My name is Reggie Cannon and I have been incarcerated for almost 30 years, doing a class C life sentence for second degree murder a crime that I committed in my youth as a juvenile. Words can’t express how I felt when I was given the life sentence at the age of 16, there were no words. When the judge said life in the department of corrections it didn’t fully register to me at the time because I didn’t know what a life sentence was or the fact that the justice system could make someone do the duration of their life in prison until they are satisfied or feel that the person has aged out of committing crimes. The justice system wants a person to be old and gray before they decide that parole should be granted, they want you so old that you can’t do shit for yourself anymore. This didn’t register in my head until after I had already done my minimum, which was a mandatory ten years. Before I was even eligible to be considered for parole. I became eligible for parole in 2004 and have been turned down for parole ever since then. My mental state at that time had me thinking that I was going home after I had completed the ten years, then the years passed, more years passed then I started to realize that what was told to me, and my family was a lie! That I would be released in like 7 or 8 years, that I only had 20 years which was cut to 10 but I was wrong. My hopes for the future of my sentence are that someone will have the heart and compassion to overturn my commitment and be willing to allow me to have a second chance at living a little life as a free responsible law-abiding citizen back within the community. I made a terrible mistake that I have regretted every single day of my life, since being arrested for a crime 30 years ago. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I could turn back the hands of time, to correct and change this wrong that I’ve caused by my hands by not making the right-thinking decisions in my youth. Having this life sentence has made me think about committing suicide repeatedly. I would rather be dead than to have to keep doing a life sentence in prison. Because to keep things 100 with you, having a life sentence is really a mental death sentence. I be in a mental and emotional state every day, I carry that weight on my shoulders daily 24/7 365. A slow death that kills a person mentally and physically over time, from the many let downs of not getting parole, getting your appeals denied, to witnessing your loved ones die. That takes a lot out of a person’s mental state, to the point where they start to give up and lose hope. That word “LIFE” in prison breaks your spirits, makes you lose your faith, makes you think there is no light at the end of the tunnel when you think of a life sentence.