“I’ve been working 14 years to keep my sanity, now I’m on vacation,” mused J.J. Tennison, speaking in a slow, metered voice. In 1990, Tennison, then 18, and Antoine “Soda Pop” Goff, then 21, were convicted of manslaughter and sent to separate state prisons in California to serve sentences of 25 years to life. Then, in September 2003, they were declared innocent on appeal and exonerated. But speaking to the press last December, Tennison and Goff showed little bitterness. Didn’t they despair over losing the prime years of their youth, asked one journalist, himself just pushing 25?
