Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
Page 34
Finally and most important, I told those gathered in the church that Walter had taught me that mercy is just when it is rooted in hopefulness and freely given. Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving. The people who haven’t earned it, who haven’t even sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of our compassion. Walter genuinely forgave the people who unfairly accused him, the people who convicted him, and the people who had judged him unworthy of mercy. And in the end, it was just mercy toward others that allowed him to recover a life worth celebrating, a life that rediscovered the love and freedom that all humans desire, a life that overcame death and condemnation until it was time to die on God’s schedule.
After the service, I didn’t stay long. I walked outside and looked down the road and thought about the fact that no one was ever prosecuted for Ronda Morrison’s murder after Walter’s release. I thought about the anguish that must still create for her parents.
There were lots of people who came up to me who needed legal help for all sorts of things. I hadn’t brought business cards, so I wrote my number down for each person and encouraged them to call my office. It wasn’t likely that we could do much for many of the people who needed help, but it made the journey home less sad to hope that maybe we could.
In memory of Alice Golden Stevenson,
my mom
Acknowledgments
I want to thank the hundreds of accused, convicted, and imprisoned men, women, and children with whom I have worked and who have taught me so much about hope, justice, and mercy. I’m especially appreciative of and humbled by the people who appear in this book, victims and survivors of violence, criminal justice professionals, and those who have been condemned to unimaginably painful spaces and yet have shown tremendous courage and grace. All the names of people who appear in these pages are real with the exception of just a few whose privacy and security needed to be protected.
I’m extremely grateful to Chris Jackson, my extraordinary editor, for his thoughtful guidance and kind assistance. I feel very, very fortunate to have worked with an editor as insightful and generous. I’m also deeply thankful to Cindy Spiegel and Julie Grau whose tremendous support and feedback has genuinely inspired me in ways I never imagined. One of my great joys with this project has been the privilege of working with and learning from all my new friends at Spiegel & Grau and Random House who have been so wonderfully encouraging. I want to also thank Sharon Steinerman at New York University School of Law for her excellent research assistance for this project.
All my work is made possible by the exceptional staff of the Equal Justice Initiative, each of whom fearlessly contributes to the cause of justice every day with enough hope and humility to make me believe that we can do the things that must be done to serve the least of these. I want to especially thank Aaryn Urell and Randy Susskind for feedback and editing. Additionally, I’m grateful to Eva Ansley and Evan Parcyzh for research assistance. Finally, I cannot say enough about Doug Abrams, agent extraordinaire, who persuaded me to take on this project. Without his invaluable guidance, encouragement, and friendship, this book would not have been possible.
Author’s Note
With more than two million incarcerated people in the United States, an additional six million people on probation or parole and an estimated sixty-eight million Americans with criminal records, there are endless opportunities for you to do something about criminal justice policy or help the incarcerated or formerly incarcerated. If you have interest in working with or supporting volunteer programs that serve incarcerated people, organizations that provide re-entry assistance to the formerly incarcerated or organizations around the globe that seek reform of criminal justice policy, please contact us at the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. You can visit our website at www.eji.org or email us at contact_us@eji.org.
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1 One in every fifteen people born … Thomas P. Bonczar, “Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001,” Bureau of Justice Statistics (August 2003), available at www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=836, accessed April 29, 2014.
2 one in every three black male babies … Bonczar, “Prevalence of Imprisonment”; “Report of The Sentencing Project to the United Nations Human Rights Committee Regarding Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System,” The Sentencing Project (August 2013), available at http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_ICCPR%20Race%20and%20Justice%20Shadow%20Report.pdf, accessed April 29, 2014.
3 Some states have no minimum age … In twenty-three states, there is no minimum age for which children can be tried as adults in at least some circumstances. Howard N. Snyder and Melissa Sickmund, “Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report,” National Center for Juvenile Justice (March 2006), available at www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/nr2006/downloads/NR2006.pdf, accessed April 29, 2014.
4 There are more than a half-million people …“Fact Sheet: Trends in U.S. Corrections,” The Sentencing Project (May 2012), available at www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Trends_in_Corrections_Fact_sheet.pdf, accessed April 29, 2014; Marc Mauer and Ryan S. King, “A 25-Year Quagmire: The War on Drugs and Its Impact on American Society,” The Sentencing Project (September 2007), 2, available at www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/dp_25yearquagmire.pdf, accessed April 29, 2014.
5 We ban poor women … Federal law bars states from providing SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, to those who have been convicted of a drug-related felony, although states may opt out or modify this ban. Currently thirty-two states have some sort of ban based on prior drug convictions, including ten states that have permanent bans. States may also evict or deny individuals from receiving federal benefits related to housing assistance, whether through the Section 8 program or placement in public housing, based on drug convictions. Maggie McCarty, Randy Alison Aussenberg, Gene Falk, and David H. Carpenter, “Drug Testing and Crime-Related Restrictions in TANF, SNAP, and Housing Assistance,” Congressional Research Service (September 17, 2013), available at www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42394.pdf, accessed April 29, 2014.
