In 1997, Walter Johnson was sentenced to five life terms for a robbery conviction at a time when he went by “King Tut” and was known as a notorious New York criminal. But 27 years later, the same judge who locked him away believed the former inmate deserved freedom.

“My only expectation was to leave prison with a toe tag,” Johnson told CBS News while, for the first time, sitting beside the judge who freed him.

A federal jury in 1996 convicted Johnson of seven counts, including robbery, witness tampering and possession with the intent to distribute cocaine.

Last summer, 90-year-old U.S. District Judge Frederic Block decided to give Johnson a second chance in a landmark ruling where Block acknowledged that he had been inexperienced during the initial sentencing and that the rarely used 1990s “three strikes law” — which required life sentences for certain third criminal offenses — was antiquated and too inflexible.

Johnson, 61, was released last October after Block filed hundreds of pages of motions seeking early release with a letter of support from one of his robbery victims.