The exonerated

He’s on trial for rape, but he’s innocent and knows there’s no physical evidence linking him to the crime.

Even when the victim identifies him in the courtroom as the man who violated her, he remains calm.

Even when the jury finds him guilty of rape, robbery and kidnapping.

He didn’t do it. There’s no way they can convict him.

The 27-year-old father of three turns toward the jury and shakes his head: You people are crazy, he thinks.

Then he looks out into the sea of spectators and finds his mother. She is not calm.

Her face is pained. She is sobbing.

“That is when I knew my life was being taken away,” Clarence says.

It would take two women — one a widow, the other an attorney — to help him get it back.

2

A vicious attack

During the pre-dawn hours one rainy day in October 1986, a 25-year-old woman stood at a MARTA bus stop in the Oakhurst neighborhood of Decatur when a man walked up to her and struck her in the face.

If you scream, I'll kill you right here, he said.

He forced her into one wooded area after another and repeatedly raped and sodomized her, according to police reports. He took her wristwatch, and when he was done with her, she ran to a nearby house for help. She was treated at a local hospital and a rape kit was used to collect physical evidence.

Clarence, who worked for the county water and sewer department at the time, lived with his wife and their three elementary-aged daughters in a home they shared with his mother near the MARTA stop in Oakhurst.

During the rape investigation, neighbors told police they heard someone at Clarence’s house might be trying to sell a watch. Suspicion fell on Clarence because he had a record. When he was 19, Clarence and three other young men robbed a woman at gunpoint. Clarence served five years for armed robbery and was released in 1983.

Now accused of raping a young mother, his picture was included in a photo lineup of suspects, and the victim identified him as the man who assaulted her. He was represented by a public defender.

At the time, sophisticated DNA testing had not yet been developed. Blood tests on swabs from the rape kit eliminated only 12 percent of the population as possible perpetrators. Clarence was among the remaining 88 percent of the population.

On the night of the crime, he had been playing cards and drinking beer at a nearby friend’s house, he testified. Between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. he had returned home where he snacked on fish sticks and french fries, falling asleep with the plate still on his lap.

The jury didn’t believe him.

In 1987, Clarence was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years.

3

Cutting ties to survive

Beyond the curls of barbed wire at Dodge State Prison in Chester, Clarence could see blue skies and Cadillac cars in the prison parking lot. At first he was confident he could prove his innocence and make it to the other side of the prison gates.

He spent most of his time inside a concrete cell with his trial transcripts, reading them over and over, agonizing over every word. The jury has found him guilty of a heinous crime ... a heinous crime.

He obsessed on his case so much his head throbbed; he suffered migraines.

And he filed motions for a rehearing.

It is as plain as the noses on our faces that the appellant is innocent, said Clarence in a handwritten letter, every letter capitalized.

Within months of his imprisonment, Clarence heard about new DNA science. He managed to get slides from the rape kit sent to a commercial lab for DNA analysis in 1988. But the sample was considered insufficient for the technology at that time. In early 1992, he inquired again about the physical evidence in his case. This time he was informed it had been destroyed.

Clarence fell into despair. Any chance of proving his innocence was lost without physical evidence.

Tears slipped over his cheeks as he clasped his hands and prayed. Give me strength to endure, give me strength to keep my sanity.

The “so-called free world” is what he called life outside of prison, and he began to cut himself off from it. His wife had left him before he went to trial. He stopped accepting visitors, including his family. Now a lifer, he needed to focus on survival.

Every day, clad in white-and-blue striped prison garb, he followed the same rigid routine: breakfast at 6 a.m., lunch at noon, dinner at 6 p.m. And all the while the man with big brown, expressive eyes developed a tough veneer to negotiate the brutalities of prison life. His only diversions were watching sports and playing poker. He gambled with anything he could get his hands on — granola bars, chocolate Ho Hos, peanut butter crackers.

Guards called him “inmate Harrison”; sometimes just “206725” — his assigned number.

And he began to simmer with rage. It showed in his resistance to authority. He ignored orders from guards to get up in the morning. He refused to pick up cigarette butts from the prison grounds. He dragged his feet going to class.

“I have to tell him every morning to get out of bed,” an officer wrote in a 1992 disciplinary report.

