"Sometimes," Jeffrey Deskovic told The New York Times for a Nov. 25 story, "I feel that the only difference from here to prison is that I don't have bars on my windows. No matter how much I run, I'll never make up for the lost time."
Deskovic, now 34, walked out of prison on Sept. 20, 2006. He'd spent 16 years locked up for the1989 murder of Peekskill (N.Y.) High School classmate Angela Correa - a murder he didn't commit.
One of his saviors was Mancos resident Claudia Whitman, who made the calls and dug for the information that eventually led to Deskovic's exoneration. DNA evidence taken from the crime scene didn't match Deskovic. It matched another man, who in May was sentenced for the murder.
Adjusting to life after prison hasn't been easy, Deskovic explained Thursday afternoon via phone as he commuted on a train to Manhattan for a college class. He isn't used to being free, and he's having a hard time socially.
"There's still a fear that it's not all real, that I'm going to wake up and I'm still incarcerated," he said.
Whitman, an artist who spends much of her spare time working on behalf of prisoners who she believes have been wrongly convicted, has stayed in touch with Deskovic. In March she brought him to the University of Maine, where she lives for part of the year, to talk about his experiences and against the death penalty. "People were in tears," she said.
"He's a very good speaker, and he has a very good story," said Whitman, who is coordinator of the GrassRoots Investigation Project of Equal Justice USA.
"He's been so effective in fighting New York in attempting to bring the death penalty back. Instead of licking his wounds he's jumped right into the battlefield."
Deskovic's two causes are the death penalty and wrongful convictions. He has written more than a dozen articles and spoken to 30 different groups in the last year, including the American Psychological Association conference on interrogations and confessions in El Paso, Texas. He lobbied three times in Albany, the New York capital, against the death penalty.
The Times story gave him even more fame. During Thursday's interview he paused for a half-minute to talk to someone on the train who recognized him from the media exposure.
He'll graduate with a behavioral science degree in a few weeks, and has already taken the LSAT, hoping to begin law school in August.
Whitman said others have told her that if it's the only success she ever has in her line of work, helping Deskovic out of prison has aided the anti-death penalty fight immensely. "What he's done has been amazing," Whitman said. "I would say he's a huge success, even though he's having hard times."
