Man sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing set of hedge trimmers is freed after spending 23 years in prison (Photos)

A person sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing a pair of hedge clippers has been freed on parole 23 years on, after a prolonged battle to get him out.

Honest Wayne Bryant, 63, has been within the US’s largest maximum-security jail, Angola, since 1997.

The Supreme Courtroom had repeatedly declined to evaluate his sentence for being a “ordinary” offender beneath the USA’s three strikes legislation.

However Bryant, of Louisiana, was granted parole final Thursday shortly after the Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole voted for the transfer.

His new-found freedom comes after years of campaigning by human rights teams together with the Louisiana American Civil Liberties Union, NBC Information studies.

Bryant was 38 when he was caught red-handed stealing a pair of clippers from a carport storeroom at a house in Shreveport and arrested in January 1997.

He had been convicted of housebreaking that yr and had earlier convictions, so was sentenced to life in jail beneath state legislation beneath the USA’s three strikes legislation.

Mr Bryant will now enter a programme in Baton Rouge which teaches prisoners how you can modify to life as a free man.

Authorities will let him transfer into his brother’s dwelling in Shreveport on completion of the programme.

Mr Bryant should additionally abide by a curfew, attend Alcoholics Nameless conferences and full group service.

Human rights teams referred to as the board’s choice to grant parole a “long-overdue victory.”