“Still, the integrity and courage that Deidre Howard displayed in coming forward to speak out about her experience, even early on, before she knew if I was innocent or guilty, were so noble and rare. I am grateful to this day. Later, Deidre would say it took months for her to process everything that happened. “As a citizen, I was taught to respect those in authority,” she said. “I was not prepared to second-guess them. A citizen coming from [her] own job doesn’t walk into the courthouse with the mind-set that the prosecutors are not going to be honest, or that they would knowingly leave out facts that would change the whole story. I felt completely disillusioned, because the rules that I, and most citizens, try to live by were not the ones that I found the officials lived by.”