A New World : From Sandwiches to TV Sets, 2 Released Inmates Face Dazzling Changes

Clarence Chance opened a menu and could not believe the prices. Three-fifty for a grilled cheese sandwich! It seemed so expensive. Benny Powell tried to turn on the television set in his hotel room and couldn’t find the knobs. He had to call his brother, who taught him about the technological wonders of remote control.

These were the first lessons of a more modern world for Chance and Powell, who spent their first full day as free men on Thursday after 17 years in prison for a crime that a Superior Court judge is not convinced they committed. They had been released the day before, after a dramatic court hearing in which Judge Florence-Marie Cooper apologized to them and called their case “a gross injustice.”

As the two men settled into their new lives, they confronted an unfamiliar faculty--free will. From deciding where to eat and how they would pay for new clothes, to thinking about work, Chance and Powell faced what seemed a dazzling and sometimes daunting range of decisions.

A continual onslaught of television cameras and Hollywood wheeler-dealers made the transition difficult and exciting all at once. A television news crew followed Chance to a Santa Monica mall, where he was hugged by store clerks and customers. He left nattily attired in black pants and a black leather jacket. “For 17 years,” he said, “all I wore was blue.”

Powell, too, found that he was recognized everywhere he went. In the glass elevator of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, where he is staying courtesy of his lawyers, a suit-clad man turned to him and said simply, “By the way, congratulations.” Even his sisters had gained overnight fame; they were recognized by strangers who had seen them interviewed on television.

But beyond the glitz and the glamour, there were more mundane but equally pressing concerns of returning to civilian life--buying shaving cream, using the telephone, getting a haircut. Chance discovered the complexities of American life in 1992 during a visit to the supermarket.

“I went to choose a toothbrush,” he said. “All the makes and models! It’s amazing. You can choose what you want.”

Another surprise awaited Chance at the checkout stand--an electronic cash register. “That thing beeped and I froze,” he said. “It was like the alarm going off at the guard’s gate.”

While Chance and Powell became acquainted with their newfound fame and freedom, public discussion continued over the events that led to their highly publicized release. The two were convicted in 1975 of killing Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy David Andrews, but private investigators who examined the case became convinced that they were innocent.

The investigators persuaded the Los Angeles district attorney’s office to take a second look, and prosecutors discovered that during the trial the Los Angeles Police Department had withheld crucial evidence that could have proved the two were innocent. At Wednesday’s hearing, Cooper branded the conduct of the original investigating officers reprehensible.

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union called a press conference to say that what happened to Chance and Powell was evidence that the death penalty should not be reinstituted. The group also criticized Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates for asserting that the two men are guilty and should have remained in prison.

Meanwhile, civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman--who has frequently sued the LAPD over alleged abuses--said that he had spoken with Chance’s lawyer about representing the two in a federal civil rights case.

Politicians, too, were getting into the act. City Councilwoman Rita Walters issued a statement saying the case, like the police beating of Rodney G. King, had demonstrated the need for reforming the LAPD. And Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas called for a grand jury investigation of police conduct in the case.

“Last year, Daryl Gates told us that the Rodney King beating was an aberration,” Ridley-Thomas said, adding that the Christopher Commission report proved that statement “was false.”

“Now the chief is jumping to the defense of investigators whose questionable work is being discredited by the district attorney’s office and a Superior Court judge,” he said.

Chance and Powell, however, were oblivious to the public policy debate. Powell was bubbling with enthusiasm after spending the morning in Beverly Hills, meeting with television and music industry executives who, he said, have expressed interest in his work as a singer-songwriter.

“I’ve been running since 7:30 this morning,” he said, “looking at different TV offers, movie offers, music. I’m just looking right now. Somebody offered me to sing in an oldies-but-goodies special. I told them I’m interested.”

Later, in his hotel room, he performed for a small audience, singing a soulful tune he wrote called “Climbing the Ladder of Life.” His eyes brightened as he sang the words: “People talk about you sometimes. They try to put you down. But believe in yourself. Let God be your guide.”

The ease with which Powell seemed to slide into his new life amazed those who have come to know him best during his years in prison--private investigators Jim McCloskey and Paul Henderson.

“We had no idea he would have this much composure,” Henderson said. “We talked to him many, many times in prison and he kept saying, ‘I can’t take it anymore, Mr. Henderson.’ He sounded so frightened and lonely and beaten down. . . . He’s like a flower that just bloomed when he walked out.”

While Powell was confident, Chance seemed more tentative, overwhelmed by the wondrous turn of events. He learned that old prison habits die hard. When his lawyer took him to a hair salon, he was reluctant to doff his new clothes for a barber’s smock. In prison, after all, if you let anything valuable out of your sight, it gets stolen.

And at a stop for lunch with his attorney at a chic Sunset Boulevard cafe, he moved immediately to a seat with its back to the wall. “Did you see what I did,” he said, laughing at himself. An inmate, he explained, always protects his back.

While Chance, like Powell, has show business aspirations, he would also be happy with a job simply fixing cars or pumping gas. “I don’t mind walking up and down the street with raggedy pants if I have to,” he said.

At times, Chance struggled to make sense of it all. He said he feels a sense of guilt, knowing that the men he left behind in Folsom State Prison cannot share the simple pleasures that he now enjoys.

“When a man in prison says they miss their freedom,” he said, looking out the cafe window, “what they mean is they miss seeing a child and a woman and they miss smelling the exhaust from the cars. All of that.

“But I don’t really know what freedom is yet. I know I am free, but I have to learn what freedom is from moment to moment.”