Prepping for the Parole Hearing in the Case of Leo Schofield

00:00:02
Speaker 1: See this is all our spot here we have from it's thirty fourth. Thirty fifth is the next Greek, So we go from thirty four to thirty fifth, all of these houses.

00:00:16
Speaker 2: Kelsey and I are talking to Pastor Tony Parker. He's the director of a halfway house, a re entry program called Noah's Community Outreach.

00:00:26
Speaker 3: And we got houses on both sides.

00:00:27
Speaker 4: How many houses do you have it all?

00:00:29
Speaker 1: We got eight houses in, we got nine under construction. You finished the ninth one under construction, and I'm gonna show you some lots.

00:00:36
Speaker 2: We've been talking about this program with Leo and Scott Cup a lot lately. People refer to this place as Noah's House, but it's certainly not a single house. It's a whole community spread across four city blocks in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of East Tampa. Each building houses four or six recently incarcerated individuals.

00:00:57
Speaker 5: Most of the men are.

00:00:58
Speaker 2: Older and have served a few decad in prison, but there's a house for women as well. They all need the support system from Pastor Parker, the program, and most importantly, each other as they attempt to find jobs and learn how to adjust to a life outside prison.

00:01:16
Speaker 3: Walls. You know, at first, the commission did not want to a lot of them to come here altogether because they thought they would buddy up and start committing crime again. So they would send one over there and one over here, and they could make it because they had no support.

00:01:36
Speaker 5: But look at the support.

00:01:38
Speaker 3: Look at the support.

00:01:40
Speaker 2: Leo already has a letter of acceptance from Pastor Tony Parker, and he has a parole hearing coming up on May third. If everything goes the way Leo is hoping, he'll be granted parole by the Commissioners, released from prison and sent directly to Noah's house. Leo, have you begun to imagine what you're life might look like if you're paroled and sent to this halfway house?

00:02:03
Speaker 6: Like?

00:02:03
Speaker 7: What are you imagining freedom will look like?

00:02:06
Speaker 2: And feel?

00:02:07
Speaker 6: Like? Yeah?

00:02:09
Speaker 8: You know, I tell myself every day, Gilbert. Every day I wake up and I'm just gonna go to work. I'm gonna bury myself in work and tasks and stuff so I don't have to think about that very thing. And then I go to work and I spend the rest of them that day, thanks doing nothing but thinking, Bob, what wouldn't be like?

00:02:26
Speaker 9: You know what?

00:02:26
Speaker 8: My life would look like on the other side.

00:02:30
Speaker 2: If he's granted parole and released, Leo will arrive at Noah's house, where he'll maintain regular visits with a parole officer who will monitor his progress and his transition. He'll have curfews and random drug tests, but Leo would be starting his life over a freeman after thirty five years behind bars.

00:02:51
Speaker 3: Hey y'all, Hey Joe, y'all come on his side.

00:02:56
Speaker 1: Well, minute, man, they won't ask y'all a few questions.

00:02:59
Speaker 2: Tony Parker shows us around one of the houses and introduces us to a guy named Joe. He's a resident at Noah's house. He's in his fifties, tan fit, and has soft blue eyes. I could easily see him being friends with Leo.

00:03:14
Speaker 10: After thirty five years behind the fence. When I got out, it was overwhelming. It was the first about the first couple of weeks. It was overwhelming because it was like something new. Being here helped me out, and I just started slowly, but I transitioned in back into society. Now I feel like I'm part of society.

00:03:35
Speaker 2: Joe was paroled nine months ago, and he told us that Noah's house has helped shield him from some of the stigma of coming out of prison.

00:03:43
Speaker 10: If the neighborhood knew I come out of prison and what I was in prison for, they'd be looking at me like I had three heads. But here they welcome you and they give you that chance, and being in this community helps you. It helps you because everybody that lives here, we've all been there. So that's why we help each other out because none of us want to go back. I I know I'll never go back. I love society.

00:04:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, I ain't gonna lie.

00:04:12
Speaker 10: I love it out here, you know what I mean, And it's a blessing to me, and I wake up every morning blessed.

