Damon Thibodeaux on his newfound freedom — Transcript

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1. 0:02[Applause]
2. 0:04[Music]
3. 0:13my name is Barry Sheek I'm co-director
4. 0:15of the Innocence Project uh this is a
5. 0:17great day this is the man of the hour
6. 0:19DAV Ido the 300th postconviction DNA
7. 0:23Exon in the United
8. 0:28States
9. 0:31if you can imagine spending 15 years of
10. 0:34your life for a crime you didn't commit
11. 0:38in a 6x9 cell isolated 23 hours a day
12. 0:42Despair and depression is something we
13. 0:45can all understand but to overcome that
14. 0:49despair that takes an extraordinary
15. 0:51human being none of us could possibly
16. 0:53imagine what he has gone through or what
17. 0:56any of the men behind us have gone
18. 0:58through during ing their experiences
19. 1:01this is a damn good day at the office I
20. 1:04tell
21. 1:08you and all I I want to say is if this
22. 1:12case doesn't teach us if we can't figure
23. 1:14out how to have a death penalty that
24. 1:17doesn't put innocent men on Death Row
25. 1:20then we don't we don't deserve to have
26. 1:22it
27. 1:23Damon well I want to thank everybody
28. 1:26here at this table um it's been a long
29. 1:29journey it's people like y'all
30. 1:32who give people like us a chance and I
31. 1:36hope that
32. 1:39uh in the
33. 1:42future cases like ours can be used as
34. 1:45examples of what not to do during an
35. 1:49investigation or uh interrogation and
36. 1:52even during the court process we'll take
37. 1:55some questions when you were released
38. 1:57when you walked out what was that like
39. 1:59for you
40. 2:01it's it's kind of like you dream of it
41. 2:04every day but it's not it's not the same
42. 2:07as actually going through it it's it's
43. 2:10it's a sural walk what are you looking
44. 2:12forward to
45. 2:14now peace and
46. 2:17quiet a good dinner we're not telling
47. 2:19you nice uh just concentrating on
48. 2:24putting my life back together and moving
49. 2:27forward Point did you feel like giving
50. 2:31you know at first you do feel like that
51. 2:34sometimes you know
52. 2:37but the minute you give up completely is
53. 2:42is the minute you die period how do you
54. 2:45feel now
55. 2:55free