

detective Thornburgh. Oh, you didn't read detective

thornburgh's report either. Oh, I said, what I said, Mr. Wright,

let me stop you, right there. Here, the only report I read in

this case is the word that I did. I've read no other report.

You're under oath. You're going to swear. He says, No, am I

honor? I understand. I've never read another report. I take out

the report, and I'm still questioning the witness, and I

hear him say, can I see that? I can see the blood rushing up his

neck. He read it to himself. I saw him. I saw his nerve. His

hands start shaking. He's getting nervous. And I said, Now

read that to the record. He reads it, all the officers below

that. Read it, read all the files. I said, Did you sign it?

He says, Yes, I signed it. Did you date it? I said, Yes, I did.

You pass any of our officers? He said, Yes. I snatched it from

his hand, started walking back to my chair, turned around and

says, So you lied. And all your honor today, you lied to the

this this court today, didn't you? You lied under oath? He

stammers. He stammers and stamina. He says, I didn't lie.

I go tell the truth about what you did. He breaks down. He

says, I've been holding this in for seven and a half years, and

I can't hold it anymore. And he starts telling the entire story

on how they set me up. Oh my god, I was, I was, I don't know

I was. Like, it was an out of body, experience. Because, in

the background, my mom, you know, my family, was in the

courtroom, and she was, she was crying and screaming and yelling

back at them, why did you do this? Like, why? Why? Why did

you do this to my son? So it was, like, it was a very

emotional the reporters was running back in and out of the

courtroom, because, you know, back then, they used phones, so

they were running back and forth in and out of the courtroom

using the phone telling, you know, updating everybody what

happened, and all that other stuff. And it was a very crazy

moment. Everything was was vacated, all my sentences, all

my convictions, was vacated, but the prosecutor wanted to try me

again and reindict me. So the judge gave me a bail and

released me. While I was out, a reporter found me and asked me

about the new trial, and I told I said, I can't wait for a new

trial, because the things that's going to come out in the new

trial is going to be 10 times more egregious than what came

out in my previous trial and what came out at that hearing.

So I'm I can't wait for a new trial. Two weeks later, they

dismissed everything and said it wasn't going to try me again.

Wow. So after you were released, you obtained your

law degree, and you became the first and only person in US

history to have been sentenced to life in prison, securing your

own release and then being granted a license to practice

law by the very court that condemned you. I mean, you've

done something that is amazing. You got to argue several cases

before the Supreme Court, winning three of them. Tell us

what it's like to when you really firmly believe in

something, you will stand behind it no matter what.

Isaac Wright Jr: Oh, until death, and especially if you

have certain types of experience in life, and you know the

importance of dying for your belief. And I say this all the

time, you know people don't understand the importance of

even representing guilty people. It's not to get a person off.

It's to protect the innocent. Because what happens is most

corruption starts with the guilty first, and it spreads

like a disease to people that were innocent. What happened to

me was a culmination of the prosecutor doing this to people

that were actually guilty time and time again and and so when

it got to me, he was emboldened. He didn't care about guilt or

innocence anymore. So you know, this is a situation where you

have to die on principle, not only in order to protect

yourself, but but to protect the integrity of the system and the

other and other people that may come after you.

You are absolutely leaving a legacy. You helped 20

other people, inmates while in prison and in many, many more

since, and you're not only leaving a legacy for someone

that stands up for what's right, but for all of those families.

What does legacy mean to you?

Isaac Wright Jr: Legacy hits me hard when I find myself

preparing legal arguments in court and I'm looking at quoting

the own the case that I made, I'm I'm reading my name, I'm

quoting my case as authoritative, and I'm reading

my own name, and I'm seeing all the things that I went through

to be able to create this authority that courts have to

follow. And so it's like legacy to me, means that I can look

back at the road that I've traveled, and I can compare it

to all the things that's happening today, and I can see

that every sweat, every tear, every emotional turmoil, every

loss that I've taken and the losses of my family is embedded

in this authoritative law that are helping people on and

helping lawyers and helping judges On a daily basis. In

essence, Legacy means the future impact that you have on not only

the current generations, but generations to come, infinitely

so and that's and that impact, hopefully is a very, very

positive one. I mean, legacies can be bad and they can be good,

and my hope is that my legacy is one of positivity.

So you represented dozens of inmates while you were

still in prison and many, many more in the years since your

release, overturning their own wrongful convictions and helping

them to freedom. Talk to me about what it feels like to be

changing their legacies.

