>> it's almost never use. and the reason it is used to so you can't sue them. whenever this plea came into discussion, the prosecutors first question was, will they sign a waiver giving up all rights to sue the state of arkansas? people ask, and i have any reservations, or don't have to fight with myself to come to the decision to accept that? you just know, because i was dying.

i was dying very quickly. there were times when i was so sick i literally didn't think i was going to make it to the next morning. so i knew if i didn't take that deal i was going to die. they could've easily stretched his case out another five to 10 years. they could have constantly asked for extensions. i would have died. >> has anybody from the state of arkansas or the county in which you were prosecuted, anybody come close to saying to you, we know you didn't do it, and by the way, we are really sorry we did this to you for 18 years? >> no one involved in the system whatsoever, according to the state of arkansas they still have not made a mistake. they still say that in arkansas they have never sent an innocent person to prison in the entire history of the state of arkansas. >> people have, people from arkansas, everyday citizens. one came all the way over.

we were over there a couple months ago doing a screening of the documentary that is coming out in december, and afterwards when it was screened we would you question and answer sessions with the audience. aood up and said it, all the way from arkansas and he wanted to say he was so sorry. and stuff like that means a lot to me. >> let's talk a little bit about your relationship with your wife, lori. if you have read this book, make sure to go up and hugged this woman when you see her on the street, in a non-creepy way. [laughter] she, it sounds like a pretty amazing person and the person who saved your life. you guys had this, you are married, you had this incredibly intense relationship where your life is on the line but you were never able to be together, free, walking the streets.

then one day you just live together and you want to watch different tv shows. was that a lot of pressure on the relationship to work when you were out? >> there's a lot of things like that, but at the same time after what we have faced it's a really small thing. there are compromises that would make. one of the things whenever i first got out, i couldn't sleep without noise of some sort. so i would turn the tv on. i discovered all these things that didn't exist when the right wing, like a tv channel that plays all horror movies 24/7. that's not lori's thing. she watches french movies and, you know, everything subtitled. [laughter] that is a good movie if you haven't seen, everything subtitled. [laughter] when i would go to sleep at night i started turning on this channel that plays all horror movies. and after a week, she finally says, i can't take this anymore.

i cannot go to sleep to the sound of people screaming every night. [laughter] >> putting aside the bizarre nature of your life where you come, sit in front people like this amateur approached on the street often by complete strangers, putting that aside, is life on the outside the way you imagined it would be? is it as sweet and as satisfying i guess? >> it is, but it's also, i didn't realize how much anxiety and stress would come along with it. you know, i thought when i walked out of prison in which is to be this extremely joyous occasion. and i didn't realize the state of shock i was going to be in whenever i came out. i didn't take into account things like the fact that i had been anywhere in 20 years.

you know, for almost 20 years i had been sealed inside a box boy never had to do things like navigate in the world, find myself from point a to point b. when i had to do those things and it became a reality, it was incredibly overwhelming and incredibly terrifying. so i just started having to make myself do things that i was scared of on a daily basis, go places i didn't know, find my way someplace in fact someplace. i had to force myself through things, through situations, stand in line at the bank, it terrified me. i would have to force my way through these things just so that i could get beyond that. if i can do it one time, if i can make my way through it and i'm not scared of it anymore. it doesn't causing as much anxiety. i didn't have any idea the level that sort of thing is going to have to deal with. >> because of the alford plea, as you mentioned, you are still

in the eyes of the state of arkansas guilty of the murder of three young boys. in your working, you are trying to raise money to try to mount what, a challenge to that, to somehow have yourselves officially exonerated? what all does that involve? >> there's so much that, right now according to the state of arkansas this case is closed. at one time whenever the dna testing was being done, they agreed to pay half of the cost for the dna testing. we had to pay the other half. they never paid anything. we ended up having to pay the entire thing, and we had no money. at one time lori had to take out to personal loans just to pay off legal fees. whenever it is time to do the dna testing, henry rollins had to go on a tour just to raise the money to dna testing done. the day that i got out, the attorney general called for an odd of the defense fund just

because he could. it's one of those things that every single thing that is done in this case, we have to pay for. there are still a lot of things being done, a lot of things no one has heard about that we're having to carry the burden of. one thing, for example, what if we found out the dna, the crime scene matched with the victim's stepfather, we started doing more looking into the. luminal testing shows it has been blood spilled into in the area and we did find that there had been blood spilled in his pickup truck but it was so old and degraded that we couldn't do anything with. another one we did the same thing with the kitchen of the house where he lived and there was blood under the linoleum in the kitchen. but once again it was so old and degraded that there was nothing we could do with it. stuff like this costs money and the state will not do anything but according to the state of arkansas they got their guides, case closed.

