Living on the Outside Again

Every few months there’s another news story: A prison inmate, sometimes one behind bars for decades, is released when a reexamination of the case shows he was wrongfully convicted.

Sometimes there’s new evidence that police were corrupt or that forensic scientists made mistakes. Sometimes, DNA tests bring exoneration. Sometimes incompetence by defense lawyers is proved. Whatever the reason, a growing number of wrongly convicted inmates are being released.

What then?

Each case is unique, but experts have found some trends: Those released after shorter incarceration adjust more readily; some ex-inmates receive compensation.

Even if they do, it is hardly adequate, says Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Law School.

“It can’t give you back your life,” he says.

Many still feel an accusing finger pointed at them, sometimes by former prosecutors.

“You practically have to do the Heimlich maneuver to get the words out of them--’He was innocent,’ ” says James McCloskey, president of Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey-based advocacy group.

Associated Press profiles look at the post-release lives of two freed men, one held for a decade and released in 1977, the other imprisoned for 27 years and freed three months ago.