Isaac Wright Jr: It's hard for me to imagine, you know, because

going through. System is a very individual and individualized

experience. Some of us that has been through that can relate,

but when we're through it, we know that it's individualized,

the way that it affects us differently each time. And then

you have those who's never been through that, who can only try

to assess or imagine, you know, how that impacted a person and

and how that impact changed their lives, for for the better,

for the for worse. So, you know, I it's very difficult for me to

to kind of understand how what I've done for people in facts

and packs them on a personal note, my concentration more is

on the impact of society than it is on the individual person. But

what I can say to you, just from my observations and my

experience, that these changes are profound, not only for the

person, but for the family. And I don't know one person that

I've helped that hasn't picked that torch up and and done some

really good things in their lives, not only for themselves,

but for other people. So you know, from from my vantage

point, the impact has been profound for those people.

Looking at everything you've accomplished

professionally, with the law and the legacy you've left, how is

all that different from the legacy you've built for

yourself. Personally, just as a man?

Isaac Wright Jr: I mean, it's, it's really day and night, uh,

specifically, because I can't feel their pain. I know what

they're going through, but I can't feel their pain. So

professionally, for me, it's a it's really about the mission,

and that mission is justice. Personally, it was a very, very

painful experience. You know, it was a very tragic experience,

not only for myself, but for my family. And so the gap between

the experience for me personally and the experience for me

professionally is profound. In fact, I am aware of my progress.

I'm aware of my positivity as a professional, but when I was

going through it, personally, I wasn't even aware of the

magnitude of the changes that I was making when it was

happening. I wasn't aware of it. I was so personally engulfed in

in the fight, I wasn't aware of it. And to this day, it's still

foggy, you know, because that you can't get, you can't get

past that tragedy. But professionally, I'm very clear

on what I'm doing, where I'm going, and how I'm affecting

people. So yeah, it's totally, it's totally day and night in

terms of the effect professionally, as opposed to

personally.

You've been written about extensively.

There's been a hit TV series produced by 50 Cent based on

your life, and now you're telling your story yourself in

your memoir "Marked for Life". Tell us about the book and the

significance of the title.

Isaac Wright Jr: The significance of the title is the

way in which I found myself, you know, and I guess the best way

that I can explain it, and these are obviously people who who are

Abbott hunters, can understand that concept, but a deer walking

through the woods has no idea that he's in trouble or she's in

trouble. The marksman that has that deer at his sights is the

only one that understands the danger that a deer is in, and if

the deer survives, then he would have a chance at some point to

understand how much danger that he or she was in. So mark for

life is a, is, is, is a title that describes this ex parte

understanding of danger that a person is completely unaware of

the danger that he is in until he actually is engulfed in it,

and so you're marked for life first, before your life becomes

in jeopardy. And that's what the title tries to represent. My

Mark was my success. I mean, um, the prosecutor that actually

went after me was was running a criminal enterprise out of his

office, and it was his office was set up for forfeiture. The

laws on forfeiture at that time was really lax, and the only

thing that needed to happen was there a reasonable suspicion

that you were engaged in crime. They could take your assets, and

then you'd have to prove, in a civil case, you know, that your

assets is clean and fair. And so he used that. He used his power

and the infancy of the forfeiture laws to enrich

himself and enrich the detectives and other law

enforcement officers working in that office. And so my mark was

my success and my wealth, and he got eye of that, and he came

after it.

So where can our listeners get the book, and what

do you most hope they'll take away from reading it?

Isaac Wright Jr: The book is available in every major

bookstore, and it's also universally online through

Amazon. So it's readily it's readily available in terms of

reading it. What they get from it as human beings? You know,

there's, there's a saying, there's, there's, there's eight.

Million stories in a Naked City, that that's something that that

came out of New York, you know, with 8 million people, but that

that has a lot of a lot of substance to it. I mean, we all,

each individual life has a story, but there's certain

common denominators. And the in the book, The what I'm hoping

that people get from the book when they read it is a common

denominator that we all have as human beings going through our

story, and that is that some of the hard answers, some of the

ways of overcoming the more significant challenges that we

face in life, is within ourselves, and sometimes the

expectation that others are going to come to our rescue is

misplaced in ways where that answer, that that savior is

yourself, that individual that's going to pick you up and help

you along the way is your own intuition, your own judgment and

your in your own essence. And sometimes we have to leak reach

deep down into ourselves for answers, because there's a lot

of people that out there that believe that life is hopeless.

There's a lot of people that encounter challenges that appear

to be hopeless. There's a lot of people that believe that they're

alone, and sometimes, you know, we've lost ourselves from

finding our own self. So I believe that the best thing that

can come out of this book is when all else fails for an

individual that they have the ability within to find that

thing that God has given them, to pull themselves out of the

problems that they're having, and at that point, you know,

seek additional help, but but the answer begins within, and

that's what I'm hoping that that the book inspires people to

believe to believe in themselves and their own abilities.

Isaac Wright, Jr, thank you so much for joining us

today. Really appreciate your time.

Isaac Wright Jr: I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.