Back in America

Barry Beach lived four houses from Kim Nees in Poplar, Montana, a small town on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. In June 1979 Kim, 17, was beaten to death. Barry, also 17, was questioned and told he was free to go. In January 1983, in Louisiana, his stepmother handed police a sheriff's letter naming him as a suspect. A homicide task force questioned him for about seven hours with no lawyer, and he signed a confession. He has said ever since that it was false. In 1984 he was sentenced to 100 years without parole.This conversation is Barry's account, with Jim McCloskey as a second voice. Jim founded Centurion in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1983, the first wrongful-conviction organization in the US. It took Barry's case in 2000 after he wrote to them. Stan also asks Jim about Framed, the book he co-wrote with John Grisham.Along the way: why Barry turned himself in when he could have run, what helps the wrongly convicted rebuild, and what Barry tells every jury. Stan ends with the question he asks every guest: what is America to you?In this episode:- The detective who, in Barry's telling, described the electric chair and said he couldn't wait to see him fry: "It broke me down."- The brown jacket the confession put on Kim. She did not wear one.- How Centurion picks a case from the 1,000 to 1,200 letters it receives each year- Jim on why Barry's confession did not hold up- 2011: a judge orders a new trial and Barry walks out. 2013: the Montana Supreme Court reinstates the conviction, and he keeps his word to Centurion. "I coulda ran, I coulda took off."- House Bill 43, and Gov. Steve Bullock's commutation in November 2015, when Barry walked out at 53- Ten years of probation, his own handyman business, and a conviction that still stands- Jim on whether the system can be fixed, with 3,000 counties each running its own, and the 72 people Centurion has freedJim McCloskey's books:- Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions (2024), with John Grisham. Ten cases, five written by each.- When Truth Is All You Have, a memoirSubscribe to Back in America wherever you listen, and leave a review if this one moved you.

Alison Gieschen spent thirty years on a farm, raising horses, raising kids, living in a house her husband Dan built by hand. Then they sold all of it, the furniture, the horses, the house, and moved onto a 43-foot sailboat named Equus to sail around the world.This is the conversation about what that costs and what it gives back. Alison takes Stan back to the last night in the farmhouse, into the Atlantic storm that left her with PTSD, and to the friend whose question ("do you know how lucky you are?") put her back on the water. From a tiny island in the Marquesas, she has been watching America from the outside since 2017.Along the way: what 50 countries taught her about freedom versus security, the poverty she found in Cape Verde, the Chinese fishing fleets killing the ocean she now calls home, and the novel she wrote where horses sit in judgment of the human race. And the question Stan asks every guest: what is America to you?- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sailmates_on_equus/- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sailmates.org/- Author site and books: alisongieschen.com- Blog: Sailmates.org

Jeff Kruszyna has raised over a hundred million dollars for Christian conservative causes. He does it with paper letters that arrive in your mailbox. Twenty years ago, watching the second plane hit the second tower on a television set at SUNY Stony Brook, he changed his major from computer science to political science. He has been writing fundraising letters for America First causes ever since, with God, he says, as the real CEO.  This conversation traces the tradition behind Jeff's work: from John Winthrop's 1630 sermon on a ship crossing the  Atlantic to Ronald Reagan's optimistic nationalism to what Jeff calls the Patriot Economy, a marketplace where purchasing decisions become acts of faith. Stan asks about Max Weber, the prosperity gospel, Martin Luther King, and the money changers in the Temple.  Two questions drive the hour. Is this the most American thing imaginable? And is that a comfort or a warning?  Connect with Jeff:  - Free 30-minute strategy session: http://www.getjeffk.com  - Agency website: http://www.jmkvictory.com  - LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/Kruszyna  - X: @Kruszyna

  Bryan Mark Rigg failed first grade twice. Today he's a Yale and Cambridge-trained historian, a former Marine Corps officer, and the author of six books on World War II that have rewritten what we thought we knew about the war.                                                                                                                                                                                                           In this episode, Stan sits down with Bryan to unpack three of his most explosive findings:That 150,000 men of Jewish descent served in Hitler's military, and that Hitler himself signed thousands of exemption papers declaring individual Jews "Aryan." That the "ideal Aryan soldier" on Goebbels' propaganda magazine turned out to have a Jewish father. That a half-Jewish German veteran broke down on camera when he learned his wife and baby boy had been gassed at Auschwitz, and that his second wife discovered, in the same moment, after 50 years of marriage, that she was the second wife.                                                                                  That Woody Williams, the last living Medal of Honor recipient from Iwo Jima, fabricated key parts of his story. That a Marine Corps general told Bryan, "don't publish the truth, publish the myth." That Bryan said no, and Woody slapped him with a federal lawsuit. Bryan won at the Supreme Court of West Virginia.That Japan killed 30 million people during World War II, three times more than Nazi Germany, and almost no one knows.                                                                                    We also talk about Bryan's own American story. Severe dyslexia, ADHD, an MBD diagnosis at age six, a mother named MaryLee Rigg who refused to give up, and the small-classroom private schools that taught him how to read. The boy from Arlington, Texas who made it to Yale, the Marine Corps, and Cambridge.It's a conversation about hidden history, the cost of telling the ugly truth, and what America makes possible.  About Bryan Mark Rigg:                                                                                                                                                                                     Website: https://bryanmarkrigg.com/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bryanmarkrigg/                                                                                                                                                     Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Mark_Rigg

William Henry Seward was supposed to be president. In 1860, he was the favorite for the Republican nomination until he lost it to a lesser-known prairie lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. Then, while Lincoln sat silent in Springfield for four months after the election, Seward fought alone from the Senate floor to save the Union.C. Evan Stewart, Cornell-trained historian, 40-year securities lawyer, and author of a new book on Seward, walks Stan through what really happened in the Secession Winter of 1860-61: the back-channel meetings with Virginia unionists, the proposed 13th Amendment that would have protected slavery forever, the April 1 memo raising the prospect of confrontation with France, and the day Lincoln changed his mind about Fort Sumter.From there, they go deeper. The Dred Scott decision and what Chief Justice Taney actually wrote. Why Stewart believes Chief Justice Roberts is quietly rebalancing American power today. Lincoln's record on civil liberties. And the French tariff parallel Stan raises that Stewart bluntly calls "completely different."Stewart closes with his answer to the show's signature question: What is America to you?More episodes at backinamericathepodcast.com. If this one landed, share it with someone who loves an untold story, and leave a rating. It pushes the show up in search and helps new listeners find us.William Henry Seward's Quest to Save the Nation During the Secession Winter (1860-1861)