2020 Gumbo Final - Book - Page 43
LSU alumni and
Parole Project
Executive
Director Andrew
Hundley speaks
at the Tiger Prison
Project meeting
on Sept. 18, 2019.
Tiger Prison
Project club
members attend
the first meeting
of the semester
on Sept. 18, 2019.
Hundley served 19 years in prison for second-degree
murder. and he acknowledges that white privilege
may have been a factor in him being released before
others.“I was given a second chance,” Hundley said.
“Privilege is one reason. I’m not going to cover it up or
make it sound like something different.”Hundley was
the first juvenile lifer to be released in the state after
the Supreme Court decided in Montgomery v. Louisiana
that the rulings in Miller v. Alabama prohibiting juvenile
life sentences should apply retroactively.
The man who filed the petition to the U.S. Supreme
Court, Henry Montgomery, is now 72 and still sits in the
Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for a crime he
committed at 17.“I’m not more deserving than Henry,”
Hundley said. “A lot of times, when you’re the individual
that makes change for other people, you don’t get to
experience that change.”
Hundley said he got out because his parents could
afford an attorney, and he received many opportunities
while in prison because of the way he looked. He
recalled people giving sympathy towards him because
of his skin color.“People said, ‘you look like you could
be my son,’ or, ‘you look like you don’t deserve to be
here.’ Whatever that means,” Hundley said.
The Parole Project focuses on rehabilitating people
who have been in prison for years, since many of them
don’t know how to drive, get a credit card or use a cell
phone. Still, even a few months in prison can be enough
to affect the trajectory of someone’s life.
Cannon similarly recalled how a friend was arrested for
smoking marijuana in his car when he was 16-yearsold. He was sentenced to four months in jail, and paid
thousands of dollars in legal fees.“He never recovered
from the debt it put him in,” Cannon said. “He still
struggles with employment.”Milford has high hopes for
the new organization to raise awareness first in the LSU
community, but later within the state and country.“We’re
a huge school,” Milford said. “If we’re all in this, it would
make a giant impact. We have the power to do that.”
Cannon sayid she hopes the club will remain strong
after she graduates and that the Baton Rouge
community will begin to understand and actively work
towards fixing some of the issues in the prison system.
In her eyes, criminal justice reform transcends political
boundaries. “I’m not concerned with getting recognition
for anything,” Cannon said. “I just want people to be
having this conversation. I don’t think it should be a
partisan issue. It’s about human dignity.”
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