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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Lindsay Whitehurst

A freed man faces life back in prison after a Supreme Court ruling on the First Step Act

Supreme Court Prison Sentencing - (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Two years after his release from prison, Patrick Dewayne Smith spends Sundays with his family in a modest brick church with a white steeple in rural Tennessee. He works two jobs. He goes to ball games to cheer for nieces and nephews he had never met. After serving 13 years for a nonviolent drug conviction, he is trying to rebuild his life.

Now Smith could be sent back to prison for the rest of it.

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