6 Some states permanently strip people … Twelve states permanently disenfranchise all or some felony offenders. Thirty-five prohibit parolees from voting, and thirty-one prohibit those on probation from voting. The Sentencing Project, “Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States” (June 2013), available at www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/fd_Felony%20Disenfranchisement%20Laws%20in%20the%20US.pdf, accessed April 30, 2014.
7 as a result, in several Southern states … In Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee more than 10 percent of African Americans cannot vote. In Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia, more than one in five African Americans cannot vote. Christopher Uggen, Sarah Shannon, and Jeff Manza, “State-Level Estimates of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, 2010,” The Sentencing Project (July 2012), available at http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/fd_State_Level_Estimates_of_Felon_Disen_2010.pdf, accessed April 30, 2014.
8 Scores of innocent people have been exonerated … The Death Penalty Information Center reports that 144 death row inmates have been exonerated since 1973. “The Innocence List,” Death Penalty Information Center, available at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row, accessed April 25, 2014.
9 Hundreds more have been released … According to the Innocence Project, there have been 316 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States. Eighteen of the exonerated prisoners spent time on death row. “DNA Exonerations Nationwide,” The Innocence Project, available at www.innocenceproject.org/Content/DNA_Exonerations_Nationwide.php, accessed April 25, 2014.
10 Presumptions of guilt, poverty, racial bias … John Lewis an
d Bryan Stevenson, “State of Equality and Justice in America: The Presumption of Guilt,” Washington Post (May 17, 2013).
11 Spending on jails and prisons … In 2010, the latest year for which statistics are currently available, the cost of incarceration in America was about $80 billion. Attorney General Eric Holder, American Bar Association Speech (August 12, 2013); Tracey Kyckelhahn and Tara Martin, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Justice Expenditure and Employment Extracts, 2010–Preliminary” (July 2013), available at www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4679, accessed April 30, 2014. By comparison, that figure was about $6.9 billion in 1980. Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Justice Expenditure and Employment Extracts—1980 and 1981 Data from the Annual General Finance and Employment Surveys” (March 1985), available at www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=3527, accessed April 30, 2014.
CHAPTER ONE: MOCKINGBIRD PLAYERS
1 Thirteen of the state’s sixteen pulp and paper mills … Conner Bailey, Peter Sinclair, John Bliss, and Karni Perez, “Segmented Labor Markets in Alabama’s Pulp and Paper Industry,” Rural Sociology 61, no. 3 (1996): 475–96.
2 “The evil tendency of the crime”… Pace & Cox v. State, 69 Ala. 231, 233 (1882).
3 The State of Idaho banned interracial marriage … U.S. Census Office, Fourteenth Census of Population (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1920).
4 It wasn’t until 1967 … When the Virginia legislature passed the Racial Integrity Act in 1924, authorizing the forced sterilization of black women thought to be defective or dangerous and criminalizing marriage between a black person and white person, people in Caroline County took these pronouncements very seriously. Decades later, when a young white man, Richard Loving, fell in love with a black woman named Mildred Jeter, the young couple decided to get married after learning that Mildred was pregnant. They went to Washington, D.C., to “get legal,” knowing that it wouldn’t be possible in Virginia. They tried to stay away but got homesick and returned to Caroline County after the wedding to be near their families. Word about the marriage got out, and some weeks later the sheriff and several armed deputies stormed into their home in the middle of the night to arrest Richard and Mildred for miscegenation. Jailed and humiliated, they were forced to plead guilty and were told that they should be grateful that their prison sentences would be suspended as long as they agreed to leave the county and not return for “at least twenty-five years.” They fled the state again but this time decided to fight the law in court with a lawsuit filed with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1967, after years of defeats in lower courts, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down miscegenation laws, declaring them unconstitutional.
5 “The legislature shall never pass any law”… Even though the restriction could not be enforced under federal law, the state ban on interracial marriage in Alabama continued into the twenty-first century. In 2000, reformers finally had the votes to get the issue on the statewide ballot, where a majority of voters chose to eliminate the ban, although 41 percent voted to keep it. A 2011 poll of Mississippi Republicans found that 46 percent supported a legal ban on interracial marriage, 40 percent opposed such a ban, and 14 percent were undecided.
6 Nearly a dozen people had been lynched … The names of the people lynched are as follows: October 13, 1892: Burrell Jones, Moses Jones/Johnson, Jim Packard, and one unknown (brother of Jim Packard). Tuskegee University, “Record of Lynchings in Alabama from 1871 to 1920,” compiled for the Alabama Department of Archives and History by the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Alabama Dept. of Archives and History Digital Collections, available at http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/singleitem/collection/voices/id/2516, accesssed September 18, 2009; also, “Four Negroes Lynched,” New York Times (October 14, 1892); Stewart Tolnay, compiler, “NAACP Lynching Records,” Historical American Lynching Data Collection Project, available at http://people.uncw.edu/hinese/HAL/HAL%20Web%20Page.htm#Project%20HAL, accessed April 30, 2014.
