The In Between Podcast with Mel Barrett

While Rebecca's on vacation, Mel sits down with fellow podcaster, rockstar journalist, all around badass, and friend, Maggie Freleng. If you want to watch Mel fangirl all over Maggie, join us! We'll be talking about Maggie's groundbreaking work on wrongful convictions, her newest and amazing podcast, Bone Valley: Graves County Season 3, and the ethics of reporting in the true crime sphere. If you like us, please tip us:venmo: @melbarrettwritescashapp: cash.app/$SomethingsOffTipsYou can now join the YouTube channel! Click the join button to select your favorite level.Follow @realmelbarrett on all socials / TT: @jackofalltradesdc Listen to the In Between Podcast wherever you get your podcasts!Follow ‪@reblavoie‬ on all socials Listen to Crime Writer's On wherever you get your podcasts

We knew that already though. Join Mel and cohost, Ellyn Marsh, who is in for Rebecca who is on vacation as they talk Alan Jackson on Billy Bush, Rotten Mango interview w/Karen Read, and Microdots 24 mph in reverse?If you like us, please tip us:venmo: @melbarrettwritescashapp: cash.app/$SomethingsOffTipsYou can now join the YouTube channel! Click the join button to select your favorite level.Follow @realmelbarrett on all socials / TT: @jackofalltradesdc Listen to the In Between Podcast wherever you get your podcasts!Follow ‪@reblavoie‬ on all socials Listen to Crime Writer's On wherever you get your podcasts

In this episode of The In Between, Mel sits down with Pamela Smart’s attorney and her good friend— Matthew Zernhelt, on what feels like a turning point day in Pam’s case.Matt has spent years doing the kind of work that doesn’t fit neatly into soundbites: complex post-conviction litigation, constitutional violations, and the long, grinding fight to get a court to actually look at what went wrong. And this week, he and his team filed a new habeas petition — a last-resort legal mechanism that lets you challenge a conviction after the appeals are over, but only on specific, fundamental constitutional grounds.We break down what a habeas petition is (in plain English), why Pam’s case is so unusual, and why this filing is happening in two places at once: New Hampshire, where she was convicted, and New York, where she’s been incarcerated for decades under an interstate compact that creates a jurisdictional mess no one seems to have a clear playbook for.Then we walk through the five core arguments in the petition — including: A groundbreaking scientific study on confirmation bias and “expectation-induced” hearing, showing how state-created transcripts shaped what jurors believed they heard on barely-audible wiretaps. A media-tainted verdict, including evidence that a juror relied on a newspaper story during trial — information that was never presented in court. An unauthorized concession of guilt by trial counsel in closing argument, and why that matters legally (not just emotionally). Faulty jury instructions, including what the jury was not properly told about accomplice liability, premeditation, and what evidence they were allowed to consider. A sentencing problem that still stops me cold: the claim that Pam was given life without parole as if it were mandatory — when the law didn’t actually mandate it for the charge she was convicted of. This is a conversation about law, yes — but it’s also about how a person gets “convicted by headline,” how institutions double down, and what it takes to reopen a case the public thinks it already knows.You’ll hear what happens next, what an evidentiary hearing would look like, and what a “win” actually means here — a new trial, a new sentencing hearing, or the first real shot in decades at getting Pamela Smart back to New Hampshire… and back to her life.(The petition is public and will be made available to listeners. The underlying study has not yet been formally published, but it’s coming.)If you're a fan of Mel's work, please tip her. She's a one-woman-show and is appreciative of your support. ❤️venmo: @melbarrettwritescashapp: cash.app/$SomethingsOffTipsWant to listen to The In Between Podcast AD FREE and receive loads of bonus content? Join the Investigator ClubWatch Something's Off on YouTube

Listener discretion advised.What happens when the state kills someone — and then decides the story matters more than the truth?In this episode of The In Between, host Mel Barrett, examines the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three shot and killed by a federal ICE agent in Minneapolis. Using newly analyzed video, eyewitness accounts, and reporting that directly contradicts the federal government’s claims, this episode slows the moment down — frame by frame — and asks what we’re being told to believe, and why.This isn’t just about one shooting.It’s about narrative power.About confirmation bias and “alternative facts.”About being trained to reject the evidence of our own eyes.As protests erupt and federal agencies close ranks, local investigators are shut out, the FBI takes exclusive control of the evidence, and career civil rights prosecutors resign rather than participate in what they see as a refusal to investigate. The institutions meant to provide accountability begin to crack — and the cost of that collapse becomes painfully clear.This episode confronts fear-as-justification, panic-as-crime, and the growing gap between what happens and what we’re told happened. It asks what justice looks like when transparency disappears — and what it means when the people inside the system walk away.Because Renee Good didn’t get a trial.And her story deserves more than a press release.If you're a fan of Mel's work, please tip her. She's a one-woman-show and is appreciative of your support. ❤️venmo: @melbarrettwritescashapp: cash.app/$SomethingsOffTipsWant to listen to The In Between Podcast AD FREE and receive loads of bonus content? Join the Investigator ClubWatch Something's Off on YouTube

What can we say? You don't want to miss this one!If you like us, please tip us:venmo: @melbarrettwritescashapp: cash.app/$SomethingsOffTipsYou can now join the YouTube channel! Click the join button to select your favorite level.Follow @realmelbarrett on all socials / TT: @jackofalltradesdc Listen to the In Between Podcast wherever you get your podcasts!Follow ‪@reblavoie‬ on all socials Listen to Crime Writer's On wherever you get your podcasts