Arrested 40 years ago at age 16 in the murder of a promising Johns Hopkins medical student, James Featherstone received a life sentence for his conviction. If not for a major ruling by the Maryland Court of Appeals – known as the Unger ruling – Featherstone believes he would have died in prison. Since his unexpected release in 2014, he's managed to find work, but not the full-time job he seeks. He's been speaking to boys and young men in trouble with the law, hoping to save them from lives of crime and failure. And he's made friends with Carol Classen, the woman who was engaged to marry the man Featherstone was convicted of killing.In 1979, his first year as a columnist for The Baltimore Evening Sun, Dan Rodricks covered Featherstone's trial. Four years ago, he wrote about his release. And now, for this episode of Roughly Speaking, he visits him at his rowhouse in northeast Baltimore.
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