At 17, a high-school party turned into a baseball-bat attack—and a life-altering case. Dieter Tejada took a plea to avoid a decade in prison, served time, then rebuilt everything: UConn, Vanderbilt Law, passing the bar—only to discover withheld exculpatory evidence years later. In September 2023, he received a full, unconditional pardon recognizing his innocence.
Host Brent Cassity and Dieter dig into why innocent people plead guilty, reentry with an ankle monitor, confronting stigma, and the long road to an innocence-based pardon.

Highlights

• The night everything changed (self-defense vs. narrative)

• Pressure to plead and how the system incentivizes it

• Reentry: college classes, ankle monitor, and resilience

• Finding 20+ missing pages in the police report

• From wrongful conviction to innocence pardon—and what changes now

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