Commuted

DANIELLE METZ: This was the last day I was with them in the free world.

ANNOUNCER: With each incarceration, a family serves a sentence.

CARL BERNARD: Before the separation, she was my best friend.

When she came home, as happy as I was, my soul was just exhausted.

GLENEISHA HAYTER: It's bittersweet.

Looking at my kids kind of reminds me of where my life could have been.

ANNOUNCER: "Commuted," a special edition of "Afropop" and "America ReFramed," directed by Nailah Jefferson and produced in collaboration with Danielle Metz.

♪ Hey!

♪ Hey!

♪ Hey!

Hey!

Hey!

METZ: First entering prison, I was only 26 years old when a door closed on me.

It was like a big freezer door, just go, "Boom!"

That really shattered my heart.

♪ But I kept telling myself that freedom is a state of mind.

(birds cawing, child laughing) I think about what my life was like and imagine what it could have been.

MS. PAT (on phone): You don't want to ever lose touch with the outside world, sweetheart.

(people exclaiming) METZ: Well, what you going to do?

CARL BERNARD: You believe stuff so much, it really come true.

MS. PAT (on phone): Oh, yes, Danny.

You remember that, Danny?

METZ: We never knew anything.

We never knew.

CARL BERNARD: Same story over and over and over and over.

How are people going to remember you?

METZ: You got your children to live for.

HAYTER: Mom, I'm not a kid anymore.

CARL BERNARD: This is supposed to be a forever thing.

MS. PAT: Lord have mercy, Jesus, because we had some good times, though.

HAYTER: Mama... METZ: My name is Danielle Bernard Metz.

I was sentenced to three life sentence plus 20 years as a first-time nonviolent offender.

My kids were three and seven at the time.

Year after year, we prayed the same prayer, "Mama going to come home," and it's going to be like it used to be when I come home.

♪ This was 1993, right before I got arrested.

Me with my son and my daughter, the last day I was with them in the free world.

And I told them, I said, "Well, I'm not coming with you guys."

And you can see, she was pouting and he was pouting.

And when I told them, "Get in the car," both of them were screaming.

"I want my mama!

I want Mama!"

They were yelling so loud that I couldn't even look back.

Because if I would've looked back, I would've said, "No, just let them stay."

♪ The marshals, they came.

When they were driving me to Dublin, it was just a dirt road, it was just nothing, it was just a desert.

All I saw was emptiness.

I was only 26 years old.

It just didn't seem real.

I was really frightened.

I didn't know if it was strong enough, that if our love was going to keep us together, as a family.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Hello, my name is Michael Lewis.

I'm sitting here with Adrian Bernard, the sister of Danielle Metz, her daughter Gleneisha Metz-Hayter, and her son Carl Bernard.

Danielle Metz was sentenced to three lifes, plus 20 years.

She's a first-time nonviolent offender.

The kind of time she was given is the time that is reserved for serial killers and terrorists.

CARL BERNARD: If I wake up in the morning, that's one of the first things that hit my mind since then.

I'm 26 years old, and I've...

It's been, it's been basically the same.

It's been rough.

You know, but, you know, I prayed a lot.

You know, I keep faith, things that basically my mother told me to do.

(voice trembling): It was hard.

It was, it was hard growing up.

As a young woman, not having your mother around... Not having anyone to talk to you about your day-to-day problems.

You know, you have to wait for the phone call.

(sniffles): Which is usually only 15 minutes, so, you know, you have to squeeze everything in, and then, it's only by the grace of God that I'm here today to tell this story, and, and I just hope that someone out there is listening, that someone out there will help.

She's still not home, but I know and I pray to my God that I know justice will be served on her behalf.

REPORTER: The growth of the women's prison population has nearly tripled since 1990, and accounts for nearly... REPORTER: ...chief law enforcement officer said today it is time to scale back tough prison terms for low-level drug crimes... BARACK OBAMA: I've commuted the sentences of dozens of people sentenced under old drug laws that we now recognize were unfair, and yesterday I announced that... REPORTER: President Obama has reduced the prison sentences of 46... REPORTER: 111... REPORTER: 231 people, the most ever in one day.

♪ (shrieking, laughing) - Oh, my God!

(both laughing) (car horn honks, traffic humming) METZ: I made it to you, Mom.

You made it to me.

I know you're happy, girl.

If you never make it around no more, you're here now.

♪ METZ: Some days, I would just call my mom out of the blue and just tell her, "You know, I'm coming home."

And even if she didn't believe it, she'd say, "Oh, I know, Boo.

I know you're coming."

(birds chirping) It just felt like a dream that I didn't want to wake up from.

♪ When I first came through the door, it felt different.

My mom, she wasn't cooking anymore.

(sniffs) The doctor told me that they had saw something on her cervix, and she saw that I was getting ready to cry, and she said, "Mm-mm-- God's will got to be done, Boo."

I said, "But I ain't going to be able to make it without you."

She said, "Oh, don't say that.

"Oh, you're going to make it.

"Just keep getting up, going to work.

You're going to be all right."

I always thought she was going to always be there, no matter what.

My mom passed May the 21st.

As I was lying there, I just was thinking about the ceiling fan now.

I remember, the whole time I was gone, I've never seen a working ceiling fan.

I've saw one in a book.

So, whenever...

Since I've been home, and whenever I wake up here in this house, I always... You know, that's the first thing I see when I open my eyes, and that lets me know that, you know, I'm really here, because for a minute, I used to think that, "Am I still there?"

But I know I didn't see a ceiling fan, so I always, if I... You know, if I stay by my mom house and I wake up here, I always make sure that fan is on when I get up in the morning.

That lets me know that, that I'm actually here.

It really just makes me think about time, how time just, you know, don't stop for no one.

It just keeps on going and going and going.

(door closes) (birds chirping) ♪ (car engine humming, switch clicks) MAN (on recording): We're having a conversation in the newsroom, and I don't know if you're aware, President Obama granted clemency to Danielle Metz after she served 23 years in prison.

(birds tweeting) METZ: Well, I had a good upbringing in New Orleans.

I was the youngest of nine.

(child laughing) My mom, she worked at Leidenheimer Baking for 40 years.

My dad, he was a cement finisher.

I was raised Uptown, on General Taylor.

A good neighborhood.

Watching my mama work hard, as a young girl, I guess I just start fantasizing.

You know, wanting something, I guess, more than what I had.

MAN (on recording): Now, let's rewind a bit here.

In the early '90s, Danielle Metz married Glenn Metz, who was dubbed by some as a drug kingpin.

REPORTER: The government contends Glenn Metz and his wife, Danielle Metz, were the leaders of the so-called Metz Gang.

In sentencing them to life behind bars, Judge McNamara said, "Narcotics crime is destroying our city and nation."

METZ: These are some of the things that was important to me while I was in there, like...

In this paper right here, I don't know if you guys know, but they had vacated one of my sentences, and the judge said that it didn't really matter, because I still had...

I still would have two life sentences plus the 20 years.

So I was kind of puzzled.

Like, how could it weigh so much when you're getting sentenced, and then when you deduct it, it don't account for nothing?

But I guess when you don't know the law, that's what happen.

