From death row to elusive freedom
Oct 06, 2010
from the article by Ron Keine on Other Words:
Now I can eat eggs every morning. But every night I relive my death row experiences. Every day, I still struggle to contain the anger rising inside of me.
Frankly, every time I awaken from this nightmare of finding myself back on death row, I'm embarrassed. I have been out for a long time. I should be over it by now. But every time I get lost in a book or daydream, when I wake up in the morning, or look up from a crossword puzzle or read a newspaper, the feeling creeps up on me. I'm back on death row. And I am not alone.
With the other exonerated death-row survivors I work with, we often talk about our mutual feeling of never feeling really free. Death row is a special hell for innocent people. We were going to be murdered as punishment for crimes we did not commit. And we were the lucky ones who were exonerated. Others were executed who were as innocent as we were. Think about that.
So I have the deepest respect and admiration for people like Juan Melendez, Ray Krone, Gary Gauger, Freddie Lee Pitts, and the others who travel around our country speaking about our experiences on death row to anyone who will listen. We are black, brown, and white, conservative and liberal, rural and urban, but we have all dedicated our lives to sharing our stories with our fellow Americans, so that the United States will join the rest of the civilized world in abolishing the death penalty.
But just before a speech or an interview, we gather together. We lend support to each other for the next small step in our journey as death row survivors. We're vigilant about each other's psychological state, because we silently know that even though the audience will not see it, every time we talk about our experiences it puts us right back on death row. The cruel and unusual Groundhog Day we relive every time we publicly speak at colleges, churches, and civic organizations won't end until the death penalty does.
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Thank you for posting this article by Ron Keine, an innocent man who served time on death row. Restorative justice applies to terrible cases like these. In his case, there is not one victim but two. Restitution should always be paid out to innocent men and women. But as we see from Ron's very personal story the impact is severe and long-lasting after an innocent person is released from prison. <br /> <br />In addition, however, those who had a hand in convicting and sentencing innocent individuals should be held accountable. This is even more critical when the innocent person is on death row. What kind of safeguards are in place to stop this from happening again? <br /> <br />Stories like Ron Keine's are unfortunately not unique in the U.S. That is why the work of groups like the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries is so important. I see the need for systemic reform based on restorative justice as even more important after seeing just how broken our justice system is. <br /> <br />Lisa Rea <br />