The boy, who was sentenced to life imprisonment

 

 

SYNC: J - Can you introduce yourself? Carl - That’s really too easy, bro. A, B, C. My name is Carl Wilkins. At 15… Hm, I guess it is not easy… At 15 I made the dumb decision to hang with friends and commit an act of robbery that went wrong. It was in 1994. Because of such I was given a life sentence…

 

PHONE CALL: This is a call from SCI Phoenix Correctional Facility …

 

The United States imprisons more of its inhabitants than any other country in the world. And has a long tradition of sentence minors to life in prison.

 

SB Carl: Here’s me.

 

Carl Wilkins was convicted of contributing to murder. It wasn’t Carl who shot, but he provided the gun.

 

Carl (phone): It is still hard to sit back and forgive myself.

 

But now, a change of law means that Carl gets an unexpected chance -

 

Carl: As I'm being released, I'm thinking of all the new challenges it's going to be facing me.

 

- After 25 years behind bars, he is facing a society that has changed radically.

 

Carl: It’s my list of things to do to feel acclimated back in society. Uh, number one …was, uh, spent a night at my mom's house...

 

 

THE DAY BEFORE RELEASE

 

Carl’s mother: Carl was kind of quiet... Very helpful. Very sweet. He wasn’t a mamma boy in a certain way.

 

Name tag: Ernestine Davis – Carl’s mother.

 

Carl’s mother: Carl and my daughter stole my car. Jakob: they stole your car?? Carl’s mother: Yeah, they stole my car right here… Jakob: What did they do with it? Carl’s mother: Joyriding… Jakob: How old was he? Carl’s mother: About 14...

 

Carl’s mother: ...um, but yeah, he wasn't a trouble child until he got to being teenager, playing follow the leader.

 

In 1994, when Carls was imprisoned, The United States was hit by a wave of violent crime, and the country feared what was considered a particular type of criminal teenager:

 

Hillary Clinton (archive): They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators. No conscience. No empathy.

 

Joe Bidden (archive): They are beyond the pale many of those people. Beyond the pale... We have no choice but to take them out of society.

 

Jakob: So that is Carl in prison there. Still young. Tough guy.

 

Carl’s mother: Yes, that’s when it hit him that he was there.

 

Jakob: … and for a long time.

 

Carl’s mother: Trying not to cry...but it is not easy…cause he’s coming home.

 

Carl grew up in one of Philadelphia’s poorest and most dangerous neighbourhoods. His father disappeared for long periods, and when he was home, he beat the children. As an 11-year-old, Carl began taking drugs.

 

Jimmy: ...growing up in a certain environment… where abuse, you know, mentally, physically goes on.

 

Name tag: Jimmy Williams, Carl’s stepbrother.

 

Jimmy: You got drugs, you got guns, you got a lot of things that go on…

 

Jimmy is Carl’s stepbrother and best friend. It is Jimmy who has to get Carl when he is released.

 

Jimmy: Like I got clothes that I've been, uh, oh excuse me for one second. Yeah. I've been trying to pick out outfits and like, you know, I got him sneakers….

 

Jakob: How much clothes does he have when he gets out?

 

Jimmy: Right now, just this.

 

When Carl was found guilty, according to the law he was then to be automatically sentenced to life without the right to parole.

 

Minors can still be sentenced to life. United States are one of the only countries to allow.

 

But the Supreme Court has said that it can no longer be done automatically. Each case must be assessed individually. That’s why Carl and about 2,100 others can try to get the verdict reversed – and perhaps be realised on parole.

RELEASE

 

Jimmy: Thank you for doing this with me….

 

Davida: I wonder was his mentality is like right now… Jimmy: I know… his head is probably just… Davida: Worse than yours? Jimmy: Yeah, for sure. He just did the 25 years…

 

We can’t film on the grounds of the prison, so Jimmy’s wife drives in to get Carl while Jimmy is waiting outside.

 

Jimmy: I don’t know whether to smile, cry or laugh. I’m just all knives (?).

 

photographer: Oh, here they come… Jimmy: yo!

 

Carl: Why didn’t you come…. You almost lost your woman. You know, I… Now it can only move forward, bro (or something like that).

 

Jimmy: How does it feel to have your feet on free soil?

 

Carl: I weigh 260, but I only feel like I weigh 190 … I think if I jump, I might get stuck…

 

Carl: It wasn’t all bad. It was bad physically. But it wasn’t all bad mentally, because it put me in a better place mentally. It helped me embrace humility.

 

Carl: This is a heck of a feeling, yo. I swear, it is a heck of a feeling.

 

SB, Carl: Wow. Crazy…

 

 

COALPORT, PHILADELPHIA

 

For each of the lifetime convicted there is also a victim – and a family who believed the guilty would be in prison for the rest of their lives.

 

Ronald Klatz: ...here was the last picture taken of him.

 

Ronald Klatz’s son was 16 when he was murdered in 1997 by another student in his school.

 

Ronald Klatz: This is like a month before he was murdered. That was his high school picture right there...

