“There are thousands, if not, tens of thousands of wrongfully convicted men and women in the United States penal system, who maintain that they are innocent of the crimes they were convicted of, yet they serve many years doing hard time for something they didn’t do. 

Many, like myself, were young, black, men who were already familiar with the criminal justice system.  In many cases, we are Black and Latino men and women who had limited financial support so we were unable to afford proper legal representation.  As a result, we suffered mightily because we had no earthly idea how the legal system worked and how it was designed to oppress people of color.  I never imagined that I would be amongst that number.  I’ve asked myself thousands of times, “why this happened and how could it have happened to me, of all people?” 

It’s all just a distant memory now.  What had befallen me, is the kind of thing that happens in third world countries, not in a superpower like America.  Yet it does.  I sit within the confines of these cold and loveless walls over 30 years still maintaining my innocence having been convicted of a crime that I had absolutely nothing to do with.”

Excerpt from my forthcoming memoir,
Undefeated & Unbroken:  The Shawn Boyd Story