The Girlfriends S3/Bonus Ep 2: Tina’s story

This is an iHeart podcast.

There's nothing like sinking into luxury.

At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Anibay sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.

And get this: it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom, starting at only $699.

The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash.

Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa.

With a modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style.

Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anibay has you covered.

Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home.

Right now, you can shop up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Add a little

to your life.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

If you're waiting for your AI to turn into ROI

and wondering how long you have to wait,

maybe you need to do more than wait.

Any business can use AI.

IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business.

Let's create Smarter Business, IBM.

Parking shouldn't slow you down.

ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut.

Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block.

Park smarter, park faster, ParkWiz.

Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park.

When families face their darkest moments, your kindness can be the light they need.

And when it comes to helping children in the Bay Area, you can spark hope with Shell.

When you fill up at the Purple Giving Pump at Shell, a portion of your purchase is donated to charities like the California Fire Foundation.

Download the Shell app to find your nearest giving pump, less than one mile away.

Because giving back doesn't cost you extra.

From September 1st to October 31st, participating Shell stations will donate a minimum of one cent per gallon of the fuel pump from the giving pump or a minimum donation of $300.

Hey girlfriends, it's Anna here.

Just wanted to let you know that this bonus episode is going to include some pretty difficult stuff.

Mentions of child abuse, sexual assault, and an instance of very graphic violence.

There'll be some swearing too.

But you'll also get to hear the full story of a woman you first met back in episode seven, Tina.

She introduced Kelly Harnett to her lawyer, Kate Mogulescu.

From the time I woke up in Rikers,

and looked at my environment, I was saying to myself, how did I get here?

Tina, which is not her real name, has just woken up in Rikers Island jail.

A few nights earlier, on January 30th, 2016, she violently attacked her boyfriend.

How did I allow myself to get to this point in my life?

How did I get to that point that I caused that much damage to another human being?

And from

that thought, I went throughout my whole incarceration wanting to know, wanting to understand

how did this happen.

You see, Tina isn't like Kelly, who has always maintained her innocence.

Tina fully accepts that she committed a crime.

She puts her hands up to it.

She did something awful.

But what kind of punishment fits a crime like hers?

I'm Anna Sinfield, and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts, this is the Girlfriend's Jailhouse Lawyer.

Yes, I would love

Bonus episode two: Tina's story.

Tina's story starts with her mom.

I have no fond memories of my mother, but I love her

with all

here.

We go.

Whew.

Hold on.

That's all right.

Tina was born in 1974, but it isn't the start in life that any child deserves.

I did not grow up in a happy home at all.

Tina says her mom was both neglectful and violent.

And that abuse peaked when Tina was still just a baby.

My mother set me in a tub of hot boiling water, and both of my feet were burned.

Tina is left with scars on her feet.

She's quickly removed from the family home and put into foster care, which begins a years-long cycle of being bounced between childcare services and then back to her parents.

Each time she gets sent home to give it another go, Another instance of abuse or neglect happens.

Tina feels much safer when her dad is around, which he isn't often.

He's able to come between her and her mother's violent outbursts.

Tina trusts him.

But then, the final time Tina moves back into her parents' home, she says that one thread of trust is broken.

I can't tell you exactly what happened, but it's the worst thing a parent could do to a child.

So, when this situation did happen, I think

it broke me throughout the rest of my teenage years.

I was just all over the place drinking, having sex with this person and that person and smoking cigarettes, not abiding by curfew.

By then,

I was so self-destructive.

At 14 years old, Tina finds herself living with a foster family and pregnant.

she gives birth to her son at just 15 and then has her daughter at 17.

i didn't know nothing about being a mother of course i know you give the baby a bottle you change his pamper but to actually be

motherly i had no idea whatsoever

and eventually they took him from me because of me not

being a good mother.

I don't even know how to say that, but say it.

Flash forward a few difficult years, and Tina's now 20 years old.