00:04:18
Speaker 2: In a few months, he's been at Noah's house, Joe found a job and bought a jeep, and when his year is up, he'll be moving on from Noah's to Daytona Beach, where he grew up and where his elderly mother still lives. I got the feeling he'd had dark thoughts in prison, imagining maybe that he'd never have the opportunity to see her again.

00:04:40
Speaker 10: So I'm wont to spend some time on my mom before it's too late, and just give her love.

00:04:45
Speaker 3: She needs.

00:04:48
Speaker 2: Kelsey and I spent about three hours with Pastor Tony Parker and the men we met in the program. Tony spoke a lot about the community and the culture, about God and spirituality, and about all the stories.

00:05:01
Speaker 5: These men bring with them.

00:05:03
Speaker 2: He's clearly very proud of what they've built.

00:05:07
Speaker 3: You should have see him on Saturday morning. You gotta come around on Saturday morning. That's when you see him on the porch. They sit out on the porch and drank.

00:05:13
Speaker 11: Coffee and I say, hey, I say it is good to come home and be able to sit on his porch and just watch the cars come by, and so you can think you see and they do.

00:05:27
Speaker 2: If Leo comes here to transition from his life in prison, he'll likely share a room with a few guys and sleep in a bunk bed. He'll need to find a job and pay one hundred dollars a week, which covers room and board as well as his meals, but he'll also be able to do longer visits with Chrissy Ashley and his two grandsons.

00:05:48
Speaker 7: Obviously, if you got released through a halfway house, it would be a certain amount of freedom, but you know you haven't been exonerated, and do you still think about that when when you're thinking abound.

00:05:58
Speaker 2: Parole as well.

00:06:00
Speaker 8: Yes, absolutely, parole is just a means of getting home and being able to interact more with my family less you know, strict and the ability to work really is what's really hopeful for me. I appreciate the oversight because there'll be people will say, hey, no, you can't do this here, you can't do that here, or you should do this, you should do that, And I welcome that kind of thing because I haven't been out there in a long, long time. The last thing I want to do is violate parole because I was standing on a sidewalk that you made a law that says you can't stand in this spot anymore.

00:06:38
Speaker 9: And I have no idea, but all of this is a big if.

00:06:47
Speaker 2: For Leo to get out of prison and into a re entry program like Noah's House, he'll need the Florida Commission on a Fender Review to grant him parole, something they've denied him in his last three attempts. The stakes for Leo and his family have never been higher. If parole is denied yet again in Tallahassee on May third, it will likely be years before Leo gets another chance at freedom. This is a special bonus episode of Bone Valley.

00:07:45
Speaker 4: All right, you're read ready?

00:07:47
Speaker 12: Ye?

00:07:49
Speaker 2: Last month I flew down to Florida to join Scott cup for some meetings he'd scheduled in the state capital of Tallahassee.

00:07:57
Speaker 12: Turn right onto West.

00:07:58
Speaker 2: Miss Street, Internet, Pama John's Pizza.

00:08:02
Speaker 9: It has been so long since I've worn this the coat.

00:08:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, Scott's wearing a suit, a suit that has been tucked in the back of his closet for a while once he became a judge. The jackets that were a staple of Scott's career as a prosecutor and defense attorney got switched out for a black robe.

00:08:22
Speaker 9: How many robes do you have one? It's retired, dry cleaned, and cut away.

00:08:29
Speaker 2: Now it's the robe that's been pushed to the back of the closet because about a week before I met him in Tallahassee, Scott Cupp resigned from the bench to represent Leo Schofield to do everything in his power to get Leo out of prison, and he's committed to fulfilling that promise. Scott's been speaking to people in positions of power in Florida who are sympathetic to the injustice of Leo Schofield's case. The goal in Scott's meetings is always the same, liberation then exoneration, and that first step liberation is most likely going to come through parole.

00:09:07
Speaker 9: Because I've said all along that if they take it upon themselves to read the Trout transcript, you have to walk away with the overwhelming belief that Leo's innocent. So I guess it's not that big of a logical leap that if he's innocent, Yeah, he needs to be paroled at a minimum, and then we can get to the next step.

