Mkelly107 answers “Why is she serving two life sentences if...”

Eva asked this question about The Mars Room:

Why is she serving two life sentences if she only killed one person?

Mkelly107 I read and enjoyed a library copy of the book, which I no longer have in front of me; thus I can't answer with chapter and verse and they say.

What I c…moreI read and enjoyed a library copy of the book, which I no longer have in front of me; thus I can't answer with chapter and verse and they say.

What I can say is that it was more than two life terms by some short amount of time which made it more absurd. The point being that within the world of the novel there is an answer--this was not, nor was anything in the novel, just tossed off with no rationale.
Complaints about this sort of thing not making sense are properly directed at the State of California, not the author. I've seen the same thing happen serving on a jury here in Georgia: the state files any infraction of the law to make it's case stronger, and if the person is guilty of all of them, then the sentence is cumulative.

But apart from the legal details, as an involved reader of the novel, what I was seeing in Romy Hall's story seemed to me to be the fate of a single woman, and on paper at least, a poor mother, without proper legal defense, who was a stripper in SF, who did shoot her stalker right in front of her son. The Book was thrown.(less)

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