Students Help Wrongfully Convicted Return to Their Loved Ones

For incarcerated people and their families, the holidays can be a painful reminder of time lost away from loved ones. However, for the first time in decades, both Gary Benloss and Rodney Derrickson will be spending this holiday season reunited with their families.

Benloss and Derrickson, who spent a combined 52 years wrongfully incarcerated, were released from prison just 25 days apart--Benloss on November 20 and Derrickson on December 15--becoming the 10th and 11th people to come home with support from the Making an Exoneree (MAE) program.

"In the past few weeks, I saw two groups of former MAE students, several years apart, drop everything in their lives to welcome home two incredible men," PJI Director Marc Howard said. "This demonstrates the power of our program's model based on student investigation and advocacy, and it gives me so much hope for justice and compassion."

"A Change in the Chapter"

When Benloss entered the parking lot of Sing Sing prison in Ossining, NY, the first person he approached was his mother. They held onto each other for several minutes in a tearful embrace full of mixed emotions.

Benloss had spent 22 years incarcerated for a 2002 murder in Brooklyn, NY, which Benloss could not possibly have committed. Yet despite the fact that his physical appearance was vastly different from the eyewitness descriptions of the perpetrator, police misconduct and coerced false testimony led to his conviction and sentence of 25 years-to-life in prison.

Benloss' case was one of five taken on by the 2024 cohort of Making an Exoneree. Undergraduate students Adrian Ali-Caccamo (SFS '24), Olivia Baisier (CAS '24), and Sarah Tanabe (CAS '24), along with Georgetown Law student Kate Zeigler (LAW '24), were tasked with reinvestigating the case and finding the truth.

The students detailed the lineup manipulation and informant testimony contributing to Benloss' wrongful conviction in a moving documentary shown at the May 2024 MAE showcase, which became an integral part of the application packet that the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office's Conviction Review Unit reviewed before supporting his release.

The date when Benloss came home, November 20, was a poignant one for him and his family. It was on November 20, 2003 that he was originally sentenced to prison, and then on November 20, 2021, his only son Isaiah died in a car accident. Walking out of prison on this same date in 2024, Benloss carried with him both the tragedy of his wrongful conviction and a deep commitment to rebuilding a new life.

"It's a change in the chapter now," he said. "Myself and my family, we have a day we can actually be happy for."

In welcoming Benloss home, Baiser recognized how Making an Exoneree builds family bonds in a multitude of ways.

"Gary exemplifies resilience and kindness," Baiser said. "Seeing him come home was one of the most indescribable moments of joy I've ever had. This experience has meant so much to me, Sarah, Adrian, and Gary, and I couldn't be more honored to know that we will be family for life."

"Appreciate that Love"

Three weeks later, snow was falling after Rodney Derrickson walked out of a Pennsylvania prison a free man for the first time in 30 years. He was welcomed home by Abriana Saenz (SFS '21) and Kelly Goonan (CAS '21), who reinvestigated his case along with Josiah Laney (SFS '21) almost four years prior as part of the 2021 MAE cohort.

Derrickson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole when he was just 17-years-old for a 1994 murder in Chester, PA, despite having an alibi and not being linked to the crime by any forensic evidence whatsoever. The key witness against him later admitted to having been pressured to falsely testify by police. These facts, along with the injustices of juvenile sentencing, were presented by Georgetown students in a 2021 documentary.

Exactly 30 years later to the day, while sitting in the passenger seat of a car driving away from the prison and listening to "Free" by Will Downing, Derrickson said he was eager to start his own new chapter and to be reunited with his family.

When Derrickson and the MAE team arrived at a restaurant for his first meal, he was embraced by a table full of family and supporters.

Benloss and Derrickson join Edward Martinez and Anthony Mills as the four MAE participants to come home in 2024, the most in any year since the program's inception in 2018.

When asked what his message would be to the world, Derrickson spoke of love.

"Don't take life for granted," he said. "Appreciate the moment. Love your family, your friends. Experience that love. Appreciate that love. And, appreciate your freedom, because it can be taken away from you wrongly. Just like that."

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