A man in Alabama just had his sentence changed so that he’ll be getting 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 without the possibility of parole back in 1984. Alabama state law at the time mandated that since it was his fourth offence, the judge had no other option than to sentence him to life in prison.

That law, the Habitual Felony Offender Act, has since been changed so that judges now have the option of giving fourth-time offenders the possibility of parole. But when that change took place in the early 2000s it wasn’t made retroactive, so it didn’t automatically prompt a re-sentencing in Kennard’s case.

Instead, it was the curiosity of a judge that led to the re-sentencing of Kennard, who is now 58 years old.

“The judge, in this case, noticed how odd it seemed that someone was serving life without parole for a $50 robbery,” said Kennard’s attorney, Carla Crowder, who said it was Jefferson County Bessemer Cutoff Circuit Judge David Carpenter who saw Kennard’s case when some documents came across his desk.

“This was a judge that kind of went out of his way,” Crowder told ABC News.

Assistant District Attorney Bill North said that Kennard’s behaviour in prison played a role in the judge’s decision when, on Wednesday, the judge decided to change Kennard’s sentence to time served, effectively prompting his release in the coming days.

North said that “other than a few ‘settling in’ issues 30 years ago, [Kennard] appeared to be a pretty exemplary inmate.”

The underlying reason why Kennard, a man who now lives in the faith-based wing of Donaldson Correctional Facility, was sentenced to life without parole for the robbery of Highlands Bakery in 1983 was that he had been previously convicted of three non-violent property crimes.

In 1979, back when Kennard was 18 years old, he pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree burglary in connection with a break-in at an unoccupied service station, his pleading documents state. For those three charges, all of which were tied to that one incident, he was sentenced to three years’ probation.

The next time he was convicted, for the bakery robbery — which was committed with a pocket knife and involved no injuries — he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

If the same crime had been committed today, and current sentencing standards were used, even with prior offences taken into account, Kennard’s pleading document states that he would have been eligible for a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison.

Crowder said that since the change in the sentencing laws was not retroactive, there are upwards of 250 prisoners who were similarly sentenced and remain behind bars in part because they simply do not have attorneys pushing for their cases to be re-sentenced.

“As incredible as this opportunity is for Mr. Kennard and as happy as we are for him, we know that there are hundreds of similarly situated incarcerated people in the state who don’t have attorneys, who don’t have a voice,” Crowder said. “As this state grapples with the Department of Justice involvement and unconstitutional prisons, I would hope our lawmakers, our courts and our governor would do more to address these injustices.”

Read More: https://xynews.co/man-who-spent-36-years-in-prison-for-stealing-50-from-a-bakery-is-now-set-to-be-freed/

Really! Wasted years

Moral of the story... When next you rob a bakery, prepare to take a life.. Since you get a life without parole for either crime.

My God. What a badluck.

And people steal billions in my country with pride and additional hailings and applauds

He is black, no wonder.

Because he is black. Thats why.

I don't think that's the only offence he committed

Habitual offender..50 fifty dollars..make you wasted your hail days.I hope some youth will learned from him.In his next world if at all there is anything like that he would never steal again

Here I was thinking it was Charles Bronson. This is not new in Alabama with their racist laws. Sometimes illiteracy or mental illness keeps some men in prison. It might have turned out his case.

W A S T E D LIFE