Huwe Burton was just 16 when he was wrongfully arrested for the murder of his mother Keziah Burton. After fighting to clear his name for decades, Huwe was finally exonerated in 2019 with the help of Innocence Project staff attorney Susan Friedman.
His incredible story of perseverance in the face of injustice will be featured on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel tomorrow, November 26, at 9 p.m. ET. Stream it here, exclusively on HBO.
While incarcerated, Huwe began running in the hopes that it would bring him some sense of peace and freedom.
“I’m in prison and I would see some of the older guys ... they’re running and they seemed to be at peace. I was like, ‘Wow, they look free,’” he told Gumbel. “So I was like, ‘Let me try my hand at some running.’”
He dreamed of one day running the TCS New York City Marathon. And in 2016, he did.
But he wanted to run it again when he was truly free. So after being exonerated of all charges against him, Huwe ran the TCS New York City Marathon earlier this month — this time with his lawyer Susan alongside him.
Huwe Burton and Susan Friedman training for the marathon in Prospect Park. Photo by Sameer Abdel-Khalek/Innocence Project.
Started in 1992 as a legal clinic at Cardozo School of Law, the Innocence Project is now an independent nonprofit, affiliated with Cardozo, that exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