Prisoners typically were sent to the chapel when news of a family member’s death was broken. When Clarence’s mother died in 1994, he was sent to the mail room because of its proximity to isolation cells. Guards expected him to cause trouble when he heard the news.

Don't play with me like this, he said to the guards. I love my mama. She is special to me.

He convinced the guards not to put him in the hole, promising he’d behave if they just let him play cards.

You are going to play poker with me all day or we are going to fight, Clarence told his fellow inmates.

Clarence didn’t utter a word, the only sound in the common area were the whispering sounds of cards being shuffled or dealt. After the bell rang for prisoners to return to their cells at 10 p.m, guards allowed Clarence to remain with a small group of men and play cards until 3 a.m.

After that day, Clarence started looking forward to death as his only escape.

4

Serendipitous meeting

One spring day in 1997, Clarence was getting a cup of coffee in a common area when a young inmate named Anthony Minsey was chatting on the phone and handed the receiver to Clarence.

The woman on the other end was Yvonne Zellars, a widow who lived in Marietta.

At the time, Yvonne’s oldest daughter was dating Anthony. He had called his girlfriend but her mother had answered the phone. When Clarence walked by, Anthony impulsively thought the two might want to chat.

I don't want to talk to nobody, said Clarence, especially someone in the free world.

But reluctantly, Clarence took the phone.

Their awkward attempt at conversation was nearly cut short by Clarence’s foul mouth, but the soft-spoken woman stayed on the phone. Something about him she liked. She felt compelled to help.

“The Lord gave me Clarence as an assignment,” she says now.

Yvonne started sending Clarence handwritten Bible passages in the mail. Initially he recoiled. But scriptures written on plain white paper continued to fill up his mailbox. At first, he wasn’t even sure what it was. Quotes? Poetry? After a fellow prisoner explained the writings were Bible passages, Clarence decided to accept them.

You are my hiding place from every storm of life; you even keep me from getting into trouble! You surround me with songs of victory. (Psalm 32:7 Living Bible)

He began to share with Yvonne his thoughts on the Bible verses. But he made one thing clear: He was not interested in a relationship. That was fine with Yvonne. She had no interest in a jailhouse romance.

Eventually, Yvonne asked Clarence why he was locked up, and he sent her the transcripts from his trial.

You need an attorney, she said after reading them.

Yvonne, already working two jobs — one at a school cafeteria and another one helping transport children with special needs from school to their homes — got a third job working nights as a dishwasher at a diner to pay for an attorney.

Clarence began to read the Bible, and, despite his resistance, he fell in love with Yvonne. Slowly, he began to change. He stopped smoking. He lost interest in gambling. He even stopped cussing.

Still, old habits weren’t easy to break. He went off on an officer who tripped over the TV cord one day while Clarence was watching a show. Charged with insubordination and using obscenities, he was sent to solitary confinement for 14 days. When he got out, a guard sent him to the visiting room. Clarence had no idea who might be there to see him. No one had visited him for years.

Inside the well-lit room, he was drawn to a petite woman clad in a pretty blue dress and even prettier smile.

How do you know I am here to see you? Yvonne joked.

Because you are glowing, he said. You are like the brightest sun.

She showed up every weekend after that, and Clarence looked forward to her visits.

A year passed and one day Clarence asked Yvonne if he could ever be free, would she marry him?

She said yes.

Yvonne began asking customers at the restaurant where she worked if they knew any lawyers. One evening, a table full of lawyers came in. One of them connected her to a criminal defense attorney who did a little investigation. He discovered there was no court order to destroy the evidence in Clarence’s case. That meant it still existed. The question was, where?

And could they find it in time to save Clarence?

5

A cause finds its leader

The same year Clarence Harrison was sentenced to live in prison, Aimee Maxwell graduated from Georgia State University College of Law.

A painfully shy girl who grew up in Sandy Springs, Aimee found her voice in law school. She realized she could speak up when advocating for someone else. After graduation she took a job as a criminal defense attorney with a private firm.

She was a sharp attorney but a lousy businesswoman. She hated charging clients, especially those on limited incomes. She agreed to payment plans and let fees slide. Before long, she had racked up huge credit card debt and was struggling to pay her bills.

