In the wake of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that states cannot impose mandatory no-parole sentences on juveniles convicted of murder, the AP surveyed all 50 states to see how judges, prosecutors, and parole boards are weighing these cases. (July 31) AP


Michael Lehman was in the treatment building on the complex that has been his home for decades, the state correctional institution at Rockview.  

It was a routine thing. Three weeks earlier, he had been before the parole board – sort of. He met with two reps of the parole system – one was on a video conference – and answered their questions. It was a brief, almost perfunctory session. His interview and his file were then passed on to the nine-member state parole board for consideration. 

At the treatment building, he asked a counselor if anyone there knew of a way of speeding up, or checking on, the progress of his green sheet – the document issued by the parole board to notify inmates whether they've been granted their release from prison. It's called a green sheet, according to the parole board, because it's printed on green paper. 

The counselor said he would check, and in a few minutes, he told Lehman he could walk down the hall and pick it up. 

More: Juvenile lifer: Prisoner of his own conscience

He held the green sheet in his hands, stunned. At some point – before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that life sentences without the chance of parole for juvenile offenders were unconstitutional – he believed that he would never get out of prison, that his life would end at Rockview. He had been locked up since June 1988, when he was 14 and arrested in the murder of Kwame Beatty, a counselor at the Children's Home of York. He is now 44. 

It didn't seem real. He read the words on the green sheet. It took a few moments to process. He just sat there for five or 10 minutes.  

"I have a chance to go home," Lehman said over the phone from Rockview, his voice still incredulous.  

He had been granted parole. 

He walked back to his housing unit, a long walk across the yard, trying very hard not to start crying. 

He called his mom and sister.  

He would be coming home. He hasn't been given a release date yet. But it should be within the next couple of months. 

It took a few days for him to completely process the information. "It's real," he said. "But it hasn't really sunk in yet. For the past 28, 29 years, I fully thought that I was put away forever." 

He grew up in prison. It has been his home, his world, since he was teenager. Now a middle-aged man, he knows no other world. He went from living with his adoptive parents, to the Children's Home, to prison. He has never lived on his own, never had to make decisions about simple things – what to eat or when to eat, for instance. 

He has said that he deserved to be locked up. He has no problem with that. He was among the four charged with killing Beatty at a group home in North York, where Beatty worked as a residential counselor. Lehman, along with two others, had run away from the home and hooked up with an older man, returning to stab Beatty in his bed at the home. The youngest of the group, Lehman served as the lookout. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole, and at that time it meant just that – no chance of ever getting out of prison. 

He always held hope that he would get out. The legal efforts on his behalf mostly failed, until the Supreme Court weighed in. He was resentenced in April to 30 years to life. 

This June, he will have served 30 years of his sentence. 

"I'm nervous," Lehman said. "I have a plan, but I don’t know what the future holds. I've never stood on my own, making my own decisions. It's scary." 

He is having a hard time with his impending release for another reason.  

"I want to be excited about it," he said. "I should be allowed to be excited." 

But he can't give himself full permission to be excited. 

"I want to be respectful to the victim's family," he said. "I'm worried that my excitement about being released would affect them and how it would affect them. I want to express myself. This is me. But I also want to be respectful." 


He said, "I feel guilty being happy about it, that it opens those wounds for his family. As happy as I am, there is someone who is equally upset and angry. I just don't want to cause anyone any more pain." 

At his re-sentencing, Beatty's siblings spoke eloquently about their brother and the hole his death left in their lives. They also expressed the desire that Lehman never get out of prison, that without his actions, Beatty wouldn't have been murdered that night. They blame him for setting things into motion that resulted in Beatty losing his life, even if he didn't wield the knife that inflicted the fatal wounds. 

Lehman understands that. He has said he has lived that guilt every day. It haunts him that a good man, a man better than he ever will be, is dead because of him. It will be with him until his time comes up, he said, and he knows there is nothing he can say, or do, that will change that. Some day soon, he will be able to go home to his family, and Beatty never will.  

More: Kwame Beatty was more than just 'the victim' (column)

He is planning for his release. He has taken classes in prison intended to prepare inmates to return to the world. He has a plan. He volunteered to go to a transition facility, what used to be called a halfway house, to ease his way back into a world he hasn't experienced. He could stay with his sister, but he said he didn't want to be a burden. He has a job lined up. He hopes to work with at-risk kids at some point, telling them not "to follow my path." 

"Maybe I can help," he said. 

Things may be falling into place, but he is still uneasy. 

Prison is what he knows. He doesn't know what it's like to be free – freedom being just a word, an almost abstract concept. 

"Through this whole process ... it didn't seem real," he said. "It wasn't real. Now, it's real." 

Reach Mike Argento at 717-771-2046 or at 

More: He killed at 17. Now, he faces life outside prison 42 years after a fatal robbery in York.


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