379: What if you witnessed your client’s execution?

This Is Actually Happening

Wondery

True Crime, Tiah, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 9.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A man shaped by cruelty devotes his life to defending the condemned, discovering that real courage lies not in victory, but in standing beside the most despised.

Today’s episode featured Clive Stafford Smith. If you’d like to reach out to Clive, you can email him at [email protected]. You can find Clive on X/Twitter @CliveSS and on Instagram @clivestaffordsmith

To find out more about the work Clive does, visit https://justiceleague.org.uk/.

Producers: Whit Missildine, Andrew Waits, Jason Blalock

Content/Trigger Warnings: Child abuse, Child Molestation, Child Murder, Physical violence, Emotional neglect, Execution, Capital punishment, Racism, Racial violence, Torture, State violence, Mental illness, explicit language

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Instagram: @actuallyhappening

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Website: thisisactuallyhappening.com

Website for Andrew Waits: andrdewwaits.com

Website for Jason Blalock: jasonblalock.com

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Intro Music: “Sleep Paralysis” - Scott Velasquez

Music Bed: Uncertain Outcomes

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to exclusive episodes of This Is Actually Happening
0:05.0	by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:09.6	This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events.
0:13.9	Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode
0:17.0	and for more information about support services.
0:31.4	My fundamental passion is to look around the world for the most hated people in the world and get between them and the people during the hatred.
0:37.1	And the reasons of that is because you always know you right.
0:43.9	From Wondery, I'm Whit Misseldine. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening.
0:57.6	Episode You're listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 379.
1:01.0	What if you witnessed your client's execution? It's your man, Nick Cannon, I'm here to bring you my new podcast, Nick Cannon at night.
1:20.0	Every week I'm bringing out some of my celebrity friends and the best experts in the business to answer your most intimate relationship questions.
1:27.2	So don't be shy.
1:28.2	Join the conversation and head over to YouTube to watch Nick Cannon at night or subscribe
1:32.5	on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. I'm going to start with one of my great, great, great, great, grandparents.
1:54.9	His name was the King of Prussia.
1:57.7	He was called the King of Prussia, because he was a smuggler, who operated out of Prussia Cove in Cornwall. He was called the King of Prussia because he was a smuggler who operated out of Prussia
2:01.9	Cove in Cornwall. He was sentenced to death when he was caught by the customs and excite people.
2:08.2	And back in the day, you could do what was called now pleading the benefit of clergy, which meant
2:13.8	simply that you had to read a verse of the Bible. And so the King of Prussia recited his verse of the Bible, got pardoned,
2:22.5	and came back to Britain and spent the rest of his life in Cornwall spending what money had made.
2:29.5	And I'm very proud of him, and I like to think that, you know,
2:32.4	being sentenced to death in my family was probably
	...

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