Albuquerque attorney Stephen Taylor has clients who haven’t been able to sleep lately.

They’re former inmates who spent years behind bars for crimes they committed as teenagers before being granted parole two years ago through a reform bill. Taylor said the so-called “second chancers” he represents have been working hard to rebuild their lives out in the community.

Now, though, state prosectors are calling into question the legality of their release, which has left New Mexico’s second chancers facing the possibility they could be taken back to prison.

“People aren’t doing well,” Taylor said. “They’re a wreck because they’ve spent their life in prison; they’ve had, now, two years of freedom; they’re doing well; they’ve done nothing wrong, and it’s all about to be taken away from them.”

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