Cleared inmate seeks focus
It's not easy being free

By David Simpson, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, January 24, 2005

The shy smile was the same one Clarence Harrison first showed to the bank of television cameras on the steps of the DeKalb County Courthouse almost five months ago.

Then he was a free man, of just a few minutes, after 17 years in Georgia prisons. DNA testing had proved he did not commit the rape for which he was convicted.

Photos courtesy of RENEE' HANNANS HENRY/AJC
Clarence Harrison tells Clayton County students, "Don't try to grow up too fast. Enjoy youth while you can."
Harrison prays at Canton's Immanuel Church of God in Christ.
'It was God who brought me out,' says Clarence Harrison, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not do.
LETTERS WELCOME Clarence Harrison welcomes letters at P.O. Box 210 Marietta, GA 30061

Now, he was a guest speaker at a Clayton County Juvenile Court program aimed at deterring children from crime.

He began with tales of cold horror about prison rape. If you go into prison young, Harrison told the hushed youngsters, "God help you." He moved on to optimistic advice.

"Don't try to grow up too fast," he says. "Enjoy youth while you can. Life has so much to offer."

The picture in the school auditorium last week would make a heartwarming happy ending to the movie of Clarence Harrison's life. But in truth, his story is just beginning, and its main character is far from certain about his role.

As sure as Harrison is that prison is a hell to be avoided at all costs, he's slowly feeling his way into freedom. Life on the outside, he finds, is more complicated, and not just because of the practical issues of starting an adult life from scratch.

Harrison battles years of prison conditioning to try to think like a free man, years of absence to try to be a father and years of reflecting on his own mistakes to try to decide how to feel about the injustice that brought him to this point.

In the Clayton County auditorium, Harrison recounted a life of petty juvenile offenses: stealing clothes and beer, smoking reefer from age 12 on, skipping school to gamble. And fighting, always fighting.

Then on to adult robbery and 5 1/2 years in prison.

And after that, he traded in his old friends for new, tougher men he met in prison. Police were objects of contempt, and he cracked sarcastic when the cops came around to question him about a rape and robbery he knew nothing about.

On Oct. 25, 1986, a 25-year-old woman had been attacked while walking to a bus stop in Decatur. A police investigator said there was a rumor someone at Harrison's house was selling a watch, maybe the victim's watch.

No watch was found, but the victim identified Harrison as the rapist. It was the only evidence against him, but it was enough. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Raising his voice and slipping into a street dialect, Harrison asked his young listeners to picture themselves in the place he found himself: "You fittin' to go down the road for something you ain't did. But it isn't for what you ain't did. It's for all those little things that you did catching up to you."

The parents in the auditorium applauded. Hearing someone take responsibility for his mistakes was music to their ears.

It's too simple to say who Harrison blames for his wrongful conviction, but he chooses not to air his grievances before this audience.

Future bright, cloudy

There were so few options in prison. Even the program that allowed him to take college classes was canceled.

Now, choices beckon. Harrison wants to get his college degree. He wants to upgrade his barber's license and take classes to improve his welding and upholstery skills. He is finishing a computer class.

Where will it all lead?

"I still have no idea what it is I want. You know why? Because I always relied on them to tell me what to do," he says.

Harrison still battles the prison mind-set.

I'll be hungry, but I look at the time to see if it's time to eat," he says.

Then he comes back to his new reality, where he can eat whenever he wants. That might seem reassuring, but Harrison says, "I get mad at myself."

He says he's more comfortable in the smallest room of the house. When the living room feels too big, he retreats to the den. "And I've got to watch that, too."

He berates himself even for slipping up with a word, such as eating from a "tray" rather than a plate. Meals come on trays in prison.

Harrison wants to erase all remnants of what he calls the "chain-gang mentality."

Starting over good, bad

Some things quickly fell into place after Harrison won his freedom on Aug. 31.

Donors lined up with a ring and arrangements so he could marry Yvonne Zellars, a woman who befriended him by phone and mail in prison.

With the holiday shopping rush came a seasonal job in a bookseller's warehouse.

He was fascinated by computers, and now he has his own.

The couple's car broke down, and someone gave them theirs. He thinks today's cars resemble "spaceships," but he likes the looks of a Lincoln Town Car.

Not that there is money for a new car. Yvonne Harrison is a school food-service worker, and her pay has not been enough for all the things Harrison needed to restock his life, such as a complete wardrobe.

Asked about their financial situation, the Harrisons exchanged wry smiles before he says, "Completely in debt."

He still walks with a cane because of what he describes as tendinitis in his leg. He should see a doctor, his wife says, but he has no health insurance.

His backers at the Georgia Innocence Project, which won his release, are talking quietly with a legislator about a bill that would have state government pay him restitution.

In a similar case, the state paid $500,000 to Calvin Johnson, who spent 16 years in prison before a DNA test cleared him of his Clayton County rape conviction in 1999.

Harrison says compensation would help him "not be dependent," but he added a qualifier that also sheds some light on the part of him that feels the injustice of his experience: "I don't think they could pay me for what I've been through anyway."

Kids 'like strangers'

Harrison had three small daughters when he went to prison. He emerged to find them grown, with eight children of their own. He thinks they "still haven't forgiven me for leaving them."

He acknowledged that he needs to spend more time with them, "We're still kinda like strangers."

Harrison didn't even meet Zellars until they were introduced through a cellmate. She volunteered to be his pen pal and wrote him about the Bible.

Now, they are steadfast churchgoers. He credits her with persuading him to renew his legal fight and to turn away from hatred.

"It was God who brought me out," he says.

Since his release, Harrison has become a magnet for inmates who want to win their own release. He wants to respond to them all.

"Those letters are piling up on me, I got to write 'em. And that's what I'll probably be doing all next week, writing those letters."

It is another item for a crowded life yet to be focused. But still he finds moments of peace in the world outside high walls and razor wire.

"Sometimes I like to just walk out my door and just look — just look at the birds or whatever. . . . I know my neighbors wonder why I'm standing out there."

Perhaps they wonder, just as he does, what to make of it all.