“I would tell myself, ‘Don’t give up, don’t give in, and don’t give out under any circumstances.’ That was my motto. I never thought I would get out.”

Robert Cheeks, 80, who was recently released from William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility near Bessemer after serving 37 years of a life sentence given to him in 1985 in accordance with Alabama’s “three strikes” law.