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THREAD: If you think everyone with a life sentence deserves to die in prison, meet Mr. Alvin Kennard. He served 36 years for a $50 robbery of a bakery until he was released in Aug of 2019. 6 weeks after his release, he secured a job at a car dealership, where he still works. 1/7
I was there when Judge @DavidOCarpenter reduced Kennard's life w/out parole sentence to time served. It made international news & people were shocked at his outsized punishment, but the truth is, life without parole for robbery is not extraordinary in Alabama. 2/7
Mr. Kennard was sentenced to die in prison in 1983 when he was 22 bc he had 3 property crimes on his record. Alabama's habitual offender law mandated the sentence, filling up our prisons with outsized punishments, regardless of defendant's age or harm caused in crimes. 3/7
There are at least 300 men and women still trapped in Alabama prisons serving life without parole for crimes similar to Kennard's. Many of them committed crimes involving no physical injury & most were struggling with substance use and/or mental health at the time.4/7
My friend Carla Crowder with @AlaAppleseed represented Mr. Kennard and sees him regularly. He attends the same church as Bessemer's DA who did not oppose his resentencing because she saw no purpose in keeping him locked up. This is Carla and Alvin the day he got out. 5/7
"He talks about going to work like it’s the best thing that ever happened to him," Carla writes. "Work, family, and church are his priorities." If the right system actors hadn't been there, Kennard would still be in prison, forever banished from home. 6/7 https://bit.ly/2TCFuIl
Today, Mr. Kennard is a different person. That's why a life without parole sentence is unjust in cases like his. When you hear rhetoric that terminal sentences are all about public safety, think of Mr. Kennard. He is living proof of redemption & the power of second chances. 7/7
