This is a question I mull over often, and it’s a question that goes to the heart of my appeal to get my life without parole sentence changed to a sentence allowing an opportunity for parole. The whole purpose of our “Justice System” is to achieve a fair, balanced, impartial justice for all parties that benefits society the most. A prison sentence’s length is set to achieve the goal of punishing the offender, rehabilitating the offender, and deterring both the offender and other parties from committing the same crime in the future. These are the stated goals and purpose of sentencing as delineated by the Supreme Court. That said, a life without sentence is not something that is useful for anyone convicted of a crime they would never repeat in their lives. While those are the stated goals of sentencing, the reality is that states (and the federal government) constantly change sentences for various crimes based on financial concerns and overall crime levels. Sadly, financial concerns trump all else, and when money is short, sentences get shorter, too.
The considerations that shape prosecution and sentencing decisions in average, everyday cases are completely different than the considerations in high profile cases. A high-profile case eliminates the usual ethical and moral concerns that guide a detective’s decisions, a prosecutor’s decisions. They cater to the whims of the mob instead of the interest of justice. Judges are not immune to this, either, as some revel in the limelight and attention a high-profile case focuses on them.
One of my less supportive readers recently sent some hate mail filled with the same old tired cliches (“rot in hell”, etc.) that have been thrown my way over twenty years now. Strangely enough, shit like that still hurts my feelings. I went to great pains to show, with concrete evidence, the ways in which the detectives and prosecutors in my case have lied and deceived over the years. This reader’s response was, “It doesn’t matter that you’re not a racist.” This person completely misses the point. Trying to paint me as a racist by falsifying evidence was only one example of how the prosecution lied and deceived, and how they continue to lie and deceive. If they were, and are, willing to falsify evidence on that front—in order to deceive both the courts and the public—then what else have they falsified that I haven’t discovered yet? That’s the point, dear reader.
Let’s examine some recent cases, nationally and locally, to get a feel for what justice is in practice. I`ve been sentenced to life without for a crime I committed in high school while blacked out, with my sober best friend beside me, with no physical evidence at the crime scene tying me to the crime. A cop with years of experience and training is convicted of murdering a black teen, and he’s sentenced to fifteen years in prison (he’ll probably get paroled in under ten). A white female cop—full adult, trained by the state—breaks into a black man’s apartment, shoots him dead, says she thought she was in her own apartment, and gets charged with manslaughter instead of murder. In Las Vegas, a cop—again, full adult, fully trained—kills a man with an illegal choke-hold, going against his training. The grand jury doesn’t indict him for any crime. Why? Because the D.A. leads the grand jury, manipulates the whole process to get the desired outcome. The D.A. doesn’t care about truth or justice: they care only about winning via convictions. The D.A. relies on the police to get convictions, so they won’t jeopardize the relationship by charging a cop with murder after a cop kills someone illegally.
So, what is justice? What is a fair a sentence? What should be considered in making those determinations? Something to think about.
a life without parole 