Would you leave the man who killed your sister in prison?

Mr. Singleton knew that his project would require difficult conversations with victims and their families, prosecutors and the public.

One evening in February, he texted Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Attorney, headquartered in Cincinnati. He asked Mr. Deters, a man respectful of public order, what he might think of a project focused on the possibility of early release for people who have spent a lot time in prison, not challenging their guilt and showing a strong history of re-education. Mr Deters said that he was quite for it.

"I think it's not often," Deters said in a phone interview, "but some people are changing into jail."

The news from the Beyond Guilt project has spread. Family members, as well as prisoners themselves, wrote to the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, and even correctional officers quietly proposed candidates.

In June, Mr. Singleton filed the first motion of Beyond Guilt on behalf of Mr. Robinson.

It is based on a rule of procedure, generally reserved for civil proceedings, which alleviates previous judgments, arguing that in such a case such a remedy would be in the "interests of justice".

So Mr. Robinson is waiting, as he has been doing for 22 years. He thinks about Veronica Jackson every day, he said during an interview in jail. He killed him by accident, he says; he is not "an animal", as we must suppose. But the drug trafficking that led to his badbadination – it was up to him to answer.

"It's horrible," he says in a low, trembling whisper. "No matter how you look, it's horrible. I can try, but I know that no matter what I do, it will not change anything. I have to live with that. All others must live with. His family must live with. "