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Back to Life Freedom a Thrill for Wrongly Imprisoned Man
by Don Plummer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 10, 2005
Robert Clark Jr. ignored the early morning chill.
At this moment, on this day, life was too beautiful to worry about the weather.
There were family members to hug and grandchildren to see. There were simple pleasures, too, such as crispy strips of bacon, butter pecan ice cream and a hot cup of cocoa at Starbucks.
Even life's drudgeries, such as waiting in line for hours at the driver's licensing center, didn't bother Clark, who just smiled as others tapped their feet and quietly brooded.
For Clark, it was simply that kind of day.
It was his first full day of freedom after spending nearly 25 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Atlanta — and the world — had surely changed, and here was Clark, soaking it all in with an innocent sense of wonderment.
"It's great. Just to be able to see and do and go just anywhere."
The day began at a hotel restaurant on Peachtree Street, where he ate breakfast with the three lawyers who had worked so hard to exonerate him.
It was a plain country breakfast. Grits, eggs and bacon — an entire plate of bacon.
"Man, that was good. They used to serve bacon in prison, but they stopped about 20 years ago."
Then, they were off.
There was so much more to see — and a story to tell.
Clark was arrested in 1981, when he was 22. The woman — who had been beaten, raped and left for dead — identified him in court. He was convicted and sentenced to two life terms, plus 20 years.
All the while, Clark, now 45, maintained his innocence, even turning down a plea agreement that would have allowed him to serve a lot less time if he would say he did it.
For the next 24 years, he served his time as the world outside slipped away. His mother died in June 2004. His son, who was 3 when Clark was arrested, is now a father.
Then, two years ago, lawyers from the New York-based Innocence Project, which uses DNA to clear those who say they were wrongly accused, decided to look into Clark's case.
"They gave me a whole new life. They gave me back the life I had lost."
Based on a DNA test that didn't exist at the time Clark was tried, investigators learned that Clark couldn't have committed the crime. That DNA evidence pointed to another man. Finally, everyone knew Clark had been telling the truth.
Now, here he was, getting out of the back of a black limousine for the short ride to CNN, which had been on the air for only 14 months when Clark was arrested.
"I don't feel cold. I feel great."
After interviews for two news programs, Clark enjoyed the cup of butter pecan ice cream.
"The last time I was here," Clark said, gesturing with his ice cream spoon around the atrium of the CNN Center, "this was an ice skating rink. And over there was the game room."
His eyes glazed over as he traveled back to an Atlanta before Centennial Olympic Park, Starbucks (which wasn't known beyond Seattle when Clark was arrested) and long before the new aquarium.
"They have a whale in there?"
Technology has changed a lot, too.
He marveled at the idea of a digital camera. He saw one for the first time Friday.
"All this in here? Y'all get together. I want to do a picture."
A little while ago, he talked on a cellphone for the first time.
"I couldn't believe you could call all the way to New York on this little thing. It didn't even have a cord."
Now, he wanted one of his own. And to think that many companies now offer free cellphones when you sign a contract.
"You mean you buy one and get one free?"
"No. It's free," the salesperson said.
"Free? Naw. That can't be right." Clark left with only a brochure.
At 12:58, he arrived at the Department of Driver Services — the kind of experience that can ruin anyone's day.
Not Clark's.
He used the time to reflect on the past.
"My mother kept me strong. Every time I heard her voice it made me stronger." It was his mother who inspired him to write the Innocence Project.
"She always knew I was going to be free. She left me her house so I'd have some place to come when I got out."
And he looked to the future.
"I want to give bicycles to kids, bags of groceries to their mothers and try to help other guys who are still in prison."
Two hours later, he traded in his prison ID for an official Georgia identification card. (If he wants to drive again, he has to take another test to requalify.)
Clark smiled as he tucked it into his well-worn brown wallet, beside the pictures of his mother, two adult children and five grandkids.
Next, Clark decided to look up an old friend.
His name is Ricky Jacobs. He served 14 years in prison for rape (the Innocence Project says it tried to help him, too, but evidence was destroyed, making a DNA test impossible.) He and Clark met at Rutledge State Prison in Columbus, where they were teammates on the men's basketball team.
The men exchanged hugs and high fives at Jacobs' apartment in southwest Atlanta.
"I told you I was going to find you," Clark shouted as Jacobs opened the door. Clark recently wrote Jacobs, who was paroled July 12.
"I just got your letter Wednesday," Jacobs called back.
"We're going to do lots of things," Clark said. "One thing I'm going to do is go to church with you."
But first, the lawyers who had worked on both men's cases treated them to dinner — barbecue, of course — near downtown Atlanta.
Not a bad way to end such a beautiful day.
