contributed photo
If you read Part 1, you know that my heart is for families, especially Black and Brown families, where we have a lot of brokenness and a lot of injustice.
Before I dive into Part 2 here, I want to thank you for all your encouraging words, and for becoming a community of support as I continue my healing and studying. Because you shared my story with your circles of influence, I got to speak at Re-Entry Court to share my story with a group of guys who recently came home. I was also offered a position to connect the re-entry community to health care and resources upon their return. What an awesome display of God’s love, turning a moment of vulnerability into a blessing.
I’m thinking a lot about second chances, and about the way policy all too often blocks forgiveness and redemption. How policy creates the conditions that make my story so common in our communities of color, by increasing the obstacles in so many lives. (And let’s not kid ourselves – these policies are doing what they are designed to do; they are created with racial disparities and enforced with prejudice.)
People come to the table to make policies, and may have good intentions but – do they really understand the impact of how it’s going to play out in someone’s life? A Jewish chaplain I met while I was away, Rabbi Laskin, once said to me, “the road to failure is paved with good intentions.”
Because of mandatory minimum sentencing policies, the population of the federal prison system ballooned astronomically. In ten years, from 1980 to 1990, it increased 133%, from 330,000 to 771,000 human lives. (And they’re setting that same table again now, with mandatory minimums for fentanyl, while prescription drugs with opioids are completely accessible and legal.)
On the inside, overpopulation reduces the number of services and programs that would help get inmates rehabilitated and cut their chances of returning to prison. When there is overcrowding, instead of rehabilitation programs, the funding goes to basic – and I do mean basic – security instead. And then we wonder why recidivism is so high? All while the Prison Industrial Complex is fueled by and profits from the overwhelming warehousing of human beings and their low-cost labor.
A friend of mine, Luis, came home September 2020. He had a 45-year sentence and served 31 years. He had three open-heart surgeries in that time and got COVID before he got out. Now he’s in an overcrowded shelter in New York City. He cannot get his own housing, because he cannot get an official state ID. He’s been out more than a year, and still doesn’t have a state ID. He needs two forms of identification to get it, but because of covid, there has been a delay getting his birth certificate from Puerto Rico, and the ID that the federal prison sends you home with is not accepted as a qualified piece of identity. So, he’s still in that homeless shelter literally fighting for his life daily. It’s heartbreaking.
Where is the redemptive quality for this great nation – this melting pot of cultures and people? Where is the reconciliation?
The pardon process is supposed to be a policy tool for forgiveness. It’s something that the heart of America should want – but it’s broken.
When I lost my contract in 2020 because of my record, a friend of ours called me to have lunch and meet a childhood friend of his who has a similar story. “Who knows what will come out of it,” he said, but he just knew we had to meet.
I found out this guy did state time, came home, got his life together, got pardoned, and now he’s a New Haven police officer. He now helps others with doing their pardons.
I was blown away. That is what a second chance is supposed to look like. (And American businesses are starting to understand it’s good for individuals, families, companies and the economy.)
At the time, I didn’t know there was a pardon process for federal convictions after your release from prison. Normally you hear about a pardon when someone is locked up, they get a presidential pardon and they’re released. During our lunch, he shared that there is a federal pardon process, and it is similar for the state; five years after your release, you can apply.
I went home and immediately downloaded the application, started filling it out. They require you to submit three affidavits from people who know you. I began to pray about the people I wanted to write letters on my behalf. I spoke with a lawyer friend of mine, he represented me for my Habeaus Corpus petition that got me released in 2015. He recommended I submit more letters than three, but no more than ten. So, I got ten.
Normally, presidents give most of their pardons on their way out of office at the end of their last term. I was trying to get a sense of what to do – should I get all the letters together during the pandemic and submit my petition to Trump’s administration, or should I wait to see if Biden would get elected? (I decided to wait, because things were getting crazy in the White House around the 2020 election.)
In early March of 2020, I was listening to a talk show on Sirius XM Radio, Urban View. One of my favorite hosts, Dr. Wilmer Leon, was interviewing John Kiriakou, an ex-CIA agent. Kiriakou went to jail for giving a reporter the name of another undercover CIA agent (amongst other things).
Kiriakou shared his story about trying to get pardoned; he wanted one for lots of reasons, including that it would allow him to access his pension. He needed a Virginia state pardon first, in order to be eligible to be pardoned federally; he also wanted to vote in the presidential primary election. The state process was straightforward; he did the paperwork, brought it to the courthouse, and in a couple of days it was done.
In Connecticut, the state process is also cut and dry. You get fingerprinted, submit your paperwork and letters of support, and either get approved or denied. Before COVID, sometimes they would bring you in front of the Board of Pardons and Paroles in person. If you get denied, they tell you why, and you can try again after a period of time.
On the federal side, it’s in the constitution that pardons are part of the powers of the president. Kiriakou shared that President Lincoln would stay up late at night pardoning people, many on the Confederate side of the Civil War. Today you only hear about someone getting pardoned through some kind of political connection or highly publicized case. There’s a website that lists how many pardons have actually happened – such a tiny percentage are ever even acted on. It blew my mind.
Kiriakou got a sit-down with Biden as Vice President; he was hoping Biden would submit his name for pardon to Obama. But he was shut down; Obama said no. Then he gave $50,000 to a woman in Florida who was part of Trump’s campaign, to advocate for him and get Trump to look at his petition. And she basically robbed him – gave him the runaround, nothing happened for him – $50,000 down the drain.
He pointed out in the interview that somewhere along the line, the federal pardon process was moved into the Department of Justice. What a conflict of interest! It’s the president’s power – it should go through White House counsel. How do you have the DOJ – the people that prosecuted your case and locked you up – now have control of your pardon? Then Trump made it a pay-to-play situation– he took care of his friends, people who supported him or used their influence on his behalf.
How does the common person be seen or heard in all of that?
I know I am forgiven in the courts of Heaven, but there is still a life to live. I’m doing what God is calling me to do, and I know I have a cross to bear. But fundamentally, and in policy, America has a way of excluding people, that is the true undercurrent of its existence. We should be happy to forgive and give people the chance to contribute. But instead, the whole ‘felony’ label stops folks from using their power at the ballot box or having a voice in their own community – it’s systemic racism, used to disqualify, exclude, marginalize, and oppress.
When you start reading God’s word, especially as a young believer, it allows your mind to be renewed about things. Learning His ways, I realized how much we get wrong. He forgave us and loved us when we didn’t even love ourselves, or Him. We denied Him, rejected Him, cursed Him, and he lovingly made a way for us. His words say, he who has been forgiven much, loveth much. I love God for loving me and for forgiving me. I have to keep his love available for me, by doing the same thing, forgiving others.
We can do what is good for all people. There has to be a change in our policies and practices. But it’s not just that; both have to be carried out through loving hearts. If our hearts care for the good of humanity together – instead of my people, your people, those people – our policies and practices would produce better outcomes for all of us.
It’s time for America to do some soul searching, and my prayer is for us to be found at the foot of the cross. Because only an awakening of the magnitude of Paul on the road of Damascus can realign America’s compass to the true North of righteousness.
What is true justice about? Even as a young man, a teenager in high school, I often thought about the symbol of justice. “Lady Justice” is a statue of a woman with a blindfold, holding a balancing scale. But how can you be blind and find justice? You’ve got to be able to see what’s going on to know if the scale is truly balanced. Let’s take the blindfold off and let’s be intentional about erasing racism, injustice, and inequality, and truly become united in the United States of America.
Read part one at this link.
To reach David directly: db41501@gmail.com