UDY WOODRUFF: It was almost a year ago when President Trump signed into law a bipartisan
federal criminal justice reform bill that reduced mandatory sentences.
Many states followed suit, with a notable exception, the state of Maryland.
In this story, produced in collaboration with the University of Maryland's Howard Center
for Investigative Journalism, national correspondent John Yang reports on the uncertain fate of
prisoners who are still serving life sentences for crimes they committed as minors.
JOHN YANG: In the 1990s, fear and anger over violent crime led to a sharp increase in incarceration.
That included sentencing large numbers of juveniles to life in adult prisons without
parole.
In 2012, the Supreme Court declared that cruel and unusual punishment, but, in Maryland,
so-called juvenile lifers now in their 50s and 60s still wait for parole.
Earl Young had been sentenced to life at age 17.
EARL YOUNG, Recently Released Juvenile Lifer: The system is broke.
The system needs fixing.
And one individual, Mr. Parris Glendening, was the head of this situation.
JOHN YANG: Parris Glendening was Maryland's liberal Democratic governor.
During his first campaign in 1994, he sought to counter attacks that he was soft on crime.
PARRIS GLENDENING (D), Former Maryland Governor: We must stop the slaughter that is going on
in our communities.
I support putting violent offenders in prison and giving what I call truth in sentencing.
If you are sentenced to life in prison, it ought to mean life in prison, and not 11 years,
the way it does today.
JOHN YANG: In 1994, Earl Young had served nine years for first-degree murder in a robbery
gone wrong.
Tell me what it was like as a 17-year-old to go into a maximum security prison.
EARL YOUNG: Hard.
I went into the Maryland Penitentiary with some of society's -- supposedly, some of society's
worst of the worst.
JOHN YANG: Were you scared?
EARL YOUNG: Absolutely.
Absolutely
JOHN YANG: His hope?
The possibility of parole.
EARL YOUNG: I felt optimistic because I applied myself.
I kept steady employment.
I stayed out of trouble to the best of my ability.
My days were complete from the beginning to the end with all constructive things.
JOHN YANG: But after Glendening announced in 1995 he would no longer sign paroles, Young
would remain in prison another 24 years.
More than 300 juvenile lifers sit in Maryland prisons, among them, 55-year-old Calvin McNeill,
convicted at 17 of first-degree murder in a dice game turned violent.
We spoke to him by phone.
CALVIN MCNEILL, Juvenile Lifer: I was sentenced to life, life with parole.
That's been 38 years, three months and 10 days ago.
Every time I go up, they always say, keep doing what you doing and such and such, but
we can't do anything right now because of what the governor said.
And I have been stuck ever since.
JOHN YANG: Now Glendening sees things differently.
PARRIS GLENDENING: I made a mistake.
It was a very bad mistake, in the sense that it impacted lots of people, it impacted subsequent
administrations.
But it was a mistake.
And I think it is important to acknowledge.
JOHN YANG: Because of the governor's extraordinary power, that mistake had an outsized impact.
SONIA KUMAR, ACLU Maryland: Maryland is fairly unique among states in giving the authority
to parole someone serving a life sentence exclusively to the governor.
In other states, it would be a parole board.
JOHN YANG: ACLU attorney Sonia Kumar is suing the state to restore a full parole system
and allow these lifers a chance at release.
SONIA KUMAR: Maryland's system has been set up so that opportunities for release are almost
like winning the lottery.
It's unpredictable.
It's rare.
There are many more people who are arguably deserving of it than can ever get it.
JOHN YANG: The figures in the ACLU suit are striking.
Before Glendening, four governors issued 181 parole orders over 25 years.
In the next 23 years, starting with Glendening, just two paroles were issued, both by current
Governor Larry Hogan, both adult lifers.
SONIA KUMAR: You are serving a sentence that is life with parole on paper, but, in practice,
parole is really unattainable.
JOHN YANG: From his Baltimore office, Walter Lomax has organized lifers and their families
as part of the ACLU lawsuit.
WALTER LOMAX, Executive Director, Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative: We became
more politically astute, right?
Individuals understood that this was a political issue, because the governor made that decision,
based on politics.
JOHN YANG: Lomax had been imprisoned 38 years before it was established he had been wrongfully
convicted.
When Glendening said he would no longer sign paroles, Lomax's parole recommendation was
sitting on the governor's desk.
WALTER LOMAX: I was one of those people.
So, it was pretty demoralizing, yes.
JOHN YANG: He understands the perspective of victims' families.
WALTER LOMAX: My younger brother was murdered.
And one of my grandsons was murdered in this city.
And so I personally know the pain and anguish that family members feel for that loss.
Some of these men who've committed horrible crimes, and I look at them at this later point
in their lives, and I see someone that's totally remorseful, that's totally different from
the person that they were when they committed the crime.
CALVIN MCNEILL: I am 55 years old.
I have to be a person that's crazy and out of his mind that has spent 30-something years
in prison to go back out into society and do something crazy and come back to prison?
JOHN YANG: Earl Young's sentence was commuted this year by Governor Hogan.
He now works as a mentor in the Baltimore school system, trying to discourage teens
from repeating his mistakes.
How have you changed in those 34 years?
EARL YOUNG: Impulsive behavior?
Gone.
Immature thinking?
Gone.
Putting others before myself?
Absolutely.
JOHN YANG: Glendening now says the governor should be taken out of the process.
PARRIS GLENDENING: Of all the powers you want, to be involved in that kind of decision is
not one of them.
The issues are too emotional and too political to put it on the desk of someone who is going
to turn around in a few months, a year, and run for election.
And it almost asks for political decisions on something that shouldn't be political.
EARL YOUNG: Yes, individuals have committed some serious crimes, but -- and I say but
-- for those who are deserving of a second opportunity, what's the process?
It has to be better than what we have.
JOHN YANG: Times may be changing.
In recent weeks, Hogan has paroled the first three juvenile lifers in 24 years.
Young cherishes Hogan's letter telling him he would be a free man.
EARL YOUNG: The best thing that I read during the course of my incarceration was the executive
order with my name on it.
It says: "Dear Mr. Young, I have accepted the recommendation of Maryland Parole Commission
and ordered that your life sentence be conditionally commuted to life sentence with all but 49
years suspended.
During most of your incarceration, you have served your sentence in exemplary fashion.
You have chosen to be positive and a productive person.
Please make the most of this second chance."
JOHN YANG: A second chance hundreds of juvenile lifers may never get.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm John Yang in Baltimore.