October 30, 1892: Allen Parker. Tuskegee University Archives; Tolnay, “NAACP Lynching Records.”
August 30, 1897: Jack Pharr. Tuskegee University Archives; Tolnay, “NAACP Lynching Records.”
September 2, 1897: Unknown. Tuskegee University Archives.
August 23, 1905: Oliver Latt. Tuskegee University Archives.
February 7, 1909: Will Parker. Tuskegee University Archives.
August 9, 1915: James Fox. Tuskegee University Archives; “Negro Lynched for Attacking Officer,” Montgomery Advertiser (August 10, 1915). Tuskegee University Archives; Tolnay, “NAACP Lynching Records.”
August 9, 1943: Willie Lee Cooper. “NAACP Describes Alabama’s Willie Lee Case as Lynching,” Journal and Guide (September 8, 1943); “NAACP Claims Man Lynched in Alabama,” Bee (September 26, 1943); “Ala. Workman ‘Lynched’ After Quitting Job,” Afro-American (September 18, 1943). Tuskegee University Archives.
May 7, 1954: Russell Charley. “Violence Flares in Dixie,” Pittsburgh Courier (June 5, 1954); “Suspect Lynching in Ala. Town,” Chicago Defender (June 12, 1954); “Hint Love Rivalry Led to Lynching,” Chicago Defender (June 19, 1954); “NAACP Probes ’Bama Lynching,” Pittsburgh Courier (June 26, 1954). Tuskegee University Archives.
CHAPTER TWO: STAND
1 Suicide, prisoner-on-prisoner violence … The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that throughout the 1980s, several hundred incarcerated individuals died each year of suicide, homicide, and other “unknown” reasons. Christopher J. Mumola, “Suicide and Homicide in State Prisons and Local Jails,” Bureau of Justice Statistics (August 2005), available at www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1126, accessed April 30, 2014; Lawrence A. Greenfield, “Prisons and Prisoners in the United States,” Bureau of Justice Statistics (April 1992), available at www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1392.
2 I found Bureau of Justice statistics … In 1978, black people were eight times more likely than whites to be killed by police officers. Jodi M. Brown and Patrick A. Langan, “Policing and Homicide, 1976-1998: Justifiable Homicide by Police, Police Officers Murdered by Felons,” Bureau of Justice Statistics (March 2001), available at www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=829, accessed April 30, 2014.
3 By the end of the twentieth century … By 1998, black people were still four times more likely to be killed by the police than white people. Brown and Langan, “Policing and Homicide, 1976–1998.”
4 the problem would get worse … In states with “Stand Your Ground” laws, the rate of “justifiable” homicides of blacks more than doubled between 2005 and 2011, the period when the majority of these laws were enacted. The rate of such homicides against whites also rose, but only slightly, and the homicide rate against whites was much lower to begin with. “Shoot First: ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws and Their Effect on Violent Crime and the Criminal Justice System,” joint press release from the National Urban League, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and VoteVets.org (September 2013), available at http://nul.iamempowered.com/content/mayors-against-illegal-guns-national-urban-league-votevets-release-report-showing-stand-your, accessed April 30, 2014.
CHAPTER THREE: TRIALS AND TRIBULATION
1 “We’re going to keep all you niggers”… McMillian v. Johnson, Case No. 93-A-699-N, P. Exh. 12, Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Opposition to Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment (1994).
2 “At 8:40 P.M., a third charge of electricity”… Glass v. Louisiana, 471 U.S. 1080 (1985), denying cert. to 455 So.2d 659 (La. 1984) (J. Brennan, dissenting).
3 In 1987, all forty … Ruth E. Friedman, “Statistics and Death: The Conspicuous Role of Race Bias in the Administration of Death Penalty,” Berkeley Journal of African-American Law and Policy 4 (1999): 75. See also Danielle L. McGuire and John Dittmer, Freedom Rights: New Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 2011).
5 Local jury commissions used statutory requirements … David Cole, “Judgment and Discrimination,” in No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System (New York: New Press, 1999), 101–31.
6 In the 1970s, the Supreme Court ruled … Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357 (1979); Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522 (1975).
7 In the mid-1960s, the Court held … Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 (1965).
8 The practice of striking all …“Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy,” Equal Justice Initiative (2009), available at www.eji.org/files/EJI%20Race%20and%20Jury%20Report.pdf, accessed April 30, 2014.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE OLD RUGGED CROSS
1 In 91 percent of these cases …“The Death Penalty in Alabama: Judge Override,” Equal Justice Initiative (2011), 4, available at http://eji.org/eji/files/Override_Report.pdf, accessed April 30, 2014.
2 Alabama elects all of its judges … Billy Corriher, “Partisan Judicial Elections and the Distorting Influence of Campaign Cash,” Center for American Progress (October 25, 2012), available at www.americanprogress.org/issues/civil-liberties/report/2012/10/25/42895/partisan-judicial-elections-and-the-distorting-influence-of-campaign-cash/, accessed July 8, 2013.