NC Newsline: “It was April 2022, and come summer 66-year-old Bobby Norfleet would begin another year behind bars. He bore the marks of 44 years in North Carolina prisons. He had a lump in his left leg. He didn’t have any teeth. His dentures had broken, so talking was difficult.
Bobby’s younger brother Carnell had been trying to find a way to bring him home. He had called attorneys and a judge before hearing a hard truth: Bobby had to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Bobby had been convicted at the wrong time. If he’d gone to prison earlier, he might have been paroled decades sooner. And if he’d gone to prison later, he would have received a much lighter sentence.
And if he’d had a different lawyer, maybe he wouldn’t still be locked up.
Instead, Bobby had grown old in prison. His mind and body deteriorated as the years passed, further and further removed from the life he lived before confinement: cooking fried chicken, grits and fish cakes for Carnell and the rest of his siblings; chiding them for sneaking into the kitchen to steal food before he was finished.”