Five years ago this week in a 6-3 decision, the United States Supreme Court declared that its prior 2012 ruling in Miller v. Alabama applied retroactively, thereby requiring that hundreds of former life-sentenced children like myself be resentenced.

I recall that day being one of subdued jubilation tempered by cautious optimism, having absolutely no confidence in how the sentencing judge or the parole board would respond to this High Court mandate. Would I be given an opportunity to live a meaningful life…

...or would I be condemned to prison for the rest of my life? Terrifying questions that had no immediate answers.

On June 27, 2017, I was resentenced to a term of 30-to-life. Following a successful parole hearing in August, on October 10, 2017, after being disappeared from society for over three decades, I walked out of prison on parole for life.

Sadly, in the four-year interim between the Miller and Montgomery decisions, my mother lost her battle with cancer. She was my last surviving (immediate) family member. For me, the Montgomery decision serves as a painfully cruel reminder that “justice delayed, is justice denied.”