It's been 31 years since Ron Keine was sentenced to death for the murder of UNM student William Velten.
Keine sat quietly in the SUB Monday, fiddling with his briefcase, waiting to address more than 100 people about his experience on New Mexico's death row for a crime he says he didn't commit.
"We spent 22 months on death row in Santa Fe," he said when he rose to speak. "But they actually put us on death row before we went to trial."
Keine was traveling through New Mexico in 1973 with a motorcycle gang from California at the time of Velten's murder.
"We were pretty rowdy," he said. "We were having fun, raising hell and drinking beer. But we weren't killers."
Keine has been on a speaker circuit since 1998, talking at colleges and universities to advocate abolishing capital punishment.
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"Maybe God got me out for a reason," he said.
Keine, who is now a business owner in Michigan with four children, said the evidence against him and the other three men was fabricated by the state, which was seeking a killer in the case.
"They lied and manufactured the whole case, every single bit of it," he said. "This shows there is something wrong with the system."
In 1975, Kerry Rodney Lee came forward and confessed to the Velten murder.
"We got some hope then, but no judge would hear it," he said.
Vern Payne, a judge at the time, decided to hear Lee's case after the original judge stepped down. Payne said he didn't believe the four men were guilty of the crime.
Payne and James Brandenburg, the district attorney who convicted the four men, also attended the talk.
At one point, Keine was asked if he received any apologies for being wrongly convicted.
Keine said no.
"No one ever apologized for what happened to us," he said, looking at Brandenburg. "And I forgive you."
Brandenburg responded by saying the speakers misled the audience about the facts.
"The body of evidence that convicted those gentlemen was overwhelming," he said, adding anyone in their right mind would have found the men guilty.
"Sure, because you made it all up," Keine responded.
Brandenburg said hair and blood matching the victim was found in the group's van.
"That's an outright lie!" Keine shouted, standing up.
Charles Daniels, the defense attorney for Lee, asked Brandenburg if he still believes Keine is guilty.
"I still do," Brandenburg responded. "I believe Kerry Lee didn't do it."
Payne ended the outburst.
"This demonstrates why we need a judge and jury," he said.
Alpha Kappa Delta, the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty sponsored the talk.