She's back on her feet, living in an apartment in Newark, New Jersey.

She's got her life back enough on track that finally, her kids have come back to live with her.

And it's not just her kids.

She's also recently gained custody of two of her younger siblings.

But while the state made sure her apartment was big enough for all five of them, she didn't get any extra child support money for her siblings.

As a single-income household of five, they're barely able to survive.

One day, outside the YMCA where she works, Tina gets chatting to a young guy selling drugs in the neighborhood.

He said, Well, I can show you how you can sell, you know, Coke

and that'll get you the money that you need to take care of everything.

Tina drinks and she smokes a bit of weed, though she doesn't really do drugs.

But standing on this street corner, she figures selling them could be a way out.

A way out of poverty, but also out of the shadow of her and her siblings' childhoods.

I'm like, cool.

I'm like, yeah.

So I basically put in the money from the job and my brother was actually out on the street hustling in the drug.

One night, drunk and numbing her pain with booze, Tina's gaze turns to her stash.

I was like, I wonder wonder what they get out of chasing this stuff so hard like that.

So I tried the cocaine and I liked the feeling.

And if I would never have been drunk with that questioning, I would have never tried it.

It would took me like on a high that I was like party-like type.

And I just started sniffing cocaine on a regular basis as I drank my alcohol.

And I got a lot of more things done.

Like I was the best employee of the month.

I was the best parent of the year.

Then I realized I had a habit one day when I didn't have it and I wanted it.

And it started to being a problem.

Oh, shit, I'm hooked on this.

Tina realizes she's no longer capable of looking after the kids.

So she makes a heart-wrenching decision.

to give them up.

They end up living with her old foster mom.

From that decision, I was just in the street.

I was in the street chasing the drug.

I had learned a new way to use the drug.

I was no longer sniffing the cocaine.

I learned how to smoke the cocaine, which is crack cocaine.

Before she knows it, Tina's shoplifting and burgling to fund her new expensive habit, getting into more and more trouble with the law.

She builds up a pretty long rap sheet and spends her mid-20s in and out of correctional facilities.

How did you find it?

Crazy thing is, I was having the time of my life.

Hmm.

Yeah, I was with a young crowd there.

We was running around.

And

you have to remember how I have been in the system.

I'm used to this structured life.

I do good with structured life.

Being told when to go to bed, when your area has to be cleaned.

I had no responsibilities.

I had no bills.

I had no children to take care of.

So, yeah, it's crazy to say, but

that's what it was for me.

You know?

Prison also gave Tina a crucial break from drugs.

In this highly controlled environment, she's able to get clean and sober.

But once she's released and back in the outside world, That structure she thrived in disappears.

She gets back with an abusive ex for a while.

She also starts using cocaine again.

Desperate to get some stability back, Tina enrolls in a drug rehabilitation program.

I went to a program called ARC here in New York.

I believe it was in Harlem.

And

yeah, I did good in that program.

I was working.

I was saving money to eventually move out.

That's where she meets a guy we're calling Eli.

He was a funny little character, funny-looking little character.

And he was not my type whatsoever, but he used to have me laughing.

And all that I had been going through, that's how he got me.

Always making a joke, putting a smile on my face, lifting my spirits and everything.

Soon enough, they become a couple.

And things are looking up.

They're both sober, stable,

and falling in love.

And there was another couple that had found their apartment and they needed someone else to move in with them and they asked us and we decided to move out with each other by now i'm not on drugs i'm not drinking i'm working i'm living life

so we move into this apartment but the good times don't last things begin to spiral all the laughter was leaving there started to be a lot of sneaky behavior Tina and Eli start bickering all the time, and then they start to drift apart.

In that isolation, Tina becomes depressed and withdrawn from the world.

I stopped working.

I will stay in a dark room all the time.

Unsurprisingly, she falls back into her old coping mechanisms.

I'm drinking more heavily.

And on the corner, I saw a boy selling drugs.