00:09:32
Speaker 2: The first meeting Scott lined up was with a newly elected state senator from Lee County, Florida, Senator Jonathan Martin.

00:09:41
Speaker 3: And where did you meet, Jonathan?

00:09:42
Speaker 2: By the way, was that was that prosecutor.

00:09:45
Speaker 9: I'm gonna have to ask him. I don't know if we met.

00:09:49
Speaker 2: The former judge persuaded Senator Martin to listen to Bone Valley, which he did on his long drives to and from Tallahassee.

00:09:58
Speaker 9: He actually said that this guy shouldn't just be parole, he should be exonerated. Oh man, He's said to keep him in the loop. It's gonna help bal He can.

00:10:18
Speaker 2: Nin probably a five minute walk.

00:10:23
Speaker 6: Oh you kinda know where you're going. First.

00:10:26
Speaker 2: Kelsey came down too, But since some of the meetings Scott is bringing me along to her sensitive we knew we weren't going to be able to record like this meeting with Senator Martin. We're just hoping he'll give us some insight into the Tallahassee political landscape so Scott can form a legal strategy going into Leo's upcoming parole hearing.

00:10:53
Speaker 13: If Leo is.

00:10:53
Speaker 2: Granted parole, he will be released from prison after serving a decade longer than his minimum sentence of twenty five years. Getting paroled is no guarantee, though, and Leo's next parole hearing is coming up.

00:11:08
Speaker 5: Quick Bone Valley is sponsored by Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic.

00:11:23
Speaker 2: Community that partners with America's boldest change makers to tackle the root causes of our country's biggest problems, including the failed War on drugs that has criminalized addiction, fueled over incarceration, and shattered communities. At eleven years old, Scott Strode drank his first beer. At fifteen, Scott went to a mental health facility because of suicidal thoughts where he tried cocaine. Like many others who experience addiction, Scott was using drugs and alcohol to numb the pain he was trying to numb childhood trauma. In his early twenties, Scott was invited into a boxing gym by a friend. That's where he discovered the healing power of sport and community that helped propel him towards sobriety. In two thousand and six, Scott founded The Phoenix, a free, sober active community that uses the transformative power of sport to help people treat and heal from addiction and imagine new possibilities for their lives through fitness. The program restores compassion to a system that has long relied on locking people up to solve.

00:12:30
Speaker 5: The addiction crisis. Scott Strode is one of many entrepreneurs partnering with Stand Together to drive solutions in education, healthcare, poverty, and criminal justice. To learn more about addiction and the War on Drugs, listen to the War on Drugs podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:12:58
Speaker 12: Okay, I just got word that Gilbert and Scott are done with their meeting I am about to drive over and pick them up, and they're gonna tell me how it went. Okay, let it go.

00:13:17
Speaker 2: It was interesting.

00:13:18
Speaker 7: He's a really friendly guy, and he's just you could tell he was concerned about this, Like he did talk about, you know, things happened in the past and they need to be corrected.

00:13:28
Speaker 2: And I think he just really understands.

00:13:30
Speaker 9: That he's committed. He gets it. He will be as engaged as he needs to be.

00:13:40
Speaker 12: Ah.

00:13:42
Speaker 9: Gave us a lot of good insight about what's probably going on with the Parole Commission right now.

00:13:49
Speaker 2: Senator Martin oversees the Florida Commission on a Fender Review or f Corps. It's a panel of three commissioners, the three people who will be making the decision on Leo's parole. They'll either vote to release him or vote to keep him in prison. Senator Jonathan Martin has had conversations about Leo's case with one of the commissioners.

00:14:12
Speaker 12: What's what's going on with them?

00:14:16
Speaker 9: Well, he indicated that the chairwoman, Miss Coonrod, has already listened to the podcast. Ah, and is believe you indicated that she said she read the trial transcript. Yeah, so she knows that that they're going to be hearing a parole case on an innocent man, So what is that type?

00:14:41
Speaker 8: Wow.

