i had so many thoughts leading up to this assignment as to what it was gonna be like. trying to imagine going down this road, knowing it s a one-way trap. there s this moment when you get this last glimpse of the world around you, but that glimpse is through steal match. louisiana s highway 66. it s a beautiful countryside. it s undoubtedly not lost on the countless men driven to the place where they ll most likely die. but road ends here. the louisiana state penitentiary. a former plantation the size of manhattan. 28 square miles. most people call it angola, named after the african country that was home to the slaves who once worked these very fields. now, angela is the largest maximum security prison in the country, where today, i ll be housed with about 5500 men. i m heading into ground zero of mass incarceration. there s certainly a heightened awareness as i walk through here. no guards. for the next couple days, i ll be staying here, explain key issues of the pri
$6250 for each of his 28 years behind bars. from 2016 to 2020, 374 people wrongfully convicted of murder, 61% african-americans, have reunited with their families together they spent over 6000 years in prison. years. years they will never get back. that s all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thank you for watching. i am craig melvin and this is dateline. leading up to this assign what it was going to be like. i had so many thoughts leading to this assignment as to what it would be like. trying to imagine going down isoad, knowing it s a one- way trip. this moment where you get your last glimpse of the world around you, but that glimpse is through steelman mesh. louisiana highway 66. it s beautiful countryside and undoubtedly not lost on the countless men driven to the place where they will most likely die. that road ends here. the louisiana state penitentiary, a former plantation. the size of manhattan. 28 square miles. most people call it angola named
name is andrew hundley. he might look like a lawyer, but he s actually the first juvenile lifer in louisiana to be released because of montgomery s supreme court case. all right, all right. today s the day. oh, yes, sir. hundley served 19 years in prison. at age 15, hundley was out with a teenage girl when they got into an argument. he became enraged and beat her over the head with a metal rod, and then tried to get rid of her body by burning it. you committed a pretty savage crime. it was a horrible crime. an unexcusable crime. and there s nothing i can do that will be able to undo that. thankfully they were able to look and see how i had changed. so, if a parole board said that he changed after 19 years, what will it say about henry montgomery after 55 years? you re the first guy that got out and he s still here. yeah, there s a lot of guilt. i went to prison
so, what about violent offenders? like the juvenile lifer group i met, or the men dying in hospice. we clearly met people in that prison who don t pose a threat to society. but in your opinion, do some people simply belong in prison because what they did was just reprehensible? well, because what they did was reprehensible and there continues to be opposition in the community and among the victim s family. and look, whether someone continues to pose a threat to society is a factor to be considered in whether they get released. but not the only factor? correct. it can t be the determinative factor to the exclusion of all others. both henry montgomery and clifford hampton face opposition from their victims families. what will happen to them when they see the parole board? montgomery is about to find out. and someone has come to support him. his
board themselves. do you think you should be paroled? i should be because i m not the same guy as a 17 year old guy. i m 55 years older, you know? i m mature enough to know i ain t going to do that again. but that might not matter. this is montgomery s second parole hearing. he was denied last year just a year before. and it seems clear to many why montgomery is still in prison. you killed a cop? yeah. the man montgomery murdered was deputy sheriff charles hurt from east baton rouge. in november 1963, montgomery, then 17 years old, was playing