Justice system is seriously flawed.

And to say otherwise would be foolish. Just think of those who've been executed wrongly as well.

It turns out that under Missouri law, only those who are exonerated by DNA testing are eligible for compensation for a wrongful conviction. Kezer was freed by a judge. So after 15 years in prison, not only will he get nothing from the prosecutor who broke the rules to convict him, he'll get nothing from the state, either. Oddly enough, if Kezer had been guilty but then paroled after 15 years, he'd be eligible for a variety of state assistance programs aimed at integrated freed inmates back into society. Because he's actually innocent, he doesn't get to participate in those, either.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/feb/21/kezer-celebrates-a-year…


For 16 years, Josh Kezer was known only by his inmate number — 508903.

He refers to it as his slave name, given soon after his 1994 conviction in the shooting death of a Southeast Missouri State University student in Scott County.

Last week marked a milestone for Kezer that once was beyond his wildest dreams: It has been a year since he was declared to have “actual innocence” of the crime for which he served 16 years in prison but did not commit. On Thursday, he celebrated his anniversary of freedom with a reflection on perseverance as well as a steak dinner at a local eatery with friends and family.

The dinner was intended to set the tone for the next 12 months and mark the efforts to change inmate 508903.


INSIDE ‘THE WALLS’

To help people understand the past 12 months, Kezer talks about the 20 years before that. At age 17, he was arrested at his father’s home in Kankakee, Ill., as a suspect in the November 1992 murder of 19-year-old Angela M. Lawless. Despite having alibi witnesses who placed him 350 miles away at the time of her death and the absence of physical evidence linking him to the crime, Kezer was convicted of second-degree murder and armed criminal action.

On Aug. 2, 1994, a judge sentenced Kezer to two 30-year prison terms. He said he lost everything then. Life inside “the walls” — the old Missouri State Penitentiary — was difficult, to say the least, but over time he became conditioned.

“If I was a recluse, I would have been fine off the bat,” he said. “But I’m not comfortable being closed up.”

That period of his life closed on Feb. 16, 2009, when a Cole County circuit judge cleared him of the criminal convictions, ruling that then-Assistant Attorney General Kenny Hulshof withheld key evidence from defense attorneys and embellished details in his closing arguments. Conflicting testimony and three jail inmates who had claimed Kezer confessed to the killing later acknowledged they had lied in hopes of getting reduced sentences.

Kezer became one of two Missouri inmates granted “actual innocence.” To win their release, their attorneys had to meet a burden similar to that met by prosecutors who convicted them: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

“To say someone is actually innocent is to say the system failed,” Kezer said. “It failed in the arresting stage. It failed in the post-conviction stage. It failed in every stage until it reached Judge Richard Callahan. It’s something that is a treasure for me. I am very, very, very thankful. I absolutely deserved it. It wasn’t a gift or the judge saying, ‘I’ll do you a favor.’ ”

Kezer said he left prison with a three-way mission: He promised fellow inmates that he would talk about justice, that he would never forget the men inside prison, and that he would bring both themes together while praising Jesus Christ.

“He’s made some good choices,” said Jane Williams, a founder of Love in the Name of Christ, a local not-for-profit that, among other tasks, seeks a connection with people released from prison.
RE-ENTERING SOCIETY

For the first three months after prison, Kezer lived in the Columbia home of Williams and her husband. She taught him how to drive and helped him open his first savings account. As time went on, generosity flowed. Strangers gave him his first vehicle, six months of cell phone usage, furniture for his apartment and clothing.

Initially, Kezer said, he had no training for work and no vehicle to drive to job interviews or buy groceries. He was like a teenager trapped inside a 35-year-old body.

Williams, whose years of research helped Kezer win release, said she probably knows him best. “He struggles,” she said. “He comes face to face with the difficulties and realization of what he lost. … It’s the little things, like building the stamina to work a full day of work.”

Through speaking engagements, Kezer spreads his message about wrongful convictions. He tells of the typical features of exoneration cases: eyewitness misidentification, junk science, false confessions, lousy lawyering and snitch testimony. Each was a factor in his 1994 trial, he said.

For telling his story from the podium, Kezer said, negotiations for a speaking engagement start at $1,500 per appearance. It’s a story that cost him the best years of his life, he said, and because he only has a GED and no work experience, his prison experience and part-time work as a painter are how he pays bills.

“If he doesn’t tell his story, he doesn’t pay rent,” Williams said.

Through his faith and friendships at Christian Fellowship Church, Kezer has received some of the emotional and spiritual support he believes he needed to get through his first year of freedom.

Although he has declined professional therapy so far, Williams said, life after prison is a challenge and will be the rest of his life.
N0 COMPENSATION

Sean O’Brien, an associate professor of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and board member of the Midwestern Innocence Project, is one of many specialists working on exoneration cases or trying to find an attorney to handle cases. He leads a staff of two attorneys, a fundraiser, legal secretary and several volunteers working in Kansas City.

Because legal fees for such time-consuming cases typically range around $500,000, the Innocence Project has few resources for released clients. O’Brien estimates the group has helped bring about 20 or so exonerations in Missouri since 1980.

“There is no treatment for someone wrongfully convicted,” O’Brien said. “The question is what to do with someone in that condition. The answer is no one really knows. You can’t send them to the Salvation Army for treatment to get over their criminal ways. They’re not ex-cons.”

Kezer said he eventually wants to travel the world and become involved in several community activities, but he is anxious about the effects on his life of prison conditioning. He admits to occasional post-traumatic stress episodes prompted by sounds or human behavior. Not long after his release, Kezer said, he heard a car alarm that startled him because it sounded like the prison chow alarm.

