The morning after Andrew Golden was freed from Death Row in December 1993, he stood outside his home in Lakeland, Fla., sipping a cup of coffee, gently touching the grass and the leaves on a nearby tree.
“I went outside to smell the freedom,” said Golden, 51, who spent two years on Florida’s Death Row for killing his wife before his conviction was reversed by the Florida Supreme Court.
A police car cruised slowly past Golden’s home. He shuddered in fear.
“I walked out of there (Death Row) thinking that, `Yes, life begins again.’ But it doesn’t,” Golden said. “You don’t realize what that place has done to you. You are caged not just physically but mentally. You realize that it’s not over. It’s never over.”
It has been just over a week since Rolando Cruz was freed by DuPage County Circuit Judge Ronald Mehling after spending 12 years in prison and 7 years on Illinois’ Death Row for the slaying of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in 1983.
Last Monday, Cruz strolled along Navy Pier with one of his lawyers, Larry Marshall, admiring the beauty of the waves, sailboats and seagulls-much like Golden taking that first walk on his front lawn.
Cruz has talked little about his plans, except to say he will visit his mother in Texas over Thanksgiving and would like to start college in January, perhaps to study law.
But Nan Nolan, one of Cruz’s attorneys, said that he’s “very scared.”
“He was taken from the world when he was 19, and he’s thrown out into the world when he’s 32,” said Nolan. “He doesn’t have a home. He doesn’t have a job. He has none of the security system that you or I have.”
Since 1976, there have been 54 Death Row inmates in the U.S., including four from Illinois, who have been freed after their convictions were overturned, according to Michael Radelet, a University of Florida sociology professor who has studied the issue. The number has accelerated in recent years because of more accurate DNA testing, Radelet said.
Golden and other former Death Row inmates said that for the next several years, Cruz’s life almost certainly will be filled with frustration and confusion, loneliness, anger and disappointment.
Former Death Row inmates said they constantly face the accusatory stares of people who believe they committed the brutal crimes that landed them unjustly on Death Row.
They talk about the difficulty of making even the most basic decisions, such as whether to answer a telephone, open a door or cross the street. On Death Row, Cruz was locked in his cell 23 hours a day. Guards brought him his meals, took care of his mail, and told him when to sleep and when to wake.
Many former Death Row inmates also said they have had difficulty restarting marriages and other relationships that weakened or dissolved during their many years of incarceration. In fact, Cruz’s 1993 jailhouse marriage to Nicole Ballard of St. Paul collapsed long before he was freed, said a source close to Cruz.
Other inmates said they have had problems finding a job in a world filled with cellular telephones, fax machines, and other gadgets popularized since their imprisonment.
Many others are dogged by depression and self-doubt.
Four months after Jerry Banks was freed from Georgia’s Death Row in 1980, he fatally shot his wife, Virginia, then turned the gun on himself because she wanted a divorce. Virginia Banks had taken up with another man because she believed her husband would be executed, according to Patsy Morris, a death penalty caseworker at the Georgia Resource Center.
Fredrico Martinez Macias, who spent nine years on Texas’ Death Row for a double homicide until his release in 1993, died of a heroin overdose two months ago.
Macias, a gardener and day laborer, had been unable to find steady work or develop a close bond with his former wife and four children.
“Fred got nothing (on Death Row) that would prepare him for time on the outside,” said Douglas Robinson, Macias’ attorney. “He basically spent nine years as a caged animal while the state cleared the obstacles to killing him.”
Former Death Row inmates who have survived and prospered said they have a network of family and friends who helped them create new lives, sometimes in the small towns where they grew up, sometimes in places where their past was not known.
Some have sought professional counseling; others have found religion.
Their collective advice to Cruz: Go slow. Think small. And do not expect too much of yourself or the world.
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“Life is hard anyways,” said Sonia Jacobs, 48, who spent more than four years on Florida’s Death Row and 17 years in prison for the shooting death of two police officers. She lives in Los Angeles and is a yoga instructor. “But when you come out into a situation like this where you are dealing with a loss of time, of family, of your own identity, the problems are tremendous.
“The world you knew no longer exists. You have to carve your own place in this new world.”
In Illinois, Darby Tillis and Perry Cobb each spent nine years on Death Row before a Cook County judge ruled both men innocent of a 1977 double homicide in Chicago.
Joseph Burrows of Downstate Homer was freed in September after spending almost six years on Death Row for the 1988 slaying of an 88-year-old Sheldon, Ill., man.
Burrows’ experience is typical among many former Death Row inmates.
Within days of his release, he appeared on “Donahue,” “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Today,” and the ABC News program “Day 1.” He lectured the New York State Senate about the evils of the death penalty and appeared at dozens of colleges and universities.
“My phone was ringing off the hook,” said Burrows, 42, who is married and has three children. “I was flying all around the country.”
Cruz has found himself in a similar situation, receiving dozens of telephone calls from network television news programs, Hollywood producers and book publishers.
On Wednesday, Cruz appeared before more than 400 Northwestern University law students-and dozens of reporters. His right hand shaking nervously as he sipped a diet cola, Cruz frequently choked up when he tried to speak.
He seemed overwhelmed by the attention, and rightly so.
“It’s very stressful,” said Radelet. “He’s being welcomed out into a fantasy land. There are going to be lots of opportunities to travel and speak to different groups. There is going to be a lot of community support. That’s going to last for six months. Then he’s going to be faced with reality. He’s going to have to pay his rent. He’s going to have to make it on his own.”
Although Cruz completed his high school equivalency exam while incarcerated, his only job skill is as a cable television installer. lie down with fleas, people think that you got fleas. They all think that you’re rotten.”
Former Death Row inmates said the devastation of being treated as an outcast-despite being victimized by a criminal justice system that has stolen years of their lives-often leads to bitterness and depression.
“When you are in there, you are waiting for death,” said Golden, who teaches criminal justice at the University of Florida. “You give up caring. Life has no meaning. And then you get out, and you realize that you are going to have to live with this stigma.
“The prosecutors never say, `I’m sorry.’ They never admit they made a mistake. How can you trust anybody? There is no accountability.”
At his news conference Wednesday, Cruz displayed much of the same anger as Golden, denouncing law enforcement officials who prosecuted his case and calling for a federal investigation.
But Cruz showed something more.
When asked by a reporter what he has learned in his few days of freedom, Cruz paused, leaned forward slightly in his chair, and said in a firm voice: “That people really do care. That there are people out there that are sincere. That there are people out there that do love. That not everybody hates and is concerned about themselves.”
Radelet and other experts said former Death Row inmates who are successful somehow push aside the anger over their wrongful conviction and manage to trust others again.
But there also is an intangible element to their success: the fierce determination not to be robbed of life a second time.
“Mentally and emotionally, I died in that place (Death Row),” said Randall Dale Adams, 46, a former Texas Death Row inmate who was the subject of the documentary “The Thin Blue Line.” He works for a saw manufacturing company in Columbus, Ohio.
“But I consider myself very blessed. I’ve been given a second life,” he said, “and I’m going to take advantage of it.”