844: This Is the Case of Henry Dee
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Here is this week. I. From W B E Y, chicago, this is american life and my work gas. So it's going to be one of the show.

I'm just gona save things here and then get out of the way is based on a single kind, remarkable recording. Everything that happens all over the country but you never really get to hear IT. It's a parole hearing in only thirteen people in a song room having been to side should a man be released from prison.

This fact surprise me. Pro hearings system with somebody with the long sentence comes before somebody and gets a chance to get out. It's been a abolished in about a third of all the states.

Most other states have limited in various ways the reasons for that. People in prison and their advocates said IT was really subjective, racially biased and fair. There was no way to appeal the decisions, said too few people being set free. Conservative me, while found a two lenient, said too many people .

were being set free, so very few .

people get out of prison, thanks to a pro bert hearing determining if its time for the incarceration. And they're right now, there is a lot of talk about expanding the use of pro boards, making more people eligible. This build a new york state assembly, two community bls, and at one oil and other states, two reporter ben Austin got interested.

The question of the heart of all those, what is actually happening in those Pearl board hearings? How do they make these monument of decisions? What's weighed them? What does that? These words are trying to judicatory very gushi nearly impossible questions.

Like, when is a person rehabilitated? How can you tell when you a long prison sentences? And this next question is almost too grand to say oud.

But IT is in there too. What is justice? All this plays out in this weird backwater. The judicial system doesn't get a lot of scrutiny. You remember the last time you saw a news story.

Any news story about board hearing? And for all the TV dramas about, I have to say, almost every aspect of the criminal justice system in all of its parts, there is none. Set in a baro board, bangs in annoy, spent more than a year going to every pro board hearing there.

They happened once a month, each one looking at five, ten cases, and he put together what you're about to hear. The man are considering for released in this case is seventy two years old, been locked up almost fifty years. Most of his life. The proper has some information about the case, but definitely not everything you would want. That part of a bike is so interesting with me with this hearing.

How they deal with that is actually one of the hearings that spent at through IT on his very first day going to these hearings, basically, he and his producer, bill here, he showed up through two recorders of the table in middle of room and captured this conversation that you're about to hear. And I just stuck with him. This case, not just the divulge of the decision that they had made, rather stuff that they wish they knew but didn't know, but the ruling they came to suck with them okay. And I said, here's ban Austin. I'm surprised .

by how playing the hearing room is, how small there's barely enough space to fit a woods conference table and squeeze around IT thirteen board members. You're sitting elbow to elbow. These are people who spend a lot of time together. They're from different parts of the state. And in between the cases, they debate things like who has worst traffic or snow?

Don't I.

They teach each other about being long winded.

Me to.

Keep your they hunch over .

laptops and coffee cups and fat, a cordian files filled with case documents that go back way into the previous century. There's a former public school principle and a high school guidance counsellor, former prosecutors and three retired cops by law. The pro board includes both democrats and republicans. They are pointed by the governor, approved by the state senate, and it's a full time job in illinois. They are currently paid about one hundred thousand dollars a year.

The next is.

The hearing starts, yes, the chairman and acknowledges Virginian Martina is one of the board members SHE see near the head of the table and SHE beginning to talk about .

the person they're considering for release number sea zero one six, five seven. Mister d is currently seventy two years of age have been been born and ox twenty four, one thousand nine and forty six. I interviewed correctional center.

If you look around the small conference room, one person you won't see is Henry d. The guy up for parole. He's still in a prison more than one hundred miles away.

The way these hearings work, one board member travels to the prison and interviews the parole applicant. The parents are chosen at random. IT was Martini as this turn now to walk her colleagues through the details of the case and what he learned in the interview.

And you'll give a recommendation for or against these release. The other board members don't have to follow IT. Often they are down, they'll debate and after that they will vote. The whole thing takes less than an hour and for some cases, way less.

Um IT may be serving one hundred to two hundred years for two counts of murder to run consecutively and twenty to forty years for two counts of Robert is projected. This charge date is june twenty seven, twenty one sixty two.

Martini says the release date is twenty one sixty two. D was given up to two hundred years. It's what people in prison called buck Rogers time like out of science fiction hendy.

That is his last name. D E E first came before the parl board in one thousand nine hundred eighty one. People are rejected.

