Dan Bright didn’t just survive Death Row. He survived coming home from it—and that might’ve been the harder part.

Dan and I met not as free men, but as condemned ones—locked in cages, sentenced to die for crimes we didn’t commit. He was 26. I was just 16. The State of Louisiana wanted us both dead. Not because we were guilty. But because we were poor, Black, and disposable in their eyes.

Dan’s trial lasted one day. His lawyer was drunk in court. The State hid evidence that could’ve freed him—proof of the real killer, proof that their star witness had every reason to lie. I know what that feels like. In my case, they hid videotaped evidence that proved I was innocent. A teenage boy sentenced to die—while the real truth sat in a drawer.

Dan spent 9 years, 3 months, and 7 days on Death Row. I spent 3 years and 2 months on Death Row—as a child. At just 16 years old, I became the youngest person in the country sentenced to die. While other kids were getting ready for prom or trying out for basketball, I was preparing for my own execution. I wasn’t learning how to live—I was bracing myself to die for something I didn’t do. The concrete, the silence, the fear—it shaped my teenage years. It tried to shape my identity. But I held on to the truth. Barely. 

But the sentence never really ends. People think exoneration is the finish line. It’s not. It’s where the pain begins in a different way.

Imagine walking out of prison and not knowing how to live. The world moved on without you. You’re free, but your mind is still locked in a cell. You don’t sleep right. You don’t trust people. You wake up sweating, fists clenched. You think about the people who forgot you. You think about the people who tried to kill you. You think about what it would’ve felt like to die in there.

Dan tried to push through all of that. So did I. He gave speeches. He started businesses. He tried to love his family, raise his kids, stay connected to the city he came from. He fought for other exonerees. He fought for the people of New Orleans.

But Dan was exhausted. And I know that weight—because I carry it too. Not with hopelessness, but with the weariness of someone who’s been holding pain for far too long and refuses to let it break him.

The truth is: Death Row doesn’t just steal years—it rewires your soul. It leaves trauma buried in your body. It isolates you even after you’re released. People call you “free,” but you’re living with invisible injuries—no therapy, no consistent support, no real systems to help you put yourself back together.

That’s why so many of us turn to drugs—not to escape life, but to survive the echoes of what we’ve lived through. 

I’ve seen it more times than I can count. I’ve lived close to it myself. Brothers numbing their pain with heroin, pills, alcohol—anything to quiet the screams that never left their heads. Not because they’re criminals. But because they were caged, forgotten, broken, and left to figure out healing on their own.

Dan died last week of a drug overdose at 56. But the damage was done long before that. The State didn’t kill him outright—they just broke him slowly. Like they try to break all of us.

And I’m angry. Not just for Dan. But for every exoneree who is still struggling to survive after “freedom.” For the nights I’ve cried in silence. For the brothers I’ve buried. For the families still waiting on justice. 

Because in this so-called land of the free, you can still be buried alive in a cage, erased from memory, stripped of your humanity—and left to rot for something you never did. And even when the truth finally comes out, no one knows how to give you your life back.

Dan Bright was more than a case file. He was my brother. He was brilliant. Funny. Tough. Honest. He could talk to anyone, and he carried truth like a weapon. We laughed together. We cried together. We stood on stages and in the streets and told the world, “We were innocent, and they tried to kill us.”

Now Dan is gone. And I’m still here. Carrying this pain. Telling this story. Not because I want to—but because I have to. Because silence lets the system win.

Dan didn’t die when they sentenced him. He didn’t die when they threw away the evidence. He didn’t die when they caged him and ignored his truth. He died when the world let him carry all that pain alone.

We can’t keep losing our brothers to the aftermath of injustice. We can’t call it “freedom” if we’re still dying from what they did to us.

Rest in power, Dan. I’ll never stop telling the truth—for both of us.

Shareef Cousin’s conviction and death sentence were overturned in 1998.