>> when i've doing some reading on the internet about your case and look at some of the different websites that have popped up related to it, there are a number of them that are maintained by people who think you guys did and are very, very strident about that, very convinced. i was surprised to see one of them have like 400 facebook likes. first of all, who likes that even if you think you did it, that's a weird thing to like. what do you think is in for people who want to -- not the prosecutors and people of professional interest but just average citizens, what's in it for them to cling to this notion that you guys did this? >> honestly don't know. i think part of it is misinformation. i've seen some of those things and a lot of the stuff on them, it's not very accurate. chunks of information are left out, things are taken out of context. so a lot of a lot of times i don't know if it's ignorance, if they believe it or if they are being manipulative with the evidence and information out

there. i don't know. i think the lot of times they're probably just crazy. whatever it is i try not to worry myself too much. after you've been through the things we have been through, you develop a kind of thick skin where --.net spee-1 is your timeline for the point in life when this is no longer going to be something you have to talk about day in and day out, think about, going internet and see what people are saying? and you will never be passed this emotionally i would imagine, psychologically, but your life about the thing being put in jail for the crime he didn't commit. >> i think of the whenever me and the other two guys are all three exonerated. whenever the person who belongs in prison is in prison. and whenever the people it did this to us are held responsible for what they have done. [applause]

>> this isn't fun for me, having to talk about this. having to relive this over and over. always tell people, imagine the worst thing that's ever happened to you in your life and then having to talk about of five times a day every single day. it's not enjoyable. it's like you can even allow the wounds to start hitting because you're constantly having to pick the scabs off again. but we have to do it. like i said, the trend isn't going to do anything. if we let it fade away, then none of those things that you said will ever happen. except to us to keep pushing it forward with a bow, with the documentary, with constantly continuing the investigation of bringing up whatever we can. if we don't do it, no one is going to. >> you are clearly the sort of lead person on this, if you will, you know, the person who has written the book and who,

again on stage here tonight. how our jason and jesse feeling? >> jesse, haven't had much contact. i've seen them once since we've been out. from what i've heard he never comes out of this house. he already had an iq point between 68 and 70. then discard them, what i'm told he never comes out of his house, has no contact with anyone. just because he's terrified they're going to find some way to put him back in prison. jason actually lives here in seattle now. whenever we first got out, the morning after we got out we came to the seattle. he liked it so much that he never left. he decided he wanted to live here. he is in college at the present time. what time. what he wants to do eventually is go to law school and get his law degree and help people are in the same situation we were in, but he can't even do that with a criminal record. once he gets his law degree he

still can't practice law until we are exonerated. >> you guys came a day after your release because i understand eddie vedder and his family and i think eddie vedder is in the band -- [laughter] up and coming here in town. they brought you here, right? and, like, took a shopping. >> a the was in the courtroom today we walked out. became the just to be there for that. he brought straight year. today that we left arkansas, we left like refugees. i did not have a single penny in my pocket. i didn't even have a city close to change into. we had nowhere to go. so eddie brought us here, and his wife, jill, who is here tonight, took me out shopping and got me an entire new wardrobe. i used to tell her, eddie --

[inaudible] >> presumably it was all block, or spit back yes, it was. >> speaking of people who have been instrumental in damien's life and in trying to get some measure of justice, a couple more people we want to bring up on stage. we want to bring up writer and activist danny bland, and also callie canary who is an attorney and worked with the innocence project. can we get them to come on up? [applause] >> how did you guys get involved in this whole thing? >> you know, what's the rule for this? >> i think damien has heard some swearing before spent i think it is encouraged.

