On the outside, it's a tough road

Dwayne Dail is one of at least 209 people nationally and one of six in North Carolina to be exonerated since science offered a way to determine guilt or innocence through DNA testing.

The tests, available starting in the late 1980s, enabled these wrongly convicted inmates to walk free again. Many are thrust into the world with little warning and no preparation.

A New York Times analysis in November of exonerated people found that in about half of the 137 cases they examined, the inmate had difficulty keeping a job and had to rely on others for housing and money. About one-sixth of them ended up back in prison for another crime or became addicted to drugs or alcohol.

Dail knew it wouldn't be easy. After 18 years in prison for another man's crime, he is relying on his family for housing and support as he tries to stand on his own as a 39-year-old man.

"They picked me up and threw me in," Dail said. "They picked me up and threw me out. It's a shock to the system to be back in a world that's 20 years past."

His attorney, Christine Mumma, warned him about the frustrations of the free world.

"It's really hard to try to convince him that he needs to take baby steps," Mumma said. "He wants it all right now, but he's not financially and emotionally stable enough to have it all."

Dail frets that the $360,000 in compensation he is due from the state won't be nearly enough to pay for a house, a car and college tuition.

Five other North Carolina men have been freed by DNA evidence. Here is how they are doing now:

Leo Waters

Leo Waters spent more than two decades behind bars for the rape and robbery of a Jacksonville woman in 1981. He was released in 2003.

Waters, 59, resettled in his hometown of New Bern, next door to his aging parents. He received $400,000 compensation from the state last year, $54,000 of which went to lawyer bills.

In 2006, Waters decided to take a vacation from his job at a local assembly plant for washers and dryers. He's getting anxious now and will likely go back to work in the new year.

While Waters was in prison, he urged his wife to divorce him and get on with her life. She remarried and moved to Florida with their three grown children.

Darryl Hunt

Darryl Hunt left prison in 2003 after serving 18 years for the murder of a Winston-Salem woman.

Hunt, 42, had trouble landing a job after prison; employers couldn't look beyond a 19-year hole on his resume.

So Hunt created work for himself. With a $1.65 million settlement he collected from Winston-Salem for its role in convicting him, Hunt started a foundation to help freed inmates acclimate to life outside prison.

He has bought a house with his wife and is helping her raise her three children. Still, adjusting has been hard.

"Every night I still wake up on the side of the bed, waiting for someone to tell me I can go to the bathroom," Hunt said.

Ronald Cotton

Ronald Cotton served 10 years in prison for the rape of an Alamance County woman.

Cotton, 45, married a co-worker a year after his release in 1995. They are now raising their 9-year-old daughter in Mebane.

Cotton works second shift at a local insulation plant.

Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, the victim who mistakenly identified him as her rapist, met a few years after Cotton's release. The two now travel the country speaking about the ordeal.

Lesly Jean

Lesly Jean, a former Marine and Haitian immigrant, spent nine years in prison for the rape of a Jacksonville woman in 1982.

Jean, 47, returned to his former home in New York, where he has struggled to get by since his 1991 release. Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder plague Jean. A fall in 2002 left him wheelchair-bound and living in a nursing home in Manhattan. He is trying to learn to walk again.

Jean lost a civil lawsuit against local prosecutors and long ago blew through the $85,000 the state gave him as compensation for his wrongful imprisonment. He married a former co-worker in 2000 and has helped her raise her two boys.

Keith Brown

Keith Brown, 41, was freed in 1997 after serving four years for the sexual assault of a Wilson mother and her 9-year-old daughter.

Brown's family members declined to be interviewed, saying they didn't want to bring up painful memories.

His mother, Nina Brown, said her son lives with her in Wilson and cannot work because of trauma he suffered in prison.