Caged Kids

- You made a choice, and that choice was to be thugs.

- They were children. All sentenced to hard time. Lisa, a promising athlete.

“- Give me all the [bleep] when you're right now, right now!”

- She's the girl behind the mask. - No, it wasn't scary. - She's serving seven years. - It was just heaven. Sean was 16 when he killed his friend's father.

She was being abused. - I was a kid with braces on his teeth that thought he was helping a friend than trouble. - He got eight to 24. - I was introduced to a world I had no idea existed.

- Also.

- We're talking about a 17-year-old girl.

- Will Rebecca go free? - You've been here for how many years? - Eight years. - So as far as your concern, the state then will be setting free a cold blood of murderer.

- Kids, tried and convicted as adults. Should we throw away the key?

“- What happens to been eight-year-old shoot somebody?”

You put them in prison for the rest of their life. 48 hours investigates. Caged kids. - Like to leave around between 7 and 7.30 to get there when visiting hours began around nine.

- Missy Phillips is on her way to visit her son Josh in the Marion Correctional Facility in Lowell, Florida. - I mean, I love my son. I just want to support him and I miss him. - It's a trip.

Missy has taken once a week, every week, for the last five years.

- And then he's always sad when I leave him there.

- It's hard because it's going to be another week. - I love my mom, she's a, it's a, it's a real strong. - 20-year-old Josh Phillips has spent a quarter of his life behind bars. - Oh, I'm glad that she's there with him now.

- And we'll remain in prison until the day he dies.

“- When you look into his eyes, when you see his face today,”

what do you see? - I see my son, I see a little boy that I saw grow up. - Josh is a monster in my mind because normal people don't kill their playmates. - Steve and Sheila Clifton's daughter, Maddie,

was just eight years old when she vanished from her Jacksonville floor to neighborhood, in November 1998. (sighs) - Maddie, please come home.

- Come on, Maddie. - I'm just here already for you, come on home. - I'm going in the woods if anybody wants to go with me. - 48 hours was there as thousands of people search for Maddie.

- Maddie, it is gonna come home. She wrote a song. - Hey! - Hey! - There was no night in the day.

It was just this night, Maddie. It was horrible. - It took seven days for Stephen Sheila Clifton to learn what happened to their daughter. - We found Maddie Tiffton this morning.

She was dead. - Oh my God. - Maddie Clifton had been right across the street the whole time. Her body stuffed under 14-year-old Josh Phillips, waterbent.

- It's the brutal, senseless ladder. - Josh told police that while playing, he accidentally hit Maddie with a baseball. - He told the police that he carried her in the house and took her to his room and put her on the floor.

- This is Josh's dad, Steve Phillips, in 1998. - And that, she started to make noises. And he got scared even more. - Scared because Josh was afraid of getting in trouble. In a panic, Josh hit Maddie with a baseball bat

and stabbed her to stop her screaming. (dramatic music) - Okay, so the state of Florida versus Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips. - Josh, who had no history of violence,

was charged as an adult with murder. - We the jury finds a defendant guilty of murder in the first degree. - Mr. Phillips in the custody, please. - In the early 1990s, most states, including Florida,

changed their laws, making it easier to try juveniles as adults, putting the emphasis on punishment rather than rehabilitation. - It was in this climate in 1999 that Josh Phillips was sentenced to life without parole.

- 48 hours interviewed the Clifton's a week

after Josh was convicted.

“- Does Josh deserve to spend the rest of his life in prison?”

- I believe so. - I don't know what should happen, but. I like to get out. - This was 15-year-old Josh before he was transferred to state prison.

- Why did this happen? - I don't know, I'm not. - I don't think I have the answer. - And after five years in prison. - I really don't know, not really.

- Josh still doesn't have the answer. - Are you angry, are you angry young man at 14? - I had anger in me, I guess. - I don't know, maybe I should get some kind of, counseling or something, find out what was wrong with me.

- But since he's been incarcerated, Josh hasn't had any counseling to understand why he killed Maddie. - I'm just sitting here, I'm doing this in here, eating, doing stuff that work.

And that's all I do every day, and this would be like that pretty much to a dive. - And maybe one day he's going to realize the severity of how many people he affected by doing what he did. - Sheila Clifton's life has been dramatically changed

since her daughter Maddie was murdered. (upbeat music) After 25 years of marriage, Sheila and Steve Clifton are now divorced. - My husband, he was so struck in the grief.

