I Spent 18 Years On Death Row

Imagine being accused of armed robbery and first degree murder, and being unable to defend yourself properly because you don't speak English. You're sitting in a courtroom on trial, but you're lost in there. The only thing you really understand is that if you are convicted, you will be sentenced to death.

This was the situation I found myself in over twenty years ago.

Although I was born in Brooklyn, NY, I was raised on the island of Puerto Rico and therefore grew up speaking Spanish. What I remember most about Puerto Rico was walking to school barefoot. There was a lot of disease on the island, and when people walked barefoot, they often became infected. Many of my little friends and brothers died, but I survived.

I began cutting sugar cane when I was barely fourteen years old, and by 1970, when I was only eighteen years old, I had decided to leave the island to make a better life for myself. I became a migrant worker, a fruit picker, and I labored first in Delaware and then in Florida.

I walked very dangerous roads as a young man, but I never imagined that one day I would be convicted and sentenced to death for a crime I did not commit.

The year was 1984. I had to leave Florida early that season because the citrus fruit had been hit by the frost. The grapefruits and oranges fell right off the trees, and all we had to do was pick them up so we were out of work in no time. I needed work, so I decided to migrate north, from Florida to Pennsylvania, where I knew a farmer who would give me a job pruning apple and peach trees.