12 years after being locked up as a teen, he finds mercy from the DA who put him there
WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In the lonely monotony of High Desert State Prison, there were no visitors and little mail for Renwick Drake Jr., so the letter was a curiosity when it arrived in the summer of 2020.
It told Drake about a new law meant to undo too-harsh sentences. Maybe, it said, the district attorney would take another look at his case after 11 years of incarceration.
But maybes are dangerous in prison, dealers of counterfeit hope. The letter felt like another false flag from the system that had put Drake behind bars at age 15, when he was a skinny skater who thought he knew everything until, too late, he realized he knew nothing. "Little Ren" to the family he left behind, he'd been inmate No. AL9471 ever since.
A letter wasn't going to get him out, he thought, and neither was the DA who put him here. There was only patience and himself.
Drake put the letter aside and went back to serving his time. He had 12 years to go.
But the maybe had hold of him.
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Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig was three years into his first term when Drake was arrested in 2009.
Reisig hadn't planned on being the top cop of this semi-agricultural county west of Sacramento. His boss came into his office one Friday afternoon to announce he was retiring and wanted Reisig, a prosecutor, to run.
Reisig sometimes wonders how life would have been if he wasn't a politician. Easier maybe, less stressful. There were a lot
