93: Last Count

Douglas Collier is serving a life sentence inside San Quentin State Prison.  For years he shared a 9x4 foot cell with his friend Tony, a fellow inmate.  One day Tony couldn’t stop coughing. His arteries were clogged. Several months later, Tony died -- one of the hundreds of inmates who die in California state prisons each year.   In this story, reported by Greg Eskridge, an inmate and journalist with the San Quentin Prison Report, Douglas tell us what it was like to witness, and come to terms with, his friend’s death. PRODUCTION NOTES Last Count was reported by Greg Eskridge and edited by Jess Engebretson with sound design and production by Jonathan Hirsch. We want to thank the journalists with the San Quentin Prison Report and David Jassy for providing additional production support for the story. Special thanks to Lt. Sam Robinson and Larry Schneider with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and to Nigel Poor. Our Post Production Editors are Kirsten Jusewicz-Haidle and Rachael Cain. Howard Gelman was our engineer. This episode of Life of the Law was funded in part by grants from the Open Society Foundations, the Law and Society Association, the Proteus Fund, the Ford Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. Last Count was sponsored by Blue Apron and by Denial. © Copyright 2016 Life of the Law. All rights reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices