For Being A Black Man, 28 YEARS IN PRISON!

Subject:	For Being A Black Man, 28 YEARS IN PRISON!
Date:	Sat, 9 Jan 2010 11:31:05 -0800 (PST)

With more than a MILLION lawyers in the Once-United States, wouldn't
you think one of 'em might take on Donald Gate's case -- pro bono or
on contingency -- to obtain for Donald proper and swift monetary
recompense for what a racist society put him through?

If he was white, do you think he'd have spent 28 years in prison?

Of course, no surprise, his real troubles started in Washington, D.C.
[Dysfunctional City], where we read that a "company" owned by a
"friend" of the mayor recently received a $2.5 million contract
without the approval of the D.C. Council.

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"Wrongly imprisoned, Donald Gates adjusts to freedom after 28 years"

By Keith L. Alexander
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 9, 2010; A01

KNOX COUNTY, TENN. -- It's a little after 3 a.m., and Donald Gates
bolts upright from what he had hoped would be a normal night's sleep
on his brother-in-law's sofa.

But the anxious thoughts racing through his mind won't allow him much
rest. Don't sleep for long, he tells himself, or you'll wake up back
in prison.

"It's like, man, that cage is still there," he says. "Just waiting."

It has been nearly a month since a D.C. Superior Court judge's legal
assistant faxed a notice to a Tucson, Ariz., prison warden that
vacated Gates's sentence and allowed him to walk free after 28 years
behind bars. DNA tests on a tiny sample of evidence found at the
District's medical examiner's office confirmed what Gates had been
saying all along: He's innocent.

Now, Gates says, comes the hard part. He hasn't really had the time to
be too happy about his release or bitter about his incarceration. His
energy is too focused on the struggle to get back on his feet with no
money, no job and a family he doesn't know very well anymore. The
world has changed dramatically since 1982, when an FBI forensic
analyst and a convicted felon-turned-informant both wrongly testified
that Gates, then 30, raped and killed a Georgetown University student
in Rock Creek Park on June 22, 1981.

For Gates, everything is smaller and more compact. Large computers and
rotary phones have been replaced with handheld, push-button devices.
Boxy Cadillacs and Buicks have been replaced with SUVs and compact
cars. And those bulky, heavy television sets that were the biggest
pieces of furniture in a room have morphed into sleeker models mounted
on a wall.

"Things are very different now, and I have to get used to it. It's
strange. But if feels so good. Man, it feels very good." With that,
Gates fell against the back of his chair and let out a laugh that
seemed to come from his toes.

At 58, Gates's belly laugh is one of the few signs of youth that
remain. He walks slightly bent from the arthritis in his knees. His
eyebrows are mixed with gray. He keeps his head clean-shaven now (his
hair started falling out two years into his sentence). He has trouble
seeing through his 1980s-style, prison-issued bifocals because the
prescription is so old.

But the biggest adjustment is in his head. Locked away with murderers
and hardened drug dealers, Gates learned to watch his back as inmates
stabbed each other over a TV program or the last can of soda. And now,
even in this slow Tennessee mountain town, it's hard for him to shed
those survival instincts.

At a local restaurant, where the hostess greets diners with a smile
and offers sweetened tea, Gates quickly looked over his shoulder
anytime someone walked next to him or approached from behind. Whenever
he walks into a room, his eyes scan each face, and he pinpoints the
nearest exit.

"It's getting better," he said. "And I'm doing it less and less."
Mistakes were made

Gates wants to focus on today and tomorrow, he said. The first order
of business is learning to drive again so he can get a license. He
hopes to get off his brother-in-law's couch and into his own
apartment. Then maybe he'll sell or manage real estate.

Dwelling on what happened, he says, isn't productive. "I'm not into
'Why me?' I'm into my future," he said, "Being bitter isn't going to
change what happened, and it won't give me those years back." He won't
say whether he will sue the government for his incarceration, and
although some states have an automatic compensation system for
exonerated inmates, there is no such mechanism for defendants in the
District who were prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office. However,
the Cincinnati-based Ohio Justice and Policy Center has established a
trust for Gates.

As a child, Gates was fascinated with mechanics, especially planes.
When he was 3, his parents and four siblings moved to Akron, Ohio,
after his father got a job at a tire manufacturing plant. After
graduating from high school, Gates went to the University of Akron for
a year before enlisting in the Air Force to nurture his love of
aerodynamics.

In the mid-1970s, while stationed in Richmond, Gates visited the
District often, including at least twice when he left his post without
permission and was declared a deserter, court records show.

He left the military and relocated to the District. For the next four
years, Gates drank excessively. He never had a fixed address and often
lived in shelters for the homeless. He worked occasionally for the
city's labor pool unloading trucks and doing carpentry and
construction. And he was in and out of the D.C. jail, according to
court records. In 1980 and 1981, records show, Gates was arrested six
times for robbery and assault. He won't talk about those years.

On July 20, 1981, about a month after the nude body of Catherine
Schilling, 21, was found in Rock Creek Park with five bullet wounds in
her head, Gates was arrested on a warrant for failure to appear in
court on another case. During his processing, according to court
records, police took a sample of Gates's hair.

These were the days before sophisticated DNA tests, so that hair and
three witnesses sent Gates to prison. FBI analyst Michael P. Malone
testified that a hair found on Schilling's body was a biological match
for Gates. But in a 1997 review, the Justice Department found that
Malone and 13 other analysts made false reports on various cases
across the country and performed inaccurate tests.

Three years later, in a letter to the District's U.S. attorney's
office, Justice officials told prosecutors about Malone and mentioned
Gates's case specifically. But according to sources in the office,
prosecutors examined the testimony and dismissed the notion that
Malone was the key factor in Gates's conviction. Justice officials are
reviewing the U.S. attorney's office's handling of the case.

"We deeply regret the fact that Mr. Gates was imprisoned for a crime
that we now know he did not commit," Channing Phillips, acting U.S.
attorney for the District, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the
criminal justice system is not infallible."

The other big mistake was the testimony of Gerald Mack Smith, a paid
government informant who told police that he and Gates were drinking
in a park when Gates said he wanted to rob "that pretty white girl,"
but when she resisted, he raped and shot her.

Smith was paid $50 for his initial tip, according to court records.
Then he was given $250 for choosing Gates out of a photo spread of 10
suspects and $1,000 for testifying before the grand jury. Four of
Smith's robbery cases were also dismissed. Gates said he had never
seen Smith until his trial.
'I had to fight'

Since his first day in jail, Gates fought for his freedom. While
sitting in the maximum-security cell at the former Lorton Prison in
Fairfax County, Gates became frustrated with his court-appointed
attorney, so he wrote the first of what would become dozens of letters
to D.C. Superior Court judges. In that one, he asked for another
attorney.

"I had to fight," Gates says. "It was my life on the line."

But nothing worked. The jury believed the witnesses, and Gates went to
prison.

In 1988, Gates read about DNA testing and wrote the Superior Court
again. "All I'm asking is that the lab be allowed to make the DNA
prints so you can see, your honor, that the hairs weren't mine either.
I will pay for the cost for the DNA," he wrote.

Judge Fred B. Ugast consented and appointed D.C. lawyer Roger Durban
to oversee the testing. But the science was in its early stages, and
the results were nonconclusive. So Gates remained in prison.

Over the next 20 years, with his hands and feet shackled, he was
shuttled to eight federal prisons across the country. His sister would
write him, letting him know that their father, then their mother and
eventually two of their three brothers had died.

He spent nine years in Lorton during the height of the District's
crack wars in the mid-1980s. Violence was common. "If you didn't find
a way to survive, you were dead by nightfall," he said. "Every day I
had to find a way to survive." He wouldn't elaborate.

For years, Gates would get on his knees each night and whisper what he
called long, eloquent prayers asking God for his freedom. But as time
wore on, his faith weakened and his arthritis worsened. So he
shortened the prayer to "Please help, God." Then to an even shorter
and simpler "Help."

He started to read and read. In 1995, he earned an associate degree in
business management from Park University. Professors would drive to
his prison to teach the classes, and he used Pell grants to pay the
tuition.

A little more than two years ago, as Durban was cleaning out his
Southeast Washington office for his retirement, he wrote Ugast a final
letter urging him to order another DNA test. The letter was referred
to Sandra K. Levick, who oversees cold and special cases. Her office
sent Gates a letter saying his case was being reopened. After two
years of court hearings and work locating reliable DNA samples from
the case, Ugast ordered the tests.

"Mr. Gates's case is a reminder of the critical importance of the
presumption of innocence," Levick said.

On Dec. 15, Ugast came out of semi-retirement and signed Gates's
exoneration papers.

Gates became the 249th U.S. inmate exonerated through post-conviction
DNA testing since 1989, and the second in the District. His 28 years
behind bars is among the longest served by those defendants and more
than twice the 13-year average.
Keeping track of time

The government gave Gates $75 and a Greyhound ticket. During the
nearly three-day bus trip to his new home, Gates dreamed of his first
spicy fried chicken dinner but had to settle for greasy burgers at bus
stop cafes.

He left prison with two things that he says mean the world to him.
First is his pocket dictionary. Gates loves to write and read. He
keeps the dictionary with him wherever he goes so he can look up words
that he doesn't understand. He also needs to check his spelling when
he writes a letter or a memo, even to himself.

His other prized possession is his $34 Timex watch. Gates doesn't like
to stay anywhere too long. He gets antsy, likes to keep moving. "I
only got a little time left out here in the free world," he said.

In prison, the watch was critical. It allowed him to stay focused on
getting to class, getting to meals before food ran out and getting to
the rec room so he could sit while watching TV.

Now that he's out, he doesn't have many appointments. But when he
does, it's huge. One day last month, he realized that the only
identification he had was issued by a prison. So he went to the
Department of Motor Vehicles to get a state ID card.

It took seven hours.

Gates went from window to window, with each clerk telling him he
needed this document from this prison or that document from that
court.

"I was so frustrated. I was suffering," he said. But it was worth
every miserable second. "I knew I was home."

The one regret Gates will talk about is not having kids. "That hurts,"
he said.

Things are slowly starting to feel normal again. He's getting into a
routine that will allow him to do such things as return to Akron to
visit his parents' graves.

"I just want to be the average Joe," he said.

He's also looking forward to his first date with a woman he met at the
mall while Christmas shopping with his family.

But not yet. "I'm not focused on that right now," he says. "I have to
get my life together first -- like getting some sleep."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/08/AR2010010803716.html

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/08/AR2010010803663.html?hpid=newswell