00:14:43
Speaker 2: Melinda Kuhnrod is the chair of the Parole Commission. She's a former assistant state attorney, a prosecutor from the Second Circuit in Florida's Panhandle. She was appointed to the commission by Governor Rick Scott, the same governor that appointed Scott Cupp to the bench. Even before this meeting with Senator Martin, Scott and I were aware that Commissioner Kunrod had been diving into Leo's case in a much deeper way than the typical parole case that shows up on her docket.

00:15:13
Speaker 9: I'm still belonging away by the fact she read the transcript that is such a big lift. That's a big ask to get somebody to do that.

00:15:21
Speaker 2: This is definitely a good sign for Leo. The state often misrepresents the evidence from Leo's case to protect his conviction and to keep him from being granted parole. So anytime a judge or a parole commissioner goes to the primary documents and transcripts instead of the States briefs, it's an advantage for Leo. The questions Commissioner Kunrod asked, were centered on Jeremy Scott, So she's definitely doing her due diligence. But there are two other commissioners who will be voting, and we don't know what they think about Leo's case and his chances for parole.

00:15:57
Speaker 12: So what else did he say about the other two commissioners?

00:16:02
Speaker 9: To be honest, he I don't think he knows much about them. I mean, he knows who they are, he doesn't know much about their backgrounds. He's just, you know, kind of getting up to speed with things.

00:16:14
Speaker 2: We did some of our own research on the other two commissioners, like Richard Davison, who, like Melinda Kunrod, was also a prosecutor. I know for a fact that he read my book Devil in the Grove because he wrote a report for the Attorney General's Office supporting the posthumous pardons for the Groveland Four back in twenty nineteen. And then there's Commissioner David Wyant, who was appointed in twenty sixteen. He had a twenty year career in law enforcement and before retiring in twenty fourteen, he worked his way up to sergeant of detectives at the Bartow Police Department, which is in the heart of Polk County. In this role, he had a long professional relationship with former State Attorney Jerry Hill, the man who argued against Leo's parole back in twenty twenty. This will be Leo's fourth attempt at parole. At each of his past three hearings, a representative from the Tenth Circuit State Attorney's Office has shown up to argue against Leo's release.

00:17:17
Speaker 14: Commissioners John Aguero on behalf of the State Attorney's Office of the Tenth Circle.

00:17:23
Speaker 2: At Leo's first parole hearing in twenty twelve, John Aguero, the man with the electric chair tie clip who prosecuted Leo, showed up to argue against Leo's parole.

00:17:35
Speaker 6: I sought the.

00:17:36
Speaker 14: Death penalty against Leo's Sofield for a arrendous murder of a young eighteen year old girl in nineteen eighty seven. He was a tremendously violent human being.

00:17:54
Speaker 15: I think that the commissioners should use every aggravation that is an available legal to keep mister Stokefield prison.

00:18:06
Speaker 2: In twenty fifteen, it was Victoria Avalon's turn.

00:18:11
Speaker 16: He has no remorse for what he did. He didn't even help plan Michelle's funeral. These votracks are from our file. They will show you where she was found.

00:18:24
Speaker 6: I think you should see it.

00:18:27
Speaker 2: She told the commissioners that she was concerned about Leo's relationship with Chrissy, asking how safe is she really.

00:18:34
Speaker 16: Really if he is released?

00:18:37
Speaker 2: The autopsy show then Avalon went into graphic detail about Michelle's.

00:18:42
Speaker 16: Murder seventeen r. Twenty sixth with wood were d some as much as four and a half inches of d where the defendant plunge at the knife into her over and over and over. The autopsy before it shows that her chest was full of blood, she essentially round flow.

00:19:05
Speaker 2: In Leo's last hearing in twenty twenty, the one that Kelsey was able to attend, Leo's lawyer, Seth Miller, thought things might be different.

00:19:14
Speaker 17: I was able to argue on behalf of Leo at his parole hearing, and we were asking for the commissioners to reduce his PPRD by one year to twenty twenty two and send him to Everglades to the Correction Transition Program.

