Cops & Courts

Nearly 500 inmates serving life sentences have been freed from California prisons since voters passed Proposition 36 last November. The law authorized Superior Court judges throughout the state to free prisoners who had been sentenced to 25 years to life under the state’s original three-strikes law if their third crime, or “strike,” wasn’t serious or violent, and thus, not a third strike.

Seventeen year-old Andrew is filling out a job application for a Jamba Juice in Oakland, California. He’s making his way through the basics, filling out his name and contact information. However question five posed a challenge. It was a yes or no checkbox which read, “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”