>> really, we were living in the same house, and they used to have on hbo free weekend. so if it wasn't for free we can on hbo we will never would've seen the movies. >> is true of mac. >> -- [laughter] >> i think everyone in this room we saw the movies and we were outraged. but also at the same time because of made into movie we thought someone was taking care of it. so we relaxed and later on did research online and figured out they were still in prison, that nothing was being done. you know, that's who we decided at the time to do something. >> i'm not sure if your microphone is working. >> hello? check? spent i didn't realize this before became after, but you went to law school because of what you've learned in trying to

assist damien. >> well, yeah, i definitely went to law school after having -- we saw together and we were like how could this have happened? oh, well, someone will get them out of children were. i literally thought someone smart, a lawyer or judge or someone who would see the documentary, and i was so naïve. i that somebody would just let him out of jail. they would see the same movie where danny and i saw and oh, shit, sorry. and i think is about a year later, about a year later we found out they were still in. and i just remember thinking to myself that doesn't seem right. and so i was in a band at the time, and i did go back to school. if not develop damien himself, then at least to do something. i really couldn't believe something like that could

happen. i never could believe it would have been. >> dana, i know you worked in music. you put together are you part of putting together a benefit album that had a bunch of people on a? >> yet, at the time i was managing a band called the super suckers. i went on the radio and i basically reached out. i figured, to me it seemed like such a natural music related issue, or cause that i soon to be something like that in the works. site called them a. i got in touch with them, just volunteering the super suckers to be on, do whatever they needed to get done. it turns out there was nothing being done at the time. and it was a weird time. it was the first movie just coming out, and it was a little different. it wasn't sort it is glaringly obvious at the time.

so to convince a record company, and sometimes to convince a lot of bands to get on board was not as simple as that later on became. so i'm a pretty good con man, and so, i can't a record label into giving us money to put out a record. you know, eventually we made up a list of wouldn't it be nice sort of scenario tom and joe and the usual suspects, and sort of started picking them off one at a time, getting recordings. >> how do you get tom? d. cinema dvd and say watch this and get back to me? how do you talk him into understanding that damien and the other guys like? >> tom is a widow, and -- [laughter] at the time, he was having a fight with his manager at the time. so he wasn't taking phone calls at all. he had a fax machine, and

somebody at the record label sniffing his facts number and i wrote him a letter talking about the case and blah, blah, blah. and i just said, my letter is laying on the floor at tom's house. about two hours later the phone rings and it's his wife. and you can your time in the background, like she's going isn't that the case with that movie? and you hear in the background going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,. [laughter] >> he disagreed on the spot to do it, in the mail a couple weeks later it showed a. everyone was quite gracious once they learned what was going on. i wouldn't name the bands that refuse, but there were a few. the rate handful of bands that were just like -- >> you can say it. >> that's commonly known. [laughter]

>> [inaudible] >> damien, how aware were you of all of this stuff that was going on behind the scenes from people like kelly and danny lex and perhaps hundreds of others, people that were in some way trying to assist you when you were in solitary come is lori getting your report or is almost too much information for you to try to process? >> lori would tell me things and i would receive letters and pictures and things like that also. from both danny and kelly and other people who are doing things with sending reports of what was going on. but it's different when you're in there and you're not seeing it firsthand, and it's just through a letter. you think that it's really great, maybe it will help, at the same time you are just trying to keep herself together for one more day and then one more day after that. you know, you are so busy trying

to survive that stuff like that almost seems a million miles away sometimes. >> what was the first moment, if you can remember it, or that happened this way that you had a little spark of hope that you really thought people are getting this on a wider level that i'm not supposed to be here? >> i think that was a very gradual thing, too, and started with you would see every now and then a newspaper article that seems like it was completely and absolutely 100% against you and screaming for your blood. or i think i'd only been in prison for like two days whenever i start hearing from people who said they didn't believe that i was guilty. it wasn't nearly as much as it was later on, as the years would progress it would be more and more and more almost like a tidal wave. but in the very beginning it was just a very slow trickle, but even that kept me alive. it kept me from feeling that we had been completely forsaken by

the entire world. >> kelly, you would want to work with the innocence project which has been an incredible organization, and it's, to talk about -- i don't think you could pick a more stark example than what the innocence project tragedy which is obviously take on all these cases. there are hundreds if not thousands of them, and try to get the evidence that a lot of people should not be there. is damien's case even the worst ones you've seen? >> well, it's the worst one i personally have seen because i no damien. and i visited him in prison, and he was my friend. so emotionally it was the worst one i've seen, but not even close. not even close. there were cases where people were convicted, whether were nine eyewitnesses the city was actually in church that night, you know? on it, all sorts.