Get another hearing, everyone, to five years. N, D, S, had two dozen hearing since to make parole. You need a majority of the boards.

votes. D, has never even come close. In fact, in all his years of coming up for consideration, only one board member has ever voted for release. That's IT just one a big reason, the sever of the longer o crime.

the facts of the case. In the early morning of August seventeen, one thousand nine and seventy one cap driver Arthur s. Nighter stop at his chicago home after his evening chef he was accosted by in mad and cold defending James sales, who were armed and forced their way into the snider apartment.

The details, they're painful to listen to. The crime is brutal if you're listening with kids.

This is a heads up. Once inside, the offenders hawked tig gigged and buying folded after snider leaving him in the kitchen. They then took IT a snyder into the bedroom where they found gag and blind fold of her.

This was a robbery. The man stole valuables.

And then the offenders then beat her to death with a cly hammer, brutally striking her about the face, goal and body. They then return to the kitchen where they be Arthurs neider with the same hammer striking him so hard that the hammer became embedded in his kull. mr.

Sy natter was fifty two, and his wife was forty six at the time of their murder, before leaving with a number of items taken from the apartment, the offenders turned on the gas jets in the ova and set the mattress on fire. Where where? Mr, not just body.

there was evidence of rape, but no charges were brought. They stole our snider car, his taxi, and drove off. All this information is from dis original trial.

But listening to IT in this room, IT feels present tense, like this terrible events just happened. You quickly lose that. This took place in one thousand nine seventy one that a half century has passed.

The inmate and code defendant were tried together, found guilty in a jury trial. The verdict was was affirmed on appeal .

in considering release board member's way, different factors, public safety, the suffering of victims. One of the most important things they wanted hear is that the poll candidate feels remorse, that they are repentant, that in prison they've changed which is a big problem for Henry d because he insists he can't say he's sorry another reason he's only ever gone one vote in a couple dozen parole hearings the inmates version um is .

that he states and he always stated that he's in IT is never killed anyone he says that the blood that was found on his clothing was on my new amount so small that he could only be tested once he had tried to get the blood tested again and they told them that was impossible um he claims he had given a palm print that didn't match the ability print on the hammer and that that evidence is disappear he said he was never in the cap. He had gotten a call to meet sales and winter sale outside apartment .

sales as James sales, the other person charged with this crime. He says he met sales at a writers workshop. They became friends. They volunteered together at a free breakfast program run by the black panthers. So that night he says they were hanging out at sales department.

Then later, sales was walking in back to the train. That is, when they were arrested.

the camp driver in his wife were White and lived on chicago s north side. Henry d and James cells were black and live miles away on the city y's outside. The taxi was found later on the outside, but he says he and his friend had nothing to do with that. The police arrested the wrong guys, frame them. He's been saying the same thing for forty eight years.

At the trial, md did testify and he testify that he and sales left sales apartment at about two thirty five A M and we're crossing um sixty second street when um they have to hurry to avoid a speeding car. Moments later, they were called over to a police car question as to their identity and activities in the area, he testified. Police then took both sales and head to a cave park in washington park.

They both denied any knowledge of the can. According to in maybe testimony, they were kicked and beaten by the police. The police then took items out of the cap and throw them on the ground. The police also added whatever the two had in their pockets to the same pile.

Okay hede. So d says the police took them to the cab, planted evidence on them and beat them. The police say they saw them running from the cat. A trial, a doctor undercut this version of events.

A doctor testified the trial that, too, had not said anything about being being and did not observe any recent injuries or both and the defendants and um the inmate states that everyone he has asked to look into the case has said they can't because there is no DNA and everyone involved cases dead, he said he could have played guilty and was after twenty four years, but he didn't take IT because he's innocent. He believes he would have been out right now .

so what to believe after all these years? Henry d version or the police version, a Pearl hearing is the trial. These thirteen people are not here to decide whether Henry d is innocent or guilty.

Perl was set up to assess everything that happened since of conviction. But of course, as the board results with accountability and remorse, it's impossible to ignore that question of guilt. What if he never committed the crime? How could he show regret?

Another thing, the board is supposed to consider the person's behavior in prison. How is he conducted himself there for the past half century? Has he used the time productively? sure.

An answer? Yes, he has. That's where Virginia Martinez goes next. Henry d has basically been what they call a model prisoner, with two rather spectacular exceptions. These flawed me, when I heard them first one in one .

hundred and seventy nine in mate d. Escape from custody of department of corrections while at the u. Of I. Hospital for kidney chest.

That's right. He escaped from prison. This was early in his incarceration.