I went out to see that boy.

and bought drugs and I started back on my bullshit.

One night, Tina's drug taking and the tensions with Eli reaches a fever pitch.

Because of her depression, she's pretty much unable to leave the house, which means she stopped working.

So she's financially dependent on him.

She's sitting at home, waiting for him to come back with some money that she desperately needs to buy food and drugs.

The time that he told me he would be back, he didn't come back.

I'm on crack okay now.

So I began to call him and I'm like, where are you?

He was like, well, I decided to go to Jersey.

At this point, the argument doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary for any normal couple.

A last-minute change of plans that creates tension, followed by a slew of angry texts that were probably taken in the worst way.

Tina is hungry and withdrawing, stewing in her anger back at home.

By the time Eli does come home with food for her, she's on edge and starving.

She tears into the food.

He was like, oh, damn, you hungry as hell, huh?

Laughing.

And I'm like, what's funny about that?

The argument ends, and while Tina takes her leftovers into the kitchen, Eli drifts off to sleep in their bedroom.

No big deal.

But for Tina, something has switched.

That throwaway laugh from Eli was just a mean joke, sure.

But Vetina, it was the final Jenga block being pulled from a wonky, insecure tower.

I went into a hole zone.

I started thinking of my mother.

I started thinking of my father.

I started thinking of everything

that I had endured in my life.

All those familiar and corrosive feelings of anger, fear, abandonment, and betrayal rise up in her chest.

She starts getting high in the kitchen, her feelings about the earlier argument festering.

All while images of her brutal life are flashing before her eyes.

The next thing you know,

I'm over the stove bawling hot grease.

Tina is experiencing what would later be described as a drug-induced psychosis, and it's going to drive her to do something really, really horrible.

So feel free to skip ahead about three and a half minutes if you don't want to hear the details.

I'm looking at this grease boy.

And I'm still thinking of not just him per se.

It was about

everything

in life.

I'm back on drugs.

I've disappointed so many people that don't know I'm back on drugs again.

And as I'm leaving out of the kitchen with the boiling grease, I pick up a knife

and I head towards our bedroom.

I remember putting the pot down on that radiator, thinking thinking to myself, like, I had two voices.

One was saying,

don't do this.

This is so wrong.

And another, like,

fuck that.

Like,

people keep playing you.

How long are you going to be stupid?

How long are you going to be a sucker?

And I opened that door with that hot pot of grease and I went in and threw it on him while he was asleep.

Boiling oil makes contact with Eli's skin, causing third-degree burns.

Panicking, he jumps up from the bed.

In the small bedroom, they start tussling, with the knife still in Tina's hand.

Tina's lost in a chaotic blur of drugs and fear and anger.

She doesn't know what she's doing until she feels herself stab Eli in the stomach.

I pulled the knife out

and he fell onto the bed.

So he's just laying there.

He says to me, he says, I love you.

And I'm looking at him in this daze and I'm like, oh, now you love me?

Now you love me.

And I remember leaving out of that room, going back into the kitchen and continued getting high.

getting high in the kitchen and continued getting high.

I'm so high.

And I remember the drugs eventually going low until it was gone.

And I started coming to a little bit of reality all of a sudden.

And he started conversating with me.

He was like, if you just leave and call 911 for me, I won't tell them that you did this.

I'll tell them somebody else did this.

I picked up a trick.

She hurt me.

Or a friend that they did this.

But I have to get help.

Please, I have children.

children.

And that's what did it for me.

And I remember looking up at him because he was moaning.

And that's what I saw the damage that I had that time.

And I was saying to myself, how did I get here?

What the newspapers say that I was in that room with him for 36 hours.

I don't know if it was that long, but I knew it was more than a day that we was like that in that room.

Tina wasn't aware until after the incident, but she had stabbed Eli multiple times in the leg, in the hand, and in the stomach, piercing vital organs.

