[JURIST] The man who shot former Alabama Governor George Wallace [ADAH profile] in 1972 will be released from prison this year, after serving 35 years of a 53-year sentence, a prison official said Thursday. Arthur Bremer [PBS profile] is scheduled to leave prison on December 16, although he may be released sooner for good behavior. Bremer has not expressed any remorse for the shooting, which paralyzed Wallace in the legs for life, calling Wallace a "segregationist dinosaur." In his diary, part of which was published in 1973 as An Assassin's Diary [PBS report], Bremer wrote that his primary motivation for the shooting was not opposition to Wallace's pro-segregation politics, but a desire to become notorious. Wallace's son said in an interview Thursday that Bremer's attack contributed to his father finding religion and rethinking his position on segregation later in life [Press-Register report], but declined to say more. AP has more.

Wallace, a four time governor of Alabama, began his career as a staunch opponent of integration. On September 2, 1963, he ordered the Tuskegee high school surrounded [TIME report] with Alabama National Guard troops in an effort to prevent its integration pursuant to a federal court order in Lee vs. Macon County. In response, President John F. Kennedy federalized the Guard and sent it back to its barracks. Wallace recanted his pro-segregation stance in the late 1970s. He died in 1998.