He was able to. So by using what look like a home made weapon, he stated that he hank off the two officers and left the keys and the weapons in the trash camp so that when someone win, they could uncouple them. He was apprehended the next day at a motel with his girlfriend .

is a crazy story. He was, he made a fake gun like a stage prop. And when he liked the officers, he was polite.

He didn't take their guns. He left them along with the keys. Some were easy to find. He was not even charged with a crime, but they did punish him by moving him out of the general prison population for a year. It's hard to get that this will play with a paro board, especially since a year later. And we d tried again another attempted escape .

he trying to walk away from mcc the natural lin correction center um while he was downtown um in federal court on a civil rights case that he and OS think he he and others had file what he said he won so he tried to walk away in the federal Marshals cotton .

and charged in so he's got a three .

year sentence and yes yes a board .

member makes a joke. The d one and lost. The man's name is pete Fisher, his White bold, a former police chief from central anode during his time on the board, he's voted against parole like two hundred times and for release in only a couple of cases. He tells me later when I interview him, that would always matters most to him is the severity of the crime, no matter how much time has passed or how much someone has accomplished in prison. Virginia Martinez goes on to describe henries accomplishments after those escape attempts in thousand and seventy nine and thousand and eighty, SHE sees someone doing about as well in prison as anyone could hope.

In the past thirty years, IT mates overall adjustment has been very positive. He has received only four.

six tickets are disciplinary infractions, and having just four of them over all that time is extraordinary.

He's currently signed to dietary department and has previously worked in correctional industries, receiving certifications for working with sheet number with where I think he made this what look like a done he makes file cabinets and other metal furniture um he has also worked in the canny plan. He never posed a threat to others except for the use of what look like this web to escape.

In one thousand nine hundred eighty three, his attitude was described as energetic, friendly and cool Operative. In one thousand nine hundred eighty, core inmates institutional adjustment was described as remarkable. Since nineteen ninety eight, the worlds model prisoner had have been used.

Because Henry d isn't there. He's like a distant character and all the .

stories wearing about he's .

turned into less a person than some abstraction of crime and punishment. But Martini is now just to say what I was like to sit with him in the present, to talk with him, to get a sense of who we is today. At age seventy two he's got a lot of health issues.

The inmate is in lent dependent and also suffers from hype tion, hype tiv, hyperactive thyroid and abNormal heart rythm um he recently underwent I think it's a second surgery on his uh for his heart condition when I interviewed in his speech was slow and clear. He was very CoOperative and responsive to questions um he had come with his a according final of information, he keeps all of this information in a file .

for people. Hendry d age older than sixty five, the interest rate is really low. Statistically, people age out of crime is just a fact, but the board still wants to know if they do. Released him that he's got a stable place to live, an income, a plan.

his pro plan. Um he's always said that he want to live with his mother, ruby in chicago. She's GTA be nineties he says over eighty five um but that over eighty five has been consistent over the years so she's got to be ninety something.

SHE requires a caretaker now he has been saving money for his and her knees es and print hands over eleven thousand dollars. He believes that he can get work in either food service or sheet metal based on his experience and certifications. Additionally, um he received a we received a letter at the end of january of an offer from porn Rivera, a former state inmate who was found to been wrongfully convicted in one twenty million doors.

Civil right based on that wrong wrong ful conviction is the reverse space of the that in may be is in is in great part responsible for the person he is today. He met in mate d while he enter um stake, angry for having been convicted of the rape and murder of an eleven year old girl, a crime that he did not commit. He says he may be taught him that he was not who the legal system portray him to be. He is now owner of legacy barber college and is a director of justice for just us, a nonprofit um providing support for innocent people who are examination and released from prison. He offered in may be a place to live in his home, a job with a barber college and whatever he needs.

Martinez is done presenting the case to her twelve colleagues around the table. The other board members will get a chance to ask questions and deliberate before there's a vote. I can't even tell at this point how Martinez is gonna vote, but right now, he says there are people who sent letters to the board who continue to oppose release. I don't know if it's the victim's .

family members are .

who he doesn't say cuss second goes.

The board chairman access to pick up our records from the table so they can discuss the protest in a close session. And we go on the hallway and wait.

But Austin, coming up the members of the paro board puzzle through everything you just heard, all the person cons, whether Henry d should go free and the castle vote, stay with us.

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American life, my regards, today's program. This is the case of Henry d. The story of a single, poorer hearing for a man was incarcerated since he was twenty four years old.

At the time of the hearing, he's seventy two years old. So here's, we are the proper members have heard about the crime. We've heard about how his radio is used, his ears in prison.

