SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — As friends, family and supporters gathered outside the Shaker Heights home where Dwayne Brooks stayed with family, the 57-year old felt something he hadn’t in more than three decades — freedom.
“Now I feel light,” said Brooks. “I feel free, like a regular person again.”
It was a celebration of freedom 35 years in the making. It was a day Brooks wondered if he’d ever see.
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“I always envisioned it,” said Brooks. “But as time went on, the hope started to fade a little bit.”
In 1988, Brooks was convicted of shooting two men and killing another a year earlier in Cleveland’s Luke Easter Park.
A jury spared Brooks the death penalty, but a judge sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison for a crime Brooks insisted he did not commit.
Overturning that conviction would take years.
Then, in February 2021, came a break. Brooks received copies of police reports he’d never seen before, and neither had his defense attorneys at the time of his trial.
That’s because the lead prosecutor at the time testified it was office policy not to hand over copies of police reports to defense attorneys.
In Brooks’s case, inside those reports was evidence that a judge would later rule could have changed the outcome of the case.
In April, the guilty verdict that sent Brooks to prison was overturned, and a new trial was ordered.
Brooks was released from jail and put on house arrest as he waited to learn if prosecutors would retry him for the murder.
Then, on Tuesday, prosecutors informed the court they were dropping the charges.
“It really hurt when I got the evidence in my hand that they knew from the very beginning that I didn’t do it, and they did this to me,” said Brooks. “They took me away from my family, my parents, my kids, the love of my life. They took my whole life.”
It’s why Brooks admits he’s bitter.
Standing next to him Wednesday was his son, now 34 years old. His mother was pregnant with Dwayne Brooks Jr. when his dad was arrested.
When Brooks walked out of jail in April, it was the first time his son saw him as a free man.
“It's been surreal, man,” said Brooks Jr. “Sometimes it doesn't seem real. All I knew is me thinking about him being in there. All I knew was like, they could always do that to me also. I’m not different. I could probably be a victim of their injustice too.”
It’s a harsh reality, according to Brooks's attorney. She’s calling for accountability for a justice system that she believes is more concerned with outcomes than accuracy.
“I have 60 other clients just like Dwayne that I'm still fighting for, who are all in the same position, who were all harmed by the same reprehensible practices,” said Attorney Kimberly Corral.
Now free, Brooks plans to return to New York, where he’s been living since his release.
“I love the people here, but I couldn’t live here,” said Brooks.
"Too many memories?" News 5 Investigators asked.
“Bad ones,” said Brooks. “They took my whole life.”
He said he wants to be an inspiration to those who are where he was, letting others who maintain their innocence see what can happen when they don’t give up fighting for what’s right.
“The bitterness of being wrongfully convicted or wrongfully incarcerated, I can't let it outweigh the fact that I have to live now and for the future,” said Brooks. “I can't let it overwhelm me because if it did, it would destroy me.”
