What's Next For Michael McCormick?

What does a man who spent more than 15 years on death row do, if he becomes a free man after years of appeals?

That and so many other questions are what Michael Lee McCormick is facing, after a jury finds him not guilty of murder during a second trial.

McCormick is the first death row inmate to be exonerated in Tennessee since the death penalty was re-instated back in 1978. On a national level, he is the 125th death row inmate to see freedom. Compare that to the 7,000 or so who were executed in the same time.

The odds are that McCormick won't remain a free man. Inmate studies show that two-thirds of people released from prison are re-arrested for another crime within three years. Most of them within six months of release.

"You know, it's got to be a culture shock to get out, 22 years later," according to Chattanooga Police sergeant Rick Micney.

Mincey and his fellow officers deal with people like McCormick every day - people who have been institutionalized in a prison getting food, clothes, medicine and a place to stay.

"We see these guys out here on the street, they get out of prison and they really don't know what to do, they have trouble finding jobs, whatever," Mincey said.

Who will hire a man once on death row for murder? Who will rent an apartment to such a man? How will he get expensive psychoactive drugs that taxpayers have paid for during the years to keep him stable? And where will McCormick stay, since he hasn't had any real family to speak of?

The only person we saw in court during the second trial on behalf of McCormick is Christine Nation.

"We prayed and prayed and asked God when we found out about him - he's my husband's half brother - if God pleases, if he didn't do it, send somebody to get him out of there. He got his answered prayer and He doesn't fail," Nation said after the verdict was read Wednesday.

McCormick did marry a woman while in prison, but she divorced him.

The odds of someone released from prison returning are even greater if they have alcohol or drug dependencies, which testimony shows McCormick does. In fact when McCormick was released on bond to await a second trial, police caught him with marijuana in July 2004.

He was in jail since then.

McCormick is scheduled to be back in court for the misdemeanor drug charge December 17.

But a lot has changed in Chattanooga, and the world, in the last 20 years. So can McCormick handle that, considering all he's experienced?

"He's been found not guilty and exonerated. Now he hasn't been vindicated because he can't get his 20 years back," attorney Mike Richardson said.