At age 17, Henry Montgomery went to jail for killing a deputy in Baton Rouge. He's been in jail ever since, serving a life sentence in Angola penitentiary with no possibility for parole.
On Tuesday the Supreme Court hears a case bearing his name: Montgomery v. Louisiana. Lawyers will make their arguments before the court about mandatory life sentencing for juveniles, specifically who should get a chance at freedom.
Katy Reckdahl has a story at The Lens on his case, and she talked to WWNO's Eve Troeh about her reporting.
The high court banned mandatory life sentences for juveniles in the 2012 case Miller v. Alabama, citing the nature of adolescent brains and the ability of adolescents to change. Some prisons culled their rolls and gave prisoners sentenced to life without parole new hearings, in light of that ruling.
However, Louisiana and a handful of other states maintained that prisoners already serving life terms for crimes committed as juveniles should stay imprisoned.