The habitual offender sentencing guidelines lasted less than a decade, but overturning them didn’t alter Monroe’s fate. That was up to Tulane law students, led by Clinic Director and Professor Katherine Mattes. After years of litigation, they drafted and advocated for 2016’s Act 469, which made him eligible for parole.

But it wasn’t the same as being free. Monroe’s final clinic student attorneys, Tanner Beal and Laura Frost, demonstrated to the court that he had reformed his life.

In 2018, after serving 21 years of a life sentence in Louisiana’s State Penitentiary at Angola, Monroe’s legal saga ended—he was resentenced to eight years with credit for time served.