Now, I just want to pause here for a moment and say, I know that this would have been really difficult to listen to believe me it's been pretty difficult to report on if i'm honest i don't enjoy raking over the lurid details of tina's life or this incident but considering jailhouse lawyer has really been about a woman who has always maintained her innocence i think it's important to challenge ourselves with an even more complicated case with a woman who absolutely without a shred of doubt, has committed a violent crime against a man who was was not abusive towards her.

In fact, in this moment, it's Tina who's the perpetrator of domestic violence.

What should the system do with women like Tina, who have experienced a lifetime of abuse, but who have also caused a lot of harm?

I feel in my gut that there has to be some kind of consequences for something like this.

For Tina, for Eli, and for the greater public.

But when I try and come up with one perfect solution for everyone, I come up short.

I think it comes down to thinking about what justice really looks like, and whether our end goal is to help, or if it's simply, to punish.

As the drugs are wearing off, Tina starts to really comprehend what she's done.

With shaking hands, she calls the police and tells them what's happened.

And she texts her sister, saying,

I'm going away for a long time.

This time.

Let's be real.

Life happens.

Kids spill, pets shed, and accidents are inevitable.

Find a sofa that can keep up at washable sofas.com.

Starting at just $699, our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out.

So you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

They're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life.

Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

Neat flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.

Visit washablesofas.com today and save.

That's washablesofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Parking shouldn't slow you down.

ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut.

Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block.

Park smarter, park faster, ParkWiz.

Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park.

Top Reasons Your Career Wants You To Move to Ohio.

So many amazing growth opportunities, high-paying jobs in technology, advanced manufacturing, engineering, life sciences, and more.

You'll soar to new heights, just like the Wright brothers, John Glenn, even Neil Armstrong.

Their careers all took off in Ohio, and yours can too.

A job that can take you further and a place you can't wait to come home to.

Have it all in the heart of it all.

Launch your search at callohiohome.com.

What happens when Delta Airlines sends four creators around the world to find out what is the true power of travel?

I think it helped me sort of like get grounded.

I think I unlocked some like childhood dream.

Turn my stress into excitement.

Take that gratitude from those experiences into your daily life.

That's why Jimma Speg, host of the Psychology of Your 20s, sat down with Dr.

Henry Ting, Delta's chief health and wellness officer, an instrumental voice behind this travel experiment.

I love that the dream trip versus, you know, the around-the-corner trip both have very similar mental and social perks and benefits.

Oh, yeah, very much so.

On both trips, their emotional well-being and social well-being, went through the roof.

Find out more about how travel can support well-being on this special episode of the Psychology of Your 20s, presented by Delta.

Fly and live better.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

When the police show up, they quickly notice Tina's psych medication on the dresser.

And the process of getting her into a secure hospital begins.

She's assessed by doctors, interviewed by police officers.

The whole time, Tina remains steadfastly honest.

I was going to be willing and accepting of it.

I was going to tell the truth of what happened.

I went in with hours high and I committed the crime that I committed.

She spends the next month or so in a secure psychiatric hospital.

on a course of various heavy medications.

As far as arraignment, meeting my public defender for the first time, I was so drugged up, I was a little slower with my speech.

My thought process and everything was like a little blurred.

Finally, she spat out into Rikers Island Jail, where she's eventually put into the intensive treatment unit.

This is where they house people with complex mental health histories.

And just like Kelly did, Tina starts opening up to the women around her.

Eventually, we all had conversations with each other.

And yeah, majority of every woman that I talked to that was on that unit with us had been through some type of domestic violence abuse.

We were all there for hurting a man that we was in a relationship with.

Every single one of you.

Every single one of us on this unit.

One day, Tina is on the phone to her mother.

when her mom catches her by surprise.

She said, guess who came by my house?

So I'm thinking she was going to say my ex-husband came by.

So I'm like, Who?

Who came by the house?

It's Eli.

He's alive and he's in her mother's house.

I'm confused.

I'm so confused.