Now they have to discuss and decide should he be allowed out again. Here's been austyn. The board .

members take their seats again and settle in. They have to decide whether, after forty eight years behind bars, after this terrible crime, that some unquantifiable measure of justice has finally been served, these Henry dies, incredible record in prison. Two, and also his two escapes.

And then this, this is a certain that is innocent. It's may be the biggest hurdle to voting for him. Innocence at this point calls into question the work in the past of police, prosecutors, judges and also all those parole boards dating back to the one thousand and eighty. All of them would have needed to .

get IT wrong. As I mentioned, the codefendant, this case was probed in two thousand four.

the hearing Virginia Martinez now has to give her recommendation four, or against Henry d released from prison. How to decide? Martinus .

previously .

worked in non profits representing women and children and american ltd. us. SHE was actually one of the first two latina lawyers ever to be licensed in lenoir in one thousand nine hundred seventy five.

As far as how often people on this board vote for release, Martinis is somewhere in the middle. SHE sometimes talks about her fears of making what he calls a mistake, recommending someone for parole who goes on to commit another crime. And the crime in this case, he told me later he gave her nightmares. But SHE now tells her colleagues she's open to the idea that Henry d might be telling the truth, and police, prosecutors, judges and previous pro boards might have got one IT wrong.

I founded hard to believe that these two men, convicted of what is absolute, has to be one of the most brutal and our Better murder that we have, that they never exhibited any violence while incarcerated at state bill, which you all know about, even when they lost their appeal and events the psychist and councils predicted would set them off. Neither became violent, then maybe did escape and was disciplined.

He wasn't charged with the ID escape. He did not harm the officers and did not take their weapons. In the federal case, he tried to walk away against violence, this release, which show other inmates that there is hope.

I believe in mate d is ready to be under society. He has saved money and he has a financial and other support from part of veron. His institutional record, age and physical health would be an indicated that he is not likely to reoffend.

It's clear Martina is gna vote for release only hendry days, second vote ever. The board members now get to ask questions.

Colleagues, well, I don't want retrying IT, but you read the case you had the file is trouble. Thirty.

curious, I don't know whether he is reused, and I think it's possible. You think as fast can be innocent, yes. I mean, he had another case of a, an excEllent record.

He says he completely sales, says he completely changed himself. mr. d. Has completely changed wherever he was at the time. I mean, he is now so many three years old, and that, you know, if if part of part of the goal of the department of corrections is to rehabilitate individuals. Here is a person who has been rehabilitated.

even if he is guilty and won to admit he said that whatever we think a long prison sentence is supposed to accomplish after forty eight years, he's done IT. I should set him free. This gets that something so basic.

What is the purpose of punishment? It's a question we as a country have never really answered. And yet it's here for the board somehow to reset with.

I just have a couple questions in the dart. Just the actual point. The victim just on the cat.

yes.

And another board member seated a couple of feet from Martinez, Joseph rosie ara, he's White, a criminal prosecutor for thirty years. And he started to grill Martinez about the crime like he's got on the witness stand. IT was d according .

to the opinion found and position of the vict watch.

Uh, no, I think he he had certificates or something that again, O D says that this stuff was inside the care.

And what wasn't define position of eighty ninety bufo had there were some things .

that they found on him and and some things that they found on sales.

that's what they said. And his criminal history, twice earlier that year.

two separate the cases he was charge was still in the car. All right, we have been very time he was.

Ero seems like a clear .

novo next four member .

with questions. Donal shelton, a police officer from downstate, the only black republican on the board. Andy also wants to revisit the police account of this arrest, which dates back to when Richard nickson was president.

In my mind, I have, there's a small vacuum in my understanding how they came to be arrested, but police saw this vehicle driving dark. The car pulled over in. These guys got out the cut.

Is that right where they arrested in the siny? The car hit the, crossed the park with you on the other side of town. I don't understand.

he said. I don't know the enough to know where are the parking lot to the swimming pool of I think that what was that was near the swimming pool of washington park, where they park. And then right. So that's some and that's i'm .

just trying to forget where they got stuff in relation to .

the car because kind of .

near compared to courtrooms, all hearings can feel like there are no rules. This was one of the reasons many states are biologies IT. Suddenly, here they are debating the layout of washington park, something they could just look up on their phones.

It's unclear what any of this is getting them. The trial wrapped two generations ago. There's no new evidence, and no one in this room was involved in the case.

