William Palmer was 17 when he accosted a man in a parking garage in San Francisco, pointing a gun at him and demanding money. Unbeknownst to him, the victim was an off-duty police officer. The officer pulled out his own gun and shot at the teen 15 times, hitting him in the knee. The year was 1988; many states had recently passed laws increasing criminal sentences. Palmer was sentenced to prison for life with a chance for parole. He became eligible for parole in 1996 and, over the next 19 years, had 10 parole suitability hearings at which parole was denied. This was despite the fact that in most ways, Palmer was a model prisoner. Apart from a single fight in 1990, he committed no violent infractions over his 31 years in prison. His worst offense was the possession of a cellphone, which he used to speak with his family after his mother died. 

Decades later, state and federal lawmakers began to rethink how the criminal justice system treats youth offenders. Prompted by a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2012, which ruled that mandatory life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders were unconstitutional, California lawmakers approved measures aimed at giving people like Palmer another chance. But he had to continue to advocate for himself. While challenging the denial of parole at a 2015 hearing, he also sought habeas corpus relief, citing the Eighth Amendment. On December 6, 2018, the Board held a new parole suitability hearing, as ordered by the reviewing court, and found Palmer suitable for release on parole. He had already served 31 years. 23 of these years were ruled by the California Supreme Court as constitutional excessive punishment. The court of appeal concluded that the serial denials of parole Palmer experienced resulted in punishment so disproportionate to his individual culpability for the offense he committed, that it must be deemed constitutionally excessive and that Palmer should be entitled to release from all forms of custody, including parole supervision. But the state appealed to California’s Supreme Court, which meant that Palmer still had to follow his parole conditions. 

In 2018, 1 out of every 58 American adults, or about 4.4 million people, was under community supervision, the catchall term for probation and parole. The average supervised individual must follow 17 standard conditions; if any of these are broken, that person could be reincarcerated. This is often left up to the discretion of the parole officer. Palmer’s parole officer was particularly hard on him, feeling that he had ‘cheated his way out’ of prison. 

Since release, Palmer has become a leader in his community by advocating for social reforms and mentoring youth. He has been appointed to the San Francisco Reentry Council on the Sentencing Commission. In 2021 he created  a system-impacted organization, Life After Next, a reentry support program for San Francisco and the Bay Area. He has created an investment company, Studio 3³ ,to empower start-ups with micro-lending seed money and to purchase property to provide holistic reentry transitional housing. He’s a member of HipHopForChange.org, The Adachi Project, United Playaz, Marin Shakespeare’s Returning Citizen Theater Troupe, and on the board of the Peace Resource Center (San Diego). Adachi Project, United Playaz, Marin Shakespeare’s Returning Citizen Theater Troupe, and on the board of the Peace Resource Center (San Diego). He is the Editor of the East County North Star newspaper. Palmer says that he has become ‘better than cracking under pressure and falling apart. I’m proud of the person I’ve become.’

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