This one, this is my favorite, because I always connect with us being together no matter what.

With or without a husband, a dad, it was always going to be us three.

That's how I always vision us, envision us together all the time, with us as a family.

This is him.

I named my son after his dad.

His name is Carl.

I think his first Easter.

And, um... And then, this was a picture-- it was my son's birthday, and I asked my mom to give him a party, and I bought him a little motorcycle bike, and he loved it, but he was still happy then.

You would kind of see over a period of time how his facial expression changed from happiness, happiness, happiness to, like, not too happy, not too happy, because I guess the reality of the situation... You know, he was having birthdays, more and more birthdays without me.

♪ CARL BERNARD: I had so many memories from the perfect childhood, spending a lot of time with my mom.

I was never away from my mom, like, from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep, before the separation.

She was my best friend.

♪ METZ: I, I drew this a long time ago.

Here's my son, that's my daughter, me, and my mom.

You see in freedom, one happy family, and it's going home, and it say, "With God, all things are possible."

My son, he wasn't at the airport.

ADRIAN BERNARD: Everybody say, "Welcome home, Danny!"

METZ: And when I didn't see him, I was heartbroken.

(people clapping in video) CHILD: Wait, is this your birthday?

- No, this is just my homecome, homecoming celebration.

Y'all know I've been in prison for 23 years.

Y'all didn't know that?

- I didn't even know that.

METZ: He had told me he was teaching himself not to feel, because I was never coming home.

(videocall ringing) Hi!

Hey, Victory!

HAYTER (on phone): Come here, come here, come here.

Granny's on the phone.

(Victory cooing) METZ: Hey!

Oh, look at the baby, hi!

Hi there, pumpkin.

Hi there, pumpkin.

(Hayter laughs on phone) HAYTER (on phone): Come here, come here, come here.

- Hi.

HAYTER (voiceover): I don't really remember too much of my mom being in the picture before prison.

(water rushing) When my mom went away, I moved with my aunt and my four cousins.

We went to L.A., and then we moved to Sacramento.

And then from Sacramento, we moved to Stockton, and that's where I've spent most of my adult life till now.

Right now, I'm 29, and I'll be 30 soon.

I was about three years old when my mom went to prison.

(toy clacks) I never really imagined what life would be like with both of my parents home.

- (babbles) HAYTER: I never really remembered anything of them being home.

In the Bible, it has, there's a scripture that said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

That, that's a really prominent scripture in my life.

So when friends or family or anybody will leave, I know He will be there.

- (cooing) HAYTER: My daughter, Victory, I felt like that was a fitting name for her.

God gave us victory over every situation.

Now that my mom's home, we do get to FaceTime and talk often, and we are trying to get a better relationship.

I wish she would come and stay up this way, because you can't really get to know somebody when they're far away.

You can talk, but we've been talking for years.

'Cause we don't really know each other as well as we think we do.

METZ: The dream I had of us being together, the thing that I envisioned, it wasn't my reality once I came back to New Orleans.

I'm just trying to figure this whole freedom thing out.

What's my purpose?

I would always just tell my mother about my plans.

"I'm going to be a mentor and I'm going to help "all these girls that I leave behind that still here."

And she would just say, "Mm-hmm, Boo."

♪ Good morning.

WOMAN: Good morning.

(security wand beeps) (wand beeping) METZ: Good morning, good morning.

How y'all doing?

GIRLS: Good morning.

METZ: So, what y'all did for the week?

Tell me what happened for the week.

GIRL: They picked up my charges.

They just gave me six months after six months after six months, all this time.

(door buzzes) - So... - So what I'm up in here for, I'm going to get juvenile life for that.

(door opening) - Are you?

- Yes.

- So how do you feel about that?

What I tell you?

- (mumbling) - Huh?

I'm sorry.

- You told me a lot of stuff.

- No, I'm talking about as far as, start planning now for when you get out, because you're going to get out.

You're not going to be sitting in there like I was sitting in there, and not knowing what happen, what's going on.

And how are you?

What are your plans for the future?

GIRL 2: I don't have any right now.

- You still with your boyfriend?

- No, I have a new one.

- How old is he?

- 32.

- And how old are you?

- I'm 15.

- 15, I thought so.

I know at the age of 15, 16, I wasn't in a life of crime, but when I met somebody, and that became my lifestyle.

If you change your thinking, you'll change your behavior.

Eliminate him out your life.

- He's going to rehab.

- Oh, he going to rehab, too?

- He told me he was going to rehab.

- Well, we ain't worried about him.

Like, we kind of concentrating... - Yeah, I'm going to rehab.

- Okay, so you gotta worry about yourself.

- Yeah, I know.

(girls talking indistinctly) METZ: When I met my husband, I was 18 and he was 32.

My mom was, like, "He's going to take your youth away from you."

I didn't understand what she meant.

♪ (people laughing, talking in background) (drums pounding) ♪ ♪ ♪ (people talking, calling in background) - What's up, champ?

How you doing?

All right, Sam!

You made it, Sam!

Stop!

You gonna stop!

- Yeah, he nice.

(brass band playing) (crowd cheering, whistling) (music continues) WOMAN: I like that!

You're free!

WOMAN 2: Come on, girl!

- Come on, Boo, sing!

Come on, Boo-Boo!

- She's free!

She's free!

She's free!

(music continues) - (laughing) METZ: I had a love-hate relationship with New Orleans because of what happened to me.

You know, I was really mad for a long time.

My son's father, he died when my son was six months old.

He was murdered by the New Orleans police.

I was really, like, devastated.

Now I have a baby, I was 18, and it's, like how am I going to take care of this child?

(crowd whistling, cheering) METZ: I met my husband through a friend.

She was, like, "Girl, I saw this dude at the second line.

They was all there, had on these mink coats and Rolex watches."

And I was, like, "Who was that?"

She said, "Girl, they said it was Glenn."

He was almost, like, invisible.

You heard about him, but you never got to see him.

You could never say, "That's him over there."

♪ He asked me where I had been all his life.

I was so immature then.

I was 18 years old, he was 32.

I started feeling kind of special, like I was the one that he choose to talk to.

And he was, like, "This, this is how your life going to be."

And I said, "What you mean?"

He said, "Plentiful.

You're not going to ever want for nothing."

That's all I ever wanted, was to be able to take care of my son.

♪ REPORTER: Tonight, ringleader Glenn Metz and 13 other key players in the organization have been indicted by the federal grand jury on 54 separate counts.

♪ TANYA: I met Danielle in beauty school Uptown in 1985.

And it's so funny how Uptown is.

Everyone knew everybody.

Like, all our parents kind of knew each other.

I think most of my fondest memories was with you, kind of, like, growing up from that small.

Like, we always got into it with somebody.

(laughing) SHELITA RISIN: Danielle was very boy-crazy.

A boy could look at her, and she'd, look, Tanya, "How I look?

'Cause he like me."

(laughing) "Is he looking?"

(laughing) "That boy likes me."

- That's right.

(laughs) RISIN: When Carl was born, she said, "He ugly?

How he look?"

(laughing): I said... - Oh, yeah, you know why she said that?

- You remember that?

