How we've changed - Tony Duke.

0:00Hello, this is a prepaid debit call from a Preventer at the Michigan Department of Corrections make them facility Yeah, hey, here he is mr. Duke Here's the award one in star You're Hello, and welcome back to one minute remaining my name's Jack Lawrence the host and creator of this show And today well today is a bit of a different episode because today we celebrate a birthday and I want to say thank you So I've been doing the show now for four years this month in fact we are just about to hit our fourth birthday Over those four years this show and myself have certainly evolved

1:05When I first started I thought this show would simply be an interesting look into the American criminal justice system Hearing about trials and cases from the perspectives of those who we tend to not hear from those convicted of the crimes And that's essentially what it's been However, when I started this show four years ago my mindset was to sit on the fence Not get too involved and just allow those from prison the opportunity to give their version of events and let you the jury to side on innocence and guilt and That was the case for a while until of course I started to see some incredibly terrible injustices time and time again and I just couldn't help but point those out Now some have said my reporting is biased and maybe it has been But also everything I've said has come from facts from each case and not fabrication So from being this fence sitter in some cases I have very much become more of an advocate

2:11Again, I've been accused of being a terrible journalist and I'm not supposed to have an opinion and to that I say Number one, I'm no journalist never claimed to be one a number two at the end of the day I am human and therefore not without fault or opinion The other thing that has of course evolved over time is my relationship with many of those that I've spoken with I Have essentially inserted myself into these people's lives I've been part of their story and have formed friendships with many of them and Thus feel more invested than I ever thought I would when I started this and That particularly rang true for me when I recently had a call Tony Duke How are you my friend? Doing alright how's the as the wonderful world of the D.O.C. treating him at the moment? I don't pay much mind to it So I stay my own little world of

3:13praying, praising God and working off. Yeah Garden knows in my path delivering the word. I feel the Lord moved me to speak to and other than that It's Chappin' in and reading and writing So I've known Tony for Basically all of the four years that I've been doing this show it was a relationship that started off very much as Interviewer and subject in fact trying to get a conversation from Tony in the early days was like trying to get blood from a stone But over time as he shared more and we spoke more The walls sort of started to come down and he started to joke with me Tell me funny stories from his time in prison and just chat about life and have conversations I've seen Tony go from this quiet young man who was down trodden to someone who became a man with a voice and a heart that actively hunted out people who needed help in his prison Of course as we know during the last four years his faith has become increasingly more and more important to him even becoming an ordained minister

4:17Tony and I will talk semi-regulately And whenever we do he always talks about his faith It's front and center and everything he talks about and it's always from a place of positivity About his time in prison and how he is there for a reason However for the first time in a long time the other day when Tony called me I Heard something different. I heard a man who felt lost a man who simply felt beaten and Down trodden and it genuinely made me worried for What are we what are we reading at the moment anything interesting? Well, I got a couple projects in the work rewriting my personal story and more depth with detail and I guess you could say more flesh You know those flesh the experiences that made me who I am stuff. I kind of didn't really

5:17Think too many people would want I guess I thought they would might think different of me from But I realized it's a part of the story. That's the testimony. All right. That's the test Do I I heard that your old attorney was was chatting? I Yeah, I guess he did I don't know the stand-up Yeah I'll send a letter of a lesion documents to Couple individuals anyone at ass really yeah, cuz I'm why I was trying to while I was wanting to try and talk to him Seeing if you see if you'll if you'll speak to me about the situation or the case or whatnot I won't eat you do you have a contact email address for it but all in your files He moved so okay. What was he's not I guess his practice is in point no longer in how a role Attorney it is does that sound right? Yeah, okay found him the wonders of modern technology

6:18What that is Well, you mean you don't have access to artificial intelligence in the Michigan Department of Corrections No, we were not we're not privy to that information I mean you know they have Wi-Fi You got what I thought they have installed Wi-Fi. Yeah, they get they got Wi-Fi Boxes there's six of them in each hallway We're supposed to get these new tablets soon that have some sort of internet access Um should be a supposed to be able to have our phone on it our video visits on it and Stream music and videos on it from ourselves or the Wi-Fi Send messages receive phone calls We'll see how that goes. I mean, I'm not really excited about it. I don't care either way I mean having the phone to talk to myself You know away from people being loud in a line. I mean I get the plus