00:19:30
Speaker 2: PPRD stands for presumptive parole release date. That's the date the commissioners set for an inmates eventual release from prison, as long as no disciplinary infractions get in the way. A decade ago, Leo's PPRD was set for June of twenty twenty three, and it hasn't changed. So in twenty twenty, Seth was hoping to convince commissioners to transfer Leo to Everglades' correctional institution and the lifer's program there. Everglades another prison, but it's an institution with a program that prepares inmates who have been institutionalized for decades to re enter society. The program has a very high success rate, and very few of the program graduates who are released go on to re offend. We've been told that the commissioners rarely parole someone who hasn't been through the program. If Leo had been transferred to Everglades back in twenty twenty, he would likely have been released by the June twenty twenty three date that the commissioners had set. Seth and Leo's wife, Chrissy, met with commissioners the night before the last hearing to discuss Leo's parole possibilities.

00:20:40
Speaker 4: We met with Davidson, Commissioner Davidson, and he was very willing to ask questions and listen to the plan and our expectations. And I left that meeting and I'm pretty sure that Davidson said that he would be supportive of moving forward. So that night I felt so positive, so positive, like this is it, this is it, We're doing it. We've got this one.

00:21:20
Speaker 2: The parole hearing was the following day. Everyone there in support of Leo was hopeful because the commissioners were showing signs of being on board, was sending Leo to the Lifer's program at Everglades. His release was now in sight.

00:21:35
Speaker 17: And I gave a presentation about his high quality model citizen time in prison, all his programs, what he would do if he was paroled, and it went pretty well until Jerry Hill got his ten minutes and provided the parle commission with factually erroneous information about the case and about Leo.

00:21:57
Speaker 16: Leo said he was driven by an inver, forced to go back to the pit area again.

00:22:02
Speaker 13: Leo said he felt drown to that area and felt Michelle was calling out.

00:22:05
Speaker 17: To him, and then gave them a folder and no one could see what was in it, but we believe that it was autopsy photos of the victim, which is both inappropriate because they're only allowed to consider new information from the last hearing, but also incredibly incendiary, and we had no ability because we got no additional time to rebut anything that he said, there's no.

00:22:30
Speaker 16: Remorse, there's no sorrow.

00:22:32
Speaker 10: How do you put a man in a program getting him ready to be released into society when he can't say I'm sorry, when he can't say I do.

00:22:43
Speaker 18: Do I know this is a subsequent and I'm sorry.

00:22:47
Speaker 9: I'm so emotional that I.

00:22:49
Speaker 16: Just feel very strongly that this is a cold, calculating first degree murder.

00:22:54
Speaker 8: He's a manipulator and he's exactly where we'll be.

00:23:00
Speaker 12: At that point.

00:23:01
Speaker 17: The Parle Commissioners, after looking at hearing that presentation from Jerry Hill and looking at what was in that folder, voted to make no change to his prole status, leaving his PPRD at twenty twenty three and leaving him at his current incarcerator facility. Jerry Hill has been part of a group of people who recommends people who are going to be pointed to the pro commission He has a lot of sway with the Parle Commissioners and so when he comes up and he says things, they might change their mind about what they want to do, even if they were going to do something that was favorable to the potential parolie.

00:23:38
Speaker 2: And Jerry Hill has a strong stance on the parole process in Florida, and he's been clear about why he still shows up at these hearings. The jobs not finished as long as someone's sentenced to life hasn't completed that sentence, he once told the press. Not only did Jerry Hill mistate the facts of Leo's case, he also didn't read a letter from Michelle's brother, Jesse Sam, who requested that it be read to the commission. Jesse's letter said that he did not have confidence in the conviction of Leo Schofield and that as a member of Michelle's family, he was supporting Leo's parole.

00:24:15
Speaker 13: I wasn't really sure why the letter was suppressed. There wasn't I really didn't feel like a reason to suppress it, and I felt like it kind of really didn't work in his favor because of it.

00:24:30
Speaker 2: We don't know whether Victoria Avalon or Jerry Hill, or another representative from the Tenth Circuit State Attorney's Office will show up at Leo's hearing this time, but the tenth Circuit State Attorney's office continues to double down in defending the conviction of Leo Schofield. The commissioners put a lot of weight behind statements from the victim's family when considering an inmates parole. So Assistant State Attorney Victoria Avalon recently called Jesse Salm.

