Seven months later, on the morning of Oct. 16, Richard sat with his left leg shackled to a wooden chair in the courtroom of Judge Paul Delucchi. He wore a gray county-issue sweatshirt and khakis, and while he had lost the terrified look of his early court appearances, his eyes were wary. There was a faint peach-fuzz mustache on his upper lip.

Delucchi’s courtroom was frequently crowded and chaotic, with prisoners stacked up in the jury box listlessly waiting for their turn to appear. But each time Richard came to court, I watched his eyes rove the room, taking everything in. His lawyer had told me he was doing well in Alameda County Juvenile Hall, getting good grades and staying out of trouble. He was on track to graduate from high school in February. Jasmine visited him every Sunday.

Jasmine had stopped returning my calls, telling me in July that she was tired of talking about the case, tired of thinking about it, just tired. “I work 12, sometimes 14 hours a day, and when I come home, I just want to go to sleep,” she said. On that morning, she sat just behind me, wearing new long hair extensions with a greenish tint.

Debbie Crandall sat next to me, her eyes fixed on Richard. He was going to take a plea bargain. The mayhem charge and the hate-crime enhancements would be dropped, and Richard would receive a five-year sentence on the assault charge. With credit for time served and good behavior, the deal would have Richard, now 17, released before his 21st birthday, making it more likely that he could serve all his time in juvenile facilities. Du Bois had urged Richard to accept it as “the best choice among the available alternatives.” Debbie and Karl also wanted him to take the deal, so that Sasha, now a freshman at M.I.T., wouldn’t have to fly back for a trial.

Jasmine wasn’t so sure. She had hoped for a better outcome, and communication between her and Du Bois had grown increasingly poor over the summer and fall. Now she and Richard had decided to accept the offer.

But that morning, the deputy district attorney, Richard Moore, abruptly changed the five-year sentence to seven years. No explanation was given in court. Take it or go to trial, Du Bois said he was told. From my seat in the gallery, I watched Du Bois pull a chair in front of Richard to tell him the news. I could see the moment when Richard understood what had happened. He turned his head to look at Jasmine. They stared at each other for a long, heartbreaking moment, seeming to converse without words. When Richard turned back to face Du Bois, he curled his head into his shoulder. He would take the deal.

Du Bois, a 40-year courthouse veteran, was usually calm and even-tempered. But when I went to talk to him after the hearing, he was furious. Under the terms of the deal, Richard’s sentence may still be reduced to five years if he meets certain benchmarks between now and July — full participation in available educational and rehabilitation programs, a clean discipline record. But not all of that is in Richard’s control: Another inmate could pick a fight with him; a staff member might write him up for a minor offense. And because minors can be transferred to an adult prison as soon as they turn 18, a longer sentence makes it more likely that Richard will serve the bulk of his time in an adult prison rather than in juvenile facilities. “He’s now thrown to the wolves,” Du Bois told me. Weeks later, he was still fuming about Richard’s sentence. “It’s punitive,” he said. “And for what? Protecting the community by making this kid into a real gangster?”