We just went in totally different directions. (gentle music) Watching her grow up, the dreams and the hopes that we had are gone, and that's a hard thing for mom to accept.

- What do you think about what you think of Maddie? - I think about this little girl that didn't deserve a dive. And I think what the hell is going through my head, you know. I screwed up my life, I screwed up hers. Steve's not going to have a chance to do anything.

And I saw it because of me. - I believe in redemption, I believe that there needs to be a second chance. Florida State Senator Stephen Geller

“may hold the key to Josh Phillips future.”

- We have to start recognizing the children are not just short adults. What happens if an eight-year-old shoots somebody? Do you put them in prison for the rest of their life? Under current Florida law, you can.

I'm sorry, I think that's wrong. If we passed today's bill, we'll be able to do something about that. - He has introduced a bill that would make

first-time violent juvenile offenders serving life sentences

eligible for parole after eight years. - Charles Manson gets the opportunity to have parole. Why should this 14-year-old at the time of the act? Why should they not have the opportunity for parole? - For now, though, prison, not parole, is Josh's reality.

I was just lately the life sentence is just hitting me kind of. Every day you see a big line in the medical, every day for pills and stuff, and you see a bunch of guys walkers and stuff, and it looks like that. That might be me, another 50 years.

- Since Josh has been away, his father Steve died in a car accident. - Josh loved his dad and Steve loved Josh, so I had to stay strong for Josh. I've got mom down for you.

She's all got left. - But with all that has happened, Josh has done well in prison. Despite living in a general adult population since he was 15,

he says he was never sexually assaulted.

- No, I'm never really had any physical problems in prison. - Josh has gone on to receive his high school diploma, and now works as a law clerk advising fellow inmates. - He wants to do well. He wants to make something of himself.

- What do you believe should happen to Josh?

“- I believe he should have a chance to get out of some day.”

- And surprisingly, today... - I don't hate him. I hate what he did. - Even Maddie's mother has had a change of heart. - Do you think that Josh should ever get a second chance at life?

(dramatic music) - Maybe one day, being put away in prison for life's... the can of magic. I don't think any child should have the suffer of that.

- I don't think it's appropriate to lock him up and throw away the key. - And Senator Gellert may have an unexpected ally. - Tell me all that time. - Just last week, Florida's conservative governor,

Jeb Bush, said he is seriously considering supporting Gellert's bill. But if the bill passes, it may affect only future cases. Meaning Josh's life sentence would remain. His only hope would be a grant of clemency.

- If I got out, I'd have, you know, I'd owe the world a lot, you know,

'cause I gave me a second chance,

“and I'd try to do whatever I could to repay him.”

And so, I don't know what his average chance or not, but I want the chance. (dramatic music) - Sean Thoughty was helping a friend in trouble. - I really didn't think of the repercussions.

He's had 16 years to think about it. - I mean, I made a huge mistake. I was introduced to a world I had no idea existed. (dramatic music) - Still to come.

- No, what the (beep) (beep) right now! - When we don't start to deal effectively with our situations,

we're never gonna be able to get past them.

- As much as you can try. - I'm just a good listener, and you can't underestimate the power of a good listener. - That's not good enough. - Sometimes in this group,

listening is all Sean Pika can do. - I kind of didn't relate 'cause I just came home myself. - They are men recently released from prison. - How long were you away for? - Three years.

- Despite the shirt and tie and a master's degree, Sean can relate to their struggles. - A lot of times, there's not $20 open for us. - That's because Sean Pika, the counselor, was once Sean Pika, the convict.

- It's hard to swallow that due to my own efforts, my own hand, that I lost 16 years of my life. - Sean, now 35, spent half of his life in maximum security prison. - When I was 16 years old,

I shot and killed my friend's father. (ominous music) - It was in 1986 here in Southern Long Island, where Sean Pika, a high school junior, sat next to a girl named Cheryl Pearson in home room.

Although they were just casual friends, Cheryl confided in Sean that her father was physically abusing her. Desperate to stop the abuse, Cheryl told Sean she would pay him to kill her father.

- I was a very confused mixed up kid. I really didn't think of the repercussions. - Sean, who had witnessed domestic violence in his own home, agreed to help Cheryl. - We determined that as to 16 year olds

“that this was the only way that we were gonna be able”

to deal with this situation. - What was your relationship like with Cheryl Pearson? - Did you have a crush on her? - I think maybe a little crush, but I don't think that's what motivated me if.

- I think I was just more or less I thought I was helping a friend. - It was February 5th, 1986. Before Dawn, Sean hid behind some bushes in front of the Pearson home.