00:25:00
Speaker 13: I don't know why she reached out to me. She just felt like she needed to call me and and I guess set the story straight in her mind. It just seems like to me that someone who's so dead set on the result of the original conviction that there's no sense for me to even try to, you know, battle that's just going to be a one sided argument.

00:25:22
Speaker 12: You know.

00:25:22
Speaker 13: It's just so I just listened to what she said, and she talked a lot for about an hour. Yeah, So it went into you know, deep detail about things about the case and things like that and so and you know, and I just listened the whole time.

00:25:39
Speaker 12: So did you find any of the persuadesive?

00:25:43
Speaker 13: Not really. I mean, it seemed to have a lot of holes in it. There's a lot of, like I said, just missing data, you know, and things that are you can almost tell they're kind of fluffed in a way to make it seem to tilt against Leo. You know, I think honestly, she was probably trying to gather information about how I felt about it, but I wasn't really interested in sharing with her my opinions, so I just listened a lot.

00:26:24
Speaker 7: I mean, what do you think, do you think that there'll be this outcome for the next hearing will be different this time and just your basic thoughts.

00:26:32
Speaker 13: I think he deserves another chance from a different perspective, you know. And uh, I think there's there was a lot of missing data that people really didn't talk about. I think that your podcast helped shine a light on a lot of that stuff that you know, was just not talked about.

00:27:20
Speaker 4: This time. I feel I feel like it's not just my desperation and that there's an army coming.

00:27:32
Speaker 2: People around the world are now familiar with Leo's case. We hear from them every day, people who believe that Leo is innocent, who believe that the State of Florida has put the wrong man in prison for the murder of Michelle Schofield.

00:27:49
Speaker 4: I don't have to feel desperate because it's not just my voice, you know. It's like it is it does feel like there's huge army. Chrissy. You don't even have to say anything. We got you, We feel it, we know it. So you just sit back and what That's kind of how I feel, which is tremous, such a huge relief after.

00:28:17
Speaker 2: Three decades of fighting for justice for her husband. Because of her persistence in her cracking Leo's case wide open with her discovery of Jeremy Scott's fingerprints at the crime scene, Chrissy gets so many letters and phone calls. They're from old friends, law students, politicians, members of law enforcement, and just ordinary listeners who are moved to contact her to show their support and to state their belief in Leo's innocence.

00:28:50
Speaker 4: It was weird, like, you know, for thirty five years, I've been carrying this thing and to step back and go okay, like to step back it was hard. It was like a whole kinds of mixed kind of emotions in my head about it. But now I'm like, okay, now I'm I'm gonna I'll take it. I'll take it.

00:29:16
Speaker 2: A transfer to Everglades and the Lifer's Program would have been a win for Leo in past hearings, but this time that decision would feel like more of the same, more time passing with Leo still in prison, waiting indefinitely to be released.

00:29:34
Speaker 4: We're getting older and older. You know, we don't have a whole lot of time left over, you know, like you know, I mean really because think about it. He if he he'd have to get out, try to get some sort of job so that someday he can have some security. And older you get, the harder that is to you know, do and you know, our kid's grown now, we got grandkids. We're just getting older. It's just time, Like, what's the point let him go.

00:30:09
Speaker 9: I'm not a parole expert. I don't specialize in parole hearings, never did. This is one of those where I probably should know more than I do, But part of me is like I don't want to get immersed in their procedures because I think we're beyond that.

00:30:30
Speaker 2: At this upcoming hearing, it'll be Scott Cupp who will advocate on Leo's behalf. He's going to tell the Parole Commission that Leo should not spend another day in prison, that Leo should be paroled immediately released from the gates of Hardy Correctional institution straight to Noah's house.

00:30:49
Speaker 9: Now it's almost on a more you know, human being, one person to another person. Okay, what are you going to do about it? To get this man out of prison? You know, however you want to term it and phrase it. And I, you know, think back to when I listened when they denied him the last time, and you know, citing that this rule and this, you know, based upon thirteen A, this, this factor and that factor. It's like, screw that, screw that. You know, we're past that. Let's just let's just get him out.

