John T. Downey - Release

Release

Due to efforts by Downey's mother, Mary Downey, and President Richard Nixon, Downey was released 21 years into his life sentence, in March 1973, the year after Nixon's visit to China. (Fecteau had been released in December 1971 after serving nineteen years of a 20-year sentence) The backdrop was President Nixon's early 1970s' historic opening to China. Three years later, at age 46, Downey graduated from Harvard Law School, ultimately becoming a judge.

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