Wrongly imprisoned man receives presents

Mike Stobbe, The Associated Press, December 23, 2005

Robert Clark's eyes arched at the piles of presents before him. The two television sets. The leather jacket. The CD player. The towels, linens, dishes, books, gift cards. The everything."That's all for you," someone said to Clark, who this month was freed from prison after being wrongly incarcerated for 24 years.

Clark, 45, beamed.

This," he said, "is going to be a wonderful Christmas."

This scene played out Friday in the midtown Atlanta offices of the Georgia Innocence Project, a not-for-profit advocacy organization that helped Clark obtain DNA evidence to overturn his rape conviction.

Since his Dec. 8 release, the organization's staff and volunteers have been helping him get health care, a driver's license, job interviews and other necessities of a new life.

They also are aiding his Christmas. The organization has become a funnel for a shower of cards and gifts sent to Clark. Most of the presents Clark received Friday - about two dozen - came from employees of Alston & Bird, a large Atlanta-based law firm.

"They have been for a very long time supportive of the organization," explained Lisa George, the Georgia Innocence Project's communications director.

Clark certainly seems a worthy recipient.

The Atlanta man was convicted after a rape victim identified him from photo and police lineups, even though she earlier had said the rapist was much shorter than the 6-foot-1 Clark.

He spent the next 24 years in a series of five state prisons. He said he was involved in at least four fights over the years, though none left him seriously injured.

His family members were loyal and visited him regularly, but life in prison was monotonously difficult. Christmas was no relief.

"Just another day. Nobody's celebrating," Clark said.

In 1999, Clark read an article about the Innocence Project, a New York-based organization that works to overturn wrongful convictions. He wrote for help, and Innocence Project lawyers took the case. That organization was a role model for the Georgia Innocence Project, which was created in 2002 and later joined Clark's appeal.

The appeal succeeded this year, and Clark walked out of a Cobb County courtroom a free man. That night he went to a Steak and Ale in downtown Atlanta for lobster tail.

His life has been a rollercoaster of feting and minutiae since then.

Reporters have clamored for his time, and well wishers have bought him meals. Turner Broadcasting provided tickets to an Atlanta Hawks game against the Denver Nuggets. WVEE, a prominent radio station, got him seats to the Falcons home game against the Saints and gave him a $2,000 shopping spree.

But he also spent parts of four days seeking health care and a prescription card at Grady Memorial Hospital. He went to get a driver's license, accompanied by his sister, who had flown in from Oklahoma and drove him to the test in a rental car. After hours waiting, he was told he couldn't take the driver's test in a rental car, George said.

"The last thing I ever want to do is waste a second of this man's time, because 24 years has been wasted," George said.

Clark said that kind of stuff isn't bothering him. He's delighted to be out of prison and reunited with his two children and five grandchildren and with Janice Smith, the mother of his 28-year-old son, Rocky.

He said he's not angry. He decided years ago to set aside the anger at being wrongly imprisoned, at the urging of his mother, Lula Clark, who died last year.

However, when asked if he ever received an apology for his wrongful incarceration, his easy smile disappeared.

"No," he said, adding that he would like an apology from the prosecutors who put him away and from the rape victim who misidentified him.

He paused, then added, "It's not important if I don't get them (the apologies)."

He's also readjusting to mainstream life. A lot has changed since his 1981 arrest. Home computers. ATMs. CDs. And those little communication devices hanging on everyone's belt, which Clark referred to as "cellaphones."

He's temporarily living in his mother's house, and has found himself fiercely protected by his family. His son, Rocky, doesn't like him to leave the house at night. He's afraid Clark might somehow wind up in trouble, and be torn from him again."

He don't want me to get into nothing. He doesn't want me to leave him again," Clark said.

He's seeking a job so he can get health insurance, and his own apartment.

The Georgia Innocence project is lobbying for the Legislature to compensate him _ just as the Legislature agreed last year to pay a total of $1 million over 20 years to Clarence Harrison, another Georgia man who was freed after a wrongful imprisonment, George said.Clark, sitting nearby, grinned at the presents and repeated how happy he is at how life has turned in his favor.

"The best Christmas I've had in years," he said.