here at the innocence project northwest where i worked here for a while, one of our clients was convicted and it was, you know, the victim had said that the perpetrator was anywhere between 615, 645-foot -. our client is open not here, was not coming up, i it just goes on and on and on. these people are convicted on absolutely no evidence. and much like damien's case there's a false confession, too. they questioned him for nine hours. they questioned him for nine hours, and a much like damien's case, none of the facts match fixer then they go back and they questioned him again. some of the facts matched because the police are feeding and fax and they go back again, a third time. once the person has been fed all the facts and they turn on the recorder like they did in damien's case. i think it's reprehensible.

so no, i have definitely seen worse but have never felt any worse. >> sure to read when own hbo documentary, what on earth -- short of everyone getting their own hbo documentary, what can be done? people with various levels of confidence he when it comes to defense attorneys, prosecutors, investigators. it seems at times almost kind of unwinnable. are the things that can be done that would make a real difference? >> that's one of the reasons why i left the innocence project is because i just couldn't, it was such a heavy burden. working on these cases for 10, 12 years when you know they are innocent, i have to say what i think gaming is doing is the best thing that can be done. you are all potential jurors. every person sitting out there could be on the jury someday, and the fact that you educate yourself and give learned that there are wrongful convictions, i think what dan is in is the most important thing that can be done. it's bigger than you think that i could ever do over, it's

really just to bring, shine the spotlight on wrongful convictions. after working there for a few years and looking back, i think that's the number one thing is educating the public because the public are all going to be on juries. [applause] >> damien, do you get a lot of requests now to sort of assist other people who are they said wrongfully convicted? because you are clearly one of the most public figures and is now. and is it hard for you to decide, there's only 24 hours in a day, you've got to decide to basically help you can and also not help people are sitting maybe where you were sitting. >> really, i'm hearing from more and more people like that all the time, and i don't know what to do, to be honest. people ask we do something to help, and i don't know what to

do. i barely survived by the skin of my teeth. tremendous outside to pick somebody asked me once what i consider get involved in something to try to change the system. and i said no. they said why? i said think of what it took in our case. it took johnny depp, eddie vedder, natalie maines, peter jackson. it took my wife quitting her job and dedicate herself full-time to this case. it took about a dozen attorneys. it took god knows how much money to change one case, 18 years to change one case. so imagine what it would take to fight the system. you can't. you cannot -- the system is like a giant machine. it is crushing people to death, and you can't fight it. the only thing you can do is like kelly said, doing what we are doing right now.

>> i have to say that sounds pretty bleak. >> envious. i guess the only thing, you know, i tried to do what they can on a case-by-case basis. and if anyone is interested in learning about another case, maybe sta with a friend of items on different in arkansas but his name is tim howard. he's still on death row right now. he's an innocent man. the state of arkansas is still trying to executing. it would take forever to go into the details of the case but if you're interested in learning about another case, they be getting involved, doing what you can do, start with tim howard. >> we're going to take some audience questions as well. so if you have something that you're dying to ask damien or anybody else up here, there's a couple of microphones here. you guys can start lining up. where do you go from here?

obviously you're going to continue trying to get the word out on the book and on the latest documentary, but i know -- is it all right to say this? you move to nukes he recently. ironically to say the massachusetts. [laughter] -- say the massachusetts. >> what d.c. are lifelike in salem massachusetts or wherever you land 10 years from now? >> what i'd like to do whenever we don't have to keep pushing the case like this, whenever we are not having to dedicate all of our time to getting out of the lingle pashtun legal tangle we are still and i'd like to have a small meditation center in salem were i could share my story to the people who are in desperate situations and to have anything else to rely on spring i guess you are talking about something as mundane as being in the bank and feeling a sense of

anxiety, but i guess in a way all of this has prepared you for really mind over matter a lot of shit in your life, right? >> it has. it's like in prison, people would take how do you do it? and answer is you don't have a choice. you just keep putting one foot in front of the other doing whatever you have to, to survive. whenever you get out here, that's what you are still going. you just keep rolling with that same thing. >> danny and kelly, you guys pashtun i don't know, i don't really know you guys but i don't know what you're sort of priorities were before you got involved in this case, by me, how has it changed you guys? >> kelly just said turn this into people. >> that was fun, the first time we visited damien, you know, they bring him in and, him, his

