When someone is wrongfully convicted and finally exonerated, freedom can feel like another sentence.
After years behind bars, the world they return to is often unrecognizable, and systems meant to help prisoners with reentry are unavailable to them.
"I was incarcerated, wrongfully incarcerated for 34 years for a crime I didn't commit," says Darrell Siggers. When he was exonerated in 2018, he walked out of prison into a "sea change" of technology.
For Siggers, even a car's seat belt warning sound was a shock. "You get in a car and it starts beeping... when I went in, there was no seat belt requirement."
Unlike parolees, who often have months of notice before being released and access to reentry services, exonerees may be released with as little as a few hours' warning and no support at all.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 193 people have been exonerated in Michigan since 1989. Before that, an exoneration was seen as a one-in-a-million mistake. But in 1989, Gary Dotson was exonerated in Chicago for a 1977 rape conviction after DNA testing proved he was not the perpetrator. Since then, DNA evidence started clearing more people, revealing that wrongful convictions were a systemic problem.
Because the "exoneree" category didn't really exist in the eyes of the law before 1989, the support systems for them are still playing catch-up.
"That gap is huge," says Kenneth Nixon, President and Co-founder of the Organization of Exonerees, regarding the gap between freedom and stability for exonerees upon release. "There is a housing gap. There's a communication gap. There's an access to resources gap."
Nixon, who spent nearly 16 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, faced his first major conflict just trying to prove he existed.
"I didn't have an ID. I didn't have a birth certificate. I didn't have a Social Security card. My first conflict was when I went to try to get an ID, and I didn't have the documents necessary to get that ID," Nixon explained. "I didn't understand why I had to prove to the government again that I was the person they'd had in custody for a decade and a half."
To fill this void, Nixon’s organization launched a first-of-its-kind mobile app designed by exonerees for exonerees, accessible by invitation only. This fully donated app is currently piloting in Detroit and Kansas City and serves as a digital map for the newly freed and beyond.
Key features of the app include:
- Essential Document Assistance: Helps users navigate the process of obtaining IDs, birth certificates, and Social Security cards.
- Peer Support Network: Connects newly freed individuals with other exonerees who understand the unique trauma and "triggers" of reentry.
- AI Guide: An empathetic AI tool tailored specifically to help exonerees navigate technology and find nearby resources like hospitals or supermarkets.
- Emergency Resources: Provides access to the funds to help with immediate needs like food and transportation.
Software developer Dylan Carnahan, who built the platform with his brother, says he was able to launch the app by listening to those who lived through the system. "I simply just asked them open ended questions and allowed them the space to tell me what was important to them," Carnahan said.
For Marvin Cotton Jr., another co-founder who spent nearly 20 years wrongfully imprisoned, the app addresses the overwhelming "brain freeze" of choices in the outside world, from picking a brand of water to finding therapy for PTSD.
"It would have changed everything," Cotton said regarding the app's potential at the time of his release. "We do this work because it benefits those that are similarly situated as we were when we got out."
With the app launched and ready to be used, Siggers says it's a tool to build a new life.
"I can learn about... where you can buy food. All of these things are available through the app. It's made a tremendous difference in my life."