7:21Other than that I don't really care to Serve the internet watch movies You look a bit of music though, don't you? I do but not I really don't Yeah, I mean I'm a country music. Yeah, I see I like country music. It's good. I like a bit of country music Yes, that's nice. Some of it's sad some of them are good strong building songs You know, I got a handful I do from time to time but I feel like right now is the best time for me to Concentrate on that one-on-one with the Lord and keep my nose and that bible and keep my pen moving on that paper Oh Walking to my deliverance work not myself. I I don't I don't know what else to do actually I don't know what I really don't know what to do

8:23That's just your main focus Yeah Keeping me sane. Yeah, you know I don't I don't Not lost and waiting on a court not that stuff, you know as Those were those are some years that were stressful Not only stressful, but it's that constant disappointment as well, isn't it? You know that Doesn't help Especially when there's no need for it and then they can't even truly make you understand why that That's just because they don't pay attention They're too concerned with defending defending conviction throughout and that upholding the integrity of justice So

9:24So I was in two minds as to whether or not I was going to share this call because at the end of the day I don't share every call that I have with everyone I talk with Sometimes simply because they are just random chats that don't warrant it and other times we speak about personal things that I don't believe need to be aired However, I decided that I would share this Because I I just wanted people to hear it And after I had this call with Tony I made another decision that again goes back on a decision. I made early on when I started this entire project And that was putting you in direct contact with an incarcerated person So one of the biggest questions I've got over the past four years has always been can I contact the people you speak with? And I made the decision to say no to that question for three reasons The first one was to protect the men and women that I'm speaking with who are incarcerated One thing I didn't want was to make them potentially vulnerable to messages of anger or hate or ridicule

10:26At the end of the day, not everyone agrees with what I do of course not everyone believes someone's story that I speak with And what I didn't want to do is facilitate conversations and find out that someone had sent nasty messages to a person Who had featured on this podcast So that was the first reason Secondly, it was to protect you Now of course the majority of the men and women I speak with are lovely people. I truly believe that But as you know, not everyone in prison Is so lovely and not everyone I talk to is necessarily telling us the truth or showing us their full selves Anyone who's heard my series suing diddy will be able to hear directly just how manipulative some people in prison can be And what I certainly didn't want was to put you at risk of being asked for potentially Money or being extorted by someone and me finding out that you'd sent them that money or even were sent in thousands of dollars And been completely taken advantage of So that was second reason and both of those reasons tie into the third reason

11:27protecting myself from all of the above So that's the decision that I made And I was of the opinion that if anyone truly wanted to contact someone in prison I wanted to go about doing it themselves that was completely up to them That was the rule that I made But as they say there are exceptions to the rules And on this occasion after speaking with Tony I decided to make that exception And in the OMR Facebook group I asked who would like to send Tony a message of support And well as I knew you would you came through in spades Almost 100 people responded to my Facebook post wanting to get in touch with Tony And send him a message of support and a hello And I want to say thank you People always ask me what I'm most proud of with this show And it's not the download numbers It's not the amount of countries the show is hurting or the stories that we've told even

12:31It's simply you Every single one of you that has made this show more than just a podcast I see it every single day in the Facebook group I have never had to remove or ban a single person from the group Think about that on social media in 2026 With a group that's closing in on almost 11,000 people I have not had to ban one person And that says a lot about you and the community that you have built So from the bottom of my heart I want to say thank you For stepping up when called upon for the non-judgmental way you listened every story And for your constant enthusiasm for what we are doing I'll be honest I have some pretty rough days sitting in prison pod hq with my head in my hands Frustrated infuriated sad you name it the emotions go on in here Simply about not being able to do more

13:33And when I see the Facebook group and the responses we get from you It just makes it all worth it to be honest So all I'm going to say is happy birthday one minute remaining And may she have many more to come And if you also want to send Tony a message The instructions on how to do so can be found pinned to the top of the Facebook group You have one minute remaining Well I'm in over here and I never meant I will brother keep you chin up my friend. Thank you for using GTO One minute remaining is a mashed pumpkin production created, hosted and produced by Jack Lawrence Audio and sound designed by Jack Lawrence and Dom Evans of ESA