Q&A with exonerated prisoner Bill Dillon

After spending 27 years in a Florida prison for a murder he didn’t commit, Bill Dillon was exonerated by DNA evidence and cleared of all charges.

Now, he travels the country speaking out against the death penalty. He will speak at UNC today as part of the series “Innocence, Racial Justice and the End of the Death Penalty in N.C.,” hosted by UNC’s Center for Civil Rights.

Staff writer Emily Byrd sat down with Dillon to discuss his time in prison and life since his release.

Daily Tar Heel: In 2008, you were released from prison after being wrongly convicted. How did they break the news, and what did that feel like?

Bill Dillon: It was incredible. They didn’t actually tell me I was exonerated, they just told me they were releasing me. Being released was something beyond belief after all those years.

DTH: So if you weren’t initially exonerated, were you left in a limbo state between guilt and innocence from a legal standpoint?

BD: No, it started out initially that they were going to retry me. Then, 11 days later, they just dropped everything and said they weren’t going to.

DTH: What was the most difficult part of readjusting after your release?

BD: Just life itself — technology, everything. It was amazing. It was a whole other level. You’ve got to remember, I went in there in 1981. It was cassette tapes and VCRs and no computers.

DTH: How did you start reacquainting yourself with all of the new technology?

BD: I dove into it with a passion. I felt like it was supposed to be mine anyways. I’m pretty much a geek myself now — it’s just taken me a few years — but I’m getting there, that’s for sure.

DTH: So you spent 27 years in prison: Has your experience made you lose faith in the U.S. justice system?

BD: I was in prison for 27 and a half years, actually. But initially it didn’t. I thought that my appeals would work and eventually they would find out that I wasn’t the person that had committed the crime.

When I filed for DNA motion, I figured there wouldn’t be any response. I figured I was just washed away. But I had to make that last-ditch effort.

I’m a firm believer in law enforcement — I know there was many of them in (prison) that needed to be in the place they were in.

DTH: What are you hoping to do by sharing your story?

BD: I really am going to try to talk with people about the death penalty, because I received an apology from (Florida) Gov. Rick Scott, and the day before I was going to meet him, I thought about what I was going to say to him. And when I went to see him and finally grabbed his hand I said, “Governor, you’re the most powerful man I’ve ever spoke to in my life. And I just want to say this to you: I’m just glad they didn’t give me the death penalty. Because if I had, I would have been executed long years ago.”

My whole point that I’m trying to get across is about the death penalty and the reason why there shouldn’t be the death penalty.

I didn’t get the death penalty, but if I would have, I would’ve been deceased and no one would have known the real story.

Contact the desk editor at university@dailytarheel.com.