00:31:28
Speaker 2: Scott thinks that because of all the attention Leo's case has gotten, that this hearing is different and it needs a different approach. The commissioners will know ahead of time that Leo is standing on a claim of innocence and that he has a lot of people standing with him, people who now believe what Scott Cup has believed ever since he read the trial transcript Chrissy gave him decades ago, that Leo Schofield is not just wrongfully convicted, He's an innocent man.

00:32:00
Speaker 4: I've already picked out the boots and keeps telling me the belty ones and the kind of jeans and the shirt, so at least I'll get him enough clothes to get them home.

00:32:10
Speaker 12: What does he want? What is he requesting?

00:32:12
Speaker 4: Oh, let's see jeans and then the shirt. It's one of those like what are they Henley shirts? You know where the push up sleeves like that and a belt but not shiny and boots. The ones that picked out are brown with black souls and kind of ankle tops and and no white underwear. That's not the list. So but yeah, yeah that the clothes has changed because the last time I got closed, I got suits, right, But no suits this time? No, No, just jeans.

00:32:59
Speaker 7: I like that.

00:33:00
Speaker 12: You're gonna look good.

00:33:01
Speaker 4: Yeah he will, he will look good.

00:33:06
Speaker 2: But Leo, his wife Chrissy, and his daughter Ashley have had their hopes crushed by this process before.

00:33:13
Speaker 19: I'm still not like ready to get my hopes up. I'm still not there yet.

00:33:21
Speaker 2: Since she was a child, Ashley has seen her father's parole get denied time after time. She never did get that normal childhood with a dad who could come to school plays or take prom pictures in the front yard. Now she's twenty two years old with children of her own.

00:33:39
Speaker 19: I'm still holding on to that child. You know that and her child because you know, I'm waiting for that dad and to be able to do things. So I don't know, it's very yeah, very weird, and I don't know if where it's the right word, but but I do know, like I'm super super excited because I'm like, at least my boys get to experience it. Now I might not have, but at least my kids get to experience it. So I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that.

00:34:11
Speaker 2: Ashley talks on the phone a lot with her dad, and she says that even though Leo doesn't say much about his hopes for parole, he's making changes that show where his head's at, like stepping down from some of the leadership roles at Hardy, passing them on to other inmates in the prison just in case he does get out.

00:34:31
Speaker 19: You know, he doesn't really talk about it, but there's some things that he does that shows there's hope and that's one of them, you know, him passing down the torch to someone else's that's huge, especially knowing how much those men mean to him. I'm just kind of taking everything as they go. I don't want to get hopeful. I don't want to say this is what I want, and then it doesn't happen and it's something else. And obviously we all know he needs to come home. We all know that.

00:34:58
Speaker 2: And aside from his wife, his and his two grandsons, there's something else waiting for Leo at home. Christy keeps it in the garage.

00:35:07
Speaker 6: WHOA, this is pretty I don't know anything about motorcycles. What is it?

00:35:13
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's a Harley.

00:35:17
Speaker 6: M Okay ready, I feel like this is the feeling of freedom in a little vehicle. I don't know, this is crazy.

00:35:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've heard that there are guards and prison administrators who are jockeying to be at Leo's side on the day of his release, walking him through the prison doors at Hardy to his long awaited freedom. Maybe that white Harley will be there waiting for him, and he'll ride west towards the sun, roaring down the open roads of Bone Valley. We don't know what's going to happen on May third and Tallahassee, but we're going to be there right alongside Chrissy Ashley, Scott cup Seth Miller, and many of Leo's friends and supporters who are hopeful that this is the day that finally ends Leo's wrongful incarceration.

