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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 3.16 63 6 3 actually guilty. "Look, if you don't trust me, then turn your back," he says. "I've lost some people; others are more open to me. Tere's nothing I can do about it. Got to roll on." Twenty-seven years wrongfully con- victed, and VonAllmen feels like he has purpose. He advocates for double-blind eyewitness identifcation, which requires interrogating cops to have no prior infor- mation on a suspect. He attends the an- nual Innocence Conference with members of KIP and shares his story of exoneration, listens to others'. He advocates for felons' right to vote, works with the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and speaks directly to legislators, shares his story. "An obvious point to laser in on: It took almost 30 years to prove my inno- cence," he says. "It's an imperfect system and a penalty as fnal as that is — how can we put ourselves in the position to declare perfection? Only we can eliminate the possibility of killing an innocent person." VonAllmen believes his friend at KSR, Ed Maynard, died an innocent man. Maynard was almost 60, real reclu- sive, in on a murder charge. He had been locked up for 16 years already when a sea- soned inmate pointed VonAllmen his di- rection, said, "I've heard every story in the world since I've been doing time. Yours sounds as believable as Maynard's." May- nard said a jailhouse snitch got him in. Soon as VonAllmen earned some credi- bility after his exoneration, he tried getting Maynard out. Te KIP initially couldn't fnd enough further evidence to fully free him. (After Maynard's death, hairs were discovered from the victim's dead body belonging to an African-American; the truth that did not set Maynard free.) VonAllmen's frst time back at KSR was to visit Maynard. Maynard's frst visitor since 1973. "I haven't forgotten you," VonAllmen said. "Von," Maynard said, "you ain't changed a bit." Two years ago, VonAllmen received a call from University of Louisville Hospital. Maynard had had a stroke. He was mo- tionless but still shackled to the bed. Von- Allmen remembers saying, "I'm a liberator, not a confner" and "You're free, brother." Te nurse pulled the plug. VonAllmen scrambled last words and scrambles now as he relays the story, tears forming, a lump in the throat. He says he remembered Sister Helen Prejean, a staunch advocate against the death penalty, a representative of love in the execution room. "Without control of my own mouth, I say" — it takes a second for him to tell me — "'Ed, I love you.' Words I know nobody has said to him." Te numbers rose on the monitor, then fell straight to the fat line. His second visit to KSR: Maynard's funeral. Chicken Hill. A cemetery for un- claimed bodies VonAllmen always thought was a myth. "It's a much more tranquil place than I could have imagined," VonAll- men says. "Even though Maynard is there with some of the worst people." Kerry Porter Convicted in 1998 of murder and sentenced to 60 years in prison. Locked up for more than 14 years. Eyewitness misidentifcation, govern- ment misconduct and invalidated/improper forensic science led to his exoneration in 2010. Like a .22-caliber bullet bouncing in the brain. A .22: force enough to enter the skull, then slowing till forever stuck inside. Tat's the best way Kerry Porter knows how to describe it. Tis is the case for Porter. Rattling every day, every hour, "18 hours a day." Te 53-year- old sits in his living room in Fern Creek, his NASCAR jacket and slippers on, the blinds pulled shut, rattling because of the conviction — the 1996 murder of Tyrone Camp. Porter had known Camp before his death. Porter's ex-girlfriend, Cecilia, mar- ried him. He did his research. Te name Camp didn't ring on the street. "Not being a street player — buying weed, shooting dice, riding motorcycles, fghting pit pulls, woo, woo, woo — you have to be a Boy Kerry Porter, exonerated after 13 years wrongfully convicted.