If this were a retrial, there will at least be witnesses, evidence. But here it's just circling the same old court documents. And even if he is guilty, that's who parole is for, right? People who were found guilty, rightly or wrongly, to decide whether today they're ready to rejoin society. But like in so many hearings, i've seen the board members, again, travel back in time to the original conviction.

So time they working with that.

I get that's what .

so I had arguing about. He says he was .

is the, you know imagine he claims his answer. Okay, IT. Is that remain consistent over the years?

yes. Okay, absolutely.

And he's had appeal and other things and that all there was any with your interview of him, was there any remorse on his part? Or I guess it's hard to .

have remorse. I said, I have never killed anybody. I didn't do this. I have never killed anybody.

Next, visitors are allowed to speak in support of parole against IT sometimes its relatives of the victims. The testimony is almost always crushing. I remember one guy, his father had been killed when he was a child.

He told me how heart IT was to live with that, then to have to come back here every few years and hear the details of the crime again and again. Other visitors include the lawyers for the parole candidates, or they are family members, but that's not the case today. Relatives of Arthur edt snider, the couple was killed, are in here. And hren doesn't have any family here either. He does even have a proponent lawyer.

and he doesn't really what. You.

the woman who responds, is sitting right next to me, her names of viv, of eut oria. She's in her eighties. And SHE advocates for parole candidates and meeting with them in prison, trying to improve their chances for years.

He attended nearly all of these hearings, writing up notes and sharing them in a news letter. So the board chairman turns her and asks, does he have anything that might offer some insight? IT, turns out SHE does. A .

while ago, I and one of the correctional officer came up to me and said he was a big fan of Henry these, and he and he knew Harry was claiming he was innocent. And he said, could you talk to him about this and tell him that, you know, if he doesn't admit that, he may never get out? And that's what I did that put in a legal goal.

And I told her I was, and I told him that I thought that there was a good gets. He would not get out if he didn't acknowledge his skill. And I understand that.

I know that. And if that means I have to stay in for the rest of my life, I can't admit something I didn't do. So that's only inside I can add to. That was my conversation.

Next, the board chair calls on a state's attorney from the county where the crime occurred that someone like this, at nearly every hearing I saw, she's there to say why the prosecution still opposes release after forty eight years, but he has no connection to the case. I'm nearly certain no one from her office has spoken to Henry d. In the decade since the trial.

So I understand like a big story of somebody who's claiming that their innocence, the fact of the matter is that systems convicted of this rural heine's double .

homework and .

the apple .

court reviewed the evidence that was presented and found that .

the conviction should be farmed. And that's what happened. This not the place.

Talk about the actual in a sense, I think him denied this would deprecate the seriousness of the offence. Bringing him paro would also do that. I I see .

denied 内裤。

It's almost time for the vote. So far, only one of the thirteen board members has said they support release. Another board member speaks up sale.

Ds, he seated by the door because he showed up last. He's a former chicago cop old school. He's wearing a track suit, he says he knows that in chicago there are a lot of documented cases of false arrest.

Diti says they use convicted. But we all know some convictions, even for the polite level. Boss, can we understand that? And for police? But i've seen there, there Better rest pretty had the victims property that's.

What the police say but even somebody .

property is property that would have been in the king on the on so okay so there's and the .

yeah and they simply because the .

police chase people doesn't mean that the police are gn. They catch you. No, IT be fifty, fifty, fifty.

Those seem like terrible as the police might be lying. Still, D S says he'd be more ready to vote for parole if entry d just had and said he was innocent.

I wish for me he had said your comment is opposed to our ministry and that would maybe feel more comfortable at the same time. You don't live the world in martians, know it's put this case very well and but sometimes I think we have to just say, hey, and maybe some doubt are like the guy he impressed me with this is go home and I understand that and that's almost.

At first they seemed like a definite no. Now i'm not so sure the chairman, craig finley, has been on the board longer than anyone else. He's a former state legislator, a motor republican.

He says he's also troubled that Henry d. Never accepted responsibility for the crime. The other man arrested with Henry d. Eventually did initially, James sales also said he was innocent. The stories lined up. Then, after years in prison, sales admitted he was guilty that they did the crime, and after that he got paroled.

Voting to promoter sales was probably the most difficult vote I ve ever cast, that it's probably two thousand and five or two thousand. And yeah, was five. yeah.

That was probably my rose. Difficult boat at the time, because they, the rose of nature, the crime, this Victorian cracked me from wrong. But IT seems to me mr. Sees that only he admitted his own guilt, but indicated that mister day was his goal defended. Much as I would like to support this for D, I am troubled LED to 这个 测试， 不然 我 the chairman .

looks like another no vote for parole。 There's often a randomness to these hearings. Sometimes the outcome seems like it's a hundred percent certain.

