Here at the Innocence Project, the anniversary of every exoneration is a reminder of why we pursue this critical work. This is Levon Brooks’ story.

John,

Sixteen years ago today, Levon Brooks was exonerated after spending nearly two decades wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Sadly, Levon passed away from cancer in 2018, but the power of his legacy endures and continues to propel our work.

Levon’s imprisonment and life sentence for a sexual assault and murder was attributable to faulty bite mark comparison evidence, an unreliable forensic technique. During his wrongful incarceration, and despite the mental toll it took, he kept his spirits up by working as a cook in the prison. He also drew greeting cards, which he sent to family members and sold to prison staff to give to their relatives.

“There were the nice, sweet ones with the flowers,” said Isabelle Armand, who documented some of Levon’s life after his release in Levon and Kennedy: Mississippi Innocence Project, a documentary photo book featuring Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, who was wrongfully convicted of a crime committed by the same perpetrator as the crime for which Brooks was convicted.

The Innocence Project’s Netflix series, The Innocence Files, focuses on the cases of eight wrongfully convicted people, including Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer. Please take a moment to read more about the series and share it with your friends and family.

In the remaining decade of his life after exoneration, Levon — or “TieT” as his friends called him — reconnected with the world he’d been locked away from. He spent a lot of time outdoors, fishing, raising chickens, rabbits, and quail, and tending to his vegetable garden. He met and began a relationship with a woman named Dinah, with whom he opened a restaurant behind their house where they hosted friends to enjoy food and watch sports together. In 2016, Dinah and Levon married — just two years before he passed of cancer.

Those who knew “TieT” remember a kind spirit, a loving father, friend, husband, uncle, cook, and artist. “I’ve got a choice. Either live my life hating the people responsible for convicting me or be an example of God’s blessings. I don’t believe in hate,” Dinah recalled him saying.

“He was a very nice and lovable person,” Gloria Williams, Brooks’ niece, told the Innocence Project. “He was the type of person that you would have wanted to meet. I enjoyed all my days that we spent together from the first till the last.”

Learn more about Levon’s story by reading about The Innocence Files on Netflix, and share it with your friends and family today.

Thank you,

The Innocence Project Team

P.S. If you’re in Paris on March 18, join Innocence Project’s Vanessa Potkin, attorney for Levon and Kennedy, and Dominique Simonnot, France’s General Controller of Places of Deprivation of Liberty, to discuss prisoners’ rights and systemic reforms to the criminal justice systems in France and the United States. Details here.