- 'Cause she said, "My baby wasn't the most attractive baby."

- She wasn't.

- I'll never forget that, either.

- She wasn't.

(laughing) And so then, after that, you decided to go to beauty school?

Was it after you had Carl?

- After I had Carl, 'cause now I got to do something, I got...

I knew I had my son-- I have to do something.

Like, okay, if I go to school, then I won't have to worry about all that.

Now, I don't know if y'all remember, but six months later... - Six months later, Carl's father was murdered by the policeman.

It was hard-- we all were young.

And I think-- my personal opinion-- through that, her vulnerability led her more towards her husband, Glenn Metz, and then there goes the story of Danielle and her journey that led her to this sentence.

I just knew that was going to be a road to where it ended up.

I, um...

I, I never disapproved of their relationship.

He, you know, like, he would fight her, you know, but, I mean...

I didn't know it was serious until it was too late.

Like, when she was going to court, it was a joke.

I thought that we was all walk out the courthouse together.

I never, in a million years, would have dreamed that she would've got a life sentence.

Three life sentences and 20 years.

Sometimes I feel bad, because I, I didn't think she was ever coming home.

We all did-- you know, you used to write letters.

They were so consistent.

You know, "I'm coming home.

(audio fading) "When I come home, do this.

I'mma come home."

♪ (laughter and conversation continue softly) METZ: My friends, they really don't understand what my life is like.

I had never saw my mom cry before.

And my mom was, like, "I don't think you know "what just happened to you.

(echoing): "Do you know you have life?

(woman laughing, film reel clicking) Do you know what that means?"

WOMAN (on recording): This call is from a federal prison.

METZ: So many nights, so many people screaming and yelling.

Something has happened at home.

(echoing): He had to restrain her.

He hog-tied her, shackled, body slammed.

I would see women contemplating suicide.

Although my body was there, my mind didn't have to be there.

My spirit was not going to be there.

I wasn't going to lose my sanity.

♪ After being in prison for 18 years, I decided to work at UNICOR call center.

That's where the 411 calls came in.

The federal system uses inmates for outsourcing.

We would sit at cubicles-- it was like a nine-to-five.

(call beeps) City and state police.

(voiceover): We had to stay on less than a minute.

- City and state police, may I have your listing?

(voiceover): And I didn't want to work there before, because it was almost like slave labor.

They was paying us, like, maybe 69 cents an hour.

- May I have your listing?

(people speaking over phone) (voiceover): But after I got over there, it gave me, like, an escape.

(people exclaiming, talking on phone line) That was my connection to the outside world.

(children playing) ♪ (children playing) ♪ Once I log off, take my headset off, now you have officers escorting us.

We have to get in line and, you know, get our bags searched, move through the metal detectors.

Now you're going back into the prison part of it.

People would ask me, "Well, how did you, how can you do this every day?"

The women who I built the sisterhood with, they helped me do my time.

We become as close as mothers, daughters, sisters.

I've been in there 23 years, so I've been with them just as long as I've been with my real family.

We would fantasize about being home all the time.

♪ And everybody would be by my mother house on a Sunday.

She would have, like, smothered chicken, shrimp and okra.

Ms. Pat, who was my roommate, she was, like, "Ooh, girl, I could just taste that now."

MS. PAT (on phone): Right, oh, yes, Danny.

You remember that, Danny?

I wish I had been able to come and see your mother before she passed.

Because I knew she could cook, and you know how I love to eat, too.

- Right.

- Just like you.

- Right.

- We both greedy.

We both greedy.

- (laughs) Yep.

- That's how I did my time.

My body was there, but my mind was very seldom there, and I prayed myself up out of there, too.

- (chuckles) - You got in your word, didn't you?

- Yes, I did.

- Prayed your way up out of there, too, because prayer works.

So, Danny, tell me about the kids.

I just want to hear.

- Well, you know, Ms. Pat, I still feel guilty about, you know, not being here all those years, and sometime, when I can't get to where they are right away, it makes me sad.

- Now, one thing about the children I know, you can't allow them to hold you hostage to what has happened.

And I know things have gone different ways with your son.

My son did the same thing.

They missed us, sweetheart.

Even though they are adults now, they're still suffering.

All you can do is pick up since you've been home.

You can only start now.

MAN: Please join me in welcoming Danielle Metz and Carmen James Randolph.

(audience applauding) RANDOLPH: So, Danielle, let's go back to the 1990s.

Janet Jackson was singing "That's the Way Love Goes."

You were a young mother.

Introduce us to who Danielle was at that time.

METZ: It's ironic that you would say Janet Jackson, because that's who I wanted to be.

(all laugh) That's who I really thought I was back in the day.

She is my favorite, of all.

After Beyoncé, now.

(audience laughs) My mom would come, and even when I get ready to cry or I get-- you know, we get at the table and we have our little talks, she would always tell me, she said, "Boo, ain't no sense in crying.

You did what you wanted to do."

She said, "So, we just going to sit here "and eat these chicken wings, "and we not going to even worry about that, because if you get to crying, I'm going to leave."

She said, "All you got to do is have a little faith."

My mom was a realist, and I had two kids that I had to be responsible for, my son and my daughter.

Both of them have never given me a problem the whole time I've been in prison.

That says a lot, because the statistics says that they'll probably end up in prison themselves.

Me and my son was writing, right?

And he was telling me he wouldn't hang on the corner.

And I told him, I said, "Why?"

I said, "They're just hanging out."

He said, "That's just not me," and I said, "Oh, okay."

Right after we was talking about it, somebody ended up getting killed on the corner.

So he said, "See, Ma, "that's why you wouldn't catch me around there like that, you know?"

I said, "I would've been scared."

And he said, "What you mean?"

I said, "Because, "I ain't never had a gun before.

"I never shot a gun.

I never possessed a gun."

He said, "What?"

He said, "Mom, come on now."

I said, "No."

So, he needed to know that, because whatever he was hearing or whatever people told him, he's thinking I'm one way, and I'm another way.

So that's why I need to tell my own story rather than let somebody else tell it for me.

(audience applauds) And it kind of broke my heart.

I'm, like, "Well, who do you think I am?"

CARL BERNARD: I remember just being by my grandmother watching Richard Pryor's stand-up.

He was, like, "Man, I met a guy that had triple life.

How bad were you?"

RICHARD PRYOR: I met one brother, his name was Jay-Bo.

He was doing a sentence, triple life.

(audience laughs) How in the (bleep) do you do triple life?

(audience cheering, applauding) I mean, that mean if he die and come back... (audience laughs) ...he got to go to penitentiary.

(audience laughing, applauding) CARL BERNARD: It was early in the morning, like, when the federal agents kicked down the door, put guns to me and my grandparents.

They're tearing the whole house up, like, literally, like, beds, cutting mattresses, and opening up cabinets, really, like, ramshacking everything, like, breaking TVs-- where is my mom?

"Do you know how long she's going to be gone?

Do you know exactly it is where she at?"

♪ My first time seeing her through the glass, you know, it gave me an understanding of what really was going on somewhat.

You know, not to the extent as far as what length of time or things of that nature, but, "Okay, she's in jail."

