Louisiana’s Taurus Buchanan Wins Parole After 25 Years
At 16, one deadly punch sent him away for life. The Supreme Court gave him a second chance at freedom.
Taurus Buchanan, who received a life-without-parole sentence for throwing a single deadly punch when he was 16 years old, was released from Louisiana State Penitentiary Tuesday.
Buchanan, now 42 (he was sentenced at 17), appeared before the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole in Baton Rouge via video conference from Angola, where he was surrounded by his mother, wife, sister, legal counsel and friends. After hearing testimony from family, former inmates and the prison warden, Darrel Vannoy, the board granted Buchanan parole. He had served 25
