Christopher Scott - Moral Redemption

 

Sundays in my home was like this. We washed cars, we washed clothes and also, we watched the Dallas Cowboys play. [audience laughter] [audience applause] 

 

But this particular Sunday, I got a phone call from a friend of mine that was struggling with drugs. He had a revived problem with drugs. And I told him then, “Whenever you need to talk to somebody about drugs and your addiction, to give me a call, give somebody a call that doesn't use drugs.” That night, I didn't want to leave my home. But I did, because just imagine if this guy came to you and told you he was struggling, and you would have been the last person that he talked to if anything had happened to him or he did something to someone else. 

 

So, I left. I drove to my friend's house. I pulled up in his driveway. He got in my car. We rode around the block a couple of times. I was telling him, “You have to do better, because drug addiction is serious. It kills people. It ruins people lives.” I never did drugs, because I knew exactly what it did to people. It destroyed a lot of lives that I knew of. So, we drove to 7-Eleven and got a couple of sodas. On the way back to his home, driving down the street, a helicopter flying over push the spotlight right on top of my car, and I'm wondering like, “What's going on?” 

 

As I'm continuing to drive, we pass a cop. The cop does a U turn. So, we drive up into my friend yard and go into the house. Next thing you know, the house is surrounded by cops. We see a lot of flashlights shining inside of the windows. I'm wondering, what's going on. I don't know. Eventually, we let the cops in. They escort all of us out of the house. As they lay us on the ground, they go get random African-American men that looks like me and lay them on the side of the ground with me. Eventually, the cops walks up to me, points and say, “You, come here.” I get up, I walk to the van. I hold my hands out. They pour some liquid substance inside of my hand and it drops into a bag. After that, they arrest 25 of us. They escort us to the police station. 

 

When we get to the police station, they put 25 individuals on one side and have me on one side by myself, shackled and handcuffed to a bench. I'm sitting in front of a big glass window. A female officer walks the lady up to the window. Now, I couldn't hear, but I could read her lips. She said, “This is the man that killed your husband?” And she said, “Yes, that's him.” I had never seen this lady a day in my life ever before. The cops take me to an interrogation room. They question me, “Where do you get your drugs from?” I tell them, “I'm not a drug seller.” And they ask me again, “Where do you get your drugs from?” “Sir, I'm not a drug seller.” They say, “Yeah, we found out that you was a drug dealer kingpin.” I say, “No, sir, I'm not a drug dealer kingpin.”

 

What drug dealer kingpin do you know, work at a local grocery store? [audience laughter] I don't know any. And then, I ask him, “Just go outside and ask the officers that's in the hallway, they will vouch for me. They come and shop at the same store that I work at. I give all of these officer’s fresh fruit and fresh vegetables.” But they still don't believe me. A matter of seconds later, they sing in, “You are being charged with capital murder.” I said, “Capital murder? You mean I went from being a drug dealer kingpin to having a capital murder case?”

 

So, I go to trial, and go in the court building and the judge tells me that I'm being convicted of capital murder. But understand this, those same officers that I said vouch for me came to my trial and vouch for me and said, “There's no way I could have committed this crime.” Even the ballistic report came back to show I never fired a gun. Never fired a gun, but I was still convicted of capital murder. The judge looked at me and slammed the gavel down hard, said, “You are now sentenced to capital life sentence in prison. You will be eligible for parole in 40 years.” And I thought about it for a second, like, “Why am I in this position? Why is this even happening to me? How am I going to be able to tell my four- and five-year-old kids that they would never see their dad again?” 

 

So, now, I'm on my way to prison. It's cold, it's raining, it's dark. I pull up, I see a big prison with a lot of windows. As I exit the prison van, I step out. I'm shackled, handcuffed like a slave. I look up into the sky. I see a correctional officer on a gun tower with an AK47 pointed directly at me. I looked at that prison again. I said this, I would never ever leave this prison again. 

 

My first day there, I walk into the shower. As I'm walking into the shower, I saw a guy get stabbed at least seven times, and there's a TDC officer going watching the whole thing and didn't do anything, not one single thing. As I walked more into the shower, I heard a grown man scream so loud, so perverse, it scared me. When I go back to my cell that night, I laid in my bed thinking, am I going to lose my sanity? Will I be the same man again that I came in as? I actually had to think about survival. What am I going to do? What's going to happen to me? I didn't think I was going to survive. I couldn't even sleep that first night. 