Name tag: Ronald Klatz, Micah’s dad

 

Ronald Klatz: All the kids all liked him. Unfortunately, one didn't but...

 

The student forced Micah up here – to a deserted road in the forest. It is the first time in 17 years that Ronald has been here.

 

Ronald Klatz: It is real eerie. I am just not real comfortable with that being up here? Yeah, I'm all right. I just. It is just that weird feeling of coming back to where uh, or it happened at. It’s weird being here. Let's walk up the road further. Yeah.

 

Ronald Klatz: I still feel guilty. I could have done something to stop it. Like, I should have known. I should have had some kind of instinct …

 

Jakob: Is that a feeling that has sort of stayed with you?

 

Ronald Klatz: Yes, never goes away...

 

Ronald Klatz: So about right in here, right about here, right about in here.

 

Ronald Klatz: He made him kneel and then he shot him in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun. After he killed him, he, uh, drag him off the road somewhere in this area in here. He put him over the bank and he covered him with leaves.

 

Jakob: And why did he do it?

 

Ronald Klatz: He was jealous over his former girlfriend that... cause she like Micah.

 

Ronald Klatz: I just can't get that image out of my mind of him in the, yeah, the funeral home. Yeah. The way it's body was torn up I just can’t get that out of my mind….

 

Micah’s killer was sentenced to life imprisonment without the right to parole. But because of the change of law, a judge in August must decide whether he should be entitled to be realised.

 

Jakob: And what is your biggest fear?

 

Ronald Klatz: That he'll, he'll get out of jail. That’s my biggest fear. Yeah. I just can't believe after 22 years later; it's still going on. You know. Life without parole should mean life without parole. You know. But it doesn't, it doesn't. It absolutely doesn’t.

 

 

-

 

Carl: Wow...Damn. Look at that, hey!

 

From prison, Carl drives back to the neighbourhood he grew up in. And as he last saw 25 years ago.

Carl: Yo, if I reach for the handle again to roll this (window) down, where…do you know what I mean? Jimmy: You push the button. Carl: Oh, alright.

 

For the first time in his life, Carls is going to a restaurant. He has been released for under three hours.

 

Carl: I'm trying to stay composed as much as possible, but it's very hard to.

 

Carl: What’s up man? That’s a big mirror… Jakob: We can sit over there… Carl: Yeah… 

 

SB, Carl: Eggs with cheese… Bacon. Belgian waffles.

 

Carl: A lot of choices. Got too many choices now.

 

Carl: Also, I keep finding myself looking at the person across from me, and I see me. It's me in a mirror. But I didn't recognize me, as a free man. I can't recognize me. I had to keep looking... I keep taking a glance over, begging that you ask me another questions, take my mind off of it.

 

Jakob: When is the last time you had so many options? Carl: I don’t think I ever had this many options.

 

Carl: It seems bigger. Maybe because of the trees.

 

Old friend: 25 years. Don’t get distracted.

 

Carl: I promised I made it myself.

 

After breakfast we go for a walk in his old hood. He wants to show me the place where the robbery and murder happened.

 

Carl: That day we were sitting in a house getting high of weed and angle dust.

 

They decided to commit a robbery. Carl picked up his father’s gun, took out all the bullets – he believed – and gave the gun to his friend. The friend quickly found a victim.

 

Carl: He don’t even see us, because he is coming this way. He is walking through this lot…

 

The friend ran up to the guy and threatened him with the gun.

 

Carl: The brother went to go reach and grab for it. And the gun goes off...boom!

 

Jakob: What thoughts were running through your head?

 

Carl: The thoughts were “I just fucked up...I just fucked up.” Even though I wasn’t the killer. I just fucked up. I knew that back then.

 

Carl: And then when I found out who this brother was. When I wound out that he was an artist, you know what I am saying. When I found out he was an artist, he was 18-19 and he went to a school for performing arts for kids. Are you serious, yo?

 

 

-

 

Ronald Klatz: It's hard to believe that it's been 22 years…

 

Ronald Klatz: I just wonder what he'd be like, like today, I'll never know that.

 

Jakob: Is that something that you spend a lot of time thinking about?

 

Ronald Klatz: Yes. Yes.

 

After the murder of his son, Ronald Klatz’s life fell apart – and he ended up as homeless.

 

Ronald Klatz: I couldn't function, I couldn't, you know, my mind was just all over the place and just eventually moved into a tent and was there for quite a while.

 

Ronald Klatz: Even when my grandson was born… I didn't see him till he was like six months old. I couldn't bring myself to, you know, get attached to anybody or anything. There's something that, you know, will never go away and I'll get streaks of nightmares that are absolutely terrible... I'm on medication, to help me some now. But… It's like in a stage of recovery, but you'd never, never recover it.

 

Jakob: The killer, the guy who did this to your son - does he deserve a second chance?

 

Ronald Klatz: Nope, absolutely, positively not.

 

Ronald Klatz: I think they were rough on some of the juveniles, I really do. … I think a lot of them deserve a second chance, but you know, not all the ones who really committed vicious murders and meant to do it and planned it out.

