Dant'e Cottingham At The Age Of Seventeen !

At the age of seventeen I was charge with one count of party to the crime of frist degree intentional homicide, and two counts of which are counts that do not reflect the true extent of my involvement in the case.
Though pursuant to wisconsin law I was automatically waived into the jurisdiction of the adult court system for adjudication.
Where my adolescent brain was instantly held to an adult standard, and I was expected to make coherent and strategic adult decisions while facing a maximum tear of life plus ninety years of inprisonment.
During the process of my adjudication I attended many different court proceedings.
Hearing the words of my attorney, the D.A. and the judge, yet incapable of understanding the situation of the court room furniture.
But what's absent in my memory of those court appearances are actual spoken sentences.
I remember nothing of what the D.A. said,I remember nothing that my attorney said,and the only thing that I remember the judge saying was "The Court finds you guilty of party to the crime of frist degree intentional homicide, and I sentence you to the crime of frist degree intentional homicide, and I sententence you to life imprisonment and I set your parole eligibility for the year 2020."
The words that they were useing,the legal concepts that dictated their strategies were squares and my adolescent brain was a circle, a natural unfit.
The frist institution that I was sent to was the GreenBay Corr Inst, a maximum prison .
I was treated like an adult immediately. I was thrust into a cold, dark world that's full of the states most sophisticated predators.
My childish disposition gave me utterly no chance at avoding the many pitfalls nor the mental and physical abuse.
There was no system in place to cultivate my mind nor to help me guide my emotions.
It was like dropping a child in the middle of a dark forest that's full of wolves and then telling him to feed him self, clothe himself and to find his own way out.
I remember spending my frist year of incarseration waiting for my Mom.
For some reason I believed that my Mom and the Judge had united in an elaborate scheme to scare me straight.
I truly, truly belived that once they thought that I had learned my lesson they'd call me back into the court room and then the judge would release me to my Mom.
I fantsized about that day, I dreamed about It, and waited and I waited .

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