Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Young & Exonerated

We had a basketball game that night, and usually our games would start at about eight o clock, eight thirthy, But this particular night, because our game was the third game of three games, and two games had, gone into overtime, our game didn't start until, 9:30, somewhere in that area. And I remember I got home maybe, a quarter to 11, because I live four houses away from my basketball coach, and so after every game, I got the pleasure of getting a ride home, getting dropped off right in front of my door. And I just remember going home, and taking abath, and you know, I was 16, I wanted to talk on the phone with girls and everything, you know,all night. And I remember getting on the ohone after getting of fthe phone, after getting out the tub, and I remember my sister was at the house, and I used to have this habit of telling my sister to come in the bathroom and wash my back for me, and I remember calling and telling her come wash my back and she wa slike 'bo you 16 years old, I cant keep coming here washing you rback.' You know I really remember that, and that's what I remember from that night.

After school, maybe about 15, 20 police officers kicking in my door, putting machine guns to my head, and I remember getting in the back of the car, and asking the detective what I was being arrested for, and you know he called me every name but a child of God and then told me I was being arrested for murder. Now at that point I just remember laughing, I was like, man you got the wrong person man, you got the wrong person, and I thought it was a joke because it's like, you coming to get me for a whole murder, man you are tripping. And you know I was in jail for maybe three months before I found out that I was at a basketball game the time of the murder. I didnt know I was at a basketbal game the night the murder happened, I just knew I didnt do it, where I was, I don't know where I was, at that time.

During the trial I had never cried, throughout the whole trial, the week long trial, ten day trial, I didn't cry. I didnt cry when they found me guilty, and I didnt cry when they handed down the death sentence cuz, it just didnt seem real. I remember the first time I did cry was when I was transported from New Orleans to death row in Angola, which was about a two and a half hour drive, and I remember the guards taking me out, and during the ride they told me, 'hey shareef you better remember this cuz you will never see this again, you better look because you'll never see this again. And so it was that day when I went into that cell, and you know they had my name on my cell all ready they had new sheets in the cell for mw, new towels new jeans, everything was already in the cell for me, you know like everything is prepared for you. And the doors had shut, the bars, and that's when the reality had sank in , I knew that Im on death row now. I began to look at the guys around me, and you know guys been up there for 10, 15, 20 years, I knew that this was real and i began to cry and I rememebr crying and thinking you know, I never see the steet again, I never have a high school graduation, you know, I never just be able to to do or have some of the smallest simplest things that people just take for granted in life, you know, I would never have or be able to do those things again and I cried because of that.

And I remember 1997, I was about 17 years old, and I had gotten real friendly with a guy named John Brown, he was a white guy, maybe five five, hundred and twelve pounds soaking wet, long brown hair, smoked cigarettes and coffee, brown teeth, you know, been on death row for almost 17 years, and I remember he and I had gotten so close, we talked about everything. You know, life before death row, what we thought our next life would be like, you know the things we wanted to do with our lives if we were ever given another chance to be free again, we just had a wide range of covnrsationt and we became friends, and I remember him losing all of his appeals and him having three weeks to live. And we went from talking everyday to you know to, I couldnt talk to hm at all, you know he had three weeks left, and its like we couldnt have a conversation because I knew I couldnt tell him 'hey bro its going to be alright' because I knew it wasnt. And I remember the warden coming to get him out of his cell for his execution and I remember the last words he told me were, 'hey man keep you head bro you blessed, you gonna leave from here one day,' and it was eight years later, nine years later that I actually left you know, so I have some memories that's going to stick with me for the rest of my life from being on death row.

We always hear these things about how the system is racist, how the system target black individuals, particualarly black young males. And you know from being in the prisons, from seeing ou know thousands, you know, in angola, louisiana penitentiary, they're five thousand people in Angola and three thousand are black, slavery has been abolished except if you've been convicted of a crime. So when people begin to talk about its not intentional, you know, the system is not intentional its just the people that work for the system that makes it bad, you hear this! Slavery just evolved form being legal to one aspect to being legal in another aspect...its still being, targeting black males. So my view on the system today, its like, its corrupt, its you know, its...it needs, uhm,..I want to say the whole constitution needs to be re-writen basically. And you know I have no faith in the system at all. I dont think a I can a have faith in a system that actually just brought be through that tragedy. How can I have faith in that system? And people can say 'well, the system works because you're out.' No, no, that show that the system it failed because I shouldnt have been in, in the first palce.

I've been home from my incaceration a year and three months, and the first thing I knew that I wanted to do, was get in some more school, so when I came home, I actually came home, november 2005, I had to take my sat January 2006. So I'm going to school full time, you know, I have plans on becoming an attorney, and actually representing people facing capital punishment. I also do community organizing and organize family members who have loved ones incacerated in the state of Georgia and challenge policies and procedures within the department of corrections and challenge and montior legislation that's going to negatively affect those in the system. Just doing htat, that's a lot within itself. but you know I have this idea of a social movement, a new social movement that's waiting to happen and I just want to be a part of that social movement.