I'm like, for what?

Now I'm thinking, you know, you're going to get back at me and harm my family.

She was like, no, he wanted to know, you know, where you at.

And she said he's going to come see you.

And I'm like, what?

It's a lot to take in.

Not only has Eli survived, but he's well enough to casually visit Tina's mother with no malice or anger.

By the time I hung up the phone with my mother, they said you have a visit.

I'm like, I have a visit.

Now,

my mother just told me this, but I'm still not thinking it's him.

He's not coming to see me.

So I get to the visiting floor and it's him.

Sitting behind the protective glass, waiting to meet her.

The man she essentially tortured and nearly killed.

I don't know what to say.

I'm totally confused.

Why are you here?

And he's like, I, you know, I had to come see you.

I want you to know that I forgive you

and that I'm going to be here to support you through all of this.

And I'm like,

what?

The visit ended with him saying, you know, do you need anything?

I'll be back next week.

And, you know, you can call me whenever you want to.

Let me know if you need anything.

And there really, I don't know, really was nothing behind it

but forgiveness.

But I really did not know how to take that

at the time.

I'm like, why would you want to forgive me for a situation such as this?

Eli actually becomes a huge advocate for Tina.

He says he understands that she was high, experiencing a psychological break.

It wasn't really her.

Her public defender, a man named George DePountess, also has her back.

George was actually the first person to suggest to Tina that there might be a connection between her crime and her past experiences.

He then suggests that to the court too, this connection between the abuse she had suffered and her attack on Eli.

This and the fact she pled guilty to attempted murder straight away means that her sentence is reduced from 25 to life,

down to 16.

Tina says her goodbyes to the women on her Rikers unit and gets ready to face the years ahead at Bedford Hills Prison.

Life's messy.

We're talking spills, stains, pets, and kids.

But with Anibay, you never have to stress about messes again.

At washablesofas.com, discover Anibay Sofas, the only fully machine-washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699.

Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics.

That means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime.

Need flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.

That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Upgrade your space today.

Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life.

That's washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Parking shouldn't slow you down.

ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut.

Book ahead, save up to 50% and skip the hassle of circling the block.

Park smarter, park faster, ParkWiz.

Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park.

Top Reasons Your Career Wants You to Move to Ohio.

So many amazing growth opportunities, high-paying jobs in technology, advanced manufacturing, engineering, life sciences, and more.

You'll soar to new heights, just like the Wright brothers, John Glenn, even Neil Armstrong.

Their careers all took off in Ohio, and yours can too.

A job that can take you farther and a place you can't wait to come home to.

Have it all in the heart of it all.

Launch your search at callohiohome.com.

What happens when Delta Airlines sends four creators around the world to find out what is the true power of travel?

I think it helped me sort of like get grounded.

I think I unlocked some like childhood dream.

Turn my stress into excitement.

Take that gratitude from those experiences into your daily life.

That's why Jimma Speg, host of the Psychology of Your 20s, sat down with Dr.

Henry Ting, Delta's chief health and wellness officer, an instrumental voice behind this travel experiment.

I love that the dream trip versus you know the around-the-corner trip both had very similar mental and social perks and benefits.

Oh, yeah, very much so.

On both trips, their emotional well-being and social well-being went through the roof.

Find out more about how travel can support well-being on this special episode of the Psychology of Your 20s, presented by Delta.

Fly and live better.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

From the moment she arrives at Bedford Hills, Tina knew this was going to be a drastically different experience from her first incarceration.

Back then, she'd relished the break from responsibility and even enjoyed her time inside.

But this time, She's on a mission.

She was trying to understand

me and how did I get to that point point in my life.

One of the first things to sort was getting visitation rights for Eli.

Because automatically it was a restraining order issue for me not to be in contact with him.

So he went to the courts and basically asked to be able to come see me.

Then we started having visits.

And then there's a shitload of self-work to do.

There was this program called Family Violence.

