[Michael Dolan, Attorney For Demetrus Anderson:] Drop the ball.
[John Berman, Cnn Anchor:] It wasn't him. It wasn't Demetrus.
[Dolan:] It was not him.
[Berman:] They blew it. Someone either the state of the federal government blew it. And, Demetrus, this is an important point I want to get to before I bring Van in. How have you lived your life in the years since you have been released from prison?
[Demetrius Anderson, Could Be Sent Back To Prison Over Clerical Error:] Like an American, law abiding citizen, doing everything right, working, gainfully employed, involved in my community, involved in my church found a church home. Just doing everything that I was supposed to do.
[Berman:] Now, Van Jones, I want to bring you into this conversation because I think you all saw this story, like so many of us did, in the New Haven papers and in the Yale papers. You look at this and you think this runs counter to the idea of the justice, in quotation marks, system that we have in place.
[Van Jones, Cnn Political Commentator:] Well, I mean, absolutely. The whole point of the corrections system is to correct people. How can you say at this point 13 years later this man needs correction when he's done everything right? As best we can tell, he hasn't he doesn't even have an overdue library book. He's living better than me. He's living better than you. He's doing all the things you want someone to do. And if you're going to say this person, after 13 years of doing nothing wrong, of rebuilding his life, has to go back and do and do time, you have literally millions of other people who are out here who are supposed to do the right thing. What's to say that in five years, 10 years, 20 years, somebody's going to go back through the sock drawer and find something to put them back in jail? This doesn't make any sense. When somebody has actually rehabilitated themselves, that's the whole point. He's already done time for this crime and he should get credit for that. And he's he should get more credit for 13 years out of trouble. You know the statistics. When people come home from prison, the vast majority, unfortunately, wind up back in trouble very quickly. He has not been back in trouble for 13 years. The only trouble he is in now is because of a bizarre clerical error that could destroy his life.
[Berman:] And, Van, you worked with Jared Kushner at the White House on criminal justice reform and prison reform. Do you intend to reach out personally to the White House to see if the president will get involved?
[Jones:] I have already done so. And we'll see what happens. Here's the deal. I'm going to personally ask President Trump to do something. I'm going to ask everybody I know in the White House to do something. But I think everybody in America should get involved in this case. This is the kind of stuff that's so demoralizing and debilitating for people who are trying hey, listen, you let me talk about a role model. This is a guy that everybody coming out of prison hopes they will be. You don't grab your role model and throw your role models in jail. You should put your role models on your shoulders and parade them around. And so I'm going to ask, but, you know, also, cut50.org is doing something. I'm a part of the reformalliance.com. We are getting involved. Please reach out, help us make this a big issue. It's very rare, obviously, for the president to get involved in something like this, but we think the judges involved should give him credit for time served. We think the president should get involved. We think everybody should get involved.
[Berman:] Demetrus, you have an April 4th court date.
[Anderson:] Correct.
[Berman:] And this is very soon. You could end up back in federal prison in a week. Are you scared?
[Anderson:] I'm very scared. I'm very scared.
[Berman:] What do you think is going to happen?
[Anderson:] I'm optimistic that justice will prevail. I still have faith in the judicial system. So I'm just praying and, you know, leaning on my faith that this could be, you know, vindicated.
[Berman:] Well, Demetrus Anderson, Mike Dolan, thank you very much for being with us. Van, thank you for bringing this to our attention.
[Anderson:] Thank you, Van. Thank you so much.
[Berman:] And we will follow this over the next ten days. It is a very important story. Thank you. Be sure to watch Van's show tomorrow night. 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg is Van's guest. How does he plan to break out of a crowded Democratic field? There's evidence he may have found a bit of a way already. That's 7:00 p.m. Eastern only on
[Cnn. Camerota:] All right, some school shooting survivors in Parkland, Florida, are finding help inside an unlikely place. We'll take you there, next.