A loaded 22 caliber rifle at his side. - How did I get here? And am I about to really take somebody's life? It was pretty dark. And when the father came out in the morning for work,

I walked it out of the shrubbery, and I shot and killed them. It was wrong, and I know it was wrong then, but I still believed I was doing it for a right reason. - Sean and Cheryl were arrested a week later, and the teenagers quickly made headlines.

(upbeat music) - The word was hit man, and the fact was, I was a 16-year-old kid with braces on his teeth, it wasn't even shaving it, that thought he was helping a friend in trouble.

- Although they both pled guilty to manslaughter, their sentences were very different. - That's why I stepped back.

“You showed your men, I think you saved up the show, stalked.”

- When it was determined that Cheryl's father had also sexually abused her. - Cheryl, I think it was her. - The judge showed mercy. Releasing Cheryl after just three and a half months

in County, jail. - But for Sean, it was just the beginning.

- I'd never been arrested before.

I was introduced to a world, I had no idea existed. - Sevens to eight to 24 years. Sean was to spend the next 16 in state prison. - I spent a lot of years just getting through day-to-day. I did what a lot of guys do.

I used the only thing that's available to numb myself

- Drogs and a bad attitude landed Sean in solitary confinement twice. - Really, it was those days in solitary where I just said, "You know what? I can't live like this." Mentally, I can't take it.

And I started to make some changes at that point. - Those changes meant getting an education in prison where surprisingly Sean got a lot of support from his fellow inmates. - All the men that were my mentors,

and which is there for me, for so many years,

always a shoulder to lean on, no matter what the situation was,

these guys were always there for me. - Always had my back. - While serving his time, Sean received his high school diploma, a bachelor's degree, and a master's degree.

“- The only thing that I carried out those gates with me”

was that education. And I'll tell you, when I went to those gates to be released, they have to 16 years. I had never been so scared in my life. Sean was paroleed from Sing Sing Correctional Facility

in December 2002. - These past few months, just experiencing so many things for the first time. I mean, things that everyone around me takes for granted. I mean, I made a mistake.

And I'll be the first to admit it was a huge mistake. But I still believe I deserve the second chance. - Today, Sean is making the most out of that second chance. - This is Sean. - We're not letting you go all day now.

- His days are now spent working with tenants in this East Harlem Housing Project. - He looked out for me a few times too. (laughing) - And Sean is still going to school.

“Now he's working towards a second master's degree”

in social work. - What does your family think about you today? What you're doing? They proud of you? They got to be.

- Very proud.

- Sean's family never gave up on him.

But nothing is more important to Sean than his other family, those who have served their time too. - We'll have to start getting it to some more of the deeper issues and looking deeper at ourselves.

- Here at Strife, Sean helps former inmates adjust to life on the outside. - The prison system is just filled with so many men like myself that got in trouble young and spent the next 15 or 20 years in prison

and went to school and really do deserve a second chance. And I think that they should get it. Just like I got it. - Lisa was popular, athletic. A kid from the birds, she's also...

“- I give you all your f*** money right now.”

- An armed robber. - Give me all your f***ing money, go. - No! - What caught you here? I guess, I didn't care.

(suspenseful music) - Hold up, give me all your f***ing money right now. - No, hold the f***ing robber right now. - You got all your f***ing money right now. - It's dramatic hold-up.

It was caught by a store's security camera in Texas. - Hold on. - It turned out to be the first in a series of five convenience store robberies pulled off by a well-organized gang.

- Come on, hurry up. - Lisa's kept telling me you've got two seconds bent or we're gonna shoot you. And I couldn't get the cash right just for open. I was hitting all the buttons.

Nothing was working. They scared me so bad. And when you feel like you're gonna die, that's real, that's not a good feeling. - The hold-ups didn't make much news

until the gang members were finally caught. And their identities revealed. - Police say they were gun-wielding girls. Residents of the suburban Kingwood community are shocked to learn four female teenagers

have been arrested for armed robbery. - Ladies, you were here before the court today for formal alignment. - Four teenage girls, moonlighting as armed robbers and not just girls, but middle and upper class girls.

- All high school students living in Kingwood. An affluent area of Houston. The girls boastfully call themselves "the queens of armed robbery." - The first thing I thought when I saw them

is that they were drug addicts.