Preferring a salary not contingent on fees, she ended up at the Georgia Indigent Defense Council, where she worked for years, building a reputation as a skilled attorney who got things done. She was passionate about the cause and a bundle of energy.

The first board meeting of the newly created Georgia Innocence Project was held at Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta in the summer of 2002. The nonprofit organization’s mission was to exonerate wrongly incarcerated people. The advent of DNA technology had made remarkable strides; analyses on blood, hair and semen now provided reliable evidence to help convict criminals and eliminate innocent suspects. It was an exciting time.

Among the attorneys at the table was Aimee, now 41. Her glasses obscured the twinkle in her pale blue eyes as she sipped a diet Coke and listened to the conversation around her.

“This was something I was so interested in. I thought this might just be the job for me.”

So Aimee took a $20,000 per year pay cut and assumed the role of executive director of the Georgia Innocence Project. She set up a home office on a glass-topped table and matching patio chair in her sun room. She had one employee.

In January 2003, the Georgia Innocence Project started accepting letters from convicts seeking a shot at freedom.

6

Irrefutable proof

Clarence’s letter was No. 229.

Dear sirs, my name is Clarence Harrison, he wrote. I am presently being held falsely accused of crimes I could not have committed.

Working with interns, Aimee studied the case. They recreated the crime and asked the question: Does it make sense? Clarence provided an impressive number of details. He drew diagrams, had bus schedules.

Witness identification was a key piece of the prosecution, but there were several flaws in the process. For one, the investigator stacked the line up with people resembling Clarence.

Clarence remembered meeting the victim briefly months before the crime. She was in the passenger seat of a neighbor’s car, and he had walked over and initiated a casual conversation. But the victim swore in court she had never met Clarence before the assault. Aimee and her staff envisioned a possible scenario of how she came to misidentify Clarence as her attacker: When the victim stared at the photo line up, her eyes zeroed in on Clarence because she recognized his face from their encounter in the car. But she mistakenly attached his face to the crime.

Without any physical evidence, the Georgia Innocence Project faced a potentially insurmountable obstacle.

Even so, they decided to stick with the case.

Aimee believed Clarence.

“I couldn’t imagine someone who really did this crime would be so obsessed with trying to figure out: ‘How did this happen to me?’ ” she said.

Within weeks, one of the interns at the Georgia Innocence Project filed an open record’s request for Clarence’s file. When the intern opened the box at the Dekalb County District Attorney’s office, she found a paper bag marked “sexual assault kit.” The physical evidence had been inside his file the entire time.

Meanwhile, Aimee and her team were working on a second case: Joe Brown — the No. 3 letter.

Brown had maintained for years he was framed for a 1987 rape during a house burglary in Valdosta.

The Georgia Innocence Project took Brown’s case after it was learned that semen and blood evidence, which was not tested before Brown’s trial, was still available. The evidence was sent to Forensic Science Associates in Richmond, Calif. When the results came back, Aimee was stunned. Brown was a match. He did it.

Her team had spent months on the case; Aimee had believed him.

It was a crushing blow.

“It was so deflating, I was like, ‘Maybe I can’t do this job,’ ” said Aimee.

A month later, the results came in for Clarence: not a match.

He was innocent.

Aimee drove to a state prison in Savannah to share the news.

Well, Clarence we got your test results, said Aimee.

I know what it’s going to say, said Clarence.

But don’t you want to know? said Aimee.

That’s for you, he said. I already know what it’s going to say.

Seven days later, Clarence was a free man.

7

Freedom isn’t easy

Less than three weeks later, Clarence married Yvonne at the Straight Life Church of God Pentecostal in south DeKalb County. More than 200 people filled the pews of the sanctuary. Clarence wore a white tuxedo. Yvonne beamed in a flowing white dress. The couple’s attendants stretched across the front of the sanctuary. Aimee was a bridesmaid. One of her interns was a groomsman.

Clarence got a job working nights as a security guard at Mount Paran Christian School and a second job during the day at an Internet-based book sales company. He also completed a paralegal program at Emory University. Clarence and Yvonne settled into married life, sharing their love of playing cards and Atlanta’s Falcons, Hawks and Braves. She cooked dinner. He washed the dishes. They playfully bantered. He was happy, at peace.