REPORTER: The government contends Glenn Metz and his wife were the bosses of a highly structured organization that employed the other defendants on trial as hitmen, drug distributors, and collectors.

ADRIAN BERNARD: Danielle asked me to take her kids.

She didn't want them in New Orleans.

And she knew family and friends would be talking about everything that happened, and she just wanted the kids away from that noise.

For the first two years, Carl stayed with me, and when he turned nine, he asked his mom to move back to New Orleans with his paternal grandmother.

I relocated to Northern California, which was about 45 minutes from where Danielle was housed, for her to have an opportunity to have a relationship with her daughter.

HAYTER: On visiting day, we got there about 7:45-ish.

We would just sit in that visiting shed and try to compact everything that happened in that week of main events, things that were missed, in that one sitting.

We would cry, laugh, sing, do all kinds of stuff-- tell jokes.

You know, I'd try to keep the strong face on for my mom so she didn't have to worry about me being emotional.

While my brother, for the most part, he would cry a lot, but I would try to comfort him and tell him it's going to be okay.

CARL BERNARD: On family day, they allow you to actually, like, go into the facilities, and it had basketball.

(children playing) I always would get mad that she'll beat me, because I thought that I could beat her at everything.

She would not let me win.

She'll let me get super-, super-close, and then she'd just come with this, like, this special move, and... You're having so much fun, you're with your mom, things really, like, seem somewhat normal, because you're back with your mom, so...

But, like, every other hour, you would just look at the clock, and as the time go, it's just getting more sad and more sad as the time pass.

So by the time, like, it gets to, like, 2:45, you go sit on your mom lap, you go to hug her and stuff like that, and that would really, like, hit me every single time.

I would just blank out, and just really, like, "Dang, this is really you."

Like, "This, this is really your life."

That last day, we would have to almost pry him away from his mother.

CARL BERNARD: Imagine being six, seven years old, really thinking that you may not see your mom, like, ever again as a free person.

(birds calling) It made me, like, not really, like, have feelings.

To this day, I try to work on that, to feel.

Like, to feel things.

My question, since a kid, was, was always, was, like, "What would be the best for me?"

You know, "How could I really, like, "be in my best state of mind, "be the best person that I possibly would be, "with the circumstances really, like, being "what the circumstances being, as it's pertaining to you know, my mom or whatnot?"

So, yeah.

Yeah, peace is everything to me.

Driving is soothing.

You know, anything for me to, um, to soothe my mind, I do it.

So no radio, no nothing.

No company, just riding.

I always was alone.

That's one of the things that I think I needed to just stay, just, focused.

♪ It was just too heavy on me, just me trying to process everything.

♪ When she came home, like, you know, as happy as I was, my soul was just exhausted.

You know, you're trying for her, and for yourself, as well, to be something that you haven't been for the last 33 years of your life.

♪ (birds chirping) METZ: I miss her.

I miss her, and sometimes, like, I just feel like... (sniffles): ...I'm out here by myself, like... You know, my son, him was in a book called "Alone in the World," and every time I think about it, I'll be, like, "Well, that's what I am.

"Alone in the world, just me, myself, and I, riding down the street by myself."

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

You know, other people think that, you know, like, when you're in prison, or, just saying that all that I've overcome, like, you still don't have life, everyday issues.

They say, "Well, you ought to be glad you're home.

Just worry about you being home."

But it's a lot come with that.

It's not just you being home.

You still have to deal with your emotions, your struggles, your progress.

It's still a process.

And I know I'm far from perfect, you know, but I'm trying.

And I'm making all the effort... (sniffles): ...to be the best example I can be to my kids, to the community, to my mom, to my nephews, to all of the young girls in the past that probably knew Danielle when I was out there in the world, to just be a good example.

HAYTER: This is our house.

This is where we stay, right here.

METZ: I'm just glad that, you know, you had somewhere to stay while I was in, in prison and stuff.

Your auntie did a wonderful job raising you guys, and just bringing y'all into a good environment and having somewhere that you can, you know, a place that you can call home.

- This house right here was where one of my boyfriends used to stay.

(laughs) - One of your boyfriends?

You ain't had no boyfriend.

- Yes, I did.

- Oh, you did?

- (laughing): Mm-hmm.

I forgot to write you about that.

- Oh, okay, okay.

- (laughs) - (fussing) HAYTER: Hey.

- Oh, the pumpkin.

- Does she have her toy or anything in there?

(objects in bag shifting) - There, my little pumpkin.

Thank you.

I had Chinese food.

Victory was just, like, "String beans!"

(laughs) I did give her a little iced tea, though.

- Iced-- Mama!

I cannot trust her with you.

- No, you can.

- That's caffeine.

Babies is not supposed to drink tea like that.

- No.

Oh, my God.

Babies can't have tea, Neisha?

- Mama... - A little tea, unsweetened iced tea?

And, uh, what else did I give her?

HAYTER (voiceover): Now that my mom's home, it's, like, "Mom, I'm not a kid anymore," you know?

She wants to tell me, "Oh, you don't need to do this," or she wants to tell me how to raise my child, and I'm, like, "No, Mama."

"Mama."

But sometimes I am fearful, as a mother, because I don't really know how to be a mother, and I've never seen a mother figure.

I had my aunt, but I didn't have a mom.

So a lot of times, I'm praying and winging it.

METZ: Ooh, lookit, she's running for Granny.

Look, look, look, look.

HAYTER: When I walk in and I see my mom here with Victory, sometimes I have to pinch myself.

I still can't believe it.

- All right!

HAYTER: I wish she would come and stay up this way, but she's pretty busy and going back to school and trying to get her life back on track.

METZ: Ooh, you running laps, girl.

Run.

MAN: Team, today, we'll be doing our collective canvass in the Central City target area.

Danielle Metz will be taking the lead.

METZ: Let's go on by the project food store first.

You know, by the Magnolia, the Melpomene.

That's our target area.

Anything going on today?

You staying out of trouble, huh?

- Yeah.

- All right.

What I told you?

- Stay good, stay working, stay out of trouble.

♪ WOMAN: She has served as an advocate and mentor.

Danielle Metz.

(audience applauding) METZ: So when the judge gave me life, he told me I had forfeited my right to live in a humane society.

He was going to make me out an example for anybody that wished to follow in my footsteps.

We all have a past, and a lot of us are not proud of things that we have done in the past, but it is not gonna do us any good to stay focused on it.

Our names are gonna go farther than our faces ever will.

So use this as a launching pad.

And thank you and have a great day.

(applauding) Me becoming a mentor and working every day and going to school, it's therapeutic for me.

It is a loneliness inside me.

I have to keep moving.

I have to keep going to not think about it.

Hi, are you making an appointment for the FIT Clinic?

When was your release date?

Yeah, we treat for everything.

Hey, Mr. Dave, how you doing?

You know, coming out of prison, people don't realize how important healthcare is on the inside, but I know when I was in there, you rarely ever got treated for anything.

Is that how it was where you was at?

Last year, I was just employed at Cure Violence, formerly CeaseFire.

Now I'm the Formerly Incarcerated Transition community health worker under Tulane University.

(audience applauding) I'm still attending school.

I'm just using my story as a vehicle to change things.