hands are behind this back and he has his back to the to whether unlocking them. it's almost comical because you can do right away when you need him that he is harmless. and besides being a pretty good con man, i'm also a minor criminal, and so it was -- the fact that he was imprisoned and i was on this side of the glass was, you know, laughable in a way. i would say really for me, like i always admired activism, or activists, especially fond of like the counterpart of pretty fellows. it sort of made me move from being just absurd to someone who participated. politicized me, if it were. >> damien, just in reading your book, which if you guys haven't

gotten the book yet, i have to say it's pretty incredible, and i work on a radio show and we have stacks of books everyday that people wanted to read and usually it's -- is what i was honored to get to read action. but reading it and talking to you, you also have liked the world's most upsetting 18 years of enforced college time to be in a room with almost unlimited supply of books. do you think they would be this kind of guy that you are now? would you of any person who would've gone to college? like studied and learned about all the stuff you've learned about? would you just be a guy living in west memphis because i think i would have. i think i would have learned more than most people in the world where i lived would have learned. that's just something i've always loved her even when i dropped out of school in ninth grade, i dropped out and what to spend my days in the public library reading.

but who knows really? >> the question is, this was something to change the trajectory of your life for ever, ma and for its lead is this life you now with your wife and with this matches to bring to people coming to come by this very honestly and in a very hard way. but on some level are you okay with how it turned out? >> i am. it's not always easy. it's not always fun and it's not always pleasant. there are very hard, difficult things that i have gotten through and i'm still getting through now, but at the same time there have also been tremendous blessings, you know, just huge, huge things in my life that i'm thankful for. like my relationship with my wife, or friends that we've made

over the years that have become, like family to us, you know? danny and kelly, or some of the ones that people have heard of, the more well-known ones like johnny depp and eddie. we've been blessed with miraculous relationships and people of low dose and cared for us and called us. things, you know, the things i had to learn, the medication and -- meditation and energy work. i never would've learned stuff like that. so there have been just more things than i could evening. the list goes on and on that a been brought into my life because of this. i always think also that things that we always tried to avoid, the thing we don't want any part of, the thing we try to stay away from all costs is pain. i think it's true that pain is what deepens us most as human

beings. it's what develops our ability to improvise with other people. it's a great source of wisdom. so even as much as i would want to experience pain, i think that the pain i've had to go through has in a lot of ways made me a better person. >> so are the people who want to ask questions? if you want to come onto and line up at these two microphones, we have about 50 minutes for questions. spent i will assume the lack of lines means i'm doing an amazing job, so thank you for that. [applause] >> seriously don't. that was a joke. gaming, one of the things in the book that i noticed is you are very binary with people in the book. they are either some of the best people you've met or they're some of the worst humans on this planet. doesn't seem to be a lot of middle ground, and i'm wondering if that is something that this experience did to you or your

always that way? >> in the book everything i write about it first hand experience they usually firsthand experience, either people were being really, really good to me or they were being really, really horrible to me. and that was the only aspects of those people that i would usually see. people who are trying to hurt me, i never saw them in a situation where they were doing anything helpful or beneficial for anyone else but i think maybe that's the reason why comes across that way. >> okay. let's take questions. spent i'm glad you're out. >> thank you. >> i followed every single execution case. one thing i want to ask you about briefly, i notice in most of those cases is these people are being murdered by the states. they bring up jesus christ and say they have joined the lord, going to go home again. to me, it's tragic. i want you to speak specifically

to christianity in arkansas, in your experience. >> you know, it's one of the things that i thought was kind of grotesque when you're on death row, you have come as soon as the guy gets an execution date, that you have these ministers that swarm on them like flies. you know, they didn't give a damn about this guy for the past 10, 15 years he was on death row. all of a sudden he is about to die and they can't get enough of him. it's disgusting. but at the same time there are a lot of good people from different religions that come in and the done a lot of good. that's one of those things that there is both good and bad. but anyway it's like in the system they always keep you going forward by giving you false hope. you've always got somebody telling you whether it's a lawyer telling you sure, we're

going to get this turned around in nine months. whenever they started doing the dna testing in our case, i said how long will this take? they said about six months. six months go by and i say how much longer is going to take? they said, about six more months. they kept telling me six months for eight years. that's how long the drug at a. whenever they don't have stuff like that to rely on that's when they come in with the religion. they use that to give you a little. don't worry about it, you going to go home to be with jesus now. it's always, it's like dangling a carrot in front of a jackass to keep the marching forward, to keep them from taking out. and it's horrible. >> over here. apparently just came from surgery spent that, i didn't bring a change of clothes but personal, thank you for being here. it's really an honor, a privilege to have you here.