- Judge Mark Ellis had never faced defendants

quite like these in his court. - Part of the reason the crimes were being committed was to get money for dope. - Oh, you f***ing hot ain't go, no.

and the frightening bravado was the last person you'd expect to commit a robbery. 17-year-old Lisa Wazziga.

“When we first met her, she was facing trial for robbery.”

A gifted young athlete with hopes for a college scholarship. - I had so much potential. - And we just wasted it. - She's now a woman, 21-year-old,

and more than halfway through the seven-year prison sentence she received for armed robbery. - It's gone by pretty fast. I kept myself pretty busy. - But Lisa says it was almost unbearable

when she first got to prison.

- Two people try to slit their throats. I think another try to hang herself. - And some people get that hopeless. - Lisa had hoped to avoid prison. She encode a defendant, Katie Dunn, plague guilty.

Hoping they'd get probation from a sympathetic jury. But they had few answers for prosecutor Terrence Windham's top questions. - That lady behind the counter, you scared to live in daylight outside of her duty.

- Yes I did. - I want you to chew on his feelings. If this happened to you, you won't somebody to go to the pan, Lini. - Yes.

- The jury agreed and so did Judge Ellis.

- You made a choice. And that choice was to be thugs. To go out and take money at gunpoint and to terrorize these people. - Spare me your tears, you have sung the wind

and you've now raped the world with. - Those are tough words. - Well, it's hard to feel sorry for the girls. There were violent scary crimes. Too many crimes.

- Was it the right sentence? - Absolutely. - Seven years in a Texas State prison. At the time, it seemed like a harsh sentence for first offenders.

There was also the risk that the team to win in. We'd come out hard in criminals. But four years later, in Lisa's case, it appears as if the judge in the jury were right. - I work on the maintenance crew.

- Today, Lisa Vorsica is not exactly doing hard time at the Gatesville Women's Prison outside Waco, Texas. - You do plumbing? - Sort of yes. - She's managed to graduate high school,

earn an associate's degree, and has been accepted by the University of Texas for her bachelor's degree.

“- Do you hear from anyone from your high school class?”

One friend, occasionally. - But while she's lost friends from home, she's regained close relations with her sister and her parents, who have once thought they had lost forever

the little girl they raised. - She was constantly in our face. - It was very aggressive, very hostile. - And not the daughter he knew. As Randward Zika told us at the time of Lisa's trial.

- It was like somebody had come in into her body and taken Lisa, we knew her out. And another bad foul mouth, bad attitude person came inside and was living in her house. - Today, the old Lisa is back.

- I want to say I feel grateful for coming to prison, but I have definitely appreciated the experiences in a sense, because it's gotten me closer to my family. - What got you here, to go that far, to, you know, use your gun and rob us to war?

I didn't care. I didn't appreciate what I had.

And you always think that you'd have it worse,

there's others who have it worse off. - Forgive me on this, but it sounds like, this might have been a good place for you to come to. - Sometimes I think that, you know. - But there have been disappointments.

Lisa was turned down in her first attempt at parole. - I thought I could do this is, you know, apologize and we're not. - People afterwards thought of you as a common criminal. - I don't know, sure they did.

- But did you think of yourself that way? - Yeah, so I am a criminal. - Do you think it's possible you'll be here the entire seven years are close to it? - It's possible.

“I'm hoping for the best way to kind of expect in the worst.”

- In some ways, you've grown up here.

- Eight years in prison, a conviction for murder.

- How much punishment is enough? - Could Rebecca be set free? - The verdict hasn't changed. She's still guilty and has been found guilty of murder. (upbeat music)

- Good day, I'm Justin Wolfers, host of the Platypus Economics Podcast. If there's one thing I've learned from a career teaching economics,

“it's that your life is shaped by economic currents”

you'll never see. A single Christ tag can explain things a thousand experts can't. People who understand economics, they make better decisions in their careers,

their finances, their relationships, and their communities, and I want that for you. Listen to and follow Platypus Economics, the available now wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music)

- We're talking about murder. - The Ohio State Parallel Board today faces a momentous decision. Should it recommend clemency for a convicted murderer? - And I submit to you this murder

is one of the worst murders I've ever seen. In prison, sits the murderer. 26-year-old Rebecca Hopfer. - What are your thoughts on the eve of this? - Pretty nervous about it.

This is the third time with five for clemency. - And if Prosecutor David Frances Shelley has his way, she will fail again today. - We're here again, third time for clemency, and if you truly think about it,

this defendant has never acknowledged what she did.

