Released Juvenile Lifer John Sam Hall Comes Home

Detroit New: After 50 years, a second chance

The Detroit News reports that released juvenile lifer John Sam Hall has returned “home” to live with his sister in Augusta, Georgia, after 50 years in Michigan prisons. Hall, 67, was imprisoned for a mugging “that went tragically wrong” when he was 17. As the Detroit News previously reported, Hall was one of the first juvenile lifers released after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juvenile life without parole sentences are restricted to the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption. Hall, who was represented by SADO’s Valerie Newman, was nervous about seeing family members to whom he was a stranger, but he was welcomed home by 40 eager relatives waiting with open arms. One family member told Hall, “We don’t know you like we should, but we will.” Read the entire article here.