Chapter 2, Part 1

The second chapter relates very closley to the first, in the way that it is set up. A murder convict simply reflects on his life in prison as a teenager, with casual inputs made by the author. In this chapter, however, I have noticed alot more monologue from the actual convict than the author. In this chapter, prisoner Mark Melvin avoided death row completley and was sentenced directly to life with parole in a level six security prison. He was able to avoid the death penalty because at this time the William Thompson case had been settled, where the Supreme Court ruled that an inmate could not recieve the death penalty if the crime was commited when they were 16 or younger.

http://www.capitalpunishmentincontext.org/resources/casesummaries/thompson