so thank you. and i guess i was really -- [inaudible] i'm curious about what was offered to you, what was good and what was bad, and also what was meant something to you to have? >> really, the only thing you're offered is something that's going to keep you from dying. you know, say if your appendix explodes, they would probably take you out, to surgery and throw you back in the celtic but if it's a minor thing, they're not going to do anything. you see people walking around in there with huge tumors that they won't even remove because they say it's not life-threatening. so it doesn't matter. one of the worst things for me was my teeth. in prison, i've been hit in the face so may times that it

damaged, my teeth, i have a lot of nerve damage. in prison they're not going to do cats or ground or root canals. you either live in pain or you let them pull your teeth out. so i mean, just something that simple like adequate dental care, or even having access to something like aspirin whenever you get a headache. something that small could be a tremendous help. it doesn't have to be a huge thing. it's just something that makes your life a little us how much in there. -- little less hellish. >> a guy who has one tooth who says he doesn't like to drink coffee because it will stain his tooth. [laughter] look for that. >> there so may things going through my head, that i think the thing that you said about the prison system can be fixed, i totally agree with the.

and i think it's so important that thousands of people are going to read your book so they know the hell that people are going through, although mass incarceration. where the largest prison population in the entire world. you've probably read michelle alexander's book, about the new jim crow. and if people you know, having had that experience like you, i'm sitting in this room and there's like 500 people and -- i've been around this for 17 years. finally, like in seattle people are saying that she figured a 77 year-old man on his doorstep sunday and they want us to forget about it. i think that what you are showing us, when people start coming together and start saying i'm not going to stop, i'm going to work on this, i'm going to try to free somebody. what it's like everybody was doing it but i'd like to see everyone in this room down on the streets in seattle saying we

are not going to take this any longer but it does mean something. i've been frustrated that i have to say because anybody in this room should be out in the streets screaming bloody murder about this but everything it does make a difference, besides this one case at a time but i don't know what you think about that. am i making sense? everyone -- we're having a protest next month. >> let me try to hone it into a question, which is, really, your point is well-made but i guess the question may be coming out of that is how to do this yourself, do we all bear a certain level of responsibility to the people who are not working in, do we bear a certain responsibility to try to get some by what's going on? >> i think, i don't like criminals anymore than anyone else. i don't like murderers. i don't like rapists. i don't like child molesters.

butterfinger to keep in mind in our society we have the sort of mentality that people in prison deserve whatever they get, whatever happens to the. people in a situation where i was, i would people -- i would see people literate go insane on a daily basis. you have to keep in mind that 99% of the people in prison with one day be back out on the streets. a very small percentage is ever actually executed are kept in prison into the die. most of them will be back out in your schools, in your churches, in your grocery stores. they will move into your neighborhoods. so it's probably not a good idea to drive them insane before they are allowed back out there. [applause] >> so don't look at it, whenever you start thinking about these issues and the situation, don't look at it as if you are doing this for a murderer, or a thief.

do it as if you're helping yourself. because any and that's what you are doing. >> go for it. >> hi, dan. my question is in regards to the constitution of the united states and the idea that we can practice religious freedom, and i'm wondering what your experience is worth while you're in prison and how that played out? were you actually able to practice your own religion, your spirituality speak with you do but they make it as difficult as they can. we have people don't come into the prison. this one woman that would come in, she was a llama in the tibetan buddhist tradition, and basically the reason she came into the prison was to help people get ready to die. to help you die a good death. she didn't receive any money. she didn't receive anything at all for doing this, and the

administration made her life as difficult as possible. they would make her stand outside the gates and wait for hours at the time sometimes before they would let her in to talk to people because they did not want her coming and there. they didn't want her doing that. my zen master to reside in japan become all the way from japan to the prison to visit me there at the prison. finally, one day they said, the last time he was getting ready to concede, they said no. now he's a security risk. there's never been any trouble, any problems, nothing had changed whatsoever. just all of a sudden one day they said you can't see them anymore. it's a security risk. the only people they want, religious why succumb into the prison, are the ones that work for the prison. they're usually like really hard-core fundamentalists, the southern christians who tell