And then a board member will offer a strake comment and IT swings the momentum in the opposite direction. There's a board member who's barely spoken today, lisa Daniel. She's black in her fifties tattoo on one of her four arms of the words I am forgiveness.

And these hearings, she'll occasionally bring up. Our own son was murdered. He was trying to rob another Young man and a drug deal when he was shot. You'll mention this to stress that her son shouldn't be summed up by one terrible moment that nobody should. And right now he says he wants to share a theory.

Can I ask something? I offer something for consideration. mr. Italian mentioned earlier that mister d was told that if he did not .

acknowledge .

coming a crime, that he would never be parole. Maybe we wanted take into consideration. The mister sales took their advice. The mister sales was given their same device and then he took, yeah.

that's it's like something .

in the room shift, I see a few heads nodding OK. People are agreed.

We don't know.

I know. We don't know and we never know. But I would like .

to offer IT us as a consideration.

I asked .

them them sales. We said, no, he's a long we brought IT up yeah but he he didn't point a finger at that.

Just one more thing. The the reason I brought that up is because what i'm not hearing and maybe miss mary can speak to that, is that typically when someone changes completely changes their their behavior and their mindset, there is a point. There's there's a religious conversion. There's you know some sort of I opening you know life altering event, the changes of person and i'm not hearing that that took a place for either one of these gentle without their period of conservation. On my mind is, is, is wondering how was the people, how is that these two men could have? They have committed such a violent, violent hadst crime, but then moved on to live a life of peace, you know, without or or peaceful, such a peaceful existence without some point of of of turn my question do.

how could these two individuals who at state film have such an incredible record? And not only for themselves, but for d to the immediate, which the councillors tell tell us to if they mediate between the fights between inmates as well as between the staff and the inmates. How could somebody who did these were horrible, horrible, but we get, yeah, I mean, pictures of them.

They're horrible. But how could that and especially win the even the psychiatrist said, oh yeah, but as soon as if they if they don't win their appeal, they're going to go off. No, they lost their appeal and they didn't. They didn't you know, they didn't go crazy, ross. Any problems in the institution.

There really is no way to prove any of this that someone who commits a terrible act of violence couldn't on and live a life of peace other than a feeling.

As he had our council .

after us, I don't think he had um the same council of sales for the appeal. But I don't think after that I don't think he had I don't .

think he's never represented people, but he's been eligible for parole previously one .

thousand nine and eighty one. He came me for us the first time, that time he's starting one one vote. And there was and there was actually also statement in one of those decisions about, you know, he needed, he need a little more time, have IT now. But in, I think there was eighty three magic later, the board said he needed a little .

more time.

He had IT he's had forty six years. I don't believe that um I believe that he's been rehabilitative and I believe that he presents an acceptable risk. And so I.

Thank you. Emotion serious is there?

Did you say he just had four tickets in three years.

four to six thirty?

Stay fit, stay taking about that plays? Yes, yes.

And then after this discussion is zig in zagged selling the conversations over, it's finally time the born members will cast their votes. Henry d needs eight E. S.

To get parole. A majority of the fourteen member board. This is even harder today because one of the board members is absent. He still needs eight votes, though those are the rules.

Alright, any further discussion hearing on the motion is to read. And I just to get family, mister handy, did they say.

yes, mr.

No, no.

mr. Kin, yes. mr. Is jero. no. mr. Sam.

yes.

mr. T. B, no. Miss person, yes. This saniel, yes. mr. He is.

I think he's dirty, but i'm going to go from.

C, E, D, as the chicago cap, certain ly not soft down crime, says he's dirty. He still thinks Henry d is guilty, but he shrugs volp. Um anyway.

yes.

yes.

Yes.

you can hear a gasp from someone in the room because that was the eighth vote.

Then i'll go itself. yes. Long but read the, he did receive nine.

nine we will.

at the board order proved we granted unit ninety eight, nine, ninety days after .

forty eight years of incarceration. Henry d. Was going free. The whole thing took less than an hour.

Of the seven cases the board considers today, this is the only one granted release. And I can stop thinking about IT. It's all my producer billion I talk about on the three hour drive back from a spring field to chicago because we just saw a long prison sentence and it's impossible to sit through these hearings.

And I think about what decision you would make for me. There's no question I would have voted for release. And I want to be clear about what that means to save that because two people were murdered, and I don't think we'll ever know what happened.

