Resurrect Yourself

John Thompson, July 13 2010

I had two convictions for two different charges, one for 49.5 years on a robbery and another one for murder, for which they gave me the death penalty. With two separate trials, even if I fought and won one, there was still the threat of another one looming over me. Mentally, fighting two cases that weren't likely to ever be won was exhausting.

When I was put on death row, I initially didn't pay attention to what was going on, and nothing sunk in until I was moved up to a cell where the guy before me was executed just before I had arrived. In fact, some of his things were still in the cell! Only then did I really start to pay attention and get really scared about the environment I was put into. I now know that the criminal jail process is designed to inject fear into prisoners.

My environment in a maximum security prison was very harsh. People had sentences of 99 years or more, so when the reality sunk in that people came here and didn't go home, I felt an immediate and intense fear that didn't leave me for the first few years of my prison life. Here I was, surrounded by people who didn't have anything to lose, and I had everything to lose, so I started living in tremendous fear. I was around all these people who didn't care about anything, who had nothing to live for anymore! But I still had something to live for, because I knew I was innocent. But what do you do? A 99-year-to-life sentence means you're stuck, and people just watched their lives and freedom disappear before their eyes.

The fear that you have to accept this life now, because this is where you were going to remain forever, is just immense. It takes all the meaning out of your life. What are you living for? Why are you even living? If you think about the concept of "We're going to hold you right here till you die," it's pretty terrifying. I learned that you don't have too much time to focus on that though. As soon as you get in, you have to get with the program and survive.

Jungle Full of Predators

Once inside, I had to take a stand immediately, otherwise I would have been labeled weak, and I saw that weak people got seriously hurt in prison. I had to create a purpose for myself, put on my suit of armor and survive by any means necessary. It was an extremely dangerous place to be, and the violence I had to participate in just to survive or evade sexual abuse was unbelievable.

I was in hand-to-hand combat, fighting with pens, fighting with knives - and I'm not that big or strong. I didn't want to fight, but I had to do everything in my power to be ready at any moment to fight - I was constantly living in fear. Although I was innocent, it felt like I would have to kill someone out of self-defense just to stay alive in prison. I felt that my state and my government, the people who were supposed to protect me, put me here and forced me to fight like a gladiator. I saw it as a jungle, with predators and strategic games of hunting and surviving. The old lions in prison weren't thinking about going home; they enjoyed the prowl and terrorizing new prisoners, so I had no idea what to do at first. It was insane.

I realized that I had to do something in order to fight back the thoughts of daily executions, so I quickly started learning about the prison system and tried to understand exactly what was going on. I already had all the fun out of my system as a young kid, so I was able to concentrate on getting calm and learning about my options instead of focusing on the drama around me.

I had to stay above everything, become immune to it all, and take the good from my present experience. I had to keep nothing but the good feelings and thoughts and stay with them and be totally immune to the rest. And since I wasn't an angel before coming to prison, I had a lot of powerful friends - and when you go to jail, if somebody knows how you operate, they'll look out for you. They won't let anyone bother you and won't leave you hanging. So even in the most dire situations, a support system can help you through. Luckily, I also had two lawyers fighting for me for 18 years. I was blessed when they finally proved my innocence through DNA evidence, but it still took two lawyers 18 years to prove that.

Lessons in Humanity

I learned so much about our humanity in prison. When I watched these so-called "bad men" on death row pray for the victim's family knowing that it could've been them in the moment when an inmate went off to execution, I knew they were talking to God and asking for forgiveness for what they had done. These guys aren't bad guys. Most of them just did stupid things when they were younger like everyone does.

They fast on days of execution - no one eats anything at all - all they do is pray for the victim's family, for the people who are waiting outside for the executions to happen, and for the prisoner. The hardest thing in the world is to watch a man who you became friends with and had known for years, get dragged away to be killed. Everyone is human. We all make mistakes, and it's not we who are supposed to judge. That's God's job. We're supposed to love and get along with each other. Be grateful, enjoy life. Watching men die every day, I learned you can't take life for granted.

I love my family and my grandchildren. You have to really appreciate them. I'm grateful to God, and I don't regret my experiences, but I'm going to continue to fight against the institution and the people who took away my life. That's why Resurrection After Exoneration gives me energy and drive, the ability to fight back - not just for me, but for all of us who were on death row. I tell them we can't just accept the system the way it is - we have to take initiative. You can't have someone fight for you. You have to fight for the cause, fight the big fight.

The Right Question

No man deserves to die. The death penalty is hypocritical and makes no sense. We put people in jail for killing someone and then punish them by killing them? Who then, goes to jail for executing someone? We shouldn't ask citizens, "Do you agree with the death penalty or don't you?" That's an irrelevant question. The right question is, "Do you want to give your government the right to kill you or don't you?" Many cases that have been turned over and much evidence tell us that innocent people do go to jail - innocent people are convicted wrongly all the time for serious crimes. Look at myself and the other exonerees. That's a fact everyone is aware of. So why, then, are we asking our citizens the wrong questions?

We should understand that one day we could be in the exact same the crime. That could be you on death row. People close their eyes to the evil in our world. We think we live in a safe environment with a government that will protect us, even if we do things they don't like. Our government is not our protector - anything that threatens them, they can destroy (or lock up, in our case.) We feel that just because we're just citizens, we can't do anything about it, that we have no power. We accept things until it's too late - until the damage is already done. They framed me, an innocent man, and they can do it again and again until we stand up and do something about it.

Fear still exists today in my heart. I fear that society doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand what is actually going on within the privatized prison system. People don't realize the inner workings of a prison, and it's so easy to close our eyes to the real picture, the cold hard truth about what goes on inside, because we're not a part of it.

Breathe Again

After prison, I came home with an understanding of what I wanted to do and where I was at in life. God gave me the opportunity to breathe again. I don't allow my prison life to consume my current life, and it's a
blessing that I'm able to contain my anger and disappointment. I realize that it won't help my situation, but it does come back to haunt me, the mental disturbances and the things I had to go through.

You have to work really hard to adjust and refocus and deal with the free world again. That's why it's so hard for the men that I work with through Resurrection After Exoneration. Everyone expects them to be free of the hardships they suffered in prison, but there are severe psychological effects that linger on beyond your release. Outside of prison, it's almost worse than it is inside because inside you had to defend yourself and focus on survival and once you come out, you react differently to things in this world. You also feel like you have to defend the way that you've become or the mentality that you've developed.

The system is almost designed for prisoners to come out, make mistakes and return to the system. There's no support when they come out, and the fear and angst that you live with in prison is manifested on the outside, and now they're left to deal with the psychological effects on their own. You can't talk to your family because they don't understand what you've been through, and you don't want to tell them about the horrible things you've experienced, so it's incredibly hard to handle psychologically, mentally, emotionally. That's a large reason why exonerated prisoners act out or take revenge.

Speak Truth to Power

From my experience, love and forgiveness are the key. That's what's enabled me to rise to the occasion and do what I'm doing now. I love what I'm doing with RAE, taking all the exonerees' stories and putting them out in the open for the public. We're trying to make a difference, not run away. We're not just going to allow the government to use us for target practice without any repercussions - to lock us up and throw away the key. We're trying to send a message out into the world,  telling people about the injustice that happened to these men.

I'm trying to hold people accountable and not let them get away with anything and to use these stories in ways to bring about a change. RAE gives me the opportunity to put power in the hands of the exonerated and that's become my mission. God is showing me how to paint this picture, and even now, I feel that God is the one pushing me to do things with RAE, guiding my actions. I don't even feel like it's work.