Finding Solace After Wrongful Conviction

Dec. 12, 2004 — -- It was only a patch of grass, but it was one of the most beautiful sights Scott Hornoff had seen in almost six and a half years. Walking outside of the Adult Correctional Institute in Warwick, R.I., he reached down to touch a blade of grass, one of the many things he hadn't been able to touch while he was incarcerated.

Hornoff, now 42, served six years and four months in prison for the 1995 murder of Vicky Cushman -- a crime to which Cushman's boyfriend confessed in 2002. Hornoff, a former police detective, spent his years of incarceration fighting to have his conviction overturned. Since he has been released, he has been fighting to have a normal life.

A study released in April shows that over the past 15 years, there were 328 people exonerated for crimes they didn't commit. Many served hard time, but for most, the hardest time is after they leave prison. They face a difficult adjustment, often suffering psychological problems and societal shunning, unable to be perceived as anything other than a criminal.

"In general, it's a very complicated and difficult adjustment," said John P. Wilson, a psychologist at Cleveland State University. He has worked with exonerees for more than 20 years. "It's contrary to what people think, that it will be joyous because they're out of prison."

On that cold day in November 2002, Hornoff remembers feeling disbelief that he was finally seeing the world beyond prison walls.

"It was more a feeling of being in shock, in the 'Twilight Zone,' " he said. He later went with 30 friends and family members for his first meal outside of prison, but wasn't able to eat. "I was too wound up." He also did not sleep for two days.

Over the next few days, he went to dinner with his mother and saw two of his three sons play basketball. To this day, cherishes every moment, not only to experience things he missed, but because of fear.

"I want to live every day, because I'm afraid I might lose it all again," he said.