Meet Jeffrey Deskovic

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jeffrey Deskovic. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jeffrey below.

Hi Jeffrey, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
By being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 16 years- from age 17-32- for a murder and rape I didn’t commit, prior to being exonerated by DNA.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
My non-profit organization, The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, which I founded, frees people who have been imprisoned for crimes they are innocent of as well as pursues policy changes aimed at preventing those injustices in the first place. So far, we have freed 14 people and helped pass 6 laws.

As the Founder of the organization, I:

work on wrongful conviction cases as an attorney, often with co-counsel. There are 9 cases I am working on.

get updates on the other 4 cases

I meet with elected officials related to policy changes aimed at preventing wrongful conviction, in: NY, California; and Pennsylvania

participate in strategy sessions related to same

am the liason to other exonerees, coordinating to get them to attend meetings, rallies, press conferences, etc.

am interviewed by media and new media

speak at press conferences and rallies

do speaking engagements across the country

meet with potential donors

review proposals we send out seeking funding

as an individual, I also endorse in some political races when candidates of both parties are running on wrongful conviction correction and prevention plans and general justice reform

attend conferences

serve on advisory boards

connect other allies to the coalitions The Foundation is in, and to the organizations where I serve on the advisory board

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
– resilience- never giving up -thinking outside the box
-open to outside input- trying ideas suggested by others when it makes sense

My formula:

Have a goal; have a realistic plan; be flexible-the plan is not the goal, the goal is the plan, so if along the way an unexpected door opens, walk through it; don’t be afraid of hard work; no excuses- there may be reasons something is hard(er) but no reason why it can’t be accomplished; never give up. And when you finally make it, reach back and help someone in the same position you were in. It will be meaningful, make a difference. healing, cathartic, and make your suffering count for something.

Another thing: don’t be angry. It is important to live a meaningful life, and one can’t do that while being angry; you already have lost a lot, why in effect lose the rest of your life, you will not be negatively impacting the people who did something wrong to you. The vehicle you can use to to actualize that is take the energy you feel and channel it into you work. Often what you have overcome will show you your purpose in the world, and with that, you can have inner peace and rise above what happened to you.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?
I need assistance with networking.

1) I arrived where I am socio-economic status wise artificially, through a lawsuit, not because I made through rising in business so that I now have a cohort of people who also made it that I can turn to to ask for assistance with my organization. So I need 3rd parties who can introduce me to people in their network that the cause would likely speak to.

I just want to get into a conversation where it is a soft-sell: this is who I am, my credentials; this is the organization’s mission, our track record, and what we could accomplish if we had the funding that we need. Is this something that you would be willing to help with, or no? We need intermediate and large donors, as well as people to sit on the board.

2) We don’t have any celebrity spokespeople/ambassadors, whether an athlete, musician, or other high profile person.

3) My organization and I need to broaden our public profile. We are already one of the best known unknowns. I need to somehow break into the tv talk show circuit, as well as media and new media platforms that have large audiences.

All 3 of those things are united in that the bring us to this bottom line:

We need to raise more money so that we can work on trying to free more people- right now we are at full capacity- we have 13 active cases, but another 5 that are approved but waiting. Until we raise more money which will allow us to hire additional legal personnel, we simply won’t have the capacity to work on those 5 cases nor any other cases that we approve after screening.

Contact Info:

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