Wrongfully convicted Alfred ‘Dewayne’ Brown and Attorney Brian Stolarz shared their story Thursday.

LEWISBURG — Accompanied by a Bucknell University alumnus who helped him to find freedom, a wrongly incarcerated man who spent years on death row shared his riveting story during a special presentation Thursday evening at the Campus Theatre.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1973, at least 195 wrongly convicted people have spent years on death row until they found their justice. Alfred “Dewayne” Brown is one of only 16 innocent people to have been exonerated from the death penalty in Texas.

Brown was joined at the theater by Brian Stolarz, an attorney and Bucknell graduate.

Brown grew up in the south, living between his grandmother’s home near Baton Rouge, La., and with his mother in Houston, Texas. At 21, Brown was arrested for the fatal shooting of a police officer during an armed robbery. At 23, not only was he facing trial, but also the ultimate sentence.

“All I could think about was really just thinking about what the… lawyers were not doing,” said Brown, about his mind during the trial. He couldn’t believe what was happening to him.

According to both men, the only time Brown ever spoke out in court was on the day he was given the death penalty.

“That’s when I jumped up and said…’These people are trying to take my life away for something I didn’t commit…I didn’t do this crime,'” recounted Brown.

That’s around the time that Brown met Stolarz.

“I was the first one of my family to go to college or law school,” said Stolarz, who grew up in a blue collar family in northern New Jersey.

While attending Bucknell, Stolarz was in the social justice residential college.

“I learned about the many injustices of the world and decided that that was something I was going to try to do with my life,” he said.

After graduating from Bucknell in 1995, Stolarz went on to attend Catholic School of America Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C.

From there, Stolarz was set on using his knowledge in law to help give a voice to those who needed it most.

“I defended people for free, because… that’s what the Constitution requires,” he said, as he described the years of being a public defender before moving on to a larger law firm called K&L Gates.

At the larger law firm, Stolarz found himself longing to go back into serving the public.

“Then I got a call from a senior partner who asked me if I wanted to work on a death penalty case, pro-bono,” Stolarz recalled.

The non-profit Texas Defender Service presented Brown’s case to Stolarz.

“The moment I met him, I knew he was innocent,” Stolarz said of his first time meeting Brown. “My life and career was worth this one man’s life.”

According to Brown, it took three years for him to gain trust in Stolarz, due to the experience he’d had with lawyers previously. Nonetheless, Stolarz was the first lawyer Brown felt he could trust.

It was also a first for Stolarz, who was used to defending those with no more than attempted murder charges.

“This was the first time I’d ever gotten to this level of a case where someone this serious was in jail and had not done it,” said Stolarz, “I thought about him every single day.”

During the battle to claim Brown’s innocence, Brown never lost his faith.

“I was locked up, but my mind… my mind never was there,” he said. “How can you control something you can’t control?”

“I’ve never met anybody with his grace and his peace,” said Stolarz, of Brown, “He’s a unicorn.”

Eventually, a box containing evidence placing Brown at home during the crime was discovered, and Brown was exonerated.

“I think the most pure form of legal services is giving something of your time and talent to those who don’t have money and who don’t have a voice,” Stolarz said.

Although the process can be frustrating, he said it’s important to remember that “every case is a new opportunity to defend somebody; to put yourself in their shoes and to… validate and vindicate their rights.”

Checking government power is another topic of gravity to both men. After being released, Brown and Stolarz decided to open up about their decade-long legal battle. They touched on the importance of criminal justice reformation, prosecutorial and official misconduct while advocating for a more fair justice system.

Stolarz advocates for early DNA testing, as well as early production of Brady Documents, or evidence in favor of the accused.

Stolarz is now the published author of the book “Grace and Justice on Death Row: The Race Against Time and Texas to Free an Innocent Man,” which is a Washington Post bestseller. Both men also appeared in “Hidden Alibi,” a part of the Netflix documentary “The Innocence Files.”

Brown received compensation from Texas for his wrongful imprisonment, and now happily drives trucks across the U.S., something he loves. Both men remain friends to this day.