A man who spent 36 years in prison for stealing $ 50 from a bakery is going to be released

In Alabama, a man has just had his sentence changed so that he can get out of prison in the next few days.

His crime: stealing $ 50.75 from a bakery 36 years ago.

Alvin Kennard was 22 years old when he was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole in 1984. The state law of Alabama at the time stipulated that, s & dquo; For his fourth offense, the judge had no choice but to sentence him to life imprisonment. .

This act, the Usher Offenders Act, has since been amended so that judges now have the opportunity to give parolees the opportunity to be sentenced for the fourth time. But when this change occurred in the early 2000s, it was not made retroactive and therefore did not automatically result in a new conviction in Kennard's case.

It is rather the curiosity of a judge that led to the re-conviction of Kennard, who is now 58 years old.

"The judge in this case noticed how strange it seemed that someone was serving a $ 50 life sentence with no possibility of parole," said Kennard's lawyer, Carla Crowder, who said stated that it was Judge David of the Bessemer District Court in Bessemer County.
Carpenter who saw Kennard's case when documents fell on his desk.

"He was a judge who went out of his way," Crowder told ABC News.

Ivana Hrynkiw

Deputy District Attorney Bill North stated that Kennard's behavior in prison played a role in the judge's decision. On Wednesday, the judge decided to change Kennard's sentence, resulting in his release in the coming days.

North said that "apart from some" settlement "problems of 30 years ago, [Kennard] seemed to be a pretty exemplary inmate. "

The fundamental reason why Kennard, a man who is now living in the denominational wing of Donaldson Penitentiary, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the theft of Highlands Bakery in 1983, because it is because he was the only one in the country. he had previously been convicted of three non-violent property crimes. .

In 1979, when he was 18, Kennard pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree burglary for breaking into an unoccupied gas station, according to his plays. For all three counts, all related to this incident, he was sentenced to three years of probation.

The next time he was convicted, for robbery in a bakery – committed with a pocketknife and involving no injuries – he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

If the same crime had been committed today and the current sentencing standards were used, even in the case of previous offenses, Kennard's pleadings indicate that it was would have been eligible for a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum sentence of 21 years. .

Crowder stated that, since the amendments to the sentencing legislation were not retroactive, more than 250 prisoners were sentenced in the same manner and remained behind bars in part because they did not simply did not ask their lawyers to ask that their case be sentenced again.

"As incredible as this opportunity is for Mr. Kennard and as happy as we are for him, we know that there are hundreds of people in the state incarcerated in similar situations who have no lawyer, who do not have the floor ",
Crowder said. "While this state is grappling with the involvement of the Ministry of Justice and unconstitutional prisons, I hope that our legislators, our courts and our governor will do more to address these injustices."

Crowder told ABC News that she had recently been involved with Kennard's case when Carpenter had asked him to consult him.

"When I went to visit him for the first time," Crowder said about his trip to meet Kennard, "the guard was chatting with me, and when he saw who I was visiting, he said:" Tu can let him out and he can let it out, no more problems. "

Crowder said more than a dozen friends and loved ones were at Kennard's new conviction on Wednesday and that "he has maintained family ties, and he has a niece who has visited him regularly. has a house to go to. "

Beth Shelburne

Since Kennard's case is still pending, he remains in the custody of the state's penitentiary department, but Crowder said he should be released "in a few days".

She said to have met him after his sentence had been changed, and that he was still thinking of those with whom he had lived so long in the dormitory of faith.

"We talked about his property and who he wanted to give it to, because there are such deprivations," she said.

"He wanted to make sure someone else had their thermals so they could stay warm this winter," she said.