you, drop your appeal. if you drop your appeals you can go home to be with jesus. don't worry about it. let them execute you. >> hi. it makes me very happy to see you here, and i guess my question is, speak a lot about your wife, and especially when you're in prison and you have that connection. do you feel like you would've made it without her? >> there's no way in hell i would have survived without laurie. she's like i said a while ago there were times when i could not go on, and she was the thing that carried me through. you know, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. she would keep dragging me on whenever i couldn't go on anymore. and even the legal case, she did

85% of the work on my legal case. she did more work than the attorneys and investigators combined. so while she's also doing the physical things out in the world that were moving a step closer at it towards freedom, she was also carrying me in an internal way. [applause] >> who. >> does she keep that over you? that's a pretty potent argument? >> not so far. >> glad to hear. >> my question is for kelly. i noticed that speak you want to move closer to the microphone? >> are you working with any cases right now? >> i haven't worked at the innocence project for over a year, so i'm not familiar with the cases, the you can contact the innocence project northwest. however, as part of getting to

know damien i did volunteer to go work in prison, and sort of, i don't know, to see what i could do. and while i was in prison there were a couple of people i found out that washington has, since somebody to life without the possibility of parole when they were 13. he is still alive. so when he was 13 he committed crimes and the state basically has said that he will never get out. so i haven't worked with innocent case for a long time, but as damien said, there's a lot of stuff that goes on in prison that, or a lot of stuff that goes on the system that is pretty shady. i guess that's the only way. >> is it the kind of thing where folks who just presumably would

like to help with this can call up, like the innocence project northwest and volunteer? is there things nonlawyers can do aside from just to give money to try to help, or is that almost too much work to try to coordinate? >> you know, the director of the innocence project clinic is here, and if you do call them, they can probably direct you a lot better. they do use volunteers on the inside and outside, but there's so much work to do in the community. i do think that we will have a shortage of volunteers for people to work to try to make somebody's life better. >> thank you for being here. i have to formulate my question again. i'd like to ask you to speak to the children in the case. it seems there's a lot of

notoriety in regards to the three of you. do you feel that that has somehow lessened the significance of the three victims? you mentioned that not only the exoneration of you three, but to find the killer and to bring justice to the killer, do you feel that somehow the victims has somehow gotten lost in some of his? and also, your son, i haven't got to the part of the book where you've written about that, but how your son is adjusting with you being out. and the things that he might have to deal with. >> i think the victims were screwed in this as much as we were. i think they were screwed by the state of arkansas.

it's, you know, there's so many ramifications in so many different areas of this case that the pain just ripples out forever. me, jason and jesse, all of our families, the victims, all of their families. it ripples out like someone threw a rock into a lake. and i mean, really, it all comes down to the same thing. the only way that's ever going to happen is, the only what it will be corrected is when those things happen. what it would exonerate, whenever the people who did this to the victims are in prison and when the people allow those people to get away and do those to us are held accountable for what they did. it all comes down to the same thing in the end. justice is justice. justice for us is justice for the victims. it's justice for our families. is justice for their families. >> it would be the same ripple effect. >> exactly. >> do you think, i mean, it's a

nice idea but do you think realistically that they could actually come? >> i think it's against all dogs, but at the same time -- all ought, so is the fact i am sitting on the stage right now. >> i think we have time for two more questions. >> i was wondering if you would tell us what your thoughts were as to what happened to those boys, do you have an opinion about that? and also, how do you keep those boys, or how those boys a live in your life, or how do they stay alive in your life throughout this process that you've gone through? >> they don't really. i never knew them. i never met them. you know, to me it's almost like they are pictures that i see mtv i never had any contact with

them. never knew anything about them. there's not much i can do with it. >> damien and the panel again, thank you for being here tonight and sharing this conversation with us. my question is more maybe is have you talked a little bit about a couple points in the book that i found really kind of profound. talking about seeing your 18 year old self when you were a kid, and also talking about when you were watching baseball with her grandmother and seeing her younger self in her eyes when she was experiencing that and how much that scared you. maybe just about that experience you as a kid and seeing your older self, you know, what questions you think of later that you should've asked then. and if you think now that you