 

That same morning, about 04:30, I come back to myself from breakfast. It's time to go to the fields. And the fears is, well, we got to go do our work. They gave me an aggie, which we all know is a grubbing hoe. They give me a bag and some seeds. So, we turn over the soil, we plant the seeds, cover back up the dirt. My hands are covered with blisters, because I didn't know how to hold the aggie. They was raw, I mean, like really, really raw. 

 

As I go back into my prison, an inmate stops me and give me some advice about what I should do. So, eventually, I save up enough money to buy me some gloves from the commissary to protect my hands, because they didn't give you gloves there. I started writing letters to my family. My family never visited me while I was in prison, because I didn't want them to. Because you know how they say, “Out of sight, out of mind.” They life didn't stop, because mine stopped. Their life kept going and I was in prison. 

 

I started writing and working on my case as soon as I was eligible. Five years into my sentence, my brother wrote me a letter stating that he had information of a guy that actually committed this crime. This guy was on the same unit as my brother, because my brother was incarcerated for criminal mischief and criminal trespass. So, this guy came in a barbershop where my brother worked, boasting and bragging that him and his friend had robbed and killed a Hispanic drug dealer, and there was two other guys in prison for that crime. Little did that guy know he was confessing to my own brother. 

 

The guy said, “Well, I didn't think that they was going to charge him with this case, but I still was found guilty.” So, my brother convinced the guy to sign an affidavit to help me go free. But once we sent to our district attorney's office, the district attorney said “This case has no DNA in it. We don't want to ever hear about this case again. This case is closed. So, don't never reach out to me about this case ever again, because it's over with.” 

 

I questioned God on a regular, like, “Why you put me in this position? What did I do so terrible that I have to struggle and go through this?” My mom prayed for me. My church prayed for me. And my mama, she always said, “If you had a faith the size of a mustard seed, it would move mountains.” Because there's one thing about hope in prison, it's a commodity. You got to have it. You got to have it. 

 

Eventually, we got the first African-American district attorney in the state of Texas history, which was Craig Watkins. I wrote Craig Watkins a letter, told him about my case. He took it to the University of Texas of Arlington. Maybe a month later, I get a letter from the district attorney's office. When I opened up this letter, I was so terrified, because I knew my life was inside of this letter, either I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison or I'm going to go free. 

 

So, I opened up this letter and I had a glimmer. Not a lot, but a glimmer of hope. After I read that letter, I sealed it and put it up under my pillow. Two weeks later, I walked into that visitation room and I saw my mom. She had gotten older, had this tired look on her face, but always had this bright, beautiful smile that lit up the room. I never, ever wanted her to see me in this place or be in this position. So, when I walked up to her, I embraced my mom with a good hug and a kiss on her cheek. 

 

It reminds me of being a kid when I was going to school. I remember this perfume that she used to wear. It was called Opium. [audience laughter] Now, a lot of y'all probably don't know about it if you're 21 and younger, [audience laughter] but if you're 50 or above, you know what Opium is. [audience laughter] That's a great perfume for older ladies. I'm sorry. [audience laughter] But my mama told me this, and this is the first time I ever had hope that I was going to get out of prison. She said, “Baby, you're going to take a polygraph test and you will be home. Mama would never, ever see her baby boy in this white uniform again.”

 

Maybe a month later, I walk into this court building. The court building is filled, just like this room right here. Filled to the capacity of people. It wasn't enough seats in there, because majority of all the newscasters was there to see the first person to ever be exonerated without knowing DNA in Dallas County's history. Next thing you know, the judge hit the gavel. Boom. “Mr. Scott, you are found actual innocent. You are free to go.” [audience cheers and applause] 

 

That 13 years I did for a crime I didn't commit, that 13 years of pressure, that 13 years of burden was finally lifted as I walked outside thinking, it's finally over. I finally have my freedom. There's one thing that I wanted to do, is make sure I would never, ever be put in this position ever again. I wasn't the same man when I walked into prison as I walked out. I was more focused. I was more dedicated. Before I went to prison, I didn't cherish the smaller things in life. But now, that I had my freedom, I was able to go to the refrigerator when I wanted to, go to the mailbox when I wanted to, take a long walk outside when I wanted to. I used to take that for granted. I really did. But now, I don't take it for granted anymore. Now, I cherish everything about that. Thank you, all.