Calvin Scott, 48, knows a world of hurt. As a foster child, he had cayenne pepper put in his mouth and was beaten with an electrical cord. He had to work the cotton fields while other youngsters his age attended school. His family abandoned him long ago.

Calvin Lee Scott served more than 20 years in prison - for a crime he did not commit. DNA says so and, so does the State of Oklahoma. Eventually, the state will get around to paying him the $175,000 due him under a new Oklahoma law to compensate people falsely imprisoned. Until then, unable to even obtain a driver’s license or ID card so that he can cash a check or pick up medication, and dependent on others for his basic needs, Calvin Scott sits and hurts.

Calvin grew up with his brother in a foster home for 20 children in rural Mississippi, after their own mother tried to kill them. Though often mistreated by the lady who ran the foster home, Calvin did learn from her about the sovereignty of God and the need to read the Bible. At 14, he and his brother ran away from the foster home. Calvin spent the next few years in an Arkansas boys’ home and a county jail.

He took construction jobs but had a problem remembering to pay for the materials he picked up in stores. He was sitting in an Oklahoma county jail on his third shoplifting charge in 1982 when detectives came by and asked him for hair samples. Knowing that he had not been involved in any sexual assault, he readily provided them. A day later, he discovered he was facing a first-degree rape charge.

When facing trial in 1982, Calvin prayed, "Lord, out of all the things I have done, you know I didn’t do this here. I’m putting it in Your hands, asking You to take my life and let some good come out of it." Prosecutors offered Calvin’s public defender a deal: cop a plea for seven years. Calvin refused.

The prosecutors tried again: two years in prison and five on probation. Again Calvin turned it down. Then a final offer: plead guilty and receive a two-year deferred sentence, which meant Calvin would not serve any time unless he committed a new crime, and then the two-year sentence would kick in first. It did not matter, said Calvin. "I did not do that crime, I will not lie on myself—I could not do it."

The case went to trial. The only witness was the victim, who couldn’t identify Calvin as her attacker, but a jury deliberated only 30 minutes before convicting him. The judge gave him 20 years in prison. He would serve it all and more. Emotionally, Calvin hit rock bottom. "I felt neglected by God, but I never doubted Him," he says. "I could hear this voice within me: God is there, even when you think He’s not there. He tells us in the Bible, ‘I will never leave you.’ I believed that, and it drew me closer to God."

By his own admission, Calvin was less than a model prisoner. "I had more than 80 write-ups over the years," he says. "I had trouble dealing with officers." Once, he was discussing his cafeteria work credits with his supervisor. When the discussion grew heated, the supervisor called for correctional officers, who put Calvin on the floor to restrain him. While Calvin continued to plead his case, one of the officer’s hands came too close and was bitten. Calvin was charged with assaulting an officer, convicted, and sentenced to an additional three years. Without that assault charge, he would never have been exonerated. "That was God at work," says Calvin.

Without the additional time, Calvin would have been released from prison after 20 years and the state would not have made the effort to clear him. When he heard from another inmate about a new DNA testing program being conducted by the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, Calvin applied, with skepticism. No one wins those things, he thought. He was stunned a week later when told he’d been cleared. Oklahoma quickly credited the 20 years already served against the three-year assault sentence and released him December 3, 2003. The Innocence Project of New York recorded him as the 140th prisoner in the country exonerated and released through DNA testing since the new technology became available in 1989.

While sorting out his new life on the street, Calvin turned to a former warden, Jack Cowley, who had known him at Harp Correctional Center. Cowley, who recently worked with Prison Fellowship’s InnerChange Freedom Initiative after his retirement from the Department of Corrections, is now director of programs for Freedom Ranch Inc. in Tulsa. Cowley found a place for Calvin to stay at the men’s transitional home operated by Freedom Ranch, got him some donated clothing and a first round of health reviews donated by local doctors. Ahead lie such projects as expunging the criminal record, learning to read and write, getting a GED, and finding a career. "I would like to have a family—a warm, friendly place to go home to, and children."

And there is also the big dilemma: If he accepts the $175,000 offer from the state, he is required to abandon any effort to collect a larger sum through a civil suit. Calvin is aware other exonerated prisoners in Oklahoma have received settlements of $1 million or more, but it takes time. Meanwhile, Calvin is hurting right now. "Hurt is something you never get used to," he says.

Jack Cowley notes that Calvin needs the same level of assistance in adjusting to life after prison as would someone who was guilty. Plus, there is the added emotional burden of knowing all along that he was innocent.

Yet Calvin Scott holds no grudges against anyone, even the actual rapist who was eventually identified by DNA testing and is now serving a 60-year sentence for a new rape. And if no one—neither the state nor the victim—apologizes to him to help with closure, that will be all right, too. "I leave it all to God," he says. "I can’t do it myself."

Freedom Ranch began in Tulsa in 1987, offering transitional housing to ex-prisoners and the homeless. In addition to the six-man house, Freedom Ranch also operates the former Altamont Apartments as a 30-unit women’s facility in downtown Tulsa. A staff of 12—headed by ex-prisoner Dixie Pebworth—manages the facility, which provides a drug counseling program for 200 inmates a year as part of the drug-free boot camp at Alva’s Bill Johnson Correctional Center, a counseling service for recently released state inmates, and a Christian ministry for its own residents and drop-ins. One large room at the Altamont serves as chapel; another as a classroom and computer lab. Rev. Pebworth conducts Sunday services for more than 200 participants each week.