I'm saying that even if hendy did kill eith and Arthur snider back in one hundred and seventy one and lied about IT all these years, even then to me, IT was time to let Henry d out past time. We spent a long time trying to get in touch with the family of Edith and Arthur snyder. I did eventually reach their daughter.

She's now about eighty years old. He told me he strongly opposed these release, had written a letter to the board before this hearing, and for nearly every one of his hearings over the years, he believes he's guilty. And SHE says, even if you're a saint in prison, if you take a life is forever, so you should never be let out.

We talk for a while about parole, about our different views on punishment, SHE said. Had your loved ones been killed, maybe i'd feel the same way I do. I told that that was a fair point. I still believe what I believe, but it's true. I haven't gone through .

what he has. I didn't .

say this earlier, but illini is one of the states that got rid of parole way back in one thousand hundred and seventy eight. So only people like can read sentence before one thousand hundred, and seventy eight are still eligible for hearings like this one.

So the people who come before this board are mostly in their sixties and above they're seeing your citizens, which means an any actuarial table, they pose very little risk of committing another crime. And still the pro board only says yes to a tiny percentage in the fifteen years before these hearing, just six percent of them. So who makes the cut?

In the numerous cases i've seen the people who did get released, there's always a story that enough board members were able to latch onto something that allow them finally to move beyond the magnetic pole of the longer o crime. In Henry these case, IT was the unbridled distance between the brutality of the murder and the peacefulness of his life in prison. Another guy I saw get paroled.

He had a surgery that left him bleeding in itself for years. The horror of his medical care in prison made his offense seem to the board almost beside the point. And then this other time, a man not only escaped, but lived under an aliens in a different state for years.

He was a beloved member of their community before he was apprehended. Again, the board, to my shock. So at that time, when he was at large like a test case for the positive life had live, if they gave another chance.

I thought a lot about whether elano is in the rest of the country should bring back parole, but there makes sense to get more people in front of boards. Again, parole decisions can be racially biased, completely focused on the original crime, and just rhanto m but even know in all this, I think we need more systems of second chances. The united states locks up more people than any other country, about one in six of all the incarcerated people in the world.

There are hundreds of thousands of people in prisons like enry d they spent decades behind bars. Many will die there. They deserve another look.

When we come back, ben tries ed to track down hendy. That's in a minute ago, aba radio, when our program continues.

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This american life, mara gas. But Austin picks up the story again.

even after sitting through hundred days parole hearing. I didn't really know him. I hadn't even seen or heard him, so I tried to find out more.

Here's what I learned after Henry day makes parole people at the prison celebrate even the staff and the day he walks out the front gate, he's getting hugged and congratulations from everyone. His mother still alive in her nineties. She's not walking SHE can meet him there.

But Henry is a static to see her. He gets outside his first free air in forty eight years, and there are federal officers waiting for him. They handcuff him, put him in a car.

Henry has no idea what's going on, he eventually learns, is for one of the attempted escapes all those decades ago, he's been granted parole by the state, but the feds are tacking on two more years. He's driven to a federal prison in pensylvania. His mom died during that time.

Twenty seven months later, the feds put him on a plane to chicago. He's never flown before. Has no idea how to board where to sit.

The flight attendants learned his story and move him to first class. He has to turn down the free drinks because he doesn't want to violate his parole from her hair. He gets on a train.

He's got directions written out on paper. He doesn't have a cell phone. He makes a to a cell ation army on the city's west side.

That's where he sleeping. He later moved to a homeless shelter. The friend from inside who won the wrong for conviction suit, who promise Henry a job in a home IT doesn't pan out.

So Henry, trying to figure out his new surroundings, his new life, but he has medical issues. Eventually he's admitted to the hospital. He is diabetes, flew IT on his lungs.

And after a few days, there he's dead. Henry d. Was incarcerated for fifty years. He lives free after his release for less than twelve months.

I track down a few people who knew Henry d, well, I want to take these last few minutes to tell you some things about him. Henry d, war. A frog pin around the prison.

He leave the cell house, walk on to the yard and dozens of straight ATS would appear he'd feed them. He was a large man, hands like catchers mitts. When Young guys asked who his gang chief was, he tell them his mom, because of his diabetes, he could get jittery or pass out on the toilet in his cell.

And his friends were always on watch for him. For nine years. The person who lived with him in a six by eight foot sell was a guy named Jacob Rivera.

