Cathy Lamb had given up when I met her.
She was 72 and imprisoned in Oklahoma for more than three decades. She wasn’t trying to get out anymore, though once she had hope. The district attorney who prosecuted her regretted his choices; in 2000 he wrote a letter to the parole board saying she deserved to be free. It was the kind of writing that makes a difference. Lamb became the first person in the state ever sentenced to life without parole to be granted a commutation hearing.
The parole board agreed with the district attorney. Lamb was recommended for an historic sentence reduction, but the family of Lamb’s murder victim, Darrell Lovell, objected, and the governor at the time declined to free her…