THREE WHO WERE UNJUSTLY CONVICTED TELL "60 MINUTES" WHAT IT'S LIKE TO SUDDENLY BE FREE YEARS LATER - SUNDAY ON CBS

Ray Hinton Was on Death Row for 30 Years

Fearing he'd be thrown back in prison, Ken Ireland would sometimes barricade himself in a closet after he got out, just so he could sleep. Julie Baumer was homeless soon after her release. And after being locked in a prison cell for 30 years, the odd voice of a car's GPS was like a ghost in the machine to a just-freed Ray Hinton. These are the experiences of three wrongly convicted people who spent years in prison and then had to adjust to being free. They tell their stories to Scott Pelley on the next edition of 60 MINUTES, Sunday, Jan. 10 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Hinton was released from Death Row after a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision led the state of Alabama to drop charges. One of the first things he did was get a ride to his mother's grave. "We headed toward the graveyard and a voice come on and said, 'At two point so many miles, turn right.' And I said, 'What the hell? Who is that?'" remembers Hinton. Watch an excerpt.

After the Supreme Court ruling, Alabama was forced to do a new ballistics test on the gun prosecutors and police claimed was the murder weapon found in his mother's home. The charges were dropped and Hinton was finally released. After 30 years, that was all the state of Alabama did for him. He hasn't to date received any financial compensation or any other form of help.

More than a hundred prisoners are exonerated in the U.S. each year, and 60 MINUTES' investigation found that only a handful of states offer the wrongly convicted assistance when they come out of prison. Thirty states do offer eventual compensation - Ireland, exonerated of a rape-murder charge by DNA evidence, got $6 million for his 21 years behind bars because of a new law in Connecticut. He recalls his first few days free. "There was the nights where I just barricaded myself in a big walk-in closet and slept in there. Just thinking... someone's going to come... and drag me back."

Asked by Pelley whether the roughly $300,000 per year he got made his time in prison worth it, Ireland, now a Connecticut parole board member, replies, "They could give me five million for every year and it still wouldn't be worth it."

Baumer, from Detroit, was convicted of child abuse for shaking her sister's baby. When it was discovered later the child had a stroke, she was released after serving five years and given a new trial. She was acquitted. "It was very, very, very rough. You start from the bottom reclaiming your identity," she tells Pelley of her early period when she was homeless. "I didn't have an ID. And then after I jumped over that hurdle, then you start applying for jobs... now there's a five-year gap on your résumé."

Adjusting to freedom after decades on Death Row is a process, says Hinton. "I'm still learning that I can take a bath every day. I'm still learning that I don't have to get up at 3:00 in the morning, eat breakfast... "

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