A man serving a life sentence for killing another man in Springfield when he was 18 years old wasn’t supposed to get a second chance.

And though the laws in Massachusetts have changed, the parole board still isn’t ready to grant his freedom.

John Carter, 52, has been incarcerated for the past 33 years after killing a 22-year-old man named Jerry Hughes in 1991.

At the time of the killing, Carter was associated with a known narcotics dealer who wanted Hughes dead. That dealer had a gun delivered to Carter in the days before the killing and at 6:30 p.m. on March 3, 1991, Carter drove to the Rainville Hotel in Springfield.

Carter was with his co-defendant, Donald Vanhook, who dropped Carter off at a street corner near the hotel and waited. Carter was armed with the gun and went into the ho

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