Special Directives by Matt Graham tells the fictional story of a juvenile sex offender being released from prison early due to the efforts of a progressive DA and a like-minded judge, who don't believe in treating juvenile offenders like adults. Special Directives is fiction, so you may or may not buy the story. But does stuff like that really happen?

Darryl Lamar Collins was convicted of two murders in 1998 and sentenced to fifty years to life in state prison. Sounds fine so far...

After Collins is sentenced, the California Legislature decides that state prison inmates who were under the age of twenty-five at the time of their offense should have a parole hearing after twenty-five years in prison. Uh-oh, this real-life story is beginning to drift in the wrong direction.

Collins was twenty-four at the time of his conviction for the two murders, so he got a parole hearing. Gov. Newsom's parole board decides Collins is a good risk, you know, he learned his lesson, and all that razzamatazz that justifies an early parole. They released him on parole. What could go wrong? I think you know where this is going.

Less than a year after his release, Collins kills a 53-year-old mother of six. It was a grisly killing.  Collins tied the victim's hand while he choked or strangled her. 

Convicted of this third murder, Collins was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole last Friday.

Maybe they will keep him in prison this time.