On the 15th (local time), the Philadelphia Post Gadget in the United States said, “Jo Rigon (male, 83), the oldest boy inmate in the United States, left the Philadelphia correctional institution last week.”
In 1953, at the age of 15, Rigon was imprisoned in Philadelphia in 1953 for drinking, robbing, and assaulting with a group of teenagers, killing two and injuring six.
At the time, Ligon, who had lived a life of illiteracy and poverty, insisted, “I participated in crime by hanging out with drunken children, but I did not kill myself.” However, the court sentenced him to life imprisonment after acknowledging both charges of first-degree murder applied to him as guilty. In the U.S. at the time, even minors could be sentenced to life imprisonment; then, in 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that “adolescents’ life imprisonment is unconstitutional,” and Rigon was commuted to 35 years in prison only in 2017.
Around this time, all of the fellow inmates who had been in a similar situation to Rigon applied for parole, but Rigon endured three more years, saying that he would not leave unless it was’complete release’.
Local groups and lawyers who have been demanding full release on behalf of Ligon since 2006 finally won in November last year.
“I wanted freedom. Parole is only a limited freedom to leave the city without permission.”
Rigon left prison on the 11th, 68 years after being imprisoned. The jail life, which started as a 15-year-old boy, ended when he became an 83-year-old.
He saw Philadelphia, which became a different world, with skyscrapers being built during nearly 70 years of imprisonment. “I’ve never seen such a tall building. They weren’t before. Everything is new to me.”
Park Tae-geun, Dong-A.com reporter [email protected]
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