After half a lifetime in Prison, 78 yr old starts over

Henry K. Lee, Chronicle East Bay Bureau

Friday, January 12, 1996

Moreese (Pop) Bickham stepped outside his Oakland home into the bright sunlight yesterday, relishing his new-found freedom and marveling how, after spending almost half his life behind bars, faith finally brought him back to his family.

Bickham, 78, is beginning his life anew as a free man after serving 37 years in a Louisiana state prison for the slayings of two police officers in July 1958. While the prosecution said it was an ambush, Bickham says the white officers were Ku Klux Klansmen who had threatened to kill him.

"I knew one day I would be in Oakland, but I didn't know when," Bickham said yesterday while relaxing with his wife, Ernestine, and their daughter Vivian Jefferson at their Coliseum Gardens apartment.

Though Bickham slept only four hours, it was "wonderful and beautiful -- a peaceful night," he proclaimed, as his daughter smiled in agreement, saying, "That's right, Pop."

When Jefferson, 57, got a phone call from her father the other day and learned he was coming home, "There was joy in my heart and peace in mind," she said.

Bickham's wife, Ernestine, 76, was all smiles yesterday as the two embraced each other in their living room.

"I feel so happy," she said. "It means so much to me to see him sitting there."

Ordained as a Methodist minister while in prison, Bickham said his homecoming is both the product of faith and the determination of those who believed his claims of self-defense, including his lawyer, New York attorney Michael Alcamo.

Alcamo took up the case at the urging of his friend,David Isay, who helped produce a 1990 radio documentary on Bickham's case.

Alcamo was enlisted to the cause right after he graduated from law school. Isay's request was simple: get Bickham out of prison.

"That was a tall order," Alcamo recalled in a telephone interview. "I, of course, had to pass the bar first."

Although Bickham admitted shooting officers Gus Gill andJake Galloway, he insisted that they were about to shoot him -- and Alcamo said the legal system was clearly rigged against a black suspect. The trial took just 2 1/2 hours.

Bickham said he prayed every day during his 14 years on death row. After his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1973, he was allowed to work on the prison grounds in Angola, La., tending to the cemetery and the animals.

"At Angola, every chance I got I looked up to see the stars up there," Bickham said.

On Wednesday, when he flew to Oakland -- his first plane ride -- he saw the twinkly lights of the world below. "It was like heaven below me," he said.

Now that he is out of jail, Bickham said he plans to travel, go to church and meet the many relatives he has not seen for nearly four decades -- or not at all.

"We'll be arguing over who gets to go to church with him first," said Bickham's 28- year-old granddaughter, Cassandra Jeffer

son of Oakland.

In the meantime, Bickham said he is trying to get used to the staggering number of new cars and gadgets out there, from supermarket scanners to cellular phones.

"There's nothing out there that I can't face with a clear conscience," he said. "Life is making what you can out of it."

As to whether he feels rehabilitated, Bickham used a metaphor to convey his belief that atonement comes from within, not from a lengthy imprisonment. "You can take a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink," he said.

Bickham said he was sorry about the officers' deaths. "I'm sorry it happened," he said. "I hope their families forgive me -- God already has."

In no way is he bitter at society, he added. "As blessed as I, to be able to get out of prison a free man, be bitter? Aw, there'd be something terribly wrong with me," Bickham said.

At a tearful reunion with relatives Wednesday night at the Oakland International Airport, Bickham was introduced to four great- grandchildren he had never met. He was also greeted by his pastor, Sam Huddleston of Benicia.

Huddleston served five years in state prison after being convicted in the killing and robbery of a liquor store owner in San Joaquin County. Just 17 years old at the time, Huddleston, 42, said Bickham's release, like his own, "is a bittersweet experience, because dreams on both sides were lost."

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/After-Half-a-Lifetime-in-Prison-He-s-Free-2998888.php