A 62-year-old man who has served more than 44 years in prison for killing a man when he was 17 has been released.
The Arizona Department of Corrections discharged Ray Chatman yesterday, three days after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Maricopa County Superior Court and was resentenced to time already served.
Chatman was originally convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole for killing convenience store clerk Kenneth Meiner during a robbery.
Chatman’s case was reopened after the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that juvenile offenders could not be sentenced to a mandatory term of life without parole.
Chatman was underage when he killed Meiner in 1970.