He said he struggles at times to separate prison etiquette and behavior of the general public.

“It’s the little things,” he explained. “It’s how guys in the joint interact, compared to how guys interact here. Things people do here would be considered disrespectful in the joint. People do things, and I tense up. I tell myself to breathe, relax and let it go. I have to understand that I am not in that place anymore.

“I’m still adjusting to that. I’ll be adjusting for the rest of my life,” he added. “I’m very thankful that I am aware of that. Because I am aware of that, I do OK.”

Twenty-seven states have laws intended to compensate wrongfully imprisoned inmates after their release. In Missouri, an inmate whose conviction is overturned through DNA evidence is eligible for $50 for each day he was in prison if he asks for the money within a year of his release.

But DNA was not the evidence that removed Kezer’s conviction. That means he is not eligible for state compensation.

“It’s the notion that we fed you and gave you a cot. You were a burden on us, so your compensation is limited,” O’Brien said of Missouri’s lack of compensation for people like Kezer. “It’s an economic presumption of guilt.”

O’Brien said the Innocence Project recommends that exonerees returning to society seek psychological counseling. He believes it is critical to ensure their mental health and provide them resources necessary to manage the anger, resentment and feelings of entitlement they must confront to deal with their experience.

It’s rare that exonerees pull themselves up by the bootstraps, he said, and the state that wrongfully took away a portion of their lives should help rebuild them.
OTHER EXONERATIONS

Former inmates like Kezer and Darryl Burton would have more state resources available to them if they were paroled instead of freed as innocent men.

The Missouri Department of Corrections releases about 20,000 inmates each year, and many will have access to resources that help them function as productive citizens. Access to substance abuse and mental health treatment as well as services to assist in housing, transportation, education, life skills, family counseling and employment are available for parolees and inmates who finish prison sentences.

No such programs exist for exonerees.

For 24 years Burton was known as inmate 153063, working to clear his name in a St. Louis murder that resulted in his 1985 conviction. The homicide occurred in a gas station, and two people claiming to be witnesses identified Burton as the suspect. No physical evidence or motive was offered at the trial, but the two witnesses made deals with the prosecutor in exchange for their testimony because they faced unrelated felonies.

“I thought it would take 24 hours for them to realize they made a mistake and let me go,” Burton said. “It took 24 years.”

Like Kezer, Burton was not exonerated through DNA evidence. He also has no access to compensation through the state. Given a handshake and farewell in August 2008 after nearly a quarter-century behind bars, he tours the country talking about wrongful convictions. He also teaches life skills classes at Don Bosco Charter High School in Kansas City. He said he does it all because he wants to and because he must.

“No matter what I am facing, that money is not going to get me one day back,” he said of the possibility of state compensation. “Even a million or billion dollars. What concerns me is that I want this to never happen again.”

At 48, Burton said he is thinking about starting a career and retirement at the same time. He said he fears he will work well into his 70s before retirement. He also is worried that his dream of home ownership might never become reality.

Like Kezer, he also is considering a possible lawsuit to seek some compensation for his wrongful imprisonment.

Oklahoma exoneree Dennis Fritz said he thinks Burton should write a book the way he did. A former high school science teacher before he was convicted of murder, Burton has penned “Journey Toward Justice” and is the subject of a John Grisham book, “The Innocent Man.”

The late Ron Williamson and Fritz — who was inmate 173018 — each were convicted in the sexual assault and murder of a 21-year-old woman who was strangled in December 1982 in Ada, Okla. In 1988, both men were convicted, partially because of microscopic hair comparisons done using a scientific method that has since been discredited.

Fritz and Williamson, who served 11 years in prison, also were convicted on the testimony of Glen Gore, an informant later shown by DNA testing to have been the real killer. Gore was later convicted of rape and murder.

In 2002, the city of Ada and Oklahoma settled lawsuits brought by Fritz and Williamson for an amount that cannot be disclosed because of a confidentiality agreement.

State compensation on exoneration exists today in Oklahoma but did not when Fritz and Williamson went free.

“I definitely benefited quit a bit,” Fritz said of the settlement and royalties from his and Grisham’s books. “I didn’t have to go into the work force. I would have done that, but it was like a cushion.”

Freed more than 10 years ago, Fritz says he is one of the “lucky ones” who left prison with his sanity and became someone who took advantage of opportunities.

California exoneree Kevin Green, a Jefferson City resident, also took advantage of opportunities when he was freed from prison, but his riches turned to spoilage.

Green, who became inmate C-24033, had been a Marine in a rocky relationship with his first wife. When she was brutally assaulted by a serial rapist known as the “Bedroom Basher,” Green was accused and convicted based on his wife’s testimony. He served 16 years before DNA evidence exonerated him in 1996.

In 1998, the California legislature appropriated $620,000 to Green as “miscarriage of justice compensation.”

“Having that money gave me a false sense of security,” he said last week. “If I had been able to sue, the legal action I would have been able to take would have compensated me tremendously more.”

After paying attorneys, parents, his sister and gambling a little, Green said he began to see how quickly money can be spent. Just before the dot-com bubble popped in 2000, he said he invested $250,000 in the market, losing $58,000.

These days, Green is unemployed, the victim of downsizing by a former employer. At times he gets help from his family.

“When I go speak on the issues of criminal justice and compensation, I tell them it needs to come with a financial adviser,” he said. “Someone who is there to say that $400,000 can disappear and show how easy it is to not have it. I now get to tell people that I work paycheck to paycheck.”

Reach Brennan David at 573-815-1718 or e-mail bpdavid@columbiatribune.com.