- 1994, Prosecutor's charge 17-year-old Rebecca Hopfer with killing her newborn baby. You told the parole board that this was the worst murder case you had seen in 20 years. Were you really serious about that?

- A newborn baby was born, and she took that baby, and that baby was crying and squirming, and she's stuffed it in trash bags and stuffed it in a trash can and a garage. - If that's not heinous enough for me, I don't know what is.

So heinous that Rebecca was tried in adult court and sentenced to 15 years to life. You've been here for how many years? - Eight years.

“- I mean, in some ways, you've grown up here, right?”

- We first met Rebecca in 1998. She was 21, and it served just three years, but memories of life before prison, already we're fading. - It's our friend, remember what my personality was like and how I was with other people.

Now that I'm not the same person that I used to be. - Rebecca grew up in Dayton, Ohio, a good student, talented artist, writer, in the high school band. - From center of the Ohio, the center of the jazz band. - But at 17, after what she says was her first sexual experience,

Rebecca found herself pregnant. It's like every teenage girl's nightmare. - Basically.

- She never told her parents and they never caught on

in part because Rebecca showed a few physical signs. - It was strange 'cause sometimes I even wondered if it wasn't just my imagination because I never felt her kick, I never felt her move. - Then the inevitable, in the upstairs bathroom,

behind closed doors, Rebecca gave birth alone to a baby that weighed just over four pounds. - And so I pushed once and she just like flew out. The horror only got worse in her quarters, right underneath. - She was all gray.

I could see every bone in her body. I was like, no, she's gonna be okay, she's gonna be okay. But it wasn't okay. - She says the baby was dead at birth. - And I guess I panicked.

It was like, and I put her in the bags, and I picked her up, and I carried her downstairs, and I later in the trash can and the garage. - You did nothing at all to harm that baby. No, it was not a lie.

- No, she wasn't a lie. - You're absolutely sure. - Yes. - Rebecca then went back into the house and watched TV with her mother.

“- What were you feeling when you're sitting there watching TV?”

- That's something I've bleeding to death. But she still said nothing to her parents. Soon she did confide in one friend, and that was all it took for a word to get out. - Suddenly we hear this at the door.

- Within days, detectives confronted Rebecca's mother, Brenda. - I'm about right here, and the three of them are clustered right there. We know from some Senegal people that your daughter had a baby,

I said what? - Brenda was shocked, astonished.

“Exactly who said what would be hardly disputed later.”

But police did get Rebecca to sign a statement. - She did cry and she was still moving once I put her in the bag. - That's what she was told right. - With a very incriminating last sentence,

a sentence that raises serious questions for Rebecca's father can. - It does not flow, it does not follow, it's totally not even why she writes. - Why would you write that sentence?

Under any circumstances, because I was scared, and I trusted the police officers, so I felt like if I cooperate with them, the things are gonna be fine whether it's true or not. And so I wrote what they told me to write.

- Armed with that confession, prosecutors claimed that Rebecca clearly was too hard core to be rehabilitated in the juvenile system. So off to adult court, she went. - All right.

- There was talk of a plea bargain to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

“But Rebecca told us in 1998 that she wasn't interested.”

- I turned it down because I wasn't going to admit to something that I didn't do. Rebecca, you'd be out by now. I don't care. - She was still moving once I put her in the bag.

You wrote that. - At Rebecca's trial, prosecuting the case, the very same David Francis Shelley. He hammered Rebecca on the stand. - Tell the jury now, tell the jury was a baby alive or dead,

which story is a today. She alive or dead when she's born. - Oh, my story all along has been that she has been dead. - But the jury didn't buy it. - We had to jury to find a defendant

to be echoed in hop for guilty of murderous charge.

- Never forget that moment, will you?

- It's terrible moment. - It was 17 and that's a part of this that kept getting lost. Everybody kept treating her like she was 35 years old. You know, we're talking about a 17-year-old girl. - Even the judge had misgivings.

The late Lee Bixler. - It was a shame to ruin her life, prospect of this little girl being rehabilitated was excellent. - But the judge had no leeway. - In Ohio, a murder conviction in adult court

means a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life. - We don't have anything that says for a young child who is in this kind of situation, we have something less than a guy who chops somebody up on the axe.

- David Francis Shelley defends the lengthy sentence. - She's made her bad and she needs to sleep in it. And if it's 15 years to life, so be it. - In 1998, Rebecca was still a troubled girl as reflected in her drawings.

- What have you learned through all of this? - I haven't learned a lot about myself yet because... um... I still pretty much hate myself.

