Fair Wayne Bryant: Black man serving life for stealing hedge clippers granted parole

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After spending over two decades in federal prison for a minor crime under the state’s habitual offender law, Fair Wayne Bryant will be released.

Why Fair Wayne Bryant will be released

According to USA Today, Bryant was sentenced to life in prison for the attempted theft of pair of hedge clippers in 1997. In a 3-0 vote, the parole board granted his release on Thursday only a few months after the state Supreme Court denied a request to review Bryant’s sentence, which he argued was excessive and unconstitutional.

“Modern manifestation” of Jim Crow era laws

Bryant’s case drew national attention for a dissent by Chief Justice Bernette Johnson, the high court’s only Black justice.

Chief Johnson said the habitual offender law under which Bryant was sentenced was a “modern manifestation” of Jim Crow era laws aimed at jailing Black people for minor crimes.

The head of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana said the decision was long overdue.

“Now it is imperative that the Legislature repeal the habitual offender law that allows for these unfair sentences, and for district attorneys across the state to immediately stop seeking extreme penalties for minor offenses,” Alanah Odoms, the group’s executive director, said in an emailed statement to USA Today.

Parole Board for Fair Bryant White

Neither the gravity nor the racial implications of the sentence were addressed by the parole board, according to the report.

The members, two white and one Black, focused on Bryant’s arrest record, noting that the 1997 burglary took place at an inhabited dwelling and that he likely would have stolen more had he not been surprised and chased away by the homeowner. They also talked extensively about his history of alcohol and cocaine use.

“I had a drug problem,” said Bryant, who was represented at the hearing by attorney and LSU law professor Robert Lancaster.

“But I’ve had 24 years to recognize that problem and to be in constant communication with the Lord to help me with that problem.”

Conditions of his parole

Conditions of Bryant’s parole include mandatory attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and community service.

Bryant is to first enter a program in Baton Rouge with the Louisiana Parole Project, a nonprofit that helps released prisoners adjust to freedom. Then he will eventually live with his brother in Shreveport, according to the report.

“He has a support system that he’s never had,” Andrew Hundley of the Louisiana Parole Project told panel members.

Fair Wayne Bryant conviction

Bryant’s harsh sentence was imposed after he was convicted in 1997 for the burglary of a store room in a carport at a home in Shreveport.

His record, panel members said, included 22 arrests and 11 convictions. Court records said the convictions included four other felonies: a 1979 attempted armed robbery conviction, a crime classified as violent under Louisiana law; and three subsequent nonviolent crimes — possession of stolen things in 1987, attempted forgery of a $150 check in 1989 and simple burglary in 1992.