Introduction

Clarance Goode, Jr. is an indigenous innocent man. He’s been on Oklahoma’s death row for nearly nineteen years. The state of Oklahoma is preparing to kill him for three murders he did not commit: murders for which there is no physical evidence linking him to the scene, no DNA, no fingerprints, no forensics of any kind. His conviction rests on the testimony of people who lied, on evidence Clarance has always said was planted, found by a detective who was later convicted of planting evidence in other cases, on a timeline that has been demonstrated to be false, on a legal process so corrupted by negligence and conflict of interest that it would be difficult to believe if you had not watched this system work this way.

This is the story of Clarance Goode, Jr., all of it. His childhood in north Tulsa. His family and his losses. His choices, the ones he is proud of and the ones he is not. The corruption that built the case against him. The people who failed him, the people who betrayed him, the woman who walked free while he went to death row. This is the man who has survived all of it, who has not been broken by any of it, who is still fighting for the truth and for his life.

Read it. Remember it. And then do something with what you know.

But permanence is one of the first things the system takes from a family.