Please support RAE by making a tax deductible contribution through our fiscal sponsor Innocence Project New Orleans.
Dedicate your donation to RAE in the Donate section
Resurrection After Exoneration
Clemency Wells
June 22, 2010
In a small, chic art gallery in the French Quarter of New Orleans, three men stood on Saturday evening in front of a well-dressed, well-heeled crowd and told their stories.
Greg Bright, tall, chiseled and imposing, Albert Burrell who with his cowboy hat, bolo tie and syrup-thick accent seemed to embody Texas and John "JT" Thompson, bespectacled, enthusiastic and articulate.
John Thompson spent fourteen years on death row in Louisiana's infamous Angola penitentiary, for a crime he did not commit, and lived to tell the tale. Now on top of that great achievement he lives for telling his tale and the tales of all those in a similar position, through the organisation he founded: Resurrection After Exoneration (RAE). RAE works to help those like Greg and Albert, who were also wrongly imprisoned for decades, reclaim - and in some cases claim for the first time - a life for themselves.
When these men were released from prison after being wrongfully convicted, they were exonerated of the crimes that placed them there. Wonderful, you might think. Let the celebrations begin, they're free at last! But if freedom means the freedom to make your own decisions, to choose your own path and to lead an independent life, the men RAE helps are far from "free" when released.
To spend decades on death row for a crime you did not commit the chances are that you're a man, you're poor, you're black and you have little or no formal qualifications or education. If you're 'lucky' enough for the government machine that locked you up to open the gates and let you out - usually having been forced to by tireless attorneys and organisations such as the Innocence Project - you're given $10 and a bus ticket. Oh, and you're also given the stigma associated with being imprisoned that will make it near impossible for you to get a job or to build any sort of a normal life.
Take Curtis Kyles, a man wrongly imprisoned for 14 years, 11 of those on death row. His original conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court. The District Attorney then re-tried his case three times, each time resulting in a hung jury. At which point they eventually dropped the charges.
A few weeks ago Kyles was arrested in Mississippi on murder charges. The headlines splashed across The Times Picayune that day carried an all-too explicit assumption: Kyles is guilty. These stories suggested that Kyles had failed to escape from the clenched jaws of poverty and crime and reverted to his "old ways."
The conclusion that Kyles is guilty is one at which it is all too easy to arrive. But to do so is a classic case of putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 5. Decades in prison undoubtedly do terrible things to people. Many who are released have lost any semblance of relationship and support networks we all rely on so much.
But the media and many general observers made little attempt to question Kyles' arrest. We do not know that Kyles committed this crime. We do not know the exact circumstances of his arrest. We do not know that he is guilty. Even though the Supreme Court overturned his conviction, Curtis Kyles' record has not been wiped clean in the court of public opinion.
We only need look at what JT, Greg and Albert have achieved - and continue to achieve - to see what an erroneous opinion this is. These men are proof of what is possible, especially when one has the support and assistance that most of us take for granted on a daily basis. Albert Burrell manages a farm in Texas. Greg Bright is now a bona fide actor, appearing in the new HBO show Treme.
People like JT, Greg and Albert remind us that we are nothing if not inter-dependent. Dependent on one another, no matter where you come from. In order to live my own life fully, safely and enjoyably, I depend on other people having the freedom to make decent choices, to earn a living and support themselves and to pursue an education and a career. Too many people do not have this freedom, no matter how many times they have been 'exonerated' or 'freed.'
We were all gathered on Saturday night to fundraise for the absolutely critical work these men do for others who have been through the same life-shattering experiences. When they stood up to tell their stories, their horrific, gut-wrenching stories, they all ended with two words: "thank you," they said. To us, a privileged audience. To be thanked for this was a bizarre feeling. 'JT' said he felt like a blessed man for the chance he has been given.
It is these men, and all those who work at RAE who should be thanked. Society has too often done too little to help these men. But it is all of us who now benefit from their courage, their ingenuity and their hard, hard work. For more information, please visit http://www.r-a-e.org/.