Michigan Department Of Corrections
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In this March 6, 2017 photo released by the Michigan Department of Corrections, Arthur Ream is shown. Police are digging in woods northeast of Detroit near where the body of a 13-year-old girl who went missing in 1986 was found more than a decade ago. In 2008, Ream led police to the area and the remains of Cindy Zarzycki who disappeared. Zarzycki had been dating Ream's son at the time of her disappearance. Arthur Ream was convicted of her murder and is serving life in prison. (Michigan Department of Corrections via AP)

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This combination of photos provided by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows Chester Lee Patterson in 1971 and in Aug. 8, 2015. Patterson has been behind bars for 45 years. At 17, he fatally shot a store clerk during a robbery. He got life with the possibility of parole after 10 years. Patterson has earned degrees, completed a substance-abuse program, worked in the library, and avoided disciplinary tickets. He's also been denied parole at least five times, according to records. He's awaiting a decision after his most recent hearing in April 2017. "I am not that same 17-year-old kid. I will never commit another crime again," Patterson wrote to The Associated Press. "I caused a terrible tragedy for which I will always be sorry and shameful. What more can I say to the family? I have been here for almost a half of a century, and the parole board is still saying no." (MDOC via AP)

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ADVANCE FOR USE MONDAY, JULY 31, 2017 AND THEREAFTER-This combination of photos made available by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows a younger Ahmad Rashad Williams and in April 2014. Williams' mother, a crack addict, died when he was 10. His grandmother, who raised him in Grand Rapids, Mich., died soon after. By the time Williams shot and killed Derek Pimpleton in a dispute over marijuana, he was smoking it every day and regularly skipping school. Both boys were 15. (MDOC via AP)

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ADVANCE FOR USE MONDAY, JULY 31, 2017 AND THEREAFTER-In this 2014 photo provided by the Michigan Department of Corrections, Bobby Hines holds a certificate for his 40 Days of Peace Training Program graduation at the F.C. Brooks and West Shoreline Correctional Facilities in Muskegon Heights, Mich. At left is Warden Mary Berghuis and at right is Kit Cummings, founder of The Power of Peace Project. In his first decade in prison, Hines racked up about a dozen misconduct tickets, many for fighting. But he eventually settled down, comforted by his mother, Gracie. He earned his GED certificate, enrolled in self-improvement programs and developed a reputation as a solid worker in maintenance, kitchen and recreation jobs. (MDOC via AP)

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ADVANCE FOR USE MONDAY, JULY 31, 2017 AND THEREAFTER-This combination of photos made available by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows a younger Bobby Hines and in November 2015. When he was 15, just out of eighth grade, he was in court answering for his role in the murder of a man over a friend's drug debt. He did not fire the deadly shot, but when he and two others confronted 21-year-old James Warren, Hines said something like, "Let him have it," words that sealed his conviction and punishment: mandatory life with no chance for parole. (MDOC via AP)

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ADVANCE FOR USE TUESDAY, AUG. 1, 2017 AND THEREAFTER-This combination of photos made available by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows a younger John Sam Hall and in October 2015. In January 1967, when he was 17, Hall and a friend saw Albert Hoffman at a bus stop in Detroit one night. They dragged him into an alley, then beat and robbed him of his watch and some money. The former Army sergeant who served in World War I, died of his injuries on his 73rd birthday. The friend was never arrested, but Hall was convicted of murder. (MDOC via AP)

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ADVANCE FOR USE MONDAY, JULY 31, 2017 AND THEREAFTER-This combination of photos made available by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows a younger Damion Lavoial Todd and in August 2013. At 48, Damion Todd knows family and friends his age who are already looking ahead toward retirement. A judge recently resentenced Todd, making him eligible for parole next year after more than 30 years behind bars. At 17, Todd, co-captain of his football team and hoping for a college scholarship, was sentenced to life with no parole for fatally shooting a girl while spraying a crowd with gunfire. He and his friends were trying to scare some guys who'd shot at them after a party, he says. Instead, he killed Melody Rucker, 16, and injured her friend. In prison, he's taken college courses and mentored younger inmates. Expressing shame and regret, he says, "It doesn't excuse what I did, but I'm not that kind of person anymore." (MDOC via AP)

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ADVANCE FOR USE MONDAY, JULY 31, 2017 AND THEREAFTER-In this circa 2007 photo from the Michigan Department of Corrections, Jennifer Pruitt celebrates her graduation from a career tech class at the Robert Scott Correctional Facility in Plymouth, Mich. (Michigan Department of Corrections/Robyn Frankel via AP)