And I was like, oh, this might be, you know, a good fit for me and what I was trying to understand.

And I went in open.

I'm the only one talking for a good two weeks.

I'm just pouring my heart out and, you know, trying to get a better understanding.

And from me talking, other people began to open up and talk.

Tina puts in the hard graft like this for years.

trying to unravel the knots of her lifelong traumas from the reality of what she did to Eli.

When in around 2019, she hears about a new law called the DVSJA, the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act.

You heard about it in Kelly's story.

The law works to reduce the sentences of people whose experiences of domestic abuse have been shown to influence their crimes.

It's clearly relevant to Tina's case.

So she contacts her lawyer, who in turn puts her in touch with a woman named Kate, Kate Mogulescu, the lawyer that Tina introduced to Kelly in episode seven.

A lawyer slash professor at Brooklyn Law School.

And I remember meeting her, little short, curly, black-haired Jewish lady.

Nobody really knows how to go about this, this new law.

So she's discussing how I'm a good candidate because of all the abuse that I went through as a child.

Kate and Tina get to work compiling a trove of documents and details about the abuse Tina had suffered.

It's heavy, hard work, trawling through the worst moments of her life, building the case one painful memory at a time.

All for her application to be rejected.

The abuse wasn't substantial at the time of the crime.

So I was denied a hearing and I was hurt.

It wasn't even about the freedom.

I think I was more hurt because I felt like I wasn't being heard.

I remember Kate saying to me, but we're not going to give up.

We're going to try something else.

Kate thinks that Tina could be eligible for clemency from the governor.

Clemency basically means mercy.

The idea is that the governor would look at the context of Tina's life, as well as the work she's done since, and decide if that 16-year sentence was really the right call.

If the governor decides it's not, that she deserves a little mercy, Tina could have her sentence changed or reduced.

But she's not buying it.

I'm definitely not thinking I'm going to get clemency.

There's no way in the world.

Sorry to say, black women.

that was incarcerated is not getting clemency from prison.

Like the ones that we have heard was white and let alone a woman at all.

Men get clemency.

Women don't get clemency in the state of New York.

That's just like a known fact.

Despite this, Kate and Tina finish assembling the paperwork.

They get a testimonial of support from Eli and then they file the case.

One morning, the officer on duty tells Tina to get ready because she's being called down to an area known as traffic.

It's where the superintendent is posted, And it's also the area that you go for visitation.

I know I don't have a visit, so I'm like, what they want me for?

So instantly, I thought somebody died.

Like they're calling me down here to inform me that somebody passed away in my family.

She's being told by the officer to hurry up and get ready.

Somebody is coming to get her and escort her down there.

And I'm being escorted?

Somebody's dead.

I asked him, what am I going down here for?

He was like, I I don't know.

They just told me to bring you down here.

As soon as she walks through the door and into traffic, she notices the superintendent standing there.

Tall.

Scary lady.

Tina's ushered into a room with a box of tissues sitting on the table.

Yup, somebody's dead.

Who is it?

The superintendent says nothing, and they sit down.

Tina's mind is running through every awful possibility.

The superintendent looks up at her.

She's like, I just want to say congratulations to you.

Soon as she said that, I knew and I just started crying.

Governor Hochel has granted Tina clemency.

And I was like, um,

she did it.

She did it.

And she was like, who did it?

I'm like, my lawyer.

I'm like, my lawyer, she did it.

After seven and a half years behind bars, years of reflecting on the terrible crime she committed and the terrible crimes that were committed against her, Tina is free.

As I was walking up the hill with the officer with my good news,

I started thinking of all the other women here

who had been fighting,

who had been fighting before me.

The ones who deserved it more than me.

The ones that were 70 and 80 years old.

I don't know.

I just felt like there were so many other people

that should be in my shoes that day.

These days, Tina is out and sober, with a job and a roof over her head.

But she never stopped thinking about those women left inside.

And now she spends her time fighting for them.

