“You have no freedom at all”

Stephen, sitting outside the Palo Alto Courthouse.

Excerpt from Stephen, a defendant in the Palo Alto Courthouse in summer 2023

Interviewer: […] If you could change the court system, what would you change about it?

Stephen: No life sentences. It scares the shit out of me. To even think about that, like, to live in the state of California is very scary for me because … uh, just the thought of the judge saying that one day, like if any—dude, anything can happen at any time to anybody …and they give life sentences out like candy here in California. Like, every day I bet you there’s at least 10 to 15 life sentences that go out in the state of–across the state of California. Every day. Do you know how many lives that’s taken a day—that’s like murder. Do you know how bad that would suck? I don’t think—you’ve probably never been to jail. You don’t want to go. It is the worst thing in the world, dude. It is the worst. I hate it. It scares me so bad going. I hate going there. It doesn’t’ scare me in there anymore but—‘cause I’m used to it—but it’s not like you see on TV, where like you get beat up and stuff. It’s not like that at all. But it’s like: just being in there, and you have no freedom at all. Like, to have that and never get out. It’s like. That’s all you have when you’re in jail, is that day, that date—that’s all you think about is that date that you have to get out. And you don’t stop thinking about it. That’s all you have. So to not have that, it’s like, man. And that’s why there’s a lot of murders in prison because there’s a lot of people that have life sentences. And they’re the ones that do it. They don’t—people who have dates don’t go murder people. They hand the knife off to someone who has a life sentence because what are they going to do to them? They’re already in there for life.