I Was Put on Death Row at 17 for a Crime I Didn't Commit. Here's the Story of My Trial.

"I knew Deputy Nelson Coleman was not my friend, but when he got up to speak, I was still expecting him to state exactly what happened, how he arrested me for disturbing the peace. But Coleman made it seem as though he'd arrested me because he thought I looked suspicious and was trying to leave the vacant lot where Black students were being searched after the shot was fired. Coleman claimed he walked up and called me by name."

""No, he did not!" I turned to [my attorney, Jack] Williams and jabbed him in the side. "He's lying! That day was the first time we laid eyes on each other!""

"Eventually Coleman had to admit that, with all the police around, there was nowhere to go and that he had arrested me for disturbing the peace. When Williams asked whose peace I had disturbed, Coleman said, "Mine.""

At 16, Gary Tyler was on a school bus of Black students that was attacked during desegregation unrest when a 13-year-old white student was killed. No evidence linked Tyler to the shooting, yet authorities framed him and arrested him for disturbing the peace. An all-white jury convicted Tyler at 17, making him the youngest inmate on death row in the United States. He spent more than four decades in Angola State Penitentiary before being released in 2016. During trial testimony, Deputy Nelson Coleman suggested Tyler looked suspicious and falsely claimed prior recognition. Coleman later admitted he had not seen anyone holding a gun.

Read at Slate Magazine