Terrence G. Johnson, behind bars since being involved in the shooting deaths of two Prince George's County police officers in 1978, yesterday walked out of the prison system that has been his home for most of his life.
As he left the Jessup Pre-Release Unit, his father, Robert Melvin Johnson, waited outside the chain link fence. His son told him he just wanted to go home.
"I said, 'Let's get out of here, and don't look back,' " Mr. Johnson, 31, said a few hours after his 8:31 a.m release.
He has been on work release since November, working as a clerk and researcher for Charles J. Ware, one of his lawyers. He will continue working in Mr. Ware's office in Columbia and will look for a home in the Columbia area.
Yesterday afternoon, his freedom didn't seem real.
"I keep thinking, 'I have to go back, I have to go back, I have to go back,' " he said.
The parole commission agreed to his release last Aug. 11, after Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Warren B. Duckett told commissioners he was convinced Mr. Johnson had earned his release.
"I still feel that way. This man has spent sufficient time behind bars," the judge said yesterday.
Judge Duckett said news of Mr. Johnson's release prompted two hate calls to his chambers yesterday. He declined to discuss the calls in detail.
Under terms of the release order Mr. Johnson and his lawyers knew he would be freed this month, but they didn't know when. They got the word from prison officials at 10 p.m. Tuesday.
"It is extremely gratifying," said Melvin White, a Washington corporate lawyer who spent roughly 1,000 hours free of charge to bring Mr. Johnson's case before Judge Duckett.
In a racially charged trial in 1979, Mr. Johnson, who is black, admitted shooting two white Prince George's County police officers in the Hyattsville police station on June 26, 1978. He and his brother had been pulled over for questioning in a theft case.
Mr. Johnson, 15 at the time of the shooting, testified that he fired because he feared for his life and was being beaten by the officers. His testimony struck a chord in Prince George's County, where the police department had a reputation for brutality and racism.
He was convicted of one count of manslaughter and a handgun violation in the death of Officer Albert M. Claggett IV, 26. He was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity in the death of Officer James Swart, 25.
Judge Jacob S. Levin gave him the maximum -- 10 years for the manslaughter plus 15 years for the handgun conviction.
During his 16 years and seven months of imprisonment, Mr. Johnson earned a bachelor's degree from Morgan State University, certificates in barbering and computer science and counseled other inmates.
Yet, between 1987 and 1991, he was denied parole four times.
On July 29, 1991, the parole commission said public sentiment against his release was so strong he should expect to serve out the full 25-year sentence, which meant staying behind bars until at least 1997.
"They said the only reason he was being held was the public sentiment and that was a farce," said Mr. White, noting that letters favoring Mr. Johnson's release outnumbered opposing letters five to one.
Yesterday, the union representing Prince George's police officers criticized Judge Duckett and the parole commission.
"These [officers'] lives were taken and will never be returned to our organization and their families," John A. Bartlett Jr., president of Prince George's County FOP Lodge 89, said in a statement released yesterday.
Rita Swart, whose son was one of the officers killed, said she was "disgusted" by the release and thinks her son's killer should stay behind bars for the rest of his life.
"I'm just crushed," Mrs. Swart said yesterday. "I'm so unnerved by it that I'm going around in a fog."
Now that he is free, Mr. Johnson hopes to attend Howard University Law School next fall.