A man sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing a pair of hedge clippers has been freed on parole 23 years on, after a lengthy battle to get him out.
Fair Wayne Bryant, 63, has been in the US’s largest maximum-security jail, Angola, since 1997.
The Supreme Court had repeatedly declined to review his sentence for being a “habitual” offender under the USA’s three-strikes law.
But Bryant, of Louisiana, was granted parole last Thursday shortly after the Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole voted for the move.
His new-found freedom comes after years of campaigning by human rights groups including the Louisiana American Civil Liberties Union, NBC News reports.
Bryant was 38 when he was caught red-handed stealing a pair of clippers from a carport storeroom at a home in Shreveport and arrested in January 1997.
He had been convicted of a burglary that year and had previous convictions, so was sentenced to life in prison under state law under the USA’s three-strikes law.
Mr. Bryant will now enter a program in Baton Rouge which teaches prisoners how to adjust to life as a free man.
Authorities will let him move into his brother’s home in Shreveport on completion of the program.
Mr. Bryant must also abide by a curfew, attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and complete community service.
Human rights groups called the board’s decision to grant parole a “long-overdue victory.”