Sociation Today Spring/Summer 2013

A book review of:

Life After Death Row: Exonerees' Search for Community and Identity.
By Saundra D. Westervelt and Kimberly J. Cook.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Paperback. Pp. xv, 280.

Reviewed by Frank R. Baumgartner

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    "How do you get over being taken from your home, convicted of something you did not do, told you were going to die for it, isolated on death row, incarcerated for many years, and then released back into society just as suddenly as you were first taken, with little assistance, no explanation, and no apology?" (p. 129). Saundra Westervelt and Kimberly Cook have done a great service by asking this question and by exploring the multiple dimensions of tragedy, irony, paradox, and pain that confront those wrongfully convicted of crimes, confronted with death row, and later found to be innocent. These are, of course, the "lucky ones" -- the mistakes associated with their wrongful convictions were discovered. But how lucky are they? All struggle with multiple concerns, practical, social, and psychological. None have an easy time even after their lucky day in court leading to their freedom. Could this book push forward a national conversation about how better to deal with the consequences of wrongful conviction? We can hope so. It certainly documents a wide variety of human and institutional disasters.

    The authors base their study on extensive interviews with 18 death row exonerees. Over 300 individuals have been exonerated through the efforts of various innocence projects around the country, including some 140 sentenced to die for crimes they did not commit. The authors identified their subjects through contacts and carefully approached them about interviews. A remarkable aspect of the book is the use of "feminist research methods" (pp. 14-23), in spite of the fact that the subject matter is unrelated to feminism or gender studies and 17 of the 18 research subjects are men. But the choice of research methods is an important and useful one, as it focuses on establishing trust with the subjects, allowing their own voices to be fully heard, and treating their individual stories with respect. Given that the wrongfully convicted have good reasons not to trust "the system," establishing trust is an essential and challenging element of the research. Westervelt and Cook treat this issue well, showing the care and compassion that allowed them not just to make contact and conduct some interviews, but to establish trust and to get these struggling individuals to make apparent the ways in which they have been affected by their individual tragedies.

    The authors interviewed the 18 subjects sometimes multiple times and prepared for their interviews with extensive research on their cases from court records, newspaper files, and networking with attorneys and supporters so that when they spoke with the exonerees, they were already knowledgeable about their cases and experiences. These are far from straightforward questionnaires or strict interview protocols; the individuality of each exoneree is respected and brought to light. This is a key element of what the authors describe as feminist research practices. It is, clearly, a work of social science and the language shifts from the vocabulary of social science to extensive and heart-felt statements and quotations from the exonerees themselves. Sometimes the juxtaposition of these different dialects is jarring, as we move from the dry academic speak of the authors to the bright and vibrant tones of anger, frustration, and exasperation of the exonerees.

    The authors give brief overviews of the 18 cases that are at the core of the book and illustrate the degree to which these individuals can be seen, or not, as representative of the class of 140 death row exonerees so far identified. The individuals represented in the book run the full range, over geography, type of crime, reason for the wrongful conviction, degree of compensation received (generally, none), and ability to re-create a successful life after release. While not a statistically representative random sample, they are a good group from which to generalize to the broader population. And it is the first study of its kind, reflecting and illustrating a wide range of issues facing this group of individuals from whom society has taken so much.

    The authors compiled their interview notes and transcripts into a series of themes and treat anything that was significantly discussed by four or more exonerees as a common issue, leaving things mentioned by three or fewer as potential idiosyncrasies. So we have a series of chapters that simply go through the issues facing this group of people: Facing Practical Problems (ch. 4); Managing Grief and Loss (ch. 5); Rebuilding Relationships (ch. 6), etc. The authors explode a lot of myths and point to some tragic paradoxes. For example, just two of the 18 received compensation from their states through a regularly established compensation program. Five others received compensation after extensive litigation where they had to sue the state, county, or other official bodies responsible for their wrongful incarceration. Eleven of the 18 have received no compensation. Westervelt and Cook discuss the popular myths, especially for those who were exonerated since 2000, that naturally they walked out of prison into a financial bonanza, as though they had won the lottery. Not exactly. In a section entitled "What They Got" the authors write:

The most common response to our inquiry about what they got from the state upon release was … simply, "nothing." Alan Gell says, "No state help. No federal help. Nothing. I had to pay out of my own pocket every step of the way." Sabrina Butler echoes this: "No money. No nothing. They didn't give me jack! They just took the handcuffs off me and sent me out the door." (p. 201)

One of the many paradoxes or tragedies described in the book has to do with the politics of gubernatorial pardons, often required by law before an exoneree can receive compensation. From parole boards who will not recommend a pardon on the grounds that the individual was no longer considered to be guilty (and, for the case of Greg Wilhoit in Oklahoma, making him therefore ineligible for compensation, as it requires a gubernatorial pardon based on the recommendation of the parole board); to job applications asking if the individual has "ever been convicted of a felony" but leaving no room for a lengthy "yes, but…" that an exoneree might need; perhaps the most striking is this exchange from Alan Gell, an exoneree in the authors' home state of North Carolina. Where compensation requires a pardon of innocence from the governor, paradoxically this involves the wrongfully convicted individual going through what amounts to an extensive legal procedure to ask that the state recognize what it has already admitted: that the individual was wrongfully convicted. Alan Gell explains his distaste for the process:

I waited five years plus on death row for something to happen. I waited another year and some change for my second trial to come. And I finally heard the truth. I finally heard "not guilty, free to go." To learn that you later have to ask the governor to forgive you or ask the governor to pardon you, it just, I think they've got that whole process backwards. It's not supposed to be me to go to him and say, "Will you please pardon me for not doing what y'all said I did." It should be him coming forward on his own free will and saying, "Mr. Gell, our system don't normally do this. We're so sorry that you got caught up in it. That a bunch of different things could've contributed to it. But, I just want you to know, we're sorry for what happened." … I feel that's the way it should go. I don't foresee myself asking them to give that pardon. (p. 203)

Life After Death Row is full of wisdom, full of insights about the human tragedies associated with mistakes in that part of our criminal justice system where we play with the highest stakes. Exoneration does not remove a conviction, so exonerees remain felons, often disenfranchised, stigmatized, and unemployable. Prosecutors often refuse to apologize. TV talk show hosts insinuate that maybe they really are guilty, even if DNA has proved otherwise. The meager services available to parolees and ex-cons are not available to exonerees, as they are "free" upon release. Drug, alcohol dependency, depression, and post-traumatic disorders are widespread and systematically untreated. Basic health issues grow worse in prison and exonerees often have no health care on release. Children and family members have broken off connections, often convinced by the state that their family member's guilt was real. And at the most basic human level, no one apologizes.

One example of the simple human tragedy common to all exonerees is the knowledge that, even if they may have had solid supporters among family members and friends, others obviously believed them capable of heinous crimes. Says Kirk Bloodsworth, wrongfully convicted of molesting and murdering a young girl: "'Anybody knew me growing up and seen me in all different types of situations [know that] I couldn't hurt no child. Cryin' nelly. I could not believe … and could never understand that.'" Says Sabrina Butler, wrongfully convicted of killing her own young son: "'I'm this person … this heinous murderer that stomped my baby…. That hurt me…. They have just destroyed my life! … And I'm very angry because I can't get back what they took from me.'" (p. 170).

Westervelt and Cook have done a huge service by compiling these stories, by illustrating the myriad challenges, tragedies, and paradoxes of wrongful incarceration and its aftermath. They end the book with some discussion about ways to improve our services to these individuals. We might start with an apology. Cryin' nelly indeed.