When Bobby Sneed exited the West Feliciana Parish Detention Center last month, it was the first time he'd tasted a semblance of freedom in nearly five decades. He served the bulk of that for his role in a 1974 robbery. The last nine months or so, however, were spent illegally imprisoned, after the state of Louisiana granted him parole and subsequently refused to release him despite multiple court rulings ordering the government to set him free.
That release was supposed to come on March 29 of last year. Instead it came on January 7 of this one, following a second court decision from a judge who railed into the government for perpetually violating Sneed's rights. As I previously wrote, this is a story about the lengths government agents will go to exert control over someone they have willingly admitted presents no danger to society, and how difficult it is to hold them accountable when they do so.