But over time, re-entry into society proved more complicated. Clarence struggled to repair strained relationships with his daughters. He looked older than his 44 years and walked with a cane. The psychological pain of nearly two decades of imprisonment were even more crippling.

Petrified to drive, he wouldn’t get behind the wheel for more than a year. He was afraid to leave the house without an alibi. When he felt anxious, he retreated to the smallest room in the house, the color of milk chocolate and the size of a prison cell. He only ate at 6 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. — “feeding time” in prison. It annoyed Yvonne when Clarence called his plate a “tray.”

And he quickly grew dependent on Aimee, the lawyer who set him free, turning to her for help with everything from getting a driver’s license to paying bills. He even called her when he had a flat tire.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know what to do. When I had a flat tire, I called my dad,’ ” Aimee said.

Clarence began to grow angry with Aimee over small things — she didn’t call him back fast enough, she couldn’t find a document in his file. Not a man to raise his voice, Clarence seethed with frustration. Aimee started dreading his calls.

She finally asked him: “What are you really angry about?”

Clarence grew quiet.

I feel like I have a deep hole in my life, said Clarence, his voice deep with sorrow.

He was reeling from an overwhelming sense of loss — the loss of his mother, the loss of a relationship with his children, the loss of time. He was struggling bitterly with his new life, he confided in Aimee.

It’s OK to be angry, she told him. Just not always at me.

He knew she was right. As Clarence began taking care of more things himself, his friendship with Aimee grew. She attended barbecues at his home in Marietta. He accompanied her to Innocence Network conferences.

On the way to the first one in 2006, Aimee told the Delta employee at the counter who Clarence was, and that it was his first time flying. He was upgraded to first class. During the flight he strolled back to check on Aimee, good-naturedly flaunting his first-class status.

“The whole weekend, he talked about how great first class was. He loves teasing,” she said.

About a year after leaving prison, state lawmakers awarded Clarence a $1 million payout. Taxes took a big chunk of it, and a string of financial and personal setbacks followed.

He invested heavily in a new laundry business that didn’t make it. And he faced several thousand dollars in medical expenses when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while walking down South Atlanta Road after his car stalled. He required surgery to have a rod placed in his hip and remained in the hospital for several days.

The money, he says, is all gone.

Recently, pipes at his home burst, and he needed about $2,000 for repairs. Aimee wrote a check from her personal checking account.

8

Musician meets muse

One day in September 2011, the phone rang in the Georgia Innocence Project office in the aging Suburban Plaza shopping center in Decatur. Melanie Hammet was on the line. The local singer/songwriter and former mayor pro-tem of Pine Lake had recently returned from New York where she had seen “The Exonerated,” an off-Broadway play about death-row inmates. Compelled to help out, she practically begged to volunteer for the organization. The no-nonsense woman with blonde curly hair and turquoise eyes offered to do anything — make coffee, vacuum, clean toilets. She showed up every Tuesday, and she won the staff over with her thoughtfulness and insight. Eventually she got the green light to work on cases.

Before long, she got an idea. She would write a song about being wrongly imprisoned, and all of the proceeds would go to the Georgia Innocence Project.

Aimee was lukewarm on the idea of a social justice song. It’s not exactly dinner music. Would the general public be keen on a song about someone wrongly imprisoned? Would they be willing to pay for it?

But Melanie had successfully written about unexpected subjects before — like her songs about urban planning. One composition was titled “(Anatomy) of the Street Where You Live.”

“I wanted to garner support and awareness. I am like, ‘I don’t want to write another darn love song.’ ... I wanted to take something so degrading and flip it into something valuable,” said the woman who doesn’t mince words.

Aimee arranged for Melanie and fellow musician Ben Holst to meet Clarence. He was intrigued by the idea of meeting the musicians and telling them his story. As he shared his experiences with them, he felt a release. At their first meeting, the musicians collected more material than could fit in one song.

Over the next several months, the trio collaborated on a documentary-style CD about Clarence’s life in and out of prison. They called the project, “Life Sentence.”

9

Crying out in song

Clarence sits on a wooden stool, sipping coffee. Melanie sits next to him wearing a sky blue knit cap, holding her acoustic guitar.