 

-

 

In the state of Pennsylvania, 410 out of the 520 inmates sentenced to life as minors have so far received a new verdict. 75 percent have been entitled to parole.

 

Davida (on the phone): Good morning sunshine…

 

It’s Carl Wilkins first morning in his new, temporary home. A room he has borrowed from a friend.

 

Carl: Ey yo, I didn’t sleep at all last night, yo. Davida: I figured you’d have some anxiety. Carl: Yeah, it wasn’t that. I was all on the phone.

 

Carl: Facebook is crazy, yo.   ...alright, I love you, thank you though. Davida: Alright, I love you too. Be safe and have a good day.

 

Carl: That was Jimmy’s wife, just calling to check up on me. Jakob: That’s nice… Carl (crying): ...on my first day. It’s all shit like that, yo.

 

Carls receives food vouchers and about DKK 1,300 a month. Everything else he has to find himself. After 25 years in prison, Carls must build his life – from scratch.

Carl: Yeah, I got this list that I’ve been working on for a while of about 132 things I wanted to do in order to hopefully fully acclimate to being back out here. Uh, ride the subway from one end to the other, you know… Um, walk the whole Kelly drive from one end to the art museum...

 

Carl: As a kid, we used to go down Kelly Drive… one end of Kelly Drive was a bunch of traffic, a bunch of noise, and as you continually go on it starts softening out, you see water, you see geese, you see trees. So that run is symbolic of me running away from the penitentiary back to my mother’s house you know?

 

 

-

 

Checker: Are you trying to get on the train? Carl: Yeah. Checker: Do you have a key card? If you don’t have exactly 2,5 here’s a way that get you to change.

 

Carl: My mother's always been a strong minded individual, yo. I feel like I disrespected her… I feel ashamed that she had to put her life on hold for 25 years.

 

Ernestine: Now, look how you Turk-tied me up… Carl: Tied you up for what? Carl: Why are you crying? I thought you were tough. Why are you crying, big baby? Ernestine: I’m not your baby.

 

Ernestine: I shrink. Carl: Yeah, you shrunk, you shrunk. Ernestine: You got a beard Carl: Yeah, I got this little wig-wig. Ernestine: Oh my god- Oh look at my big boy.

 

Carl: You aren’t got to go see me in no court room, no more… I got something for you, yo. Ah look at you, B…

 

Jimmy: Hey, take a selfie, come on, take a selfie.

 

Carl: Take a selfie? What they call… is this what they call a selfie, where you take a picture of…

 

Jimmy: You’ve got to use your thumb to hit the camera button.

 

Carl: Where’s the camera button, right there?

 

Jimmy: No, the one in the middle

 

Carl: That ain’t no... yo, what the hell??

 

Jimmy: You see his eyes??

 

Carl is home again, but it is still a parole – with rules controlled by a parole officer/probation officer.

 

Carl: ...you know, be in by 11 o’clock, until he takes me off that curfew. Don’t go out of the city without checking in… no ammunition, don’t be in no hostile environment, don’t get high. Everything that I already don’t do, that I am totally against now… maintain positive work history, if not - go to school…

 

Ernestine: Just let me know when you are ready to eat.

 

Carl: Yep, let me get that boogie out of your nose.

 

Ernestine: You are nasty... stop.

 

There has recently been a minor reform of the US legal system, but the United States is increasingly imprisoning its inhabitant than any other country in the world, and every ninth American man ends up in jail. For blacks, it’s every third man.

 

 

 

-

 

Today, Ronald Klatz is no longer homeless. He works again and has contacts with his family. He works, he says, but no more.

 

Ronald Klatz: People say, well that would've killed me if that would happen to my son or daughter, but it did kill me. I just can’t enjoy living a natural normal life.

 

 

ONE MONTH LATER

 

Carl: Mentally and emotionally this allowed me to be able to release a lot of things. To be vulnerable we couldn’t in there. Not that we didn’t know how to but we just couldn’t. You know what I mean?

 

Carls Wilkins has now been released for a month. He has got a job and participates in several support groups for former life prisoners.

 

Carl: It’s crazy, yo. You couldn’t tell me in words what they were going to do, man.

 

So far, 184 former life prisoners have been released in Pennsylvania. None of them has been convicted of new crime.

 

For Carl, this is an unexpected opportunity. A chance to prove that he is more and better than the boy he was – back then 25 years ago.

 

Carl: one of the main things I said that I wanted to do, I mean not even, whether I'm stressed out or not yo, I want to run away from this. Not as fast as possible, but just run away from this in a direction that I know is quieter, is more peaceful, is more way beautiful than where this came from...

 

 

 

CREDITS:

 

Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR)

 

Journalist: Jakob Krogh

Photographers: Mathias Vejen & Thomas Overgaard

Edit: Susanne Beate Askøe, Marie Klareskov & Ann Michele Max-Jakobsen

Editor: Søren Klovborg

Graphics: Kim Thorbjørnsson

Editor in chief: Johan Engbo