Exonerated Movers, Chris Goodwin's Philadelphia Moving Company

Anybody who has carried a couch down a narrow Philadelphia rowhouse staircase knows that moving is honest work. It takes strong backs, careful hands and a crew that shows up when it says it will. That is the business my friend Chris Goodwin has decided to build, and on Friday, October 2, International Wrongful Conviction Day, his company, Exonerated Movers, officially launches at Triple Bottom Brewing. I will be there. I have spent years talking about wrongful convictions, economic opportunity and what happens after somebody finally walks out of the system, and this is the moment the talking has to turn into something. Chris does not need another round of applause. He needs customers. Here is who he is, what he is building and exactly how the rest of us can help.

Chris Goodwin Taught Himself the Law

My friend Chris Goodwin spent 12 years fighting to prove his innocence. When the usual avenues ran out, he taught himself the law and kept fighting until he got his freedom back. I keep returning to the order of those events: the fight, the learning, the freedom, and now the building. At every stage Chris was the one doing the work, and he did it by learning a body of law that most people only meet when something has already gone wrong.

I am not going to retell his case in detail here. That story belongs to Chris, and I would rather he tell it in his own words than have me summarize it from the outside. What I can tell you is what I see now. I see a man who is not defined by the worst thing that ever happened to him, and who came out of a 12 year fight and started building. From where I stand, that is where Exonerated Movers begins.

What Exonerated Movers Is and Who Stands Behind It

Exonerated Movers is a Philadelphia moving company built by Chris Goodwin, and it is a real business with real customers to win. It is also meant to do something beyond moving furniture. Chris wants the company to create jobs and opportunities for other people impacted by the justice system, which is a sentence I would ask you to read twice. People call a mover at the moment a chapter ends or begins, a new lease, a new job, a first home, a fresh start. A company that hires people who are starting a new chapter of their own belongs in that picture.

I am proud that my family, the Gray Bradley Hayman Foundation and Gemini Strategic Consultants are standing behind Chris as he gets this thing off the ground. Here is how I put it for the launch announcement:

“Chris won his freedom by doing the work himself, and he has built his company the same way. Gemini Strategic is proud to stand behind Exonerated Movers. Chris has done the hard work. Now we are asking Philadelphia to give him the work,” said Harry G. Hayman IV of Gemini Strategic Consultants.

I meant every word, and the last sentence is the one I would circle. Chris has done the hard work. What he needs from the rest of us is the work itself.

Why October 2 Is the Right Day to Launch

International Wrongful Conviction Day falls on October 2 every year. The day’s own website says it began as an effort of the Innocence Network, a coalition of more than 70 organizations that fight to free the innocent and support people rebuilding their lives after release, and it counts October 2, 2026 as the 13th annual observance. The Innocence Project’s write up from 2015 called that year the second annual Wrongful Conviction Day and described its purpose as setting aside a day to focus on the causes of wrongful convictions and the remedies for them.

Philadelphia has more reason than most cities to pay attention. City and State Pennsylvania reported in March 2024, citing the National Registry of Exonerations’ 2023 Annual Report, that nearly one in every 10 of the 153 exonerations in the United States in 2023 occurred in Philadelphia, and that the city has recorded 77 since 1990. The same report counted 16 exonerations in Pennsylvania that year, all but one of them in Philadelphia, and eight of those cases involved post conviction work by the District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit.

Behind every one of those numbers is a person with a Monday morning to face. The courts can clear a name. They cannot hand anyone a job, a lease or a first customer. I wrote earlier this month about why I give to the Innocence Project every month, and I stand by it, but giving to the organizations that free people is only one way of showing up. What happens after the release is a different job, and it belongs to employers, landlords, customers and neighbors.

Freedom Without Opportunity Is Not Enough

Criminal justice reform cannot end when somebody walks out of a courtroom or through the prison gates. Freedom without opportunity is not enough, and a member of Philadelphia’s City Council has put that argument into legislation. In September 2023, Councilmember Isaiah Thomas introduced a five part Exonerated Justice package aimed at the gap between a court clearing someone’s name and that person getting back on their feet. It proposed a Justice for Exonerees Fund that would provide $500 to each exonerated Philadelphian on release, access to housing voucher lists and housing counseling, Catto Scholarships at the Community College of Philadelphia for certificate and other non degree programs, an amendment to the Fair Chance Hiring legislation to include exonerated individuals, and help applying for Medicaid and a PHL City ID. Read that list and notice how much has to happen after the verdict: housing, health care, identification, school and work.

Nonprofits are doing their part too. The Pennsylvania Innocence Project, which has an office in Philadelphia, says its mission includes helping the wrongfully convicted transition to freedom, right alongside the casework that frees them.

Employers already have a tool. The City’s Fair Chance Hiring Initiative, a program of the Department of Commerce, helps local businesses hire and keep Philadelphians who have been impacted by the justice system, and eligible employers can receive wage reimbursements and employment retention grants. If your own payroll has room, that is a way to give somebody a chance this week rather than someday.

Triple Bottom Brewing Is the Right Room

The launch is at Triple Bottom Brewing, 915 Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia, and the room fits the night. The brewery calls itself a fair chance brewery and says it actively looks to hire people the mainstream economy tends to leave out, including people who have experienced homelessness or incarceration. It is a certified B Corporation, and its name comes from a triple bottom line of beer, people and planet.

One of its owners, Tess Hart, told Metro Philadelphia in January 2025 that the brewery’s practice of hiring justice impacted and housing insecure workers began when it opened in 2019. The brewery now runs a 16 week apprenticeship called The Future of Service for people seeking reentry and fair chance employment, and it began operating a Fair Chance Beer Garden at Eastern State Penitentiary’s Halloween Nights in 2021. It is a good pairing: a company built to give people a chance, launching in a business built to do the same.

How to Give Chris the Work

Here is the ask, and it is short. If you need movers, hire Exonerated Movers. If you know somebody who is moving, send them his way. If you own a business or manage vendors, put Exonerated Movers on the list. That is how we turn all this talk about opportunity into actual opportunity. Somebody gets the contract. Somebody gets the job. Somebody gets a chance to build something.

I want to be specific about why a single booking matters. A young company runs on its first customers, and every move that goes to Chris is revenue that can turn into the jobs he wants this company to create. A neighbor’s recommendation, a landlord’s referral and a property manager’s vendor list are all the same act, which is somebody choosing to put a name in front of somebody else. The launch is one night. Building a great Philadelphia company is what comes next.

Chris already fought like hell for his freedom. Now let’s give him the work.