I was 20 when I was sentenced to death. My life had been on a one-way path to self-destruction for years. I don’t remember too much about my early life, but I think I had a happy childhood, growing up in Philadelphia in a loving family with five siblings."

Here's the crazy thing: if I was guilty I would be entitled to job training, housing, medical treatment. But I have nothing. I was released with five dollars and 37 cents of my own money.

When everyone is spitting in your face and you can be nice back to society - that is the ultimate self empowerment and that’s what I was striving for.

There is a man out there who prosecuted me. He's been constantly calling different lawyers, telling them how afraid of me his is. He's afraid I'll come after him now that I'm out, because of all the horrible things he did to me. The furthest thing from my mind I would ever do is waste a day being vindictive.

If you're lucky enough to be raised in a rich family, good. But learn how to respect that luck. It's not a given, you know? It's not like, 'Well, it's normal'. No, it's not normal. It's lucky.

I grew up in a family where law was in the air we were breathing.

I have a very close family. I have four older siblings: two brothers and two sisters.

I hold that the beginning of modern Irish drama was in the winter of 1898, at a school feast at Coole, when Douglas Hyde and Miss Norma Borthwick acted in Irish in a Punch and Judy show; and the delighted children went back to tell their parents what grand curses 'An Craoibhin' had put on the baby and the policeman.