- But remarkably, five years later, Rebecca Hopper seems a very different person. (laughing)

See, you laugh now and you didn't laugh the first time

I talked to you. I mean, you have changed. - Hanging yourself takes a lot of energy, so. Easier just to let some of that go, than to hold onto it, I guess.

- But one thing hasn't changed. Rebecca still insists she did not kill her baby as we're turning down that plea bargain.

“At least, I know that I've stuck by what I believe to be true,”

so I can lay my head down at night and go to sleep with a good conscience. - Right, but you're going to sleep in prison. - That's okay. - There's one victim here.

- Certainly, it's fine with David Francescelli, who is back in front of Ohio's parole board, trying again to keep Rebecca in prison. - A lot of girls have babies, and they don't stick them in plastic bags like that.

And she comes here today, not accepting responsibility for the third time, the third time.

- The bottom line to this case is how much punishment

is enough. - But now, it's Rebecca's turn, and her attorney is about to argue that the charges against his client are unjust, her sentence unfair.

Rebecca faces at least seven more years in prison unless she wins this fight for freedom. That's next. - There are about 230,000. We're on the right track.

The biggest advantage of Shopify for me is that we don't need any technical evidence.

and that's why we're on the right track.

We're on the right track, then we're on the right track.

“We're on the right track, and we're on the right track.”

We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track.

We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track.

We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track.

We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track.

“We're on the right track, and we're on the right track.”

We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track.

We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. We're on the right track, and we're on the right track.

We're on the right track, and we're on the right track. She didn't tail anybody. She was pregnant. She didn't tell her mother, then tail any of our school teachers, school counselors, and she admits that that was wrong. Wrong, but not he says grounds for a murder conviction.

Rebecca has been severely punished when you can pair her case to other young women who were in similar circumstances. And Ellis says in those cases, no one got a life sentence.

It's always been the same.

But prosecutor David Francescelli will hear none of it. That's what they keep doing. Baby was dad, baby was dad, baby was dad, let us go. Never admitting responsibility for her actions. Never saying, hey, listen, I killed my baby.

I'm sorry. And this hearing is now adjourned. Thank you. Rebecca's hearing is over, but the board will take its time to decide. Thank you. Thank you for being here. We have been set back so many times and hurt so many times.

It's hard to get optimistic, really.

“You just sit here and wait, right? What's that like?”

Never fracking. One month later, he'll hire parole board as recommending that a Miami-Valley woman imprisoned for killing her child be considered for release. Fantastic. I still feel numb. Then, shortly thereafter, even better news.

Ohio's governor Bob Taft accepts the parole board's recommendations and grants Rebecca Clamancy. It's just a shock, it's all I could say. Back like you're still in shock. I just wanted to stand up and down and go, oh my God, is it real?

You know, really, really, really. Governor Taft's order says he acted because of overwhelming community support for Rebecca because of her age at the time of the crime and her achievements while in prison. Thank you to Frances Shelley, thanks to the governor, is about to set a cold,

blooded murderer free. The verdict hasn't changed. She's still guilty and has been found guilty of murder, a personal killing of her newborn baby. That's not going to change.

The prosecutor's views are a little concerned to Rebecca today. This is very impressive looking. Yes. So you got this today? Yes. What do you do with this? Probably put it someplace very safe.

She'll spend her first few months as a free woman at home.

Sometimes I kind of worry that maybe my parents are going to try to pick up where we left off and treat you as they did when you were 17. Yes. So it'll be an adjustment for everybody. But it's an adjustment everybody is eager to make.

She just needs to make some wrong decisions. And she says, mom, if I fall in my face, then I fall in my face. But I need to do it myself. I'm ready to have a, or at least try to have a normal life. So I'm ready.

Rebecca Hopper gets to go home in May. One condition of her release is finding work.

and an offer to intern with a state lawmaker who's been a supporter.

“In the years since most states toughened up their juvenile crime laws,”

they've already been second thoughts in some revisions.

Some states are giving judges more flexibility in sentencing. But others are just fine-tuning the harsh penalties.

“It'll probably be years before we can really know the full impact”

of the hard line approach.

Sean Pega is the president of Hudson Link. An organization that provides education, life skills,

“and re-entry support to incarcerated and formally incarcerated individuals.”

The critically acclaimed series, Colin from Accounts,

returns for a brand new season. But what is it? Different. We have together Lee. We're friendly together.

With a dog. Colin from Accounts, new season now streaming. Only on Paramount Plus.