Come here, girl.

That's my little niece.

- (giggling) - You chilling?

- (talking in background) - I got to pass by my auntie house.

You know, that's my auntie who told on me.

- I know-- I know that.

- The one with the blonde hair.

REPORTER: Angela Bernard wove a spellbinding tale of the Metz organization and its profits.

She recounted how her nephew, Glenn Metz, recruited her in 1987 to count money for the alleged gang.

METZ: I know how much my mom love her sister.

That was her baby sister, my aunt, the one person that I trusted.

I'd never think that it would come to that, but it did.

REPORTER: Bernard testified she and Danielle Metz often traveled to Houston with thousands of dollars concealed in a specially built station wagon for Colombian drug dealers to pack with cocaine.

METZ: She and I, we would go out of town from New Orleans to Houston.

In my mind, I put it like I wasn't going to do anything illegal, which, I knew it was illegal.

We had a lot of tension in the house.

Sometime he would hit me.

Like, I didn't want no problems with him.

I didn't want to argue with him or nothing.

So I kind of initiated it.

Not kind of, I initiated.

He didn't ask me to do anything for him-- I volunteered.

I said, "Well, you know, you know, "if you need somebody to do something for you, then I'll do it."

You know, like, I figure I'm his wife.

You know, like, I'm here.

You know, that was my thinking then.

"Okay, I'll do it, or whatever you need me to do."

Now, I didn't think he would take me up on it.

But that's what happened.

When you're in that kind of relationship, that's something you really hide, that you don't want nobody to know.

It cost me my life.

♪ They were so small, and every visit, they were getting taller and bigger and bigger.

Christmas was the hardest time for me.

But at the end of the visit, we would always, "Everybody bow their heads.

Next Christmas, your mom is gonna be home."

("We Wish You a Merry Christmas" playing) Sometimes, I try to just push it out of my mind, like, it's not really the holiday season.

Carl says, "Oh, man, I'm so happy that I'm not on my way to visit you in prison."

And I was, like, "Huh?"

And he was, like, "You know, "we'd be on our way up there right now "if you weren't home.

"And Granny would be telling us how to behave, 'Make sure my daughter's not upset.'"

I said, "I don't even want to think about it."

I didn't know if I was happy or sad.

Just like now, I still don't know if I'm happy or I'm sad.

You know, holidays, you know, you look to spending with your family and...

I wish I can go back and start from when they were seven years old and just have plans and say, "This is what we gonna do."

But Carl, he kind of introverted person.

He don't-- you know, he do his own thing.

My daughter, she's going somewhere else for Christmas with her other side of the family, somewhere in another city, another state.

("God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" playing) I always think and ask myself, "Am I supposed to be here?

(music playing, bell ringing) "Is this what I'm supposed to be doing?

Is this where God want me at now?"

(laughs) What's up, baby?

- Danny, girl.

- (laughing): Hey.

Who would have ever thought, huh?

- Wow.

Oh, my God, you look like a model.

(laughs) - Oh, go ahead.

You look good.

- I'm all right.

- I love your hair and everything.

When I was in prison, when people would say, "How long have you been in prison?

", a lot of the time, I would just be, like, "This long," but it was down to here.

- (laughing): Yeah, right, right, right.

- Have you ever been to Arkansas?

- The only thing I know about Arkansas is President Clinton and you.

- (laughs) Well, here is what I call the war room.

- Oh, my gosh.

- That's just a small percentage, because I just wanted to help women.

For a long time, you know, that's all I did.

I just did you women, knowing that we were mostly just in there because of what a husband or boyfriend did.

So it started off real small, and then I finally just said, "Oh, screw it, I'll just, you know, let's just help everybody."

But it has me spread so thin, because I don't, I don't really have the infrastructure.

But do you-- here's all of, here's all of us that were together.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So you and (unintelligible) and Angie.

And sometimes we'd all be in the law library together.

- Yeah.

- This is unbelievable that-- the odds, the David and Goliath element to this story-- that we're sitting here trying to understand the law to defend ourselves, up against, you know, Goliath.

- I always thought you was going home anyway.

You know, you, you was the typical candidate: green eyes, blonde hair.

I just thought that you would always go home.

That's just how, you know, the scales are.

- It's kind of sad, in a way, isn't it, though?

- Yeah.

But that's the way it is.

- It's sad.

It is sad.

My own sentence was commuted by President Clinton in 2000.

I felt like what was so important with my own case is exposure.

What do we need to do to bring women out of prison so that they have a presence out here in the collective consciousness of society?

I married a successful businessman, and he believed in the medicinal properties of MDMA.

He was embarking on a business venture, basically, to have it manufactured.

I had periphial exposure that sucked me into the conspiracy statute, which means if you do one thing, you're guilty for everything that everybody else has done.

So, I was sentenced in '92 to 24 years to FCI Dublin.

I'm witnessing all these other women who are in the same situation I was, who just had periphial involvement due to their relationship to a husband or boyfriend.

The whole prison experience for me was, as much as I hate to admit it, um, it's where I found my purpose.

And I feel like we were given an education.

You learn everything about going to trial.

And then, when you're done, you're, like, "Well, I won't get an opportunity to do that again."

- Right.

- But now I know everything I would've done different.

Well, now you're an expert.

- Right.

- You're an expert on so many things in policy, and with regard to prison reform, and then also sentencing reform and clemency.

METZ: A lot of times, I wonder if I'm spinning my wheels, if I'm making a difference.

Is it gonna matter what happened with me?

Is it gonna give somebody else a second chance?

I think it was, like, 1993.

Me and Glenn moved to Vegas, we got into a argument.

It got physical, and I waited till, um, he left.

But this time, I wrote a letter and say I was leaving.

I wasn't coming back.

But it was too late.

When the indictment came out, I realized that, hey, I am wanted by the FBI.

I went to Mississippi.

I think it was, like, five months.

I would psych myself out, like, you know, this was gonna be my new life.

But I knew I couldn't be on the run forever by myself.

I knew at some point, I was gonna be separated from my kids for a long time.

So, I just started imagining my life, what it would've been had it not come to this.

Why didn't I tell somebody what I was going through?

Maybe somebody could have helped me.

Why didn't I get out sooner?

It was breaking my heart-- I was, like, "I just hope it hurry up and come to a end.

If they come and find me, just come on, find me."

REPORTER: Fugitive Danielle Metz, wife of drug kingpin Glenn Metz, was arrested Saturday at an apartment building in Jackson, Mississippi.

I'm sure he thought that I would testify against him.

I'm sure he thought that the way we left off, that, "Oh, she's gonna, you know, since this happened, she's gonna do that to me."

But I just couldn't bring myself to do it to him.

The prosecutor turned it around.

The story that they were painting that I was his second-in-command.

I was a shot caller, as well.

That wasn't true.

I got found guilty on possession to distribute cocaine, money laundering.

I was sentenced under a Kingpin Statute.

That made all the difference.

Over the years, I would just reach out to different advocacy groups.

They couldn't do anything for me.

They told me that my case was too high-profile, and that it was too complicated.

I was just spinning my wheels.

That I probably would never get out.

