Lies, Injustice and 20 Years of Wrongful Imprisonment, but Now, Forgiveness in Jesus

It’s an unlikely story of friendship.

Bobby Gumpright and Jermaine Hudson are now good friends who text each other every day, but 24 years ago, Gumpright lied and sent Hudson to prison. 

It all began in 1999 when 18-year-old Gumpright, a college dropout, rode his bike home from his bartending job in New Orleans and was searching for a way to explain to his parents why he was broke. 

Not wanting to admit that he was addicted to cocaine and had spent his paycheck on getting his next fix, he concocted a story about being robbed at gunpoint by a black man. 

That lie quickly spun him into a web of destructive deception. A detective, armed with photos of potential suspects, then asked Gumpright, a white man, to point to the culprit, AP reports. 

Across town, Hudson was then pulled over for a traffic stop and taken into custody. The then 20-year-old father assumed he would be home soon to his pregnant wife and 10-month-old daughter. 

Instead, he was charged with a crime he didn’t commit.

Two years later, Hudson sat in a courtroom contemplating his new reality. 

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought my life would have been at a standstill … missing out on my kids’ life, on my life,” Hudson said last month.

Only two witnesses testified in the case: the officer who responded to the 911 call and Gumpright.

As Gumpright took the stand, Hudson prayed the young man would acknowledge that there had been a mistake. 

Instead, a prosecutor asked Gumpright if he was sure it was Hudson who robbed him. He responded, “110%.”

Hudson was found guilty. In a 10-2 vote, the jury convicted Hudson of armed robbery. 

Although two jurors did not believe Gumpright’s story, Hudson was still sentenced to 99 years in prison by a split jury – a practice that has since been deemed unconstitutional due to its racist roots by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Nearly 1,000 people convicted by split juries remain in prison in Louisiana.

Louisiana adopted the practice of allowing convictions even if one or two jurors disagreed, or split juries, in 1898. According to AP, the practice was fueled by efforts to maintain white supremacy after the Civil War and dilute the voice of Black jurors. It allowed the often-white majority to determine the outcome of a case. 

At the time of Hudson’s trial, Oregon and Louisiana were the only two states that held onto the practice. Of the 1,500 people in Louisiana prisons from split jury convictions at that time, about 80% were Black, and most were serving life sentences, according to a Promise of Justice Initiative analysis.

In 2018, Louisiana did away with the use of non-unanimous jury convictions, two years before the Supreme Court ruling. And while, Oregon’s Supreme Court granted new trials to hundreds of people, Louisiana’s Supreme Court did not. 

The high court’s decision has left many like Hudson with a bleak future – one dwindling away day by day behind bars, with little reason to believe for freedom.

Hudson missed the birth of his second daughter, countless birthdays, and graduations. But Hudson did not, in fact, lose hope. He believed Gumpright would one day “come forward with the truth.”

“This can’t be my final destination. This can’t be the end of my life,” Hudson often thought.

Meanwhile, Gumpright grappled with the decision he made to send an innocent man to prison. He spent years using drugs and alcohol to suppress his guilt.

“Just kill me. I deserve to die. I’m worthless,” he screamed out to God one night. “In that moment, I clearly heard God. And he asked me in a slow and calm voice, ‘Son, why are you so angry?'”

“Twenty years ago, I told a lie that sent a man to prison for life. I have to get to New Orleans,” he recalls telling God, sharing his testimony many years later at Church at Addis in Addis, Louisiana. 

He told congregants that God then provided three different rides to get him to New Orleans to confess the truth. Every one of those drivers was a Christian and had a Bible sitting on their dashboard. He was homeless and still addicted to drugs, but he met a Christian couple who brought him to a recovery home that helped him record a deposition to help free Jermaine Hudson.

Little did he know that Hudson was preparing to sign a plea deal where he would agree to the guilty charge in exchange for time served. Just days before it was finalized, Gumpright had come clean. 

After 22 years in prison, Hudson was free. 

Months later, Gumpright received a call from Hudson – a conversation that would release forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation. 

“I’m not the type of man to hold grudges or to hate anyone,” Hudson explained. “I have a forgiving heart. And in order for me to really move on, I forgave him, because I understood what he was going through.”

Hudson, 47, said Gumpright has become more than a friend.

“My friend? That’s an understatement,” he explained. “He’s my brother.”

The two are brothers in a fight to change the Louisiana justice system for men like Hudson. 

Just six months after Hudson’s release, the pair appeared at the state capitol to advocate for a bill that would allow inmates convicted by split juries the opportunity to ask for a retrial.

“My name is Bobby Gumpright,” he told lawmakers last month. “I come before you as a citizen of Louisiana. … I’m also a man who lives each day with the consequences of a terrible sin.”

Hudson and Gumpright shared how their story is an example of how an innocent man can be imprisoned for decades because of an unconstitutional practice. 

“I couldn’t change the past, but I could refuse to live the lie any longer while injustice continued,” Gumpright declared. “Louisiana can’t change the past. But Louisiana can refuse to let its injustice live on.”

Although the measure failed last year, a legislative committee backed a similar bill in April. It now has the chance to go before the Louisiana House and Senate. 

Both men say they needed one another to heal, but even more so, they recognize the gift of forgiveness.

Gumpright told Church at Addis that coming clean changed the way he understood God’s love. 

“This single event changed me forever,” he recounted. “I now knew that there was a God who knew me and what I had done, but he did not condemn me.”

Gumpright added, “I now had firsthand knowledge of the greatest level of forgiveness I could imagine, and it’s helped me forgive myself.”

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