Surviving Justice

the politics of apology
Exonerees endeavor to have their innocence fully acknowledged

When Calvin C. Johnson Jr. was freed after serving sixteen years for rapes he didn’t commit, he received a handshake from the prosecutor who had convicted him. But even while shaking Johnson’s hand, the attorney remained convinced that Johnson’s arrest and conviction were warranted.

Prosecutors and investigators tend to be loath to offer apologies to the wrongfully convicted, in part because they can be sued for their roles in wrongful convictions, and in part because an apology can be construed as an admission of guilt.

Calvin Johnson Jr. with his
lawyer Peter Neufeld (1999)

Prosecutors sometimes maintain that an exoneree is guilty, concocting strained theories to justify their positions. In the case of Michael Evans and Paul Terry, two seventeen-year-old Chicagoans wrongfully convicted of rape and murder in 1976, prosecutors clung to what has become known as the “unindicted co-ejaculator” theory. Though they had been excluded as the source of semen recovered from the victim, prosecutors maintained that Evans and Terry committed the crime, along with an unidentified man who deposited the semen. The supposed third man was never identified, and Evans and Terry were released in 2003 after serving twenty-seven years in prison.

Victims, too, often have difficulty believing a wrongful conviction has occurred. Victims who misidentified a suspect can find it particularly difficult to accept that their memory of the crime was simply wrong. Those who do admit their error often suffer guilt as a consequence.

Jennifer Thompson, a rape victim who misidentified Ronald Cotton and helped send him to jail for eleven years, was grief-stricken when she discovered she had identified the wrong man. A few weeks after Cotton was exonerated, Thompson apologized to him in person.

“If I spent every day for the rest of my life telling you how sorry I am, it wouldn’t come close to what I feel,” Thompson told him, according to The Toronto Star.

Cotton responded, “I’m not mad at you. I’ve never been mad at you. I just want you to have a good life.”

My Life is a Broken Puzzle
Page 8

Taking responsibility

In 1991, Richard Danziger was knocked down and repeatedly kicked in the head by an inmate who had mistaken him for someone else. Danziger suffered severe brain damage from the attack, leaving him in need of lifelong care. He was released in 2001.

I asked for forgiveness, through the media, through the press. And then later on I asked [Danziger’s] sister Barbara Oakley personally, and she was really nice. She said, “You know what, Chris, you just do me a favor and go be a lawyer. The biggest help you can do is believe people when they tell you they didn’t do it, believe in them, even when nobody else does. Don’t let something happen to somebody else like happened to you and Richard.”

Everybody started blaming me, everybody. “Chris Ochoa did it. It wasn’t the DA, it wasn’t the cop, it wasn’t Danziger, it was him.” They never wanted to take responsibility for their actions. And I did. I have. You know how much responsibility I’ve taken in my life? I did somebody else’s time. I blamed myself when I got out. I took responsibility for what I did wrong.

I don’t think I need to ask forgiveness from the victim or victim’s family at all, ’cause I didn’t do the crime. [Danziger,] yeah. Him and his family. Because the one thing I am guilty of is being a coward. I was a coward. I should have just faced up to it.

He got beat up. He got hit in the head. He was very hurt. He needs care for the rest of his life. It’s mental stuff—they say he might not live too long. And it’s sad, and some part of me feels really bad about it, but there’s nothing I can do. I did as much as I could. I’m taking some responsibility. We presented our cases at the same time. I settled for $[5.3] million, he settled for nine. Then all of a sudden I get sued by Danziger for a million dollars. I settled with him—I gave him $500,000 out of my settlement.

I don’t know what’s going through his mind. I wish I could write him. His sister gave me his email, but I’m worried. I guess I’m afraid that he’ll reject me. I just want to know that it’s okay. I hope that one day it’s okay. But who knows? That’s out of my control.

As soon as I came out, I took 5 percent or 2 percent responsibility for being a coward. Nobody, nobody has come out in public and said, “We screwed up.” Not the DA, not the cop, not anybody. Nobody’s even apologized to me, saying, “I’m sorry.” Like really saying the words, “I’m sorry.”

I sit and read cases where the court says, “No reasonable person would ever confess to something like this.” But was I a reasonable person at that time? You can’t use that standard. There’s no rational thinking when you’re doing this kind of stuff. A lot of people use that standard: a reasonable person would never have pled guilty. You’re reasonable when you’re in a normal environment.

Everybody that drives is taught that when you hit an ice patch or you go into a skid, you turn your wheel into the skid to correct the car. What do people do when they get into a skid? They go the opposite way. Why? Because they’re panicked. You lose all sense of direction.

I was very tired. I think that people don’t know that interrogations, when people are asking you questions in an interrogatory manner, it drains you, your energy. I was tired. I wanted to go home. I don’t know if I had eaten. They wear you down, they don’t let you go till they wear you down.

I just wanted to go home. I was living my life one day, and all of a sudden I’m here in this room, and they’re saying that I killed somebody and I’m probably going to go to the electric chair. I’m so tired of telling them no, and then the good cop [says,] “If you tell us, you can go home.” I’m so mentally drained, I want to go home and sleep. I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go home and sleep. “Oh, you can’t go until you say something.”

And then at this point you’re just defeated. I mean, you don’t have anything else. You just say, “Well, whatever—just let me go home.” You say whatever it takes, whatever they want to hear.

One mile at a time

I came out of prison with no scratches, nothing.

Sometimes I’ll get in my truck and I’m driving alone, and it’s such a smooth ride and stuff. It overwhelms me. I’m just like, “Thank you, God, for everything, for all this I have.” I mean, this is a nice house I’m in. I got a forty-two-inch plasma, and people would kill for one of these things.

I’m in law school, and I have met some beautiful people—friends, and Robin. And I’ve always wanted someone to love me, someone that I could laugh with, and somebody to have intelligent conversations with. She’ll give me the good and the bad. There’s times when she’ll just look at me and I’m like, “I’m falling in love with you.”

I just want to be a normal part of society, contribute to society like everybody else does, in a good way. I want people to know that everybody’s human whether they’re in prison or not—they still live and breathe and they still go to the bathroom like all of us do; they still put their pants up the same way. I think I’ve learned both sides of the street now.

I plan for the future, but I live my life one day at a time. Kind of like when I’m driving to Chicago: I want to get to Chicago. I have a map, but I know to take it one mile at a time because I may have to catch a detour. But then, I get back on the road.

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