1996-2000
Day 76 1996: A Story of Racial Bias, The Absence of Mercy, and a Death In Prison From the wonderful Equal Justice Initiative: Forty-five years after Phillip Chance traveled from his home in Detroit, Michigan, to visit family in rural Choctaw, Alabama. During that visit in 1971, 15-year-old Phillip Chance and his older brother went with their cousin to a local convenience store, where their cousin robbed and killed the store clerk. Phillip cooperated with the police and told them where his cousin hid the stolen money, but the Alabama prosecutors claimed Phillip and his brother helped plan the robbery and charged all three Black teenagers with the murder of the white clerk. Phillip’s lawyer advised him to plead guilty and assured Phillip he would get out of prison in a year based on good behavior. Phillip pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment with parole. Phillip was sent to an adult prison, where he was such an exemplary inmate that he earned his way from a maximum...