JOHNSTOWN - For Jeffrey Deskovic, adjusting to life outside of prison has not been easy, but one task has proven harder than most.
After spending nearly the same amount of time behind bars as he spent in the free world, convicted at 16 years old for a crime he did not commit, Deskovic never learned how to write a check, or knot a tie, or find a job.
For all those years, he had to ask permission to eat, to play sports, to go to the bathroom. But what's been hardest, Deskovic told a packed house at Fulton-Montgomery Community College Thursday, is learning how free people behave with one another.
"I withdrew emotionally," he said. "To protect myself."
When Deskovic was a high schooler in Peekskill in Westchester County in 1989, a classmate was found raped and murdered. During the investigation, police honed in on Deskovic, spurred on by students who labeled him "strange" for not playing sports and keeping to himself.
After interviewing him for seven hours without a break, emotionally beating him down, the "good cop" told him if he just admitted to the crime, he would be able to go home. They knew he did it, the cop said.
"You have to help yourself here," he told Deskovic.
Naive and eager to escape, Deskovic told them what they wanted to hear. He peppered his story with details the police had fed him. Only he wasn't going home. He was going to jail, for 16 years.
Deskovic was convicted despite DNA evidence that did not match him. The coerced confession was held up as evidence, even though he had been beaten down for hours without an attorney present.
"Maybe you are innocent," the judge began as he handed down the 15-to-life sentence.
After years of appeals, the tedium broken only by prison fights, assaults and abusive guards, Deskovic gave up hope when the U.S. Supreme Court denied him. Then the Innocence Project took his case. The DNA from the crime scene was run through a database and was matched to a man who had committed a murder three years after the rape and murder for which Deskovic had been jailed. That man then admitted to the crime Deskovic had been convicted of.
Deskovic was released in November 2006 after 16 years behind bars, with little more than the suit the Innocence Project had bought for him.
He has used his story to advocate for reforms in the legal system to prevent the conviction of more innocent people. He said he wants all interrogations taped, a more thorough identification system and a fair system of competent public defenders.
All his efforts, though, won't give him back the 16 years of his life he lost behind bars. It won't reconnect him to his family, who he said are virtually strangers to him emotionally. It won't help his brother, who dropped out of school because of the incessant taunts and threats he received.
It won't help him attend his grandmother's funeral, or go to the prom.
Deskovic said he has a responsibility, though, to tell his story and help those like him. He is working toward a law degree and wants to become a lawyer and focus on wrongful convictions. More than 200 people have been exonerated in New York, Deskovic said, many of whom spent more than 10 years behind bars.
"I take this very seriously," he said. "I have been blessed to receive an education, which other people in my situation might not get. I have a self-imposed obligation to do what I can."
He said he isn't angry about what happened to him. To do that, he said, would give "them" the remaining years of his life.
"They got enough," he said.
FMCC student Andrew Zeh said he was amazed by Deskovic's story.
"It's shocking to hear how the police treated him," he said.
Student Bruce Pavlus agreed.
"To be in jail for so long [and then get out], you must be so out of focus," he said.
Criminal justice professor John Armstrong invited Deskovic to speak to FMCC students and faculty. Deskovic travels around the country and has given about 70 other talks to a variety of groups, Deskovic said.
"It's easy for us to talk about how great our legal system is," Armstrong said. "But here is a first-hand account of its failures. You wonder, how could something like this happen?"
Deskovic urged the students and faculty to take what they heard and talk to others about it. He said change will only happen if people lobby their legislators and make it clear they want significant reform.
"I had never been arrested ... I was not a high school drop out. It happened to me, and it could happen to you," he said. "Don't wait until you're personally affected. Act now."
For more information, visit www.jeffreydeskovicspeaks.org.
