75% of Exonerated Women Were Convicted of Crimes That Didn't Even Happen (!)
Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments Media LLC
4.3 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2025
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
OA1163 - No really. That's a real stat. It may actually be WORSE than that. So uh... how in the hell? Professor Valena Beety is here to break it down. She's done a ton of great work in this area, and has a new legal research paper, "Unfit": Gender, Ableism and Reproductive Wrongful Convictions by Valena Elizabeth Beety, which goes into this and much more!
Content note: this episode does involve discussion of events where young children died. We don't dwell on these events much at all other than to mention them as needed.
More links: Indiana Innocence Project, Kristine Bunch | National Registry of Exonerations, Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights, Op ed: Why has Brenda Andrew been on death row for two decades? It has everything to do with sex.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You must never ever give out or give in. You must keep the faith and keep your eyes on the prize. |
| 0:07.6 | That is your calling. That is your mission. That is your moral obligation. That is your mandate. |
| 0:13.4 | Get out there and do it. Get in the way. Change happens because people care. |
| 0:26.6 | You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. |
| 0:36.6 | I still believe with all my heart, America can't. free and beautiful to make this life a wonderful adventure. |
| 0:44.1 | I still believe with all my heart, America can be a place where no child is left hungry, |
| 0:47.9 | no community is left behind, and no one gets told they don't belong. |
| 0:55.1 | The fight for our country is always worth it. |
| 0:58.6 | Hello and welcome to opening arguments. |
| 1:00.2 | This is episode 1163. |
| 1:01.8 | I'm your host, Thomas Smith. |
| 1:06.6 | And today we'll be speaking to Indiana University law professor Valena Beattie. |
| 1:08.2 | This is a really, really interesting one. |
| 1:13.3 | She's done lots of great work on innocence, on wrongful convictions, and she has a new legal research paper called unfit gender, ableism, and reproductive wrongful convictions. |
| 1:18.8 | There's some shocking stuff in here about how often women are wrongly convicted around |
| 1:23.7 | things that happen to their children. |
| 1:25.4 | Obviously, for me in particular, this is a bit of a tough |
| 1:27.9 | subject, but we don't dwell on any of the sad details of these. But whether it's miscarriages or |
| 1:33.0 | stillbirths labeled as criminal, testing positive for legally prescribed medicine or other |
| 1:39.0 | kind of tragic things that happen, oftentimes the mothers are blamed and treated as criminal |
| 1:43.6 | when they absolutely are |
| 1:45.0 | not and when no crime even happened. We're going to learn more about that. And all kinds of other |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Opening Arguments Media LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Opening Arguments Media LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.