She joined the organization founded by her lawyer, Kate.

It's called SJP, the Survivors Justice Project.

They focus on using the DVSJA to get survivors out of prison through reduced sentences.

SJP is basically a group of formerly incarcerated women that sits on a board and

give their experiences to make the law better than what it is.

And the biggest thing with the law that needs to be changed is how they look at substantial.

Tina's talking about what counts as substantial abuse in the eyes of the law.

At the time of my crime, my abuse was substantial, but the court don't see it as we see it because I walked my whole life with scars on my body and my emotions of all that happened to me throughout my life.

So it was substantial at the time of my crime.

And that's what we're trying to make them understand: a different way of how to look at this law.

So other women who are in the same situation can come home earlier because they're still victims.

And the courts don't see it as that.

I'm sure there were many people who read the headlines about Tina's crime when it first happened.

People who are probably shocked that she's free just eight years later.

But ask yourself this.

If Tina was still in prison today,

what good would it do?

She's long since taken full accountability for what she did.

She spent years behind bars, painstakingly re-examining her past, and she's even got the forgiveness and support of the person she hurt.

Tina did something terrible, and she's not afraid to own that.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that she's also a victim and a survivor.

I keep coming back to that question I asked earlier.

Is the goal to help or punish?

In my mind, our social and legal structures should help citizens be the best they can be.

Tina has already been let down by those systems time and time again.

Locking her up will not break that cycle.

So what should we do with women like Tina instead?

Next week, I ask an expert just that.

We have told people that justice is punishment.

We are a retributive people and it's what we've been taught.

And I don't want to live in that kind of society.

And I eat some humble pie.

Yeah, I was listening to the first season and was yelling at

the radio.

I liked the idea of you yelling at the radio

at the work that I did.

I think that's great.

The Girlfriend's Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart podcasts.

For more from Novel, visit novel.audio.

The show is hosted by me, Anna Sinfield, and is written and produced by me and Lee Meyer, with additional production from Jayco Tayavich and Michael Ginnow.

Our assistant producer is Madeleine Parr.

The editors are Georgia Moody and me, Anna Sinfield.

Production management from Cherie Houston, Joe Savage and Charlotte Wolfe.

Our fact checker is Dania Suleiman.

Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander.

Music supervision by me, Alice Infield, Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander.

Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander, Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein.

Story development by Nell Gray Andrews and Willard Foxton, Creative Director of Novel.

Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are our executive producers for Novel.

And Katrina Norvell and Nikki Etor are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts.

And the marketing lead is Alison Cantor.

Thanks also to Carrie Lieberman and the whole team at WME.

There's nothing like sinking into luxury.

At washable sofas.com, you'll find the Anibay sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.

And get this: it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom, starting at only $699.

The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash.

Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa.

With a modular modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style.

Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anibay has you covered.

Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home.

Right now, you can shop up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Shop now at washablesofas.com.

Add a little

to your life.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Parking Parking shouldn't slow you down.

ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut.

Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block.

Park smarter, park faster, ParkWiz.

Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park.

Top reasons data nerds want to move to Ohio.

High-paying careers for business researchers, analysts, project managers, and more.

So many jobs, you can take your pick.

What else does the data say?

How about a bigger backyard, a shorter commute, and a paycheck that goes further?

So crunch the numbers and our world-famous pickles.

It all adds up.

The career you want and a life you'll love.

Have it all in the heart of it all.

Dive into the data at callohiohome.com.

Ah, smart water.

Pure, crisp taste, perfectly refreshing.

Wow, that's really good water.

With electrolytes for taste, it's the kind of water that says, I have my life together.

I'm still pretending the laundry on the chair is part of the decor.

Yet, here you are, making excellent hydration choices.

I do feel more sophisticated.

That's called having a taste for taste.

Huh, a taste for taste.

I like that.

Smartwater, for those with a taste for taste, grab yours today.

This is an iHeart Podcast.