Henry, he was funny men. Henry, I, I was sitting to sell and like down to write these letters and not having a very good educational background. You know, whoever was writing to, I try to make a thing that I was educated. So and I will try to use these big words.

And I told Henry, Henry, what can I use? how? What work can I use for a ba ba, a ba he's like, what are you trying to say and and I will tell me out trying to say and you'll say, would just say that you know about, oh yeah, you know but and he he was yeah here away.

Jacob called him grandpa. A chaplain at the prison told me he called him father Abraham because he saw, as a man of wisdom in love, those times he came up for parole, the entire prison felt hope. Here's another man who was locked up with Andrew radack.

all of the guards, all of the officers, all way up to the warden. Everybody would get engaged like everybody knew Henry eagles, the boy he's going to board and might let him out. Finally, this might be his year .

when Henry day finally got released. Andrew was already out. And when he learned that Henry was sleeping in a homeless shelter, he was furious.

So Andrew raised over to the shelter, called some people, and they got in redial apartment. They recorded a video of him seeing IT for the first time. Here is Henry day.

The area. You are. A wonderful, and this is.

Henry has .

a full .

White beer. He's wearing a old head in a grey hood, and he uses a Walker as he enters the remodeled kitchen. There are granite countertops.

Everything is bright and freshly painted. Henry is jubilant. 不要。

来。 Bear from small, other than this of my life, enjoy and right OK so much we should.

Henry had three hundred and fifty one days of freedom. I saw a video of him from one of those days. He's surrounded by three little dogs leave in all over him, and he's giddy.

He loved to play the lottery, and he had this new makeshift family, the people who knew him in prison, who now just wanted to be around him, but he never slept in the new apartment. And night he had go back to the homeless shelter. For five decades.

He had been surrounded by hundreds of people. He was terrified of being alone. Andrew told me that in prison, Henry was a giant.

after all, after all, that he survived. There was a powerhouse. This, what we all knew here we did, was so big, you and you, like, like, he talk about his hands, be a deep, powerful voice.

This was the care to the ini cae home and a real world strongroom a strong come and then defeated them. And he never got a chance to do anything that he that he really wanted to do. And one of the things he told me when he was at the hospital that he wanted to go to the observation dig on will on willers talent.

The wills tower, also known as the sears tower, is chicago's toys building.

First thing at the hospital. Take you up there. But since he said he, you know, obviously couldn't sort took his pitch that you have that a bit, a took IT up to the observation deck and took a picture of IT. Like, yeah, do you mind we get you up? so.

As far as I can tell, Henry dy out of prison was the same person Virginia Martinez saw in prison, the same person prison officials had been described into the parallel for decades.

Then Austin, he read a book about the perl system and the artisans of two men trying to go free. It's called correction. He also host a new podcast called the parole, which is around a different case in the one you just heard, kind of famous case.

Chico, actually lots of twists and turns, including a guy or pro who gets out and then insist on attending pro hearings with ben. Do you find all aid episode now? Audible 点 com slash parole。 The story was produced that by a senior editor, they would cost about.

Gna be like yesterday, do the same things are, I will not cause in holy see, I will. I heard you, I want I heard no. Am I get me a stub rise?

Will not like you, I will not like you.

Our program is pretty today by a vivo, a cornfield. People were together today's and include some coal. Michael comedie hand regards and settlin Catherine y mondo onel son arman I rami lesser ship and matt tey, managing editor sora after I in our executive editors manual.

Berry, today's was fast checked by Crystal, a swatis. He is the person on staff. We first heard ben's podcast that we might collaborate on story with them.

That track can help from inactive hostilia. And really, we in the year since is twenty and nineteen. Hearing that you just heard one of the board members saw D. S. Is died.

So first city, that depends, produce your bill healy to the invisible institute, who funded some of the early reporting the band bill did on this to say a cavo worry wilbert, Jason suhr, josh, Chris marcian, tanada or an ocean taos actually last and jake pero, thanks also to all of our life partners. That is everybody who was signed up for the new premium subscription version of our show, which had had to mention at the top of the episode. You can join them, join us as our partner, keeping the joe strong at this american life dot org slash life partners.

This american life is to go to public radio stations by P. R. X, the public radio exchange that your programs cofounder, ma, you know, he actually screen tested back in the day, but the little girl character in E, T, the drew berry, more part but the sea where they open the cause set and C, E, T, and scream tory just could not deliver. They call action. He looks at E, T, and boards out .

like the guy. He impressed me. But you need to go home.

amErica glass, back next week with more stories of this american life.

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