Alabama man who served 36 years of a life sentence for stealing $50 to be freed

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian and agencies

Alabama man who served 36 years of a life sentence for stealing $50 to be freed

Alvin Kennard was imprisoned in 1983 with a disproportionately harsh sentence under the ‘three strikes law’

Miranda Bryant and agencies
Thu 29 Aug 2019 22.36 BST Last modified on Fri 30 Aug 2019 00.44 BST

A man from Alabama who was sentenced to life without parole after stealing $50.75 from a bakery in his 20s is to be released after more than three decades in prison.

Alvin Kennard, who was convicted of first degree robbery following the bakery incident, was 22 when he was first imprisoned in 1983.

Now, 36 years on, the 58-year-old is finally to be free after a judge ordered his release from Donaldson correctional facility in Bessemer.

Kennard was given the disproportionately harsh sentence under Alabama’s old Habitual Felony Offender Act, also known as the “three strikes law”. He had previously been sentenced to three years probation for three counts of second-degree burglary in 1979.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/29/alvin-kennard-sentenced-to-life-released-prison

[secondwind]

1. Damn!! We are better than this! This makes me sooo angry!!!

[malaise]

3. Are you?

Bet he's black

[JI7]

2. everytime i read these articles i wonder if they are black and i can't think when they weren't

meanwhile people like w bush and currently pig fuck steal things and get to the white house

[Takket]

4. Jean Valjean called. He said that sentence is harsh!