Exonerated death row prisoner Nick Yarris speaks to The Justice Gap — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00so beginning of next year is 10 years
2. 0:02anniversary since you've been released
3. 0:04can you reflect back on your time on the
4. 0:06outside 10 years of Freedom have been a
5. 0:09rocket ride through every human emotion
6. 0:12you can imagine from getting out and
7. 0:15being sick to going forward and finding
8. 0:18out that everybody who was meant to be
9. 0:20there to protect you and helped you
10. 0:22weren't finding out that I have to do it
11. 0:25all on my own and struggle with it has
12. 0:27been very
13. 0:28difficult I read online you said you had
14. 0:31no history when you were released how
15. 0:33did you find an identity form an
16. 0:35identity patience and bonding with
17. 0:38others cuz I had no history of the world
18. 0:41did I I was like a newborn it took me a
19. 0:44long time to understand that
20. 0:46relationships are precious but they're
21. 0:48not they're not
22. 0:50always right within 10 years all
23. 0:53prisoners who have served more than 20
24. 0:55years in solitary
25. 0:57confinement try to commit suicide cuz
26. 1:00they can't bond with Society again it's
27. 1:03so hard to reestablish bonds and connect
28. 1:06with people when your whole identity has
29. 1:08been started off again and that's why
30. 1:10they do it survivor's guilt plays a
31. 1:13heavy part in it too how did you feel
32. 1:15when you realized that DNA could be an
33. 1:17option for you to to be redeemed in a
34. 1:20way in in 1988 when I found out about
35. 1:22DNA testing I believed I would be set
36. 1:25free within a short period I had no idea
37. 1:28it was going to take 15
38. 1:30years what I knew at that point I was so
39. 1:34ignorant of the reality that it wasn't
40. 1:36about DNA it was more about keeping the
41. 1:40monster in prison the eyewitnesses who
42. 1:42were manufactured by the police how do
43. 1:45you feel looking back at that it's
44. 1:47shameful that if you look across the
45. 1:49board a lot of cases in which the
46. 1:52evidence is questionable they use
47. 1:55jailhouse Witnesses like this and it's a
48. 1:58common theme and I I feel like it's
49. 2:01really shameful that they have to stoop
50. 2:03to that type of level a prisoner will
51. 2:05say anything to get out of prison won't
52. 2:08he how can they put so much trust in us
53. 2:11on the flip side you say that are times
54. 2:13you still you miss it you miss the
55. 2:15experience what positives if any have
56. 2:17you taken from your experience I became
57. 2:21a very good-hearted person in hell
58. 2:26that's the hardest thing to do because
59. 2:29you you're taught all day long hatred
60. 2:31and hurtt hatred and hurt hatred and
61. 2:33hurt and I was finally given an
62. 2:35opportunity to see through that and so
63. 2:38the greatest gift I've given myself is
64. 2:41knowing that I can be a good person if
65. 2:44that's what I choose in relation to
66. 2:45inance project what are your views on
67. 2:48journalist because journalist play a key
68. 2:50part in that project journalism students
69. 2:53have done more to get people out of
70. 2:54prison than lawyer than law
71. 2:57students you would go to a scene and see
72. 3:00it Through The Eyes of a journalist you
73. 3:02wouldn't go and look at it from the eyes
74. 3:03of a lawyer a lot of Journalism is
75. 3:06really Grassroots efforts isn't it so I
76. 3:09believe that journalism in terms of
77. 3:11helping this kind of issue very positive
78. 3:14so looking back on your story I think
79. 3:16anyone would struggle to to write it as
80. 3:18fiction um regarding movies potentially
81. 3:21is anything in the pipeline I love to
82. 3:24see this movie made with a
83. 3:27downplaying I don't want it to be all
84. 3:30the crazy Escape that broke I wanted to
85. 3:32be
86. 3:34about someone like you Someone Like You
87. 3:38someone normally trying to assimilate
88. 3:40all this information without it being
89. 3:43blown up in guns and bombs and craziness
90. 3:45you still feel angry no I don't have any
91. 3:48time for anger left