were released from prison under life goes on, if you think you have any of those experiences again. >> i think things like that, like things in our lives that defy explanation that come and go, like that particular incident, they are very rare things that they are things that happen in our lives, maybe once, twice in a lifetime. i read somewhere, i can get a member who was summer, but someone called them miracles without meaning. and that's sort of what they are. they're just sort of random occurrences that happen that you can't ever figure out why or how or anything else. and it almost comes down to either you can drive yourself crazy trying to figure out stuff like that out, or you can accept it at some odd little present from the universe, and keep moving forward. the thing with my grandfather -- my grandmother, i guess we get to the point where we think we

know people so well, our loved ones, our family members, our friends. and then every so often you run into a really deep pocket of weirdness that just scares the crap out of you. and that's what it was with my grandmother. it was scary because i was a child. i was watching something happen were all of a sudden she wasn't my grandmother anymore. she was francis. she was a person. she was this entity that had all these memories and thoughts and feelings that i was never aware of it, just because i had always thought she was grandmother and nothing else but and we see stuff like that, it's such a huge realization, such a huge epiphany that a kind of changes the way you look at life. >> i think we're going to have to wrap it up here, but i was just noticing, i think a lesser

damien's grandmother, which i think is unlikely, all right. >> -- [inaudible] any kind is shown to you in prison by any of the prison guards the 18 years you were there? >> you would have occasional things like someone come up and tell you that they didn't believe you are guilty. the thing with the prison guards is the ones that are horrible, vastly outnumber the ones that are decent human beings. so they make life hell for the ones that are decent people, either make their lives so miserable that they quit or they get them fired. you would have ones in every so often that would say something like that, reach out in some humane sort of way as one person to another, that they didn't last very long. >> you write about being in prison and your expensive there, and the trial and all of this going on that's been heaped upon

you. and jesse and jason, and yet you sit here tonight and you see people standing in line who are crying as they are asking you questions. because they are so appreciative of you being here, and also have so much empathy for you. you feel like india sort of score of your life you have at this point way more love than sort of hatred come your way? >> yeah. i think the hatred was probably at one point more widespread, but even in the times whenever the world hated me, whenever they were trying to murder me, there was still this really, really deep bottomless pool of love in different sources that kept me going. so i think really whenever you start putting it on scales and weigh me, i think the love that i've been given in my life far outweighs the hatred. >> damien echols, thanks for being here of.

[applause] >> you're watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on c-span2's booktv. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. and tonight we're at the national press club in washington, d.c. for their annual office night and we're pleased to be joined here by robert merry, was the author of "where they stand." do we tend to like our president's? >> i think the american people love the president. they love the presidency. but when have a president that has not succeeded, as they judge a failure, they very unsentimental he cast them aside. that's her sister to that's what

they were invited to you by the founders and by the constitution. >> we have short patients because we have patience with the american people understand that the constitution gave him hiring and firing authority over these guys every four years. so if it was six years or eight years it would be a lot of impatience and elected. but for years as a pretty good timeframe. so they can feel pretty comfortable making the judgments. >> how much control do presidents have over their own destinies and over what happens during their administrations? >> a successful president may have a lot of luck, but by and large his success comes from his decision-making. and failures may have had problems that beset them but nevertheless their failures emerge from their decision-making. so i believe that they basically our commanding their own destiny. >> what about when it comes to

second terms? does that usually improve a president standing? >> i can't think of a president who had a better second company first term. i've been asked that question many times. i talk about longevity of success. eight years is a long time to be president without being hit hard by some combination of economic dislocation, scanner, a warrior can't control, blood in the streets, unrest. those kinds of things. soda maintaining years of relative success is quite a testament to longevity. spent we are talking with robert merry here at the press club about whether stand, his most recent book. but if you'd like to see a longer version of robert merry talking about his book you can go to booktv.org, type in the search robert merry, and you can

watch the full program. >> here are the top selling hardcover nonfiction titles according to "the wall street journal."

for more on these bestsellers and a browse of the list, go to wsj.com. >> playwright and director david mamet presents a criticism of his longtime liberal ideologies and opines on several current and political and social issues next on booktv. he delivers a 2012 manhattan institute's wrist and lecture at the plaza hotel in new york city. it