00:36:46
Speaker 4: So I'm hoping this time the voices are heard loud and clear, you know, foot stomping loud. You know, enough's enough. I know the door opens out. I've seen it. Know that I actually have seen people walk out of prison, So I know that it's possible that door does open that way. It's not just an end. That door does open out. Sometimes during the visitation, you know, you'll see guys get out, their families waiting for them, and everybody collapse and stuff, and some way some visitors get sad, like they shouldn't do that in front of us because we make them sad. I'm like, oh, no, that door does open that way. It does.

00:37:46
Speaker 2: Leo's parole hearing will be open to the public. It will be held on May third in Tallahassee, Florida, at the Office for the Commission on a Fender Review. You can check our show notes and social media for further details.

00:38:10
Speaker 18: Letter dated February twentieth, twenty twenty three, to the Florida Commission on a Fender Review, Dear.

00:38:16
Speaker 20: Commissioners, Dear honorable members of the Parole Board.

00:38:20
Speaker 18: I'm writing in support of the immediate parole of Leo Schofield.

00:38:24
Speaker 20: I would like to extend my support for parole for Leo Schofield.

00:38:27
Speaker 21: I am writing on behalf of Leo Scholfield.

00:38:31
Speaker 20: Once again, I am writing in regards to Leo Robert Schofield Junior.

00:38:36
Speaker 18: I truly believe this man is innocent.

00:38:38
Speaker 20: The hardest part is that my brother Leo has been wrongfully imprisoned for over three decades.

00:38:45
Speaker 21: He has a devoted husband, father, and grandfather.

00:38:49
Speaker 5: I have followed the progression of his journey, and I have shared the highs and lows with him and his family.

00:38:56
Speaker 20: He's almost fifty seven now and has survived, arrived, learned, worked, reached, mentored, and performed his way through it all.

00:39:05
Speaker 21: I truly cannot imagine a better person to be granted parole.

00:39:10
Speaker 20: If you truly knew the man he was is and has become, you would be doing your very best to set him free.

00:39:17
Speaker 21: But it is up to you to allow him to be able to serve outside the walls of a prison.

00:39:24
Speaker 18: I am willing to offer mister Schofield ongoing support after his release.

00:39:29
Speaker 20: There are so many of us out here wanting to take extra special care of him, especially me.

00:39:35
Speaker 21: I thank you for your consideration and ask that you grant him his freedom.

00:39:42
Speaker 8: Dear Commissioners, let me begin by expressing my gratitude for being able to present myself for you for the purpose of being considered for parole. When June of this year arrives, I will have been incarcerated for thirty five years. I understand that parole is not based upon guilter. Since having shared that I must stay once again for the record that I am, in fact completely innocent of the crime I am charged with leads understand that I am not stating this back to Americans. The only reason I am emphatically stating my position here is because I cannot make a state for the remorse for this crime, as the state has highlighted in my last appearance before you in twenty nineteen. This is a very difficult position to assume. As I do know that you rightly look for the remorse in the potential paroli. I ask only that you consider the fact that I have stood on my innocence in the face of plea agreements that would have allowed me to go home many years ago without parole of probation. A back to the record that is known in the state. No inmate that knows he or she is guilty of a heinous crime, fakes into debt penalty, turns down a plea agreement that would have allowed freedom in less than four years, and instead stays in prison for over three decades, holding to a claim of innocence he or she does not actually is that in the hopes of one day convincing a permission that does not operate, guilty of innocence to let them go based upon that bony innocence that simply does not make sense. The only right conclusion that can be arrived at with my situation is that I'm forced to maintain my innocence simply because I am actually factually innocent. I may not be able to share remorse for a con I did not commit, but I can wholeheartedly promise you that if you will take a chance on me and grant me p ule, your grace will never come back to you an embarrassment or write. I pray that counts to something. I also make this promise to you that by the end of this year, you will be proud of me as a parole. I am wholeheartedly hoping that you will take advantage of my talents and abilities and use them within the prison system to help other inmates whom you may be considering a parole in the future. The fact is many of the friends I've met here are like family to me, and I wish to stay involved in theli to continue guiding them under my path. I can travel wherever you need me to go on demand. I honestly look forward to working for and with you in this endeavor, and of course your impact in my life is most needed and appreciated. Thank you for your time for consideration. THEO, Robert Schofield, Junior,