Bill Haslam of Tennessee on Monday granted clemency to Cyntoia Brown, a 30-year-old woman serving a life sentence for fatally shooting a man in 2004 who had hired her as a prostitute when she was a teenage sex trafficking victim. A statement from the office of Governor Haslam, a Republican, said Ms. Brown would be released to supervised parole on Aug. 7, 2019, after serving 15 years in prison. “Cyntoia Brown committed, by her own admission, a horrific crime at the age of 16,” Mr. Haslam said in the statement. “Yet, imposing a life sentence on a juvenile that would require her to serve at least 51 years before even being eligible for parole consideration is too harsh, especially in light of the extraordinary steps Ms. Brown has taken to rebuild her life.”“Transformation should be accompanied by hope,” he said. “So, I am commuting Ms. Brown’s sentence, subject to certain conditions.”

Source: New York Times January 07, 2019 17:55 UTC