REPORTER: President Clinton has used his clemency powers rarely when compared to his predecessors.

ATTORNEY: There was a, just a common thread of non-controversial commutations.

When I met Danielle in August 2000, I really believed that, at some point, that she was going to be freed.

You need to get political support because it's a political decision.

And Danielle's prosecutor wasn't convinced that Danielle Metz was a battered wife.

She was going to oppose Danielle getting clemency.

There was the public story that Danielle had punched Glenn Metz in the courtroom after the guilty verdict.

♪ MARILYN MITCHELL: She seemed, for some reason, amazed by the verdict.

REPORTER: Until she started beating on him?

MITCHELL: That's correct, she seemed to see, to beat on her husband and start attacking him with her shackles.

Of course I was mad-- I just, you know, I...

I was shocked.

You know, I didn't know how I was gonna react.

And I'm sure he didn't know how I was gonna react, neither.

He didn't move or he didn't say, "Well, why are you hitting me?"

Or...

I guess he was surprised, too.

You know, but... People don't know.

You can't get mad with people for not knowing.

Sometime, we don't know how to get out of those situations.

You know?

Because us, as women, we want to be loved.

It might be in the wrong way, but we want to be loved.

You know?

So...

They don't know.

They really don't know.

They have no clue.

ATTORNEY: I told her that, "Look, I'm not going "to forget about you, "but commuting these drug cases wasn't going to be "the direction the new incoming administration would have towards clemency."

- I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear... METZ: I was still there after so long.

Decades after decades... (modem calling out) ...calendar after calendar, year after year.

REPORTER: New counts going on.

SOLDIER: Yo.

(guns firing) REPORTER: The scene is nothing short of apocalyptic.

(audience applauding) METZ: Missing every highlight or every event or everything of your kids' life.

How am I gonna get out this place?

I've commuted the sentences of dozens of people sentenced under old drug laws that we now recognize were unfair.

And yesterday, I announced that I'm commuting dozens more.

(audience applauding and cheering) ATTORNEY: We sent a letter to Kenneth Polite, who is appointed by President Obama the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Louisiana.

This is the potential key that's gonna open that prison door.

He agreed to write a long letter on her behalf.

POLITE: "Ms. Metz has now spent "almost half her life in prison, "and we do not believe that she merits "spending the rest of her life in prison.

"Nor do we believe that she poses any meaningful risk "to public safety.

"Accordingly, my office supports President Obama "granting Ms. Metz's application for a commutation of sentence.

"Respectfully submitted, Kenneth Polite, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana."

Everyone agreed that this was, if not the most worthy, then certainly a worthy candidate for a commutation consideration.

Danielle was charged, essentially, under a Kingpin Statute, uh, in, at the time of her indictment and trial.

All of the evidence in the case, uh, suggests that she certainly was not that, that the charge itself was not an appropriate one.

She does not need to spend another day in prison.

METZ: It had started to play on my mind, like, so many people was leaving, and I was still there after so long.

Nobody told me anything, but in my spirit, I just started packing all my things.

A friend of mine came to my room, and she's, like, "What you doing?"

I said, "I'm leaving here."

"Leaving?

Where you going?"

I was, like, "I'm going home."

And I went to the gospel show that night, and I was sitting in the back of the church.

And they were talking about a breakthrough.

And that was the sermon, like, the beginning of the end.

And this is when you're going to have a new life.

I was so drained and weary and just tired of, tired of being there.

I just cried and cried and cried and cried all that night.

I cried like never before, and I prayed, and I cried, and I prayed, and I cried.

And when I woke up that morning, and I got up to start my day, it felt like a weight had been lifted off of me, like I was just free.

I think it was, like, a day or two days later, I heard my lawyer voice on the phone.

He was, like, "Danielle, you're gonna be going home."

Oh, my God, and when he said that, I just screamed like I never screamed before.

I guess all the pain that I've ever... All the stuff that I was bottling up all them years, that I couldn't cry when my mom came... - Oh, man.

(laughing) METZ: I just dropped the phone.

- (laughing) Mama!

BARBARA BERNARD: Hey.

Who said-- hey!

- Hey!

- (unintelligible) back!

All right, let me see you.

- (crying) - What are you crying for?

You're home now.

All the crying is over.

All the good times gonna start for me and you.

- (crying) - Why are you crying?

Aren't you happy to see me?

- (sobbing) (phone calling out) METZ: Hello?

IESHA TYLER (over phone): Hey, Ms. Danielle.

- Hey, how you doing?

- I'm doing good.

How are you?

- I'm fine.

Um, I know your mama had told you a little bit about me, and I had been talking to your brother, um, just, you know, telling him, um, basically that I want to try to assist with, uh, getting your mother home.

- Absolutely.

- Your mom was a very integral part of my life in prison, and I just recently got another job in this organization centered around ending incarceration of women and girls.

That is the mission.

And so the first person I thought about was your mother.

- Welcome!

- Hey!

- Hi, Ms. Danielle, hey.

- Oh, my God.

- Team Pam, I'm loving it.

I, I love this.

Thank you, Ms. Danielle.

- Now, I hope it fits, 'cause... TYLER: To know that God did it for you, I'm definitely believing that He's going to do it for my mother, as well, and that, like, that makes me feel so excited and happy, because we are making steps towards her being liberated.

- It's a lot of work to be done.

And, you know, I don't, I can't give you any false hope, but long as you know I'm doing something, and I'm keeping Miss Pam's name alive... - Yeah.

- ...that means that, hey, we're bringing awareness to her.

And just seeing you here, it's kind of taking me somewhere, because I'm thinking about my daughter.

- Yeah.

- So, if you don't mind me just asking you, uh, how, how do it feel, because I, I don't...

I've asked Gleneisha sometimes, but sometimes I can't bring myself to...

I'd rather pretend like, "I'm here now, that's all you need to worry about."

- Mm-hmm.

- But I know it's something that, it's not that easy for her, because I've been absent... - Yeah.

- ...for all that time.

- I'm gonna be honest with you.

Like, if my mom came home, I want to have that conversation, because you have to take my feelings in consideration as far as, like, how I feel, and why I've been emotionally scarred by, you know, my mother's absence.

And some conversations, sad as it may be, some conversations can't be had between you and your daughter, because of the sake of the, you know, relationship, you know, and to be honest, because from a daughter's perspective, if I really, really told you how I felt, you know, with, how I feel about my, my mother being absent, it probably would hurt her real, real bad.

And, you know, it's, like, that's not my goal, you know?

- Right.

- And by me expressing that to you, what justice is it really going to do?

But I also want to be transparent and tell you, "Hey, I felt this affecting me," but, you know, I don't want to have to, you know, go in too deep into the conversation, because, like I said, some things is better left unsaid.

(people talking in background) METZ: Today, I'm gonna be speaking, standing in solidarity with my friends who's campaigning, advocating for people that we left behind.

So we are here trying to get the new administration to change their policies, to recognize that we are human beings, and at the end of the day, how much time is enough time?

Like, when is enough?

You know, prison is about rehabilitation.

WOMAN: ♪ Well, there ain't no harm ♪ With your mind Come on!

