On September 5, 2023, a judge in Westchester County, New York, dismissed the rape conviction of Leonard Mack after DNA testing showed that he had been wrongly convicted more than 48 years earlier. Though he had been released after spending more than six years in prison, he had been forced to register as a sex offender for four decades.
“For 48 years, 48 long years, I walked around society being labeled a rapist when I knew I didn’t do it,” Mack, now 72, said after the hearing. “But I never gave up hope. It kept me going. Now that this day is here, I just thank God. I thank God that finally the truth came out. Now I can truly say that I’m free. After 48 years, I’m walking out a free man.”
Six weeks later, on October 23, in Oklahoma City, a judge signed an order officially exonerating 61-year-old Perry Lott who had been wrongly convicted of a rape in 1987. DNA testing had proved what Lott knew all along—he was innocent.
After the hearing, Lott declared: “I have never lost hope that this day would come. I had faith that the truth would prevail—even after 35 long years. I am grateful to everyone who supported me and helped in my fight for freedom. I can finally shut this door and move on with my life.”
Perry Lott and Leonard Mack are among nearly 3,500 wrongly convicted men and women listed in the National Registry of Exonerations, an online database of wrongful convictions maintained by Michigan and Michigan State law schools and the University of California Irvine.
Since 2012, the Registry has attempted to catalogue every known wrongful conviction that ended in an exoneration. The Registry keeps a list of those exonerees who spent at least 25 years in prison before they were exonerated. As of the end of 2023, there were 265 people on that list—16 of them spent more than 40 years each.
But no one spent more time locked up for a murder he did not commit than Glynn Simmons, who was exonerated last September in another Oklahoma City courtroom, 48 years, one month, and 18 days after he was convicted.
“Validation and vindication has finally happened,” said Simmons, who was 70 years old at the time of his exoneration. “It’s a lesson in resilience and tenacity. When you know you’re innocent, stick with it and don’t ever stop. Don’t let nobody tell you it can’t happen, because it really can.”
It goes without saying that Mr. Simmons never lost hope that he would be free someday.
Since 2012, I have written more than 2,500 narrative accounts of these cases for the Registry. And in what seems like a never-ending torrent of tragedy and despair, there exist cases where —seemingly against all odds—hope remained.
It feels difficult to keep hope alive in these times, fraught as they are with the psychological assaults from the news of any given day, let alone what occurs in our personal journeys.
I am reminded of the dining hall scene in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, where Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, emerges after spending two weeks in “the hole” for playing Mozart over the prison loudspeaker.
“Must have been terrible,” an inmate declared.
“Easiest time I ever did,” Andy replied. “I had Mr. Mozart to keep me company.”
“So they let you tote that record player down there, huh?” another inmate asked.
Andy, who was serving two life sentences for murder, pointed to his head: “It was in here.”
Then he gestured toward his chest: “And in here. That’s the beauty of music. They can’t get that from you. Haven’t you ever felt that way about music?”
Sitting across from Andy was Morgan Freeman, playing the role of Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding, who was serving a life sentence for murder.
“Well, I played a mean harmonica as a younger man,” he said. “Lost interest in it, though. Didn’t make much sense in here.”
Andy disagreed. “Here’s where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don’t forget.”
“Forget?” Red spat in disgust.
“Forget that there are places in the world that aren’t made out of stone,” Andy explained. “That there’s something inside that they can’t get to—that they can’t touch. It’s yours.”
“What are you talking about?” Red asked.
“Hope,” Andy said.
Red leaned forward.
“Hope,” he said. “Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. It’s got no use on the inside. You better get used to that idea.”
When I find myself worrying about the future with all of its unknowns, I am reminded that I need to let go of the grip of fear. And refocus on hope.
I find it helpful to look to the exonerees who found a way to put one foot in front of another for years and years, decade after decade, and yet never lost hope. They were able to engage in what one might call mental time travel. They could look ahead and imagine a day when they would be free from stone and steel, from the cruel collar of a wrongful criminal conviction.
Nearly 25 years ago, I interviewed Calvin Ollins in an Illinois prison. He had been sentenced to serve a life sentence without parole for a murder committed when he was 14. By the time I met him, he was 28—he’d spent half of his life locked up.
Calvin told me that he passed most of his days working in the prison mattress factory and that every month he sent a check for the few dollars the prison paid him for his work to a friend on the outside to put in a bank account.
“Calvin, you are sentenced to die here,” I told him gently. “How do you even know that money is being saved? And for what?”
“Oh, Mr. Possley,” he said, “I know it’s there because some day—I know—God will get me out of here.”
On December 5, 2001, I stood outside Stateville Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois, and watched Calvin walk out a free man. DNA testing had proved not only his innocence, but that of three other teenagers who had been convicted along with him.
Calvin kept hope alive. So did Perry Lott, Leonard Mack, and Glynn Simmons.
May their stories and those of so many others inspire us to do the same.
Maurice Possley (MoPo) is a lifelong journalist and writer who has written five non-fiction books, has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting and in the past decade has written narrative summaries of the wrongful conviction and ultimate exoneration of about 2,500 men and women.