A small group of spectators, all connected to the project in some way, take their seats in this pretty Pine Lake home overlooking the water. They sip herbal tea with agave nectar and clutch pens and paper for note taking. They’re preparing to watch a rehearsal for an upcoming performance of “Life: 20/20.”

When Clarence takes the microphone, everyone listens intently. But first he grabs a tissue from his pocket before he introduces the song about his mother.

Melanie’s rich, soulful voice fills the room; the song has an ache to it.

Now I am a free man, I’m still trying to find my place

And my dearest wish is just to see her face

My mama’s face, my mama’s face

I would give everything

To see my mama’s face

During the intimate living room performance, Clarence, now 53, opens up about his fear of dying in prison and being buried on prison grounds.

“I remember worrying and wondering if someone would come get me if I died in prison. I remember thinking ‘I don’t want to spend an eternity on prison grounds.’ That kept me up at night.”

He talks about life after prison.

“People think it’s a happy ending. We are free now. It’s hard to start over when you’ve lost almost 18 years ... Those are years of life experience, years of working and being with my kids. It’s like my life is a question mark.”

The mood lightens when Melanie sings a song about Yvonne.

Clarence nods and taps his feet to the beat, a wide smile brightens his face.

There’s nothing blacker than a day when even the clock on the wall says No Chance

you look the other way

But there was a day — a voice on the phone

I tried to turn her away, but she wouldn’t leave me here alone

She put the light back in

For so long, no one listened to Clarence. But one day Yvonne did, and then so did Aimee. Now Melanie is helping tell his story through music, and many more people have the opportunity to hear it as they perform at churches and venues across metro Atlanta. Clarence said he feels a kind of peace every time they perform.

“When I was in prison, clearing my name and having someone believe in me was more important than freedom,” said Clarence. “Now, when I perform, it’s like that crying out in my first letter to the Georgia Innocence Project. I want people to hear that crying out and to remember others need help. I am not the only one.”

HOW WE GOT THE STORY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution covered Clarence Harrison's release from prison in 2004, and his subsequent wedding and re-entry into society. But when Helena Oliviero came across the "Life Sentence" music project late last year, she discovered life after prison had been a struggle for Clarence. She realized there was a larger story to tell about the complexities of rebuilding a life after being wrongly imprisoned; how the support and dedication of two unwavering advocates have helped sustain him; and how an encounter with a big-hearted musician has given him a voice to share his story with others. In addition to hours spent interviewing Clarence, his wife Yvonne, Georgia Innocence Project director Aimee Maxwell and musician Melanie Hammet, among others, Oliviero reviewed several hundred pages of court and legal documents including the transcript from the 1987 trial, Clarence's disciplinary reports from prison and his medical records. The result is a gripping story about a miscarriage of justice, the efforts it took to right  a wrong and the toll the ordeal has taken on an innocent man.

Suzanne Van Atten
Features Enterprise Editor
personaljourneys@ajc.com

About the reporter

Helena Oliviero joined the AJC in 2002 as a features writer. Previously she worked for the Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Knight Ridder as a correspondent in Mexico.  She's written 12 Personal Journeys to date. She was educated at the University of San Francisco.

About the photographer

Hyosub Shin was born and raised in Korea. Inspired by the work of National Geographic photographers, he came to the United States about 10 years ago to study photography. Past assignments include the Georgia Legislative session, Atlanta Dream’s Eastern Conference title game, the Atlanta Air Show and the Atlanta Braves’ National League Division Series.

About the Georgia Innocence Project
The Georgia Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization that uses DNA testing to help free those wrongly imprisoned, was created in 2002. It's part of a loose network of Innocence Projects in states across the country.
In 2004, Clarence Harrison became the Georgia Innocence Project's first exoneree. Since his release, the organization has freed four more prisoners in Georgia. It has received more than 5,400 letters from prisoners seeking help and has accepted 60 clients.
In addition to law students who work as unpaid interns, the organization has three employees, including Aimee Maxwell. Her coworkers are paid by grants, one from former NBA player Joe Barry Carroll and one from the National Institute of Justice. The organization relies on donations, grants and fundraisers throughout the year. For information, go to www.ga-innocenceproject.org