8 Exonerated Prisoners On Their First Week As Free Men

Eight exonerated prisoners on their first week on the outside.

- Jada Yuan, photographs by Wayne Lawrence

What does it feel like to get out of prison after serving decades for a crime you didn’t commit? Since 1989, 1,655 convictions have been reversed nationwide. Over the past two years, New York State—and the city in particular—has become a focal point of efforts to exonerate and pay restitution to the wrongfully imprisoned. In 2014, the city was ordered to pay $41 million to the Central Park Five, who went to jail as teenagers for allegedly raping a female jogger in 1989. Like most exonerees, they were black and Latino males. Around the same time, Brooklyn’s district attorney, Kenneth Thompson, launched a unit to review more than 100 convictions suspected of being faulty, many linked to the former NYPD detective Louis Scarcella, who allegedly coached and coerced witnesses to testify against innocent men and reportedly forced and fabricated confessions. So far, 14 men have had their convictions overturned by the unit, of 34 exonerated by the state in that time. Many of those freed had become their own legal experts and advocates, often with the support of organizations like the Innocence Project, which currently represents some 250 inmates. Their release has sometimes hinged on uncovering a single shred of exculpatory evidence—a time-stamped receipt; a lost, untested rape kit—or making use of advances in DNA testing. But exoneration is only the beginning. These eight men, all of whom were wrongfully convicted of capital crimes, tell stories of their first days of freedom that expose both the depths of what was taken from them and the challenges of rebuilding the lives they once had.

FREED: SEPTEMBER 20,2006 

IMPRISONED FOR: 16 YEARS

Jeffrey Deskovic, 41