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NAACP Head Recalls Release From Prison: 'I'm Just Stunned'

Rachel DeCruz Gerald Hankerson

In 1987, Gerald Hankerson was wrongfully convicted of aggravated murder. After 22 years behind bars, Washington state Gov. Chris Gregoire commuted Hankerson’s life sentence. Hankerson was the first man in the history of the state to be freed after receiving a life sentence.  

At the Story Corps booth in Seattle's New Holly neighborhood, Rachael DeCruz asked Hankerson -- now the president of the Seattle King County NAACP -- what his last day in prison was like.