♪ Staying on freedom ♪ You know, there ain't no harm ♪ ♪ Oh, no, staying on freedom ♪ I said there ain't no (chanting): Enough is enough!

(song continues) - Free her!

- Enough is enough!

(chant and song continue) ♪ Hallelu SINGERS: ♪ Hallelu ALL: ♪ Hallelujah ANDREA JAMES: Good afternoon!

- Good afternoon!

JAMES: We're in Washington, D.C., people!

National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls is committed to abolishing incarceration for women and girls.

When we started this battle for clemency under President Obama's administration, we fought like hell.

We were able to assist in bringing 50 of our sisters out of the depths of incarceration.

(audience cheers and applauds) Many of those sisters were serving life with no parole.

I invite, to say a few words to you, our own dear Danielle Metz.

WOMAN: That's right!

JAMES: Danielle was the last sister that we were able to push out before that administration ended.

Danielle Metz.

(cheering and applauding) METZ: Free her!

CROWD: Free her!

METZ: Free her!

CROWD: Free her!

METZ: Free her!

CROWD: Free her!

METZ: We have a lot of work to do.

But this is a small feat for our president.

WOMAN: Yes!

- A very small feat, because he don't have to go to the Supreme Court.

WOMAN: That's right!

- He don't have to go to Congress.

The power is in the presidency.

I know what it feels like to be separated from a family.

I know how it feels sitting in a fetus position, begging and pleading with God, "Give me one more chance."

I am home, but I am not free.

I am not free because my sisters are not free.

ALL (chanting): Free her.

Free her.

Free her.

Free her.

Free her.

Free her.

Free her.

(crowd continues chant) Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

(crowd cheering and applauding) ♪ METZ: Good morning, Andrea.

How you doing?

JAMES (on computer): Morning, Danny.

Good to see you.

- I was calling because I wanted to discuss Ms. Pam Tyler, the lady that, uh, I told you that I did time with in Dublin.

- Yes.

Unfortunately, President Biden has not acted upon our request to release 100 women.

In Ms. Pam's case, I think that we're really gonna have to engage with Catherine in our legal division to make a determination as to what other inroads we can take, legally, to try and reduce her sentence, or to get compassionate release, or to do something other than, uh, just hanging our hat on clemency.

- Okay.

Um, I know that, um, Ms. Catherine was talking about the students, so do you think I should, uh, the students that are gonna be working on different cases, uh, would that be okay with you if I submit that to, you know, uh, Ms. Catherine, and start the process?

- I think that that's...

I think that that's-- yes.

I think that's best next steps, um, in this, in this, uh, case.

That, and I think it would be a great case for the students.

- Our cases are very complicated.

You know, we don't ever want to go back and revisit that stuff.

The women on the inside, they don't know the first thing to do to start getting help.

And a lot of time, they feel like they're forgotten about.

- There's a heaviness that hangs over women's prisons.

- Right.

- You can very easily feel like you're gonna get lost in that system, even if you have an out date.

You know, our work, also, is to call these things into question.

METZ: When you're in prison and you can't educate yourself, it's easy for you to go back to the things that landed you there.

But when you're educated... JAMES: Now, what kind of country takes a young mother like you were, with two babies at home, and come up with a sentence that isn't just a life sentence, but three life sentences?

We have to really pause.

We have to really ask ourselves, "What are we doing here "as the most incarcerated country on the planet?

What is the expected outcome?"

AYANNA PRESSLEY: When this country incarcerates Black women, their entire family suffers, resulting in long-term destabilization and intergenerational trauma.

And we must do everything we can to dismantle this carceral system.

Free her.

CROWD: Free her!

♪ ♪ You talk to your grandma today?

- Uh, two days ago.

- Oh.

- Two days ago.

- She back?

She home?

- Yeah, she made it.

She's-- she, uh, she made it.

I called her, she was asleep.

She was just getting up, probably an hour ago, yeah, so she made it back, the house is back in order.

- I told you I'm gonna be off probation now.

- Soon, huh?

Walking down...

Remember what I was telling you about your five-year plan?

And you was, like, "Five years?"

I'm, like, "Mom, five years is, like, nothing."

- Ooh, I'm so happy.

- Here we go.

Five years.

- I'm so happy, baby.

I'm gonna be getting on a plane... - Well, you already been on a plane.

- ...just doing whatever I want to do-- yeah.

- Like 90 going west.

- All these different places I went to.

- Exactly.

- All the way from Dublin to here to there to there to there.

I ain't done yet.

- Exactly.

Yep, that's dope.

I'm just really now happy to be able to just really, like, see you, you know, just come into your own, and just really, like, seeing, like, how you is really, like, well, humanity as a whole, like, you just give and do things for other people and be a certain way.

I think that was something for me to really see, you know, like, just the action of it.

Not you saying it, which you never said it, but you just really doing it.

- Mm-hmm.

- Really, like, I think that was something that, uh, that I really needed to see.

(women talking indistinctly) (exclaims) (babbling) - Let me help you.

(Victory babbling) - Okay, now go.

- (murmuring): Oh, let her do her pictures.

(Victory babbling) HAYTER: My kids feel very close to my mom.

(Victory gasps) METZ: Wait, wait, wait.

HAYTER: Seeing them with my mom is a little bittersweet.

- You love Granny?

Give Granny a hug.

Come here, give me a hug.

Give me a hug.

Tell them who you love.

(Victory babbling) HAYTER: I just started talking to a therapist and trying to get counseling, talking about our problems.

That's kind of, like, a taboo topic.

(kids talking in background) We don't talk about our issues, we just try to push through and survive and maneuver around them.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ Happy birthday, dear Granny ♪ Happy birthday to you HAYTER: Sometimes, looking at my kids kind of reminds me of where my life could have been.

- Yay!

HAYTER: Victory just turned four.

I was just turning four when my mom went in.

VICTORY: I want cake, I want cake.

- I'm about to start slicing.

Who want cake?

CHILD: Ooh!

HAYTER: Oh, that's too big for them.

WOMAN: I thought this was for them.

CHILD: No, Victory, you got one.

(kids talking in background) HAYTER (voiceover): It's bittersweet.

(kids talking in background) ♪ (phone ringing) METZ: Hello?

TYLER (over phone): Hey, Ms. Metz.

- Hey, what's going on?

- Oh, my goodness, you will not believe.

They just said that my mother is going to be released on the 29th, so I need to go down there, get a flight, so I can pick her up from the airport.

- Oh, my God, I am so happy for you.

Ms. Pam ain't going to believe this one right here.

The 29th of July?

- The 29th of July, she'd be able to come home.

Having you on this journey to help us and to see it finally come to pass, like... Ooh!

I feel like I can breathe again.

- Team Pam.

TYLER: Team Pam!

- (chuckling) High five.

- (cheers softly) Thank you, Jesus!

Oh, my goodness, this is so surreal.

Oh, my goodness.

Mmm.

- It must be coming, I see those flags.

Acting like America is America.

Baby, please.

Oh, I hate this place.

I ain't lying.

That truck is the truck that watches the institution.

It rides all the way around all the time.

- Mmm.

- It just keep riding around, riding around.

I guess for security purposes, whatever that might be.