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This Jan. 19, 2017 photo released by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows Bobby Gene Griffin, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole nearly 50 years ago as a teenager may soon be released. The Herald-Palladium reported that at 17-years-old Griffin was handed Michigan’s then-automatic life without parole sentence for the 1967 murder of Minnie Peaples. The law has since changed, saying juveniles convicted of murder won’t receive mandatory life sentences. (Michigan Department of Corrections via AP)

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This undated photo released by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows Michael Darnell Harris. Harris is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the 1981 killing of Ula Curdy, of Lansing, Mich. Harris effort to reverse his murder and sexual assault convictions from the early 1980s ended Tuesday, June 27, 2017 during a hearing in Ingham County Circuit Court. (Michigan Department of Corrections via AP)

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FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows Desmond Ricks. A judge on Friday, May 26, 2017, threw out the second-degree murder conviction of Ricks, who accused police of framing him with phony evidence and his mother's gun more than two decades ago. Tests show one of the two bullets removed from the victim doesn't match the gun that was presented to jurors back in 1992. The other bullet was too mangled for analysis. Ricks' case was reopened at the request of the University of Michigan law school's Innocence Clinic. (Michigan Department of Corrections via AP, File)

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This July 26, 2016 photo made available by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows Christopher Duran Head. Head found his 9-year-old son, Daylen, dead in a bedroom in the west-side Detroit home, a single shotgun blast to the boy's head. He'd been playing video games, according to police reports. Christopher Head didn’t pull the trigger, but he would soon be the one going to prison. Head’s crime was leaving a firearm untended. His 10-year-old daughter found the shotgun and pulled the trigger while emulating a video game. (MDOC via AP)

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In this Tuesday, March 9, 2017 photo, provided by the Michigan Department of Corrections, Candice Dunn, center, stands with employees Heather Wayne and Brock Dietrich after receiving the state's parole/probation agent of the year award in East Lansing, Mich. Dunn was one of five people killed in a car crash Tuesday, May 9, in Livingston County. (Michigan Department of Corrections via AP)

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This undated photo provided by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows Desmond Ricks. With help from law students, the man in prison since 1992 is making a remarkable claim. He said Detroit police framed him for a murder with bullets that didn't come from the victim. Ricks and the Innocence Clinic at University of Michigan law school are asking a judge to reopen the case. (Michigan Department of Corrections via AP)

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This undated photo released by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows Kendall Kelly Two Detroit carjackers, Kelly and DeMarcus Catlin, are back in prison after their victim went online and found they'd been mistakenly released. Kelly and Catlin were supposed to go to a Michigan prison last year to serve carjacking sentences. But the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said it wasn't told that the men were supposed to be transferred. (Michigan Department of Corrections via AP)

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FILE- In an undated booking photo from the Michigan Department of Corrections, Derick Felton is shown. The 63-year-old Detroit man, sentenced to two years’ probation in September 2015 after his pit bulls mauled another man, is being sought for violating his court-ordered probation. Felton is listed on the Michigan Department of Corrections offender website as absconding from probation in November 2015. (Michigan Department of Corrections via AP)

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This undated photo provided by the Michigan Department of Corrections, shows Richard Wershe Jr. Wershe, a Detroit-area drug dealer nicknamed "White Boy Rick," who has been in prison for 28 years for crimes when he was a teen, is making another effort to get his sentence reduced. (Michigan Department of Corrections via AP)

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In an undated photo provided by the Michigan Department of Corrections, Davontae Sanford is shown in a booking photo. The Michigan Supreme Court says the young Detroit man can't withdraw his guilty plea to four murders that occurred when he was 14. Sanford has been trying to undo his guilty plea for more than five years. Sanford is in prison for the deaths of four people in 2007. But weeks after Sanford's guilty plea, a hit man took responsibility for the Runyon Street homicides. (AP Photo/Michigan Department of Corrections)

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This photo taken on Dec. 25, 2010, and provided by the Michigan Department of Corrections, shows Andrew Babick Jr., who serving a life sentence for the 1995 fire-related deaths of two young brothers in southern Michigan. The Michigan Innocence Clinic, which is based at the University of Michigan Law School, filed a motion with Calhoun County Circuit Judge James Kingsley and wants a new trial for 47-year-old Babick, the Battle Creek Enquirer reported, on Tuesday, April 1, 2014. A federal appeals court in 2010 refused to overturn the conviction. (AP Photo/Michigan Department of Corrections)