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Now 37, Hernandez has been moved to a nearby minimum-security facility and could be released to a halfway house as soon as August. He has a son, 17, whom he has never really known outside of prison visits. One of his brothers was murdered in another prison in 2002 while serving a 30-year sentence, and he has yet to visit his grave. "I always thought if the day ever came I would be screaming for joy, jumping, hollering, singing, dancing. But I didn't do none of that," he wrote of his commutation. "There are times I am not able to breathe, or I breathe erratic, my heart races, can't talk sometimes, can't think."
Hernandez has already contacted the Texas narcotics officers who helped put him in jail, offering to meet after his release and possibly volunteer to help dissuade other youth from following his path. "I was just a kid who made a bad decision," he writes now, "and President Obama agreed by giving me a second chance at life, a decision I will make sure he will never regret."