- Right.

- And, like, who gonna jump over a fence?

Are they Superman?

- Right.

Did she say she was coming out?

- She in the back.

- Oh.

- She said, (unintelligible) she just saw.

She said, "Yeah!"

(car door closes) She, she got the picture.

We was in the wrong spot.

♪ - (crying, whispering): Oh, thank you, Jesus.

(sniffles) - You all right.

It's over now-- like my mama told me, it's over now.

- (crying) (breathes deeply) (both crying, murmuring) TYLER: Oh, my goodness.

(crying) I'm sorry.

METZ (crying): Oh, Ms. Pam, I'm so happy to see you.

God is so good.

(kisses) We love you, Ms. Pam.

MS. PAM: I love you, too.

(all crying) WOMAN (crying): I missed you!

(whimpering): Thank you!

METZ: You ready?

MS. PAM: Yes.

- Come on.

♪ (Hayter grunts, Victory giggles) HAYTER (voiceover): The dynamic of a mother-and-daughter relationship, it can be a little difficult at times.

Sometimes I'm not used to certain comments or expectations.

(Metz exclaiming) METZ: See, I merge one step at a time.

It's one step at a time.

How m... (unintelligible) (baby babbles) HAYTER: It's on both sides that we both have expectations of one another that probably aren't being met.

METZ (voiceover): If you have been out of somebody's life 23 years, that's how long it probably take to get things back to normal.

Two people getting to know each other all over again is just, uh...

It, it's a lot.

I know you've been through things, things that I don't know about, but I'm very proud of you.

I'm proud of the mother you are.

I'm proud of the daughter you are.

And I might not say it to you all the time, but anybody that know me know how I feel about my kids.

You or Carl have never disappointed me.

No matter what, what I thought, or when we have our bad days, I'm always proud of you, and I'm just thankful to God that whatever you go through, if you need me, I'm here.

A mother is the foundation of the family, but because of the choices I made, it was derailed.

And, and that's one thing that I really admire, that your daughters won't have to go through that because of the decisions and the way that you live your life.

I can't go back and change anything.

You know?

All I can do is be the best person that I can be now.

♪ I know I could have done some things different.

And maybe the outcome would've been different.

(exclaiming softly) METZ: We can't get back none of that time-- the time is gone.

You know, we could build from here-- I'm here.

And so, you know, I'm just thankful.

"Danielle, "Congratulation on your graduation from Southern.

"I'm so proud of you.

"I'm confident "that your example will have a positive impact on others "who are looking for a second chance.

"Tell your children I say hello "and know that I'm rooting for all of you.

Sincerely, Barack Obama."

I have a purpose in life, and now I'm evolving.

I'm sort of like that rose from concrete.

When you incarcerated, there's nothing but a whole lot of steel, metal, and bricks.

The wall is just a wall.

It can be broken down.

When I'm fighting for the women that are still inside, I'll tell them that.

It's just a wall.

It can be broken down.

WOMAN: Beautiful!

Simply gorgeous-- my mother would be ecstatic.

Ecstatically happy, as I'm sure she is.

She'll be saying, "Don't cry, Danielle."

- She would be, like, "What you crying for, Boo?"

- "What you crying for, Boo?"

- She didn't believe in tears.

She's, like, you just do what you got to do.

♪ WOMAN: Danielle Bernard Metz.

(audience cheering and applauding) METZ: I can be anything I want to be.

I can do anything I want to do.

The sky is the limit for me.

And there's where I'm going.

I'm trying to break the ceiling now.

(laughing and cheering) METZ: I'm on my life mission.

♪ ♪ Don't you worry ♪ And don't you fret ♪ Better, better ♪ 'Cause I know God ain't never failed me yet ♪ ♪ Better, better ♪ He knows the plans ♪ He has for you ♪ Better, better ♪ And I believe He'll do everything He said He would do ♪ ♪ Better, better ♪ Better, better, better, better, better, better ♪ ♪ Better, better METZ: It was just going back into a place that I really wanted to forget.

But I had to dig inside of myself to be as transparent as I could be.

I had never saw my mom cry before.

And my mom was, like, "I don't think you know "what just happened to you.

(echoing): "Do you know you have life?

(woman laughing, film reel clicking) Do you know what that means?"

WOMAN (on recording): This call is from a federal prison.

We wanted to make the film about a woman who made a choice and the repercussions of that choice.

LEWIS: Danielle Metz was sentenced to three lifes plus 20 years.

She's a first-time nonviolent offender.

JEFFERSON: It's very much about facing these injustices, facing the wrongs that were done to you.

And then when you get a second chance, what do you do with it?

This is a personal film, it's a lyrical film, it's poetic.

It's emotional.

METZ: I had been in prison so long, I'm, like, I just want to throw that in the sea of forgetfulness and just, you know, like, move on with my life.

But that would always be a part of my life.

With me expressing the pain and revisiting it, I begin to heal from it.

JEFFERSON: I knew that we wanted to approach the storytelling in a way that hadn't been before.

And we owe Danielle that.

And when we think about the large conversations that we have about prison reform, it's often men, Black men, that we see, and it is women like Danielle and those women that she was imprisoned with, those stories get lost.

There's...

This dehumanization that, that Danielle is speaking to allows for sweeping, sweeping sentences that are insurmountable lengths of time to be granted to people, without a real consideration of what that means.

And in Danielle's case, the jury was given erroneous sentencing recommendations.

METZ: Missing everything of your kids' life.

How am I gonna get out this place?

If you've been out of somebody's life 23 years, that's how long it probably take to get things back to normal.

Louisiana had the highest rate of incarceration and the highest rate of wrongly convicted.

It's never gonna end.

What are we doing?

What are we doing?

We only bringing more damage and harm to society.

I didn't ever want to lose hope, so I always kept thinking about my children, and, like, "I have to make it back."

It makes people feel hopeless, and when you're steady, telling them that they're worth nothing, they're never going to get out, this is all their life gonna come to.

When I first came through the door, it felt different.

It was very hard, but...

When I came home, and I would see this glitter in my mom's eyes, and she was just happy to see me walk through the house.

It's still hard, but I'm still trying to connect every day.

You know, some days, it's not a good day.

And when I come off my trips, my son, I tell him, sometime I just want to get in his arms and cry like a little baby.

And he said, "What happened?"

I said, "Well, I went out here and this happened or that happened."

But he was, like, "You're okay."

He said, "Sometimes you just have to, you know, breathe.

Breathe."

JEFFERSON: Our audience is the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated, the family and loved ones of those who are incarcerated.

I feel like Danielle's an extraordinary person.

And so all the things that she has achieved since coming home, I think it will just help up, uplift people and to think about what they can do upon their return, or what their family member can do, or how they can help navigate them through their transition into the free world.

And so I hope this film speaks to them and lets them know that they're not forgotten, and that their voice and their story doesn't need to be boxed into one, one style of filmmaking or one style of, of storytelling.

METZ: I'm so grateful.

You don't know how grateful I really am.

I can't even put it into words.

And hopefully, we can start changing these things about, you know, around incarceration.

The sky is the limit for me, and that's where I'm going.

I'm trying to break the ceiling now.